My Journey to Happiness: Poor Mental Health to More Mental Wealth

I was 38 the first time I went to India, I went not looking to find myself however what I did find was that I did not know myself.

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.” Bhagavad Gita

I had drifted in and out of yoga for several years before I went to India yet it never really took a real hold of me. In retrospect I don't think I was ready.

My own struggles with depression...

As far back as I can remember I always had a sense of melancholy about me. I witnessed my mum have her first mental breakdown when I was 5 and I am pretty sure it had a profound affect on me. My mum had manic depression, what is now called bi-polar. She was institutionalised several times after that and eventually took her own life in 2000. My mum was an incredibly intelligent and emotional woman, passionate in every way. My hero.

When another of my heroes, my sister Sue, died in March 1998. My nan took her own life aged 97 in the December of the same year. Two years later, almost to the day, my mum took her own life. This all happened within the space of three years. My sister's death was the catalyst for both my nan and mum's suicide; neither could accept the loss of my sister in their lifetime. I was had already been battling depression off and on since the age of 18 so these events took me to rock bottom. It was a very dark time, however I made the choice, finally, to live, to make the effort to change my mind.

It was about a year after my mum's death I picked up two books from the spiritual/self help section of Waterstones. I had never heard of either, one was the now very famous 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle and the other was 'Awareness' by Anthony De Mellow. Something in each resonated with me. It was the beginning of change. It was around the same time I had my first taste of yoga. I was so disconnected from my body and emotions as I had run away from all of the unpleasantness in my psyche for so many years, there was a complete disconnect. I was also so inflexible, my forward fold was over a 90 degree angle! Something I now often demonstrate to beginners when they feel like shit about their forward folds. "It is not about how the fold looks, it is about how it feels from the inside that counts. The cultivation of awareness." is something I would usually say to them. So while I could feel something happeing in the yoga, I drifted in and out of it for about 8 years. I still didn't have the staying power, the will to continue with things.

Change can be a slow yet rewarding process, it took me many years to become who I am today, and while there is always room for improvement, I am content with my life and how I live it. I feel very lucky to be able to say that. During those dark early days after the deaths of the three generations of my matriarchy I came across the saying 'self worth comes from doing worthwhile actions'. My self worth... well, what self worth? I had none. So again, this got me thinking.

“Self worth comes from doing worthwhile things"

My mum left me a little money and I bought my first SLR camera. I went to night school just to learn how to use the thing, I loved it. I was still recovering from all of the trauma in those previous years and couldn't face working full time so I went to college where I received mainly distinctions for a 2 year National Diploma in photography. I decided to go to university and managed to bag an upper 2.1 in Photography at Nottingham Trent University; I was 37 when I graduated! I still felt like a child. I had never done anything of note before this, had undertaken several courses and quit them. It gave me an enormous feeling of achievement to have received a Bachelor of Arts Honors, considering I left school with two GCSEs. The self worth was adorned with a little glitter. I had mainly worked in offices and call centres most of my life and hated it however I could never muster the courage to make any changes.

The Mother Land Calls

I had split up with my very long term boyfriend after graduating from uni (who I am eternally grateful to for being a major part of my journey to my self) and decided to go travelling. I was getting ready to leave with a one way ticket and met my current partner Scott. Timing! I went travelling off and on for a few years, and Scott came along too when he could. It was during this time that I spent 5 months in India, 2010 - 2011 and when I first really started to meditate. I stayed for two weeks in Sivananda Ashram in Kerala and we mediated morning and evening. I also did a 10 day Vipassana silent meditation retreat; Vipassana means 'insight' or 'seesing', to see things as they are. Both were pinnacle to the changes within me and my journey to happiness.

Yoga gave me the strength to look after my dying father

My practice grew stronger and stronger after my first jaunt in India. I only really noticed how much strength of character it had given my when my dad became terminally ill in 2014. A situation I would normally have run away from and had actively done so in the past; by numbing myself with drugs and alcohol. I was able to look after him with the help of his partner Ann, we were able to keep him at his home in Scotland where he died with us and my sister's daughter Kym around him.

So I had lost my whole immediate family by this point, and although I was grieving and sore, I was in a better place emotionally than I had ever been before. So I decided to go back to the ashram to do the 200 hour teacher training, just to heal myself, I never wanted to teach! I knew it would help me deal with the death of my dad. It did, not just the practice but also the study of yogic philosophy, it also made want to share the little knowledge I had amassed. It took me a few years to do it, I was grieving and reluctant but I eventually did. Becoming a yoga teacher is the best thing I have ever done.

So today, I am doing something that I love and sharing something that not only helped to save me but also helped me overcome all that life had thrown at me. Not that I have ever thought 'why me?', why not me? Why someone else? We all suffer, there are always people worse and better off than ourselves. Yoga helped me to accept the bereavements I experienced and to not have the same fate as my mum and nan. Yogic concepts such as Santosha (acceptance/contentment), Anicca (impermanence) and Aparigraha (non-grasping) are favourite themes of mine for class as they help us to understand how to deal with the vicissitudes of life.

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” Thich Nhat Hanh