"Five years ago my world was falling apart 🙏"

I am @halie_elaine_taylor & this is my #yogasavedmylife story . I was homeless, severely addicted to drugs & alienated from anyone who cared about me. I remember thinking often that the world would just be better off without me & I was beyond saving. I remember sometimes hoping that I would eventually die with a needle in my arm. But something bigger than me, something I have grown to understand as The Divine Great Mystery, had different plans . When I finally entered into recovery in 2015 I quickly learned that I was addicted to a lot more than drugs & alcohol. I was addicted to drama, to my problems, to either needing to feel elated or needing to feel numb, & addicted to rigid thinking. I created entirely alternate realities in my mind, usually ones carefully constructed to protect me from having to feel or do anything uncomfortable, to protect me from having to confront any of my 1000 fears . Because of recovery & yoga I no longer have to live that way. My capacity to see the world clearly grows daily. I can experience immense sorrow & immense joy but not be beholden to either. This I learn from my yoga practice . Yoga teaches me to continually return to my body. Here I become aware of the truth that feelings & sensation are transient, thoughts are fluid. They come & they go. They give me valuable information to help me navigate my place in the world but yoga teaches me that I am not defined by them. Rather, I am the observer of it all, a steady seat of consciousness that is woven into the fabric of our Oneness . Yoga brought me back into my body & at home in myself. It teaches me how to be present - one breath at a time. How to move through discomfort. How to move through joy . My practice creates the space to meet myself wherever I am on any given day, & to love & let whatever I discover be enough. Whether I’m distracted, whether I’m upset, whether I’m on top of the world - all that matters is that I continue to show up . Yoga teaches me what it means to surrender to a Power greater than me. That I am Divine embodied, and so are you - that we are all inextricably connected by our luminosity 💚