The same three episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations played repeatedly at least three times that night.  One, he was somewhere in Spain eating in a local's home.  I thought of how Mimi always was the one cooking for us when we all lived together.  How would Bourdain feel about her food?

I had been watching Anthony Bourdain for years.  I was relieved that at least those three episodes was something of a distraction as opposed to infomercials and other random television bullshit that plays in the wee hours of the morning.  Through Bourdain, I saw parts of the world that this working class mountain girl will never get to see with her own eyes.  I would watch him have experiences as I would want to have them.  Ask the questions I was curious about.  See the parts of life that aren't just for show.  His jokes felt like they were coming from a friend who got my brand of humor.  Watching him felt real.  There was empathy in his eyes.  A knowing from somewhere deep.

I lost my Mimi not long after that night.  She had played the biggest role in raising the woman I am today.  Having watched her suffer, I stopped fearing death.  When I understood that miraculous healing is not what we are owed and that this life is but a blip in the whole scheme of things, I realized that death means freedom.  It's real freedom.  And, that when she passed on, she would no longer hurt, suffer, be cold, feel bodily pain, worry, fear, or anything like that.  She'd be transmuted.

I experienced the death of my grandfather, aunt, and uncle during that same period of time.  And, each time, while I was sad and wished they didn't have to go, I started feeling relieved for them. They each had to suffer so much before death.  Sure, you may think it morbid.  Heartless even.  But, freedom is boundlessness.  I only want freedom and boundless nature for my loved ones.

It was within this time frame that I began to not want to exist.  I wanted that boundlessness too.  I was done having to be at the doctor all the time, having entire days lost to physical pain and listlessness.  Done wondering if I was a good enough mother.  Done trying to juggle finances and being poor despite busting tail.  Done waiting to live because everything was consumed by timelines and priorities I didn't create.  There was nothing to make me want to stay aside from the pain that it would cause my daughters to know that I couldn't stay for them.  That was the only thing that kept me living.

You cannot judge someone for feeling this way.  Sure, you can say, look at all they have going for them.  Look at the life they have that I wish I had.  You can call them ungrateful, negative, thoughtless, selfish... but, unless you can understand the loss of emotional attachment to living coupled with a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion associated with going about the day in and out... in and out, then you cannot know how not wanting to exist feels.  You cannot judge what you cannot comprehend.  

It isn't that a person does not value or see their blessed life.  It isn't that they are negative or have stopped seeing beauty.  And, other than putting a higher priority on their own suffering than that of their loved ones, you can't even say it is selfish.  We make other similar life choices all the time.  Accepting or declining medical care, smoking cigarettes, walking a tightrope, doing drugs, eating crappy food, driving the car too fast, climbing Mt. Everest... things that we deem worth the risk despite the pain it might cause to us or others in the future.  In a way, that's actually living.  The thing to realize is that the people who decide they don't want to exist are too exhausted to keep trying.  They made the pros and cons list.  They did the risk vs. benefit analysis maybe 1,000 times.  And, in the moment they end it, the finality of not existing felt like freedom.  Boundlessness.  All else would go on.  Life, for all of us is a series of struggles as much as it is blessings.  We cannot save our loved ones from that experience because they are alive. 

I understand how "out there" this sounds.  Unless you've felt it, it's a hard thing to intellectually grasp.  We are born with the instinct to survive.  A newborn baby has the ability to wiggle, smell, root, and find it's mother's breast with no help when placed on her abdomen.  I watched my grandmother fight for her life even after she knew it was over.  We fear the unknown, naturally.  Until, through experiences and chemical configurations in the brain, loneliness, and lethargy from whatever cause, the unknown becomes more appealing than the experience we are having.  Suicide is NOT normal.  It is NOT an answer.  It's an avoidance of the problem all together. 

What we have to do though is make "suicide" a word we use.  We need to ask our friends about it in conversation.  We need to check on the friend that seems so very strong and courageous as often as the one who is having obvious struggles.  That doesn't mean a text (though that is good), it also means visits.  It means getting up in their business even if it gets on their nerves.  It means meeting them where they are - even when they decline invitations, finding something that they can say yes to and doing that.  It's about really seeing a person.  Not just a social media account.  It's about eye to eye conversations.  It's about belly laughs.  It's talking about the tough stuff.     

In a culture that puts so much value on "manifesting" and "postivity," we cannot neglect the experiences that allow us to understand what a "happy life" means.  We cannot stop giving space to our pain and hurt.  We cannot underappreciate sadness.

Stop avoiding your the topic of your friend's suffering.  Stop ignoring that funny look in their eyes that you kind of wanted to ask about, but didn't want to intrude or make things uncomfortable.  Be willing to get uncomfortable dammit!  It won't KILL you!

