I had always been intrigued by yoga since my dad and I burst into what looked like an empty dark room then we went to collect my mum from her yoga class. They were in savasana (final relaxation). I must have been about 8 years old. 

 

I went to my first yoga class in about 2001, I loved it and could feel something shifting in each class. I was very lost at the time having lost my sister to cancer and both my mum and nan to suicide during 1998 - 2000.

 

I had also suffered from depression myself, from around 1991, and was in and out of it for years. Being bereaved so tragically, three times over, in such a short space of time was very traumatic for me. Yet with a small support network of good people and only one way to go I began to make some small changes. You can read more about my journey in my blog 'My Journey from Mental Health to Mental Wealth' here

 

From 2001 I began to dabble in yoga and meditation. I read a few self help books including 'The Power of Now' by Ekhart Tolle and 'Awareness' by Anthony DeMellow (way before The Power of Now was an international best seller - I just picked both books up off the Waterstones shelf blindly). I changed my diet and started to live a little healthier. I began to do worthwhile things and went back to college and then onto university to study photography.

 

I then went on to travel the world and discovered India. It was there during a 5 month trip, in 2010, that I stayed for a few weeks at Sivanada Ashram in Kerala, and immersed myself in the teachings of yoga. On the same trip I did a 10 day silent Vipassana Meditation Retreat (and subsequently did another 3 over the years! Very tough yet insightful).

 

I continued to dabble for a few years and had just got a regular practice going in 2014 when my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It only was after his death that I realised how much the yoga had given me the strength to deal with his illness. I was back at the Sivananda Ashram in Kerala doing my 200 hour teacher training within 4 months of his passing. I had gone there, not with any desire to teach but, to heal myself. However, after the experience of such intense training, and realising the true healing power of yoga, I felt a profound desire to help others by sharing the teachings I had learned. 

 

I began to teach a community class in March 2017 at The Florrie in Dingle Liverpool, where I still teach now, and doing some chair yoga with Helen, who’s dog I walked at the time for the charity The Cinnamon Trust. It was only early in 2020 that I began to take on more classes, just before we went into lockdown.

 

During lockdown I took to Zoom and taught 4 times a week. It was during this time that I had a 'lockdown epiphany' and decided to leave my p/t admin job to pursue yoga teaching, and I opened up my online yoga eye pillow shop. One of the best decisions I have ever made.

 

I have known what it feels like to struggle and I have not to let my past traumas define me, however, ironically, without them I would not be doing this work now. Through a lot of work on my self, now in my 50s, I feel healthier and happier than I have ever been in my whole life. That is something that I never ever thought would be attainable for me and I am so grateful for it. I also feel so blessed to now be a yoga teacher and trainee yoga therapist; to bring a sense of calm and balance even to just one other human being is such a humbling experience, what ever their situation may be.

 

Teaching yoga is by far the most rewarding and positive thing I have ever done in my life; by helping others to find a bit of peace spreads a little light in an often dark world. 

 

Let us be kind to each other and love each other. We can’t change others actions but we can change our own actions and our reaction to others.

 

All of the answers are within.