My Healing Journey.
This is a blog post I have wanted to write for many years now. Every time I thought about starting a blog, this post was always the first one on my mind. This blog post really is the essence of Elsa’s Offerings. My own healing journey informs everything I do as a teacher, a guide, and a healer. Each and every experience along the way has led me to where I am today. My entire intention behind starting this blog is radical transparency. I want to normalize having hard conversations. I want to empower others to shine their brightest and not feel limited by their past. I want to dismantle shame and stigma. That all starts with my willingness to share from the heart about my journey and my experiences - the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
However, every time I sit down to write this post, I feel blocked. My mind starts racing with thoughts like, “How much is too much to share? Does this even really matter? Who am I to share my story? Which parts are relevant and which parts should be omitted?” I want my story to be clear, linear, and concise. I want to convey a message of hope, no matter what stage of the healing journey you’re in. This subconscious desire to tell my story in the “perfect” way has kept me stuck and prevented me from sharing for too long. So, here I am just going for it, sharing this little piece of my heart with you. There is no “perfect time” other than right now.
My healing journey began on May 3, 2013. I woke up on this bright, sunny day in Venice, CA and drew my first sober breath in about three years. I honestly don’t remember much about that day or the days that followed. I shuffled through those first few days in pain, barely able to walk, and shaking like a leaf withdrawing from drugs and alcohol. I slept a lot, barely ate, and was brought to my knees in every way. The one thing I do remember about Friday May 3rd was at one point, another client said to me in a very excited voice, “WOW! Today is your sobriety date!!” I remember thinking to myself, “what the hell is a sobriety date and why are you so excited about mine?” It was way too much enthusiasm for me in those early moments of my new life. However, since then, I have come to regard this day as the most important day of my life. I call it my “Rebirthday” and this was the first major step on my road to recovery. If not for the solid foundation I built in sobriety, the rest of this wild ride would not have been possible. My sobriety will always and forever be the starting point of my healing and my return home to myself.
Getting sober is SO MUCH more than putting down drugs and alcohol. It is the choice to face your pain instead of running and hiding from it. It is the brave decision to show up for life and be present for every moment, no matter what life throws your way. One of my teachers and a brilliant mind I deeply respect, Gabor Maté, always says “Don’t ask ‘why the addiction, but why the pain?’” Every addict I have ever personally met, myself included, carries deep pain and shame inside of them. It is this unbearable pain that drives addicts back to substances again and again, despite the mounting consequences. Addiction is about numbing pain and remaining hidden and isolated. What being in recovery means to me is going into the pain, connecting with other human beings, and allowing yourself to be witnessed and held.
When we are willing to face our pain and actually heal it, we no longer need to stay stuck in cycles of addiction and other maladaptive behaviors. When I finally got sober, I was READY! I was ready to take direction; I was ready to heal; I was ready to grow. A lot of growth happened for me throughout my first three years of sobriety. I was able to stay sober, return to community college, and live on my own in a productive and healthy way. In early recovery, I learned the basics of how to live in this world in the midst of challenges, take responsibility for my wrongdoings, and be in relationships with other people. Most importantly, I was introduced to spirituality in a deeply personal way for the first time.
Despite all the growth that occurred in those first three years, by early 2016, I knew I needed to go deeper. I was experiencing physical health issues, emotional turmoil, and battling mental illness. I will forever look back on 2016 as a pivotal year in my journey. I started working with an integrative nutrition health coach, began practicing yin yoga, and discovered breathwork and yoga nidra. These practices opened up a whole new world for me.
Working on my diet and my physical health gave me a much deeper understanding of my body. For so many years of my life, I had been poisoning myself with substances and punishing myself with self-harm and restrictive eating patterns. I viewed my body as my enemy in many ways. I was so used to tuning out the signals my body was sending me that I didn’t know how to actually inhabit my physical body. Learning about intuitive eating and the power of food as medicine helped me begin to feel safe and at home in my body. Establishing a safe, loving relationship with my physical body was the necessary starting point for the next phase of my healing.
Yin Yoga and Breathwork came into my life simultaneously in the spring of 2016. I will be forever grateful that these practices found me in this synergistic way. They were the perfect combination for me at this time. I used to go see my therapist and spend my sessions practicing breathwork, screaming, crying, and purging on her couch. Then, I would go straight to my little yin yoga cocoon and be held by my first teacher while I softly cried through class. During these practices, I could literally feel the memories, emotions, and energies that were keeping me stuck leaving my body.
This was one of the most confronting times in my life. On a daily basis, I was being faced with my deepest core wounds - both from early childhood and sexual trauma that occurred when I was a teenager. Most of the time, I wanted to quit. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to numb out. Instead, I chose to be brave. I chose to show up for myself and my healing day in and day out. I wanted to release everything that was keeping me stuck so badly that I was willing to feel everything I had spent the previous 25 years of my life stuffing down. No matter how intense and painful it felt, I sat with myself and gave myself love. I leaned on my community in recovery and my newfound yoga community. I certainly did not do all this alone. Of course, nobody could feel my pain for me and nobody could do the healing work for me, but I could not have done this deep work without a lot of support.
It happened slowly at first, but throughout the first half of 2016, my life started to change as a result of the internal work I was doing. My relationships with everyone in my life became much less volatile, particularly my relationships with my family members. I learned how to be more vulnerable with people. I learned not to take the behaviors of others personally. Most importantly, I came to really understand the recovery catchphrase, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” The more I healed my childhood trauma, the less reactive I was to triggering situations in my daily life. Furthermore, when I would get triggered, I learned how to go back in my life and figure out which wound was being touched so I could work on healing that, instead of lashing out and punishing people in the present.
