Chronic Yogi interview: Rachel Hawes

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brainfog, cake, CFS, chronic pain, Dave Grohl, Desikachar, empathetic, exhaustion, fairy dust sprinkler, Fibromyalgia, glitter, Insomnia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, kittens, light/sound sensitivity, massage therapist, migraines, myalgic encephalomyelitis, pilates, pranayama, pugs, Punk rock yogini, Rachel Hawes, Suburban Yogini, Tara Fraser, unbendy yoga teachers

Name: Rachel (aka Suburban Yogini)

Bio: Punk rock yogini, teacher, writer, massage therapist, sprinkler of fairy dust + lover of all things glitter, cake, kittens, pugs and Dave Grohl.

How long have you been a student of yoga? And how long have you been teaching?

I went to my first yoga class as a child alongside my mum and I’ve been hooked on and off ever since. I went to a weekly class right through college and university (I’d been a dance student in college and it really helped my posture and flexibility), but it wasn’t really until my mid-twenties that I started to see it as anything other than a physical practice.

I’ve been teaching since 2005.

What sort of yoga do you teach?

Rachel Yoga 🙂

My background is very mixed. It was very Astanga Vinyasa based up until about 2004/2005 when I met Tara Fraser of Yoga Junction who practiced and taught in the style of TKV Desikachar. My teaching probably lies very much in that tradition, although when I’m lesson planning all kinds of things can come in as warm-ups and counterposes – stuff from my dance training, stuff from my Pilates training (I’m training to teach Pilates at the moment), just stuff that feels right, you know?

On the flyers it says Hatha though – it’s simpler that way!

Which form of chronic illness do you live with? When were you first diagnosed?

I was first diagnosed with M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) when I was 17 and I’ve lived with it on and off (and through various name changes – CFS/Fibromyalgia) ever since. There are good periods and bad periods. More good than bad most of the time I’m happy to say.

What sort of symptoms do you experience? Is there a known cure for your condition?

The symptoms are manifold and no sufferer seems to have the same set of symptoms which is why the medical profession find it so hard to pin down and why some still think it’s all in the mind (it’s not, I can assure you).

For me the symptoms have been as diverse as migraines and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, chronic pain and light/sound sensitivity, chronic sore throats and just plain old bone aching exhaustion.

But the worst of them all is the brainfog. The brainfog leaves you incapable of remembering your keys or the previous chapter of your book and there have been times I’ve stopped mid-yoga lesson not really sure what I’m meant to be teaching next. Never be without a class plan, that’s my motto! (Ed: Me too!)

There is no known cure. There isn’t even any agreement as to what causes it although my money is on it being neurological rather than auto-immune.

I also have a C-shaped congenital upper thoracic scoliosis. This wasn’t discovered until adulthood, so again there is no treatment other than osteopathy/chiropractic.

Did you start teaching yoga before or after you got sick?

After – long after!

If you got sick THEN started teaching yoga, what was going through your mind when you applied for yoga teacher training? Was your YTT impacted by your illness?

YTT in the UK is a massive commitment. You do a year’s foundation course first followed by the full YTT which is equivalent to Yoga Alliance’s 200 and 500 hours put together I believe and takes another 2-3 years. I thought long and hard about it to be honest. I didn’t see how someone this sick and tired, with a spine that just did not bend could possibly commit to the training.

It was Tara Fraser again who encouraged me, saying the world needed more empathetic unbendy yoga teachers bless her! So I did it.

On the first day of YTT I met L, who had had surgery for two herniated discs. The sick and the lame sort of stuck together on my YTT and we’ve been inseparable ever since!

Half-way through my YTT I did have a really bad patch. I’d just moved across London away from Tara’s studio and also Tara had gone on maternity leave so I found myself teacherless. I was working full time in law too then (yeah, I have no idea how I did it to be honest!) and I just needed a break. I took a six month hiatus from YTT and then joined again to take my final exams.

Have you ever shared your health condition with your students? If so, what happened? Has anyone ever reacted negatively?

I don’t share it with everyone, just if it seems relevant – more with private clients than group classes, although I do talk about the scoliosis a lot more than the ME. It’s more relevant to most people.

That said, it’s all up there on my website so anyone who’s read that will already know and that’s fine with me.

The only negativity I’ve had towards my health, sadly, has been from other teachers who seem to think it makes me “not good enough” (Ed: wtf!!) rather than from students, who all seem to quite like me!

Does your health ever affect they way you sequence your yoga classes?

Not that I’m aware of no, but I did learn at a very early stage in my career to teach without demonstration – partly not to wear myself out and partly because well, no –one needs to see my backbends!! When it comes to backbends for example I will use a student who I know well to do them. Himself (Ed: Rachel’s partner) has a very bendy back so I use him sometimes!

