Here and Now

  Truth is your name, not the letters behind them, nor your diagnoses, those labels of wife, mother, sister, friend... Breathe in your grace and exhale the stories that hold you back Once I knew a quiet and watchful child who held fears hand befriending a belly that fluttered her sweet racing heart a constant companion Insecurity weaved it’s way into every fiber of her tender being;  a sturdy fabric for such a delicate soul to wear This is your time to undress without shame to shrug the heaviness of that old and tattered garment off your weary shoulders Drape yourself in the finest silks and gossamer threads Inhale the heady fragrance of peace as you release the hand of fears icy grip This is your time... Angela Minard 2021© Photography by~ Kristina Makeeva

  Artwork by~ Masaaki Sasomoto At the height of my eating disorder, when I was entrenched in anorexic behaviors, I also held a full time job working with children with autism and other developmental disabilities. The only time it affected my work was when I took a leave of absence to go into treatment. I have missed work at times for mental health days, and I think that almost everyone at some time in their work history has done that. I would rather take a day for self care than to be sub par at my work. For many people struggling with mental health, routines are a huge part of maintaining normalcy and stability. These days of having extra time on my hands not teaching at the studio have thrown off my routine. I miss the structure, but have found myself feeling more creative, and exploring new ideas. I don’t often embrace change, but it may be time to take more chances, and move out of my comfort zone a bit. I’ve been working on publishing a few volumes of poetry, as well as a memo...

The me that started this blog over twelve years ago is long gone, although the strength and wisdom was centered deep inside, it took some digging to discover. Starting this blog was also the beginning of healing from sexual trauma and anorexia, although at times it felt as if all of that digging may bury me. A couple of times it almost did... I’m not sure why I’m here, writing I mean... I was driving home from teaching my Monday evening yoga classes, and my mind was wandering as I watched the first snowfall of the season...wandering to the past, and I thought about the pain that I poured out on this blog. Healing is a gift I finally allowed myself. Yoga gave me the gift of embodiment, and I’m grateful that I can pay that gift forward. I rarely visit the past anymore, but when I do it’s from a more forgiving place. I’m not perfect and life is never perfect, but I’m good...life is good. I doubt anyone reads these words, but if you found your way here, take this poem as my gift to you....

It is strange how when one part of your body hurts, it affects other area of the body. As a yoga teacher, observing bodies is part of the job, and so I find myself observing my own with curiosity. I’m thinking of ways to help my healing, where I need to focus, and the types of body work I may need. In this way, I am looking forward to the recovery process. I already see the ways this is changing my teaching, and I’m already planning a workshop titled Mindful Strength and Stabilty. I feel excitement for the possible roads of learning this experience is already leading me down. There is always more to learn, and I can’t wait to share it!  5 more days until surgery! 

Transformed I hold on in my sleep clenched fists awakening with aching fingers empty hands... "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,"  I think to myself drifting back into the same nightmare... footsteps heavy, looming shadows, and then the comforting sound of your voice calling my name "It hurts," I whisper as your gracefully opened palms receive my falling tears iridescent crystals spilling through your familiar, outstretched fingers "I will hold it for you,"  you repeat softly until my eyes begin to flutter open ...and for awhile this pain beautifully transformed Angela Minard 2017©

There is nothing in life that is certain, but most of the time our days flow in a predictable pattern, and that routine is comforting.  Right now I feel as if I decided to climb into a rain barrel and allowed someone to push me from the edge of Niagara Falls.  I made the choice to quit a job I had been at for a long time, I brought a puppy into our home, a couple of the boys moved out, and then one moved back in and brought their cat, I'm starting a new job, and I just sprained my foot on my third day at said new job! We need to sell our house, which will be another big change, and none of this is routine. Even good changes can be frightening, and so I find myself slipping into eating disordered behaviors. Relapse is part of recovery, but I thought I was past relapsing. It is difficult not to be disappointed in myself, especially when I'm working in a recovery facility. Beating up on myself is not helpful, and actually gives the eating disorder more po...

