3. To Body By Breath (part II)

We kept up the appearances of a normal family by going out to dinner together from time to time, but we never really conversed. We certainly weren’t sharing feelings. The rule on Sundays was that unless we went to church, we were grounded for the day. Ever the good girl, eager to please, I sat growing more and more detached for the requisite hour, while one brother spent the day in his room with the door closed, the other was eventually shipped off to boarding school four hours away—because she couldn’t control him and was at her wits’ end to try.

All those people who arrived in the days following my dad’s death were gone. Wrapped up in their own lives or chased away by the friction that was present in many of my mother’s relationships.

She must have been so overwhelmed. I try to remember this as I recount the story of my youth. I want to give her credit for all that she had to manage, but I am still so angry about the ways I tried desperately to gain her affection only to be rejected again. I do not understand why the empathy I have in abundance is absent in my mother. Probably because understanding her situation was key for my emotional survival. She didn’t need to understand me to survive. She needed me to disappear.

With the death of my dad, I had more grief than I could possibly process alone. It would be decades before I would recognize that that one event, while devastating, was not the full story of my grief. What started as a fracture grew under the stress of neglect, to become a wound so deep it was almost irretrievable.

Sometime between my father’s death and my teenage years, my relationship with my mother began to disintegrate. I know I had unprocessed grief that showed up as anger. On her part, she was absent both physically and emotionally. As an adult, I understand that she was widowed very young and had to provide for and raise three kids, all while grieving—a complicated grief—herself. But as a child, I quickly grew out of looking to her for support and resented her for not tending to my emotional needs.

My young life was punctuated by the death of my father and, shortly after that, abandonment by my mother.

By the time I was thirteen or fourteen, my love affair with escape truly began. Ottawa has an extensive network of bicycle paths, and anytime I was bored, angry or sad, I would set out alone, riding in all directions to the far reaches of the city. Without anyone to monitor my whereabouts, pre-GPS, I would get lost and turned around for hours without fear. The burn of fatigue in my body would quiet the constant fire of unlabeled discontent that bubbled ever beneath the surface. My bike provided a safe physical edge and a means to run away from home anytime I needed.

My teenage years were full of angst. I looked to my friends for the love and support I was missing at home, but no one could fill the canyon of longing. I felt inadequate and angry, like I wasn’t good enough for them, and in turn because they couldn’t fill the gap, they weren’t good enough for me. I started dating a guy from work when I was seventeen. He was twenty-three and had just split up with his girlfriend. When they got back together (only days later), he continued seeing me, barely concealing our relationship from her or anyone else. It was embarrassing, but I was so desperate for affection, being second best was better than nothing, so I took what I could get when it came my way. I was too scared to engage in the most vulnerable act of having sex with him, but it didn’t matter: he had a girlfriend for that. All my romantic relationships would follow a similar pattern well into adulthood. They were few and far between, but each man shared the same trait of being unavailable to me in one way or another. Any man who expressed an interest in me— an interest that was not complicated by conditions, ghosting or some form of withholding—felt unsafe because it was not familiar. I thought love was supposed to feel horrible. I thought everyone understood that love meant having someone who you expected to have your back, but never did. Love was disappointment, and I was never let down by the love I chased. It was just as wholly unsatisfying and painful as I had learned it to be.

Cancer can grow inside a body for years before it is detected—the cancer genes are smart enough to trick your immune system into thinking they are you. They carry the important markers your own cells carry and can multiply by stamping the new cells with your genetic identifiers. You have to really be paying attention or get lucky to detect this killer early enough to arrest the damage it has been tasked to deliver.

That is what my grief was: a human-sized cancer that had seventeen years to grow undetected before I was capable of looking at it.

I had been living in this body, taking advantage of its ability to serve the desires of my mind. The only inkling that this flesh was tethered to my emotions was in the way I protected myself physically from intimacy. I was not a touchy-feely person. Emotionally, I was angry and defensive, and this paralleled the way I related to the world. I held everyone away with a fierce determination and was easily angered by any attempts to get close to me. I avoided eye contact because I was afraid of being seen. Yet I longed for connection.

When I began practicing, the Toronto yoga community was in its infancy. There may have been half a dozen studios at most, spread across a city of more than two and a half million. Although the prompt of the poster in my workplace had led me to the studio, getting there was a struggle against my insecurities. Desperate to pull myself out of complacency, I nervously edged into class on a cold March morning. It was, to this day, the best decision I ever made.

