This is one understanding of disorders like PTSD and CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder).  It will not matter if that individual can reason and they know, for example, that losing their keys and being late for work won't kill them, the body and the primal functions of the brain will respond to that occurrence in a way that resembles being chased by a hungry predator.  The brain is wired to this response indefinitely.  It can be rewired, but it takes very focused and personal inner work to do so, as well as a conscious understanding of your behavior patterns, from where they come, and how their origins differ from the experiences you have now.  It also takes consistency in whatever method you choose and a long period of time to see those changes.  

I don't really talk about the specifics of my personal mental health struggles in terms of diagnosis and the medical treatment of them.  I have made this choice in the past because of stigma and in my line of work - teaching, writing, and physical/personal health and wellness through yoga and movement instruction, I was afraid that the fact that I had been diagnosed and have received medical treatment for mental health issues would cost me opportunities.  I'm not afraid anymore.  I have, among a few other things, been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and CPTSD.  I have been medicated off and on since my early 20s for these struggles.  For the last 2 years, I have chosen to not be medicated and to work primarily with trauma informed movement, yoga, weightlifting, and mindfulness practices as my discipline and medicine.  In August 2018, I was diagnosed with a heart condition called POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome).  It is a dysautonomia and has been correlated with the experience of trauma.  I am taking two heart medications for that issue.  I feel like I am actually dealing with the results of the trauma that I have experienced in tangible ways that have altered the way I live my life for the better.  This does not mean I won't need medication in the future or that I have ever regretted being medicated in the past.  I am, however, feeling that the changes I am seeing in my response to stress are more permanent, making the possibility of needing medication in the future less.

But... during a pandemic where everything about my day and ability to earn income has changed without a timeline of when it will end, it has never been more clear to me how important it is to be with my body.  These past three weeks have seen me become more of a sensualist, as Bourdain mentions in the opening quote.  It has become imperative in order to stay on top of processing how my brain and body are communicating this stress with each other.  How do I effectively become the middle man, if I rely on one over the other?  Older and easier coping patterns will take over.  On some days I feel them creeping closer than on others.

Bourdain is so right.  The body is an amusement park.  Five plus senses guide us through life.  We have emotions and the feelings felt and unfelt that create them.  We have the need for the body to be in homeostasis.  It is a smorgasbord of sensation.  The body is perfectly ok with this.  It is our brain that sometimes muddies the situation.  We interpret and experience the sensation of the body through the language we use to define it.  In other words, the stories we tell ourselves about what it means to experience what we are experiencing and why.  Sometimes the opinions, morals, societal norms or religious doctrine of other individuals cause us to experience shame and guilt in regard to the experiences of our body and the consequent emotions or states of being they create for us that we otherwise would not have, if the only story that dictated our experience was our own.  Those same things cause us to try to limit "the flesh" and label the sensations it gives us as faulty.  The body is not capable of giving us "bad" information.  Its function is to provide us with an initial signal and subsequent feedback loop based upon our brain's interpretation of the initial signal.  Think two people about to bungee jump.  The first is psyched and ready to suit up and go.  They describe the sensation in their stomach as excitement.  The second is horrified.  They feel forced to take the risk by peer pressure, or fear of looking cowardly.  They begin to cry.  They describe the feeling in their stomach as a seizing of horror.

These pictures of my face illustrate the spectrum of any given day and the experience of the body.  The tiredness we may feel.  The peace.  The weariness of heart and soul.  The hope we may or may not have.  If you take the time to look at someone's face, or more importantly, your own, you can see subtleties that you may not be otherwise aware of.  The ones that you train yourself to ignore because we've been taught to hide feelings.  Who knew selfies could have a therapeutic use?

My body has been lit on all fronts since life as I knew it stopped.  All the memes suggesting we should take this time to enjoy family, clean, start creative projects, meditate, are all reliant upon one's ability to separate from the trauma response brought about by an uncertain, high stress situation.  Perhaps, for some, their particular configuration of personal privileges (which we all have) provide for them the space where their stress is lesser and they can access the places of the brain that allow them to do these things.  For me, all I want to do is move and process through movement the sensations of my body.  Otherwise, the sensations would overwhelm me into feeling dangers I am not presently in.  Through movement, I am able to slow down and find connection to things that I can control, such as my breath and how I direct the energy of the sensations I feel.  The butterflies only become tension if I deny the feelings and hang on to them in some mental compartment which then stores the energy in my body as a knot in my trapezius.  My heart palpitations only become an emergency if I don't breathe through them and take a moment to hear their message.  

I'm covered in scrapes and bruises.  I've been so diligently in my body, experiencing limits and new space I have created, that the effects are beyond average for me.  These effects are not abuse, but a learning.  Where can I go and how do I utilize the understandings of where I have been?  I'm going here willing.  Gratefully.  For, without this discipline (it is nothing about motivation), I would be utterly lost in this time.  My focus for writing is not there.  This is the first time I've been able to write a longer piece of anything in a long time.  Those higher functions stifled by stress.  Yet, that stress is energy.  Energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  Through movement, I am learning the language of my body and learning to speak back.  I am learning to alchemize the energy of my feelings into greater understanding of my experience and capabilities.  I am learning to drop the shame and guilt associated with sensual experience and instead approaching it with consciousness open to the fullness it brings to being human.