Chronic illnesses can be very frustrating. Do/did you ever feel angry about your diagnosis? How does it impact your own yoga practice and your life in general?

I get frustrated a lot, especially with the brainfog and the dropping things and the pain (pain is exhausting and yes, I take painkillers, I’m not ashamed to admit it). But here’s the thing. I was so young when I got diagnosed that sometimes I don’t remember anything else. And actually, in hindsight, I wonder if I haven’t had this since I was a kid.

Somehow having always had it seems less frustrating because I never knew adult life without it, so I never had to give anything up, if that makes sense. Everything I’ve done I’ve done with M.E. and as a kick in the face for M.E., rather than thinking “Oh I used to do this before I got sick”. I consider myself lucky because of that.

Have you experienced any “dark night of the soul” moments/hours/days in dealing with your illness? What got you through?

One of the most annoying symptoms is insomnia. I go through some really bad periods when I hardly sleep at all and 3am is a bad time for everyone when it comes to “dark nights of the soul”! I get though it with a mixture of good books, camomile tea, chocolate, pranayama and legs up the wall pose (Viparita Karani).

From your yoga practice and studies, what sort of outlook do you have regarding your health?

Despite the frustration and the bad bad days (and the brainfog, when I don’t really have the capacity for an outlook at all), I have a pretty live-and-let-live outlook to it. After all, there is very little I can do to change it other than what I am already doing. There is no point whining about “why me” because really “why not me?”. When I was being diagnosed I had tests for a lot of very very scary things, so I’m pretty grateful not to have any of them really.

Giving up the 9-5 grind to teach yoga and massage really helped. I’m lucky enough to have a very supportive partner for that one, and appreciate that not everyone is in a position they can give up work. But I really think that I’m lucky to have never known a different life to this.

My regular yoga practice and continuing studies keep me grounded which I think is really important to help prevent me getting too caught up in my symptoms and pranayama is a god-send, seriously!

How do you manage your health? With western medicine, eastern medicine, alternative therapies or a combination of them all? What one thing helps you the most?

Yoga, Pilates (I always say yoga helps my soul, pilates helps my spine!), massage, reiki, cranial osteopathy and chiropractic. I don’t know if one helps more than the other or not, it’s a perfect combination! I have played around with my diet as well although when I find something that works it only seems to for a little while. I’m currently experimenting with gluten free. Western medicine gives me painkillers, which isn’t ideal of course but is sometimes very necessary to carry on with my life.

Do you have any questions for Rachel? If so, ask away in the comments section!

Where you can find Rachel

Blog: Suburban Yogini		Business website: Fusion Massage & Movement
Social media:

~ / \ ~

HUGE thanks to Rachel for stepping up as my very first interviewee! I hear you on the brainfog, the light/sound sensitivities and the exhaustion.

I think we all owe Tara Fraser a debt of gratitude for encouraging Rachel to complete her YTT. And I don’t know how she did such a rigorous training while working full-time, either!

Kudos to you, lovely!! And once again, thank you for sharing with us all! xx

Read other Chronic Yogi interviews

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~ Svasti

Visiting Brits, kitsch-fests and teapot love

Tags

Anastasia and Olga, curvy yoginis, Dandenong Ranges, devonshire tea, kitsch, Melbourne, Miss Marples tea house, Russian dolls, scones, Suburban Yogini, tea, teapots

So in case you missed it, I had a very exciting and fun day on Friday – the one and only Rachel (of Suburban Yogini fame) was in town with her guy (Himself) and we all hung out for the day!

Meeting blog friends is awesome. Basically, you already share quite a bit in common and you tend to know an awful lot about each other before you’ve met so there’s a level of comfort and camaraderie happening from the get-go. I LOVE meeting blogging peeps!

I feel that it’s important to emphasise just how CUTE Rachel is in person. As much as you think she’s lovely from her blog, she’s way better again in real life. Himself is pretty awesome, too. He very politely put up with a lot of gabbing from Rachel and I, and wasn’t shy about joining in the fun.

My big plan for the day was to take them somewhere they wouldn’t probably go otherwise, and whisked them out of the city and up to the Dandenong Ranges (you can’t really call them mountains, Rachel!), to the east of the city. The drive out there is pretty boring but once up there in the hills, everything is a little magical with lots of curvy roads, ferny forests and a smattering of ridiculously cute townlets.

I had a few adventures planned but we didn’t quite get through them all because we were just so busy enjoying whatever it was we were doing right then. You can check out some of Rachel’s photos from the day over here.

First stop was Mount Dandenong Sky High Lookout – we got a great view for about two minutes, after which Melbourne did its usual four seasons in twenty minutes routine on repeat. Due to the weather, we opted to get some food at the cafe there (note: not recommended, really).

