YOGA SAVED MY LIFE

Read the story of the yoga granny here.

I want to share this personal story with you, how I got into yoga and to explain more why "yoga saved my life". Maybe you're not necessarily interested about yoga but read until the end. This concerns also you!

I never been that athletic or into sports. I've tried differents sports but never really found my "thing". I was always more interested about music, arts and everything else than sports. I didn't really enjoy group sports at school - it was different playing something together with friends but at school you are so afraid of being the "last one" chosen to the team that it takes all the joy out of the sports.

In 2005 I started my studies in a University of Applied Sciences and was really excited about it all, to study again after a year break and working in a clothes boutique. I think I've always been really responsible and hard working, taken studies seriously and tried to get good grades at school. I wanted to be good or the best, at everything. If i wasn't, i suffered from it - I felt I wasn't doing my best, I was maybe a bit stupid and felt like I wasn't worth of anything. The same was with people. I always try to treat people well and with respect and if I didn't get that back, I got shocked and blamed myself: "what is wrong with me, why doesn't she/him like me? Have I done something wrong?" I've been bullied since I was a kid and I feel it's because I've been "too nice", not drawing the lines but letting myself be treated in a bad way. And I couldn't believe when it happened again in the university! At a age of 21 when we should be grown ups, adults! But anyway, I'll get back to that later on.

So I was studying full time, working at some point in two different clothes boutiques and trying to have some social life too. So basically I was studying/working from 8-10 a.m to 7-8 p.m, about six days a week. .. If you guessed that the equation wasn't going to work in a long time run, you were right! You knew better than me! I was pushing myself to the limits and in the end, bit by bit, started to loose my health. I got really bad migraines that prevented me from doing many things, basically living a normal life. Every free day I was at home, under the blankets in a dark room. Sometimes the migraine attack lasted almost a week and in the end I was just crying because it hurted so much. I couldn't make any plans in my life, as I was used to, because I never knew when the migraine was going to attack. My social life too was shrinking and I felt so lonely and sad.

When the attacks got so bad that I thought I was gonna die to a blood vein exploding in my brain, I went crying to a doctor and begged him to put me in a brain scan tests, set a date with a migraine specialist or neurology. Anything else that just medicines because the medication wasn't going to be the ultimate, long lasting solution. I needed something else, I wanted to understand the REASONS of why the migraines got so bad. To understand WHY MY LIFE HAD BEEN TAKEN FROM ME and I couldn't enjoy it anymore as I did before. Or that's what I thought then: enjoy it, as I did before. Oh, how wrong I was.

I can remember the day when I went to the doctor like it was yesterday: I was sitting there in his room and crying, telling my experiences of the migraine and explaining that I needed some new approach, solution for the problem. Beside my social life, my studies and work was getting affected by the migraines and I couldn't go on like that anymore. I was afraid and needed help. His answer was: "Well you know, there's no explanation to why people get migraines and a brain scan wouldn't make any difference. You have the genes for it and there's nothing we can do about it... EXCEPT, I'll describe you a NEW MEDICATION. Oh and by the way, I'll write you another pill recipe. It prevents the nausea that's maybe caused by the migraine medication." The whole time he didn't look me in the eyes. He didn't even look at my direction. Kept his eyes in the papers and maybe draw some penis pictures on them. Because that's what he was, a Dickhead.

I took the recipies, tucked them in my pocked and walked out of the hospital. It was a sunny day and I decided to take a walk in the near by park next to the sea. Of course with sunglassed on as I had a light migraine attack on... While walking I made a promise to myself: if the Dickheads weren't going to help me, I was going to make it myself! I can't rely my health, happiness and my life on anybody else except myself! I understod that I had caused my own situation with my choices, the actions I'd taken in my life, and it was going to be me who will also make the change, to turn thing into better. I felt so relieved! And of course horrible pain in my brain, devilish migraine!

