I’ve been on a journey to heal and integrate everything last year’s trip of miracles and wonders awoke in me.

Healing from Complex Trauma is a journey, one that takes more time and goes in a meandering path that’s filled dead-ends and wrong turns. Yoga is my “multitool” on this journey. It not only keeps me on the path, but it gives me ways to shift my energy, soothe my anxiety, grow my self-understanding, and expand my ability to connect with others.

Last December I had the privilege and honor to train with Molly Lannon Kenny to offer Bedside Yoga for people at the end of life. Many people contributed to my online campaign to make it possible for me to go. I even had a little surplus that I was able to use this autumn to spend a few days in contemplative retreat with my community.

I was absolutely astounded my campaign was successful. I was immediately, profoundly connected to my struggle to see myself as worthy. Grateful and amazed, I experienced cognitive dissonance as the deeply held belief that I’m not worthy conflicted with the very tangible reality that many people find me worthy enough to make a financial commitment to my training!

I continued to struggle into spring, my anxiety beginning to creep back up. It culminated in a decision, made with my therapist, to go back into intensive trauma therapy; the work I’d done a few years ago seemed to be coming apart at the seams. In June I started doing Somatic Attachment-Focused EMDR, the SAFE model aims to help adults who have experience complex trauma. Using this approach we first identified that I have a deeply rooted false belief about myself that ultimately undermines me as an adult.

It isn’t an easy process. We go back to the earliest memories I have associated with my false belief and we work with them until they’re no longer triggering the false belief. Then we move to the next one. In the past 7 months we’ve installed 2 memories; these first ones are uncovering new experiences for me to integrate.

I’ve also been taking in the knowledge that my Mother more than likely had a personality disorder; something that happened because she herself had complex trauma. I’m realizing how intergenerational trauma undermines everything and everyone it touches. I understand that I needed to remove myself completely from my family to heal.

There’s been changes in my teaching schedule this year; I’m teaching fewer classes now. I’ve been using the additional time for healing and creating the foundation for the work I want to do with end-of-life care.

In the new year I’m looking forward to expanding my video offerings, including plans to improve my lighting! I’ll have more blog posts too, but look for more videos and a YouTube channel in the new year! If you haven’t yet, join my mailing list right here!

I was fortunate to get to travel with a friend from Portland and share some costs with. We spent Sunday evening and part of Monday in Puerto Vallarta, not nearly enough time to explore! I know I will want to return, with more time to wander at leisure through this vibrant town. Reminding me of the Kailua-Kona side of the Big Island and New Orleans, with a flair all it’s own, Puerto Vallarta is a place where everyone seems to go to have fun, locals as well as foreigners. Families with young children, hip trendsetters looking to get noticed, folks just there for a little sunshine & sand, and lots of older folks; everyone there to enjoy the views, the food, the music, the waves, and the sun.

We were there in the nine days leading up the the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This means a procession winds through town to the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe every day; we waited on our way to the hotel for one. Fireworks can be expected to randomly go off, any time, night or day. People gather at the cathedral daily to pay their respects to the Virgin. I made a point to offer my thanks for a safe journey when I popped into the cool of the church for a moment to admire the interior.

In the afternoon we all gathered at the airport before heading to the private nature reserve and small resort, Punta Monterrey.  I enjoyed simple, wonderful meals in good company, and spent my nights listening to the sounds of the waves just steps from the doors of my little cottage. I was grateful for the abundant time to rest and integrate the work we were doing.

The training itself, with my teacher Molly Lannon Kenny, gave a boost to my skills, gaining more insight into working with medically fragile folks to provide support. I have started to reach out slowly to people about my plans to work in this area. Once I’ve begun sharing my intention to offer support around end-of-life care I’ve noted there’s no shortage of people around me who’ve recently experienced loss or are dealing with parents who are entering last stages with terminal illnesses. I’m letting the path to how I’ll do more of this work unfold over this year.

In between the deep work I was doing with my new friends in practice, there were moments of profound, and every day beauty that continue to nurture my soul. Moments like walking amidst butterflies after breakfast ever morning as they fluttered around the multitude of flowers growing in abundance everywhere. The sound of dragonflies in the evening as they hunted mosquitos while the sun set and the surf pounded. Then there was the unexpected wonder of seeing baby, Olive Ridley Sea Turtles on our last morning there, while making our way down to the beach for a final ritual together, making it feel all the more precious for the tiny miracles we’d just seen.

One, truly magical afternoon found our whole little group floating together in the ocean. This alone was such a moment of deep connection that my heart was full. Then we heard the whales.

Deep bass notes, clicks, whistles, and higher, violin-like refrains; a veritable choir singing as they traveled south together. In those moments, as small and fragile as I felt, floating on the vastness of the ocean, I felt myself resting in, and connected to, the Divine.