This past week, despite all the great things in my life, the feelings of not wanting to exist would well up from time to time.  It happens when I haven't had a break and get really tired.  Now, that I understand those feelings, I think I will always face them when things are especially tiring, hard, or the right combination of this or that brings them up.  I have attempted suicide twice in my younger years, before I truly grasped what it was I wanted to do in attempting such a thing.  Now, being a mother will keep me from attempting, because I know that I don't want to be a source of any suffering for my girls.  Yoga will give me reprieve.  I will be open about the thoughts and tell people that if I quit talking about it, that's when they need to pay attention most.  Being unmedicated now, I know I must diligently use my new coping tools.  I will teach yoga, and I will give myself and my gifts as a resource to humanity.  Anyone who wants to sit with me, I will, with honor, listen and I will share if you want to know.  Don't discredit me or the things I share with you because I have these feelings.  Don't label me negative.  Yet, I will still be ok with the thought of not waking up.  I have lost my attachment to living even in all its beauty and glory.  Time is only now and a long, happy life is never a guarantee.  No reason to be attached.

Then, today, while wishing I had more energy to face my day, I saw that Anthony Bourdain had made the choice to end his time here on earth.  I cried.  I've cried multiple times.  I feel like I have lost a good friend.  I've openly talked about him as my favorite of favorites.  His work opened the world up to me.  I'm devastated especially for his daughter, whom it was obvious he loved dearly.  I hope she has a good network surrounding her.  I hope Anthony is free.  Boundless.  He, if any of us, knew the beauty this world offers as well as the bad, and understood it twice as good.    

     After a few times seeing clips of Bizzie Gold and the Dynamic Flow DVD, I was intrigued.  I recognized elements from my vinyasa and kundalini practice, but there was an undogmatic freedom and power I had yet to experience.  I wanted to know what it was that I was witnessing as I watched Bizzie move.  So, on March 19, 2017, I did the 30-minute Dynamic Flow practice in my bedroom.  It kicked my ass and I fell in love.  I had found the missing elixir to aid my healing.
Despite being what I had thought was pretty fit, as I continued to practice, I found Buti a challenge.  My joints would swell.  My doctor told me that my body just didn’t like the intensity, and if I were to continue, I should do so mindfully.  He, knowing me and my determination, said, “I’ll see you back when you have an injury.”  I love a good challenge, especially when my success is up to me and only me.  I knew my body should be and would be capable if I listened and supported my effort properly.  I kept up, mindfully.  My joints stopped swelling. 
                Within a few months, I had all the DVDs available.  I live in a very rural community with poor internet access, so I waited to subscribe to the Tones.  The closest, in person, class was over two hours away.  No one in my town was doing Buti.  Buti, alone, was motivating me to keep up.  Before too long, I was following the three days on and one day off schedule recommended by the DVD inserts.
                The change was subtle at first.  I didn’t know if I’d stay enthusiastic.  I had no clue that I was committing to the practice that would lift me out of the dark pit.  Oh, but I had.  I connected with the tribe of butisattvas on Facebook and was floored by the beauty and loving kindness there.  No cat fights.  No body shaming.  Personal answers to questions from Bizzie herself and all the other master trainers. This practice was not created to leave you in the deep waters to sink or swim.  It was created as a tool for thriving.  Never before had I been in a group of women that actually felt like a genuine sisterhood.
                Soon, I stopped getting on the scale every week.  I stopped using the tape measure I bought to measure inches to avoid weighing on the scale.  I no longer felt the need to monitor my intake of macros.  I just kept up with my autoimmune protocol paleo diet and started supplementing collagen and turmeric.  Then, I found Golden Ratio Nutrition and used the protein powder to support my new level of activity in a way that brought vitality.
                By July 2017, my community had crowd funded my Buti certification in Nashville, TN with Talen Lane.  Experiencing the Buti sisterhood in person gave me a new level of understanding in my practice and friendships that are still ongoing.  While I haven’t had the opportunity to teach Buti much in my community (my Buti class will start at Evolation Yoga Kentucky in just a few short weeks), I already use the principles I was taught to enhance the beginning vinyasa classes I do teach.  I know that one day I will share Buti with a tribe of Appalachian Kentucky butisattvas, and we’ll be badass.  

The most important thing in all this is the fact that I’m ok with my body for the first time in my life.  I appreciate its strength and its intrinsic healing powers.  I see beauty in its flaws.  Even those, like my stretched tummy, that still gives me pause when looking in the mirror.  I’m in the best physical shape, at age 39, of my entire active life.  I’ve taken my yoga practice to places I could not have without the aid of Buti.  I know what it feels like to stand in my worth and know I work hard.  I trust that I am strong enough to make it now.  I questioned that before.
​Yoga means – “union” or “to yoke.”  It is the connection of mind, body, and spirit through breath.  It is learning to be fully in the body in order to spiritually transcend its limitations.  I have practiced yoga for fifteen years now.  I taught yoga before Buti, but Buti taught me yoga.  This year has brought me away from a daily desire to not exist.  I’ve reached a degree of healing that I had given up on finding.  I’m pursuing dreams, taking risks, finding inner confidence, learning to be grounded, and showing my daughters what it means to live life out loud.  There’s still so much room for growth that I get scared sometimes.  How much more wondrously real can it get?  What I know now, because I found Buti, is that I have what I need to move forward with grace, supportive sisterhood does exist, and my body is not to be a shamed object.  I know that I am fierce.  I am strong.  I am awakened.  I am Buti.