I was out to dinner one evening 20+ years ago with my then husband and some friends. One friend repped for an expensive shoe manufacturer and loved to boast about her friendship with Ralph Lauren. As we entered the restaurant filled with beautiful people, she looked down at a stranger walking in ahead of us and literally sneered at her shoes. We were seated at a table reserved for 14. She ordered the appetizers -- caviar, oysters, martinis, bottles of wine, and more. Hundreds of dollars spent before we ordered dinner. At some point, she and the other women visited the restroom. I declined, not knowing why they were all going together. On one hand, I didn't resonate at all with this group that came through my marriage, and on the other hand, I felt somewhat cool to be a part of it. In some way, I felt back then like I arrived, and in another way, it felt like a pathetic, empty life; that choosing this life was a very bad choice. It turned out the women went to snort cocaine. This was a snapshot of my life. 

I lived in a 5-story loft in the River North area of Chicago, right across the street from the poshest gym in town where Oprah Winfrey used to go, and my job choices were based on their lucrative potential. I remember trying to find meaning in them, and I did. In hindsight, I realize that was one of my assets (to find meaning in just about anything). But the people I was surrounded by only nagged at this feeling I had that this wasn't the life I was meant to live. I had a child and I wanted more for her. And myself. But she woke me to an urgency I couldn't tap into just for me. 

Working out avidly was my jam. It kept me sane. I stair-stepped and ran the anxiety right out of me, and I had to do enough of it all the time to make the feeling last. My body was my control. Therapy was my affirmation. 

I was working hard to keep my body in shape and my mind sane to shake off my life and affirm its perfection. I hated it. 

My sister called me up one day to say she's trying out yoga with a friend and asked me if I wanted to join them. I heard about yoga, so why not? At that time, yoga was NOT on every corner, and the yoga that was available still had some spirituality woven into it. While I didn't know I was looking for spirituality, it roped me in. The teacher opened me up with questions for my soul to answer, and I felt for the first time I was on a real path. 

My desperation for purpose was my prodding to pay attention and to become a proactive student. I found books, practices, and mentors. One book literally fell off a top shelf at a bookstore and hit me on the head, and it all felt like that. Two kinds souls gave up their seats in a crowded cafe, and one of them turned out to be a whole foods chef who ended up teaching me how to cook healing meals for my family. An Ayurvedic chef popped up when I was ready to move to another modality. Both infused breath, reverence, intention, and connection to nature into their teachings.

All these tools helped me get through the most trying time of my life when my marriage fell apart and we lost our revenue streams, home and business. By then, I was a full-time mom with two small kids ages 5 and 1. I applied what I was learning all day, every day, and they GOT ME THROUGH.

I was encouraged to delve deeper, and I paid close attention to how these tools served my life and those around me. 

I had a deep experience going to a kirtan at my first yoga studio, and Dave Stringer, the lead kirtan artist, just blew me away. My doctor taught me how to breathe. As I looked to dive deeper into these tools, I met a kundalini yoga teacher at my church. While not a fan of religion, I wanted a spiritual community for my kids. I volunteered on their Welcoming Committee. I asked the father of a new family about his weekend, and he shared how wonderful it was, how his Saturdays started at 4:30 in the morning, and he described the chanting and the yoga. This is how I found Kundalini Yoga.

Russell Brand, on his experience with Kundalini, said, “Kundalini Yoga is the crack cocaine of yoga. If Hatha is a mild weed high, Iyengar is a deep hash glow, and ashtanga is amphetamine, Kundalini blows the *ucking doors off.”

He's right.  

My life is not perfect, but I no longer pretend that it is. I take ownership over the quality of my life, and it's more honest than it's ever been. I take more risks. I'm less afraid of judgment. I catch myself faster when I judge. I feel better in my own skin, and I can say that I do in fact love my life. 

In 2007, I was a newlywed and one year out of graduate school, and while I “should” have been happy, I was overwhelmed and saturated with stress. I had developed chronic neck pain while in graduate school that I had resigned myself to live with for the rest of my life since I found no relief with any of the treatment modalities I had tried. I was in a career that I thought I always wanted, but felt stuck, uncertain, and insecure about how to move forward. And then I had a breakdown at work. I felt like a sponge that had taken in so much trauma and misery that I was oozing and unable to take in anymore. I wanted to serve the kids I worked with to the best of my ability, but I wasn’t even serving myself. I felt broken. I felt like I had to do all the hard things to be of service. I felt like I always had to be busy, moving, taking on new responsibilities in order to be worthy. I was running on diet coke & cheeseburger fumes. 

As a young person, I felt a spiritual connection to something beyond me and found solace in prayer. My prayers were filled with gratitude and requests for help. As a nervous kid who always had a bottle of Mylanta in my backpack (incredibly, I would take swigs out of it before my track meets to soothe my burning stomach), prayer enveloped me in peace and a feeling that all would be okay. At that time, my spirituality came in the form of Catholicism, but as I became an adult and realized that I could have spirituality without religion, I separated myself from the faith which was no longer in alignment with my beliefs. Alas, I no longer had a spiritual home and I began to wander. 

And as I wandered, anxiety, stress, fear and insecurity grew. I felt disconnected and angry. Relationships were often on the surface. I felt like no one understood all of the ugliness I saw, but I also didn’t want to talk about it. My sense of humor was my salvation, but even it started to have an edge. As a social worker, I worked with children who suffered horrific trauma, who no longer wanted to live, who lashed out in pain and anger; and I visited prisons filled with women who often had similar childhoods and whose children were at risk of following in their footsteps.  This work made me so angry at our society and at people. I lacked the tools to manage how I was feeling and it began to poison me. 

Thank goddess (yes, goddess) for breakdowns. The breakdown led me toward the path that I had been seeking, the path back to myself. My soul brought me to my first kundalini yoga class and knew we found our home. I began to learn how to breathe, really breathe. Through breath and movement, my body and mind began to slowly unravel and release the tension I was holding. My neck pain disappeared. I added mantra and relaxation and committed myself to daily practice, and my digestion improved, the harsh edges of my personality began to soften and I began to understand how stress was affecting my body. In class and in my practice, I cried and allowed myself to go deep within to explore and heal. Over time, I traded my diet cokes for hot water, my cheeseburgers for veggie burgers and allowed my guard to come down so that I could find true and deep connections with others. 

But the onion has many layers and I continue to use these tools to work on myself. I am called to be of service to others, but I know that to do this I need to serve myself. I have to remind myself to slow down, to relax, to listen and to breathe deeply. I try to balance my serious face with my sense of humor and I challenge myself to be vulnerable even when (especially when) doing so scares me to the point of nausea. But my faith is strong and I trust that I am being held in grace. Through this, I feel immensely grateful for all of my experiences and connections and what they have taught me.