So, am I ok?  I am.  I'm not spiraling into the abyss.  The changes that may or may not be coming to the way I have to live my life are concerning, but I am not yet laying down to the uncertainty.  I may not have a spotless house, a perfectly organized writing space, a book written, tons of craft projects complete with my daughters, the read-alouds I volunteered to record for their school, or even a daily schedule to keep us on track, but I am here and fully present in my body.  I'm not storing away the stress.  I am not overreacting.  I'm forgiving myself.  Giving myself the space to breathe and feel what I am feeling.  I'm feeding myself and my daughters as well as I can.  I am opening to new experiences and new ways of seeing myself through how the truth of it feels in my body. 

In two aspects, I contest Bourdain's quote above.  The body is a temple where we come to worship at the feet of being human.  It is where we experience our own divinity and that of others.  I also believe that being a sensualist should not be merely labeled as "bad", but what motivates the sensualism should be understood. Seeking thrills and being hungry for pleasure can be the catalyst for being fully alive, depending upon the approach and from where the desire is led.  Perhaps I am understanding myself as a spiritual humanist and sensualist.  I believe in a Source and Higher Purpose, but I duly believe we are here derived from Source to experience the spectrum of Truth.  The body experience.  The human experience as divine.  

Which brings me to the questions of duality, but that will have to be another blog post.

I couldn't breathe.  I wanted the 60-something gray haired men sitting across from me in the waiting room to shut up.  I wanted the women with them to stop shaking their heads.  I wanted the one woman who spoke to get her head out of the sand, stop agreeing, and to speak to what I knew she knows. 

"She should've said something then," one of the men said.  "If she were my daughter, she'd have spoken up about that then, if it really happened.  That's just teenage behavior."

At that point, I wanted to get out of my seat, throw furniture at him, and bash his head in the wall behind him.  I wanted to show him what it feels like to hold in a secret for decades because of people like him and their opinions on what young people should do when sexually assaulted.  Their opinion of what should be tolerated, thought as normal. and what is "just asking for it."  I wanted him to know what it felt like to not express and be ashamed of your sexuality for the whole of your life memory because of people like him.  

I was in the cardiologist waiting room.  It was the day that the brave Christine Blassey Ford testified in front of congress about the experience she had with then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  Fortunately, my name was called and my panic attack was caught on EKG and the whole thing helped my doctor get me on the right medication for my heart condition.  Things have a way of working out.  I had a nervous breakdown that day, holding in my emotion, and it took me a few months to recover.

Sexual repression is not the only possible or base cause for sexual violence, misogyny, or the objectification of women.  We can also include in this the "traditional" presumptions of how each gender should conduct themselves in our society.  Ideas of: Who has and should be in control?  Who can "handle" power?  Who cries and who punches things?  Who talks about feelings and who holds them in, and their association with being of weak mind?  What does it mean to be a "real" man or a "real" woman?  Boys will be boys.  Who is a "loose" woman?  We can all tell a story of making a decision to hide an aspect of ourselves because it didn't fit in to these boxes built by our culture about who we should be and how we should behave.

As someone who has experienced deep shame for it simply being possible that someone could find me attractive and that becoming uncomfortable for anyone else - them, me, or other to the point that I didn't try to express myself physically in appearance or through movement, growing beyond this in a culture that still blames and shames everyone involved has been a struggle.  It does take deciding not to care about where someone might be on this path in regards to their own comfort with the human form and our instinctual biological responses to it.  There is such an imbalance in this being shown as a problem only for male identifying genders that's it's ridiculous and has resulted in very dramatic and stifling rules for the way female identifying people must be in their bodies in this world.  It's as if a woman cannot have a visceral response to seeing a man's bare chest or rump in his swimsuit just as much as a man can to seeing a woman.  Funny how that can be seen as sweet, complimentary, or humorous, and it not be for a man to have the same reaction.  Acting as if that biological reaction is something to be ashamed of causes feelings of guilt or rebellion, neither of which are good for our society.

The most appalling result of this Puritanical response to physicality and sexuality is the toll it is taking on our children.  I don't and have not publicly spoken about my personal experience as a young girl who was a survivor of such things (not at the hand of family or anyone close to the family).  I sometimes find the courage to mention it vaguely (as now), but never have directly.  I don't know if I ever will, or that the details matter.  There are so many people quick to comment as if they know anything about what that experience was for you.  It is so atrocious that I think people have to find a way to explain it and those explanations fall way short of the reality, and at worst, exacerbate our problems.

In a culture filled with physical repression and shame, we create the environment where the Jeffrey Epstein's of the world can operate and spill their illness over onto others who are ill or suffering their own shame and violate the innocence of children while being looked over by those who are supposed to protect us.  The issues at the border.  The many issues in our communities that are not discussed.  It's all a byproduct of this demonized way of looking at ourselves and our bodies, along with the marriage to obtaining or keeping power.  It's dangerous.

