After one decade of ruminating, ritualizing, and running in circles around a track as an All-American runner, I arrived at my first Power Yoga class in 2011 with imbalances in my mind and body. The rigorous sequences stretched and strengthened my muscles and helped me channel my intensity without the stress of competing. I attached myself to the postures and clung to them like I’d clung to the boyfriend who’d recently left me. With no clue what yoga was really about, I quickly moved from my hometown outside Boston to Boulder, Colorado and worked toward my 200-hour Power Yoga certification at Corepower.

Next, in 2013, I moved to Bozeman, Montana with eight dollars and the dream of meeting a cowboy. Over-medicated, unsupported, and using exercise compulsively, I continued to arrange my external environment searching for that elusive “just right” feeling those with OCD know too well. I also tried to transcend my intense emotional distress related to my obsessive thoughts by putting myself in real danger in the mountains, which led to things like dangling from cliffs in hailstorms. I understood that if I didn’t somehow change my direction, I’d end up where I was going, which was back to the mat or the mountain for yet another empty, fear-driven and even life-threatening session.

Inspired by the Indian guru Sadhguru, I dug deeper into the non-physical aspects of yoga in an effort to lead a conscious instead of compulsive life. Using self-discipline (tapas), self-study (svadhyaya) and contentment (santosha) as the guiding principles of my classes, I worked to help myself as well as yogis and elite athletes all over Bozeman train their minds in addition to their bodies. In 2017, I completed Gabriella Walter’s 250-hour Inferno Hot Pilates certification program and began teaching at the local Hot Yoga studio. In 2018, after receiving my MFA in Writing, I taught Creative Writing as well as Meditation and Mindful Teatime to students at the Bozeman Field School. In this class, students learned breathing techniques for controlling the pranic, life-force energy in the body.

Yet, it didn’t seem to matter what yoga I practiced or taught, what therapist or medication I tried. It also didn’t matter what mountain I climbed with what man. My inner life remained brutally controlled by what I called the “OCD Gremlin.” For almost two decades, I concealed my battle with what felt like a dark, ugly creature in my brain, and I worked hard to earn validation and reassurance from loved ones. Disconnected from my powerful and enduring inner sun, I was almost never at ease and certainly couldn’t just stroll with a cow, smiling, as I did last summer in the French Alps. I systematically found myself in toxic relationships with men because I was in one with myself and felt undeserving and unworthy.

In 2019, after finding the OCD peer support advocate Chrissie Hodges, working with a specialist, and getting off medication, things began to shift for me. Therapeutic methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) helped me start to connect with my true nature and move closer to self-mastery. I use the words “shift” and “begin” because learning to live well with my anxiety, fear, and doubt has been a slow, subtle process that isn’t finished. Plugging into the extensive OCD community for support on what I’ve come to view as a lifelong journey always restores hope within me. Finally, discovering Ayurveda and studying to become an Ayurvedic Health Coach has added more tools to my OCD and Anxiety Toolbox, and I’m excited to share them with you.

The past five years, I’ve taught hundreds of online yoga and Inferno Pilates classes, coached clients, lived in North Carolina and Vermont, studied Thai Massage in Thailand, started a podcast, and moved to France for a relationship. When I’m not teaching or writing, I enjoy painting, hiking, watching my dog Juliet sleep, studying clouds, cooking, and trail running.