Edie:  I understand that you had faced some mental health issues that yoga helped to heal for you.

Seane:  Right. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I was aware of it around eleven years old. I became obsessed with even numbers; things that I did in my life had to be done in certain patterns and in a certain order. It included drinking, swallowing, walking, different things. It was all very spontaneous.  If I tripped on one foot, I’d have to trip on the other foot, although unfortunately, that became one and one. I’d have to figure out how to fit that tripping into a pattern that wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in my body. If I didn’t do these patterns, two things would happen. To do the patterns would stave off anxiety. I also had a superstition that if I didn’t follow through on the patterns, someone in my family, someone that I loved would die. If I didn’t do these patterns, it would send me into a tizzy. The thing about it, is that I wasn’t aware that there was a thing called OCD and that what I was doing was even freaky. I thought it was just this quirky behavior I had. Everyone knew that if you touched me on one side, you had to touch me on the other. Everyone knew that if I was walking into a wall an even number of times, it was just something I did. I didn’t realize it until I became older and left my home that it was actually getting in the way of my ability to function. I couldn’t even leave the house, it would get so bad. I needed to learn more about it. I could see the progression.

I got into yoga when I was around nineteen years old. When I went to a yoga class and got into a yoga pose, I could start to feel certain imbalances in my body. One shoulder would be higher than the other shoulder. I would look at my fingers and notice that they were not spread evenly. My body was basically two different bodies, and I became unbelievably uncomfortable in my own skin. If the teacher walked by and adjusted me and didn’t adjust me correctly, I would become incredibly uncomfortable in my body. I would start to sweat, and not just a natural yoga sweat.

The teacher would talk about sensation in the body being memory; samskara, past experience, deep in the cells. If you breathe into the sensation, it changes and becomes something else. When you over-focus on something, you basically multiply the experience. I was able to apply that to my body. When I had the impulse to touch myself in a particular way or walk into a wall, I would breathe and breathe and breathe, and wait. The anxiety that would come up was almost nauseating. I would force myself not to do the pattern, and deal with the thoughts that came up. Finally the sensation would shift and open into something else.

That’s how I started to deal with the OCD. I recognized that, while it was on the physical level, I still had a belief system. Where did I get this belief system that someone would die?

That’s how I started to deal with the OCD. I recognized that, while it was on the physical level, I still had a belief system. Where did I get this belief system that someone would die?