The healing power of yoga and creativity

I’ve written bits and pieces of this story over and over in my head, that sometimes I think I’ve already gotten it all out. Gotten it all out, off my chest and released back into the wild.

But then something odd happens – like when, a few weeks ago – my distance healer Colleen telling me I have some anger to process – (which seemed altogether strange since I’m not particularly angry with anyone at the moment!?), and after sitting with that for a few days – a whole long outpouring letter came out. A letter of anger I was still holding onto and a letter of forgiveness  – forgiveness of other people in my story and forgiveness of myself.

I’m not sure why I haven’t really publicly shared any of this so far – and if I ask myself why, I think it’s largely due to fear.

Fear of not being believed, fear that the person involved will see this and somehow get riled up at me via the internet, fear that this might come off as a ‘looking for attention’ kind of thing, fear that my story isn’t valid because it’s not “the worst”, fear that I don’t have the right to call this a destructive relationship, fear that only physical harm is deemed valid, fear that it could drudge up a whole lot of drama that I’m not interested in, fear of not being understood in the way that this comes across.

But anyway, it is my story and a very large part of why exactly I know and believe in the power of yoga and creativity to heal the soul.
It’s why I teach.

This is a photo of me in Sri Lanka.

(“Look how young you are!” – Yes, I know. Probably around 23 or 24 in this picture.)

And this picture really does speak ten thousand words to me.

I was on holiday with someone who I was dating at the time – in a relationship that was really destructive.

Every part of me was made to feel small in that relationship. I was told (among many things), “you’re lucky that you’re only this tall – because if you were any taller you wouldn’t be very pretty” – so, for the most part of those years I spent my time trying to make myself physically shorter. It’s so obvious to me in this picture. I tried to shrink – and with it – my posture shrank, my friendship circles shrank, my soul shrank and there is a lot of forgiving of myself that I had to do for allowing myself to feel and behave that way.

It’s actually taking me a very long time to write this post because I’m very conscious of not allowing it to become a sheer blame-listing of all the unpleasant things that happened within that relationship. And I’m taking ownership of my part in it all. By me taking ownership of this part of my life is not validating or approving the things that went on in that relationship, but taking ownership of my story gives me power within it.

There were a lot of things that I did in that relationship that were acted out of fear. And I recognise that completely now.

I entered into this “relationship” pretty suddenly – I was most definitely swept off my feet by the whole bad-assery of it all. (I mean: he was older, good-looking, had a great body, eyebrow rings, lip piercings and one of the first weekends we met he took me with him as he went to go get his forearms pierced. [yes, you read that correctly]). Did I mention he was a cage-fighter? So yes, for sure, I was swept away with it all and got entangled up in the bad-assery of it pretty fast.

I think I realised quite soon into the relationship how controlling it was becoming but I kept telling myself I could get out of it at any time. On the surface, I thought I loved him – sure. But there was probably a deeper part of me who knew that I couldn’t be in a relationship like this forever, that it was destroying my soul and belittling me bit by bit – and yet, I stayed in the relationship and kept pretending I was in love – to myself and to him. And I recognise now how selfish that was – not only to me, but to him too. I acted out of fear – fear of what he would do, fear of not being with him, fear of what he would say to my friends, fear of him purposefully and intentionally hurting me with a string of other girls – as he many times said he would.

And although so much of my action was based in fear around this time, it wasn’t necessarily a physical fear that I felt. There were 2 occasions (that I remember) that I felt fear of physical harm – and even as I write that I know that 2 is 2 too many. (Note: I originally wrote that sentence as “There were only 2 occasions…” – but then went back to change it, because although it’s a small change it’s an important one and language matters.) The first arose at the end of a highly charged fight (as you continually have when you are in a destructive relationship), I got up to leave his apartment, trying to assert myself as not being treated in this way and the next split second I knew, he had double locked the door, grabbed the front of my shirt and pushed me into a corner (#cagefightingskillzyo) – I remember very clearly, instinctively and instantly closing my eyes and bracing my body for impact. The whole thing de-escalated very quickly. Nothing happened. I burst into tears and ran back to my apartment sobbing.

The second instance, we were on this trip in Sri Lanka – we had had another fight of epic (mind-numbing) proportions (as you do), and I had gone to bed as I was tired. (Or probably, more accurately – I had feigned tiredness to go to bed to try escape the fighting). In the middle of the night I woke up to gun-shot sounds and as I sat bolt upright in bed and saw him diving toward me – the very first immediate thought that went through my head was that he had hired a hit-squad to kill me and that a troupe of people were coming up the stairs firing automatic weapons and that he was diving towards me to hold me down. It sounds very dramatic when I write it out like that now – but how the relationship was in that moment, and how I was feeling (unsafe) and all the other little things that added up (he had my money, my passport, and not a single other person in the world knew exactly where I was) – that “hit-squad scenario” was for me, completely within the realm of possibility.

I’m going into these two things specifically because in both of them nothing happened. Which I guess is kind of the point – there was no physical trauma that I dealt with: no marks, scars or bruises. But there was a very definite fear that I felt. I was made to feel unsafe, by a person who I knew, ‘loved’ and trusted. And whether it was a real potential threat as in the first example – or something that I believed solely in my head (the “gun-shot sounds” we heard, we later found out were fireworks that someone had let off on the beach a few metres away). And yes, it was something that I created all in my head – BUT for the first thought on hearing “gun-shot” like sounds to think that your partner is about to kill you, is absolutely fucking chilling.

