mindfullness – MEyeStories

Do you ever feel like you’re running in place? (Metaphorically speaking?) I felt that way many times in my life, but never more than I did with my struggle to find normalcy in my post-baby body. It seemed no matter how many stairs I climbed or hot yoga classes I sweated through, my efforts where exhausted and my progress was nominal.

I participated happily in my fitness community, firmly supported by those on neighboring yoga mats and various workout classes. But, the truth is, I was unable to push past my self-induced limits. I didn’t want to get truly uncomfortable. That’s not to say I wasn’t working hard and sweating harder, but I was so emotionally exhausted from the rigors of my existence, that if I COULD keep my knees down in chaturanga, I was going to.

What I was missing in my journey was focused guidance. A guru. A person who could hold me accountable when my depression, exhaustion, limiting beliefs wouldn’t. I began to seek out support both from fitness and spiritual teachers. I desperately needed some one-on-one time with anyone who could listen to and support my very specific needs and goals. I needed guidance that was tailored to my body, mind and soul. I needed the kind of inspiration that spoke directly to my fears and overactive ego.

I began working out with a very special trainer/woman/friend. She was more than a personal a trainer, but a person who sees her clients as individuals. Emilee looks beyond measurements and scale numbers into the souls of the people she works with. That is what I needed. I am completely over our fitness culture’s obsession with before and after’s, body weight indexes and charts that shamed me in my pregnancy and that where now plaguing my sense of achievements.

My relationship with Emilee Jones of Body by Emilee changed the trajectory of my fitness and my life. I walked in with photos of how I wanted to look and she met me with compassion and love. She explained to me that my progress would be influenced by my perceptions of my experience, not the scale. She said, being healthy is a lifelong commitment to self-love and the desire to do right by my body because it deserved it and I did too. We had soul-to-soul chats about self-love and what “progress” really means. How showing up for yourself and making decisions rooted in self-kindness on a regular basis, is the truest example of ‘success’ for your body.

After a couple of months of training, Emilee introduced me to her spiritual teacher, Santi Devi. On the heels of the all of the work/obsessive energy I had been putting into my body over the last 2 years, the idea of doing some work on my soul sounded like a trip to the spa.

I embarked on a journey of work that pushed me beyond my physical and emotional limits. Healing the external and internal wounds. Letting go the emotional and body-weight that was weighing me down and holding me back. Turns out, the key to finding body harmony is very much an inside job.

I’ve thought a lot about the word “guru,” and it’s meaning. Who is a guru? Who has been a guru in my life? Why are teachers so important to our growth, healing and progress? A Guru is, not-so-simply, a spiritually influential teacher. My Son is one of my gurus, as are some of my closest friends. Spiritual teachers are so vital to our lives because they help us to see and face our fears, to meet them with love and acceptance. Without self-love there is no growth or positive expansion; physically or mentally.

When it’s comes to my body, I’ve always operated from fear. I never wanted to be noticed or seen (in a positive or negative way). When I was younger and desperately steering the course of conformity, I found that I didn’t want to shine too brightly for fear of being watched. Thus, I struggled with a very mild case of teen obesity. As a young woman, I was desperate for attention, so out of fear of being overlooked, I starved and purged my way to a thinner place. And now, here I was, a mother, trying to be the very essence of love for my family and I was in a place with my body where I couldn’t heal it because I had never expressed love for it.

How can we physically embody health and wellness without a true appreciation and honoring of our bodies? It’s not enough to be skinny, it’s not enough to go to yoga six times a week…If you are beating up your body with diet and exercise, how is it supposed to produce positive change? Maybe you’ll drop some pant sizes due to the caloric laws of science, but you might just start to feel like you are running in place…like I was.

I am fortunate to have the support and the means to seek out teachers who have helped to inspire me and have given me to the tools to enjoy my biggest success, self-love. By exercising this love, I have largely healed my physical body.

I often think that people associate depression with a general level of sadness or discontent. The truth is, I could have never articulated depression until I experienced it. This visceral feeling of emptiness, hopelessness and complete loss of grip on anything, yet white knuckling EVERYTHING. My experience is with postpartum depression, a condition that can affect a woman post-pregnancy due to severe hormonal and life upheavals.

