If you met me recently, you might think I’ve always been this happy, joyful woman, full of energy, curiosity and love for life.
You might see me teaching yoga, travelling, moving my body, laughing, creating, mentoring people, and doing the things I love, and assume that this has always been me.
It hasn’t.
For the majority of my life, I was trying to fit into society and convince myself that I was normal. I was trying to become the person I thought I was supposed to be, while at the same time feeling more and more disconnected from who I actually was.
I was depressed, deeply hurt and completely disconnected from myself. I hated myself and, at times, I hated the world around me. I was addicted to ecstasy drugs, smoking and alcohol, using them as a way to get through the day, to numb myself and to avoid being with what was actually going on inside me. I struggled with bulimia, having a very difficult relationship with food and with my own body. I was in relationships that were hurting me, and working a job that didn’t fulfil me in any way.
And underneath all of that, there was a feeling that I simply didn’t want to be here anymore. At one point, I tried to take my own life. And after that attempt, something inside me shifted.
I remember waking up in the morning with tears in my eyes, thinking that there is something much bigger than myself that is keeping me alive. Something that loves me so much that even when I hate myself, it is still beating my heart and breathing the air for me. It works my organs and keeps my body alive without me having to consciously do anything.
With this profound realisation, I thought, who the fu*k am I to take this life away? I didn’t give myself this life, so how could I decide that I had the right to take it away?
That was a huge awakening moment for me. For the first time, I started looking at my life differently. Instead of only wanting to escape it, I became curious about what else might be possible. It wasn’t that everything suddenly became wonderful, but something deep down in me changed.
Not long after that, I discovered Yoga.
At first, Yoga was simply something I did to increase my mood, as I knew that moving the body releases happy hormones. I started waking up earlier and practising before going to work. I would get on my mat early in the morning, move my body, breathe and spend some time with myself before entering the rest of my day.
But without me really realising it at first, that practice started changing the way I related to myself.
Instead of drinking alcohol before going to sleep or smoking after work because I needed something to relax me, I started meeting myself on the mat. Instead of constantly looking for something outside of myself to make me feel better, I began to sit with myself and actually notice what was going on inside.
I started becoming aware of my thoughts, my emotions and my reactions. I started seeing the patterns I had been living in and questioning some of the things I had always believed about myself and about life. And this, for me, was the real power of Yoga.
It wasn’t about becoming more flexible or learning how to do a beautiful handstand. Those things can be fun, of course, but they were never the reason Yoga became such an important part of my life.
Yoga Brought Me Closer to Myself.
It created space for me to be present with whatever was alive in me instead of immediately trying to escape it. It taught me to stay with uncomfortable feelings, thoughts and emotions and to become curious about them rather than automatically running away or switching them off.
The more I practised, the more I started understanding myself. And the more I understood myself, the more I realised how many of the ways I had been living were not actually who I was. They were things I had learned; I’d been conditioned to. Things I had adapted to. Ways of coping that had once served a purpose but were no longer serving me.
Little by little, I started making different choices. And eventually, those little choices changed my entire life.
Today, when I look back, sometimes it is difficult for me to believe that the woman I am now is the same person I used to be. Not because I became somebody completely different (even though from the outside it looks exactly that), but because I finally started becoming more of who I actually was.
I went from being deeply depressed and wanting to escape my life to being completely in love with life.
I went from hating myself to developing a relationship with myself that is based on love, respect and acceptance.
I went from being addicted to ecstasy drugs and smoking to being completely addiction-free.
I went from eating disorders to experiencing a level of freedom around food that I never thought was possible for me.
I went from constantly feeling tired and lethargic to becoming one of the most energetic, active and fit people I know.
I went from working in a job that I hated to building a life around the things I genuinely love – Yoga, movement, travelling, teaching, creating and working with people around the world.
I went from the mentality of a victim of my circumstances to a Conscious Creator of my reality.
And I went from experiencing violent relationships to the most loving, supportive and beautiful relationship with my partner.
None of this happened because one day I decided to “change my life”. It happened through thousands of small moments in which I started choosing differently. Because I stopped running away from the parts of myself I didn’t like, and I started becoming curious about why they were there in the first place. I started showing up for myself daily and looking at myself with full honesty. It happened because I started taking responsibility for my life instead of blaming others or waiting for somebody else to come and change it for me.
And most importantly, it happened because I started Coming Back To Myself.
This is what I mean when I talk about Transformation.
I don’t believe transformation means creating a completely new version of yourself and leaving the old one behind. I think so much of it is actually about removing the layers that have accumulated over the years – the conditioning, the expectations of others, the beliefs, the fears and all the ways we’ve learned to protect ourselves – until we can finally hear our own voice again.
This is me being vulnerable here… talking from my own experience.
I’ve been the person who didn’t want to be alive, and I’ve become someone who is genuinely excited every morning and can’t wait to wake up and create another day. I’ve been completely disconnected from myself, and I’ve learned what it feels like to actually feel at home within myself. I’ve spent years trying to escape who I was, and eventually I realised that what I was really looking for wasn’t an escape at all.
I was looking for a Way Back to Myself.
And that is what Yoga gave me the beginning of. Not a perfect life. Not a life without pain, difficult emotions or challenges. But a way of meeting myself through all of it. A way of listening and understanding.
A way of Coming Back Home.
And this is the journey that eventually became the inspiration for the book I’m writing: “Coming Back to Yourself”. It’s a deeper map for anyone wanting to move from survival to joy, from numbing to presence, from struggle to aliveness. If you want to be the first to know when the book is available – and to receive the ebook version for free when it’s released – join my email list. I’ll share tools, practices and honest stories from my Inner Journey.
Ps. If there is one thing I know after everything I’ve lived through, it is that the version of you that exists today does not have to be the version of you that exists forever.
Change is possible.
I am a walking, talking example of that. I’ve lived it. And I truly believe that if I could change, everyone can.
And perhaps you are capable of far more than you currently believe is possible for you, too.
Love & Namaste,
Ania