In this ongoing series, we’re taking a look at some of our members’ stories. Their names have been left out to respect their anonymity as we share part of their trauma stories. Here’s story of one of Nature’s Children.

Childhood

My mom was a seamstress at crafts fairs when I was a kid, so growing up going to these fairs with her, I was around a variety of alternative ways of living. I also grew up in Encinitas, where there was lots of yoga happening. So, when a little Hare Krishna center opened up in Encinitas when I was in seventh grade, my sister and I would walk down there. We would chant with the Hare Krishnas. That was my first introduction to Bhakti yoga (devotional yoga), and I loved it. I still love it.

When I was twelve years old, two yogis moved in with my mom, my sister and me. They were recently married and saving money to go to India and became like my big brother and sister. They practiced Ashtanga yoga, which I was exposed to then too.

When I was growing up, though, I always felt like I didn’t belong, and I was really tormented about that. I really thought there was a grand mistake in my coming to this planet. At six years old, I was having existential crises, asking my mom what life all meant. I always wanted to be in nature because that is where I felt complete. In nature, I was not wanting or grasping. But, then with school and society and tasks, my overactive mind came back.

Hare Krishna practices and meditation offered a quiet place to my mind, though. It gave my mind something to do that was away from the relentless thoughts.

So, naturally, I got really into meditation. I did a lot of candle meditations when I was young - just intuitively, without any direction. When I was young, I had this idea that the point of yoga and meditation was to get out of your body and to escape to the astral plane. So, I learned how to do that.

Chaos

I grew up in a really chaotic home with insidious, inescapable trauma. There was alcoholism, instability, fighting and uncertainty at every corner. The fighting wasn’t necessarily directed at me, which I’ve heard is even more challenging as a child.

When I moved to college, I found alcohol. I had been trying to get to a certain level of escape with meditation, but I found that alcohol could do that so much faster.

Then, I found narcotic pills that you could take without having the emotional insanity of alcohol. I didn’t smell like alcohol or have any outrageous outbursts, so nobody knew. I was a drug addict for a good ten years of my life.

Things just didn’t make sense. I had a lot of friends asking what was going on in my life. But, I graduated college and got into grad school. I was doing things to feed my ego, like telling myself if I could get into grad school, I was okay. I was looking externally for validation. I wasn’t able to finish my first masters. My addiction was so out of control, as was my need for external validation.

Moving Vans & Universal Grace

I dropped out, and I moved to Brooklyn with a hundred dollars, ready to go into withdrawal and so sick. I’d been really trying to kill myself, and I couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t happened. I couldn’t take enough drugs or drink enough, and the idea of being invincible kept reinforcing itself.

I don’t know where the hope came in, but as with real trauma, there was grace. After trying to figure out being somewhat sober, I felt like I just needed to be completely, totally sober.

Down the street from my house, there was a community yoga studio, and I started to go to Kundalini classes on Sunday. My body would be rocked for the rest of the week - not only because the kriyas we would do are so intense, but also because I was detoxing. I was a mess, but some healing started to happen.

My yoga practice started to give me the tools to come and be with myself. No longer was I meditating to leave my body, I was meditating to get into my body. Per the classic trauma model, I was trying to leave my body as I believed it wasn’t safe. But, it was a gift coming back to the body. I’ve learned that yoga really is the only tool to show up and live a human life.

My Teacher Training Journey

One of my good friends moved back to San Diego around the same time that I moved back to Encinitas, and we got to reconnect. She took me to a few OG Yoga events, and when I heard about the teacher training, I immediately said yes for a few reasons.

Part of me honestly sought external validation. The year before, I was working in a school setting with students and their families in City Heights. There was a lot of trauma in the population and not a lot of access to resources - pretty typical OG Yoga candidate population. I did expressive arts and play therapy, but the real tool that I knew to give these kids was the breath. They got so into it, and parents started to use breath as a tool. I knew the tools worked, but I knew I should get formal training. I was also looking for the real healing value of yoga. I wanted to learn about all of the modalities that turned us to ourselves for self-inquiry.

Finally, I’m interested in how to bring people together. My marriage and family therapy program was based in social justice and power dynamics. There’s traditionally not a lot of options - it’s jail, institutions or death. Jo and OG Yoga are going in and saying that there’s more options and they’re going to bring them. This can help break the cycle of guilt and shame that keeps people from living fully actualized lives.

When I saw the OG Yoga syllabus, I again said yes. It offered a full, integrated interdisciplinary program that covered so many modalities and a social justice aspect.

Holding Space

Right now, I’m going into the homes of families experiencing domestic violence to get people access to individual therapy or support groups.

Before I go into these homes, I get centered and really ask to be of service and let them know, that if nothing else, I’m going to listen to them, especially if no one else ever has. I can offer the breath work through my own breath - by not getting activated. I didn’t know I could sit with somebody who has experienced trauma beyond anything that I have. I get to bring in this embodied presence, which I couldn’t before. So, I’m using my yoga training in that way.

Now What?

Looking forward, I want to be meditating and doing yoga with people and teaching transformational tools. Although I went to school to be a talk therapist, I think it's important that we learn a way to reconcile or express our story, and we move it out physically. We'll never be able to talk our way out of it. Right now, I’m developing how I’m using these practices - other than embodying it in my work now.

Eventually, I want a practice where people can come together in community in a natural space to reconnect with each other and their bodies to have a full expression of love, giving and receiving. It could be many things. It could be an integrative mind-body center, classes, having a camp where we hike and breathe and lay on the earth. There’s something about the natural world with others in love and gratitude. OG Yoga is that in many ways.

Only Love is Real

We’re all the expert of our own lives, and the eight limb path gives us the tools to clear the blocks. I can show up to be fully integrated without all this minutiae in my thought-addled mind. I can be present and learn to love myself and maybe be able to love you because of that.

I think this human experience is about learning to love ourselves. I think that yoga provides us the tools to be in these human bodies and to live a good life.

Only love is real.

About OG Yoga

OG Yoga is a San Diego-based nonprofit whose mission is to deliver trauma- and diversity-informed, mindfulness-based yoga through partnerships with the systems serving marginalized individuals to support healing, resilience, self-development, and positive social change. To date, OG Yoga has worked with over 50 organizations across San Diego to deliver our services to 6,000+ individuals over 10,000+ class visits.

But our work is far from over. We really need your help. Support our mission and promote healing by helping us bring yoga and mindfulness practices to those populations who need it most - youth, homeless, disabled, veterans, and many others. Just $20 supports one student who has experienced trauma, and $163 funds an entire trauma-informed class.

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OG Yoga Stories: Nature's Child