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From the Archives: When Your Body Stops Feeling Like Your Own · We Didn't Plan for This Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey yogis, welcome back.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is Mia.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: On today's episode of How Yoga Changed My Life, I am doing my episode for we didn't plan for this.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm talking about something I've shared a fair amount about with on the podcast, which is my Graves disease diagnosis.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are a lot of pivotal moments since I have started practicing yoga up until this moment of life that have really challenged my yoga practice, my daily life, just kind of how I operate and navigate the world.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what has been unique about Graves disease is just the like time under tension that it's put me in.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was diagnosed over a year and a half ago.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It felt very, very sudden.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It felt very, very out of the blue.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that I really knew nothing about and of course didn't have any way to prepare for.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm someone who prior to that was resting in the 50s and 60s.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so my heart rate was nearly doubled.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Any kind of movement, walking, yoga, the CrossFit gym would spike my heart rate to a point that was really, really unmanageable.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um yoga felt difficult, walking felt difficult, but actually working out, so I was going to a CrossFit gym was actually physically impossible.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it would spike the adrenaline in my body so much that I would throw up.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like, ooh, this is not a good sign, right?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um meanwhile, all of that is going on while I am teaching middle school, a job that is very high stress and um can bring its own ailments, whether that is uh, you know, hypertension, high blood pressure, um, a number of stress-related ailments.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, there are now studies that show that some teachers are developing autoimmune diseases because of this long-term stress that we're under.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of schools are decades old and actually have a lot of um molds, asbestos that they're not going to admit to us.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't want to take responsibility for that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So people are dealing with respiratory issues, and so part of me has wondered if some of this developed due to the environment that I was in.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then some of it, I think, was out of my control.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had no way to know or anticipate that this was coming.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so this might have happened whether I was working a middle school, high-intense position as an educator, a teacher, or if I was working a desk job.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't know.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Graves' disease, working as a middle school teacher.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did plan to open a yoga studio, and I received my diagnosis probably a month prior to us opening.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: On top of being engaged and planning a wedding, I planned my wedding all by myself, and so, not all by myself, my husband now and I planned it together, but I did not use a wedding planner, I did not have a coordinator.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, all of this going on in the mix and grave disease really forced me to slow down.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I truly, truly had no other option.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had yoga classes that were causing me to throw up.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I couldn't stand the entire time that I was teaching, you know, my middle school classes.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was struggling to stand the entire time that I was teaching yoga classes.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so my yoga practice as an individual changed drastically.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I shifted a lot to strictly meditation, which was still very challenging because I could feel my heart pounding the entire time.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Shavasana was difficult because I could feel my heart pounding the entire time.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yin and restorative were difficult because I could feel my heart pounding.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And how frustrating to do this practice that I know should be downregulating my nervous system, which I know should be slowing me down, and nothing about my body is slowing down.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So my heart is racing, my mind is racing.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was very, very frustrating.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think the only thing that slightly prepared me for it was um, you know, self-awareness around moments that I have been ill or moments that I have been injured can feel very, very daunting in the moment.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think five years prior to this, my back locked up on me because I had a stressful job, because I probably wasn't taking care of myself, because I did a workout that was outside of my physical capabilities, and I thought I wasn't gonna walk again.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like so, so uh devastated.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so a self-awareness that I have this kind of um hyperbolic mentality when injured, and a hyperbolic mentality when sick, and knowing that I always did get through it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that was the only thing that I had to remind myself like this will not be forever.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, this will not be constant.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Things are always gonna change, and it was a really good practice and understanding that my practice will not always look and feel the same.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't able to do Warrior 2.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like Warrior 2 was too much of a balance, you know, a balancing act for me.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't handle it.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, moving my arms away from my body made Warrior 2 just very unstable.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was that was so much of a challenge for me.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's how um unstable my body was, how much instability I was dealing with, so I would have to keep my hands on my hips to kind of keep things closer to home.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so this put another factor on my plate while trying to do the things that I planned for myself, while trying to pursue a career that I find very fulfilling but very challenging.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it forced me to slow down.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had no other choice.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very hard thing on my ego, it was a very hard thing on my lifestyle.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I canceled my gym membership, my YMCA membership.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I, of course, wasn't doing a vinyasa practice of any kind, Hatha was still very difficult, restorative and yin were very difficult.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it also changed how I was like thinking about my body.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've shared that on here.