Join Julie Wilkes, Jennifer Gleichuf, Matthew Citriglia and me, Hannah Siegle at idealistic Skipping Rock Farm in Granville, Ohio on Saturday, June 8th for a day of yoga, aromatherapy, painting and wine tasting! Register here!

See you June 8th!

Shock. Panic. Disbelief.

How could something that I had done religiously for 16 years have no reasoning behind it? How could something that had become a full-time job have such a lack of intention? Earth shattering. I revisited the question. If I shorten the question to “Why do you workout?” I can answer it. Strength, health, stress relief, fluidity. The “so much” is where I get stumped. I’m not an athlete. I’m not training for anything. In fact the “so much” actually goes against any of the reasons why I workout. Too much working out doesn’t increase strength, decrease stress or improve health. In fact it worsens it. This realization for me was huge. I had never been faced with such a blunt, straight forward question about my habits.

Yesterday I was meeting with one of my friends, Lauren, who is part of my support system. As we sat there talking about my workout and yoga patterns, slowly chipping away at what I was going to now be doing each week I felt many shifts in my body as the internal battle between Hannah and ED ensued. In fact I even noticed slight changes in my face and posture as one or the other came out. She was questioning my habits, questioning my iron clad routine, which was well…based only in one of ED’s commandments:

“Thou shall always blindly do what you did the day before.”

Really? Obviously that has gotten me to a really awesome place.

As I sat there with Lauren, uncomfortable about what I was stepping into I made a joke about my abs disappearing. Her response?  ”So what if they do?” Yikes. Another hard one. That resonated, reverberated in my head. I don’t have an answer. Fear (or ED) holds me back. Fear tells me that if I give up this vigilance I will automatically be sent back to childhood as a fat, little girl who was bullied. A little girl who didn’t have many friends because she looked different. My inner wisdom, Hannah, however knows that isn’t true. We can never go back to what was and besides even if we go full circle, it isn’t a circle. It is a spiral. A new perspective. Hannah doesn’t care about belly fat. Hannah doesn’t even care about weight. Hannah likes to feel strong. Hannah doesn’t like to look in the mirror and feel tired, scared, anxious.

As part of this journey, this intense conversation, I am going to be tracking my intentions, my motivations behind working out and yoga. I have a set plan. I have questions to journal about, to ponder. I’m nervous about it of course but I will do it. I have the discipline to have an eating disorder, to starve, to overwork myself day in and day out. If I have this discipline for evil I have this discipline for good and most importantly I have the POWER to flip it. I have this strength, this internal strength that could out lift anybody out there, but mostly importantly it will serve to lift me up and out of this deep well.

Play along. Answer this questions for yourself:

1. How am I feeling today?

2. Why am I working out?

3. Who is influencing this workout?

4. How have I fueled for my workout?

On this spiral I reflect on what went wrong before. I question if I was ready, my length of treatment, my type of treatment, my goals, my ability to let go. While I see some things clearly now where I took a wrong step, I realize that it is only a wrong step from this current perspective. Perhaps at the time it was the right step for me. Maybe I had more learning that needed to be done before I could really  move forward with my life. Perhaps I had to learn to hear ED, Should AND Hannah before I could move into a place of authentic, long-lasting recovery. And as for long-lasting will this be the time? I honestly can’t say I know the answer, but I do know that I contain a hell of a lot of hope right now. I want a life I can live where I’m not surrounded by panic, anxiety and living on the edge of death.

So how did I get here? As previously mentioned I have been struggling for a while. Spinning my wheels and going backwards all at once. You may not have guessed it by looking at me but there was a lot going on, or not going on. I tried at times to ask for help. Family, friends, but the severity of it all was hidden. I wasn’t underweight anymore. Things couldn’t be that bad, right? Not so. The body is an amazing organism. Push it too hard and it holds on for dear life. Internally feeling like hell, but on the outside looking pretty ok. Beside I thought I felt ok most of the time.

Things really began to fall apart at the beginning of the summer. I started to have panic attacks. I’ve never had panic attacks before and this was pretty frightening. I pretty much felt like I was having a heart attack and stroke all at the same time. Thank god for having a doctor dad or else I would have ended up in the ER multiple times. They have continued for the most part, on and off in severity, but slowly subsiding as I start to deal with things.

These panic attacks were the first sign that things were way off. Over this time my yoga practice began to change as well. I started to find that I couldn’t push myself to physically do the practice that I had decided in my head with ED leading the way. Sure some days a more vigorous practice was fine, but some days it wasn’t. I couldn’t fake it. If I tried I would feel nauseous and shaky. I couldn’t push through. Mentally this was hard. I’ve never been able to not push through, heck I could and can push through in the gym so why was this showing up here on a rubber mat?

