Beginning Again
A Share from Humble Haven Teacher Camille Heller
- Can you describe a moment in your life where you had to change the way you practiced? How did that feel? What did it teach you? -
“When asked about a time in my life where I had to change the way I practiced, my mind jumps to June 2022, when I tore my Achilles tendon cleanly in half. Because it was a full tear, I had emergency surgery and was consequently on crutches with a cast, then in a boot and on a scooter for 3 months. If I'm being honest, though, it wasn't that my practice changed...it basically came to a screeching halt. When I reflect on that time, two years ago now, I see it as a time of chaos and grief, doing whatever it took to keep my head above water. In April of 2022, my Mom passed away, after three grueling years battling a neurological disease that, in the end, robbed her entirely of her ability to move and speak. My Dad, my husband and I were her full-time caretakers for the final years of her life, a time that I will be eternally grateful for, and acknowledge as the hardest season of my life thus far.
About two months after my Mom passed, we bit the bullet and scheduled an enormous repair of our home that had been postponed for the better part of the year, due to my Mom's health. The repairs were so extensive that we were required to vacate our home for several months. We moved into a hotel nearby, convincing the kids, ages 2 and 7, (and ourselves, really) that it was all part of a big adventure. The Achilles tear happened about two weeks into our adventure, in the midst of school drop-offs, swim-team happening back in our neighborhood and a still-new reality of life without my Mom. I remember understanding immediately what happened when it tore. I heard and felt a SNAP, collapsed to the ground, and when I tried to get up, my right foot felt disconnected from my leg (because, it WAS- as the Achilles connects the heel bone to the calf muscle: GAH). Miraculously, because it was a full tear, I remember feeling no pain. The emergency room doc said "You completely bagged this sucker- the nerves were severed- that's why you feel nothing." Feeling no pain, I also remember feeling weirdly calm- no sense of panic. Two months prior, I experienced the biggest heartbreak of my life, which very clearly put this injury in quick perspective: I still had one working leg, two working arms, and the BIGGEST blessing, an incredibly hardworking and devoted husband.
For the second time in as many months, everything in my life changed in an instant- each its own specific lesson in impermanence and non-attachment. In yogic philosophy, the fifth Yama is Aparigraha, a Sanskrit word translated as non-attachment or non-possessiveness, the idea that there is a level of spiritual freedom to experience when we work to understand the impermanence of everything around us. What about my physical practice (and my body) was I attached to? What did I make it mean, that I could not teach or practice yoga? I thought back to my experience at Level 1 Training with Baron Baptiste. On our first night, deep in the second hour of practice, I was STUCK in my head, dramatic AF, "dying", during what would end up being a 3-hour class. At one point, before triangle pose, I remember looking across the aisle, at the practitioner lined up with me, and saw a man in Warrior 2 on his knees, his two prosthetic legs lined up neatly next to his mat. I tell you, in that moment, I instantly felt all of my bullshit leave my body. I befriended Dan Nevins throughout our years of training together- he was a combat veteran, having lost both of his legs when an IED detonated beneath his tank in Iraq. During that week of training in 2014, Baron told us "This training will continue to land with you, over the next days, weeks, even in the next ten years. You'll keep coming back to it." He was not wrong. Eight years later, in a hotel room halfway across the globe, I taught myself the entire practice with the help of a chair, my 3-wheeled scooter and my right knee.
We moved back into our house in August of 2022, in time to get ready for the start of a new school year. My right foot was in a boot and I was wildly proficient in using the knee scooter, the electric cart at the grocery store (it beeps when you reverse) and butt-scooting down the steps of our home. The next challenge was going through Mom's things and deciding what I would be willing to part with- the ever-present question being "If I let this thing go, am I letting her go, too?" I recently came across this quote: "Love is what is left when you’ve let go of all the things you love.” The memory of my Mom lives on within me, my Dad, my sister and my kids and really, everyone who had the privilege of knowing and loving her. Who she was is not wrapped up in the things that she owned just as who I am is not dictated by what my body can do. I used to eschew the phrase "Everything is Yoga" because it felt so canned, so cheesy. But really, if who we are on our mats, is a direct parallel to who we are out in the world, then everything is in fact, yoga. Two years later, my right foot is stronger than ever, my younger daughter occasionally asks when we are going back to the hotel and I continue to miss my Mom, every day. I still have a hard time giving things away, and I still misplace a lot of worth in the way my physical body can (and can't) move. But yoga has taught me that I have the tools, the people, the practices and the support I need to keep beginning again. It is up to me to keep asking, keep listening and to keep showing up, again and again.”
A big thank you to Camille for sharing her story with us 💗