Slowing Down As the World Opens Up
By Maz Connolly, Guest Contributor
As life here in the UK begins to open up again, I have found myself experiencing a myriad of emotions. At first it was excitement at getting to see my friends again, then joy at being able to go to the theatre again, followed by appreciation when I attended my first in-person yoga class since the pandemic began. Although I am happy about all of these things, I can’t help but notice anxiety beginning to creep in.
As life gets busier again, it’s hard not to miss the quiet, contemplative times that I’ve enjoyed over the last year, which is why I want to create a balance between being busy and being quiet. While I may not have always known it, my life can be both – it’s not an either-or scenario like I once thought it was.
Life In the Fast Lane
Years ago, someone I worked with commented about my driving, she said, “You drive like you live Maz, at full speed.” Apparently she had watched me tear out of a car park the night before and asked herself how long I could live at that extreme pace. Being me, I laughed the comment off and made a joke about not having enough time to live at the same pace as other people and continued living like that until my mental and physical health began to suffer. Even then I didn’t slow down, I kept pushing myself towards the point of breaking without thinking about the consequences. Not even my relapse with anorexia stopped me. It was only when I found yoga I began to slow down and realise that living life in a slower lane wasn’t just possible, but also much more satisfying.
This time 5 years ago I was still living my life in that fast lane, although the consequences were starting to show. My typical day involved getting up at 5am, commuting one hour to the city where I worked, hitting the gym before starting work, during my lunch break, and when I finished. After commuting back home, I’d spend 3 nights a week volunteering on a phone helpline. On the days I wasn’t working I was volunteering as a counsellor at a primary school or studying to become a counsellor. Of course, neither the body nor the mind were ever intended to be pushed long-term to these extreme limits and as I reflect back now, I can see how my relapse was inevitable; I’m actually surprised I didn’t break sooner.
While everyone else around me could see the damage I was doing to myself and how rapidly my health was declining, my need to be busy and striving to be perfect blinded my vision. Unless I achieved more each day than the day before, unless my muscles ached and I burned more calories than the day before, I believed I was a failure. My black and white thinking didn’t allow me to see resting as being anything other than being lazy, and with only one life why would I want to waste any time I had? These were my basic beliefs until I started practicing yoga.
Forced to Slow Down
Luckily (although it didn’t feel like it at the time) I was forced to slow down when I tore my ACL on Christmas eve 2016, had a bad car accident two weeks later, and then fell downstairs shortly after that and broke 2 ribs. As tough as that time was, I now see it as a blessing because it gave me the pause I needed; an opportunity to stop and think about how constantly striving for perfection, trying to live up to my unrealistic expectations and how pushing myself to my limits every single day was destroying my life.
Simon Haas, in his book of the same title, would describe my experience as my “Dark Night of the Soul,” and it felt like that, but it is also why and how I found my way onto a yoga mat. As I recovered from my knee surgery I had 8 months off work, which finally allowed me time to slow down. As I reflected on the trajectory my life was headed, I became interested in yoga philosophy and decided I didn’t want to go back to how things were before my accident; all that rushing around meant I couldn’t enjoy life. When my knee healed enough, instead of racing back to the gym I began a regular asana practice where I learned I don’t need to strive for perfection but simply accept where I am at any given moment. I had begun my transformation.
Prioritizing Myself
Jumping forward to today, I still start my day at 5am, but the time is spent much more mindfully. Instead of the twelve-hour work days, hours at the gym, and doing things for others my daily practices include:
Meditation and Journaling
Reading or studying
Maximum of 6 hours work per day
A walk in the park
Asana practice
Watching TV
Listening to music
There is no hard and fast rule about what time I do anything, if I want to stay in bed longer one day, there is no self-judgement. Some days I will meditate, journal, practice yoga and have a walk. Some days I might only do one of those things. Some days I might not even do any. That is perfectly OK, because every day is different and consequently every day my energy levels are different. Whilst I still work, I am no longer at the same high-pressured job I was before so I can structure my clients around the things I want to do; those activities that energise and nourish me. I prioritise my own wellbeing above everything and anyone else and no longer see that as being selfish, but as a requirement to look after myself.
I no longer react to emotions and instead choose how I will respond. I embody the words “let it go” because I know the alternative invites unnecessary toxicity into my life. But how did yoga help me get to this place?
