Did I have a breakthrough at a yoga retreat? Maybe. Did I have an epiphany at a yoga retreat? Perhaps. Did I have a release from heavy thoughts and negative vibrations and deeply angry feelings and sad emotions that I’ve been holding onto and suffering with for the past five years at a yoga retreat? Yes. Yes I did.

The last day of the retreat I stood in the warm sun, in a big open field where they have outdoor weddings, in a valley of the mountains of south western Pennsylvania under a reclaimed wood arch and I did sun salutations, Surya Namaskar A, if I’m being specific, and I played the live version of RELEASE by Pearl Jam over and over, while I moved and flowed, and I didn’t stop until I felt like it worked…and I got free…will it last? I have no idea. I don’t care, but it made me feel better than I have felt in a long time…Open your mind, reset your nervous system, breathe mindfully and deeply, and move your body with intention and strength…all of those things were part of the retreat I attended. I drove hours from home with very little certainty as to what the next four days were going to bring me, but I drove with the belief that I HAD to get myself rebooted…And I did. I rebooted. When your computer or your phone stops working efficiently or correctly, sometimes you just have to unplug it and let it start over, and it turns out you might have to do that to yourself sometimes.

The summer of 2021 was the saddest summer of my life, and it ended with heartache and disappointment that is nearly impossible now, looking back, for me to comprehend…and circumstances were what they were later in that autumn of 2021 that my healing paused at that time, the healing came to a grinding halt that October, after the summer that must not be named, and I got into a habit loop of sadness and anger, just a cycle of “ick” if I’m being honest…Forgive and Forget they say, Move On they suggest, Let It Go they encourage…but when bad things happen to you, or to someone close to you and you are thusly negatively impacted, and you do not process your feelings about any of it, and just keep quashing them down and not addressing them, what builds up inside of you is poison and it eats you alive…and so for the last five years I have been sad and mad and I felt like I had enough of that, and so I committed myself to some healing, some resetting, and some restoring, and I believe that it was successful…I left western Pennsylvania after four full days of yoga, breathwork, meditation, aromatherapy, friendship, conversation, woods walks, and laughter, and my conclusion as I got back in my truck was this; holding onto those feelings of anger and sadness were doing me no good. They were just recirculating mad and bad emotions season after season and keeping me from feeling like my true self. I have been working for quite some time to become a better version of myself and she can’t BE better if she does not THINK better…these were my conclusions.

I have been so disappointed by so many things, and so many people, over the last 42 years of my adult life that to think of going into my last chapters of aliveness, feeling dragged down by my negative emotions, was overwhelming me. I had been saying it and writing it for months and months, that I was tired of being mad and sad…like hitting my thumb with a hammer over and over and over…JUST STOP DOING THAT. I am nearing 60 and that feels like very much the start of the last quarter of my life, and I am not interested in any more wrinkles of angst in my forehead. I want more smile lines, more laugh creases, more positive parts of this vessel…and it had to start with my mind…free your mind and the rest will follow…how you gonna win if you ain’t right within…Live your life with arms wide open today is where your book begins…there are so many lyrics that guide us to ENLIGHTEN ourselves, we know all the words, we know that for things to change WE HAVE TO CHANGE.

Have I been making changes of some sort or another for the last 41ish years? Yes, Yes I have. Do I feel like a total loser that I keep having to reevaluate and reboot myself???? Sure, sometimes, but that kind of “beating yourself up” talk does no good…WHAT DID ME GOOD was the sweat starting to glisten on my arms, as the afternoon sun beat down on my skin, with the gentle buzzing in my ears of hundreds of bees in the goldenrod and wild aster surrounding me, my fingers gripping in the grass and clover with each Chaturanga, hearing Eddie sing “release me” over and over…it might be too hippy-dippy-acid-trippy for you to understand what happened to me, what I did for myself last week, and that’s okay…nobody needs to know if or how it worked, I just feel like it did, and for that I am glad, and really isn’t that always better than mad and sad, even if just for a while???