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like that physicality um is way more important than how I look, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I really do value the ability to move, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The able body is something that many of us take advantage of.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I won't, I won't ever be taking advantage of that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I won't over, ever, overlook the value and importance and the blessing that it is to be able to move my body.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And even in those moments, I was trying to remind myself I can still do way more than some might be able to for any reason, right?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: A car accident, um, a degenerative disease, even just being born differently abled.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so when I was thinking about how I was teaching, first physically I showed up very differently.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was leaning on walls for support.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was placing a hand on, we have these poles in the studio to balance myself.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had to demo things differently.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And down to I demoed things very close to zero.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I know that made some of my students uncomfortable, but if I were to demo and teach at the same time, I would be out of breath and panting.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can't teach.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it changed things physically, how I taught very much.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always been a believer that you can do whatever you want in my class, and it once again affirmed that for me.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know I had to do whatever I needed to do in other people's classes, and so it reaffirmed that when someone is taking a break in my class, it is not personal.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: If someone is taking a different option in my class, it is not personal, and I actually have no way of knowing what the motivation behind that is.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've seen, I've seen a lot more of it lately, and so perhaps it's on your feed also.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The mats in the room, the desks in a room, and the little text over it, dealing with a death, dealing with chronic illness, didn't have breakfast this morning, um, you know, a pet died, and even in right now, a parent or loved one being deported, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is dealing with these components that we can't see, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's internal.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's kind of what these episodes are speaking to of we didn't plan for this.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that was something that I learned from this as well.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't know what someone else might be dealing with.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The way that no one could look at me and particularly tell that something was wrong.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The physical symptoms, right, was weight loss, which many people complimented, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many people um commented on and still have been up until um this past month.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I ran into someone and they they said something about my weight loss to me.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, to those that I did tell, well, actually I'm quite ill.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, you feel better, don't you, physically?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we attribute size to how we might feel.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even that is not accurate.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, you know, people are not able to look at me and know exactly what I am feeling or going through.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that once again was a very empathetic reminder that the same goes that I cannot look at others and know what they're going through.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not in my yoga class, not in my middle school classroom, um, and just not in the grocery store, not in any space that we're navigating, can we know what other people are going through?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how can we attempt as much as possible to extend compassion?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that's something I struggle with.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so how do we operate in that sense?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do we extend grace?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do we not take things personally, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: One of the four agreements, other people's actions are very rarely personal to us, and in some spaces I am really good at remembering that, and in other spaces I struggle, even still, and so that all has been going on, and in some ways is still going on.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of my physical movement has returned to me, which I am very grateful for.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: My heart rate has gone down a little bit, a moderate amount.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still not resting in the 50s, but I'm definitely not resting in the hundreds, which I think is a much healthier place to be.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has really, I mean, and I'm I'm 29, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I my birthday is coming up in December, and I don't think this will be the last challenge.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that this will be the last hill to climb.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know that there are gonna be constant things that challenge me physically, that challenge me mentally, that challenge me spiritually, right?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whether I want to connect with myself any further, because it was I was very tempted.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was very, very tempted to disconnect with my body because so many things were out of my control and so many things were uncomfortable.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that that's gonna happen again, and I know that nothing is permanent, and to take advantage and to be grateful for what I can do in the moment, no matter the limitations, and to be grateful for what I can do in the moment if there are no limitations, and so many of us, it's easy for us to see the things that are limiting us, it's easy to see the things that are bogging us down, that are bothering us, that are our weaknesses.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what are the strengths in this moment?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you can do?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you can be grateful for?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: What can you reach up for overhead and take off the shelf for yourself?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: What can you bend down and pick up and access for yourself?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do to move around your own home and be in that moment?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy forget, and hopefully this is that reminder.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So before you close this podcast, I'd like to take a moment to pause.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Pause before you get out of the car, pause before you start your next podcast episode.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're able, close your eyes.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Take a deep breath in, fill up your belly and chest.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly let that breath go.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Take another deep breath in your own.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Can you feel in your own body?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And return to your day with a little more gratitude for everything that you are capable of.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Yogis.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good day.