Profound Transformation
I think it’s fair to say that my transformation has taken place on both a physical and a psychological level. Physically I let go of having expectations based on comparing myself to or competing with others. From the first time I stepped on my yoga mat I felt it was a fresh new opportunity to do things differently. The need to feel my muscles ache and push myself until I physically couldn’t do anymore has never existed in my asana practice, my intention from my first class was to learn a new way to connect with and appreciate my body and although that didn’t happen overnight, with practice it has become my way of being. Gone is the striving for perfection, replaced by acceptance and the willingness to listen to my body.
The core of my asana practice is Ahimsa and if I’m contemplating testing my limits to challenge myself to go deeper in a posture or to try something different, I ask myself: “Will my practice today stop my practice tomorrow?” If the answer is yes, then I stop; I can give myself permission to do so without judgement or without feeling like a failure.
Comparing what I can do to what others could is something else that has disappeared from my life, “I do me, you do you” is a mantra I use regularly. I know that both as a student and a yoga teacher what I can do is unique to me, what I can do is good enough, and good enough is all that I need; I don’t need to be better than anyone else and the only way I can be worse than someone else is if I judge myself. After all, there is no hierarchy in yoga!
My unwillingness to slow down throughout most of my life was a protective measure, it was a way to keep me disconnected from my mind and my body, neither of which are possible living life as a yogi. My asana practice offered me an opportunity to explore the physical sensations in my body, to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable and to cultivate an appreciation for all that my body does for me each and every day. My body went from being something I hated to becoming a temple that I chose to tend to every day. Yoga philosophy has helped me realise that my physical body is the chariot for my soul and that my soul deserves to travel around in comfort.
[[Read more about Maz’s journey in her blog post, “Living Yoga in My Recovery.”]]
My psychological transformation has definitely created the biggest changes in me. While pranayama and meditation have helped to slow down and calm my anxious, spinning thoughts, embedding the yamas and niyamas into my life has helped me to develop an awareness and way of being that means I am no longer yearning and striving to get to my destination but instead get to enjoy and appreciate the journey and adventure of each new day. Not every day is good, but those days that feel more challenging I chose to see as opportunities to learn instead of as setbacks.
The Gifts of Yoga and Compassion
Do I still feel like I am being tested at times? Absolutely, but the test isn’t about how good I can be but about what internal resources I have to overcome the challenges I face. I am now able to detach from my emotions in a healthy way, not trying to avoid them but instead getting curious about and developing an awareness around them so that I can use that awareness to help me return to a state of calm when I need to. I trust myself and because I trust myself, I can now trust other people. Yoga means union, and as I came to understand what that meant I have become part of communities where I am accepted, where I can thrive and where I know it’s OK to ask for support if I need it.
Yoga helped me realise I am not alone but just a small part of a huge universe where everyone and everyone is connected. However, just because I want to have those connections doesn’t mean I can’t say “No!” when I want to. People who knew me before I started practicing yoga often comment on how different I am now. Gone is the highly strung, highly emotive woman that never stopped, to be replaced by a kind, caring, compassionate woman that loves helping others transform their lives by using her own experiences.
I’ve lost friends along my yoga journey who didn’t align with the ‘true’ me, but that is OK. I don’t see that as a loss because for everyone who has left my life I have found someone else who appreciates and accepts me as my authentic self. The kind and compassionate soul I cultivate today, I believe, always existed inside me, I just didn’t know it. But finding yoga gave me the gift of time, a gift that allowed me to slow down enough to feel that kindness and compassion for both myself and for everyone around me. My transformation has taken me from being a “human doing” to a “human being” and the peace and harmony that brings me on a daily basis is why I could never go back to my old way of living. Yoga brought me a sense of contentment I never knew existed.
So yes, life is getting busier again and I do have the opportunity to do things that I haven’t been able to do since the start of the pandemic, but I sit here now wondering why do I need to do them all at once? The answer, of course, is that I don’t. The healthier approach is to find a balance between being social and being mindful; to find a middle ground that feels right for me and if I can find that, then I know I will stay on the healthy path I’m on right now.
Maz Connolly is an integrative therapist, hypnotherapist, and yoga teacher (RYT-200) based in Chesham, U.K. She is passionate about sharing her own recovery experience and the tools that have helped her on that journey; including yoga, live action role playing and musical theatre, as a way to inspire others and offer hope that full recovery from an eating disorder is possible. Maz shares her honest and encouraging voice on the Yoga for Eating Disorders Community Facebook group, assisting Jennifer in creating a supportive and empowering space for those affected by eating disorders.