Boundless Vessel

a memoir

Stumbling into my first yoga class, I had no idea what was in store for me. I knew one thing though: it felt like a new beginning. I was 22 years old and a bit of a mess. I had chronic low back pain, a scattered mind, and a lot of emotional stress. Yoga immediately administered aid. I loved the effects so much I went to class nearly everyday and when I wasn’t in class I would kick up into sporadic handstands anywhere there was a wall. I became known amongst my friends as Yogini.

Almost a decade later, at the age of 30, my career as a singer-songwriter was faltering. I had been dropped from my publishing deal and my record company had folded. I was still getting songs placed in TV here and there, but the income was far from steady. My yoga friends insisted I would be good at teaching and convinced me to sign up for a yoga teacher training in Northern California. I drove the 7 hours only to find out the training was “advanced” and for students who were already certified instructors. Luckily, those in charge shrugged their shoulders and let me stay. After all, I had nearly 10 years of yoga practice under my belt.

The training was a 5-day experience that occurred in a woodsy cluster of cabins. I had the unreal luck of not having to share my assigned cabin with a roommate. I craved the quiet as I was still recovering from a three-year submersion in a horribly toxic relationship. This was a bad one - the kind you pray your kids will never have to experience. In its absence I was like a baby learning to stand on my own; my self-worth just a precious, wee seedling. That’s why my friends and family were cautious about a new man who had recently come into my life - Brad.

The week in the woods was amazing. I learned yoga anatomy, how to sequence poses, all about Yin Yoga and more. As the days passed I noticed the most bizarre sensation occurring within me - I was fitting in. It was a new and strange feeling and every cell in my body reacted. It was as if my whole being was saying This! This!

Brad called me one evening during a few hours in which all students were supposed to be practicing several hours of silence. The only place I could get cell service was outside my cabin. Brad and I talked and laughed for the next hour and I was overcome with a supreme sense of freedom and joy. At one point during the phone chat, one of the more serious instructors walked by. I clenched my jaw and waited for her chastise me for talking. Instead, she smiled and waved.

The rest is history, as they say. I went home, signed up for the main module of the Yoga Teacher Training and soon began to teach. Brad and I eventually married and had two beautiful daughters.

But- it wasn’t all that simple and easy career-wise for me. I still craved success in the music business. I battled to succeed on my terms which, looking back, were picky. I didn’t want to tour because I wanted a family. Only now in retrospect can I see, maybe I wasn’t willing to give it all. But because I didn’t see it that way then, the music business continued to rise me up and drop me down. Meanwhile, my yoga career was like a fireman’s safety net - when I was free falling, it caught me. The classes I taught were full and I had a good private clientele. I would continue to make my living as a yoga teacher (and eventually personal trainer) up until this day, over 20 years later.

My music weaved in and out of my life, but it became clearer and clearer to me every year that continuing to build on my career in the wellness business was what made the most sense. I always kept up with my yoga practice, and I always made time for exercise, but for many years my life was a whirlwind. Brad and I were laser-focused on raising the girls the best that we could and being loving providers. If you’re a working parent then you know - self-care often comes last. It’s a beautiful thing, really. Having children is an act of service.

My 15-year-old daughter recently suggested we try a hot yoga class together. We had practiced together at home here and there but had never done an actual class together. We entered a packed, scorchingly hot room. Music blasted and the sequencing bordered on unforgiving. I couldn’t help but notice I was definitely the oldest person in the class and definitely the only one with a waist-length top on. I never thought a basic yoga tank top would make me feel old and conservative- but then again, I’d never been in a hot yoga class full of 20 year olds.

We got a bit addicted to these hot yoga classes, my daughter and I. Especially the one that mixed in weights. As soon as we started up with bicep curls and one leg rows the personal trainer in me was sold. With my 15-year-old next to me doing Warrior 2, our sweat dripping into one puddle below, it began to dawn on me: This. Was. Awesome.

The only person under more stress than a working mom is a teenage girl. That’s why I was thrilled beyond measure when my younger daughter told me the yoga classes were providing her a much-needed sense of peace. It’s the only time I feel free from my thoughts, she said. We convinced her older sister to give a class a try. Soon both girls were going to classes together, coming home soaked in sweat and echoing all the same sentiments I had felt 30 years prior when I had first found yoga.

Yesterday my younger daughter was on a driving lesson and my older daughter had plans to go to a yoga class at 8 pm with a friend (my bedtime!) I was done with work and trying to figure out if I should go on a run around the neighborhood or workout in my studio. My older daughter said- Go to yoga, there’s a 5:30 class!
By myself? I said.

There was a moment in that class when I experienced a feeling I could hardly fathom. My kids were no longer kids. They were at the crossroads of young adulthood and I …I was once again in a yoga class alone. The class came toward the end, the music simmered down and I lay resting in child’s pose. I realized then how dearly I needed this space, the time to just be. It felt in some way I hadn’t experienced that sense of rest… maybe ever. Everything, every cell of me, had gone into the raising of myself and then the raising of my girls. I would always be a parent, and they would always need their mom, but even so… a shift was occurring. With my older daughter about to graduate high school…my little girls are big girls.

I wondered if it would soon get lonely being in a yoga class on the occasions my kids were out doing their own lives. Either way, I knew there was space for whatever feelings surfaced. That’s how I had been taught to experience yoga: as a boundless vessel that holds all that you are and reveals your connection to the truth. In these modernized classes, that concept seemed a bit buried under the loud music. The teachers didn’t quite allude to such truths as they had back when I was a new and eager student. Still, the 5000-year-old wisdom of yoga shone through. My kids experience was proof of that.

As I rested in sivasana at the end of class, I thought about how far I had come to get here. Right here. Back in class with yoga administering aid. I wiped the sweat off my face, and the tears.