I knew so little about the practice that when I showed up the day before to inquire about what kind of shoes I needed (ha!), I ignorantly burst into the studio during savasana—the final resting meditation—despite having to walk past, and over, the students who lined the hallway waiting for the next session. When I did arrive for my first class, I wore bike shorts underneath a pair of old boxers, and a baggy T-shirt. Yoga clothes were not a thing in 1999, and if you wanted to purchase a yoga mat, your options were limited to what your studio carried. You can buy those same sticky mats now in the dollar store, but then they were a sixty-dollar investment.

From that first session, I immediately started attending classes three days a week. Within a month, I was walking to the studio with my mat under my arm almost daily. I spoke to everyone I knew about how great it made me feel and rapidly began making lifestyle changes to support my commitment to this newfound wellness.

I had been a dedicated lover of cigarettes for a decade, and through the experience of renewed circulation in my body, I quit the habit for good four months after I found my breath. I left the café in search of work that would offer more personal fulfillment while not interfering with my daily yoga routine. I eventually landed a job managing a health clinic, which better aligned with the person I was becoming. Yoga became a lifestyle, not just something I did for exercise.

Yoga tricked my mind into embodiment, and if I had known this would happen, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to embark upon the journey. To put it far too simply, yoga allowed me to view my grief as it surfaced, with objectivity. I began to see the pain as eroding ruins from my youth rather than a present threat, and so I could respond without reliving any of the sadness, at least initially. Prior to yoga, I had allowed myself to be the victim of my emotional pain. I wore it like a badge, desperate for someone to acknowledge that I was hurting. I was enveloped in trauma’s expansive grasp over the child in me that couldn’t grow up emotionally because I didn’t have the awareness, let alone the tools, of empowerment.

The first cut of my metaphorical dissection blade came through the breath. It was like smoking my first cigarette: when I inhaled with intention, the assault of oxygen on my cells immediately made me dizzy, and I had to find a way to both push through and respect my physiology that threatened syncope—fainting.

It was also like a love affair, not that I had a lot of experience with love affairs, but I had never felt so vibrant. Yoga was a reunion with my body. It mirrored the years I spent running away on the bike trails while feeling the burn of my muscles. Yoga also assisted my blood’s slow flow and rewarded me with energy. It even lifted my mood. Of course, I knew none of this on a cerebral level at the time, but I was certainly aware of positive changes taking place.

As I dug deeper into the body through mobility, I discovered a link between my physical and emotional development. There were parts of my body that, at first, would not bend in the manner I wanted or needed them to. I noticed that, as repetition softened the ways my frame responded, I was becoming less emotionally reactive.

I have always been described as a strong person. I habitually demonstrated my strength through rigid boundaries I defended mightily, but inwardly I felt weak and out of control while exercising these boundaries.

The asana practice refined my emotional strength by first training my muscles toward a combined sturdiness and plasticity. The softness killed the anger, replacing it with a more genuine strength. The earned control over my limbs that could be contorted into shapes some considered acrobatic was empowering. It gave me a sense of autonomy I had never experienced. For the first time, I was shaping myself rather than bending into what I thought others wanted or needed me to be.

Then still unaware of the metaphorical cancer inside me, I now see how the first few years of my practice halted the development of my emotional disease. Yoga gave me space. As with most beginners, everything seemed backwards when I was upside down, and deciphering right from left was a challenge. This is the brilliance of yoga: it distracts the mind with the details of the body. Forced to investigate a sensation or movement within the confines of a few breaths was all-consuming, and it confused me into complete presence in the moment. Yoga was structured stimulation for my brain, a learning that was derived fully from my body, the place I had been completely cut off from.

While yoga worked quietly connecting me to my body, making me feel happy and whole, there were subtle hints that my flesh was preparing to release deeper emotional secrets.

Tapas, derived from the root Sanskrit verb tap, refers to the friction created through the passion of practice. Tapas is described as heat, intensity, agitation; it is an unpleasant emotional state that challenges discipline. It may include a bubbling of rage that can be cooled through emotional release, but most practitioners abandon the practice once this difficult reality is revealed.  

Tapas was an emotional heavyweight when I encountered it nearly two years into my practice. For someone who excelled in emotional avoidance, I had truly met my match. There is a passage in The Principal Upanishads, one of yoga’s philosophical texts, that reads, “Everyone sees his sport, but himself, no one ever sees. One should not wake the sleeping person suddenly.”