Breathwork was such a transformative tool in my life. This practice was the primary method I used to heal. Every modality has come into my life at the perfect time and I have gotten something incredibly valuable from each and every one, but breathwork gifted me the most profound breakthroughs. That being said, there is no practice I resist more. No matter how many times I breathe, it never seems to get easier. I resist it every time. I say this because I have noticed this pattern in many people I work with, as well. If you experience resistance to breathwork, or any other healing practice, you are not alone. This work is not easy, but I have never regretted laying down to breathe. Each experience is different, but the benefits are infinite.
Yoga Nidra made its way into my life when I transferred to USC in the fall of 2016 to finish my bachelor’s degree (I told you this was the most profound year of my life!). Returning to a demanding school sober was a huge challenge. I had never really learned proper study habits and I had become dependent on prescription drugs for long nights of focused studying. As a sober student, I had to completely reimagine the way I approached school. Although this was a challenge I enthusiastically accepted, about halfway through the fall semester, I found myself exhausted and depleted. I knew I needed to find a meditation practice that could assist me through this intense time. I opened my Insight Timer app one day in the Trojan Family Living Room at Campus Center and typed in the search bar “meditation for deep relaxation.” Little did I know, this simple search was about to change my life!
One of the top search results was a Yoga Nidra practice for deep relaxation. It was about the right length, so I laid down on one of the couches, put in my headphones, and settled into my first Yoga Nidra experience. I came out of this practice about 30 minutes later, knowing I had struck gold. I felt like I had taken a 2 hour nap in just 30 minutes. I felt like I was floating on a cloud. I truly had no idea what happened or where I went during the practice, but I will never forget the way it made me feel. I immediately made Yoga Nidra part of my daily practice. At first, I used it as an energetic reset between classes during my mid-afternoon energy slump. I thought I was just getting deep, nourishing rest, but I would later learn I was actually beginning to gently rewire my subconscious mind and break free from my limiting beliefs.
Breathwork and Yoga Nidra are complementary practices. During breathwork, I got to release and purge what was blocking me in a very intense, cathartic way. During Yoga Nidra, I returned home to myself. I was slowly remembering the truth of who I had always been and turning my limiting beliefs into liberating beliefs. Together, these practices allowed me to uproot everything in my subconscious that was keeping me stuck, then plant seeds of positive intention in the fertile soil of my awareness. I continued to practice yin yoga, breathwork, and yoga nidra throughout all of 2016 and 2017. The more I practiced, the more I healed, and the healthier I became - mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The benefits of my healing work extended into every area of my life. Once I was stable enough, I also had some EMDR sessions with my therapist. I cannot recommend the support of a therapist, and particularly the EMDR modality, enough. Spiritual healing has provided me with incredible healing benefits, but the insights I have gained through more traditional therapy have also been a key part of this journey.
By the time 2018 rolled around, I was ready to begin sharing these practices with others as a teacher and a guide. I took my first training in March of 2018 and became a certified Yin Yoga teacher. I absolutely fell in love with teaching from the first class I ever taught. I absolutely loved witnessing my students melt into the shapes and release trapped energy from their bodies. I loved creating the safe, nurturing environment I had been privileged to experience in my first yin classes. As someone who identifies first and foremost as a student and a lifelong learner, once I completed my first training, it was off to the races! I continued training and learning throughout all of 2018 and most of 2019. I obtained many certifications in different healing modalities and learned how to lovingly, ethically, and effectively share these practices with others. Although the primary purpose of these trainings was to learn how to guide others, the training environment is ripe for personal growth and healing. I learned more about myself in my teacher trainings than anywhere else.
2020 has been an intense, confronting year for all of us. We have all been asked to face ourselves, go deeper, and grow in the face of adversity. This year has brought unexpected hardships, but under the surface, there have also been incredible gifts. I have had to double down on my spiritual practices this year to navigate all that has been thrown our way. Within the last month, I went back to therapy after a three year break. This took a lot of humility, but I will never be above asking for help when I need it because my life is important to me today. I am confident that everything that has come up for healing this year is unfolding in perfect timing. It is coming up because I am ready to heal it now. I am ready for my next evolution.
Stepping into sharing my soul’s work with the world has been confronting. All my deepest insecurities find a way of bubbling up to the surface whenever I take creative risks. 2020 has brought the incredible opportunity for me to reach more people globally by “forcing” me to offer all my work in the virtual space. This has been such a gift. I have had to release so many of my old programs and limiting beliefs in order to offer the work I am being called to bring into the world at this time. Each time resistance comes up, I fall back on my practice - sometimes it is breathwork, sometimes it is yoga nidra, and sometimes it is moving my body with yin or vinyasa yoga. I know the practices are always available to meet me exactly where I am at any given moment. They continue to heal me on a daily basis. They continue to call me back home to myself. I used to think healing had a destination. Eventually, I would be “fully healed” and I could stop doing the work. I know today that is not true. Sometimes I find that frustrating, but other times I marvel at what a gift that is. Every day, I have the opportunity to keep striving, keep growing, and be better than I was the day before. What a relief it is that I never even have to try to be perfect. All I can be is a work in progress and that is more than enough. I am here for the journey, for as long as I am alive, and maybe even beyond. I am here to keep showing up, to keep doing the work myself, and to use my experiences to light the way for others.