In the weeks that have followed, I’m realizing I’ve taken something else home from the retreat. I’m finding that the grief, and low of depression, I experience very strongly from November into February; hasn’t been as dark as it has felt in past years. It feels like some of the sharp edges of my own grief have been smoothed down, like a piece of rock tumbled against sand until it is polished agate. Something in the rhythm of the waves, the songs of the whales, and in the singing on the beach I did; it all seems to have made my own grief lighter to carry.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

I know, I’ve been one of them. I come from a family of body-obsessed dieters. I cannot even recall when I first began to diet with my Mother, but I’m sure I didn’t need to lose weight when I did it. As adolescence hit I hated my changing body and the attention it got. Once I went away to college I put on more weight. I kept putting it on until my early 30s, I felt more comfortable in my large body.

When I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease one of the first things I was told to consider was weight loss. At the time I was also receiving news that I had very high cholesterol and I’m from a family where heart disease and strokes mortally affect the women. So I set about to lose weight like I was told to.

At first it was easy, I had decided to become vegan as part of both my yoga practice, particularly when I became a teacher and wanted to find ways to really live my practice, and my deepening practice in a Buddhist community. That dietary change had dramatic, entirely unexpected, benefits to my health. My cholesterol dropped by over 100 points and the ratios were now ideal. My allergies improved noticeably and I stopped having sinus infections, leading to lung infections, multiple times a year. I lost 100 pounds with ease.

My back pain didn’t improve.

Then it stopped being easy and I really wanted to get back down to a size I was when I was at 18. At time point my physician wasn’t encouraging weight loss any longer, my change was profound and more than hoped for. I was the one who kept pushing, falling prey to the constant dieting I’d done throughout adolescence. When the loss slowed down I turned it into a project.

I used multiple websites, and eventually apps for my phone as well, to meticulously track every calorie in and out in my day. I rigorously kept under 1500 calories a day while pursuing an increasingly vigorous yoga practice. After two years in that mode I’d lost 50 more pounds and was down to a Size 8. I’d made it.

My back pain never was changed by weight loss. Yoga remains the single most beneficial tool in managing my pain.

In the past 10 years since I made that goal I’ve regained 40 pounds. Given that most people gain back all of what they lost and more, I’ve done really well. I’m about the size I was when I left college, Size 14.

This January came around and I felt the siren song of weight loss. I could do it again. I have bins of too small clothing I’m saving for when I drop that weight again. I could devote most of my free time to obsessively tracking calories again, becoming an internal bully to not eat more calories than I am “allowed”, and constantly avoiding social engagements where people might comment on my not eating. I can turn it into a project and do it again, “It is only 40 pounds this time!!”, sings the song.

A lot has changed though. In becoming an Integrated Movement Therapist I’ve become devoted to helping people cultivate friendship with their bodies. I interrupt my students fixating on weight and body size as being linked to actual health, reminding them that healthy has a variety of shapes and sizes.

It really hit me this January that I simply cannot tell my students that weight is not an indicator of health when I am spending all my time obsessing over calories and how to push myself to lose those 40 pounds again. While I can teach postures I cannot do myself, I cannot teach people to see themselves and whole and complete, just as they are, when I’m bullying myself into weight loss.

My body has seen me through some truly hellacious experiences. Despite being in chronic pain, my body moves me trough teaching 5-6 days a week. I have to be careful. mindful of my body more now, approaching 50 years of age and having lived in chronic pain for 18 years, but my body still supports me doing so many things. So this year, for the first time in decades, I’m resolving to love and appreciate my body, just as it is.

My body isn’t a problem, it isn’t a project to be managed and solved.

Sometimes an apology is right on. I forget to take care of something, that’s a good time to apologize with sincerity. However, sometimes we fall into the habit of apologizing for ourselves when we could be focusing on our gratitude for someone instead.

I seriously love this idea. First of all, it refocuses a situation on the positive, being grateful. Instead of jumping to apologize, focusing on perceived negative behavior, move towards gratitude. It also calls people into awareness of their own kind behavior, it creates a connection around gratitude. Someone might not even think they’re doing anything special by listening to you try to talk through a problem, but they are and it is so much better to thank them for their kind attention and perspecitve than to apologizing for “rambling”.

This resonates with me so much since I tend to jump to apologies for what I perceive as my “failing” somehow. This response was habituated through years of interactions with my abusive Mother, toxic family, and a couple of deeply dysfunctional relationships in my 20s and 30s. Getting into negative self-judgement goes hand-in-hand with the apologizing; I’m always looking for my faults. As a child I learned it was easier to call attention to myself, point out the negative judgement first, rather than be caught off guard by a family member. Having an unpredictable, abusive parent also meant that I often apologized even if I’d not done anything wrong, apologies soothed my Mother.

The whole idea of choosing not to apologize, and instead choose connecting with another person through gratitude, feels a little radical to me. My initial response is to wonder what the other person is going to think if I don’t call out my error? Are they going to think I don’t care if I don’t apologize?

On Monday morning I was given the perfect opportunity to test out this new approach. I was late to teach my morning class. I was moving slowly that morning and had a headache. There had also been a serious traffic incident that closed the interstate near my home, the way I go to teach. I made my circuitous way in to teach, feeling grateful that at least the room would be unlocked and the props out already.

It was a great plan, but it turned out the class before mine had been cancelled and everything was locked up. My students were all milling around in the lobby! I got the key, unlocked everything, and got the yoga props out. As I took the key back to the office, I called over my shoulder, “Thanks for waiting for me!”.

