Stephanie Spence - Yoga Wisdom: Warrior Tales Inspiring You On and Off Your Mat

Copyright 2018 by Stephanie Spence

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Spence, Stephanie, author.

Title: Yoga wisdom : warrior tales inspiring you on and off your mat / by Stephanie Spence.

Description: New York, NY : Skyhorse Publishing, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2018021172| ISBN 9781510737099 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781510737105 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology) | Yoga. |

Yogin?is--Quotations, maxims, etc.

Classification: LCC BF637.S4 S675 2018 | DDC 613.7/046--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021172

Cover design by Mona Lin

Cover illustration courtesy of iStockphoto

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3709-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3710-5

Printed in China

Dedication

To Michael, with love and gratitude.

And to both of my daughters, with love.

Contents

Foreword by Rolf Gates

I read once that a single-cell organism can either grow or it can defend itself; it cannot do both at the same time. Stephanie Spence has written beautifully about what this means through a human life. For a time, she was defined by the need to defend herself. Then one day things changed. She found safety. She found connection. She felt the Sacred. She found sanctuary. Held by kindness and compassion, she was able to put her burden down. Those who held her taught her how to hold herself, and she in turn has learned to hold others. Today, her life is defined by the possibility of growth. Hers is now the heros journey.

I met Stephanie on that journey some years ago as she was beginning the series of interviews that would become this book. She came to Santa Cruz and interviewed me with the intelligence and joy I have come to associate with yoga practice. There is something that happens when you combine getting a second chance at life with the practices of awakening that is unmistakable. People just radiate. She was not yet sure what she wanted to do with her interviews, but she was clear about her intention, which was to support others as they chose the path of Yoga. She still embodies this clarity today.

Arica Grafton

Believing that sanctuary is something we choose in the silent private space of our hearts and create in the loud colorful space of our togetherness, Stephanie has written a book about what we choose for ourselves and what we create together. Believing that learning is one part listening and one part teaching, Stephanie has written a book that combines her voice with many others. Knowing that this book will be a joy to those who pick it up, it is my honor to welcome you to its sunlit shores.

Namaste, Rolf

Introduction

T he setting: a luxurious villa on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. A wife and husband, along with several of his clients, are partying on a terrace overlooking the glittering ocean and sun-kissed beach. They flew in from Pittsburgh aboard his private jet that morning. The woman seems to have it allshes a self-made success story, wife, and mother. But beneath her mask of contentment and complicity, she hides a terrible secret: the price shes paying for this glamorous life is that she is living a lie. Their friends and acquaintances would say that she and her rich, powerful husband of twenty-five years never argue. Well, she doesnt argue. Why? She is terrified of being bullied, verbally dismissed, and belittled.

As usual, she is expected to entertain her husbands guests, which means fulfilling their every desireno matter how illegal. Submissive and compliant, her everyday mantra. Soon, the revelers want to kick things up a notch with Thai Stick, some of the best opium-laced marijuana money can buy. And they expect her to join in.

She takes the Stick, feels her stomach rebel. Her mind screams in protest. She brings the smoldering joint to her lips... and hesitates. Her husband, waiting his turn, nods for her to take a hit.

She parts her lips, ready to obey. Wait. What am I doing? she thinks. Selling her soul. Giving herself away .

Putting toxic substances into her body because her husband expects her to be the life of the party. She drops the Stick in a most deliberate way, oblivious to the gasps and protests. No. No more.

She is done with drugs, drinking, and ass-kissing. Ignoring one mans dash to grab the Stick, now rolling across the patio, she turns to the man who had once vowed to honor and love her. His mouth moves, trying to form words in his shocked outrage.

Before his drug-hazed mind can produce the vitriol he so clearly wants to spew, she blurts out, I want a divorce.

A startled hush falls over everyone as they wait for his reaction. Shes prepared for the worst of his explosive temper. Instead of denigrating her, threatening her, or pretending that he cares, he simply walks out of the villa. Minutes later, she hears him drive away.

She excuses herself and holes up in one of the guest rooms to await his return. The waiting is its own torture, and its for nothing. She finds out that he boarded his jet and left her behind.

But he wasnt done. The following day, he sends her an email with only one sentence: Your life as you know it will never be the same.

My name is Stephanie Spence, a.k.a. Yoga Road Trip Girl, and that wife was me. That brave, bold declaration was only the beginning. As any survivor of abuse, whether physical, emotional, or mental, knows, you cant go from living as a shell of your former self to empowered in a day, a week, a month. For me, its an ongoing journey of triumphs and failures, of heartbreak and joy.