When Close to Death, Life Changes
My grandmother’s face appeared gaunt like a skeleton. She lay unconscious in the bed set up for her in her living room at home, where she took her final breaths.
At just 59 years old, Garnet was dying of pancreatic cancer. I was 15 years old; when most people are daydreaming of their first kiss, trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up, and learning who at school is their real best friend, I was navigating the rocky terrain of watching my mother, her siblings, their father and other family members grieve the impending loss of someone they loved beyond words.
Garnet was beloved across the community she lived in, too. She was a school board member at a small school district in Central Minnesota, and she was known for supporting the arts and cultural diversity. You could say she was part of a power couple, too; her husband was a vice president at a large retail business called Fingerhut. In her free time, she taught herself to invest by reading the Wall Street Journal each day, she tended a vegetable garden and many plants near a large weeping willow tree, she started side hustles before side hustling was really a thing (she sold environmentally-friendly laundry discs), and she wrote vegetarian recipes for her family members to try. She was also a voracious reader and always found time to put her nose in a book. She was a trailblazer in her family, having been born to farmers who survived the Great Depression. Her mom was also different in her family, having divorced when it was not popular, having also taught herself to invest little bits at a time even as a single mom and as someone with stubborn poverty mindset troubles, and having gotten politically involved by writing and calling her legislators about pressing issues. In that sense, Garnet was different, yet she took after her mom in many ways, too.
But sometimes, life catches us by surprise. Sometimes, life has other plans for us. Sometimes, life has a (weird, frustrating, mysterious) way of taking other trajectories. For Garnet, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer made no sense. Her illness, and quick downfall after her diagnosis, set off a bomb within the family.
Life certainly was confusing for me as a teenager when my grandmother died. Her presence had been a constant force of comfort and support. She had me and my brother over for sleepovers, meals, swimming days and dance parties. She was my writing mentor. She wanted better for us than what we had at home, where a variety of issues touched our household — depression, anxiety, illness, relationship challenges, and more. When she died, my world crumbled — right when it was supposed to be coming together. Right when life was supposed to be gelling and making sense, it fell apart.
After she took her last breath, I saw my grandpa cry for the first time. The first time I ever saw any grown man cry. Nothing made sense, yet the love in the air was palpable. I didn’t understand what happened, yet later I would learn many lessons about these events that unfolded.
Experts say grief is love adjacent. How much you grieve, is how much you also loved.
What I didn’t understand until years later is how much love and how many tears we hold in the body. How our admiration and anger is held and unfurls through the muscles, the joints, the bones. What we are capable of in love rivals our capacity for pain. As I began a yoga and meditation practice in my late 20s, I began to unravel some of the pain I had to stuff as I survived my own household, school, and a grief-phobic society. My yoga practice started as a way to reduce stress, and evolved to become a way to release long-held grief that had not been expressed much, if at all. It was not a cure-all, but it helped.
I also needed to simply tap into the wisdom I had already carried with me. Growing up around grief and death made me acutely aware of life. How to live it, how to make the most of it, how to find meaning in it, how to give back to it.
I carried so many questions with me about how to create health and happiness, since I had watched so many adults delay their dreams. I watched as illness, fear and misery took hold in some people; I wondered why it might be that so-and-so dreamed of owning their own business or making art but decided not to take the leap. I wondered how come so-and-so wanted the younger generations to carry out what they never dared to themselves. I wondered how criticism rolled off the tongue so easily for certain people and saying “I love you” seemed so impossible for some.
I wanted so badly to avoid these ancestral hauntings — and to help start new dreams in the family line. To halt these cycles and bring more love and more fearlessness and more mindfulness into the generations. Some wisdom traditions say when you heal, you impact seven generations backward and forward. I wanted so much more for the ancestors and future generations than they could ever know for themselves.
I still don’t know for sure why some people leave the earth early, like my grandparents did. (My grandpa died just six years after Garnet passed; he died of a heart condition.) But I do know, when they depart, they leave behind both love and wisdom — the affection we had for them and the lessons they both carried and left behind. If we are lucky, the pain unfolds and alchemizes into something new. It’s not to say death is in any way a good thing, though. But it is to say, we humans are meaning-making, meaning-finding creatures. To move forward from any death, we must find meaning in the loss, says grief expert and therapist David Kessler.
I’m now 40. By now I hope younger me, and my family, are proud of how I’ve lived my life so far. We’ve all been through a lot together so far.
I have many plans that I’m even more excited about. Beyond any worldly accomplishments, though, I have learned what a happy, healthy life actually is — and it has little to do with awards, achievement or recognition. It’s wonderful, and important to honor it. But yet true happiness actually does come from within, as cheesy as it can sound at times.
And at the end of anyone’s life, true ambition looks like a life drenched in love. Though it means people have to feel deeply — yes, even the pain — it also means they will have made the ancestors smile (and hopefully heal backward and forward).
Why We Cry in Yoga Teacher Training
Originally published Jan. 15, 2020, at brittjohnsenyoga.com.
When I first met the person who would become my yoga teacher — Mary Beth, the woman who trained me to be an instructor — I held back tears.