I realize that some may  take offense at this meme.  I, personally, find it funny, and relevant to many things - not just religion.  Any ideology that you operate under in order to find your way in this world is right for you when you decide that it is - politics, faith, eating habits, etc.  Doesn't mean it is right for me, will always be right for you, or that anyone else should be forced to live under it.  When we repress our basic expression we enliven scenarios where people are sending pictures of their genitalia to people on social media before they even get a name or a face.  It becomes slippery to approach anyone with compliments on their physical beauty or to even ask for a date in such a charged climate.  I feel for people trying to navigate it.  It is ok for someone to respectfully find you attractive physically and to express this out loud.  I've seen women bite a man's head off because he told her she was a walking goddess.  People are walking on edge.  It causes people to get their penis out and wave it in everyone's face.

In my pictures, I am not showing anymore than anyone wearing a swimsuit shows.  I'm showing my real life and my personal yoga practice.  I show it out of gratitude for what it does for me and that it may encourage someone else.  I have gained some strength and stability in my backside and that is a great thing too.  My SI joint was in terrible shape and causing me a lot of pain.  Yesterday, I decided to recommit to not being ashamed of my body and the way it appears.  Honestly, I'm all for normalizing the body in the birthday suit.  We are walking, breathing, living wonders.  

I love this verse.  Part of my commitment to finding and growing into myself as an individual is celebrating the reality of this verse and holding space for others to do the same. Today, see your own beauty in just how you are, and compliment someone else's in a sincere way.  Let's make it normal for our bodies and their primal functions to be ok.  Let's heal this.

When was the last time you asked your body how you were feeling?  I don't mean doing a physical scan to notice aches and pains or other maladies, though that is good information.  I mean asking your body how you are feeling.  Feelings, those things that precede emotions and become emotions if they are not felt in totality.  Would you know your body's answer if you asked?  Do you still speak your body's language?

Some holding patterns become do deeply ingrained that you are no longer conscious of them.  It takes intense focus to notice they are there.  Sometimes it takes someone else's touch or eyes to see them and guide you to feel them again.  I noticed that I was holding a very heightened energy around my heart center.  A tight and anxious energy.  When I deepened my breath and I asked it to relax, I experienced the feeling of fear.  My ego did not want to feel the feeling of that release.  This told me it was a protective mechanism.  My body was storing a wound there and to release it would create a vulnerability.

Since injuring my SI joint and having to take a new approach to my yoga practice, I have been learning how most of us, including myself, walk around outside of our bodies as if we are a big giant brain.  Even those of us with physical practices do it.  Our bodies become a side note to our goals, an afterthought to our obligations, or at worst, that thing in our way. 

This relationship to our bodies is reinforced by our western culture.  Yes, people are praised for having a certain type of physique, but are we really allowed to celebrate any body?  Are we really allowed to experience the body as art?  If I wanted to make a video of me spiraling my hips and ribs to my favorite song while standing in goddess pose, could you celebrate movement with me?  Could I let go enough to make such a video?  Our bodies often times are either shamed, characterized, made into a commodity (in regards to athleticism or physical disciplines), or over sexualized.  You're not this or that enough, therefore you must be ___.  "Ooooh, I saw some side boob.  Damn, she might want some." (I'm not saying that having a biological physical response to someone's body is a bad thing if that person is an adult.  I could write a whole post on this topic alone, and I may someday.  It's how you process those sensations that matters.)  These aspects of our culture leave most of us unsure of how to safely inhabit our bodies.  Then, the microaggressions we meet on the day to day in regards to our bodies can cause us to begin to disassociate so that we are not so sensitive and raw all the time.  That person didn't mean anything by that after all. (ex. "Gosh, you're so skinny.")  Add to that the acute experiences of trauma that some of us will experience, and there is a whole other level of needing to leave our bodies to survive.

This pattern allowed me to continue to be functional despite a lot of daily physical pain.  It was useful in that sense.  Yet, when I began to place certain types of aspirations over the effects it was having on my body, I entered dangerous territory.  It resulted in my injury.

We often wonder things about our bodies like - Why doesn't sex feel as good to me as everyone else acts like it is?  Why do I want to eat the whole box of Little Debbie cakes and not just one?  Why in the world does my back hurt like this?  Why do I feel overwhelmed every time I am out in public?  Most of the time, we can't answer these questions.  Even our doctors, often, cannot answer them.  But, our bodies can, if we can learn to trust them again and listen.

As I laid there in savasana, I kept trying to get that stuck feeling energy to move out of my heart space.  I could feel it engulfing the entire area.  The tightness crept into my neck and shoulders.  My abdomen felt fluttery.  Every time I told myself it was ok to let go and I felt an inkling of release, my ego jumped in and said - NO!  When I asked myself why I couldn't let it go, ego told me that I didn't want to feel lonely.  What would my identity be if I actually allowed myself to experience the loneliness my body feels?  Could I continue along this beautiful path of discovery I am on undaunted?  Could I continue my work?  Or, would I be paralyzed with the emotion of it?  It was that I do not want to be interrupted by whatever it would mean to feel that feeling.  I will be doing the work around this topic in my life on my mat and through my means of sharing.  It is more uncomfortable and difficult to process the dis-ease that develops in our bodies when we ignore their cues. 

