Written By Christine Ross ARNP-BC

At first glance I could say that yoga has been a part of my life for over 10 years. It started after my first child was born and was meant purely as a means to get back into shape. I started with some Gaiam videos and became best friends with Rodney Yee. Back then I was able to meet my physical goal through the process. This parlayed into going to an actual yoga class which back then was hard to find. I did find one in a questionable neighborhood run by Prem an ex-Tibetan monk.

Well this was entirely different thing, I felt extremely uncomfortable as I was young and heavily bound with my ego. I slowly moved away form yoga finding a million reasons not to do it because although I like what it did for me on the outside I do not suppose that I was ready to take a look at what was going on in the inside and I surely had no capacity to calm my monkey mind. Although I always looked back on yoga with only good memories I some how drifted away as I believe that I was disconnected with my inner and outer self perhaps related to my life situation and I guess I could not really allow myself to live a healthful lifestyle that was a big part of the yoga practice.

Now fast forward a few years yoga is now much trendier, everybody is doing it, they are even offering it at my gym. So a few years ago I hop back on that horse so to speak. Now a bit older and hopefully wiser and working on that ego thing I found myself ready to pursue bigger goals than just getting my physical body into shape. To be honest when I did go back the biggest thing that brought me back was that yoga made me feel good. Even back then while in a terribly unhappy marriage, it was the one thing that I did that was good for me. I am not really sure why I walked away from it but I decided it was time to start it again and really try to fully understand all aspects of yoga not just the physical aspects.

In getting back with yoga my first stop was to bring out my Rodney Yee tapes (some did not work any more and needed to be replaced with DVDs). It seemed like a good place to start and as I sat in the darkness of my room doing PM yoga by candlelight, I thought to myself how far I had come previously married, drunk, unhealthy, unhappy yet searching. Now older in age, an increase in my personal experience, life in general since the last time I sat in the very same room doing the very same yoga experience was different. This time I felt like I could truly appreciate this mini yoga class. I heard so many things that I never heard before on the tapes despite having listened to them a number of times before and it felt so good, I even allowed myself to drift into medication at the end. I knew after the first time that I was ready to know myself truly and authentically immerse myself into yoga as a life style rather than a work out routine.

The beginnings of my preparations for my healthy and spiritual life started even 3 years prior to restarting yoga as I made the healthful decision to never drink alcohol again. From there my journey I began clearing the cobwebs from my brain. Within this process I noticed I had a deep intellectual need to further find out who I am, where I belong, and my beliefs , to let go of egoist thoughts, find my inner purpose which I believe would assist me in becoming oneness to the spirit. I voracious read many book on mind, spirit, health and of course yoga. It really started with Eckert Tolle whose thoughts very much aligned many principles of the yoga practice; especially the imports of the break from the ego, which he speaks about in depth in his book “A New Earth”. Other authors that I plowed through with great intent were Louis Hay, Cheryl Richardson, Michael Berg, Ester and Jerry N and Ester Hicks and pretty much anything that involved enlightening, healthful or spiritual information.

That line that I have heard so many times before that says when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I think for me yoga is the teacher because it is the coming together of all of my thoughts beliefs and practices. I now realize that yoga is so much more than just a work out it is a life style. It is entire integration and alignment of all my core values.

The final hold out for me in the yoga lifestyle was diet. I understand as most people do the difference between foods that are good for me and food that are bad for me. However I will be the first to admit that I have fallen prey to the convenience of fast and processed food using the excuse that I am a single mother and I don’t have the time. I notice in eating unconsciously that I generally do not feel that great afterwards and that perhaps this haphazard eating is fulfilling some other kind of need that had nothing to do with hunger. I do know that at times when I do eat something that would be considered junk food I can feel it in the way my body process it and it can be the full range of slight abdominal cramps to full on abdominal pain as a results of unhealthful eating.

Luckily in all of my many reading on spirituality I came across another book called Quantum Wellness. This book discussed some dietary issues. Of most noted was the case of meat eating. The author offered some very valid points for living a vegetarian lifestyle and also revealed horrific examples of the treatment and deaths of animals to strengthen her case. What she proposed was a cleanse diet for 21 days.