The reason? Yoga doesn’t lie. My mind-body connection has become strong through my practice, training and teaching and it wasn’t going to let me out of this one. I wasn’t going to be able to outrun or out-vinyasa my body. It was going to make me listen.

Part of this listening-awareness came through a book I read, Unbroken. Unbroken is the true story of a World War II POW. An amazing and enthralling read, but what was most important to me in reading it was that how the author was treated in the POW camps was no different from how I was treating myself. I was my own torturer and prisoner at the same time. Upsetting and true, but something that I needed to see.

This along with my motivation to have a life fired me up and fueled me forward into really asking for help. It made me realize that I needed to drop the veil and be with where I was. As my new therapist said last week…your time is running out.

I’ve spoken of ED and “me” for a long time, but the first time I discovered the divide between “should” and “Hannah” was in an exercise with Phoenix RIsing Yoga Therapy. ED resides in the lower parts of my body, Should in my head, and Hannah is stuck in the middle, appropriately so in my stomach. ED and Should are very loud. They argue back and forth. Hannah is the monkey in the middle. She curls up, and doesn’t want to hear it, simply obeying ED or Should. Following the orders of either of these turns into a disaster.

Sparing the details, a confluence of events has occurred that made me realize where I am. For the first time I identify the fear of fully letting go of ED and that means stepping into the great unknown. I’ve had this eating disorder for 16 years and that unknown is pretty vast. I have no idea how to even function without it. How does one not workout too much, or eat too little? How is it if one isn’t the smallest person in the room? I don’t really know. I’ve seen his grip tightening. Give me a room with mirrors across the whole wall. As I walk across my body size will change many times as I look on. It is ED’s eyes, not mine. I see a life of things I want and the beautiful things that could be. None of them have anything to do with body size or food. I can’t have that unless I let go. Letting go means trusting in others, it means saying yes instead of no, and realizing once and for all that I can’t out think this disorder. Letting go means talking with ED daily. Telling him that he is not in charge, that no we are not going to go buy food to only throw it away later when it freaks me out to have it in the house. It means not having to worry about having a heart attack after 16 years of the crap. I’ve been a prisoner in my own POW camp for so long. I’m tired. Recovery means fully working and giving my all to find out what Hannah wants, what Hannah likes. It doesn’t mean that only 1 hour in the gym means I haven’t worked out that day.

As for my treatment now I was poised with the question last Friday of it I need to go away to do this, to focus on myself in this battle, and yes it is a battle, no different from going into treatment for a disease or cancer. After much thought and discussions I am choosing to stay here, to form my own treatment team and support system. I want this to be integrated into my life, not separated. I have to be accountable, I have to embrace fear. There is no doubt about it. This is going to suck, it is going to be painful. There is going to be loss, tears and anger.

As I post this blog, I again step into my truth, and some may question my posting this on the site where I also post yoga offerings. My recovery nd yoga are intertwined. My connection with my body has only been rediscovered through yoga. Yoga therapy was what allowed me to hear these voices. Yoga has saved me more than once and will continue to offer insights. My blog is my testimonial as to the power that yoga has to offer.

With that I declare war on ED. Full court press is on. I take no prisoners.

At the end of the event Julie gave each presenter a small gift. In this bag was a small starfish with the following story:

The Starfish 

Once upon a time there was a wise man

who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.

He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day he was walking along the shore.

As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer.

He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day.

He began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man

and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead reaching down to the shore,

Picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?”

The young man paused, looked up and replied, “Throwing starfish in the ocean.”

The wise man then asked, “Why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?”

“The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in they will die.”

“But young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach

and starfish all along it. You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The your man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish

and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves.

“It made a difference for that one.”

Then I stepped on a yoga mat and everything changed. I discovered that beneath this mass of cells was a person.

My first foray into yoga was in the Bikram style. A hot, sweaty room packed full of practically naked people. I wasn’t able to do most of the postures and pretty much everything about the environment was uncomfortable, yet somehow I kept going back. Those 90-minutes allowed a opening of a gateway into my body and my mind. This gateway, like the room wasn’t pretty. It was full of self-doubt and a deep-set gut feeling that something was really wrong in my life. I’d leave class blissed out, but wondering what was with all this crap I felt like I was carrying and making myself do all day long?

After a few months of these classes I knew something had to be done. That week I marched into my therapist’s office and told him that what I had said during my first appointment wasn’t true. I in fact was still severely battling my eating disorder and needed help. I was ready. Yoga had offered me the path.

The should had to go.

Of course it wasn’t that cut and dry. and it has taken me a long time to see many of the should blocking the experience of  life. Knowing it is there doesn’t stop it from coming up, but it is half the battle. The other half? Letting go. Letting the present take over and the should of what was and what will be dissipate. The present is a beautiful thing. Real, raw, unfiltered truth. Messy at times, but beautiful in its vibrant embrace.

