Don’t worry be happy

When I first craved for Yoga to be in my life many moons ago, I was in a place and space in my life where I felt I had succeeded in reaching my life’s “purpose”, which was to break free from the stressful childhood and toxic environment that I was raised in and to come out on top – feeling strong enough to break the toxic cycle that was bestowed upon me from family generations past. Perhaps, at the time, I interpreted that to be my Kharma or Samskara. When I ended up leaving my hometown in the United states and moved to Singapore, I had the perfect marriage, a good healthy mindset, a stable income, and I was content. But there was something in my core a sense of worry that kept nagging at me to keep doing things to improve myself so that I wouldn’t fall back into the same toxic patterns from my past. My husband, at the time was dealing with a slip disk from college soccer injuries that were causing him major back pains. A friend of ours kept telling us about how she started doing yoga and all her ailments whether it was physical or mental, went away. That is how I found Yoga.

I became a true believer of the practice when my husband’s back pains dissipated and I my worries subsided. I started to think that if I made my body strong and sound then my mind and spirit would follow and there would be no chance of returning to how things were in the past because I would be above higher ground. Living a life with good intentions toward everything and feeling content.

I practiced yoga for 3 years, going to classes 3 times a week, every week just learning the poses Consciously focusing on strengthening my body and mind to become physically healthier. When my yoga instructor (who ended up becoming a close friend) moved away, I stopped practicing Yoga regularly. I would go to a yoga class here and there or just do routine poses by myself at home after a jog or a workout. Practicing Yoga went from an hour at length to 2 minutes of stretches just to relax and I stopped yoga altogether. Then, “Life” happened. I gave birth to 3 beautiful children, lost my husband to brain cancer when my kids were little, found love again with another life-time partner, traveled to 25 different cities and countries, and battled stage 3 breast cancer. Needless to say, life presented me with many victories as well as challenges. From those victories and challenges, I concluded that whenever I was happy, overly happy, something would happen to take it all away and bring me to complete sadness. Which has me worried about experiencing true contentment in life. I don’t want to worry about feeling happiness or worry about what bad things will happen due to Kharma or my Samskara. That nagging feeling at my core has come back and I have reached out for Yoga once more. This time, I have chosen to continue to work on a yogi path that I once started out on many years ago in order to to alleviate worry over things that I cannot control.