SavasaNOOOOOOO!!!!

I started yoga just after coming off an eight year long exercise bender.  I won't go into the lurid details; it will suffice to say that I planned my mornings, evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations around when I could get to the gym.  It did not provide stress relief, release endorphins, or lift my spirits; in fact, each time I left I had a pit in my stomach knowing I would have to do it again, and again, and again, for the rest of my life, pedaling to nowhere on the elliptical machine.

After a serious health scare that landed me attached to heart monitors for two weeks at Beth Israel, I realized that if this continued, I would die.  I didn't want to let go of my exercise addiction, but the thought of stepping foot into the gym again made me physically ill.  When a good friend, who also happens to be a yoga teacher, suggested I try a class, I gave the standard response: "I'm not flexible."  She gave the standard answer: "You don't have to be."  Um, okay.  In my mind, only contortionists could ever shape their bodies into those impossible positions; I could barely touch my toes.

I also had a personal vendetta against yoga.  When I was in treatment for my eating disorder, they had a mandatory weekly yoga class.  I hated it so much that I planned to speak to my outpatient therapist during this hour every week so I wouldn't have to participate.  In my rigid mind, at that point yoga didn't "count" as exercise.  Also, I hated with a passion any activity designed to connect your mind and your body.  I hated my body, I hated my mind, my mind hated my body... it just wasn't a good scenario.

But, just about two years ago, my cousin and I decided to give it a shot.  We went to a power yoga studio, had no idea what we were doing, laughed hysterically during the "ooooooms", and left feeling incompetent and sore.  But something made me go back.  Not to the same studio, but back to yoga.  I would like to say it was for healthy, sane reasons, but really it was my eating disorder tricking me into finding a way to exercise without involving the elliptical.

For that first year, yoga was simply a means to an end.  My eating disorder wanted me to exercise, the people who cared about me did not want me at the gym; yoga was the perfect solution.  I had yoga rules; only certain classes "counted", I had to go in the morning, I wasn't allowed to rest, I had to go x amount of times/week, etc.  If I couldn't do a pose, I felt angry at myself.  If I wobbled during a balance, I felt frustrated and ashamed.  I compared myself to everyone.  One notable example of my madness was when I told my teacher, in all sincerity, that during a class I had been seriously weighing which would be worse, having to rest in child's pose or passing out and having the ambulance come.  Basically, I did everything that yoga says you shouldn't; yes, I was doing the poses, but I wasn't doing yoga.

What I hated most about yoga was savasana, the mandatory rest period at the end of each practice.  In fact, I would try to skip out on savasana with the excuse of leaving for work; my wise (and amazing) teacher Lauren caught on quickly and put an end to that.   I started taking private lessons with Lauren, and she worked tirelessly to find alternative methods of savasana which would be beneficial to me.  The truth was, however hard she worked, Lauren alone would not be enough to quiet the chaos that ensued in my mind when someone asked me to relax and be with my body.  It just wasn't a place I was ready to travel.

I think of the next phase of yoga as "The Year of Secret Yoga".  This was when my doctors caught on to the fact that my version yoga was not, in actuality, gentle stretching for relaxation, but rather extremely hot power yoga that was probably not ideal for someone with blood pressure/cardiac issues, not to mention a raging eating disorder.  So began "Secret Yoga" (not to be confused with "Secret Night Walking" or "Secret Summer at the Gym").  Secret yoga involved my attending classes without directly mentioning to my doctors that I was doing this.  While in treatment that year, "Secret Yoga" was a pretty much nightly ritual where we (the patients) would design our own yoga classes (sometimes in the walk-in closets) with an emphasis on ab work.  Needless to say, this did not come from a healthy place (although from this practice did come "aspiring yoga fish", which could be among the most satisfying yoga pose(s) ever created).  

During this phase of yoga, I actively worked to convince myself that I genuinely loved yoga and was doing it to be "healthy" and to "relieve stress".  I told everyone that it was "good for me", that I was not doing it because I "had to", and that it was not hurting my recovery.  I am very convincing, and I believed myself.  Coming out of treatment, I even allowed myself to do shorter private sessions to "ease back into it".  Looking back, I was so weak then, and not ready.  My arms would shake during even the simplest poses.  I had no strength.  I was anxious and jittery and it showed in my movement.  I hated going to class because I hated for anyone to see my weakness.  I felt afraid of the heat, afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up, afraid that I wouldn't be enough.  Savasana was a time of judgment and self-hate.  I felt angry at myself for resting.

So, I took a break.

And then, during a particularly difficult period this fall, I found myself doing child's pose in the living room, a sun salutation before bed, headstand in the hallway.  Without even thinking about what I was doing, my body knew what it needed and instinctively felt better after even the smallest shifts in movement.    So, I returned to class, and something was profoundly different.  My mind had changed, due to a LOT of slow, hard work.   What surprised me was the way my body responded to this change in my thinking.  The heat no longer made me dizzy and light-headed, but became, in a strange way, comforting.  I stopped looking at the people around me.  I stopped worrying about doing everything right and focused on doing what felt right to my body.  This was the shift that allowed me to begin to really benefit from and understand the power of yoga.

There are no longer rules surrounding my practice.  I go when I want to, when I can, and when it feels right.  If I need to rest, I do.  In fact, sometimes I force myself to rest.  Whenever the teacher begins to transition into anything involving abdominal work, I face my fear and go right into child's pose.  My anorexia loves crunches.  Thrives on them.  Gets addicted to them.  I know myself well enough to realize that crunches are not conducive to becoming the person I want to be.  It is really, really hard for a perfectionistic, competitive, exercise addict to choose to rest when a roomful of people around her are making their stomachs flatter.  People talk about exercise taking "willpower"; for me, it is the opposite.  Not exercising takes willpower, and every time I find myself in child's pose it feels a little bit less like a failure and more like a victory.

If you had asked me six months ago whether I could ever find a healthy relationship with exercise, I would have said absolutely not.  Even thinking about exercise made me feel physically sick and caused the anorexic brain to go on high speed.  Nobody could have convinced me that anybody actually enjoyed exercise... I actually had a fairly logical argument that everyone who goes to the gym secretly has an eating disorder... but that's probably for another post :)  Through yoga, I am beginning to understand the power of exercise done for the right reasons.  The moment I get on the mat, I begin to forget about my stress.  I feel energized and relaxed.  I am learning I don't have to be perfect.  There are no rules.  It's okay if some days I feel strong and great, and other days weaker, more tired, wobbly.  That's life.

Yoga has helped me begin to see in shades of gray.  It's okay to work really hard, it's okay to sweat, it's okay to not be as strong (pretty, thin, good, smart) as the person next to me, and yes, it's okay to rest.  Savasana is still not my favorite part of yoga, but it no longer makes me cringe.  And it sure as hell beats the elliptical.