The Big Sign I Missed In My First Yoga Class

My body talks to me. Sometimes I choose not to listen.

I didn’t make it through my first yoga class. That should have been a sign.

About three-quarters of the way through class, I lost my vision. The room went black. Luckily, I had set my mat up near the back of the room and I somehow managed to make it to the door without seeing or knowing where I was going. I had to get out. I was going to pass out.

The room-temperature air of the lobby was a relief after the suffocating heat and humidity of the classroom. I sat down on a chair and breathed, waiting for my vision to come back. Waiting for the feeling of lightheadedness to dissipate. I wasn’t sure if I could go back in. I waited until the class was in Savasana before rejoining to lie down on my mat. That, at least, I could handle. That should have been a sign.

At the end of class I asked the teacher why this experience happened to me. Still not thinking straight, I hypothesized my lightheadedness was the result of a sudden drop in blood sugar (what I meant to say was that my blood pressure dropped). Regardless whatever happened physiologically, the teacher reassured me that I’d get used to it. That should have been a red flag.

The next day, I came back. I didn’t experience blackouts or dizziness again (well, if I did, I knew to sit down and wait it out before it got too bad). Two years later I was working for the company’s corporate headquarters, taking yoga teacher training, and I was the one in the front of the classroom reassuring innocent beginners that their bodies would get used to the heat. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Disconnect

Passing out in class was like a right of passage in this style of yoga. What I didn’t understand at the time was that this is not traditional yoga. My body told me this experience wasn’t for me, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I overrode my body’s signals so that I could be like everyone else. So that I could be that fit, lycra-clad yogini walking down the streets of Boulder, CO like I truly belonged. I so wanted to be that fit, healthy person. I didn’t realize that I was beginning my journey of disconnecting from my body and intuition.

I spent over ten long years slogging through the yoga world stressed out and burned out before finally being forced to scale back. My foray into motherhood forced my hand.

I did for my unborn child what I could not do for myself. I treated my body like an absolute temple during my pregnancy because that’s what would ensure the healthiest baby. I paid attention to the foods I ate, rested when I needed rest, devoted my time to doing what I loved, slept, and generally avoided stress. Anything for my child. But I couldn’t hold that space for myself.

Up until now, I’ve always waited for my body to physically force me to slow down. It’s not that I’ve never noticed the signs and signals along the way. I’ve been aware of them. But I’ve discounted them in favor of a life more aesthetically appeasing to society’s standards. Work hard. Grow bigger. Make as much money as you can. All while grappling with my body’s clear instructions to slow down, rest, keep things simple, savor the small things, be content with what you have.

Wake-Up Call

One morning I woke up with a severe pain in my lower left abdomen. It felt similar to a pain I’d felt at the very beginning of my pregnancy with my son, so my first worry was that I was pregnant. The pain got worse. A visit to the OBGYN left me with a tentative diagnosis of an ovarian cyst rupture and a prescription to rest and wait for the pain to go away. It didn’t.

A trip to the emergency room frayed my nerves and kept me up well after my bedtime when what I really needed was rest. Diagnosis: Pain consistent with an ovarian cyst rupture. Prescription: Opioids and wait it out.

The pain got worse.

A second trip to the emergency room a day later left me feeling deja vu from a decade earlier in Boulder, CO when I had been experiencing intense pain in my left chest. There’s something about women’s pain that mystifies the medical community, often leaving us with no concrete answers and extremely annoying, time-consuming journeys through the American health system. That left chest pain was eventually diagnosed as costocondritis. Prescription: Stop working out so hard and reduce stress.

I went to yoga. I have a distinct memory of writhing in pain on my yoga mat trying to make it through a class. Yoga isn’t an extreme work-out, I thought to myself, so why was it hurting so much? Turns out breathing requires an awful lot of rib movement and my inflamed cartilage didn’t want to expand that day. Also, Power Yoga in a 105 degree room with humidity is extreme.

Back in the emergency room in Virginia I received my latest prescription: Nothing. Go home and rest. Part of me wanted to scream. Another teensy-weensy part of me understood that yes, of course, this is what I’ve needed to do for years. (And thank you, doc, for not prescribing more painkillers—I’m not a huge fan of medicine.)

