One night in August I was surfing Instagram and I saw Liz’s post about a 6am community virtual yoga that was starting up. It said it would include community and other things that intrigued me and I knew I needed in my life. I recently experienced the passing of my mother, putting my dad in memory care and my firstborn leaving the nest and losing a job. So a lot going on in my life.

Before yoga, I loved caffeine, stress and carbs. I didn’t take care of myself. I developed a condition that caused me to pass out quite frequently. After one too many falls, I developed a head injury. For over a year I was laid out in bed. I could only get up for one hour per day. Without insurance I had to find ways to heal myself. I found yoga videos on You Tube and discovered yoga as a practice for rehabilitation of my balance. After the head injury, I developed severe motion sickness and a knee injury. I had poor visual tracking which would make me sick and unable to stand for too long. The TBI caused deficiency in my sleep, ability to handle stress and in my memory. So for four years, I continued to do yoga at home to heal.

I came to Kelly’s morning class in January of 2014. ( I think the year is correct.) I had never taken a yoga class before. I had a book and tried to do poses while reading, trying to breathe correctly and look at pictures. It didn’t work well. Though I had wanted to start a practice, I was uneasy about starting classes. I had read an article in the Greenville News about you and Brian and your studio. I guess maybe a New Year’s resolution got me in the door. Kelly made me feel welcome and there were other women my age there. At one point we were in child's pose and Kelly came and pressed her warm hands on my lower back. I was hooked and never looked back.

In 1975, my first husband and I attended yoga classes as part of Greenville Tec’s community offerings. He was the only male student. I remember having to buy leotards and tights but not a mat. At least, I was able to find dark brown leotards at McAlister Square (instead of the normal black). The poses escape me but I remember moving classroom desks before doing our yoga. After participating in the classes, I declared I needed a more active form of exercise.

Meet Nancy & Ron. This story begins further back than I even know, but in 2005 I met Reverend Nancy Neal.  I had just moved to Greenville and was leading an open house at Stone Academy as a teacher.  I was super nervous as I know I am not the norm for a 4th grade teacher.  In walked Nancy and her daughter looking just like they stepped out of a poster for California.  They immediately put me at ease and made me feel at home.  Nancy and I continued to talk and stay connected over the years through community events, friends, and healing work.  There is more to this story, but for this newsletter the magic begins here…

Doing yoga helped me find a sense of peace that has continued to this day. I feel like a part of me is missing when I don’t get my morning yoga class in. I feel more content, happier and very little stress. Yoga is me and will always be part of me!!

Yoga is a spiritual practice that over the past eight years has led me deeper into my Christian faith. Yoga provides me one hour each day during the week for stillness, silence, and space to breathe. These times allow me to prayerfully meditate on redemption, forgiveness, faith, and my identity as God’s precious, beloved, baptized child. Without fail every time I leave the studio after a class, I feel lighter, calmer, more free. I have also described this deep sense of peace to friends and parishioners with these words, “It makes me not give a shit,” which for an uptight, high-strung person like me, is a very good thing.

I can’t begin the telling of my yoga story without first admitting that this is the third time in my adult life I have tried practicing yoga. My first try was over a decade ago in a multi-purpose gym setting. I was a serious gym rat in those days – the most physically fit I have been since my teen years as a dancer – and spent an average of an hour and a half, six days a week working out. Yoga was offered before my favorite crazy-intense cardio classes and I would spend 30 minutes on the treadmill, take the 30-minute yoga class and then take that hour cardio class. I proclaimed at that time that was “just not a yoga person.” Well, no one in that class was a yoga person! A half hour class in the parentheses of intense cardio was not an ideal yoga introduction.

Yoga has been a goal of mine for several years. I led a very stressful life and never developed the coping mechanisms to manage it. I kept piling more responsibilities on and being the “yes man” both at my job and with those around me. It felt as though I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and that burnout was imminent. Couple this with being someone who grew up with body and self-esteem issues and a general lack of self-love as well as personal drama with family and life in general, and I was a breakdown waiting to happen!

Ten years ago, I went to Greenville Yoga for the first time on Main Street. As in the past, I was watching the clock. But one day, I noticed something different. I couldn't tell if it was the music they were playing or what!? Then I realized, that it was the people in the class collectively breathing deeply. In all my years of "practicing" yoga, I'd never heard anything like it! Most yoga studios talk about breath (and unfortunately some don't at all), but I'd never experienced people ALL audibly breathing together. So, about eight years ago I decided to try it, and that's when my perspective on yoga shifted completely.