Upon meeting, she took my hand in hers and walked me through the home that she and her carpenter husband built, complete with sacred geometry and om symbols carved into the wood.
“Britt! It’s so nice to meet you.” And then she looked at me with her intense blue-eyed gaze and said with a deeper sincerity than I had ever heard in my life, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I dove into a pool of emotions. I wanted to cry, I wanted to run, I felt like I was home and I felt terrified yet relieved — all at once.
My big reaction surprised me. I had been bending and flexing and namaste-ing on my mat for about a year. After classes, I would look up every Yoga Journal article and vegetarian recipe that I could find. I loved it deeply and I wanted more. But I didn’t even really know Mary Beth, I had just heard about her legend — the peace-inducing Ashtanga yoga classes, her big personality and even bigger heart, the spiritual movie nights hosted in her home as yogis shared pizza, salad and wine.
I definitely didn’t know I would have such a deep emotional response to her. And to the sweet, shy, smiling yogis who would become my fellow teacher trainee colleagues. And to the serene guest bedroom I stayed in, across from the deck overlooking the small but shining lake in a quiet small town in central Minnesota.
That evening, after our first lecture and dinner that followed, I crawled between the crisp sheets and into the whispers of 11 p.m. in rural Minnesota in September. Then I bawled. Something in me had cracked open that day. I didn’t even know why I was crying. But I knew something important was happening.
After the first intensive finished, I wrote my mom an email saying how incredible of a weekend I had and how I couldn’t wait to tell her all about what I experienced. When I talked to her on the phone and said it was yoga teacher training, she was disappointed that I found a pursuit beyond trying to find a husband.
“Oh,” she said blankly. “I thought maybe you met somebody.”
Before yoga teacher training, I was sick with toxic cultural norms. I had been running on adrenaline for years because of what kids learn from a young age in school — that being loveable and valuable comes from what you do and how much you accomplish.
I pushed hard for my achievements. I graduated from a Big Ten school, the University of Minnesota, having worked as Editor in Chief of The Minnesota Daily, the student-run newspaper, during my senior year. In this prestigious and difficult-to-land role, I got to meet regularly with everyone from metro daily newspaper executives to the president of the university. While I enjoyed journalism, I was also hooked on the feelings of importance and positive recognition.
After school, I pushed even harder as I wrote at newspapers around the state. All the pushing kept working — I won awards and fellowships from some of the top institutions in the industry, like Columbia University in New York City and the National Society of Professional Journalists. My mentors were Pulitzer winners.
Despite my outward success, my body was growing sicker and sicker. The harder I pushed, the more my body revolted. I began struggling with panic attacks, which then morphed into a variety of digestive problems. No matter how many dietary changes I made or therapy sessions I went to, the intensity of my physical and psychic pain ramped up.
Within several months, I had my gallbladder removed and then I learned I had a precancerous polyp in my intestines. Doctors removed it, of course, but said they had no idea why I had these problems at just 26 years old. I was on my own to heal, it seemed, and I would have to learn to take better care of myself.
This shook me to my core. As I reflected on my lifestyle, I realized I had been running on adrenaline for too long. I had funneled most of my energy into work success. When I focused on relationships (all kinds, not just romance), sleep went to the wayside. I was living on coffee and accomplishments. Bodies can only do this for so long before they surrender.
A dear friend said to me that she believed I needed to start listening more — not just to my body, but to my life. To start being more and stop doing so much.
Her words sounded a bell, not unlike getting up for school when you’re a kid. I was resistant, if I’m totally honest. But I became aware.
That first weekend of yoga teacher training, a dramatic shift was taking place every time I left tears on the pillow. I cried each night I slept there, and again when I got home.
It would take some time to understand what had happened that weekend. But I know now why the cascade of emotion crashed into me.
I cried because I would finally learn to start valuing myself for who I am, not just what I do.
I cried because I was finally paying attention to my body, when I had been disconnected from it for years.
I cried because I felt connected to women who were kind to each other instead of mean or competitive, which had been a norm with several women in my life at the time.
I cried because it was time to begin healing the deepest places I had been wounded.
And I cried because this is the magic of a transformative healing modality like yoga. (In fact, it’s quite normal to weep in class.)
This experience was almost nine years ago now. Since then, I have taught yoga on and off at a variety of studios and settings around the state. This included one studio where I regularly wrote newsletters and press releases, which helped me transition into a new phase of my writing career — one that is kinder to my whole self. I’ve also studied energy medicine, astrology and psychology, and I continue to learn more about the healing arts all the time. I have healed deeply and I have found ways to manage stress and keep digestive troubles at bay. And about a year ago I had another colonoscopy where doctors found me to be polyp-free. So much has changed for the better since my health crises woke me up.
Overall, I have slowly but surely pivoted to value myself for who I am, not just what I do. I have learned to say no to demands on my time more than I ever could before — though if I’m honest I still struggle with this at times, whether at work or in my personal life. But I’ve also learned that it’s OK to struggle sometimes; this life is a winding journey, not a narrow, linear path.
I’m here for the joy and the love and the adventure, because that’s all what ultimately matters. If we aren’t having fun, there is no point.