The diet was not about what you can eat but more about what you can’t eat. No caffeine, no sugar, no gluten, no alcohol, no animals or animal products. This diet because of the limitation gives the body a chance to restart and perhaps even alter taste buds. Also once again the type of diet proposed was actually in strong alignment to what is considered the yoga diet as most of the foods are pure whole or sattvic.

It was pretty brutal because besides the alcohol which I had already given up. I ate lots of sugar and carbs. I drink coffee and Red bull daily. With all these limitation and restrictions, how could I possibly do it? Consequently when I thought it through I said to myself, well it just for 21 days let just see how I do. Anybody can do anything for that short amount of time. The author even offered a get out early that you could stop after 2 weeks if you could not stand it, so, what is the worst that could happen? Well besides a few rough afternoons without coffee I started feeling pretty good.

I realized after a few days when my system stabilized that maybe I did not need that much caffeine. Additionally my blood glucose level I believe was pretty stable so I did not get those unsettling hypo-glycemic feelings followed by a surge of hyper-glyemic rush. My stomach never gave me any problems, my body adapted well; I even lost about 10 pounds.

So as the 21st day approached I wondered what I would do afterward the 21 days were up. I felt pretty strong about not wanting to eat meat after reading some of thing mentioned in the book. The goal of the cleanse diet was to eat consciously what was brought to your plate and how could you eat something that was alive, tortured and killed to be your dinner. Also the negative energy that is associated with the killing of that animal is now within something that you are going to eat. That is not for me. Yet again I understand that this is total alignment of the yogi lifestyle of not eating flesh. So now instead of a cleanse diet which I guess cleansed my palate I am on what is considered to be a yoga diet. And I never felt better and healthier in my entire life.

The final aspect of health is the power of mediation or prayer. Incorporating mediation and worship into your life as been a tried and true secret the happiness which of course leds to healthiness. There are so many studies available showing the benefits of meditation that to me had become an indisputable fact. I believe the only reason why more people are not doing it is their lack of knowledge and how to do it. However with these studies being made available people may be more likely to seek out and if they take a yoga class than they can get a sneak preview as to what it is and what it feels like. That is how it was for me. When I first started yoga I looked on it more as a “cool down” but as my practice has expanded and I did my own personal research and even took a few mediation classes without yoga it continued to strengthen my practice and of course my health.

This is where I believe that yoga hits the mark on every aspect of health. There is the physical exercise which is good for body, systems, internal and external. There is the dietary practice which is good for absolutely anyone especially in this society plagued with heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes. It is healthy for your mind in that it offers prayaymas, mediation, and worship which are proven to increase health in your body and mind. For me it is so obvious what a gift this lifestyle is for me.

One part of my life that I have not yet mentioned is the fact that I work in the medical health care field. I am a board certified Nurse Practitioner. You would think that with the education I had and seeing unhealthy and sick people every day would immediately cause me to live a healthy life style so as not to become the patient. Well I am here to tell you that people working in the medical health care field are perhaps the worst offenders of all. Many of them smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, eat poorly, do not work out and on top of that work a very stressful job with unusual and long hours. I have not figured out how this is acceptable. I have a very clear memory of a doctor I worked with who was overweight, had high blood pressure, and borderline diabetic telling a patient how they must lose weight. I have to even wonder what that the patient must have thought. How could he ever be motivated to do such a thing when the person telling him to could not?

I am not expecting health care workers to be angels no one is perfect and there was certainly a time in my life where I was very unhealthy in many ways. However if you are going to advise someone on health you have to do more than talk the talk, you must walk the walk. Only then could you possibly get someone actually excited about making a change in their life. It is a practice by example. Living a healthy life with yoga (including pranyama, postures, diet, medication) incorporated into myself permits me to talk the talk and walk the walk.

So as healthcare provider and future yoga teacher I see this as a wonderful opportunity to incorporate the two practiced as they are definitely in synch with each other. I feel blessed to be able to offer yoga as an additional intervention/lifestyle/health option for wellness into my practice. Having yoga in my life as part of my lifestyle allows be to set a healthy example and what’s more allows me to treat and interact with the entire person body mind and soul.

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Side note: Christine Ross ARNP-BC is now a Certified Yoga Teacher (CYT). She teaches in the Jupiter, Florida area.
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