Living in the experience seems to have become the mantra of my life. Stopping the head turn backwards, stopping the squint ahead, and stopping the should of making everything into a black or white situation, a good or bad, a yes or no. The should tells us to do this. To categorize, to explain, to somehow make it easier for us as humans to understand. This understanding is an illusion, for as soon as we understand, the understanding of what we understand will change.

I’m not saying to stop trying to understand life and all its complexities, but instead moving to let go of the attachments that come with understanding. Too much holding of these understandings is a holding of the past and this makes it difficult to be in the now.

As you finish reading this take your gaze away from your computer, your phone, your tablet. Take a breath or two and ask yourself what you are holding onto? What are your should’s? And most importantly where are you right now?

Share below in the comments!

The Phoenix is an absolutely brilliant bird. A firebird of scarlet, gold and blue. A representation of rebirth and change; inner transformation. Yet it is unlikely you have ever see one of these birds since the Phoenix is a bird of myth, a life-cycle of 500-1000 years after which it builds itself a nest, ignites, turns to ashes, and is then reborn.

The myth of the Phoenix is heavily rooted in many traditions: Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Arabian and Persian. It has been represented in many ways such as carvings, paintings, sculpture, coins and mosaics. The origin of this myth is thought to have come from either the Egyptians as a combination of the rising sun and the sun-god Ra or the Greeks as a bird that the Greek sun-god, Helios would stop to listen to as it bathed and sang at dawn.

All this myth is great, but what does it have to do with our lives since encountering Ra or Helios is not an everyday occurrence. The relevance of the Phoenix can instead be found in what it represents and how we can learn to let that be seen in our own lives.

The Phoenix is our often dormant ability to look within, to see the vision of possibility; to honor and listen to our bodies inherent wisdom. We have been trained to look outside of ourselves for the answers, the remedies, but our real truth lies closer to the heart. These truths are heard not through fruitless searching, but rather through a honing into the subtle shifts and signals that are ever present.

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy offers the opportunity to get in touch with this part of ourselves. The use of assisted yoga postures and dialogue can offer physical and emotional transformation that is a complement to traditional physical and talk therapies. A gateway into healing the body and a mastering of life; a bridge that spans the great mind-body divide.

Are you interested in stepping into this exploration? No prior yoga experience is needed, just a willingness to be open to possibility. Contact me to schedule your first 90-minute session.

Find your Phoenix.

Discover. Empower. Play.

Tonight I went for a run.  While I don’t consider myself a runner anymore I love to get out from time to time.  I don’t plan ahead or have a set amount of time or miles to cover.  It comes as answer to something my body wants.

It was a beautiful evening.  The sun shining brightly, the blue sky and the cool air on my bare arms.  WIth each stride I took I felt myself moving deeper to almost a meditative place.  The strength resounding in my legs, the breath full in my chest.  My body was rejoicing, my body was alive. The blood pulsed through my veins warm and full.   Everything was ok.  Everything was beautiful.

The cars passed by, each person on their own mission. The planes flew in the sky leaving bright white streaks in their path and the birds circled above.  In this seeming mass of worldly confusion the world seemed in perfect harmony.  All was just as it should be and all is just as it should be.  I was living in that moment.  As I continued on tears began to stream down my face.  Tears of joy.  Tears of gratitude towards myself, towards my body, towards all who have supported me on this path, on the journey of healing into life.

Everything is ok.  In this moment I am ok.  I am healthy, I am happy.

What difference does it make what size I am, what the number on the scale says.  Those numbers only hold importance if we let them and why should we?  Should we give our lives over to something because that is what society tells us to do?  Because society demonizes what is human?  This morning I read a piece by on the blog The Great Fitness Experiment about cellulite.  90% of women have this “unsightly” condition.  90%.  That is almost everyone.  Why fight so hard against what we can control? Why waste precious life working to get rid of something that short of surgery can’t be gotten rid of?  Aren’t we more valuable than that?

Acceptance.  Acceptance of ourselves, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Acceptance into our truth no matter what it looks like.  I’ve learned these past few weeks that the only way to heal is to move into what we are most afraid of.  If we never allow that to happen we only live in the “truth” of what our mind has previously decided to be true, based only on thought and not on experience.  Step into the mud, swim through, dive deep, and go across.  I promise there is another side.  Sometimes certain mud pits are deeper than others.  Sometimes some are wider, but if there is anything I have learned is that there is always another side. Fear was meant to be faced.  We have one life to live.  Make it your best.

It has been awhile since my last post.

I look in the mirror and I’m not sure I quite recognize who I see anymore, not so much physically, but mostly on a mental and metaphysical level.  2012 has been an abrupt year of change.  Nothing bad has happened  but it has been a rapid whirlwind of new leanings and while welcome it has been nothing short of painful.  An intense journey into my real truth and a strong desire to at long last meet the real Hannah who has so long been missing from my life, the Hannah that exists outside of food and working out.