In July, I will have completed a certification program in Embodied Healing as credits for my Yoga Alliance certification.  I am continuously fascinated by what I am learning and that it was an injury that began to close the door on the body abuse I was inflicting upon myself and provided me with the tools, through what appeared to be a lost practice, to find a depth of practice I had never experienced.  My plans are to write, develop workshops, and possibly to begin podcasting and doing videos.  If you are interested in seeing some of these things from me, I'd love to know as I am feeling things out.

Blessed be!
​~Sat Nam~

My baby sister stood in a glass box the size of a long gone, street side phone booth.  She was seven years old.  We were visiting the mall in the city where my grandparents had relocated - Spartanburg, South Carolina.  She had been chosen from a crowd of people that had gathered around the booth in curiosity.  I don't know if they thought they were being clever choosing a young kid for the show.  If they did, they had never encountered a kid like my sister.

She wore a mix of fear and excitement on her face.  They closed and sealed the door to the box.  As soon as it was secured, they turned on a blower that shot a high force of air up from the bottom of the box.  Her hair blew.  Then, they released the cash.  A combination of bills, mostly ones, blew all around her.  The timer began.  She had thirty seconds to grab all she could hold and stuff into her clothes.  If she was lucky, she'd snag the hundred dollar bill.

She reached and grabbed faster than I had ever seen her little, chunky kid body move.  Most of the bills flew out of her reach, but she didn't focus on what she couldn't get.  She kept all the effort close.  She clutched and snatched the money like all our lives depended on it.  I can't remember how much she had when she left the box.  I just remember how impressed everyone was with the amount.  They said, "She might as well have grabbed that Benjamin!" 

Everything that required and effort or attempt from me received 100%.  100% of frantic, desperate, overly zealous, hurried, raging fire me until I burned out.  I felt the need to seize every opportunity that I felt confident I could use to achieve.  It didn't matter what I was achieving, as long as people would think it was good.  I'd give it my best regardless of whether or not it spoke to my heart or fed my soul.  I'd do it simply because I could.

the outside world who could make it happen for her?  After many rejection letters for my short stories, I had to give my time more to making a real living and raising kids.

To land yourself in handstand there are variables that must have your attention.  If any one component is off or unrecognized, you find yourself using a lot of energy without ever holding your body upside down.  At worst, you'll fall feet over head on your ass.  Every time I had randomly attempted handstand, I did so wishing that my brute strength would see me through and something would click.  Like training wheels on a bike, I was too ornery to use a wall.  I've fallen many times flat on my back, even the side of my face.  It was as if in every approach I was setting out to prove myself right.  Handstands were not possible for me, therefore I could justify it as not being part of my practice no matter how far I advanced my physical abilities.  It was like my dream of being a writer.  I was unlikely to score through serendipity.  My effort needed to be toward achievable goals.

It turns out that handstanding can be learned through a variety of clear methods.  Step by step.  Body awareness.  Fun daily practice.  I'm learning to be an upside down tree.  Rooting into the ability to trust and believe in the unseen.  Proprioception.  Tangibly dreaming that in my middle age, I too will float and fly.

Everything I've done, I've relied on my intellect and a force of effort to see me achieve.  Because of that, I have kept goals smaller than the dreams of my heart, focusing on the obstacles and practicalities of life instead of potential for finding my purpose.  We're now living in an era where it could be easier than ever before to find yourself making a livable wage as a writer and speaker on topics of personal growth and spiritual awakening.  Many times I tried, taking the risk only when I was sure I could recoup from the pain of the fall.  Taking the similar more pragmatic offers, always getting me close, but never the cigar.  There is a way.  A plan.  A means to see my dreams alive under my hands and in the sound of my voice speaking to curious hearts.

I stand feet together, hands shoulder width apart on my mat, and wrists in one line.  I draw my navel in and up, lift my pelvic floor, and tuck in my lower ribs.  I lock out my elbows and lift through my chest.  From flat feet, I bend both knees, and spring with control off both feet.  I push the ground away with my hand.  I tuck up and find my big toes against the wall.  I point my toes, press my ankles together, and squeeze my butt.  I check core engagement.  Arms straight.  Eyes focused on the mat between my thumbs.  All this I have practiced also laying down.  One step at a time.  Daily practice until I am practicing in the center of the room.

I was going all out.  I was going to push to the point of dripping sweat, shaking muscles, the feeling of my entire body turning to jello.  That, in and of itself can be a great workout goal, but for me, it was a way to punish the anxiety beast.  It didn't matter that I was already tired.  I hadn't slept well for days.  Waking up nightly with adrenaline rushes was common.  It didn't matter that my body ached or that I was sore from my Buti Yoga practice the day before.  Chronic polyarthropathy means my body always hurts to some degree.  To find my capacity for strength and endurance in middle age would obviously be to do the work regardless.  I had even asked about fatigue and working with shaking muscles and was advised that both were goals to achieve when strength building from both yoga teachers, trainers, and online yoga groups.  They weren't wrong.  Pushing was not giving in or up.  It was refusing to let my rebellious body get beyond my ability to control.

