Thank you for your kind support!

Thank you so much to all the wonderful people who have responded with emails and comments on this blog. I deeply appreciate your support, kindness, and encouragement. It helps so much to know I am not going through this alone, and that there are people who care about me and believe in my ability to heal and be well.

I also really appreciate the positive feedback I've received about this blog. This is my first attempt at writing for the public. I've been keeping a journal almost every day for over ten years, but never let anyone read anything I'd written until now. And, obviously, this is very personal stuff!! So thank you so much for your support and encouragement of my writing. I truly wish to help others and reach out and connect, so others going through health crises will know they are not alone, too.

Love and healing for us all!
Namaste' ~Anita

Why I Quit Teaching Yoga... and Started Writing

Deciding to quit teaching yoga has been a torturous process for me, filled with guilt, indecision, and inner conflict. I want so much to succeed and to help others, yet my body is hurting and I'm so terribly tired. For many months I've pushed myself to keep going, starting new classes when I've felt well enough, only to cancel them as my pain and fatigue symptoms flared.

Gradually I reduced my class load from 10-12 classes a week down to 4-5 classes, and eventually even that was too much. Meanwhile, I've been ardently working on my own healing, hoping to find the right combination of treatments to eliminate my flares completely -- hoping to "cure" my fibromyalgia.

Raised to succeed and to glean self-esteem from work, I felt terrible about myself for awhile. How can I quit? I've worked so hard to get here, all the training and effort, all the students and clients counting on me. Eventually I realized I'm not a failure or a bad person (saying daily affirmations has been essential!).

This illness is an opportunity to begin a new chapter of my life. It's time to stop teaching and start writing, something my inner voice has been nagging at me to do for a long time. It's time to follow Divine Guidance on a new and rewarding path, honoring my body's needs for rest and renewal while reaching out to help others. So here goes! May my self-expression be of service to you, for the highest good of all. Tikkun Olam.

Needs & Wants

I've always taught my kids about prioritizing wants and needs. My children's needs have always come before my own wants, for example. Now it's time to learn that lesson myself. Needs come before wants. My own needs must come before my own or other people's wants. I need: sleep, food, air, water, rest, health, safety, sanity, moderate exercise, and a creative and social outlet (as needed).

I may want success, recognition, to help others, to improve myself, and to heal the world, but my basic needs must come first. First and foremost, I need to be safe from harm: ahimsa. I provide for my safety, security, and basic needs first -- and for the safety and basic needs of my children -- and the rest is gravy. Amen.

As for wanting -- success, recognition, self-improvement, and to help and heal others and the world -- I can now achieve all that much better and easier through writing than through teaching. I can reach many more people, and more effectively, through the written word (and publishing and the wonderful internet!), than I can through teaching.

Writing, I can truly go with my own flow and honor my body's needs for rest and health. Teaching is a tiring expenditure of energy for me now -- I must be "on" even when I'm hurting or exhausted -- and even then I can only reach a handful of students.

I feel so glad and grateful for the many classes I've been able to teach, and I love my students so dearly, but now it's time to move on. I wish all my students health, peace, and happiness, now and always.