When we’d all sat down for our Yoga in Chairs class I thanked everyone for their patience and good humor on a morning that felt harried and off the track already! I received gracious reassurance that everyone was glad I’d arrived safely and it wasn’t that late!

What a shift that was! Instead of stewing in my own negative self-judgement for not leaving earlier and being late, I was basking in the compassion and generosity of my students.

I shared with them all what I’d read and challenged them to give it a try in their own lives; replacing apologies for gratitude. Some students shared that they appreciated having my gratitude, that it just felt better than the usual, “I’m sorry I’m late!” It felt like we made a connection.

Like all gratitude practices, we make a mindful choice to choose gratitude. We’re always looking for what we’re grateful for in each moment, there’s nearly always something. We’re choosing connection through gratitude instead of apologies rooted in negative self-judgement.

I love that this poem begins with a fairly familiar observation; we should be be grateful for what we have now because disaster could strike at any moment. I get that.

Many people who live with C-PTSD experience hypervigiliance, perpetually scanning the environment for danger and experiencing high arousal to stimuli like loud noises, crowds, etc. Folks with C-PTSD are also prone to catastrophizing, a cognitive distortion where we tend to dwell upon the worst possible outcomes for a scenario. I’m well familiar with these, having lived in this state for much of my earlier life.

The problem with living in perpetual readiness for disaster is that it is absolutely exhausting. Hypervigiliance is a state of constant alert and, as the name implies, it is not sustainable and ultimately is a state that will negatively impact health. Catastrophizing often goes along with hypervigiliance, the focus on the worst-possible outcome makes the constant alert seem perfectly reasonably. This is not paranoia, but a cognitive state that arises due to repeated trauma.

My yoga practices have helped me cultivate mindfulness skills that enable me to spot when I’m spinning through disaster scenarios in my head. I notice now when I go into high alert mode, staying with it as a signal that my body is trying to take care of me and then I can reassure my body and mind if I am safe, or if there is really something I need to pay attention too. I’m also getting a little better at asking for help when I’m feeling overwhelmed by stimuli. Yoga combined with several years of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy followed by years more of trauma therapy using EMDR. I’m grateful to say that now I don’t spend as much time in these distorted states where I’m sure the worst will happen and that any moment disaster really will strike, so I must be alert.

Gratitude is a part of my meditation and mindfulness practices each day. It helps keep me grounded in what’s really happening, which helps me to stay in the present moment. It helps me focus on connection, when I practice gratitude for the people in my life who love me. When I’m in the present moment, I’m also not missing out on a myriad of small delights, tiny gratitudes, and joy bursting out into the open. I find that seeing these bonuses in life gives me space to hold myself, my Whole Self, as precious and whole, complete, lacking nothing.

This is one of the things I especially love in Stafford’s poem, he closes with a reminder that in this world of disaster around the corner there are some bonuses. Another downside to hypervigilance and catastrophizing, aside from being too exhausted to appreciate or enjoy much of anything, is that the focus on readiness makes it easy to miss the small bonuses. Staying in the present moment, in my body and open to gratitude for the world, I catch those bonuses now.

It is these small bonuses that bring color, joy, and vitality to a very difficult world.

A year ago it was #NotOK, although this year it seems an even greater number of people are responding. I am sad, but not terribly surprised to see the number of people coming forward to share what they’ve lived through. Tarana Burke, who created the #MeToo movement, noted on Twitter that 1.7 million people in 85 different countries have responded to this movement across social media.

If there are so many of us, then how do we begin to help one another heal? How do we begin to dismantle a system that not only enables rape culture, but at times seems to revel in it? A system that protects, sometimes rewards serial abusers, while calling those brave enough to speak of the trauma they experienced liars.

At times this task seems so monumental that it feels impossible to do anything more than offer comfort, sympathy, and warnings about which predatory men to avoid.

Discovering yoga in 2003 changed my life. I began practicing because it was the only thing that helped with the pain from degenerative disc disease in the bottom of my spine. I’d been diagnosed in 2000, with my three lowest lumbar vertebrae affected. By the time I tried yoga, even swimming was causing me pain.

Becoming a teacher in 2005 deepened my yoga practice enormously. Over the years yoga has changed from being the tool to help me manage chronic physical pain. It is still how I help manage my back pain, but now it also helps me manage the anxiety and depression that arise out of living with complex PTSD. My practice informs my daily living in ways I would have never expected when I anxiously went to my first class with lots of other people who’d made resolutions to move more in the New Year.

My practice is what sustains me as I continue to move into acknowledging the trauma I’ve experienced and finding the strength to not turn away from the truth. It is the tool that is helping me learn how to step outside of the shame I struggle with.

Now my yoga practice is what has lead me to join in the voices that say “Me too.”

I am here and ready to offer my knowledge and my heart to help others heal, to work together to find tools to soothe and restore us, and to dismantle the belief that we are broken by what we’ve experienced. Instead that wounding, I’ll share the knowledge that we’re all already whole and complete, just as we are.