The Transformative Trio: How Yoga, Meditation, and Writing Save and Heal Me

An Epilogue to My Three-Part Series

Whenever someone asks what I do, I say I'm a writer. The answer has changed from being a yoga teacher and my prior role as a director for a corporation. 

But before I admit to being a writer, I look past the person asking to see if the imposter police are lurking nearby to call me out. There is a certain gravitas to the word "writer," with so many novices practicing it here online. 

To write and be understood is a gift.

Focused work comes along with the craft of writing. It takes effort for the thought to land sensibly on paper.

Besides the work, there is a price to pay, too. An effective writer channels their emotions to communicate with the reader. That's why articles by artificial intelligence are a bland substitute for that of human writers. Readers can detect put-on sentiment a mile away.

Writing the past three newsletters dredged some things up for me. Once I committed to sharing my story, I didn't want to stop in the middle and leave people hanging. A few times, though, I considered abandoning the telling altogether and constructed ways to pivot to a new storyline.

You may not have noticed, but I skipped a week between parts two and three of the story. The desire to run away was fierce.

Writing meant I had to revisit those intense feelings. 

Even though my divorce happened fourteen years ago, presenting it here felt like turning the nozzle on a pressure cooker. It seeped out slowly and then, with a flick, all at once. The emotions splattered onto the ceiling, with unwelcome grief dripping down.

I lost a lot when I made the most significant transition of my life:

• A marriage

• My relationship with my parents

• Stability for my kids

• Friendships

• A sense of home

• The respect of my community.

If you've ever been through a divorce, you can relate to the ragged hole it leaves. There's no thinking your way out of the pain of grief because humans don't work that way.

I went to therapy to manage the overwhelming emotions. My therapist was great, yet the sessions felt like work, a job I couldn't wait to quit. I had to unearth what was behind everything that happened, and that revealed more pain but also understanding.

Once I understood, then I could have compassion for myself.

I never want to disconnect from my emotions again, but instead want my mind, body, and spirit to be harmonious.

How I use yoga for mental health maintenance.

Emotions appear in the body as physical reactions, and yoga helps me to notice them. You know what I mean if you can detect that you're clenching your jaw or hunching your shoulders while reading this. The physical reflects the internal world.

Meditation uncovers more still because sitting alone in silence opens the door for the monkey mind to generate distractions to cover up the feelings that need attention.

As the observer of the mind, I can be gently curious about what's underneath that busyness.

It’s easy to throw up my hands and say there's just too much going on in there (and sometimes I do), but pushing through can lead to breakthroughs about what is bothering me. Once I know that, understanding and compassion can arrive.

Writing three pages daily in a journal also gives me insight into what's going on internally, especially after meditating. Visualizing your most important thoughts on paper is a way to gather the confetti of your mind and form it into something that makes sense.

Writing is a way to transfer the invisible into something concrete. 

Writing the newsletter and connecting with you here in the Substack community has been healing, although I didn’t realize it would be when I started writing three years ago. Your comments and notes have really been inspiring, and I am so grateful to be a part of this community.

Yoga, meditation, and writing have keep me connected to myself.

What keeps you connected to who you really are? Comment below.

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Here is a great podcast called “Dear Therapists” I’ve discovered. Here trained therapists talk and help real-life patients. Listening to other people’s problems has helped me with some of my own. Here is the most recent episode.