Michelle Paisley - Yoga for a Broken Heart: A Spiritual Guide to Healing from Break-up, Loss, Death or Divorce

Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally, The Essential Yoga Sutra: Ancient Wisdom for Your Yoga (New York: Doubleday, 2005).

Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita (Tomales, California: Nilgiri Press, 1998).

Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita (Tomales, California: Nilgiri Press, 1998) P164.

When I was a little girl, I was a dreamer. I had giant expectations and believed everyone else felt the same way. I was a happy baby, had my basic needs met, didnt cry a whole lot, but soaked in everything. My father worked compulsively, my mother stayed at home to raise my little sister and myself. Dad drank, mom was an enabler; both were unhappy and unable to navigate their feelings. There was a lot of anger, sadness, and repression in my home growing up; and as I observed it all, gradually I became disappointed and emotionally shut down.

I spent a great deal of time alone, role-playing with my dolls, trying to block out the shouting in my surroundings. No wonder I have an affinity for turtles, with their ability to retreat into their shells. My fathers drinking got worse, my mothers depression deepened, and I clung to my eclectic grandmother, who had a no-nonsense approach and who protected me with a fierce love.

When I was only four, I used to get up at 5:00 a.m. and do stretching with Jack La Lane, the fitness pioneer. Id get out my orange and yellow daisy tea-party chair, and work to move the pain out of my little body. Sundays we would go to church, all dressed up for the Lord, and as I went through the ritualistic Catholic motions, I would stare at Jesus on the cross with a pleading eye, and speak directly to him, from the heart, asking him to please please please save me. And although I later gave up the Catholic faith, I learned from my mother and grandmother the path of deep devotion.

At age 13 it was time for confirmation, and I refused to go through the process. My family was horrified. I explained that I didnt want to be confirmed into a religion I wasnt sure was right for me after all, I was still a kid. And to my amazement, our family priest agreed that I should be allowed to explore my faith before I took a life-long oath. So I set out to study world spiritual traditions, and what I discovered was that beneath all the differences, beneath the various perspectives and especially beneath the fighting were beautiful messages of love, honesty, non-violence, and peace that really resonated with me. I also discovered the ancient scriptures of yoga, which pre-dated most of these belief systems.

During this time, my family was in grave turmoil. Not as bad as some,but far worse than others. Dad was having affairs, mom was in deep denial, and I was becoming a teen. My hormones were all over the place. I tried to turn more to my studies, and became an A student, but that wasnt enough. I tried to be perfect, and kept coming up short in my parents eyes. Like most of us at that age, I felt unworthy and awkward. As I grew breasts, I was ashamed of my sexuality, and my chest began caving in.

My fathers drinking progressed into emotional and physical abuse, so I also turned to drinking and drugs. I went from the cheerleader girl-next-door to the party girl who could drink all the boys under the table, and I was proud of that! I smoked pot by age 14, drank a whole bottle of vodka the next year, and lost my virginity a couple of years later. I was looking for love, searching for something deeper; all this time I was reading the yoga scriptures but having no outside support.

At 16, my father finally lost it, and beat me so badly I left home. The reason? I was raped at a party, and he blamed it on me. I think I was more hurt and angry at my father than at the rapist. It was a scary time, and I moved from house to house until I graduated. I was suicidal and in a dangerous downward spiral. The turning point didnt come until I became an unwed mom in college.

Seems like an odd way to salvation, but I knew when I got pregnant I just had to knock it off if not for myself, then for my unborn child. I longed to be a good mother, to bring her up with a respect and care that I had never known. I turned to therapy, traditional and alternative, and turned my life around.

One of the first steps on every spiritual path is looking at the truth. In yoga, truth is called satya in Sanskrit, and it is one of the first yamas or ethical guidelines in the Yoga Sutras, one of the oldest written documents on this path. Most people translate this as honesty toward others, which of course is an important value, but when directed toward ourselves it sheds a light that leads to all the other ethical truths, as well as the big truth, that we are all one. There is no duality. We all hurt and we dont want to hurt.

Jesus said the truth shall set us free, and he was an enlightened guy. That doesnt mean it doesnt smart along the journey. In fact, usually this means a whole bunch of change, much discomfort, but is a needed step before the good stuff comes. Its kind of like getting your legs waxed. You know its going to hurt a little, but it wont kill you, and in the end your legs will be silky smooth. Or, a less superficial example, you get a mammogram because in the end, getting your breasts cut off is a lot more painful than pressing them naked against a cold, hard plate.

In my case, it meant digging through all the little lies I told myself along the way, and learning to just sit with the pain, witness it for what it was, forgive everyone involved, and learn the lesson. I had many lessons, many kicks in the butt from the universe, before I started getting the bigger picture.