You’re Stronger Than You Think You Are: How Yoga Continues to Help Me Heal.

I am a Marine Corps veteran, yoga skeptic, turned yoga student, turned yoga teacher. It’s been quite the journey from my “it’s not worth exercising unless it kicks my butt” military days to where I am now. I’m still both a student and a teacher at all times, though. I am a recovering perfectionist; I was raised by a career military father, strict mother, have been a competitive athlete my whole life, and became a United States Marine. I’ve got plenty of interesting baggage to work with. We all do. Realizing that I’m not special in that regard – that we’ve all got baggage, insecurities, and (mental and physical) injuries – has helped me immensely.

I’ve been injured – a lot. I really shouldn’t be alive. (No really, I’ve been hit by a car and struck by lightning, just to give you a couple examples). I can get mired down in that story sometimes, though, believing I’m the only one who’s been through what I’ve been through (which I’m not). And yoga, for all its feel good niceties, bendiness, and fit bodies, isn’t all sunshine and butterflies all the time. Yoga brings your tough stuff up, too. It’s sort of supposed to but it doesn’t always mean that’s a pleasant experience. Yoga can be the refining fires that we need to walk through, but don’t want to.

The question is, how do we meet the challenge of the fire without getting burned up?

Admittedly, I usually turn to yoga to make me feel better. When it doesn’t, I sometimes get mad. I think, “There’s no way anyone else in this room has sustained the injuries I have” or “no one’s been through what I’ve been through; my body is housing more trauma than yours.” I become defensive against the inaudible – yet very real – arguments and naysayers in my own head. Honestly, I don’t look around a lot during yoga class – usually. But last month, I caught myself getting frustrated with my body and doing just that: looking and judging (myself). It was awful. Talk about a slippery slope! It took a millisecond to leap from “I am present, I am peaceful” to moving into a posture I couldn’t do (yet everyone else in the class seemed to be able to do with ease and grace) and thoughts of “wow, I am still so screwed up and I’ll never be ‘good’ at yoga” to flood my brain.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and I’d have to agree. You don’t know what anyone else has or hasn’t been through. You don’t know if they were abused or loved, a dancer or a footballer, a military veteran or a “regular” college student, a newbie to the practice or an experienced guru. They good look like they’re doing the posture with ease, but they might be miserable. Or you could pity someone for not being able to touch their toes, yet they could be thrilled with themselves that they’re even in a yoga class at all. You have to meet yourself where you are and accept that in that moment, that’s what your mind and body is making accessible to you.

“Meeting yourself where you are” is a dance between complacency and perfectionism, coupled with trusting that you are stronger than you think you are. It’s not even about finding balance; it’s about being comfortable with the rhythm of your authentic ebb and flow. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”  Learning to find your intelligent edge that fosters growth, versus pushing yourself to further injury, can take a lifetime to master. Striving for growth is very different than striving for perfection.

“Perfect” is an outwardly focused standard based on others; growth is fueled by healthy introspection. Omni-present comparison isn’t a sustainable attitude. That’s what helps me let go of it. It’s tempting and seductively destructive to self-bash. But it’s not sustainable. Accepting that comparison will kill you, along with these three simple yet powerful reminders help me work through painful and frustrating yoga classes. I hope they help you, too:

1.Good thing it’s all about the breath. Yes, it’s that simple. Thank God it is. I usually laugh when I catch myself self-destructing about something ridiculous (she is so much bendier than I am), and then I breathe. I take heart in knowing even if I just sit there without touching my nose to my toes, if I am breathing mindfully, then I am doing something good for myself.

2. Modifying doesn’t equal cheating. There are lots of yoga theories out there, some of which think that props are crutches. I strongly disagree. If I need to modify a posture by throwing a block under my booty or a strap ‘round my foot so I can enjoy the intended opening and keep my breath smooth at the same time, great, I’m going to do it. Modifying without props by utilizing the diversity of our own body is another way to tangibly meet ourselves where we are.

3. This is your karma. Injuries are not your “karma” as in “what goes around comes around” or “you deserve this,” but as in “your healing is your karmic action.” As you heal, you make space for others to heal. Doing yoga for you is the action you can take to heal yourself, previous generations, and future generations. We must change within before we can expect to change the world.