After that day my life has taken so many turns, ups and downs, but I feel it's going to a better direction all the time. My life had to be taken from me so that I needed to face it, to look at it and examine if I reallyreallyreally was happy. Did I really do the things that made me happy? At the age of twentysome, did I want just to study and work and go home to sleep after a long, exhausting day? OR did I want more from my life, more good experiences, contacts, adventures, better working environment etc.

The biggest change making factor has been yoga. I've been doing it now more actively for about two to three years and it has made a difference, from inside to outside. After a yoga class, my mind is light and free and more open for new thoughts. My body thanks me for the excercise and as I'm finding the balance and strenght in my body, the same happens inside me. I feel more stronger and balanced generally. Nowadays I take life more lightly, not too seriously. I can laught better to myself and to life! It's fun and beautiful but too often we're so worried about everything, that we miss all the beauty in it! Now I can channel my energy better to the things that really matter and not take too much stress of things that REALLY DON'T make a difference. I can enjoy life better and as I enjoy it more, also the people around me can get affected in a positive way of it. With my closest friends, we take each others moods up, not down. That's how you feel if you're being in a good company that's healthy for you. You feel that you've given and gotten some positiviness.

Starting yoga also guided me to more healthier eating habbits. Generally to more healthier living habbits. Now it's been for almost two years I don't get that bad attacks anymore. In a year I've had some attacks here and there but now I can recognice them better and act in advance. If before I needed really strong medicines that knocked the whole living out of me, nowadays I maybe take couple normal headache medicines and rub some peppermint oil in the neck and forehead and VOILÀ, NO MIGRAINE!

I should actually correct that yoga AND migraines saved my life. Migraine made me stop to think of my life and where it was going and yoga took me to a new Road from the deep, dark damp I was in. And in the end, it wasn't all bad. Bad things can also have another side, another side of the coin where you find the good things that you can take as a lesson. Migraines tought me to not make too tight plans and now I'm finding out that the more I don't plan in advance, the more new, exciting things are happening in my life! When I leave more space to Life, things come to me naturally and usually just the right things when I need them most. Wether it'd be meeting a new person or just seeing a random book lying somewhere and finding out that it's exactly about a issue I was thinking about - Life is guiding me if I listen to it and don't keep myself too busy with everything else. It also guided me to yoga teacher studies by chance. I was given the challenge and when I had the courage to take it, I found myself in a Road I never thought to be walking but which is just the right one at the moment. So don't be controlled by your fears, take the risk to jump into a dark Sea and see where it takes you! If your Inner Voice tells "yes" but your Mind "no" I would suggest to listen to the Inner Voice, your Heart. It usually knows the answer and will guide you to the right Path, to the Golden Beach.

I don't need to be the best at everything. I can be "the best" at the things I really enjoy and love doing and not care about the rest, especially what the rest is thinking. I don't need to be with people who make me feel bad, who try to take me down and push their ego's, their low self esteem up. I don't need to listen what the doctors recommend me because in the end I know myself, my body best and can try to make the difference with more natural treatments, healthier life and listening myself. I can eat pizza or double chocolate muffin if I want to because it's my choice. Don't need to take everything that seriously, should enjoy every moment because you never know which is the last breath we take. Be silly and let your inner child giggle and laugh openly, don't silence it! Never grow old - take responsibility FROM YOUR LIFE but don't forget the joy of it.

I don't need to and I won't take any crap from anyone anymore but I'll answer to hate with love. If I feel I'm not being treated well and as I should be, I say it aloud. Also if I see somebody else being treated badly, I won't just stay shut and watch from aside. No. Everyone deserves to be treated well and to be happy. But we have to make the change first, the change starts from yourself! Being good to yourself, loving and respecting yourself, only after that you can give it to other people around you and really be happy and free. Free from others expectations, free from fear, free from negativeness.

I haven't loved or respected myself enough before and that's why my life before was what it was. I deserved everything that happened because "I got what I ordered". But now I'm learning to be true to myself and won't let myself be bullied anymore. Life isn't against me, it's on my side but I have to start playing in the right team. Not in the Dark Knights but the Light Warriors whom in the end take the game, 6-0.

In which team are you playing?

xxo
Hanna