When I applied the philosophy to my own experience, I could not deny there were significant parts of me slumbering deep within. I was terrified of what rousing the sleepwalker—me—would reveal. Yoga offered me a subtle awakening. Tapas crept in slowly enough that I could still close my eyes and slip back into the dreams of sleep, knowing I would soon have to get out of bed and get on with the day.

It began as a thick heaviness somewhere deep inside, causing me to struggle to get through an entire session. It felt like physical exhaustion but had an emotional component I couldn’t quite grasp.

Ashtanga yoga is typically described as fast-paced and athletic. The sequences are challenging and disciplined, rich in tapas. Practitioners are not permitted to skip postures or modify the pace. While there is no formal instruction when Ashtangis come together in the studio during an open session, an instructor is present to offer hands-on adjustments and tips for deepening. Everyone in the room moves at their own pace, and we all benefit from the collective flow of energy.

As tapas began to rise for me, I had difficulty getting myself through the independent series of postures. I would arrive at the studio with a bounce in my step, optimistic that today would be a good one. As the audible whisper of my ujjai (victorious) breath swept through my body, the movements that had become effortless from thousands of repetitions on this mat, in this room, reached deep into my soul, extracting something so heavy it paralyzed my limbs. The sensation would flood my body, sapping it of the optimism that carried me to the studio that morning, forcing me to roll up my mat and walk out feeling defeated yet again.

Embodying anger was easy. It was a well-practiced emotion that had been with me since forever. Anger was familiar and felt productive. Exploring this other thing brought me too much fear and resistance, in absence of an anchor to keep me grounded. My anger was an internal vibration that could find release through a dirty look, a hand gesture or an inaudible profanity. Anger could easily slip out at any time. But this other thing was more constrictive, heavy. Like something wrapped around my chest taking away my ability to breathe. On my yoga mat the movement of my body and deepening breath would cause the sensation to rise and catch in my throat, choking me. It couldn’t escape on its own—I wouldn’t allow it. It felt like it needed to be pried out through a dramatic, forceful labor. I knew it would be loud and messy and I couldn’t permit that kind of display in front of my peers in the studio, let alone myself. Holding down both the rise and threatening release became a daily struggle. I’d satiate my ego by walking away so everything internal could settle, only to be stirred again the very next morning.

I decided to attend led classes, hoping the support of a group flow would provide me with enough mental distraction to get through. It didn’t. I found myself quickly irritated with the pace of the instructions, the other students in the class, the temperature of the room. I found every reason outside of myself to pin the discomfort on. I walked out of classes regularly, and although I was laying blame externally, I knew the source of the discomfort was inside of me. I had experienced this before. When I was twelve, I enrolled in gymnastics classes that were a forty-minute bus ride from my house. I was invigorated by the ways in which my body could tumble and fly through the air by its own volition. After a few classes it became harder and harder to get there, but I couldn’t say why. I thought maybe it was the commute, and the fact that I was the only kid in class who didn’t have a parent waiting outside. I’d spend the day instead on the couch disappointed in myself, yet completely unmotivated to do anything. Upon hearing I didn’t go to class (again), my mother would turn to walk away, releasing an audible exhale of disapproval. I couldn’t explain it to either of us, even if she had asked. I eventually gave up on gymnastics because that was easier than facing the emotion of moving my body or managing the feeling of shame I endured for not going.

I was afraid I was going to lose my connection with yoga, and it scared me. I wanted desperately to walk away from it but held on with a determination that equaled the strength of my avoidance. Despite my aversion to the challenges arising, I suspected that the existence of a deeper intelligence was what continued to urge me forward. Without any promise or evidence, some greater force had me believing there was freedom waiting for me on the other side of the struggle.

As it became all but impossible to move my body while I was deep in the process of intangible emotion, I responded by transferring my frustration toward learning the palpable aspects of yoga through anatomy. I instinctively knew that moving my body was responsible for unleashing the unrest that had been somehow stored in my cells, and the only concrete response I had was to study that aspect.

I would eventually meet my dissection mentor, Gil Hedley, who could so eloquently articulate exactly what I was grasping for in my attempts to bridge the physical with the emotional. This is one of probably hundreds of thoughts he has shared on Facebook. For me, it says it all:

What does “anatomy” have to do with “spirituality”? For those of us who believe that matter, and sensation, are spiritual phenomena, the exploration of anatomy opens our field of experience wider for conscious embodiment. Our anatomy isn’t something “other” for us to “know” as a being set apart from it. Our living physical form is one of the several dimensions which are within our spiritual capacity to self-express and manifest. The challenges of any specific body are invitations to character development. The refinements of character which arise through facing those challenges are the heavenly treasures which accrue to spirit exploring through physical form. We share an incredible privilege in doing so.

