Yoga came to my life during my cancer treatment. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Bowel Cancer and I was looking for my own healing and answers while going through chemotherapy.
I knew yoga was good for the body and mind, but I didn’t really know much about it. I knew there was a massive hype about yoga so I thought I would try.
My body was weak not only from the chemotherapy, emergency operation from removing the tumor from my bowel, but mostly from the careless way I looked after my body up to the point of my diagnosis – physically and mentally.
My body was wrecked…I was depleted physically and mentally…
I started doing yoga at home by myself, watching videos on Youtube. I could only do 10 minutes at the beginning, but I kept showing up on the mat.
Slowly I started breathing deeper, I started feeling more and more present in my body. I started feeling more relaxed in my mind when I started focusing on being present in my body.
I didn’t realize what was happening until I study the science of yoga. You are probably thinking – why would connecting to your body be beneficial for your mental state?
When I look back, I acknowledge that before cancer I was very disconnected from my body and from who I really was. It was as if I had been running on a treadmill that was not only running faster than I physically could, it was always running faster than I mentally could run too.
Yoga helped me massively with my mental and emotional being as I started walking back to myself, moving energy blockages around my physical body and moving away the black cloud that was constantly on top of my head. Mostly important yoga helped me to start building a relationship with myself.
A cancer diagnosis can throw you completely off balance mentally and emotionally, but yoga helped me to stay focussed and to find my own balance again.
During treatment, it is so easy to let you mind wonder to dark places but as I kept practicing I kept connecting my focus and attention to my body and slowly the weight of my mind started lifting.
Yoga was an important part of my journey to healing and it has become a daily practice for me. 2 years on, I am still practicing yoga and if anything I have deepen my practice even further.