Look, I can’t do forearm stand. I can’t do sundial. I can’t do cow face pose. I most certainly cannot sit in full lotus. But I can move. I can breathe. And most days, I can meet myself where I am. When I do, I remember to allow for surprise. Sometimes, I can do full wheel without crushing pain in my low back. I have seven herniated discs in my back, a few of which are in my lumbar spine, and I had been convinced for years that Urdhva Danurasana was one of those “pushing yourself to the point of pain” postures for me. That is, until I had a gifted teacher guide me and tell me to think of the opposite of fear as I am about to lift up into the pose. For me, that word is “courage.” I silently say, “Courage, courage, courage” and every once in awhile, it gives me wings.

Student. Teacher. Both. Always. This is my yoga. What’s yours?

Sarah Plummer, author of this article will be one of the keynote speakers at the Military Member to Civilian Summit, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This conference ,dedicated to the process of transition ,will be held at the Bryant Conference Center on December 2-3, 2014. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and visit our website for more info and news about veteran careers, veterans issues and the transition process.

Article by Sarah Plummer, keynote speaker at the Service Member to Civilian Summit, author, Certified Health Coach, RYT-500, and former Marine Corps Officer.  Sarah serves as a board member on the Military Advisory Committee for Service Women’s Action Network

In Iraq, Yoga Brought me Back…

 

Although I never planned to take my own life, I wanted it taken from me.

I was done. I stopped eating, not because I forcefully denied myself nourishment as a form of control or punishment, but because I had lost my appetite, I had lost my will to live. Like an animal does when it knows it’s time to go, I allowed time to take its own course with me. I faded.

I was an athletic young woman, who lost so much weight that my underwear barely stayed perched upon my protruding hips.  I basically never slept –nightmares of the rape by a comrade years before, as well as the current harassment I faced while deployed – kept me up at night.  I felt I had no purpose on this Earth. My body assumed a sunken, concave “C” shape when I was alone in my “can” (what we called our rooms in the trailers in Al Asad, Iraq). This space was large enough for a single bed, a closet, and a yoga mat.

Although I began sporadically practicing yoga in college to deal with overtraining injuries from soccer and ROTC, it was nothing more than creative cross-training to me until I was in Iraq. Without even consciously processing the higher transformation that was taking place within me, when I was emotionally distraught, yoga gave me clarity. The simple, basic union of breath and movement made space for something very important – my soul. Somehow, when I felt like I was suffocating, my soul had space to breathe. Somehow, in a body experiencing very physical effects of depression, when I practiced yoga, I had less pain. Somehow, in a world that felt like 24-7 chaos, the mat gave me an anchor point. All of my systems integrated in a way that allowed me to keep functioning when simply surviving seemed impossible.

Thank God for that floor space 3 by 6 feet because it is where I found a place where I could simply breathe without suffocating. I would get on my yoga mat and things would change. I could breathe. I could think. If I were lucky, things would release. I would stretch, and then I would run and feel free.

Stretch.

Breathe.

Move.

Breathe.

Live.

Breathe.

Connect … connect … connect If I were lucky, I would connect; first to something beyond myself, then to those around me, for I certainly was not the only one going through what I was going through. When I realized that – that my lack of “specialness” was actually a blessing in this case – the accessibility to healing became greater, deeper, and more diverse.

Yoga and faith bridged the gap and paved a path to long-term healing for me.  Certainly, different methods work for different people at different times, but yoga can be a unique and powerful approach to comprehensive, holistic healing and we are fortunate to have the data to back this intuitive feeling up.

Sarah Plummer, author of this article will be one of the keynote speakers at the Military Member to Civilian Summit, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This conference ,dedicated to the process of transition ,will be held at the Bryant Conference Center on December 1-3, 2014. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and visit our website for more info and news about veteran careers, veterans issues and the transition process.

Article by Sarah Plummer, keynote speaker at the Service Member to Civilian Summit, author, Certified Health Coach, RYT-500, and former Marine Corps Officer.  Sarah serves as a board member on the Military Advisory Committee for Service Women’s Action Network

My Transition from Military to Civilian Through Yoga…

 “Coming home is harder than fighting in the war.”

