It’s been a long time since I’ve practiced yoga. As hard as I try and as much as I love Peleton yoga with Ross Rayburn and Aditi Shah, I can’t get myself into a regular rhythm with yoga. As it turns out, the greatest success I’ve had with developing a regular yoga habit has been in treatment.
Many of the treatment centers I’ve been in have offered yoga, and I’ve obsessively picked up the habit like the addict I am. My problem has always been continuing my good habit.
It’s hard to keep it up. Yes, it’s mostly a matter of self-discipline – I could easily access any of the unlimited videos on YouTube and practice with those. But for an ADD-riddled, recovering perfectionist obsessed with making sure I’m “doing it right,” this plan holds many flaws.
The structure of a regularly scheduled class, with an instructor there to realign me if I’m going astray is much more my style.
The best opportunity I had to integrate yoga into my recovery and my life was in Boston. I was in this amazing IOP, shoutout to Woburn Wellness, and they were connected to this yoga teacher/spiritual gangster/goddess named Renee. She’d come lead us in meditation some days and others, she’d arranged it so we could visit the studio where she taught. We’d file into the cavernous space filled with the smell of Eucalyptus, spreading out with props and settling into the practice like real yogis. I loved it.
I filled in the days Renee wasn’t on the IOP schedule with class passes for any nearby yoga class I could make. I fell in love with yoga. It helped my recovery. When I kept it up.
It’s no surprise that by the time I’d moved to Pennsylvania, my yoga habit was long gone. Even though we had a dedicated studio in the gym in our apartment building-- one with access to endless yoga courses to stream, I still didn’t pick it back up.
When I entered Mirmont Treatment center in the Fall of 2020, yoga was the last thing on my radar. I was barely able to walk around the detox wing when I arrived. Obviously nurturing my body was low on my priority list.
Slowly though, I started to regain my physical functionality. I was able to walk around and join the general patient population, which is when I saw Diane practicing yoga in Mirmont’s Meditation Hall.
Diane, a certified yoga teacher, ended up becoming my roommate in Mirmont. She has since become an amazing friend.
When I met Diane, I was super intimidated by her poise, her yoga bod and her perfect form. She welcomed me to practice with her and patiently, expertly, guided my still-recovering body.
Yoga hadn’t felt that good since I’d worked with Renee.
We kept our yoga mats and foam roller in our room and when Diane saw me stretching or trying to work something out, she would help me, realigning my posture or suggesting certain stretches. She told me all about her training and demystified the process of becoming a certified yoga teacher by answering my millions of questions about it. Diane took this position I’d always seen as some impossible goal and made it seem attainable. She told me becoming a yoga teacher was not only something I could do, but that I should do. And I believed her.
I loved the idea of teaching people in recovery, of becoming a yoga teacher myself so that I could offer classes for people just out of treatment, looking to maintain their good habit. I saw it not only as a chance to help ensure the continuation of my own yoga practice, but as an opportunity to help others. I stored the idea away for later, first, I had to get sober.
After some 30+ days in Mirmont I emerged sober as a new woman. For the first time in my long struggle with alcoholism, I was open and willing, which meant approaching my sobriety in ways I’d never done before. For example, I didn’t rush out of treatment and back to a job. I’d quit my job the day I entered treatment and had promised myself I wouldn’t even think about working until I completed 90 recovery meetings in 90 days, a suggested course of action for anyone leaving treatment and looking to stay sober.
In the midst of my life overhaul, I finally had the time and the space to think about my life and myself beyond a 9-5. I kept thinking about yoga. Maybe I really could teach it. I started some research.
The number of online YTT (yoga teacher training) courses is notable. There are so many different kinds and options, the already intimidating process quickly became overwhelming. It also happens to be prohibitively expensive. Or at least it was for me at the time.
When I got out of treatment I was broke. Stretching out my final paycheck from the aforementioned job, my parents were helping me make my Cobra payments. There was no way I could afford the thousands of dollars most YTT programs cost.