I rolled out my mat.  I was already out of breath.  My heart was pounding.  I had the cliche overwhelming sense of dread that those of us who live with anxiety either choose to give in to or actively ignore.  I was practicing a familiar sequence.  I was practicing in my living room.  What the hell was wrong with me?  I was having a panic attack.  It felt like I was turning inside out.  I didn't understand.  Yoga is my passion.  It saves my life.  I tell my yoga clients all the time that if they are not with the breath that they are not doing yoga.  It was hard to breathe.  I ignored my own advice and went on with it anyway.  Yoga couldn't be the trigger.  Yoga was the tool.

I decided that what I was feeling was related to something I wasn't conscious of and I just needed to move.  I completed the practice.  My legs didn't want to lift, but I made them go.  Every time I felt I was about to reach my limit, I pushed harder.  Mind over matter.  If I didn't land a movement on beat or my balance was off on one side, I fought the urge to go back and repeat.  I tell my yoga classes that our bodies are different every time we get on our mats.  I took this advice, working on meeting myself there.  Except was I?  

Some of the writing I am about to do is going to be not only uncomfortable for me, but it could be uncomfortable for those who choose to spend some time reading it.  Where I find myself in my spiritual journey (awakening) is refinement.  Layer by layer my inconsistencies, untrue beliefs, and outdated operatus modi are being revealed to me in order that I do the work to shed them.  Sometimes the shedding happens immediately upon a no longer useful pattern or outright contradiction coming into consciousness.  Most of the time, the process is slow as these things become deeply ingrained into our body's pursuit of homeostasis, however it has come to expect that familiarity to feel.  What I reveal might be embarrassing to me.  It might provoke comments that will trigger me, and I will have to pause to harness the opportunity choose to see truth instead of reacting.

For a long time, I have tried to spiritually bypass working through some of these layers.  A really good description of the effort that takes was written for Psychology Today by Ingrid Clayton Ph.D.  "The shorthand for spiritual bypass is grasping rather than gratitude, arriving rather than being, avoiding rather than accepting. It is spiritual practice in the service of repression, usually because we can not tolerate what we are feeling, or think that we shouldn't be experiencing what we are feeling."  I wanted to fix myself desperately.  I have felt guilty and ashamed of my path, and I continue work on shedding that layer as I will mention again later.

Then, there is the segment of our spiritual culture that will refute my work also through spiritual bypass.  As facing our darkness, owning it, and accepting it, can feel the opposite of the bliss that should come with discovering spiritual truth, many disown this process.  That which we don't give our attention to, in theory, will fade away.  It's the method of ignoring or shaming the "negative" in favor of identifying with or being identified as "positive."  As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, "All that glitters is not gold."  Psychoanalyst Carl Jung adding, "What you resist, persists."  If we are all mirrors for one another, that which we readily identify as a hang up in another, is likely something to be unburdened within our self.  I find I get really prickly at the "accentuate the positive" and "I have no time for negative people in my life" memes.  My insides react as if I am being personally attacked.  That reveals to me that I am still hoping for approval from the wider spiritual movement as someone who has a relevant voice, but I know that my very nature sets me up to be rejected by many of those who do have the capacity to "choose happiness."  I won't be palatable with my darkness.  I will be told I should smile more as I have been told again and again.  My smiles are a currency greater than gold.

She meant no ill, but the part of my ego that felt I had accomplished something important by posting the video in spite of being self conscious, and sharing the truth of this uncomfortable self concern, didn't want to hear that it could be seen as simply a contradiction to what I already understand is truth.  Like the Green Day song, "I'm a walking contradiction, and I don't have the right."  Consciousness outgrows habits and old systems of belief, but those old ways hang on for as long as they can.  What struck me more was the question of whether I should only share the ways that my consciousness is growing and not reveal the truth that ego and shadow fight back to win.  I questioned the relevance of sharing my journey at all.  Do I only seem like someone milking struggle?  Identified with struggle? 

If so, I am beyond embarrassed.  I don't want to be so pretentious as to think that is my contribution to life.  I graduated with the same GPA as many in my high school class who are now doctors and lawyers.  Currently, I would be homeless in a month if I made any kind of slip up.  I have a Master's Degree in Education, a Bachelor's Degree in English and Creative Writing, and a slue of certifications.  What good am I aside from motherhood?  How important is the contribution of a writer, yogi, and someone fully immersed in a spiritual path if there's nothing monetary to show for it?  In a society where you are measured by your financial worth and achievements, where do I fit and what is my excuse?  I am not a monk or a nun being supported by my service to Source.  Again, judging myself based upon the perceived judgment of others.

