I used to be a gym bunny, a cardio girl, aerobics, step, running.
I used to move my body to try to change it. To find acceptance. Sometimes to drown out the inner noise. It’s a boring story, but in all the images I saw around me - whether in the media, or at the schools I went to - all the pretty girls never looked like me. And when I did get attention from the opposite sex, it made me cringe, and brought back negative emotions connected to my past.
Jump forward past years of eating disorder, yoyo dieting, and slow and steady self enquiry…. After a long long time, I came to a place at last of moving my body to celebrate it, to honour it, to release stories, shame, contractions and limiting beliefs about what I should be like as a woman, as a mother, as a partner, as a mixed woman of colour, as someone of a certain age, or going through a certain stage, and so on and so on…. That is just some of my journey that has led me, joyously, to here.
For me, yoga has been a place where judgement and competition were removed, although I know that not everyone feels that way all the time. I knew that all I needed to do was the listen to my breathing, to move with it, and discover myself along the way. It has been a place to come back to me, to be kind, and to discover. To use one of my favourite words, it really has been a way to unfurl.
Possibly most importantly though, it has even been a way to DARE to love myself, to ALLOW myself to forgive myself, and to be brave enough to do those things daily, and without apology.
Why I teach is also caught up in some of that. Moving the body in acceptance and celebration is a huge huge gift, because I discovered that it could eventually translate into how I felt about myself inside, not just outside. Even without being consciously aware of it at the time, that acceptance began to seep in, and was a vital tool in overcoming demons that plagued me for years. If I can pass on that gift to others, even in the smallest way, if I can hold a space that lets someone feel good about themselves, then that is all I can hope for.