Healing Through Yoga, Breath & Meditation

What yoga isn’t
Instagram would have you believe that yoga’s primary purpose is to look bendy, lithe, and athletic. This may be a natural consequence of a yoga practice, but it goes way beyond the aesthetics.
I have been mildly interested in yoga for the majority of my life, since I was in college. A friend of mine was obsessed and I occasionally went to classes, but nothing on a regular basis. When I did go, my focus was to work on my flexibility—the breathing part was totally uninteresting to me. I thought meditation was a joke and no way was it for me.

Hitting rock bottom
Fast forward to my 30s and I was facing some huge life changes. I had moved from Southern California to Germany, started a career as an attorney, then a family. Life seemed pretty ok. In the spring/summer of 2020, I was pregnant (baby number 3) with a 1- and 3-year-old, my husband left our marriage and I lost my job, all during the height of Covid and lockdowns. My family was living on the other side of the world and I didn’t know what to do. I was desperate for something or someone to save me.

Starting to heal: Yoga
I got back into yoga, practicing at home alone or with a mask at a socially acceptable distance to my neighboring Yogi at my local gym (as per 2020 COVID requirements).

My practice helped my body recover from having my 3rd child, the pregnancy, birth and postpartum period. This was my original goal, and it worked. Yoga is a low impact way to move the body that, depending on the practice, can give you strength and mobility. I would sometimes choose a challenging class that really burned my thighs and (nonexistent) abs, but I also began to love the slower classes that focused more on mindful movement.

Slowly but surely, I started to realize that the best part of yoga wasn’t the physical asana practice but rather the quietness it brought to my life. I was able to breathe, to cry, to just be.

In the meantime, my dad unexpectedly passed away and, as sad and heartbreaking as that was, I recognized I was best able to process my grief through yoga and meditation: they gave me a new appreciation for all of life. The good, the bad, the journey, the laughing and crying, the love and pain, all of it. Life is worth celebrating. I also realized that the life I thought was “ok”, before covid, actually wasn’t. My relationship wasn’t healthy, my job was toxic, and overall, I was burned-out and unhappy. I wasn’t able to appreciate the truth of the situation until I gained some perspective. Time of course helped with this, but I give yoga and mediation the majority of the credit here.

My journey to meditation and breathwork
Around this same time, friend recommended a meditation retreat center (the EIAB) a few hours’ drive from my home near Frankfurt. I was skeptical, but she was my rock during this existential crisis, so I trusted her advice and I ended up booking a long weekend retreat.  It changed my whole perspective on meditation.

I realized I didn’t have to be “good” at meditating. Literally no one is. In fact, there is no good or bad, those are judgments we impose on something inherently neutral. We all have thoughts every few seconds, that’s fine and normal. I decided that all I need to do is take one mindful breath every day, but if not daily, then maybe weekly. That’s it, one breath. What I also didn’t know was how many different types of meditation there are.  Some schools of thought are very strict, and that’s okay if it works for you, but that’s not all there is. I learned about silent meditation, walking meditation, guided meditation, working meditation, the list goes on and on. Knowing that there are so many options, so many different kinds of meditation to choose from made me feel less intimidated. I had always believed that to meditate, I had to sit very still for a very long time, my mind void of thought, and anything short of that was essentially failure. I was wrong.

This was the beginning of my path to healing. Next, I tried different breathing techniques (breath work or pranayama). Not everything stuck, but I took what worked and left the rest.

These practices allowed me to heal as I realized I am enough, I do enough, I have enough. I realized how moments of stillness and quiet are non-negotiables to leading a fulfilling and peaceful life.

The benefits
Our mental and emotional health has an incredible impact on our physical well-being and the quality of our relationships. The beauty of yoga, meditation and breathwork is that they focus on all of these things: on the body, the mind and the soul. It is a holistic approach to well-being.

A simple google search can show you the extensive list of benefits one receives from these practices:

Improves flexibility and balance
Stress relief
Improves mental health
Strength training
Reduce anxiety
Boost immunity
Improve heart function
Improve sleep
Increase self-esteem
Promote better posture
Manage burnout
Ease anxiety and depression
Reduce inflammation
Ease pain

Just to name a few.

My Healing

Personally, I have experienced the majority of the benefits listed above. But those are just words, and without a personal experience to realize the true beauty of these practices, I might think I could save my time and energy, take a few quick fix multivitamins and call it a day.

Yoga and mediation bring awareness to your relationship with your body, mind and soul. They allow you to connect to your true self. To discover who you really are, where your values lie, what is important and meaningful in your life. It takes you out of the hamster wheel we all seem to get stuck in and gives you the space to see reality.

Without this perspective, healing on a holistic level is near to impossible.  Without a connection to and an understanding of ourselves (and by that I mean our physical body, emotional state, the connection we feel to ourselves and those around us), we can’t truly heal. We might recover from sickness or disease, a broken heart or a loss. But something will still be missing.

The relationship we have with ourselves is the most important relationship we will have in our lives.  Everyone else will come and go, people move, die, grow, change. But we will always be with our bodies and our minds. If we truly want to be content in our lives, to feel a sense of peace with who we are, we need to discover our true self, and heal those parts of us that need healing, whatever they may be. Yoga and meditation can allow you to take this step, to start this process.

It’s a long journey and it will never be over, but that’s the beauty of it. There is always something new to learn and try. And even when I take a break, yoga and meditation will be there waiting when I come back.

The bottom line

These practices are priceless. No matter what you’re seeking to heal, or just looking to discover your true self, you’ll reap benefits that will permeate all aspects of your life and greatly improve your relationships.

If anything, it’s worth a try. Just remember: change takes time, enjoy the journey, you’ll get where you need to be when it’s time.

If you’re ready to start now, please join me for a yoga or meditation session or find your nearest yoga studio. If the first class doesn’t resonate with you, try a different style, a different teacher. Try an online class, do anything. All it takes is one mindful breath, so start today. Inhale, exhale. Soften.

Namaste