Yoga For Healing
I shared last month that my intention for 2021 was to foster an environment of strength, balance and energy. While I would love to take credit for doing the work to get myself to these words, the credit is due to my new yoga teacher, Navishka. She starts every practice with a meditation and my second class with her started with the words:
“Sthira sukham asanam is a Sanskrit yoga sutra which means strength without rigidity, flexibility without instability. It really means balance.”
As I sat there on my yoga mat, feeling the breeze off the ocean, it hit me. This is the mantra for this next year of my life. But she didn’t stop there. The meditation moved on and she said:
“The healer you have been looking for is your own courage to know and love yourself completely.”
This second one is a quote from Yung Pueblo and it hit me just as hard, if not harder than that first statement. I knew I was meant to be right where I was and that yoga was going to be the missing piece to my healing. What’s wild is that I didn’t realize this sooner. Yoga played a vital role in my healing 7 years ago when I focused in on a proactive lifestyle through nutrition and essential oils (more on that here).
Sitting there, it felt like Navishka, someone I had met only a few days before and who didn’t know me, was speaking to the inner most part of my soul that has struggled so deeply since shortly after I gave birth.
I have always struggled with body image.
I have been 5’11’’ since I was about 11 years old, developed early and have always, generally, been bigger than most people around me. Images in the media and on TV constantly made me feel less than because of my size.
Ironically, the most beautiful and content I have ever been with my body was in the third trimester of my pregnancy with Charlie. I felt a deep sense of unconditional love for myself and what my body was doing. I loved dressing my bump with shirts and dresses that hugged my belly. I loved wearing my jean shorts that showed off my legs - the one part of my body that I have always loved.
Then I gave birth. I felt like superwoman those first few days. I was hit with waves of tears, known as the baby blues, and the emotion was awe. I had grown this perfect little human and my body was intuitive and powerful enough to bring him into this world. If you want to read more about my birth story, I have a whole post on it here.
In the days that followed Charlie’s birth, I wore my shrinking bump as a badge of honor. Holding my days-old baby above the mini bump that held and nurtured him for 9 months made me feel powerful and beautiful. I seriously felt like I had a halo wrapped around my body. I look back at pictures, like the ones above, and can see that I am at peace and floating with a deep sense of purpose and accomplishment.
What I didn’t expect was to so quickly fall to a place of feeling foreign and uncomfortable in my postpartum body. My large chest couldn’t be supported without underwired bras. Expectant moms, did you know underwire can lead to clogged ducts and mastitis? I didn’t either! I was severely underprepared in dressing my postpartum body in a way that made breastfeeding easy but also made me feel beautiful.
I lived in breastfeeding tank tops that made my boobs saggy and lumpy. And that’s without the reusable breast pads I was using. Yup, didn’t know your boobs leak pretty much constantly too and you can end up with milk stains on top of your nipples.
My anxiety spiked, which I didn’t realize until about a year and a half later, and I felt like I was running on fumes. Basic routines, like blow drying my hair, putting on make up, stretching, basically anything that meant I was taking care of myself, went out the window. I saw other moms loading their babies up for long walks on the beach and I couldn’t muster the energy to do it. The unknowns of when Charlie would want to feed and the logistics of it all made me freeze.
I started doing coffee dates with friends instead. It was easy to feed Charlie and get him comfortable in the stroller for a nap while in air conditioning. It was easy for me to order a flat white or latte (even though I knew dairy is not my friend) and a croissant or bagel (even though I know gluten was not my friend). I would lose track of time and then have to rush home to walk the dog (stress!) or to start getting dinner ready (stress!). I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep a clean and put together household. I wanted Nick to come home to a peaceful environment each night so I ran myself into the ground trying to do it. (I should note that he never once asked for this, I just wanted to play the “perfect wife/mom” role and I thought that this is what was needed for life to feel calm).
I started putting on weight. I developed more bad habits.
Wine each night and eating whatever was in sight to name two. Life was out of balance. The more out of control I felt, the more rigid I became because I needed some control. This chaotic swirl of daily life left me absolutely depleted and the idea of taking time to move my body felt out of reach. My physical strength, flexibility and balance became the absolute bottom priority in what felt like a never ending list of to-dos.
What I am about to say will likely upset some people but… 2020 and the extreme disruption to life we all experienced gave me the chance for that chaotic swirl to stop and I will forever be grateful that life paused. Please know that I recognize I am extremely privileged to be able to say that. Our circumstances allowed this time to become a season of healing for me. The pause in social commitments and travel allowed me to create flexible “routines” that supported my own healing. Nick was home and could help carry the burden of household tasks. I was able to take stock of my life and realize where I needed to make changes to feel my best. If you want to dive deeper into the work I started in the summer of 2020, head to this post about my postpartum integrative care.