Venus I can't speak anymore of truth of pain without my heart  lurching  into the hollow cave  of my throat I hear the reverberating echo of hate the bitter taste of poison  on my lips seething anger fills my belly You talk and talk and talk about nothing while we all  go  hungry Angela Minard 2016© Artwork by  annadittmann.tumblr.com

If you close your eyes am I no longer sitting before you Can you wish me away with these words you have heard before stifling yawn after yawn  like the wide open, endless yawn of time wasted... What good is trying to heal  Continually ripping the bandage from the wound too soon As my silences lengthen your eyelids flutter the monotony of our conversations growing as tiresome as I am weary Is this how you leave or is this how I am leaving Giving up on both of us  before you can say goodbye Angela Minard 2016©

Purgatory When I was a child  I would play the "breath holding" game with myself It wasn't the kind of  "breath holding to gain attention from parents" game It was simply a challenge How long could I deprive myself of air?   life? The strangest thing is that the longer you hold your breath the more alive you feel The heart beats even louder and more ferociously The body warms and trembles to stay alive until eventually the mouth flies open like an ugly, gasping Piranah an exhale that feels like failure worn like shame... As I grew up breath holding evolved into food withholding It was simply a challenge How long could I deprive myself of food? Long enough for my heart to beat erratically for my muscles to cramp  and to shiver all day even in the summer Feeling alive ... this slow act of suicide How long could I press my fingers into my flesh ...

Porcelain Her heart... imploding exploding there is no other way escape is merely an illusion but oh, how she tries less than a whisper into the darkness the shadows obscure certainty tiny fists clutching monstrous deceptions her heart holds it well Wide eyes  close  open close open as if made of porcelain a vacant, blinking doll The most beautiful treasures are veiled beneath harsh desert skies like a mirage resplendent and yet seemingly unreachable to love big is to get small and quiet until all you can hear is the truth Her heart... imploding exploding there is no other way Angela Minard 2016©

I have been in pain for weeks, clenching my jaw through yoga practices, and doing the opposite of what I tell my students to do, which is to listen to and honor their bodies. It isn't the first time I have pushed through pain. Emotionally and physically, it is how I lived for a very long time. Although recovered from anorexia, the toll it took on my body has left my bones and joints weak from osteoporosis. I developed osteoarthritis specifically in my hip joints, and eventually they will both need to be replaced. I manage the pain with medication, but occasionally need steroid injections to decrease the inflammation. I have been teaching a lot of classes, and physically exhausting myself. The added pain is wearing me down. I went in to see the orthopedic surgeon, and the nurse took my temperature. I had a fever of 101.8. I have no idea why. I don't have a cold or anything. I just feel exhausted. I love teaching yoga, but it is difficult when you don't feel well. ...

I have worked with kiddos with autism for over fifteen years, as well as having my own son with autism. I'm used to waiting a longer amount of time for a response than what is considered average. People with developmental disabilities, as well as individuals with brain injuries have a longer processing time, so I wait... I'm just now realizing that I have a longer than average processing time when it comes to my emotions.  Feelings are unlabeled because I have no idea in the moment what is happening.  I store my emotions like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter, and then they explode before I even have a chance to make much sense of them.  This is why I have a therapist to help me sort through the mess of feelings that confound and confuse me on an almost daily basis.  Laughter, and joy are easier to accept, but sadness and anger I have labeled as bad, and off limits, so I do all kinds of inappropriate things with those emotions in particular. ...

The main reason that I started writing this blog was to sort out my thoughts and emotions throughout my recovery process. The reasons that I continue are not only for those same reasons, but also because I have learned that it is important to myself and others, to be vulnerable. I am as honest as I can be here, because we all share some of the same hopes, fears, and basic human tendencies. When I realized I wasn't alone, the world was not nearly as frightening. I'm recovered from anorexia, but that certainly doesn't mean that I don't still struggle with my body image. I do. I'm in the public eye every day as a yoga teacher, and I'm not the hard bodied, lean yoga teacher. I'm the short, curvy yoga teacher, with extra bits here and there, and most days, that is okay. It never matters once I step my feet on my yoga mat because for fuck's sake, it doesn't matter! The days that it does matter, I need to take a few steps back, and ask myself why. ...

