By Brittney Rose

I was introduced to yoga while I was still in high school- my mother used to let me play hookie if I came with her to a hot yoga class instead. Of course, being a rebellious teenager, I jumped at any chance to not go to school. Little did I know what I was in for, & an hour later there I was, in a 110 degree room with the remnants of my beautiful liquid black cat eyes and mascara dripping down my face. I remember leaving my first class, feeling like I was on ecstasy- every little hair on my body had risen and every pore was open and awake. I was alive. It didn’t take long for me to get hooked.

I spent the next five years practicing often, for purely physical reasons. I loved the out and I loved the way it made me feel. Not until my early twenties did it really start to sink in what yoga was becoming for me. “How would I have gotten through this past month without practicing?”, I remember thinking during a particularly rough time.

When I was 20 years old, I started having seizures and was diagnosed as epileptic after the second episode. I fell deeply into a depression and every time I had a seizure I became more and more hopeless. Yoga made me feel strong. It oxygenated me. It was the only thing that made me feel like I could keep going and heal myself. It was the only thing that fostered trust between me and my own body. After 5 or 6 years based in shallow practice with little substance, this time I was getting on my mat for my own sanity and health, yoga had become my medicine.

I’ve been practicing now for 9 years and have been teaching since 2016. It has been such an honor and pleasure to be able to share with others this gift that has enhanced my life so profoundly. Through yoga, I am able to wake up every day with the confidence that I can take on whatever life sends my way. I grow, I learn, I stay humble, and often- I begin again.

The pain I have endured in the past, the trauma, the fear, has been molded into experience that allows me to be a better teacher, a more eager student & a stronger healer. And that is my greatest gift so far!