How this yoga practice changed my life

It's story time! And do I have one for you today.

So buckle up, and let me tell you the story of how one particular yoga practice changed my life.

The beginning

Once upon a time in 2016, I was a wee yoga teacher, having only taught yoga for 5 years then. I had been practicing yoga for 10 years at that point, yet I was experiencing a lot of pain in my body. I was getting a bit frustrated as to why my yoga practice was causing me pain and rigidity. After all, isn’t yoga supposed to help rather than hinder the process of healing? If so, why was I constantly feeling agitated over little things, easily stressed out, anxious, and tense?
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“It wasn’t about self-improvement at all for me, but another way for me to dress up my toxic traits in a disguise of self-healing. ”

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had a lot of repressed emotions, pain, anger, and grief stored inside of me that showed up on the outside as an over-achieving, people-pleasing perfectionist. These are common trauma responses of not feeling validated and not having your needs met (nurture, care, affection, tenderness, etc) in early childhood. Unfortunately, the style of yoga that I was practicing then, vigorous Ashtanga yoga, was in fact exacerbating my patterns and tendencies of being overly ambitious to the point of burnout and extreme dissatisfaction.

Ashtanga yoga comprises of rigid set of sequences with physically demanding poses. I was drawn to the rigor and demand of the practice initially because, well, it suited my rigorous and demanding personality. I enjoyed the challenge of excelling at it, of physically being able to put my body in various forms. But everyday, my mind was pre-occupied with how I could perfect this pose or that. It wasn’t about self-improvement at all for me, but another way for me to dress up my toxic traits in a disguise of self-healing.

2013. Putting myself in shapes and forms that were actually exacerbating my imbalances.

​The intensity and heat of Ashtanga exacerbated my patterns of needing to excel and perfect, which in turn dialed up the intensity and heat within my body and mind as well. When the body and mind become too fiery, hot, and intense (in Ayurveda, we call this having too much pitta), we can become very critical, judgmental, dissatisfied, and discontent. We feel like what we do is never enough, and so we keep doing more and more, until we crash in burnout and depletion.

And friends, that I did. I was constantly exhausted, snappy, critical of others and self. My muscles felt hot and inflamed at all times, my joints hurt, and my skin was red with acne. Despite all these signals from my body, I continued with Ashtanga practice, because at that point my ego had been so tied up with this style of yoga that I didn’t know any other way.

That is, until one day, I experienced Spinal Release Yoga during my yoga therapy training in 2016.

The middle

I enrolled myself in a 2.5 year yoga therapy training because I saw the need for providing access of yoga to those living with chronic pain, having been teaching chair yoga at an integrative pain clinic for almost a year at that point, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with smaller, intimate groups rather than hyping up the energy for a rah-rah group of students. But in retrospect, I believe I was subconsciously drawn to further my training as a way to find true healing for myself through yoga. I found that through Spinal Release Yoga.

Spinal Release Yoga (SRY) was taught by one of my mentors during my yoga therapy training.It is a restorative-style yoga that consists of strategic poses and approaches to practice that specifically helps resolve deep-seated spinal tension and tightness. Unlike other styles of yoga, SRY does not aim to particularly stretch or strengthen muscles. Instead, it is a practice of surrender and letting go, so that the deep muscles of the joints and bones can release their grips to free up your body’s energy and to give you more sense of ease. It’s slow, subtle, and for the most part feels like you aren’t doing anything. Needless to say, I felt bored and restless during these training sessions of SRY. But, it was exactly what I needed.=

“I tried to “think” and “muscle” my way into the release. Of course, that isn’t how release and surrender work.”

In yoga and Ayurveda, the medicine is always to balance an imbalanced quality or trait with the opposites. So for me, being hot and intense and perfectionistic, the remedy was to slow and cool me down. Of course I resisted, because all of my life, all I knew was to keep pushing forth to get things done perfectly in outwardly endeavors. Slowing down and bringing my awareness inwards is counter to what I was used to.

