While going through the process of finding myself, the most important thing was maintaining my composure. I think I was trying to find peace because my anxiety level was high and I had trouble doing new things or meeting people for my career.
I tried to listen to my inner voice and figure out what I truly wanted, but during that process, there were many days when my mind was difficult. To cover up the pain in my mind with the pain in my body, I did yoga every day at home.
The reason I started yoga was simple. The fact that you can exercise without going outside. Yoga was a great fit for me, who wasted time going to the gym and had a hard time being around a lot of people.
There are many other home training videos, but I chose yoga because I wanted to improve my flexibility and wanted to take an online class from teacher Eileen, whom I fell in love with through meditation.
So, waking up early in the morning, having Miracle Morning, working at a cafe from 7 am to 2 pm, returning home, writing a blog, exercising, walking the dog, and going to sleep became a routine.
At first, I couldn’t afford to look at my body because I was trying to cover up the pain in my mind with the pain in my body. Just… hang in there, get over it, don’t be weak. Is this how you felt?
After doing exercise (yoga) for a day or two and refining my speech for good thoughts (stopping swearing even as a joke, choosing pretty words to speak), my body and mind became healthy, and at some point, distracting thoughts disappear, right? This gift came to me suddenly one day.
Yoga, which I started because I wanted to live that way and live well, became my life.
I think that’s when I started to truly look at my own body. When something stressful happened, it was strangely difficult to control my body. Through this, I wondered how I could change the other person’s mind when it was difficult to control even my own body.
I was ashamed of the past days where we argued, saying, ‘I wish we had done it this way…’ and I was filled with the desire to do better myself first.
If you have something you want, you have to give it to the other person first, and if the other person hurt me, I would have hurt them too. There are no one-sided feelings in this world.
Even if you speak out in anger because you are doing it for the other person, you cannot get involved in it because it is the responsibility of the person receiving it.
And then I realized. I, who claimed to be altruistic, how arrogant I was to claim that I understood and cared for the feelings of others better than anyone else. It was only at the age of 26 that I realized that no one, including myself, could protect the Yu-jeong of the past.
I had no choice but to accept it as I watched the tears flowing helplessly, and I found the best I could do at that time.
The best thing I can do at that time is to ‘stand as myself’.
So I started a journey to find myself. Because only when you stand upright can you truly understand and look at others. Through the journey I started in August when I was 26, I have now become a person with a strong will.
I don’t think I did it alone. Because I met many people on my journey to find myself. Although people are difficult, there are always people by our side, and although we are hurt because of people, we are healed thanks to people. This is our life.
At the age of 27, when I woke up from surgery on my birthday, I was reborn. From now on, I plan to become my own caregiver and raise myself wonderfully.
In my alone time, I thought and thought again about what kind of life I wanted to give as a gift. If I close my eyes one day and can say, “It was a pretty good life!” I will be extremely happy.
A life of sharing love in the arms of the people I love and the people who love me. That is the direction I am currently pursuing and I want to convey this feeling through yoga.
