I remember being 16 years old and being invited to my first yoga class in this old building on Pitt St , 7th floor, in the heart of Sydney.  It was a small class of about 4 people and I remember feeling very disorientated as I had to go into poses that I had never done before, feeling a little weird and self conscious to move my body into opening and expanding. I remember lying on the floor after the class in savasana, the corpse pose,  and being guided by the teacher as a meditation  to go with my attention in a circle around my body and listen for sounds in each direction that I was directing my focus towards. I was feeling 'feelings' I had never knew existed, using my mind to focus. I was in  total relaxed utter bliss and I wanted to stay that way forever. As I walked out of the doors, and out into the hustle bustle of the city,  I felt as if I was floating. I felt energy in my legs and my whole body was this circuit of positivity and lightness of being. From that day onwards I was hooked into doing yoga.

Looking back, starting at that time as a teenager, yoga taught me that  I was an individual person and I was free from having to live other people's lives and stories. I could be simply me and find out more and more about myself. Yoga released me from the cumulative dramas that I experienced in my family growing up, coming from a very unhappy childhood and broken home. From that first class, it  was as if  my Spirit had arrived to guide me. I became very interested in India, the culture and religions. And later on in life I was able to travel there and learn more. The more I studied yoga, the more I could never be satiated.  I am still a student to this day and as long as I am alive I will never stop learning.

There have been moments in my life where I had breaks and stopped my practice but it usually was not for long. The day I came back I would say to myself  'where in the world have I been'? Why did I stop this?'!

I look back to that first yoga class today and 28 years later, I realize now the impact that that class had on my life. Yoga has brought balance to my life, bliss, freedom , good friends and a true love of myself.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om. 

Blessings to All.