Finding a Place of Safety and Connection
Fourteen years ago, almost to the day, I was preparing to make one of the biggest transitions of my life. I had recently accepted a new job in a completely different field, and was getting ready to uproot my life and move to a new city hundreds of miles away. While I’ve generally been the type of person who is excited by new things (experiences, ideas, opportunities), the volume and magnitude of this newness felt daunting. As I’ve reflected in the years since, this seems to be one of those moments in which a big leap outside of my comfort zone needed to happen in order to get unstuck. While this ended up being one of the more difficult years of my life, what I would also come to discover were some important lessons about the role of connection and community and the ways they can help us find safety when life feels turbulent and unsettled.
In those cold, snowy weeks of January and February 2009, there was certainly a mix of fear and excitement as I anticipated the many changes that lay ahead. I had been kicking around the idea of trying out yoga for many years and this felt like the perfect time to give it a try – why not find a productive outlet for all of this energy, right? I talked a reluctant friend into joining me for a beginners class at a nearby studio and was hooked almost immediately. In the midst of packing boxes, saying goodbyes, and preparing for my life to change dramatically, I made it to my yoga mat almost every day that month. There was something about the safety and calm I felt in that space that was incredibly grounding as all what was happening in life swirled around me.
Photo by Anupam Mahapatra on Unsplash
As I settled into my new city, it quickly became a priority for me to find a new yoga studio to call home. I took classes at a few different studios, and it didn’t take long for me to find a place that provided a similar sense of safety and community that I had felt at the studio in Minnesota. In hindsight, I’ve come to understand my finding of yoga (or maybe more aptly, yoga finding me) at this particular time in my life as a “God moment.” As I mentioned previously, 2009 was probably one of the loneliest and most difficult years I had experienced to that point. I was struggling to find joy and meaning in my job, I wasn’t finding the friendships I longed for, and I felt somewhat rudderless as I tried to find a sense of direction in my life. A place where I did find connection, joy, and purpose was as a part of the yoga community I had become a part of.
Shortly after returning to the Twin Cities for graduate school, I completed yoga teacher training and have been a yoga instructor for the past 13 years. One of the gifts of teaching yoga has been getting to know my students over the years. I continue to be humbled by ways in which this practice of breath, intentional movement, and community have been healing and transformative for others. While I know yoga is not for everyone, I encourage you to think about where in your life you have found safety and connection and how you might be able to create spaces in which others can find safety and connection.