“Doing anything continuously has some magic to it.” Those were the words a friend of mine used when I told him about my 21 days of yoga adventure.

On Saturday June 22, at 2pm I walked into Matt’s Summer Solstice two-hour Yin Class at Greenville Yoga and something inside of me woke up. Hard to explain, but it felt like I had been sleep walking prior to that class. I went back the next day, chasing that feeling. Again, Matt’s Sunday afternoon yin yoga class. At the end of that class I made a decision. I was going to do 21 straight days of yoga. I decided to write about my lessons learned doing yoga for 21 days straight.

I first started practicing yoga in high school on the advice of my therapist to help with my anxiety (20+ years ago!). When I moved to Greenville in 2008, I was thrilled to find Greenville Yoga 4 blocks from my rental house and immediately started attending classes with Caroline on Monday and Wednesday nights. As my career and schedule changed, I was thrilled to find a more intimate Tuesday and Thursday class with Liz D. While I continue my yoga practice as self-care, I was pleasantly surprised when week after week, friendships grew among my classmates. That had never happened at my other studios - we talk about the studio being our "third place" and it's so true for me!

I knew that something was missing in my physical life. I was beginning to have aches and pains, and even getting up and down from the floor was difficult and I could barely touch my toes. Yoga seemed like the logical answer. I had heard so much about Liz, and Greenville Yoga was convenient. I walked in originally around 5 or 6 years ago. Little did I know at the time that the holes in myself were much more than physical!

I have been practicing yoga since 2000, but never got beyond 1-2 times per week. When we moved to Greenville I wanted to practice more often, so one of the first things I did was look for a yoga studio. Greenville Yoga was the nearest one, so I thought I’d start there. The first time I walked into the studio, I knew I had found my yoga home. The non-competitive atmosphere, the caring instructors, and the heartfelt and authentic “You Belong Here” message all create a calm and welcoming energy that I had been looking for in a yoga studio.

Yoga has changed my life.  Not only do I see it, but my wife and friends see it too.  Before I discovered yoga I had some semi-serious health problems, but now I have no symptoms whatsoever.  Here are a few of the changes that have occured in my life thanks to a daily practice…

Before Yoga:  I was very stressed.  I couldn't organize my thoughts.  I had no physical ailments, so I really didn't do any physical activities.  I have a full time job and go to college.  I really have no complaints about my life before yoga except something was missing.  My life felt like a dumped out puzzle... all of the pieces were out there and none of them connected.

Before yoga, I was an engineer for forty years. I recently went into retirement. I became sedentary and was beginning to develop both depression and anxiety. I had high blood pressure and had to start taking medication. Even after leaving my job, I still suffered from chronic tension, sciatica and joint pain. I had no direction for anything. My time was spent on my computer or with friends at a beer joint.

I have been coming to yoga since July 25, 2012. December fourth [2012] marked my 103rd class. Each day I drive from Clemson to either location in Greenville. This place just seems unique so it it worth it.

I am in the health care profession and have always been a hard working perfectionist. Before yoga I was stressed out regardless of the situation. I was in fight or flight all the time- at work and at home. I started yoga for purely physical reasons to help my running and biking. A year ago I injured my back and am not sure if it was from work or my athletic endeavors. I noticed from my first class at Greenville Yoga that this was going to help.

Six months before yoga found me, my life had shifted so completely on its axis that it hurled me behind it, battered, broken, and lost. I remember so little about 6 months of my life...I know I never laughed, never smiled, got out of bed only when I had to. On the recommendation of everyone I knew, I began working out. Adrenaline was a great thing, I could move and do what I had to do to get through the day, but by dinnertime, I was done, and snapping at the kids (who I had ignored most of the day) and my husband, and anyone else I could think of, for what ever I could come up with to snap at them for, which was usually no more than being in the same room.  Then I decided to try yoga.

Before yoga, there was no choice but to be hectic.  My self-worth came from being busy and working at a hectic pace.  My mantra was ‘stay busy’ and I always felt stressed, tensed and uncomfortable.  I felt like I had no other choice.  After practicing yoga for five years, I see that I have options and I realize when I am getting overwhelmed.