I would really like to say that I have had the privilege of serving my country, but I can’t. I can say that I have the privilege of being the wife of a man who has served our country. We have been married for 7 years and that time has included active duty, a deployment, and now retirement. I discovered Container Collective Yoga a year ago. My veteran husband, Heath, was very supportive of my attending yoga classes, learning poses, learning how to stay when my mind is screaming something else, learning how to breathe when normally I wouldn’t. He told me that he could see the difference in my being, in the way I now approached challenges and difficulties. But he didn’t want to go. It simply wasn’t something he was interested in. For our 7th anniversary, I asked him to mark the event by attending a private yoga lesson with me, taught by Container Collective Yoga owner/teacher Brittany Hopkins. Brittany was able to incorporate his injury into the class without making him feel like his body was broken. She was able to guide him to a place where he was able to respect the place his body was at and that allowed him to have the desire to see what else his body was capable of, what else he was capable of. That is why I think it is important to anyone who has served. Military men and women see and experience things that change them. Sometimes in ways that everyone can see, sometimes in ways that aren’t visible. Yoga can help not only physically, but mentally as well. You are brought to an awareness of self, inwards and outwards. You choose from there. You choose to breathe, to place your body in the poses, to stay and be ok when it gets difficult. And it will start to affect your life that isn’t spent on the mat, like going to the grocery store, getting stuck in an airport, attending physical therapy. None of it becomes any easier, but it becomes different in a positive way.
Heath said one of the things that brought him back to Container Collective Yoga after that first class was the atmosphere. He never once felt judged or unwelcomed for being himself, a man who served his country and continued his education by learning and becoming a gunsmith. So I invite you to attend a class and make your own choices. Steps:
Affirmation |