I come from a background of trauma. Violence, addiction and dysfunction dominated my life throughout my childhood and adolescence. Although I eventually gained physical independence from my family of origin, the events of my childhood haunted me for years.
Growing up, I always knew that the environment in which I was raised was not normal. And I also knew that higher education would be my only way out. I put my nose to the proverbial grindstone and worked for years to put myself through two university degrees, eventually attaining my goal of becoming a criminal lawyer. It was a lot of work and a lot of stress with my familial dysfunction continuing in the background.
They say that the law is a jealous mistress. That most certainly is true. I am convinced that my passion for criminal law is born of my dysfunctional upbringing. Hell, my paternal grandfather was a bookie in the 1940s! I am well aware that but for the grace of g-d there go I. I could easily have found myself occupying a different role in the criminal justice system than I do today, be it as a victim or even as an accused person.
My work is stressful, demanding, challenging, engaging and, at times, rewarding. It exacts a personal and an emotional toll.
In the spring of 2014 my personal trauma and professional stresses collided with near disastrous results. I was prosecuting a very serious domestic violence case, one in which the victim (herself a victim of years and years of trauma and abuse at the hands of various partners) was brutally assaulted. While I lead her through her evidence, she described events which hit too close to home, Her evidence mirrored something I witnessed as a child. As she described having her nose viscously broken, the blood flowing down her face as though a bag of milk had broken, I experienced a flashback followed by a complete meltdown. I asked the judge for a break and fled to the bathroom, locked myself into a stall and sobbed uncontrollably.
This breakdown was the culmination of a myriad events which had unfolded over many years, perhaps over the course of my entire life. It turned out to me the wake-up call I desperately needed - to address the events of my past, to fine tune the balance of my personal and professional lives and to set a strong, healthy foundation for my future. In one of my all-time favourite quotes, Ernest Hemmingway once said, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places". It was time to restore and rebuild.
I truly believe that life sends us the people we need when we need them. I was at a continuing education event last summer where one of the speakers was renowned trauma specialist Deborah Sinclair. This woman literally wrote the book on domestic violence and, over time, has developed a counseling practice which addresses personal trauma as well as "vicarious trauma" in the professional realm. Deborah was there that day to speak to us - a group of Crow Attorneys - about vicarious trauma, the impact that constantly having to deal with other people's trauma has on our own lives. It was as though she was describing my life in her lecture - stress, depression, apathy, disconnection. Affecting all areas of my life.
I approached Deborah at the break and told her that she was describing my life to a "T". I knew that she had her counseling practice in Toronto and I asked her to meet with me. Our respective summer vacations intervened and we did not end up meeting until well into September. Working with Deborah saved my life. Not only did she help me put the traumatic events of my childhood into perspective, she taught me to LET IT GO. She helped me face the shame about my family which I had carried with me all my life. She supported me when I cut the toxic ties that perpetually held me captive in my family's clutches. And she introduced me to powerful, life changing concepts such as breath and meditation and the parasympathetic nervous system. Deborah's library of books is outstanding and she introduced me to Meghan Telpner and the importance of diet and nutrition in managing health and stress. The transformation had begun.....
At the sane time that I was working with Deborah, a girlfriend who lived in Keswick told me about a yoga studio near her home called Simplicity. She had completed her 30 day trial, had really enjoyed it and wanted to do more. I had practiced yoga on and off for about 14 years, all different types - Kundalini, Hatha, Ashtanga, yoga for runners - but had always eschewed yoga in favour of more intense, high impact aerobic activity and heavy weights. That was the way to lose weight and be thin, right?
I started attended classes at Simplicity in October, 2014. The more I attended, the more I wanted to attend. At first, the pull was the Guru, Jenn Pike, with her wealth of knowledge and her killer, super challenging, "am I going to make it off the mat?" yoga classes. Then I branched out and met the beautiful souls known as Sonia and Sandie whose bodies I could easily relate to and whose classes brought me to such a place of safety and comfort.
In February of this year I suddenly and unexpectedly lost a treasured soulmate. I spiraled once again into the depths of depression. Sonia's restorative yoga classes provided me with such a safe, comfortable, nurturing environment to complete fall apart and experience my grief. In so doing in the safety of her class, coping with the grief off the mat in the outside world became much more manageable.
In the past nine months I have amassed such a wealth of knowledge regarding my physical, mental and spiritual health and well-being. I am in awe of how much I have grown and at the relative balance I have achieved. (I am after all still a lawyer and a mother to two young children!) My diet, while still a work in progress, has been revolutionized. I delight in the physical poses my body can now attain, in the evolving changes to my body and in the differences between what I could do days or weeks or months ago and what I can do now. I am more closely attuned to my mind, body and spirit and what they NEED. I am more compassionate and understanding and less judgmental, particularly in relation to myself. I am healthier and more balance in every way.
You ask what yoga means to me... It means life. It means joy. It means health. It means balance. It means transformation.
Namaste.
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