In a way, I was trying to connect with people, but I was going about it in a way that was hurting me. I'm not sure if you know this, but alcohol is a depressant. So, if you're already depressed, it's probably not the best thing to turn to. Yes, it may have put a bandaid (a.k.a. blinders) on the problem temporarily, but in the long run, it actually made me feel worse. Then I started to notice that the nights we went out drinking were the nights that we were fighting. The fights got bigger and worse. I didn't hate him. I hated myself when I was with him. We had grown apart. When I finally realized it was only making things worse, I stopped drinking. Yes, I went back to it a few times, and still pick up a drink occasionally when they're especially creative, but quitting was one of the best decisions of my life. Yoga and running also helped with this decision, because I started to notice that when I drank, I couldn't practice or run as well or maybe even at all. When I stopped, I noticed that my practice became stronger. I became stronger.
As far as my busy-ness goes, making yourself busy is a good way to increase your blood pressure, cause eating disorders, and destroy any chance at inner peace. I was a good example of that, since I was at nearly 200 pounds and eating pretty much anything you put in front of me when I was at my worst. I was chronically exhausted, but I pushed myself to do more and sleep less. I didn't exercise. I lost my yoga practice. Ironically, while I was at work, I was searching for activities that would help me feel better, working with HR to develop a wellness program which included yoga, boot camp, dragon boating, and other ways to be active and connect with my coworkers. I was voicing complaints about my manager's style and questioning why I wasn't getting enough work to keep me busy, why the work I wanted to do was being given to someone else. One of my bosses even said something like this to a coworker, "Keep her busy, find something to keep her busy. When she's busy, she stops questioning everything." I was questioning the system, the organization, the corporation. But it wasn't them that was the problem. It was me. I didn't fit there. I didn't want to be there. I have a bigger purpose in my life than that. In February of this year, I left my engineering career. I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go, but I had enough money saved up that I could detox from that life for a couple of months before I had to worry about it.
Of course, in the midst of all of this was when I found my saving grace. As I was searching for something to help me feel, I started riding my bike. I signed up for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team-in-Training and completed two century rides with them. While training for the second century ride, I organized an ice cream social as a fundraiser for part of my team. Leah Lillios, the owner of Kali Yuga Yoga, walked into that ice cream social and changed my life forever. I was looking for a way to tame my stress and make myself feel better, and as we talked about the studio she was opening in East Nashville and how I was moving to East Nashville, I made the decision that I would try it. Oh, and we'll talk about the word try in a different post, but that's exactly what I did. I tried a class here and there and didn't really take it seriously. The last two years of my marriage, I immersed myself in my yoga practice, attending classes regularly, finding teachers who questioned me and pushed me to find myself and open up to who I really was. During this time, I was also seeing a therapist and an acupuncturist to help with the stress from work and my relationships and to deal with the feelings that were coming up. My therapist lead me to my energy healer, and all of these people worked with me and complimented each other in my healing.
At some point, my therapist recommended some type of physical activity, and my healer honed in on the running. Running was something I had done when I was younger when I needed to get away from my family, like when my sister and I had a fight and I needed to get that anger out of my system, I ran. When I started running again, it felt so natural. It felt peaceful and happy. Then, the runner's high kicked in, and the happiness really began. It became an addiction (a healthy one??), something I needed daily in order to feel good. At the same time I started running, I began my yoga teacher training. As part of my training, I had to attend at least five yoga classes every week in addition to the eight hours each week we were spending with our instructors. I was running before classes, and using the classes to stretch and cool down afterward. While I'm not sure I would recommend running before a hot yoga class, running before a restorative class was pretty fantastic.
Running and yoga turned out to be the things I could do for myself in order to heal and feel good. I don't need anyone else to do these for me or with me. If I'm diligent in my practice, I feel good all day, every day. The time in my life when I was doing both was when I really started to open up to all of the good that the universe had given and continues to give me every day. Once I started to open up and be a happier version of me thanks to the running and yoga, I met an amazing man who loves to run with me, who runs next to me, not in front of me, who supports me in everything I do, including my yoga. And I am so glad that he is sharing Run❤️Yoga❤️Love with me! He happens to be running the Ragnar this weekend with some of my amazing friends, and I will be at kundalini yoga level 1 training, but we have an amazing sub to help take you to the next level. Please bring your running shoes and mat to the ampitheater at Bicentennial Mall at 6:30 am and Run❤️Yoga❤️Love!
Much Love,
Emily Rose
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