None of us can avoid loss. We all experience the pain of what it is to lose things. Things and people we really wanted and loved. Things we thought or expected to work out but didn’t. That feels so disappointing and heartbreaking at times that it’s hard to get out of the funk that it brings. The thing is, we always do. We always can, this is called depression
I have experienced a lot of loss in a short amount of time. It overwhelmed me to the point I couldn’t think properly anymore. I tried to run away from myself and my emotions for years when I went through a miscarriage. I became so lost that I revamped my whole life. I decided no more running so then what would I do instead?
I began really focusing on yoga. I tried whatever I believed would help me even the smallest bit. Through time, I got my bearings back. I remembered who I was and what I loved. I even took my yoga teacher training which has been an invaluable tool for my healing. It helps ground me when I committed to the practice. Spending too much time in your head can take you back to the past. I found that I had new, health-minded community when I started spending time doing yoga and meditation classes.
No matter where you are in the world, it’s possible to find a community of warm, fuzzy, kind-hearted people. You learn that whatever pain you’ve been through is shared amongst us all. That feels pretty good because the worst part about feeling pain is the isolation it tends to bring. While the community was a really important part of the yoga, I also learned to be with whatever residual feelings were inside of me.
Learning to push through pain is a big part of being your best self in life. Being real about your life experiences isn’t easy. Our psyches really want to smooth everything over based on the strange little world it decided to create for us. What I mean by that is that we gave this all-important job to our ego which is to protect us. We try to create a world outside of us that won’t touch any of our painful memories. This is of course not possible. We do it though. We all do it.
I realized that I had told myself a lot of fairy tales to get past the pain of loss. I am grateful today to have two beautiful children but I also had to deal with the child I never got to meet. This realization came to me through a few different spiritual practices that didn’t allow me to hide that fact under a rock anymore. When I realized that I was holding onto to a mountain full of grief, it came out in a big whopping set of tears that seems to not stop for a while. After that came a lightness that no amount of traveling or experiences could have brought me.
No matter what has happened or what we are doing in life, it’s so important to be real with the pain. This is a part of what allows us to shine through as truly happy people. We can have infinite experiences and practice yoga but if we don’t get down to the core of what we’ve lived through, it all comes up a little bit dry.
Don’t forget that these things of the past can sometimes lay dormant for so long that we don’t even know they’re there any longer. The best way to know for sure is to pay attention. The next time you get irritated with your partner or feel isolated in a social situation, see it as life giving you an opportunity to look within. You may find that your heart has a little sliver from something long ago and you haven’t taken it out yet.
This is how you will truly shine. This is how you will find yourself and find empowerment. Yoga helped me find some of the slivers within myself that were deep. I feel like I can be inspiring to other people now. I turned my life around and as time goes on, I have fewer triggers that cause me to feel afraid. I have more space to be myself which makes me feel proud. Yoga keeps me grounded and have allowed me to find my deepest truths.
