My marriage fell apart. I had two teenage children and it was a difficult and very painful time. I examined and re-examined every detail of the divorce and the events that led up to it. I had trouble sleeping and suffered from insomnia, with a recurring nightmare of losing my pocketbook, which to me represented losing my identity.
As a child I could not stop moving! I tumbled, cartwheeled, and flipped wherever I was. There was such joy in movement. As I got older, my free play morphed into cheerleading, dance, aerobics, jazzercise, pilates and yoga. I was known as the “queen of stretch”. It just felt so good.
As life went on with the usual responsibilities and stresses: marriage, career and child raising, there was precious little time to continue my passionate need to move. Exercise became an item on my ‘to-do’ list rather than the uninhibited joy that it has been earlier in my life.
After many years of “toeing the line”, figuratively and literally, I lost the corporate job that I held for 20 years due to outsourcing. Amazingly enough, this turned out to be wonderful and resulted in a whole new path for me! I had the time to once again seek out the joy of movement. I received my 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Kripalu, and also become a Pilates trainer. And this is also when my marriage fell apart.
It was around this time that I longed for more specialized yoga, that I found Jennifer and Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra. What a gift! The timing was synchronistic with what I truly needed. ‘Ask and you shall receive!’ and I received bountifully!
I took Jennifer’s Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra Teacher Training, and attended many of the Advanced Divine Sleep Training weekends. It really helped me to continue to evolve my understanding of yoga nidra with Jennifer’s guidance.
I have integrated Divine Sleep not only into the classes I teach, but also into my own life. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is acceptance and forgiveness, beginning with myself.
I have also learned with Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra to examine and embrace life’s opposites, and all the ups and downs that have happened to me. Feeling opposites in your body – such as cool/warm, heavy/light, liquid/solid and so on – is one of the key parts of Divine Sleep. And as Einstein put it, ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’. And I can see this truth in my life’s experiences.
Now that my children have been all grown up for many years now, I have also brought dance back into my life. Yoga and dance have opened the door to traveling with the community and I have gone to Italy, India, Greece and this Spring to Costa Rica! This is one wild life! Thank you, Jennifer Reis, for sharing your amazing self!