The real problem is I don’t know how to rest.

And therein lies the true work of my healing journey. I have to teach myself how to rest. Not only do I need to tune into my body’s signals again but I also need to build the confidence to listen to those signals and act on them. Even if that means making the socially unacceptable choice.

Mis-use

Sometimes I wonder how it came to this. How can someone whose places of employment reads Breathe, Radiance, Beloved, Honest Soul, Ease—to name but a few—be so disconnected from any of those qualities? Working as a yoga teacher was supposed to be my conscious decision to choose a career that would keep me away from the burnout of high-pressure advertising agencies, deadline-focused journalism jobs, and the never-ending stress-inducing bullshit of corporate America. I knew those places weren’t for me. Turns out I created those same environments for myself as a yoga teacher. It’s not the place or the career-field that creates the environment, it’s the mentality of the people in it.

I was recently listening to a podcast interview with Simon Borg-Olivier, a lifelong yoga teacher and practitioner who lives in Australia. He broke down some important parameters he considers when teaching practices to his students.

His advice was to find practices that:

• Build energy rather than deplete it

• Provide a respite from pain rather than create it

• Foster love and curiosity rather that boredom

• Calm you down rather than overstimulate your nervous system

Yoga is meant to be enjoyed. To give you energy. To calm you down. To ease your pains. But any practice can do the opposite when misused.

I misused yoga for many years. Only now, forced by my own body’s insistent refusal to allow me to subject it to further damage, am I rediscovering what has always been there, literally, since the beginning.

Yoga, as a practice of healing, is a practice of awareness, rest, gentle engagement, intuitive growth, sound, energy, attunement. Yoga, as a practice of healing, is about slowing down, tuning in, letting go, radical acceptance, surrender.

Giving Up

I gave up the heated stuff long before my first pregnancy. As long as I’ve studied yoga I’ve understood that heat is the last thing my body needs. And yet, it’s the cool thing to do and I desperately wanted to be cool and tough. (Ironically, I need cool practices, just not the ones that make you look cool. I actually, truly needed to cool down.) In pregnancy, I also started to let go of the flowy-postural practices most of the West considers “yoga.” I’m a naturally bendy person and the addition of relaxin coursing through my system caused such instability and pain that I knew I was better off lifting weights. Due to the pandemic, I lost touch with my studio communities and the social benefit of yoga as a sangha—community—evaporated.

Here I was with no community, no interest in doing flow-physical practices, and no time with two children under the age of three. I gave up yoga.

But yoga isn’t something you just throw away. I packed it away tightly in the corner of my closet to attract dust and detritus, never to be forgotten because it’s always sitting right there reminding me of its presence and my inability to pick it up and just take it to Goodwill already.

There’s a thread in that corner bag gathering dust that just won’t untangle. That I can’t let go of. That is pulling me back to its contents to be re-examined.

As I emerge from the fog of my discontent what is abundantly clear is that yoga is the answer, but not the kind of yoga I’d been practicing.

If only I’d listened to my body after that first class. But then, I’d never have gotten to this place with this understanding.

Re-discover

I roll out my mat these days on my bedroom floor, the kids’ playroom, or in nature. I don’t even need a mat, to be honest. I chant, I breathe, I move, I meditate. I continuously craft a practice that meets my evolving, healing needs. Every day, I prioritize think about rest. (I’ll be honest, this is a lifelong practice and I can’t honestly say I’ve gotten to the place where rest is a priority. But I do think about it every day. Awareness is the first step, right? 😉)

It would be powerful to say I’m redefining yoga but that’s laughable. Yoga has always been about rest. The rest of the world has just decided it’s not that important. I’m simply re-discovering what has always been there in front of my face: the essence of yoga, the flavor of which perfectly meets my taste buds right now.

12 Days of Relaxation Challenge

Do you need more restful, easeful yoga in your life? Join me this December for a resting challenge. The kind of challenge you’ll be happy to accept.

I’m bringing back my old 12 Days of Relaxation Challenge and this time we’ll be exploring the many ways you can rest in Savasana.

Subscribe below to make sure you get all the practices!