At 9 years old I was bored in school but was lucky to have an amazing teacher. When the students were hyper and over anxious she would take us outside and teach us yoga. It was an amazing gift that transformed the path my life was to take. From that time whenever my life was difficult, yoga helped me get through. Returning to my mat became my therapy.
My life has been a serious roller-coaster. I have ridden many highs and had plenty of traumatic lows. Sometimes I feel if I wrote my story down it would be hard to believe it all happened to one person. I have known what it is like to live in a life of fear and shame. I have battled dark times and learned how to glue myself back together. Throughout my journey yoga has kept me grounded during the highs and mentally safe through the lows.
At a particularly difficult patch I decided I needed a drastic change in my life journey. All the signs started pointing towards the healing arts and helping other people the way so many had helped me. At the time I had almost entirely lost my voice, afraid to speak up and draw attention to myself. I took my yoga teacher training as much as a healing journey for myself as an opportunity to learn how to share the valuable knowledge that had been shared with me. Once I took that step it was like a snowball effect and everything started falling into place. I began teaching and learning from my students as much as I was teaching them.
I enrolled in a yoga therapy course, became a licensed massage therapist and myofascial release specialist, reiki master, certified in aerial yoga and began combining different healing arts for clients to create their tailored recipe for becoming a stronger version of themselves. Through my yoga therapy course, I found Y12SR and discovered just how much incorporating yoga with addiction recovery can really help. I have watched many people I love struggle with addiction. With the current frightening statistics, it is probably nearly impossible to not have someone you know or care about struggling. I noticed a few things with incorporating yoga and addiction recovery, most importantly there is still a stigma involved with addiction that creates a social barrier for people struggling to feel they might be unwelcome in a yoga studio. Yoga often seems inaccessible to the newcomer, especially the newcomer struggling with addiction or in recovery. Fear of social stigma, anxiety over trying something new and the high cost of studio membership being just some of the barriers that keep people from trying something that might truly benefit them. From this Bee Happy Wellness Inc a 501c3 not for profit was born.
It is my goal to open a wellness center that is free from social judgement. A welcoming place to anyone no matter what their current location in their own life journey. Once we have a space I plan to sponsor people in recovery to make memberships more affordable. I believe if we build a strong community together we can tackle the current opioid crisis one person at a time.
Donate to Bee Happy Wellness Inc – make holistic health affordable to help prevent relapse!