Never and Always There is never enough time to tell you everything the questions always come too late and I am left waiting   for another chance "What do you want to ask me?" Searching your face disarmed by your gaze I look away The words seem to vanish without an answer only the beat of my heart thundering, yet insignificant a resounding ache... There is never enough time to shatter the silence and I am always left wanting and waiting for another chance Angela Minard 2015©

I want to follow up on my "Friendships and Loss" post, because although that loss was painful, and occasionally stings, I do not dwell on it any longer. In the past few years I have developed a circle of friends who rally around me, love me unconditionally, and continually make me laugh to the point of aching cheeks and throbbing belly. It was difficult to have relationships with people when anorexia was my constant companion, so I didn't have many friends. I know it was confusing and painful for anyone close to watch me struggling, and I lost a couple of friends in the process. Friendships, and relationships in general are important to me, and maybe because I spent so many years building walls, I crave true connection. I feel loved because I allow myself to feel love. I'm hugged so many times a day that I lose count. How great is that?! Working in a yoga studio definitely doesn't hurt. Those yogis are huggers! They also tell you that they love you, and th...

This is dissociation as I experience it~ Sitting with a group of friends, I'm surrounded by their familiar laughter. I vaguely feel the muscles of my face contort into the shape of a smile, although it feels somewhat ghoulish, and I'm aware of a floating sensation in my limbs, hollow, and yet strangely weary. The rise and fall of conversation is barely an echo that I'm desperately trying to grasp a hold of within my mind. I am a stranger in these moments of separation, watching with detached curiosity before I slip into oblivion...  I'm learning to catch myself before falling... Counting the length of my inhales and exhales, or naming everything I see that is the color blue, anything to remind myself that I am a part of this world. I've stopped asking myself why because the reasons are many, and complicated. I can't always figure them out, and sometimes I think they are more internal than external. If I tried to avoid the triggers, I would be a ...

Today is my birthday... the final year of this decade in my forties. It has been tumultuous to say the least.  I clawed my way through,  sometimes barely hanging on, but here I am!  I would like to say it was a beautiful ride, but not so much... At first glance,  you may have even wanted to avert your gaze,  but there was quiet celebration  if you could focus your gaze long enough to see the details.  The celebration in no particular order, because I find them all to be miracles... Finding my voice, which meant finally speaking out about being raped Going to therapy Getting treatment for anorexia which meant going inpatient and being away from my family Surviving two suicide attempts {Feeling my feelings was overwhelmingly painful, and I wanted to die.} I'm thankful that I was not successful.  Finding yoga and an accepting community Continuing to work through the process of trauma with my amazing therapis...

They say that the most stunning flower of all, the lotus, grows in the filthiest part of the pond, feeding on its filth to produce its beauty. My therapist also likes to say that strength comes from falling face down, sucking mud, and still being able to rise up and move forward.   I try to remember this when the pain and shame cause me to feel dirty and flawed. I work through it every day, and some days are easier than others, but I am healing and creating beauty through the practice of yoga. There are still days when I put on my yoga clothes, which are not forgiving, by the way, and I look into the mirror, and I don't love what I see. Some days I even think about staying home and hiding instead of walking into a class full of people, where I'm exposed. Recovery is like that. I'm not this women who recovered perfectly from anorexia, and never looks back. I would like to be, but then again, each time I look back, I learn something new about why I sometimes fall in...

Touch I knew exactly where it was hiding beneath my sternum  longing to reach inside fingers searching for the center of the wound I wanted to press into the ache until it radiated throughout my entire body begging to see the poison some confirmation of damage I remembered playing my bones like an instrument in the darkness my fingertips dipping into the hollowness I knew exactly where it should have been but there was nothing to soothe Now, buried underneath this flesh breathing its own breath alive I still cannot capture this pain Angela Minard 2015©