By Sheila Terra
Yoga is gentle and safe. It is a space where hurts melt away like an exhale. It is one movement then the next. During yoga there is nothing but the pose and breath (and sometimes there are Siamese cats pawing for attention and using my mat to sharpen their claws).
I was 19 and working at a summer camp in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec. I discovered this rad little college in Montreal and decided to move and pursue a certificate as a “natural health consultant”. This college seemed like the perfect fit for me. Simultaneously ballsy and scared shitless I moved to Montreal.
During my first year, one of my electives was beginner yoga. I was young but my body felt like an old boulder. Immovable. I am rather bendy now, but at 19 my body felt locked, paralyzed. I couldn’t do what the teacher instructed. The other people in the class had bodies that resembled long thin lines. They were fluid, beautiful. I wanted to be like them. I felt beyond inadequate. Everyone else could easily manage the stretches. I was incapable. I was inferior. My body inferior. I was horribly wrong. That’s what it felt like . I excused myself quietly and found an empty room in the college. The tears fell. Then heaved. My body released snot like some sort of exorcism. I tried to be quiet. My presence was noted. Two teachers came and knelt beside me. One waved a rescue remedy under my nose. I couldn’t talk to them or explain what happened. I cried. I was too afraid to go back to that class and received a failing grade.
In my second year attending The Institute of New Health Consultants, I rented a basement room from a woman named Ingrid. She lived in Westmount and made her income from renting rooms in her home. She taught ashtanga yoga a few times a week and did massage as well. She had a great lifestyle and she inspired me greatly. I was attending school part time and working as a nanny. I was taking classes in Jungian Dream Interpretation, aromatherapy, herbology, nutrition. I learned the basics of shiatsu massage. I took so many workshops in DIY bliss. I loved it so much . Living solo in a new city, I was resourceful and fiercely independent. I learned more about yoga. I tried classes again and loved it. I learned about the Kripalu Center where Ingrid received some of her training and I wanted to visit so badly.
I was 21 when I moved out of Ingrid’s. We did not keep in touch. I think some bridges were burnt. I was embarking on big adventures but bulimia was also settling in after losing 70 pounds. I went to England to work as a full time live-in nanny. My intention was to work around the UK and never return to Canada.
Returning to Winnipeg 3 months into my English getaway was devastating. The eating disorder - I.e. my responses to food and myself - had created havoc. I was back in thePeg. Resentful as hell. Sick as hell.
In my early 20s, who knows when.... I did a yoga class in this cramped underground basement space in Osborne village. I really liked the teacher. She mentioned they were moving to a bigger building on Grosvenor. I followed.
I was doing yoga off and on during frequent moves, a five minute marriage, repeated and unsuccessful eating disorder treatment, a university degree and a reluctant career in social work. The Kripalu classes at Yoga Center Wpg were always a fave. A few years would go by. I would go to another Kripalu class. I always wanted to return to Shauna’s classes. Two years ago I became newly dedicated to yoga thru the Down Dog app which I had also been using off and on for years. The ability to do yoga privately on my schedule, at my pace was really perfect.
Yoga was never done out of hate. There is no room for hate on the yoga mat. My relationship with my self has often felt anchored in hate. My perspective has changed and I see now that my relationship with myself has been rooted in protection and survival. Yoga always felt like an act of compassion. That’s what yoga is - compassion for self and others. I can be nice to myself on the mat, present and patient. Yoga is glory and kindness and potential and acceptance in one. I feel like I am dancing when I move thru my regular practice. Yoga feels like home.
When I walked into my first night of YTT, I felt anxious. I was worried about my body being “ inadequate” like it was when I did my first yoga class 20 years earlier. But as always, when I walk thru the Grosvenor studio doors I feel a sense of relief. I feel welcomed and accepted. The first night of YTT I learned that if there are 15 students in a room, there will be 15 different down dogs. And that is OK! How liberating and loving. We are all ok. As we are. How radical. How perfect.
I was introduced to yoga at 20. Now at 40, I feel I am circling back to what I was learning at Ingrid’s. Winnipeg can be a badly patched pot hole of past pain. I have heard it said “you can’t heal where you were broken”. But maybe I can? Maybe I can do whatever the fuck I want .... like when I was 19 and decided to move to a new city on a whim. When I was in Montreal I was pursuing exactly what my soul wanted. The eating disorder took the wheel and I lost so much. I eventually chose academia in Winnipeg. In 2011, I graduated with a degree in world religion and human rights. I didn’t want social work but I spoke the language of crisis so well - so I ended up in the social work field. I am now “responsible” for the city’s most vulnerable. I am who the emergency room nurses and homeless shelters call. They ask me, “why aren’t you helping them?“. It’s complicated and it is not my personal or professional responsibility to save people. However, it can be extremely overwhelming especially while still struggling with food restriction and binge eating.
Yoga is self compassion. It is a gift to myself and I want to surround myself with more gifts. I want to share this with others. I adore YTT. I day dream of leaving my permanent pandemic proof unionized soul sucking government gig. I day dream of driving to Massechusts and getting more training at the Kripalu Centre. I have wanted to go there for over 20 years! I day dream of going to Northern Thailand and learning massage therapy.
Yoga is reuniting with body & spirit after trying to excommunicate my body. Yoga is balance and falling over and getting back up. I have a tattoo on my forearm, a quote from American poet Charles Bukowski : “drink from the well of yourself and begin again”. Sometimes there is enormous grief in beginning again. Lost time, lost relationships, lost opportunities but what life has not experienced loss? I am not alone. My grief can feel like an anchor but I am lighter after being on my yoga mat. I am kinder to myself after a yoga class, my mind slows down and says gentle things. Yoga brings me back to my authentic self. The part that makes decisions out of love, not punishment. My first yoga class was a tsunami of sadness. The fact that after 20 years I keep returning to the mat proves that my inner compass is pointing me towards love. Yoga is one of my most profound experiences of love. That is where I truly belong. On my mat, in the presence of love.
My 41st birthday is around the corner. The week after my birthday, I begin a new 2 month program to address the disordered eating habits. I know it’s not really about food. I know there are tunnels of darkness I am still navigating. Yoga brings me back to love when I get lost in old patterns. I cannot hate myself well. I will have to love myself into the light and yoga is making that possible.