Me, 2017, during yoga therapy, layered and supported by maximum amount of blankets to aid in the deepest release.

During one training afternoon, we were paired off to practice teaching and assisting one another with our peers. I remember feeling frustrated because I didn’t understand all this talk of “release.” Everyone else around me was having revelations and goading excitedly about how they haven’t felt such deep tension release ever.

I tried to “think” and “muscle” my way into the release. Of course, that isn’t how release and surrender work.

I expressed my frustration to my teacher, and she came over to assist me in a pose for release. Since it was a teaching environment, she called upon the other students to come and observe as she assisted me. Knowing a bit of my background and history, she mentioned how certain patterns of tension she observed in my body were due to the life trajectories I had been put into.

WIth her gentle but firm support holding my body, and with the reminder of this deeply held resentment I had, the floodgates opened.​

“That moment, as I was wrapped up in the piles of blankets, was when I realized this form of yoga was exactly what I needed, and it was going to change my life.”

It was then that I realized all I had been holding in, storing away, and trying to forget were still there in the manifestations of physical tension and pain. I was always feeling exhausted because I used all of my energy to hold these feelings in. There was an immediate release, physically and emotionally. I finally understood.
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As the tears flowed, my teacher rolled me on my side in a nurturing way and cocooned me in layers of blankets. (Other students went on a short break so they’re not ogling at me).
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That moment, as I was wrapped up in the piles of blankets, was when I realized this form of yoga was exactly what I needed, and it was going to change my life.

The after and now

What had happened there was that all the tension stored in my body were manifestations of my internalized anger and grief that I did not feel safe to express growing up and into adulthood. Yet, emotions are meant to emote, to move through. When they do not get to complete their actions and move out of the body, they become stored inside. These stored emotions become the bases of the triggers and reactions we have with our external realm.

​From that momentous day forth, I slowly transitioned from my Ashtanga practice to Spinal Release Yoga. Today, it is all that I practice in terms of yoga asana.

It’s helped me expose, become aware, and unravel the ugliest of things that I didn’t know I had inside of me. But with each unraveling, unlayering, unknotting, I become lighter, no longer bounded by the shackles of stored survival stress. ​
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Teaching SRY in a studio. Remember those days?

At times the practice is blissful. Others, a struggle with myself. But with any kind of transformative work, there is always growing pain.
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All in all, this practice has helped me resolve my SI joint and lower back pain I had been dealing with for years. It’s helped me become more cognizant of who I am as a person, and how I can show up for myself (and not for others). It’s taught me that an emotional release can be primed by a physical release. ​

Since then, I have been teaching this form of yoga in classes and for my private clients. It’s a tool and technique that I feel every individual should learn the fundamentals of.

This transformational practice has helped many of my clients:

• Significantly reduce chronic migraines after more than 25+ years of struggling with it

• Confidently return to golfing with no pain despite herniated discs

• Resolve chronic upper back and neck pain for the first time in 10+ years

• Finally find the release in her hips and sacrum after carrying the burden around for as long as she could remember

• Find peace and acceptance with her new body after a complicated and invasive surgery

• Resolve fear and anxiety after a traumatic car accident

• Regain mobility in upper spine and breathing capacity after a severe injury to her ribcage

• Regain trust and confidence back in herself and her body for healing

Start your life-changing practice

I have a self-guided series on the fundamentals of Spinal Release Yoga called Spine Nurture that I would love to invite you in to, my dear friend.

If my story resonates with you, if you’ve been looking for relief and release from long-held tension that you may or may not know the origins of, or if you’re completely exhausted and drained by the demands of the world and your body is certainly paying for it, this is a practice for you.

Allow this practice to be just as life-changing for you as it was and still is for me. ​
​When you sign up before August 12 for the self-guided series, you will be automatically invited to a free LIVE Spinal Release Workshop with me virtually.

Come experience the magic of this practice.