How Ashley Got Her Groove Back

I was born and raised in Centerville, Utah. One of the many quite sprawling suburbs of the beautiful Salt Lake Valley. I have three older sisters and one younger brother and we were raised by my amazing mother who taught at the local high school we all attended. Life was lovely in Centerville and packed with extra curricular activities: soccer, ballet, basketball, piano, volleyball, violin, sewing lessons, cooking classes… We were a busy bunch. Many of these activities revolved around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a religion that our young lives revolved around. My mother was raised Mormon and brought us up in the church.

Everyone I knew was Mormon as well. Everyone in the neighborhood, everyone I went to school with, everyone I played with. We went to church every Sunday, attended church activities during the week, and went to seminary at school. The LDS church was the center of my world and guided me through all the decisions I made in my young life. If I was ever plagued by problems in my schoolwork I could turn to prayer and Jesus Christ. If I felt overwhelmed by daily life I could turn to scripture to guide me through the stress. If I was sick I could turn to the power of the priesthood to bless me and make me feel well. The burdens of this life were never something I had to carry alone, I was a child of God and he walked with me, carried me when I needed him to.

The summer after I graduated high school was not the smooth transition to adulthood I had been anticipating. I spent my senior year of high school dancing hours everyday, and without the high school dance department I was left without the release that dance gave me. I moved out of my circle friends in Centerville as I started working and going to school in Salt Lake. I was exposed to a new way of life that debunked my perception of the evils of alcohol and coffee*,the centerpieces of most activities involving my new found college freshmen friends.

My never wavering faith in the church was cracking under the weight of living a life that on paper contradicted the way a proper Mormon should behave. I spent a year racked with guilt over making choices that my Bishop would certainly disapprove, but I still identified myself as a Mormon and turned to prayer when life became too much to shoulder alone. I was half in and half out. It was around this time I found out that one of my sisters was gay. Something the Mormon Church believes is wrong, and that a person afflicted with such an ailment must work hard to overcome. This straw broke the camels back and I knew in my heart that I was not and would never identify myself as a Mormon again.

So, now what? My entire life up to that point had been guided by the LDS religion and anytime I felt stressed I could turn to it to find comfort and guidance. Though I knew without a trace of doubt that I no longer believed the church to be true, I still felt alone.

I graduated college with my BFA in Dance and felt like I was right back where I had been when I graduated high school. Still working in retail hell and miserable. On a whim I enrolled in Dana Baptiste's Yoga Teacher Training. I had always practiced yoga on and off as a part of my dance training and becoming a yoga teacher made sense. However, I entered the training skeptical of any mention of spirituality or transformation. I approached my personal practice and teaching with the intention to build muscle, stretch out, and feel better. I attended yoga classes daily, but was skeptical of the idea that yoga could do more than help me stay in shape. I was not open to anything that felt like more dogma.

Part of the teacher training was a four-day yoga retreat in Altamont, UT. We stayed in a huge lodge in the middle of nowhere, it was perfect. The lodge had a large balcony and every morning we would practice Pranayama facing the sunrise. There were also two three-hour yoga classes a day, meditation, and classes for us teachers in training to continue our study. All yoga, all day, for four days. It was perfect. In the beginning I didn’t think so. I arrived panicked to be away from friends, family, work, and teaching. I was a person who needed my routine to feel like things were okay. Plopping me in the middle of this retreat and completely out of my comfort zone with relative strangers scared the hell out of me.

The first yoga class when we arrived was a Gentle/Restorative class and we were challenged to keep our eyes closed the whole time. Dana Baptiste, the leader of the retreat and teacher training, spoke about letting everything else but right then, in that moment go. Whatever stress, fear, or weight that we carried with us from our daily lives: let it all go. And for the first time in my entire life, I did. I took a deep breath, told my inner skeptic to shut up, and exhaled.

I’m still a work in progress. But yoga helps help me to recognize that I can let go of the things I cannot control. Whether it be the grand themes of life that will always be a challenge, or the simple things like long lines at Costco and local N trains. I can take a deep breath and let it go. My yoga practice changed my life.



*The Word of Wisdom is a set of rules for healthy living set out in the Doctrine and Covenants, another testament of Jesus Christ that is read along with the Book of Mormon. It stipulates that Mormons abstain from “Strong Drinks.” Including alcohol, coffee, and tea.