Are We All in Recovery?
I have spent most of my life dodging addiction.
Multiple family members on both my parents’ sides of the family were or are addicts ― alcoholics, drug addicts, love addicts, sex addicts, workaholics. The list goes on. I value boundaries and I do not want to publicly share personal stories without consent. But for the purposes of this blog, it is important to say that I understand the struggles of addiction.
Growing up, we had many conversations as a family about the importance of establishing healthy life patterns. My parents spent many days and evenings talking to me and my younger brother about addiction, and warning us about the dangers of it. This meant I spent many hours in my teens and my 20s worrying about what kind of relationship with alcohol I should have, if any, and staying mindful about possibly unhealthy behaviors. At age 23, I went to therapy for the first time because my career was going well, but my relationships were not, and I wanted to understand why. I also wanted to make sure I stayed on a positive life path, heeding my parents’ wisdom while I worked to build a happy, healthy life.
It’s safe to say, I feared addiction. Its threat loomed over most of my life. But that’s because I didn’t really understand it until I got closer to it. I bumped up against my own addictive behaviors, like workaholism and normalized-yet-problematic social drinking. I always came back to a level of consciousness where I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. For example, I drank because I wanted to socialize and didn’t yet know how to set boundaries. Or I threw myself into work because I didn’t know how else to deal with emotional pain and a certain amount of achievements helped me create a false sense of self-esteem. As I bumped up against shadowy behaviors and situations, I worked hard to stay mindful, lest I fall into mysterious ancestral traps.
I was so scared of losing myself and my life to addiction that working to avoid it defined my life in a way that I didn't quite know how to talk about openly. I just knew I wanted to have a great life, whatever that meant. Driven by the fear of tragedy, bad relationships and difficult circumstances of my ancestors, I immersed myself in the study of how to create health and happiness. By my mid-20s, I spent much of my time after work learning about psychology, spirituality, philosophy, holistic health, self-help, and more. I was determined to better understand human behavior ― its gifts and its curses ― and the nature of being human. I wanted to understand why some people are successful after growing up in difficult circumstances, while other people suffer and meander.
I also began making major life decisions, if sometimes unpopular or painful, to create a healthier, happier life. I chose jobs that allowed me to have work-life balance, which meant saying no to some very exciting roles and opportunities that would demand more of me than I was willing to give. I stopped going to bars on a regular basis, since nothing good usually came of those nights, especially after college; I also became sober curious. As I thought about the kind of life I wanted to build and the kind of partner I needed, I specifically chose lovers who were on a healing or spiritual journey of some kind and wanted to be mindful in most or all aspects of life. And I cut out relationships with friends or acquaintances whose behaviors were that of either full-blown addicts or people marinating in levels of unconsciousness and toxicity that did not mesh with what I was striving for.
Creating health and happiness can be a life-long study. But keep in mind, I have also been studying why addiction happens, whether stress and emotions contribute to disease states, and what causes suffering. What I have learned is that trauma often underlies addiction. The most helpful definition of addiction I have ever heard was from a retired doctor in recovery. “Addiction is what we do to hide from our truth,” he said in a professorial tone. He believes this definition covers everything from compulsive technology use to drugs or alcohol to porn. This helped me understand the behavior of people who ranged from official addicts to those who have walked varying levels of unconsciousness. Related to addiction, the definition of trauma is just as broad, referring to events both large and small, which explains the ranges of problems that can be found in all kinds of people ― myself included. As we understand trauma and mental health more deeply as a society, we are asking smarter questions about the effects of connection and relationships on addiction.
This means that recovery is a much broader concept than people might think. One therapist, Jon Taylor, said during an interview that all addiction recovery is about reclaiming who you are ― what you want, what you need, and what you stand for. It’s not necessarily about abstaining from bad behavior. It is about living an authentic, satisfying life.
"Recovery is not about what we are NOT doing,” he said. “Recovery is about taking a clearly delineated stance on your principles and values, and living in accordance with that. It's not just stopping what is bad. It is creating something wonderful that you are a part of."
Does this mean that we’re all in recovery? If addiction is rooted in hiding from truth, and trauma of all kinds can cause disturbances, then maybe far more people are in recovery than we think. Addiction and trauma are often hidden because they are rooted in shame and shadows, especially in a society that encourages people to perform for each other and project images of perfection. Shame and shadows force us to falsely believe that we are different and separate from others, when so often we are more alike than different, in both our desires and our dramas. We can be in recovery from bad relationships, dysfunctional families, abusive bosses or workplaces, or patterns like addiction intertwining with any number of these things. We can be in recovery from painful belief systems, from an illness, or from heartbreak. We can be in recovery from a harmful religion or culture. We can be in recovery from society, too.
Yoga philosophy asserts that the entire 5,000-year-old practice is meant to bring stability and peace to the mind. For thousands of years, human beings have been struggling with their minds. I truly believe we are all recovering from something. Some journeys require more warriorship and strength than others. But, as spiritual teacher and psychologist Ram Dass says, “We are all just walking each other home.” Meaning, be kind, because we are all dealing with something difficult. We are all looking for as much joy, love and peace as humanly possible.