– Congressman Patrick Murphy

Clay Hunt was a fighter in every sense of the word.  He fought for years, both literally and figuratively, before finally ending his life all alone in a Texas apartment.  He was educated, handsome, young, accomplished – it didn’t make sense at casual first glance.  A Marine, Clay came home from multiple combat deployments with raging symptoms of PTSD and survivor’s guilt.  He had lost friends and seen more than he ever wanted to. 

The clash between yoga and warrior cultures –

I will always be proud to have been a Marine, but after becoming a yoga teacher, I think about pride differently than I used to.  I used to think strength meant presenting an image of strong silence and always looking like I had everything together.  Yoga taught me about vulnerability, honesty, and connecting authentically with the people around me, letting them see both my light and dark.  We have to be honest about where we are hurting, or where we fell down.

I’ve fallen down pretty hard before and it took me too long to get back up because I didn’t know that people might be okay with an imperfect version of me.  Marines aren’t supposed to be sad.  Marines aren’t supposed to screw up.  I was.  I did.

What if I had completed training designed to increase self-awareness and promote resilience?  What if PTSD was something I knew to look for in myself and others rather than ridicule as the province of the malingerer?  Understanding warrior culture thoroughly only underscores the need for mindfulness training – it is all about stigma.  Right now we are losing more veterans to suicide than to combat.  I’m a pretty decisive person with a limited ability to ask for help and zero trouble taking risks – I was almost one of those statistics.

I teach yoga today because I know how it saved my life.

The suicide numbers among active duty military personnel eclipsed the number of combat deaths in 2011.  Before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the incidence of suicide in active duty US service members was consistently 25% lower than in civilians.

Yoga offers something special and completely reframes the issue of treatment.

The idiosyncratic messages of warrior subculture make sense to me.  I grew up in a military family where “civilian” was synonymous with a host of pejorative insults.  I joined the Marine Corps in college to test myself.  I doubted whether twenty-mile hikes or back-breaking obstacle courses were within the scope of things I could physically accomplish- I quickly learned that they were; they had to be.  In those early years as a Marine, I got very good at presenting a veneer of stoic professionalism at all times.  Presenting the certain, effective façade required some incredibly useful skills – skills that become incredibly destructive when you never learn how to turn them off.

The above description fits most Marines.  We tend to be a driven, dysfunctional lot.  I was a bit of a performance junkie and my desire to constantly display an ideal version of myself in front of others has caused incredible heartache and alienation.  I weathered deployment, loss, injury of loved ones, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and divorce completely alone and in an unhealthy way.  I share this not because any of it is particularly interesting, but because it is particularly common and normal in the military community, I call home.

Why Yoga for veterans?

The answer has to lie outside the contemporary standard of care.  Yoga can do that.

I came across yoga as an athlete looking for something fun to try, something new to master, and something to help me bend my unyielding muscles a bit more easily.  What I found on the mat changed my life entirely.  I found a practice that was about more than my body, my training, and was something I could practice and study while joyously never “mastering.”

Our bodies were made to move in constant search of unity with our minds and spirits.  It is a natural stillness that those who have felt it love, pursue, and fight to regain if lost.  When we discuss the sorts of trauma and injuries our veterans have experienced, I believe we need to bring mindfulness into the conversation around treatment and prevention.  Pills and therapy are not enough to return this active, passionate community to full health after trauma.  We won’t seek them out and we won’t ask for help.

While clinical health services exist for soldiers and Marines with existing mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress, they are not stemming the rising tide of service suicides.  Framing mindfulness training as a way to “bulletproof your brain” renders the practices palatable within the confines of warrior culture.  Marines and soldiers are competitive individualists who respond much better to notions of challenge than to victim or patient identities.  I teach yoga because it asks the practitioner to work at creating mental fitness and resilience, and I know no other way to reach my peers with such effect.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and visit our website for more info and news about the transition process, veterans care and military personnel education.

Article by Dr. Kate Hendricks Thomas,  Assistant Professor of Health Promotion at Charleston Southern University and former Marine Corps Officer.  Kate serves as Co-Chair of the Community-Based Organizations track for the Service Member to Civilian Summit.