Yoga Can Be for EVERY Body and ANY Body

An awesome privilege and special moment in time
of sharing a yoga practice with my mom.  She has faced
and overcome quite the number of physical struggles in her life.

False Yoga Myth #1 – A person must have just the right body shape or flexibility in order to practice yoga.

When I mention to people that I practice and now also teach yoga, I usually receive almost the same response that can be summarized in these words: 

“Wow!  Yoga is hard.”

“I could never do yoga.”

“I’m not flexible enough.”

“My body doesn’t bend like that.”

By no choice or doing of my own, I happen to be a person of small frame with low body weight and hyper-mobility.  However, that is not why I decided to try yoga in the first place or why I continue to practice it today.  I sought out yoga because of the struggle with my overall health and my utmost desire to find wholistic well-being: emotionally, mentally, and physically. 

Yoga is not about a particular body size, shape, ability, strength, or flexibility.  Any living and breathing, aware human being can practice yoga.  Yoga is a practice available to and doable at some level by any person with any body type.  There are no right or wrong, best or worst poses.  Our considerations are better focused on practicing and working with safe poses at a level that is just right for each individual.

My Health Story in a … (Big) Nutshell? Part 2

Thank you for staying tuned in.  Continuing on with my health story (see Part 1 by clicking here), I went from back pain to digestive dysfunction…

PART 2 - COLITIS AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

In August 2003, an unknown insect bit the back of my calf as I was traipsing through some tall wild grass.  The bite burned terribly and constantly and drove me to visit the doctor’s office because “What if it was a brown recluse spider bite?”  The doctor’s assistant prescribed a strong dose of cephalexin antibiotic, “Just in case”.  Within a couple of days of starting the medication, I began feeling ill in my digestive system.  I became so ill, I ended up asking my husband to take me to the ER in the middle of one night because I felt I would surely pass out or die while in the bathroom. That ER visit was a joke because when we arrived, they told us I would not be seen for 7-8 hours.  We left.  It was easier for me to be ill in my own bathroom, on my own toilet, than at a hospital ER.  First thing next morning, we headed to the doctor’s office, and I was given the diagnosis of colitis.  The cephalexin had done that magnificent (ha!) job because I had the Clostridium difficile bacteria in my intestinal tract.  This pesky, spore producing bacteria (which lives an abundant, happy life in hospitals) loves the opportunity that most antibiotics give it.  Antibiotics kill all kinds of bacteria, good and bad (unless you are talking about C. diff.).  Because the cephalexin killed all my other important gut bacteria that kept it in check, the Clostridium difficile was able to wreak havoc on my body.

My Health Story in a … (Big) Nutshell? Part 1

As part of the current updates on the Feisty ‘n Free Wholistic Living blog and its accompanying Facebook page, I thought it would be helpful for me to share my health story and the life events that propelled me in pursuing a more wholistic lifestyle.

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I believe humor is great medicine!  The moment I was putting some thought into writing this post, the image of a squirrel with a nut came to mind.  My husband and I have an ongoing joke in our home office about me “chasing squirrels”.  On any given day, I’ll be doing online research and study on a particular topic which then leads me to another and another and pretty soon, I’ve totally derailed from the original topic which I was researching and from my list of goals to accomplish that day!  So I find this cute picture of a squirrel with a nut totally appropriate to complement this post.  Sometimes, I’m a little nut.  And sometimes, I like chasing squirrels that are carrying little nuts. :-D

This writing will be an attempt on my part to give a brief overview and background on the health issues I have faced over my life and especially the past 15 years.  These have been the driving factors for me growing an immense passion for wholistic living and for pursuing alternative health and healing methods.  I will do my best to keep my story as brief as possible and to the point.  I started write this thinking it could be one post, but the more I wrote (even trying to be brief), the more I realized it would be best to turn it into smaller bite sized pieces.  I’ll post each part on upcoming days.