Then, I had a conversation with a yogi I follow on Instagram and am greatly inspired by.  Their posts are their practice and snippets of their daily life.  They told me that through my posts (we don't know each other personally) they "see that life is challenging and I'm sorry.  It can't be easy.  Your strength and perseverance are a model for everyone."  How could someone like me be a model?  They were trying to encourage me and tell me that I am seen, but I was taken back to the question of the first conversation - Do I appear as someone seeking sympathy or highlighting struggle over perseverance/strength?  How is my struggle any different than anyone else's?  I began to tell myself I am not exceptional in any way and I should be ashamed to accept such a compliment.  I'm not doing anything more than any other human.  I wrote back a long message of embarrassment saying I hope I don't seem pretentious, whiny, or a complainer, or at worst deemed a "negative" person.  I was worried by not seeming "good at" practicing spirituality even though I claim it as my nature.  What is that again but and identified ego?  Honestly, I admire this person in such a way that part of me feels embarrassed and judges myself as weak despite their use of the word "strength."

The last conversation was with a young teen who follows me on Instagram.  Ultimately, this conversation is why I am choosing to continue to accept myself where I am and share as much as I can of all parts of the journey.  She asked if it ever gets easier to openly write about hardships and struggles.  I answered both yes and no.  I have gotten used to vulnerability and I am drawn to do it regardless of fear.  Yet, part of me still worries that I will be wrongly seen and judged because it has happened before.  I don't want to be accused of tainting the vibe, or become that "negative" person no one has time for in their life.  I know I shouldn't care, and in the end, I don't because I choose to go ahead and share.  I can discuss very difficult things without being depressed or hopeless.  We don't respond to difficulty in a uniform way.  I have some level of desensitization to many things I discuss which gives me the space I need to analyze it effectively.  In fact, telling the tale gives me the means to separate emotions from truth and apply logic and intuition to things that have happened or are happening.  I could tell the story to a live auditorium of people and be fine.  When this young woman responded that what I said was helpful, I felt a renewed responsibility to keep being open. 

Those who can relate, find comfort, be inspired, learn from, challenge, or guide me from what I choose to write about are worth continuing in the shadow of a landscape that unveils the tendency in me to see my healing process as stages of failure instead of growth.  With work, I will accept that a spiritual path is a legitimate path.

It's been a struggle to let go of the blaze it took to keep up that level of commitment to a form of yoga that at times is very high intensity.  It gives new meaning to the term "ride the lightning," which normally means being put to death by the electric chair.  Instead, this is the scenario where you harness the lightning and use it to become what you thought was an impossibility.  I have been an athlete my whole life.  I played girls basketball, volleyball, and ran cross country.  I have always been active regardless of my weight.  Buti helped me reach plains of being that even as a high school student, I would never have dreamed I could access.  It was beautiful and addictive.  

This all came about during a time (the last five years) when my spiritual and personal path has taken a radical turn.  Everything I thought I knew about myself is in question.  Upheaval of the belief systems that have kept me afloat since childhood.  It was no coincidence that at the same time, I became terrible at asanas (yoga poses) that required any form of balance. I was ungrounded.  The driven fixer in me didn't understand why I seemed to be going backward in this area, and began to push for more strength, playing limits, and striving.  When I found and experienced the magic of Buti, I trusted that eventually I'd find my feet under me again. 

I have not yet.  In fact, the only improvement that I have seen in that area has been since I pulled back my practice.  This past Sunday, I took a mystic yoga class that was geared toward the root chakra.  The teacher created one of the most intriguing sequences I have ever experienced for the muladhara (Sanskrit name of the root chakra).  There on my mat, my still small voice from within asked, "Are you all in or does your effort reflect only the trying?  It always appears you are in the process, but you are afraid to arrive.  What do you fear?"  I used my breath to not cry.  I decided instead to forgive myself and be with what my body wanted then.  In those moments, I understood what had really been happening in my practice.  Afterward, the teacher gifted me the beautiful smoky quartz you see me holding in the picture above.  Another woman in the class looked at me and told me she had watched me practice and it inspired her.  There in my weakness, my strength was recognized.  I have been refusing to accept my strength for the pursuit of a body and mind that I think I should have.  And yet, I'm too afraid to become the thing I think I have the potential to be because it is completely different than any state of being I have ever known.

I had allowed maximum efforting to become my comfort zone. In the guise of self improvement, I was loathing myself into extreme fatigue and injury.  I wasn't giving myself time to celebrate my gains, but constantly pushing.  During these last two months of backing off of Buti, I am finally able to actually feel how strong I am!  I was keeping myself so weak from overdoing that I couldn't recognize where I was physically.  I was ignoring my body's cues in order to make it submit.  I was stagnant in the familiar places of pain, discomfort, illness, shame, and anxiety while to the outside it appeared I was doing great things for myself.  I didn't fully believe I could ever have another experience of life aside of that list of descriptive words because I had never known it before.  As they say, "Seeing is believing."  Therefore, it was true that discomfort and dis-ease had become my comfort zone.  I had taken it on to heal, but instead of nurturing myself there, I was browbeating myself into submission.  I had wondered why I sometimes felt states of panic when I rolled out my mat for practice.  I loved my yoga.  It made no sense.  I had made myself blind by hiding self destruction behind the mask of self care.

