We again met up many years later when I was looking to try something new to find relief from the stress of teaching. I had never tried Bikram yoga and thought I would give it a go. What did I have to lose? Even if I didn't like it I figured the calorie torching aspect of it would be a positive and ED loved that!
That was the start of what was to be a journey inside, at first a glimpse that something still wasn't right. I was forced to face myself when I entered that hot little room and I didn't like what I saw. At first it was just the exterior, but my rational mind knew that wasn't really it.
The truth was much deeper than that.
Within 3 months of starting a regular practice I turned a corner. I left my job and entered a full-time day treatment program. Yoga had offered me a safe way to start to look inside and begin to discover myself.
Without yoga I don't' know that I would have ever come to that point of really being ready to recover. I would still be in the vicious cycle that had persisted for 14-years.
Yoga is now my life and my passion. I no longer practice Bikram yoga and wouldn't recommend that style to those in recovery, but I practice and teach almost daily and am working towards becoming a yoga therapist to work with those with eating disorders.
Yoga offers a new way to see the world; a safe place to be Hannah and to be strong and healthy. It fills the space of sickness and the tunnel vision of eating disorders. I can see beyond myself and know that no matter what I am more than my body, than food, than any number.
Have you unrolled your mat yet?