When I last left you I had just gone off of Adderall and while most of the physical side effects have still abated mentally the side effects had just started up.  My brain was used to getting certain things from the medicine, both the Adderall and the Effexor XR I had mostly stopped in the Summer and Fall.  Now it turns out the past month has shown up to be quite a struggle with a deep depression.  In the past I’ve had minor depressive episodes, but nothing like this.  Mornings and early afternoons proving to be nearly impossible; fogginess, foreign thoughts, despair, mental leathery, lack of concentration, and an inability for my eyes to focus.  On some days the symptoms would fade by late afternoon only to give way to insomnia both from my own issues as well of that of an aging dog who likes to keep the schedule of a newborn baby!

In not numbing myself out the depression has been all the more painful, ups and downs of life magnified, days where I have had to “call in sick,” then deal with the guilt associated with being sick from a mental condition.  Somehow this seems less valid than if I really was sick with a fever or other illness.  Getting “ready for the day” has proven at times to be an even more exhausting endeavor in those other times where I knew that if I could just get out it would be ok.  Long walks have proven in this time to be the best medicine.  Getting out there and breathing it all in, letting the sun shine down on me and knowing that yes it really will be ok.

As previously mentioned I also have been dealing with physical changes, mostly in the area of weight gain.  In my recovery I had hovered around the same number for quite a long time.  Not quite where the medical professionals and my support systems wanted me to be, but in a place that was in my mind close enough, but also still safe enough if I ever needed to cut and run.  Still holding onto my eating disorder with the last shred of strength I could muster.  Gaining a few pounds is a sure way to royally piss off ED, especially when it is unintentional!

2012.  The year I broke up with my eating disorder.

The most painful break-up ever.  I run, he chases.  At times he wins, luring me back into the safe confines of what seems normal, other times I’m lucky I am strong and fast.  I’m still in the midst of it all.  Having my first near binge episode, I had always sickly prided myself on never allowing the anorexia to flip.  Turns out if you are anorexic and also listening to your body that this doesn’t work.  Not eating what you need presents a strong backlash.  Terribly uncomfortable and while a miserable experience it was quite a learning one.

I’m not comfortable with my body.  It seems foreign right now.  I don’t like the way clothing feels and looking at pictures can prove to be quite traumatic.  I just got pictures back from my yoga photo shoot.  Yikes. My imperfections scream out to me and while I hear positive things from others it doesn’t feel that way inside.  Inside is an open wound.  It will heal in time, but time is all I have to bank on.  I must wait.  I must be in the now, the present.  This is what its.  I am healthy, I am strong.  The mantra of my wise-self.

What difference does a few pounds make?  Who really cares?  Is this really going to make a difference in my life?  A few pounds down may in my case, but not a few pounds up.  I try so hard to hold this true to myself. It still hurts. Brain pain.

I move forward. A day, an hour, a minute, a moment.  I am here.

“Do your practice and all is coming.”

The winds of change seem to be upon us.  As I sit writing this post, gazing out the window, snow is blowing and the wind is howling.  A far cry from a few days ago when the sun was shining and the temperature had climbed up above the 60 degree mark.  This rapid change hasn’t just been outside my window.  It has been happening in my life as well.  This really is the Kali Yuga, a period of time referred to many of the ancient texts as a period of disintegration and moral depravity.  According to the Mayan calendar this period is set to end on December 21, 2012.  Are we there yet?

The past week has thankfully seen a slow down in what I was experiencing from the discontinuation of the Adderall, however other areas of my life seem to have picked up that slack!  Over the weekend I made a big decision to drastically change where and what I was teaching yoga.  While the details don’t matter I needed to step into more of my own truth and authenticity on the mat.  This was a very difficult choice to make, but a much-needed one.  On the other side of it I feel as though a weight has been lifted!

I also have been finding that as of late Facebook seems to be an odd and hostile place.  People don’t seem to understand the concept of social networking and this morning I was greeted by a very hostile message from someone who didn’t want to accept a friend request.  A simple “No” would have worked here.  Do people not realize that they have that option?  Facebook says that you must know people in real life to be friends with them.  Do you really know your 1,000 friends?  Do you meet them for coffee and go to movies?  I think not. Let’s work on some non-attachment here.  If you don’t want to network don’t have a Facebook profile!

We have choices here, we have choice everywhere, even in the most dire situations.   We don’t have to react to every little annoyance that comes our way.  Our reactions are our choices. A strong reaction to something or someone is usually an indication of something within ourselves, good or bad, pretty or ugly.  Next time you feel that heat building take a step back and breathe.

In other more exciting and positive news I had an article published.  In print!!  Get to your Whole Foods and check out Origin Magazine!!!