My Journey to H&H
Hi friends,
Thank you for the sincere interest that led you here. I hope this can be a place where we share musings about Yoga, spirituality, the things the feel good, and the things that don’t. While my life’s journey is only just beginning, my journey to founding Hatha & Heal is one I can tell you about. Read on for the a ha moments as well as the swirls in the universe that got me to where I am today–
Growing up in Michigan I faced my fair share of unexplained adversity with my health. By the time I was entering adolescence I’d developed a strange autoimmune disease. What ensued was a long chapter of doctors, medical tests and elimination diets, which still didn’t bring me any answers. It would be the first of two autoimmune diseases I’d develop before age 30.
Then came chronic, debilitating tension headaches and musculoskeletal pain. I was living in Chicago and working in advertising. Hitting the circuit of doctors again revealed the diagnosis that I have scoliosis– severe curvature of my upper spine. But layered into this time was all the stress of my job, the deep uncertainty of being young and trying to forge a life, themes of perfectionism, not believing in myself and my value to the world. Western medical answers seemed less helpful than ever, and I felt profoundly overlooked by everyone who just wanted to jot down 5 minutes of notes about me and prescribe me Advil. My twenties took on a different tone than the lighthearted years you’d expect. But the heavy bottom of this period was also a catalyst and made me something very important– a seeker. Eventually it was that seeking that lead me to Yoga. Yoga made sense to me and it made me feel empowered. I was learning how to work with myself– not as I’d wish to be, but as I already was.
I left Chicago and all the challenges it had meant for me and moved out to Jackson, Wyoming. Jackson fit some need I had for open spaces and introspection, and was also the perfect backdrop to really dive deep into my Yoga practice. Again, Yoga offering me a realistic companion to the many up’s and down’s of life. In Jackson I injured my ribs and it was the worst physical pain I’d ever known, making me question everything I knew about healing and my belief that it “should” be linear. I also met wide expanses to really examine the amount of loneliness I carried. Many of these moments played out during solo travel and during the depths of the pandemic. But through it all Yoga seemed like a light that wasn’t available to be extinguished, and I began to feel a dharma level knowingness that it was asking more of me– it was inviting me to see the cards I’d been dealt as the exact hand I’d need to do something that mattered with my life. Author Phil Goldberg defines dharma as your life purpose and “that which is most harmonious and brings the highest good”. I went on to formally study Yoga, Reiki, Buddhism and other ways to heal in both Jackson and California.
Ten years and hundreds of hours of training later– I am still many, many miles from the end of my journey. But I’ve come to deeply embrace healing and my honest path towards it. If you’ve felt minimized, confused, angry, afraid or alone– if you have felt like nothing makes sense and your suffering is all for nothing– I understand and I have been there. I see you where you are and already know you are so much more than just your pain. You’re the multifaceted expression of everything life is about– and together we can find a balanced, easeful experience of just that.
Namaste,
(the light in me honors and reflects the light in you)
Hannah