About me
For a long time, I thought my story was special and rare but perhaps mine is the most common story of all. By the time I discovered yoga aged 20, I had spent my whole life striving for more love. I was never enough, no one was ever enough, nothing was ever enough - an insatiable appetite, exhausting. Striving, trying, reaching, contorting and performing had become my default states and with that so had the anxiety and exhaustion that accompanied them. I thought I was an expert at hiding my struggle but it was plain to anyone who knew me then. I was the ‘deep’ one with a tendency to cry when drunk. Tears and overwhelm were always very close to the surface and I was very tired of hiding this side of me 24/7.
So when I went to my first yoga class and was gently encouraged into savasana (‘corpse’ lying relaxation pose) I was desperate for that chance to let it all drop. I needed permission, guidance, a safe space in the dark to let go. And that was the yoga moment for me - finally I had found a person, a place, a practice which encouraged me to rest. A place to take care of myself and to meet my whole self tenderly rather than hide parts of it.
I was a victim and proud of it (my sadness wasn’t my fault or responsibility). I hadn’t received enough love to make me thrive. Eventually, in my mid 30s, I saw that there was another truth to my story - I also had failed to give myself the love to make me thrive. In that moment, I went from being a victim to being the perpetrator of my suffering; if I was responsible for denying myself my own love, how could I generate within me ‘enough’ love now?
Various yoga teachers and therapists went on to give me ideas and tools; how could I move, think, love? Rather than continue seeking the love I lacked, how could I find a portal through which all the love around me could enter? Was the love I was seeking really already within me as the yogis kept saying? Yoga is the only tradition which kept asking me such questions and hinting at the route.
Through advanced yoga classes, I learned I was stronger than I thought. My body was miraculous as well as flawed. What else could it show me? Rather than focusing on how I had suffered, I switched my focus on how I had survived. Others had helped me to become the person I am today, strangers had loved me. How could I pass that on? I had been so heavy and wanted to become lighter, so light I could fly on the wind. My eyelids touching as softly as a butterfly on a leaf…
PS. June 2023. The journey continues. The above is now an old narrative that no longer serves me. The telling of this version of my past keeps me trapped by it and in it. My new narrative is that there are two sides to every coin; I suffered is just as true as I thrived. I was loved is as true as I was abandoned. I didn’t have enough is as true as I had more than enough. I can see how my mind became fixated/obsessed with my victim story - it somehow served me. It gave me an excuse for my weakness. It became a habit until later it became me. Ask me who I was and I’d roll out the old story of how I was abandoned. Another truth was that once my mother returned I abandoned myself. I saw myself a victim for so long, the world and others were ‘never enough’ and noticing lack was my reason to live. For many years all I could see was what was not there. I had no other way of seeing. I was always afraid. Asthma.
Yoga showed me I was stronger than I could ever conceive of. I was intelligent enough to connect authentically with the practice, with the philosophy and with each of my many teachers and let them teach me. Yoga showed me how I could be more tender and loving to myself than anyone else had ever been. That rather than there not being enough, my cup overflowed and it was flowing from the inside.
It’s been a long road of practising. I’ve never abandoned my practice, I’ve never abandoned myself. It’s no longer just about how I suffered - it’s also about celebrating how I survived. Now it’s about helping others’ do the same. Om.
Qualifications/experience:
2024 - Yoga teacher at the Wellbeing Room in Saffron Walden County High School
2022-2024 - Yoga Therapy Diploma with Yoga United, teacher Judy Sampath
2019 - Transcendental Meditation practitioner
2017 - Children’s Yoga (Y3 at Rickling Green Primary School)
2016 - 150hr Advanced Teacher Training - Organs and Meridians focus
2014 - One year foundational pranayama course (breathing techniques) with Phillip Xerri
2013 - 200hr Yoga Teacher Training in Barcelona
With special thanks to my teachers…
Judy Sampath, London, 2024
Jim Tarran, Brighton, my first teacher (one year weekly classes) 2004
Various teachers in London (Power Yoga)
Sindu Nayar (one month YTT, 2013)
Tiago Rocha, 6 months weekly advanced ashtanga classes 2013 (Barcelona)
Irantzu Piquero, 6 months weekly 1-2-1s, 2014 (Barcelona)
David Lurey and Mirjam Wagner (2 weeks advanced TT, Organs and Meridians Focus)
Phillip Xerri (one year pranayama course)
Jane Rushton (5 yrs weekly therapy sessions, psychotherapist, not yoga but has taught me the healing value of 1-2-1 talking therapy)
Judy Wilson-Smith therapist