HIDDEN DANGER: Why I Stopped Recommending Yoga, Meditation, Mindfulness, and Other Somatic Practices to People I Don't Know Well

In my mid-20s, when I learned that I could "pause my mind" and found relief for the first time in my life, forcing myself into the present moment, it became all I wanted to do all the time.

I’m a different person than I was when I started this blog over seven years ago.

Lyric Rivera, in a neon yellow shirt that shows a lot of their bare side, but a pastie is covering the “vital parts” - they have gold and orange winged eyeliner, pink lipstick, and are posing for a selfie inside their RV.

Before I started this blog (the NeuroDivergent Rebel Blog), I had another blog about yoga, meditation, mindfulness, flow arts, and other somatic practices.

In true Autistic fashion, upon realizing these tools could help me cope with struggles I could not (yet) articulate, I was obsessed. Though, back then, I didn't know I was Autistic (or even NeuroDivergent) - yet. 

I did know that I had a "racing mind" that was very disconnected from my body and had a tendency to launch itself into space, often jumping to some catastrophic worst-case scenario, which I (logically) knew I shouldn't worry over. Still, logic could not help me stop the spinning. 

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Anxiety, unknown to me, ran wild and was wreaking havoc on my life. 

Back then, I used to worry about everything all the time, and worry was my default state (so for most of my life, I didn't know there was any other way to be).

In my mid-20s, when I learned that I could "pause my mind" and found relief for the first time in my life, forcing myself into the present moment with meditation, breath work, or flow (at least temporarily), these practices became all I wanted to do all the time. 

I practiced mindfulness while driving (using the road as my meditation). 

I did mindful eating (forcing myself to slow down, concentrating my focus on each bite, one at a time, putting utensils down between bites, and paying careful attention to the food's tastes and textures). 

I even practiced mindfulness walking and worked mindfulness into my exercise routines (even the ones that didn't include Yoga-Asanas). 

Lyric, doing a downward dog variation with their back leg up. This is in their old bedroom, before Lyric and David moved into their first RV.

Anything I could turn into a mindfulness exercise or meditation became a mind-training exercise, teaching me to "zoom in" on everything I'd been "zoomed out" of for most of my life—never asking myself WHY I'd zoomed out in the first place. 

I was addicted to and chased the feeling of "flow" and the feelings of peace and ease I could attain (even if only momentarily) when my mind stopped worrying over the future or ruminating over past traumas, finding safety in the "here and now."

It wasn't easy for me to reach the point where I could meditate and tune into myself, becoming fully aware of the sensations and feelings swirling through my body. 

For the first six months, I could only attain four seconds of peace at a time in sitting meditations (before an unwanted thought would force its way in, disrupting my stillness). 

While I struggled with sitting meditations, moving meditations, and active meditations, where I focused on my body (like with yoga, flow arts, and somatic dance), came more easily to me. 

During this time, I picked up many flow tools (hoops, poi, wand, contact juggling balls) and got back into roller-skating, learning to "be" in my body again. 

Lyric, in a dark room lit with black-lights and lasers, is hanging from the rafters in a building from their knees on neon-green aerial silks, in a pretzel shape, with their feet behind their head.

Because of my hypermobility and hyperfocus, I rapidly accelerated in my yoga practice and other circus arts I was in at the time (because I naturally had the flexibility that other people had to train for years to achieve). 

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I thought I had "found my calling" and started looking around for classes to help me become a Certified Yoga Instructor. 

Austin, Texas, had many options for yoga classes and yoga teacher training programs, even 15 years ago when I was looking to get certified. 

However, my employer at the time (which paid very well for a retail job) gave me an ultimatum that they would NOT allow me time off to take this class and would let me go if they found out I took it (or went to school of any kind for skills unrelated to their business) because it would be interpreted as "looking for work." 

A (probably illegal) rule at the company was that it had to be your "ONLY JOB" because (according to them) they paid so well (for retail) that they required that you to have only one job and would terminate your employment if they found out you were looking for work or had a second job.

They also kept your schedule so irregular that it predicting it for the duration of the class, which required steady days off over several weeks, was impossible. So, I let my dream of becoming a RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher) go. 

Capitalism kills another dream... but that's okay because, knowing what I know now, I don't think the path would have been suitable for me in the long run (especially considering I have hyper-mobility disorder and was abusing natural flexibility, treating myself like a stretch-armstrong doll). 

While my dream of being a yoga teacher died, I continued my solo yoga practice, eventually finding my favorite practice to be Ashtanga Yoga, with its regimented structures, specific sequence, and rules, or its polar opposite, free-form-expessive-somatic-flow-yoga (set to music, like a dance), where I just let my body do what it wants to do at the moment. 

Photo of Lyric at the lake, doing a back bend in the sunset with pink and black silk fans.

The more I moved, the more able I became to stay grounded in my body and the more aware I became of my sensory experiences. 

As I began to "tune in" to myself, I became aware of the discomfort I'd managed to "tune out" of for many years. It wasn't just physical discomfort, either.

Memories and feelings from childhood, long repressed, started to pour over me, flooding my meditation sessions with unprocessed trauma and pain I was not prepared (or properly supported) to handle. 

I had to start meditating and only doing yoga when nobody was around because, on occasion, I would find myself bursting out crying as memories and experiences kept coming back to me, feeling as fresh as the day they happened. 

I've heard Autistic People can process things on a delay, but I didn't know it could be a 20 (or more) year delay. 

Is it the Autism, or is it the trauma? It is hard to say where one ends and the other begins. 

In all my work to become "more aware" and more "in my body," it never occurred to me that maybe I'd tuned out of my body for a reason, and tuning in could have consequences (because I'd only focused on the benefits). 

What happens when one suddenly becomes "aware" of something they have no coping skills to handle? 

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I hope this helps,
- Lyric