Meet Sheri @anandanutrition sharing her #yogasavedmylife story with us. These are her words 💚
. "If you know me, it won’t surprise you to know that I even practice yoga with a smile! But I wasn’t always this way
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After the accident; several surgeries & a lot of physio, I learned how to walk again. But I was angry at the world for letting this happen to me. Everyone kept telling me how lucky I was & I’d respond, ‘Yeah, real lucky! I have pain everyday, was bedridden for months & have a 10 inch scar along my spine. That’s lucky?! F@ck off!’. I couldn’t see it... .
For years I let this anger fester & I took it out on mostly myself by doing foolish things. I smoked, didn’t exercise, ate crappy food. I hated my body because it was broken. I didn’t trust it because it caused me pain. .
In my late 20s everything changed. I quit smoking & started to go to the gym. But the real change happened when I walked into a yoga studio. I had no flexibility (couldn’t even bend to touch my knees) & had no strength, but something was drawing me in... .
After a month of practicing 3 times a week, the pain I felt everyday was gone & I could touch my toes!! After 3 months, I did wheel pose for the 1st time & I started to cry uncontrollably in the middle of class! .
I was so happy that my body was doing what my mind so desperately wanted...I had hope that maybe I could stop saying ‘I can’t’ & start saying ‘I can’ & actually do it! At the same time I was sooo angry at myself for letting so much time pass by! What an idiot I was...But that anger was overshadowed by the joy that was starting to take hold of me. .
The joy really came when I learned to let go of the things that weren’t serving me & be open to the things that would. The anger I felt towards myself & the world, the fear of the pain, & the victim mentality had to go
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I learned to love and trust my body. To be grateful for all that it was capable of doing. That smiling can make anything a little better. Yoga allowed me to find the joy within myself & truly saved my life
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I am so grateful to the teachers & family I found @downwarddogyoga 🙏 Sheri