And then… errr, a not so great part of the day: at the table right next to us it seems an elderly gentleman had a heart attack! We were sitting there gabbing away, drinking luke-warm beverages and waiting on our ice-cold fries when… CRAP. That man is totally on the ground and unconscious, with all of his  female relatives sobbing. It seemed like the staff weren’t particularly trained for that sort of thing. No one rushed out with a first aid kit and they didn’t think to move any of the other patrons out of the area. Eventually the paramedics arrived and went to town on his chest with a defibrillator and CPR. We left before we knew what happened since between the very ordinary food and the heart attack, we’d kind of lost our appetites.

So. What’s a tour guide to do in that situation? Send out prayers for the man (done several times over), and attempt to steer this weird start to the day in a better direction.

There aren’t too many better directions than to head into the deep heartland of kitsch-ville, and that’s exactly where we went. First stop: Olinda. Actually, Rachel and Himself almost demanded that we stop!

There’s all kinds of wackiness in Olinda, but also, amazing little finds like:

These little ladies were in the window of one of the many kitsch-fest shops we wandered past...

More curvy yogini-ettes!

A little bigger than the size of your fist but at $100 per piece, a touch expensive. Never mind – photos are free! We also stopped into a ye olde time sweet shop where we each grabbed a couple of delicacies (and I do hope that Himself kept his word to share!).

Next: onwards to Sassafrass, home of the famous and delightfully odd Miss Marples tea house where there are no bookings allowed – you’ve just got to turn up and hope for the best.

Rachel’s very British word to describe the busy-factor was apt: the place was “heaving”.

Of course, I used my best “but I have guests here all the way from the UK” line, and somehow one of the ladies in charge took pity on us and squeezed us in. Sure, we had to wait around fifteen minutes (which we used poking around in nearby shops, including an outdoor old record shop!), but hey, we had one of the much coveted spots where many others were turned away.

And this is what we did there…

The Australian fascination with all things supposedly British is out in full-force at Miss Marples!

Right next to Miss Marples is another kind of tea house – a shop with hundreds of different kinds of tea and all sorts of tea and coffee related paraphernalia. The Brits were of course, in heaven.

And although I didn’t know it yet, I was in love with my new teapot. Folks, meet Anastasia and her little sister, Olga:

Anastasia

Olga, with Anastasia looking on

It was madness! Not only did I stock up on new tea, but this VERY fancy teapot. I can’t tell you how happy these girls make me. On the second day of use, I’ve settled in to using Olga moreso than Anastasia just on account of tea volume. Here’s Olga in action from earlier this evening:

Olga in action!

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

After Sassafrass I valiantly aimed to get us to our last destination – a lovely nature walk, but we only had fourty minutes left before the reserve closed so we decided to call it a day, and rely on my rather wayward navigational abilities to get us back to the city.

Hey! I survive very well as long as I have mobile phone reception to make the GPS in my iPhone work!

But never fear, I dropped Rachel and Himself off safely and let them prepare for the most important pilgrimage of their visit to this fine country: their Neighbours tour. For those of you who aren’t British or Australian and therefore probably have no idea what I’m talking about… well, lucky you!

Kidding! Okay, not really. Neighbours is basically a sloshy trash-soap opera that we’ve been flogging off to the Brits for years. It’s actually more popular over there than it is here, where most Australians consider it to be about as exciting as Paul Hogan (best left in the 80’s and forgotten about).

But hey – whatever turns you on, right? As a rather ridiculously vampire-obsessed person, I’m not in any position to be casting judgement on what other people enjoy as entertainment.

Anyway, that’s where Rachel and Himself were going today and by the looks of things, they thoroughly enjoyed it!

And while I know our  truly excellent adventure in the hills can’t compare to the Neighbours tour, I had a blast on our day out. Not to mention that I came away with another piece of practical and smile-inducing fabulousness for my home.

Oh Anastasia and Olga, where have you been my entire tea-drinking life? Sad but true: it’s love, folks.

And love and big bear hugs for Rachel and Himself! xoxo

~Svasti

My yoga story (a guest post)

Tags

guest post, Namaste, Suburban Yogini, wily reporter-type questions, Yoga

Hey y’all! A review of the wonderful yoga/kinesiology workshop I went to on Saturday is a-coming.

But before that, I wanted to share my latest guest post with you.

The lovely Rachel of Suburban Yogini is taking some time out from her blog to attend a yoga conference. And so she’s lined up a series of guest posts (clever lady, that one), including one from moi!

The guest post is in an interview format, with Rachel asking the wily reporter-type questions.

You can read my interview here: My yoga story 1: (svasti)

It’s a little potted history of how I came to yoga in the first place, what life was like pre-yoga and of course, now that yoga is a huge part of my life. And some other stuff, too. But if you wanna find out the rest, head over and read the post!

And don’t forget to stick around for the rest of Rachel’s interview series and her regular yoga blogging goodness.

Namaste, sweeties!

~Svasti