All yoga is about coming to know who and what you are, unifying all parts of your being through the breath and practices.  It is about coming in to santosha (yoga niyama meaning contentment.  It is about fullness right where you are as you also see beyond your limiting beliefs.  Even Buti Yoga has as one of its main mantras - Total body love.  Today, see yourself where you are and think about what it means to love yourself there.

Our culture is all about changing, subduing, or avoiding our physical bodies.  Extreme diets, pharmaceuticals, plastic surgery, consumer culture, social media, obsessions, and even our spiritual practices contribute. What would happen though if we focused on radically being in our body instead of changing, subduing, or avoiding them?  What would it mean to live the language of our body?
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There are signs all over the place that a great many people aren’t truly inhabiting this human form we’ve been given.  Unconscious behavior runs rampant.  The abuse of food, drugs, alcohol, sex, and one another both emotionally and physically are just some of the ways this is true.  It’s true on the level of faith too.  In spiritual communities all over the globe, there’s a lot of encouragement to “transcend the body,” as it is imagined the Buddha and Jesus Christ did, either through meditation, other spiritual practices, or self-sacrifice.  Escapism is not the answer to the human struggle.  It is the cause.

​​We find ourselves in the midst of struggle and instead of addressing it on the tangible, human level we choose to escape.  At different times of our lives we all are guilty of trying to experience something outside of our human form in various degrees.  Sometimes, this trying is a conscious effort.  Other times, it is completely unconscious.  It isn’t always a bad thing.  Everyone needs a vacation from time to time.  However, considering death is the only real way to escape the human form, if we don’t allow ourselves to consciously inhabit our bodies we are spending our entire lives avoiding living.

Whether we’re experiencing this active escapism as a result of mental, emotional, or physical trauma doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we make ourselves conscious to it so that we can address it.  Are you really letting yourself be in your body?  Are you opening yourself up to a fully impactful human experience?

Here’s some signs you might be in avoidance mode.

1. You don’t recognize yourself when you look in the mirror.

Every time you look in the mirror you feel like shit.  Even when you try to be positive about your physical appearance, you find yourself smoothing wrinkles in your shirt over your midsection.  So, you’ve started avoiding mirrors.  Now, if you happen to catch a glimpse of yourself you’re shocked that what you see is you.  It doesn’t look like you.  It doesn’t look like what you imagine when you’re feeling good about who you are and what you’re doing in life. 
Our reflection in the looking glass and our reaction to it is a good gauge for whether or not we’re allowing our body to be our home.  Feeling alienated by your own body is not conducive to experiencing your personal power, focus, and will – your magick.  We gotta own these bodies.
Try some self-care to learn to connect with your body on a deeper level.  Ask your body some simple questions and trust the answers that your gut gives you:

• Do you need more sleep?
• Do you need to move more?  How do you like to move?
• Do you like what I’m feeding you?  How do I know if the food and drink I am nourishing you with is the right thing?
• Do I allow you to be primal enough?  Fresh air, connecting to earth, clean water, play, etc…
• Do I make you feel beautiful?  How can I help you feel beautiful?
• Do we need to go to the doctor or alternative health practitioner? 

Listen and take action on the feedback your body gives.  But...

2. You overthink everything.

You find it hard to trust your gut.  What is intuition anyway?  Isn’t part of being human our ability to approach things through logic, problem solving, and complex forms of expression?  What if that gut feeling is wrong?
Part of becoming disconnected from the body is that we lose the trust of the feedback it gives us.  We unlearn the language it uses to speak to us.  As babies and young children, we are very good at communicating with our bodies.  Our bodies are how we learn to get around in the world and to obtain all that we need for survival.  Add to those basic instincts the ability to reason and discern, and we’re pure force!
Our bodies communicate in the form of sensations.  From emotions, to experiencing hot or cold our bodies provide us with endless data to inform our action.  What if we began with this feedback, then applied logic, and then assessed whether or not that fits with what we “thought” was true at first – intuition?  This is a step by step utilized Break Method, also developed by Bizzie Gold.  Using our body and mind for decision making is a game changer.  It can save all kinds of anxiety and time second guessing yourself.  

3. You ignore physical sensation or overindulge in sensation making activity to feel alive.

​You’ve found yourself saying – I feel dead inside.  Everything is dull, mundane… unexciting.  Even down to knowing when you’re hungry or not.  You look up from your computer screen and it’s two hours passed lunchtime and you suddenly realize your ravenous.  You couldn’t cry at your grandmother’s funeral even though you were very close.  During sex, you find yourself checking out and making to-do lists for the next day, or debating whether or not the giants mentioned in the Old Testament bible were actually aliens.  Orgasm is overrated. 
In this case, you’ve disconnected so completely from your body, if you don’t recover the connection, it will be a life altering event that finally provides you the impetus to get back in there... if it doesn’t kill you.  Your body can make life exciting.  What’s in there that you are avoiding?  How might you address those things in order to find your way back in?
Or, perhaps you feel alive by being the life of the party.  You take all the risks.  Excess is your middle name.  Indulging makes you feel alive.  The hangover after is what feels like death.  Moderation feels too boring.  Day to day living is not enough to make you feel alive, and it’s only by taking your body to extremes that you get enough sensation to feel present in life.  Otherwise, there’s a numbness to it all.  A feeling of waiting that is nearly unbearable.
You too are disconnected from the body.  Even in exploring the limits of the body you are disconnected and ignoring it.  There’s not a balance.  It is not sustainable.  Therefore, you aren’t getting the totality of experience.  You are not present for life, but constantly trying to alter it.  How can you impact something for the positive if you aren’t aware of all that it currently is?  What too are you avoiding?  How might you address those things in order to find your way back in?

