The Path to Healing
I first came to yoga for the temporary respite that it provided me. I was able to find silence in the hollows inside of me which echoed and creaked as they grew larger with my breath. I became aware of peace as it revealed itself to me in moments of stillness; always in passing. I tasted the feeling of what it must be like to be unburdened. I have skimmed my fingers across contentment in these moments, I have lingered longingly upon happiness, I have momentarily submerged myself in mirrorless puddles of peace. I have known, on my mat, for a little while, what it feels like to not be connected to my past. My mat has been my refuge, my lifeboat, my safe place. I did not know that it would be my place of reckoning; the first of many steps on my journey within.
Escaping my past has been the primary focus of my adult life. I cannot undo the dark acts which have rooted themselves deeply in my identity. I keep thinking that healing will befall me in time, that one day in the middle of my ordinary life, I will stumble upon healing in the midst of a forest or in some grand revelation passed on to me in the words of another. And yet, year after year, it eludes me.
I realized that healing is a path. Some stumble upon this path, some actively seek out opposing directions, and some pack up everything to embark upon it — the internal PCT which covers the 2000 miles to the soul. I was one of the latter types: I ditched my apartment, quit my job, packed up everything, and went to India to study yoga. I went to float on my mat, my life raft, for long enough to let my mind and body at last find rest from trauma. I traveled halfway across the world to travel within, seeking some ancient wisdom that might heal me. I went on a personal quest to overcome that which I had failed to overcome. I went to learn, to grow, and to dive into the murky depths of my soul hoping to find that I myself was a beautiful lotus, rooted in the mud, rising through the murkiness, destined to bloom pristinely above the surface.
I spent 500 hours sweating, cleansing, learning, praying, chanting, purifying. I spent 500 hours reading and laughing and crying hysterically. I spent endless moments trying to understand what God was and how I could forgive a God who would allow me to suffer so irreparably. I spent nine full weeks trying to understand the path to freedom. I wanted so desperately to let go; it was far too heavy to hold on. I went to India to rid myself of that weight, to be free at last of that burden — to find a way to float. What I did not realize then was that I was still moving, still running away, so that the weight simply appeared to have become lighter. And it really did seem lighter; it seemed so light that I almost thought it was gone. I was so close to convinced that I was finally healed.
Until I returned home. My 9 weeks in the Ashram, my 500+ hours of effort did not heal me. I thought they would. For a while, I thought they did. But healing is not a happening. It does not occur in an instance, or even many instances; it is a process. Steps forward into the darkness. Steps backward, into the recesses of our minds. Pitfalls down into dark, magicless rabbit holes. A release so small it almost goes unnoticed. And glimpses of light. Offerings of hope. The promise of a space within which remains untarnished.
I did walk away from India forever altered. I boarded the plane which would take me home enlightened by the knowledge that there is a place inside of me which is untouchable. Untouchable. Beyond the darkness of my life. There was so much hope in that realization. I was convinced that the core of me was beyond repair. But there is a place inside of me which remains unaffected by the horrors that have befallen me; I am not all darkness.
As I sat in the meditation hall in India listening to the painful pasts of my fellow seekers, and as I stood surrounded by screams and wailing as we brought up that which was most deeply rooted within us, I learned that I am not alone in my pain. That many of us have suffered in ways from which we will never fully recover. But not one of us is beyond hope. Every one of us contains a center which remains untarnished. Some darkness may always linger. It cannot be removed by our simply willing it to be gone. But If we can wade through the murky waters and find a way to make our light shine brighter, then it will shine through the darkness. The miracle of this duality is that darkness cannot block out light. Even the feeblest of light will cut through the most despairing darkness, and those faint traces of light allow the lotus within us all to awaken — to root into the darkness and to rise towards the light.
Maybe THAT is the key to healing: that we already contain that which is necessary to drive out the darkness. The real struggle lies in accepting that we are already good, that the light is already there, even if we can’t see it at first. And to know that we can grow our light exponentially so that it not only drives out our own shadows, but it sends us beyond them — to the surface, where we reflect the vastness of the sky in our highest; now fully bloomed, but a lotus from the beginning.
