I started practicing yoga about 25 years ago in my early 20’s. I didn’t fully understand why or how, but it was a powerful tool to help me regulate my anxiety and emotions. It supported me in coming out of a severe depression where I was depending on street drugs to manage. After a childhood of illness and poor health, I had become estranged from my body and, for the first time I could take responsibility for my own physical and mental health. I’ve continued to use yoga in this way throughout my adult life. I’ve found that yoga offers tools for self-regulation and resiliency, and it can help with impulse control and having a healthy perspective on life. I spent most of my life in the yoga industry and I watched how it became increasingly associated with physical fitness but sometimes became exclusive and inaccessible to folks who could really benefit from the practice. I began to study yoga therapy and trauma informed yoga in 2017 to develop the skills necessary to reach out to diverse populations of folx and teach in settings that were specifically designed for healing, recovery, and post-traumatic growth. I initially heard of Yoga 4 Change when I ran a small studio in Ft. Lauderdale. Alex Ramirez, who is now the program director for South Florida, took one of my workshops and she was just applying to work with Yoga 4 Change. She described it as her dream job, and I knew it was something that I was interested in as well. At the time I didn’t have a lot of room in my life, but after the pandemic in 2020 I found the space opened to allow me the opportunity to work with this amazing organization. I am humbled every time I teach a class with Yoga 4 Change. My bio family has been impacted by mental health and substance use, and while I’ve been in a process of navigating my own mental health and relationship to substances throughout my life, I’ve often felt guilty that I couldn’t offer the peace that I’ve found to my family. Working with Yoga 4 Change, I am learning to make peace with the individual journey of each person. I am learning so much about presence, holding space, letting go, and allowing rather than directing as a teacher. I am witnessing the effectiveness of yogic tools in action as many of the participants report small improvements in their lives that equal big improvements over time. I sometimes see the surprise when folx participate in yoga for the first time and feel a tangible difference after class, even if it is acceptance of where they are physically, emotionally, and/or situationally. It’s great to be surprised after 25 years of teaching and to be challenged to see the practice of yoga with a new perspective.
Blog written by Yoga 4 Change Instructor: Greg Nardi
