Yoga Family

Before leaving on this trip, there were at least three things I promised myself I would not do:

1) No eating weird meat i.e. ginny pig, fried cockroaches, rat, etc.
2) No cliff diving
3) No neglecting of “me time”

The first is simply because eating insects and rodents makes no sense to me and it’s just straight up gross. The second is because I’m still recovering from the fear of that time in Hawaii when I jumped off a cliff, lost my bathing suit bottoms and had a ‘tidal wave bidet’ situation happen to my rear. And the third is because it’s easy for me to forget about taking time for myself, especially when traveling and always moving from place to place.

So for the last twenty-some days, I’ve planted myself in Cambodia’s capitol of Phnom Penh to live at a yoga studio (NataRaj) and practice being still through prayer and quieting the mind. I promised myself I would treat this studio as my sanctuary; a place to become centered, calm and peaceful. And that’s exactly what happened. That and so much more.

After the first day I found out that my new sanctuary was not only NataRaj yoga, but a partner of Transitions Global, the organization that Shaun and I were volunteering with that helps trafficked women ‘transition’ to a new life. Back in 2008 the owner of NataRaj, Isabelle Skaburskis assisted by local Cambodian Yan Vannac, started teaching yoga classes to the girls at Transitions as a method of trauma therapy. The classes were such a huge success that by 2010 the training evolved into an organized apprenticeship program geared specifically to the needs of Cambodians from underpriviledged backgrounds, and came to include outreach classes taught by the apprentices for up to 250 kids across five other organizations. With the help of Isabelle, Vannac and James (the founder of Transitions) the apprentices consolidated their independent status as a Cambodian-run NGO called Krama Yoga. Today, three girls that graduated from Transitions are yoga teachers at NataRaj and have sustainable employment where they get paid to teach yoga therapy to 350+ children and teenagers that live in impoverished villages, orphanages, low-income schools and trauma recovery shelters around Phnom Penh.

Living here and being part of the Krama Yoga family has taught me that yoga is so much more than pretzel-like exercises for the body or trying to become bendier than our neighbors. Yoga is a type of therapy that helps to recognize how trauma manifests itself in the body and how to look at our scars with sensitivity and awareness. I’ve become friends with the girls that graduated from Transitions and that are now teachers here at the studio and within the community. Despite the physical scars, none of them are emotionally broken anymore. Yoga has enabled them to find peace and healing, to reclaim ownership of their bodies; to find union between mind and body, between their thoughts and the source of those thoughts.

Teaching yoga allows the girls to give back and serve others out of their pain. They can empathize with children and teens who have suffered similar trauma and help them heal. When I went with Li Ya to a kids yoga class she had them stand in two lines, facing eachother. One by one we would take turns walking down the middle of the two lines with our eyes closed. The kids in line would have to whisper something nice about the person with their eyes closed. Something like:

you are beautiful
you are kind
you are loved
I like your spots (that one was for the freckles)

I will never forget my time here at NataRaj and feel truly blessed to have such strong, beautiful new friends who are leaders in the community and empower others to live healthy, peaceful lives.