I also just want to add in here that for the most part – he was a really great guy – and to many people he was a kind of ‘golden’ guy – funny, friendly, helpful, respectful, religious, a family guy. It’s just that yes, relationships and people are often extremely complex. {Trust me, I watched the Oscar Pistorius case like it was my LIFE}. 

But I think that is what sometimes makes it so challenging to feel validated and safe to express the “trauma” you experience through something like this – because a) in the end – nothing ‘actually’ physically happened b) it’s definitely not ‘the worst’ and c) didn’t you make it up in your head anyway?! So I guess there is definite trauma: rape, abuse, sexual assault, battery, beatings etc, and then there is also a whole host of other stuff that add up to all the “non-traumas” – emotional manipulation, belittling, control, dominance and a very real life-threatening fear. The truth is, your brain and body processes the fear of an actual event and the fear of a perceived-actual event in exactly the same way. The same chemical compounds – the same neural peptides are released into your system and unlock genetic patterns in your cells (like instructions) so that they behave in a certain way. Over time, these cells (with their instructions based on fear) replicate and you now have cells in the system which are replicating fear, left right and centre. That is one of the reasons why I believe it’s chemically so easy to get caught up in a destructive relationship like this one. You literally have to change your chemical coding.

Because for so long you literally replicate the same emotional code in your body (for me it was fear, addiction to drama/unhealthy-thrill-seeking, anxiety) that is what the body knows and that is in turn how the cells activate and then that is in turn how you feel and it replicates cell by cell, day after day. (Which is true for any emotion, BTW). Even looking back at my first year or two of marriage to The Warr, I can recognise that my thoughts, actions and behaviours were still very much grounded in this body which for so long had been replicating in fear and drama-seeking. It’s VERY easy to seek drama if all the cells in your body are chemically seeking for it. But I’ve also come to know, in the last few years, that it is also just as easy to seek peace.

When I finally got out of that relationship (a journey which in itself took a lot longer that it should have), I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. I didn’t know then that I needed to ‘heal’ or to ‘process’ as I was still very much just IN it all in my head. I randomly started a blog. (I mean, it wasn’t so random, I started it the day I felt that relationship was truly over – my first post here ). I didn’t know then why or for what I was creating this thing on the internet, I just knew that is what I needed to do. Knowing what I know now about how powerful creativity is in nurturing our playfulness, our curiosity, and our inner child, I know how was the very beginning and necessary part of my healing.

Healing of that inner child and rebuilding that playful, inspired, childlike wonder that gets dampened in situations like these. The beginnings of that blog were truly a creative process for the process of creativity itself. There were no rules to what I posted, no structure, no themes, no specific style, nothing I was trying to achieve – some of it was random, quirky, weird, odd, pretty, wonderful, funny and bizarre. It was all about the creative exploration and nurturing whatever little soul inkling came up – to bring me back to me. That is what true creativity is about – the magic that arises when we honour that little voice, that we all have, that wants to create, that voice that gets very quiet in the busy-ness of life or when we run up against situations such as this. Honouring that voice means going just with whatever comes even when sometimes it really just doesn’t make sense. That blog most definitely began my healing journey.

When I moved to London I found yoga and the other piece of the puzzle just clicked for me.

So here is my analogy (yay! a cartoon):

Inside every person is a big ol’ river. A giant flowing current of life.

What happens over time, and with life in general and all the pains, traumas, “non-traumas”, griefs and stuff we go through is that we start loading big boulders into our river.

We respond to all this “stuff” of life with automatic chemical responses in our bodies and mind. (For me, during this time I was predominantly and unconsciously in a fear response within my nervous system.)

The ‘stuff’ that happens in life is what happens and sometimes we can’t change it – the boulders though, represent your nervous system response to these things. Once a particular chemical pattern is released within your nervous system and bathing the cells – those cells replicate with the same chemical pattern as what they are bathed in – so- over time, the body is unconsciously replicating a certain chemical response – in my case it was fear – in your case it could be stress, rage, anxiety, grief etc. The boulders are the heavy things and chemical patterns that literally get unconsciously lodged in the body. And they block the flow of your big ol’ river. Ie: they block the flow of this amazing current of life.

When we practice yoga and meditation – we focus on breath and the physical body combined and because the breath is so closely connected to the nervous system – we then sub-consciously re-wire this nervous system (ie: over time, we de-activate those fear-repeating instructions in the cells) and we slowly start removing all those boulders from our river.

We allow life to “flow” again – in a peaceful, calm river way!

If yoga removes the boulders, then creativity brings magic back to your river –

And sometimes you have to start with sprinkling a little bit of magic into your river to realise that it’s worth getting those chunky boulders out.

Sometimes those boulders aren’t chunky at all – sometimes it’s a little pebble because you’re holding onto that irritation over the waiter who put mustard onto your burger when you didn’t want it. (#GRRR #DAMNYOUGUY)

They work so beautifully together to create this epic current of WOW! in your life.

Whether you are needing to heal, to process, to reconnect, or just looking to bring yourself back into that high vibe flowing river of MAGIC kind of vibe. 

For me, this has most definitely been the case and it’s no longer what I “believe” to be true. It’s one hundred percent what I KNOW to be true.

* * * * * *

Move Breathe Create is an online platform dedicated to Yoga, Meditation, Soul Work and Creativity for health, healing and happiness.
Come join the community – You are welcome!