But fate stepped in in the form of a Mirmont IOP counselor named Sue. An delightful and ridiculously caring soul, Sue genuinely loved her patients. Sue was invested in us, and that didn’t’ end when our sessions did.
A few weeks into IOP, Sue brought in a resources list for group. It was a two-sided list with grant and scholarships to support people in recovery. That resource list led me to a non-profit that has provided life-changing access to trauma therapy for me (One that deserves a blog post all its own.) It also sent me down an internet searching path I’m forever grateful for.
Sue’s resources opened my eyes to the number of opportunities there really were for people in recovery. With that in mind, I set out to see if there were any scholarships that helped ease the cost burden of Yoga Teacher Training. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were many.
Even more exciting, there was one available for a program I really wanted to enroll in.
I’d found Sacred Paths in my initial research for Online YTT Programs, but hadn’t originally noticed the scholarship application on their site. I’d been drawn to their high-quality web design, and it allowed me to devour all the information about their principals, beliefs and training practices. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn from them. Their site wasn’t just beautifully designed and easy to navigate, it clearly conveyed a philosophy of teaching, a commitment to the practice and a spiritual grounding that I had to tap into.
The Sacred Paths scholarship application asked meaningful questions that helped me crystalize my objectives for the training. Since applying and being accepted into Sacred Path’s YTT, I’ve encountered the sources of all the awesome vibes I was picking up from their website: co-founders Lacey and Darin Lehman. For anyone considering YTT, I strongly recommend Sacred Paths. I actually have a girlfriend I got sober with who is currently undergoing YTT with sacred Paths in Costa Rica… did I mention they do both online and in-person retreats all over the world?
I began my YTT online in November of 2020. Sacred Paths went above and beyond setting students up for success, providing a detailed course calendar, extensive resources and even a spiritual advisor who I could reach out to for guidance. Mine happened to be Lacey. This amazing, patient, kind woman has been a bright start in my yoga journey, even as (spoiler alert) I struggled to complete my course.
If I’d followed the beautifully, intentionally designed course scheduled, I would have completed my training in December of 2020.
That did not happen.
The unraveling of my planned course completion started innocently enough. I’d miss a session because I forgot one day, have a conflict with a doctor’s appointment the next. Thanks to the excellent course structure of Sacred Paths, it was easy for me to replay a missed class and catch back up relatively quickly.
Then, life got in the way. I got steam rolled by some non-COVID illness that floored me through Christmas, which happened to be my 90-day mark. Soon after life got really busy. I started my new job. I couldn’t make any of the scheduled check-ins anymore and I struggled to make up the sessions after a full day of work.
Embarrassed to be so far behind in my YTT, I got slowly overwhelmed with independently maintaining a schedule. I fell further and further behind. I thought a lot about giving up, telling myself there’s no shame in going easy on myself and admitting I lacked the self-discipline to complete my course. In my head I’d written all sorts of blogs about quitting. But despite barely ever practicing yoga anymore, I refused to quit, holding out for some miracle that would give me the time and discipline I needed to wrap up my training.
Well, that miracle is here! In the luckiest turn of events ever, I have a surprise two weeks off for winter vacation!
Here is the time I need to hunker down and get back on track with my YTT. This is my chance!
My access to Sacred Paths’ course was supposed to expire after a year passed, but thankfully they’re amazing and extended my access. Sharing encouragement and enthusiasm for my finishing the program, Lacy was gracious as ever in taking care of me. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at my dream to become a yoga instructor, and I don’t want to waste it!
When I first started by YTT I had intended to extensively document and share my journey. I’d even considered starting a little blog, but being no where near the point where I could launch my website, I tried instead to just provide regular updates through lengthily captioned photos on my Instagram account. Like everything else about my YTT, I started off strong and puttered out.
When this website became more of a reality, I built out a special yoga page, hoping its presence would give me the motivation to start sharing my yoga journey again. It’s been there as a “work in progress” page for eight months, but today is its day! As I restart my YTT I’m finally posting the first in what I hope will become a series of Yoga diaries: a record of my YTT restart. A safe space to share my process and hopefully my progress!
More to come!