Almost exactly a year ago, my belly was filled with life for the fifth time. After that tiny baby was in my arms and we arrived home, I didn’t know life would look so different. I didn’t realize the adventure put forth in front of me and more so I don’t know if I would have ever said yes if I had known.
I had just had my fifth baby boy, and our pregnancy and birth story was lovely and special but also felt fairly ordinary in comparison to our other births. Holding my baby in my arms, I was somehow left with a surge of postpartum hormones that would spiral me into the pit of postpartum depression that left me feeling empty, inadequate and made me question my worth within my family.
Friends that is a scary place to be and it’s also a LIE! I finally shared those feelings with my husband and close friends and quickly found the support I needed to take steps to heal. I leaned into the Lord in a way that I hadn’t in a long time. I confessed many of my anxieties that had consumed much of my life, and I realized I had placed fear over God. I realized I was dictated so much by it [fear] that in some ways, I wasn’t really living at all.
Amid this struggle, I felt two things strongly.
1) I was to dream about the life I truly wanted. Not in a way that makes me a millionaire but in a way that I desired to experience joy, freedom, and adventure without feeling boxed in by my own fears.
2) I needed to work out these fears, not just mentally but physically. I needed to physically put one foot in front of another up a steep trail. I needed to find the vulnerability in the humbled child’s pose. I needed to move my body. I needed meditate on scripture during the process. I needed to remind myself that despite my own feelings, my power and strength was always from the Lord. I needed to give back the power to Him mentally. Christ had continuously had it; I just needed the reminder to give it.
And then in the midst of all of this, I felt the urge to pursue Holy Yoga® Teacher Training.
ME? In the middle of my brokenness, no way!
But the more I pushed it away, the more the feeling came back. I realized that again, I was letting my fears and insecurities take over.
So I signed up.
I said yes to this beautiful adventure, and it has been a life-changing.
This is how I found Holy Yoga® – in the midst of this season of trial – meditating on His word and merely moving my body through flows. I can’t tell you the number of times the assigned readings for the training were just what I needed. I can’t count the number of tears that have fallen on my yoga mat.
What I can tell you is that every day I was reminded of His goodness, of His strength, and of His grace.
Saying yes in fear has been one of the hardest and most rewarding lessons this in my life. Not only because my experience through the Holy Yoga® Instructor Training has been incredible but also because it has chipped away at my overarching fears and reminds me still that through Christ I am able to do so more than I think.
It makes it easier to say yes the next time. It makes it easier to take that next step up the mountain, to say yes to dreams and joy again. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am saying yes to adventures and finding Christ right in the center of it all.
Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may depart, and the hills removed but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion for you.