5. Your spiritual practice focuses on transcending the body.

Has escapism become a dogma for you under a spiritual guise?  Flesh as weakness.  Every major religion and most traditional spiritual practices have some form of this thought when taken out of context or to the extreme.  Is all your chakra work in the upper triangle?  Is your biggest struggle in meditation to ignore the physical sensations in your body?  Do you spend hours praying your way out of struggles?  Are you honing astral projection, but ignoring the stomach pains after you eat?
The truth is, looking at the chakra system and other psychological schools of thought, that most of our inner work should be around our connection to home/tribe, interpersonal relationships, and our expression of ourselves as an individual.  The lower triangle of chakras, if you are familiar with that system.  The things that illustrate our human experience.  Without roots a tree cannot reach the heavens.  Without the ability to ground into our bodies, how do we even know what we are transcending?  Maybe the lesson is to – be here now.
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     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.

What makes it incredibly hard to give it my best shot is that because the thyroid gland is essential to producing so many other hormones that regulate my body functions and moods, when I am having a flare up, it can feel as if I'm completely losing control of my mind and body.  Dealing with this disease is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Harder than a 34 hour natural labor.  Harder than saying good-bye to friends and family who pass on.  Harder than running to the top of a steep hill 10 times fast with no break.  You get the point.  It's difficult.  Honestly, I don't want to do it anymore.  I know it is an endless battle.

The thing is, I have to fight.  I have things to do.  This disease is something that I've been given, it is part of who I am, and who I will become.  It doesn't have to be all bad.  Sure, I just outed myself as someone who might display signs of mental illness.  Is that the smartest thing in the world?  I'm not ashamed.  Many of us live with illnesses, mental or otherwise, that to folks we encounter everyday are invisible.  We seem fine.  We are hard workers.  We get things done.  We are driven.  We seem in touch.  The fact is, that we may be all of these things because everyday is a new struggle and we know that if we don't do it, we won't.  There's no in between. 

I don't think any of us who share about a chronic invisible illness are expecting condolences or accolades.  It doesn't mean we are heroes for going on with life.  It doesn't mean we need sympathy because our lives are over and we'll never see our dreams come alive.  No, we share because we inspire one another to reach just a little higher.  We help each other gather the information we need to take charge of our health.  And, we want everyone to know that if we can do it, so can you.  All we have is now.  If we can make changes that will help us live our lives more fully and experience our bodies in a greater sense of freedom, why wait?  No matter how challenging it is to change, why wait?  Now, is the time when we can work.  One step at a time.

This week I have driven my friends batty with my looping thoughts and stress.  I left my beloved yoga mat at the front desk of the recreation center right within my eyesight.  I forgot to grab my phone on a day when it was really important that I stay connected.  Yesterday, I went about the day without taking my supplements, my heart medication, or my anxiety medication.  I didn't realize it until I was overtaken by heart palpitations and feelings like I was surrounded by a strange glass box.  When I'm having a flare up of the disease, it is like all my thoughts are in a fog.  I get stuck on a topic with worry and I cannot shake it.  It's as if I'm in a never-ending state of multitasking.  This doesn't even begin to address the physical symptoms.  It all can be embarrassing sometimes.

I will never use Hashimoto's as an excuse for my behavior or my physical issues.  Yes, sometimes I may choose to share with someone that Hashimoto's is why I do certain things, or sometimes don't seem myself.  It's not an excuse though.  It's a reason.  It's a reason to take better care of myself.  It's a reason to deepen my spiritual connection.  A reason to listen more to my body.  A reason to be okay with a little comfortable discomfort in order to grow as a person and in strength.  This is my body.  It belongs to me.  There's no disease stronger than me.  The disease is just another teacher among many.

The man golfing above is my Papaw Hansel.  He passed away earlier this year of bone cancer.  My Uncle James is holding him up so he can take a swing and not fall.  This is the blood from which I come.  We don't lay in the bed until we have to.  We grab the bull by the horns as they say.  My last moment with my Papaw was my dad and I lifting him to adjust him in his bed.  He looked at me with those sly eyes and looked at my dad.  Dad said, "She's a brute ain't she, Papaw?"  He smiled.  He was proud of the strength in me.  I have always been one to want to please my elders.  Giving up isn't an option.

Yet, on days like today, when the sun is shining and the trees are calling, I just want to rest.  I want someone to hold me, tell me its okay, tell me I'm doing a good job, I'm a good person, and I can rest.  I want to breathe and feel.  I want to cry and laugh.  I want to be with those who accept me as I am and like me that way.  Today, I'm again alone.  Today, I'm going to my yoga mat with Warrior Workout and see what I can become for it's all I know to do.