Caiti

 

SPENGA Crew Spotlight: Caiti

 

caiti

I found yoga when I was 25 years old. Now, note the phrasing here. I think there is a big difference between “I began doing yoga” and “I found yoga”. I found this practice when I was the least connected to myself. I questioned whether or not I was contributing to society in a meaningful way, I constantly felt the need to be thinner and smaller, and I often times felt like this culmination of all things gone wrong. Do bear with me, as I know we’ve began at what seems like rock bottom, but that’s why I like to tell my yoga story this way. It paints the truest picture of what yoga has done for me. Of course, I could spend the next thousand words listing all of the physical and scientific benefits of yoga, but I figured my time (our time) would be better spent simply sharing my story in the hopes that you relate to it in some way, too.

 

 So, here we go.

 

At 25 years old, I was in a relationship I’d held on to too long, I was eating in a disorderly fashion, and I was in therapy for the very first time. Yoga was actually referred to me by my therapist, who is a 200-hour registered yoga teacher himself. He said I needed a space that was just for me, where my financial and work-related achievements didn’t define me, and I could exist in the simplest way. He said I needed a calming but repetitive practice that could slow the excessive, anxious chatter in my head.

 

It started slowly. I began taking class in the back row. It was safe. I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, which was important because that’s where a lot of the nitpicking began anyway. Class after class, I felt more in tune with my body; not in the way it looked, but the way it felt. I became more proud of what it could do rather than what size it could fit in. I then began working my way up the rows until I finally felt comfortable enough with myself to look at myself in the mirror and not immediately pick myself apart. That was a really big day. That was the first thing that yoga did for me. It helped me understand that my body was meant to be strong, not small. It was meant to work for me and my standards, not for everyone else and theirs. Now, I could lie to you and tell you that I’ve never thought about the size of my body ever again, but I appreciate you all more than that, so I won’t. It’s a choice that I make consciously every day. I choose to look at myself for more than just my shape. I choose food and movement that makes me feel good, and some days, I choose not to move because it makes me feel good. I actively pursue choosing balance every single day, and yoga has helped so much with that. Yoga asks us to strike a balance between something very active and something very passive. It asks us to ground and asks us to challenge. Yoga asks us to listen deeper - do we need to push further? Or will it be more of a challenge for us to pull back? Those answers fluctuate daily, but yoga poses the questions each time we step onto our mats.

 

The other thing yoga asks us to do (it asks a million things but for the sake of your time, I’ll keep it to two) is exist in our truest, simplest form. I found myself in my mid-20s with a pretty nice salary, a job title consistent with my peers and a relationship status that could possibly lead down a traditional path of marriage, children, etc. At the time, all of those things were me. I was my salary. I was my job. I was my relationship. I didn’t exist outside of those elements. Unfortunately, this lesson took me a little longer. It took me losing two out of those three elements to really understand that I was separate from them. I got fired for the very first time at 27. I had put all of my energy and all of my focus into playing the game, into climbing the ladder, and I’d finally gotten the title for which I strived. It lasted 6 months before the company filed bankruptcy and I was let go. All of that work for 6 months of what I thought I wanted. Truth be told, I was miserable. I cried to and from work every day, wishing that my job was simpler, wishing that I didn’t have to barter and haggle for what I needed. And then it all stopped. I freaked out, rightfully so, and I drove to my parents’ house because, well, my parents make everything better. And that year, I practiced A LOT of yoga. I even enrolled in yoga teacher training. I dove in head first because it was the only space where no one cared.

 

You may notice it now, after talking to some of your instructors, that we have no idea what most of you do for a living. We have no idea how much money you make or what part of town you live in. We only know the things we need to know. We know that you work hard, that you’re committed to evolving yourself physically and mentally, and we know that you enjoy spending time with your community. Now, over time, we may ask so that we can paint a fuller picture of you, but once you step into the studio, we have everything we need from you. We have your presence and your energy, and truthfully, that’s enough. It took me a long time to realize that, and again, it’s something I work on every single day. It’s very hard to separate your value from the things that you do, but yoga doesn’t care. Yoga doesn’t care if you can do the splits or do a headstand. Yoga doesn’t care if you make $1 or $100,000. Yoga only cares that you place your focus on yourself and your mat. Yoga only asks you to breathe and exist. It doesn’t ask you to compare or compete. It asks you to become comfortable in the uncomfortable. Instructors will offer postures, of course, but only to reflect a mirror back on the deeper parts of yourself. The postures aren’t there to create shapes, they are there to create sensations and identify feelings.

 

I could go on forever about what yoga has done for me, but I’ll stop here for now. Each one of you will write your own story and create your own experience. It might sound like mine, and it might not, but regardless of how it sounds, it will be yours. And at the end of the day, that is all that matters.