Searching for Peace and Finding My Way Home

How long have I been searching for peace? Oh, I’d say my entire life. I’ve been a seeker of peace from childhood to adulthood, from the stresses of childhood experienced on the playground to the stresses of adulthood experienced in conference rooms, airports, and supermarkets.

Where was this safe haven to be found? Stress can reach you everywhere. This search for peace eventually lead me to the path of studying yoga and mindfulness. A defining moment on this search for peace happened to me in July of 2008 when I learned of the loss of my job and the loss of my dear friend from college. I heard the news about both on the same day. I learned of the death of my friend first. So by the end of the day when I received the call that my position had been eliminated due to a corporate restructuring (the company I worked for was about to be acquired so they were doing monthly mass layoffs), losing my job seemed meaningless. I still had my life. And that’s when the seeking began with purpose, or at least when I realized that I had been searching for something. What was I searching for? I really didn’t know. What I did know was this. First, in August of that same year I was going to be turning 42 and would be firmly established in my 40s. Second, I had lost my identity, or so I thought.

Initially, I was avoiding the question of “What’s next?” My children were ages 7 and 9 and I was enjoying the fruits of being a stay-at-home parent. Enjoying being able to go to school activities that I usually had to miss when I was working. Having the time to help them with their homework. Driving them to school and taking the long way there so we could chat or listen to a song on the radio. I had missed out on so much, too much. The side effects of a having a successful professional career: early morning meetings; late night meetings; weekend meetings; business travel that meant being away from my children; work demands consuming personal time and sleep. 60-80 hour workweeks didn’t leave much time for anything else, not for my family and certainly not for myself. Now I had time. I always loved the way I felt working out with weights because it felt empowering, but I just never had the time to workout consistently. So I found my way back to a gym, and they happened to offer group exercise classes. I only had tried a few group exercise classes before that, and the ones I had tried I usually spent most of the time looking at the clock wondering when it would be over. I preferred the weight room. My stretching routine was negligible at the time so I thought that I would try a yoga class as a means of working that into my strength training routine. Little did I know.

Sure, I felt awkward in the beginning of that first class. I didn’t understand the terminology. I didn’t know mountain pose from tree pose, let alone any of the sanskrit names. I didn’t know what I was doing at all. So I listened and tried my best to mimic what the teacher was doing. But even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I knew this felt different from the other exercise classes I had tried. I didn’t look at the clock once. Time and space seemed to move differently. And I loved how every class ended, final relaxation pose, savasana. So in that yoga room, in those moments of stillness at the end of class laying supine on my mat and nestled under the comforting warmth of my blanket, I found my own private sanctuary. I found peace in my body and mind, perhaps experienced for the very first time in my adulthood. So I kept coming back to regain that feeling.

I must say that, at least initially, losing my job was a blow to my personal identity. But I observed something interesting happening through my continued practice of yoga. I began to let go of that person who I thought I was. I was no longer attached to my professional identity because I realized my profession didn’t really define me as a person, it was just a role I played, a label. As I began to identify less with the person that I thought I was, I realized it was time for a career change, but what? I had worked in product strategy & development for a global consulting company as a health & welfare product development manager (that’s a mouthful). The obvious answer was to follow the current path, wait for my noncompete agreement to expire and go to work for a competitor, but that no longer felt right. Due to changing needs at home, I decided to take a bit of a sabbatical. Previously, the idea of devoting time to study yoga and meditation seemed like an impossibility. But now, closing the door on my corporate career, allowed me to open up to new experiences, new possibilities.

I enjoyed the practice of studying yoga, but I never thought about teaching yoga. I didn’t think that I would be able to articulate instructions, let alone find my voice. My longtime teacher gently nudged and encouraged me, and eventually (5 years later), in 2014, I decided to take a yoga teacher training program. I had no expectations of teaching after graduating, I just wanted to deepen my practice and enjoy the experience, but to my surprise I found myself teaching right away at the center where I took my training, Princeton Center for Yoga & Health. I became an instructor there in 2015 and in 2018 became part of the teaching faculty. Looking back, I had a lot of fear about taking that training, fear of practice-teaching, fear of speaking in front of others, fear of the unknown. Yoga had already changed my life, but in no way did I anticipate the transformational experience I would have going through that training. Over the course of those 9 months, I found my voice, my purpose, and my true self. And I want to stress that last point. I didn’t become a new person. I found the person that was already there, that was there all along. I found my way home, and just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I had the power all along, I just needed to learn it for myself.

And that’s really what I hope to share with you on these pages. I begin each of my yoga classes with the setting of an intention, each student silently sets their own. Setting an intention acts as an anchor to your personal practice. My intention for this blog is to create a space where you can find tools and teachings to help you along your own personal path to peace and well-being. Yoga and mindfulness is not one-size-fits-all. I’ll share with you thoughts, ideas and techniques. Pick and choose as you like. Take a practice out for a spin and see what feels right, what gives you a sense of home.

Peace be with you,

Christine Lisa

Note: The Wizard of Oz was one of my favorite movies as a child. I had no idea it would take on a whole new meaning to me as a grownup. Enjoy this little clip of Dorothy finding her way home. https://youtu.be/1P0cbNZ9uQ4