For me, giving birth and becoming a mother was arduous. Domesticity and motherhood where not childhood dreams of mine. My mother was not your average housewife and most of my friend’s moms weren’t either, I never aspired to that outcome. Yet, there I was, a stay-at-home Mother/housewife; who just happened to be 70lbs overweight and pumping my breasts like an animal. My depression set in immediately, although in hindsight, I used exhaustion as an excuse for my pain.

I ate my placenta, I figured I’d be fine! Until one night, my agony became so intense that I wanted to harm myself. I reasoned that feeling physical pain could distract me from my internal distress. I was alone with my son, my husband was working, so I made an emergency call to my therapist, who vetted me for more serious symptoms. By the end of that week I was on a SSRI and starting a more rigorous routine of self-care.

I was lucky to have given birth without intervention, which simply means, I didn’t take the drugs. I am no hero, I just had a plan and was blessed to be able to fulfill it with a manageable labor and really supportive hospital staff. I mention this not to brag, but as point that when you are able to give birth without severe interventions, you are also able to restart physical activity much sooner. Working out post-delivery becomes available almost immediately. I started taking my son for walks on day 11 and by week four I was sweating it out again.

I found my individual workouts to be lonely. I would listen to music and run the stairs in my apartment building. Other days I would tackle the machines at the gym picturing myself in a bikini. I was sad…This was supposed to be my “me time.” Aren’t those cardio endorphins supposed to send me into a post-coital type of bliss? AND, aren’t I supposed to be losing weight? None of the aforementioned benefits regarding fitness seemed to be working on me…but again, I was still battling new-mama overwhelmed’ness.

I think the best part about becoming a mom is that I’ve finally gotten to know and accept the truest essence of who I am. Part of that came from excavating my motivations regarding fitness. I had to ask myself “what really feels good?” “When am I most at peace?” “Where do I thrive?” The common theme to all of those questions was, “when I am connecting to others.” I am an extrovert. While people can definitely drain my energy, having a meaningful connective interaction gives me so much life. So, I unrolled my yoga mat and went with my friends to my first group fitness class since having a human inside of me. Yoga is not only how I connect to myself but how I began to connect to a community of like-minded woman. I found that by some miracle of the universe, every class I took had a theme relevant to something I was experiencing off my mat. And when I was in downward dog with leaky, boobs falling in my face, I could look over at my friend and have a laugh.

My son was born in the fall and by Spring I was starting to find a shift in a positive direction with my spirit and my relationship to fitness. Before my pregnancy I participated in a lot of boot camp style workouts or any fitness class that worked with my schedule. Group fitness was always my sanctuary, but now, as a mom, these people where like my family. They held me accountable, they asked about my life, gave me encouragement and deeply cared for me when I needed it most.

My yoga practice played a significant role in re-discovering my new body. Yoga required me to breathe into all of my parts, sending them love, even if they hung in a way I wasn’t completely in love with. And when I needed some variety in my workouts, I found that other fitness communities are just as welcoming and filled with love.

Today, I am an avid Lagree Method doer. Here in Denver, we have a group of Lagree Method Studios branded Feierece45. As this workout is so difficult every single time, the community makes being there so fulfilling and motivating. I have become friends with the instructors, studio managers and fellow “Fierce’ers.” And, because the studio is in the middle of our community, we all in it together, as a bunch of like-minded people who just want to practice self-love and do good by our mind, body and souls.

It’s my sincerest belief that my commitment to group fitness helped to lift me out of my post-partum depression. The woman I have met along the way are sewed into the fabric of who I have become as a woman and dare I say it? An athlete.

Through community I have felt and shared the struggles of living in a body that’s constantly being judged by ourselves and others. Together, we ask for support and friendship and as a result build more confidence and love. When we cultivate love in our communities, we are more apt to spread it around wherever we go.

Tag: mindfullness

Guidance from Guru’s : Hello Motherhood! Part 3