Yup these surprised me too.
Yoga, spiritual readings, and alternative practices…
In my late twenties, I had a huge health scare to the point where I was in the hospital for weeks and nearly died. It took many hospital stays, surgeries, and about a year to sorta recover. And being so young, I did not understand why this was all happening. I was a married woman with 2 small children and barely hanging on. I spent a lot of time in bed, so began the dive into reading a lot of spiritual authors like Wayne Dyer, Dr. Northrup, and Louise Hay.
One book that really grabbed my attention was You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. This began my obsession with trying to “heal”. With a health scare that nearly killed me, I was desperately trying to find anything to get my health and strength back.
The book offered ways of looking at your body’s symptoms for emotional healing. While, of course, this helped me in many ways, it did not talk much about the importance of digging into the cause. It offered lots of great affirmations and hope, which gave me the idea that my healing would be done with just that. Well, peace does not come from just positive thinking. It makes the ego feel good in the moment, but doesn’t get to the deeper issue.
Then I started learning about yoga and meditation. They were considered very important for body strength and clarity. So I began doing “old lady” yoga classes in my 40s. My body was still weak, and I felt stressed all the time with my full-time teaching career (read part 1 if you fancy) and raising a family. Yoga did seem to help with my body strength, and meditating assisted with letting go of some stress. But they didn’t seem to carry over to my everyday life. As soon as something stressed me out, all I wanted to do was get away from it and try to find that peace.
I would frequently scream to God on the way to and home from work…
What is it you want from me, God?
So that took me to alternative healing. I saw a naturopath and chiropractor regularly, did Reiki, massage, acupuncture, reflexology, and even hired a few different life coaches.
While I would not change any of those experiences, it still left me with a lack of peace. As soon as the sessions were over, I was back to reality. Trying to figure out why I wasn’t truly well.
Don’t get me wrong. Many of these things did direct me to better living, and I like to refer to Louise Hay’s books now and again. I continue to see a chiropractor and even a therapist.
But it was still about the chase. Looking outside of myself that I quite didn’t understand. And when you are so very sick and feel the guilt of not being a good wife and mother, a person grabs onto anything.
Especially the false positivity. Looking on the brighter side. Saying the affirmations so the negative things wouldn’t be there.
But I wasn’t seeing things for what they were. Accepting that my body needed to heal on its own time, and it couldn’t be rushed by the help from others or books.
It was like trying to find a hidden cat. You look for it everywhere, but until you sit still and are quiet enough, it will come to you.
Sitting still and letting peace come to me.
That was me then and even now…
The unlearning that there is something outside of me for finding peace…