Yoga Girl

things wouldn’t ever be okay again.
My mom could have thrown me out of the house. She could have let
me clean up my own mess. She could have given up on me completely.
But she didn’t. She sent me off to a therapeutic meditation retreat. I don’t
know how on earth she convinced me to go, but one day I found myself
on a train going up to a small town in northern Sweden to spend a week
at a meditation center. I was terrified. No, scratch that. I was beyond
terrified. Out of all the things I had done—and at eighteen I had already
done it all—this was more out of my comfort zone than anything I could
possibly imagine. Meditate? Me? I had taken that one yoga class in
ailand while we were there on vacation, but that was it. I had never
meditated. All I knew was cigarettes and beer and fighting with people.
Jealous, hot-tempered, and impatient, I had turned into an incredibly
difficult person. I thought life was about living as fast as possible, and
looking good while doing it. A lot of my time was spent fixing my
makeup, buying new clothes, and coming up with new ways to sneak into
the hottest clubs downtown. Meditating had never even crossed my mind.
So when I got off the train and into the cab that was going to take me to
the meditation center, I broke down, started crying, and told the cabdriver
to turn around. e cabbie looked me in the eye and said, “I think you
should give it a try. I’ve seen many people throughout the years get off the
train looking just as nervous as you, but they all come back smiling,
looking very calm. Here, take my number. If it’s really bad and you want
to leave after one day, call me and I’ll drive you to the train.”
I took his number, and he dropped me off at the center. is was the
start of a whole new life for me.
For the first time, I learned how to quiet my mind. Twice a day we had
group meditations and therapeutic sessions, and in between there was
absolute silence. No phones, no computers, no talking. Just silence. I had
never been silent in my entire life before. In the sessions I was given tools
to deal with my past, and I started working through the issues causing my
anger and resentment. I realized I hadn’t mourned the death of my