I am now 6 months into this care routine and my life is drastically different than it was at the end of last summer. In the past 3 weeks I have done a visit with my naturopath, my GP and my therapist, all of whom I have been seeing every 4-6 weeks since late August/early September. All three commented on how well I am doing. There is a sense of calm and balance instead of frenetic energy.
In fact, my GP said I didn’t need a follow up for blood work any time soon because the supplements from my naturopath have gotten my vitamin levels into normal range. My naturopath is now spacing our visits out to every 8 weeks but only so we can continue to finesse my nutrition plan going forward. My therapist asked if I was ready to move to sessions from monthly to as needed. My hard work and consistency is paying off and I can feel it in my mood and energy levels!
The one part of life that I am still not satisfied with is my body. It just isn’t where I want it to be. I still feel lumpy, like my arms are chunky and generally not like myself physically. I don’t have crazy illusions of being a stick figure, that just isn’t my body but I don’t want my body to feel foreign. I wasn’t sure how to move forward in a way where movement could be a healthy part of my healing. I want to break the cycle of exercise being a form of punishment or weight loss. I want to feel strong and know my body will change as my strength increases.
This is where yoga for postpartum healing comes in.
As we approached the holidays I was looking to work a consistent movement practice into my weekly routine that would support movement for strength not weight loss and punishment. I have had to be careful with exercise because of my adrenal fatigue - I can push myself but not too much or I completely crash for the rest of the day.
Well, the stars aligned and a friend of mine mentioned she was doing yoga at a condo just up the road from me with Navishka. I took it as a sign that it was at Ocean Park Condo. Ocean Park is where my family has had a house in Maine since the 1940s!
I have practiced yoga on and off since 2014 when my best friend/soul mate did her 200HR YTT (yoga teacher training). She was the first teacher I really connected with and that gave me the ability to build strength and flexibility without pushing myself too much. Since leaving New York in 2016, I haven’t found a teacher that I have really liked learning from and I recognize now that if I don’t connect with the teacher and style of practice, I have a hard time showing up.
On December 29th, I joined my first class and, as they say, the rest is history.
I immediately connected to Navishka’s style of teaching and I believe this has made me stick with it. For the first time in years, I look forward to moving my body. Each class pushes me mentally and physically. Sweat drips off the tip of my nose and I have to modify a lot of it but it just feels good. I feel connected to the practice she leads me through.
I have also loved our pre and post class chats, mom to mom (she has a son a few months younger than Charlie). We have had some wonderful conversations over the past two months but one, in particular, has really stuck with me. I am paraphrasing here but she said something along these lines:
Perhaps your challenge is more of a mental challenge instead of a physical one. Not to push yourself physically in the class but to know when to surrender and rest.
Her words, once again, hit me. Yes, this is exactly what I need to be doing and hearing that, teacher to student but also mom to mom, gave me the permission to approach my practice and life at my own speed. It is not a race to lose the baby weight the fastest or to become the “perfect” looking mom. There is no finish line in yoga or in life. It is a slow and steady path of personal growth.
When I decided I wanted to share all of this on the blog this month, I asked Navishka if she would be ok adding her voice. She led me to an Instagram post and her words brought tears to my eyes.
“For about 5-6 months after I gave birth to my son, I felt lost. I think many new mothers do. It was 'normal' but felt so foreign. You've carried a child for nine months, and as you recover, you feel your body is still not yours. You feel you are, and always have been, on this earth only for your child. During this time, I took my 200HR YTT, thinking I would 'find myself' again. On the first day, my teachers asked us to write down why we practice yoga. I wrote that down - 'I want to find myself again'. At the end of the training, we reflected back on those words we wrote. I came to realise I was never lost. I was always on the path I needed to be. I am who I am and I am meant to be where I am now.”
Her words made me realize I am not alone in this foreign space of being a new mom. I felt seen and this lonely path I have been on didn’t feel as lonely. I wish I had realized sooner that yoga could be a major part of my healing, just like it was in 2014 when my health completely transformed. But, like Navishka wrote, I am meant to be where I am now and the timing was right for my practice to come back into my life.
I hope that each of you can find your Navishka in your own healing - a teacher who can push you to build physical strength slowly, remain flexible in practice and in life and build your energy day in and day out by honoring where you are right now.
I still have a long way to go in loving myself unconditionally and I am not where I want to be. But, for the first time, I am ok being where I am and knowing that I am on the right path. I am feeling stronger each week, physically and mentally, and feel a deep sense of calm when I think about where my life is right now. I know life won’t always feel this way but, for now, I am soaking it in, moving slowly and taking it one day at a time.
If you are interested in learning more from Navishka, you can follow her on Instagram at @navishka_yoga.
*the image at the top of this post is from 2014 on the fire escape of my New York City apartment
