I have lived most of my life with debilitating anxiety that would determine the places I could go to, the people I could talk to, the things I would try, the jobs I would apply for and even the clothes I would wear. I had an incessant need to control of all those things but the more control I tried to exert over them, the more out of hand the situation would get and the more I would try to control it… it was an endless vicious circle of self-doubt and fear from which I had to take a step back.

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This step back was yoga (manifested in asana practice and meditation).

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I started practising Hatha Yoga in 2008 and in the same year I did an Introduction to Buddhist Meditation course. I immediately fell in love with what both practises brough to my life: Silence from the incessant chatter and distance from it! These were things that I have never experienced before and I was fascinated by how quickly and how deeply everything I thought I was changed. 

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Shortly after this, my Yoga Teacher moved away and no matter how many other schools and teachers I would try, nothing sparked the same feeling. Back then, there was no Zoom Classes and it wasn’t easy to find and follow online content… so I slowly drifted away from Yoga.

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It was only several years later that I finally found Yoga again and I found a teacher that brought back all those things I thought I’d lost years ago… It was like finally coming home and I never stopped practising since!

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My mat became a place of ease, of peace, a refuge where I was free from all those feelings. A place where I could be myself and learn how to be myself. A place where things finally started to make sense.

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With time I understood that even though I couldn’t control everything, there were some things that I definitely could: alcohol & other substances, toxic relationships, toxic environments and so many things that didn’t serve me. Ironically, the more I controlled the things I could control, the more I could see the beauty of the uncontrollable things: the way things turn out, they way that life unfolds in a magical way and always has you exactly where you should be. I was slowly learning how to surrender, how to let go and how to trust.

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Regularly sitting with myself and showing up for myself gave me the distance I needed from the outside world and the ability to pause, observe and let go. To know that my reactions, my emotions, my thoughts are not me, that they do not define me and therefore they can be changed, transformed and redefined.

Don´t get me wrong… I still do most of this wrong a lot of the time! It’s not about getting it right or about being perfect…. It’s about catching yourself being imperfect and being willing to try again.

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It’s not about how many times your mind wanders when sitting in meditation, it’s about how many times you catch It wandering and bring it back… every time it wanders it’s an opportunity to learn and to improve.

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Yoga is the beautiful dance between the active change and control of your life and the complete letting go and acceptance of it. Meditation is the dancefloor where you learn the difference between the two, where you learn what to reclaim as yours and what to let go and let be.

 

In 2020 when my teacher announced her YTTC I knew it was time to take the next step and when I finally graduated from Yoga Blissipline School 200h Vinyasa Flow TTC in the Spring of 2022, I knew the that my life would change forever.

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I am now teaching Vinyasa Flow Classes (in group and private) and my hope is that I can give back all the ways in which Yoga changed my life and create a space where people can (re)connect to themselves and their lives thorough movement, meditation and breathwork.

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Rita.