Of course, the muscles and bones themselves had no immediate answer for my esoteric inquiry, but they provided a reasonable diversion from the tides of emotion. The study was also a means for me to connect with my dad and get to know him through an interest I thought we may have shared. He was an x-ray technician, a lover of images and using light to expose what lies beneath.

I dove headfirst into a two-year yoga-teacher training at my studio, where we strengthened the asana practice through yoga philosophy and history. Intellectualizing the practice grounded me in the solid matter of reason. Despite the emotional resistance to moving my body during those days, I continued to show up and try. Most of the time I made it a quarter or halfway through before rolling up my mat to leave.

As the tides of defeat continued to roll in, I began observing the bodies around me in the studio, developing a keen interest in searching for the surface anatomy that was so well-defined on the other yogis in the room. Then, as part of my teacher training, I began assisting in classes: placing my hands on the structure I was studying. This offered a window into intimacy for me. I had been receiving touch via physical adjustments in my own practice, and now I was offering it to others. Immediately I gained confidence in touch as my hands directed my peers deeper into practice—and I was good at it. The control of intimacy was in my hands. I approached every body with complete awareness of breath and response. I could feel both the acceptance and resistance to my touch and responded accordingly. Students began requesting my adjustments in classes, which energized me toward further anatomical study that kept my practice close, while maintaining sufficient space for the tapas to reduce itself to a low simmer.

Encouraged by my peers, I took some training courses and learned how to perform a few Thai massage sequences. This stitched together my fascination with movement and anatomy, while teaching me about physical intimacy. I began a private thai massage practice out of my apartment. With a few clients each week, my curiosity around intimacy, anatomy and healing began to take flight.  

Journal Entry:

Practice is not about improving my asana. It’s about seeing who I am and grasping an opportunity to explore my tendencies, emotions and reactions. When I was a child, my parents navigated life and relationship for me; I learned these things for myself first by mimicking them. Without knowledge or intention, I became a mini-version of my role models.

The beginning breather knows only the inhale and the exhale. A practiced breather learns to explore the spaces in between. I begin each day as a beginner in this realm, and as I unlock the space between, I open up the potential for calm action. Just as an exhale is the response to an inhale, I can easily move through life on autopilot.

My asana practice gives me the experience of space. With space, I can choose when the next breath comes. In the space, I enjoy the bliss of presence and witness. I don’t have to live in a reactionary way. I am training to be the observer first, rather than having my reactiveness tell me, without process, how I feel. In this, I am seeing the opportunity to change the patterning of my family. To rewire the emotional tools I have been given and have them better reflect who I am becoming. I am not done. I will never be done becoming.

The best way to connect to the experienced breather is to begin each day by moving my breath.

With practice, my chances for success are better.

If I had known that, through yoga, I would be launched into an emotional healing journey of past trauma, I would not have been willing to do it. Because I could not anticipate what might arise on an emotional level, I had a lot of anxiety around healing. Traditional therapy was not an option for me. I suffered greatly from what psychologists call transference, and allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of another person was a risk I could not take. I attached myself to anyone who would show me the slightest bit of empathy or care, which would inevitably overwhelm them into ghosting me. It made me vulnerable to rejection and abandonment—something I already knew the pain of and had to protect myself from at all costs.

This emotional dissection was one I would have to take in stages, with space to acclimatize and process. Fortunately for me, yoga gave me the tools I needed to endure the uncertainty of what healing would entail. The process was slow enough that I was able to find a way to step back, observe, digest and act upon the revelations as my body released them. To be clear, yoga neither healed nor saved me. It provided me with recognizable tools and the insight needed to apply them. I had to do the heavy work. I had to show up each day and roll out my mat. I had to fight against the heaviness and resistance within me. I had to feel the shit as it bubbled, and keep going anyway.

Despite the unconscious knowledge that there was no separation between the physical and the emotional, I wrapped myself in the safety of my intellect and forged on with my inquiries surrounding the physical body.

The universal language of anatomy is academic, emotionless. Derived from Ancient Greek and Latin, it is a scientific language that is absolute in its use of referencing the body, leaving no room for interpretation. Familiarizing myself with the arcane terminology provided distance between the disquiet of my grief and the fear of feeling, and gave my life new direction and purpose. I would be relieved to learn—decades later—that my prickly personality was not my true nature but an artifact of my grief.