Rachel's Continued Yoga Education

My Journey Towards Love is an ask for you support my continued education in Yoga Therapy.

This journey is taking the steps towards a life where I can fully be in my hearts work of helping others. 
This journey is openly sharing my story of survival and asking for your support. 
This is not the beginning of my journey and it is also no where near the end, but it is a very important time for me to recognize.

This February I am celebrating 4 years of overcoming Depression and Suicidality. It has taken me this long to openly speak about this experience and I am here now to ask for your support in helping me continue to heal, learn and give back!

I am a 200hr Certified Yoga Teacher and Founder of a Non-Profit Organization in Rockaway Beach. Becoming a Yoga teacher allowed me structure, focus and stability in my everyday life. Through practicing and teaching Yoga, Meditation and Philosophy I have not only found strength and wellness in my body and emotions but I have also learned how to change my way of thinking to become more mindful, self reflective and open to change. Yoga provides me the tools to stay balanced and healthy and has guided me towards a much healthier life style made up of daily physical activity and a much more compassionate way of perceiving and understanding the world.

I also encouraged others in their wellness "off the mat" in founding a  Non-Profit Organization that is still very active today. I recognize that it was a search for my own comfort, safety, community and consistency which lead me to co-create a space for people to come together and engage in open communicate and support. I am so proud of the relationships and ideas that have blossomed from this place. 

The year leading up to the day in February 2016 when I almost took my life was filled with so many unknowns and so much fear. Just like many of you, there were many things happening in my life that were difficult for me to deal with. I felt lost. I had been looking to make a difference in this world but couldn't really get a hold of how to do it. I was excited to become pregnant and then devastated when I miscarried in my second trimester.

I had experienced depression in the past but this time it was different. My emotional, physical and mental wellbeing started to come undone. My loss of sleep, appetite, desire to be around my friends, ability to make decisions and any sense of self kept leading me back towards toxicity and away from safety.  I did not feel worthy of my suffering and heartache so I internalized it as shame. Not having the tools to begin to heal and alleviate my sadness lead me towards wanting to end my life.

In my head and heart it felt like the only way to find relief but as you know from me writing these words and asking for your help, it was not the end of my story. I was lucky enough to have family and friends intervene and continue to push me towards safety. It was the smallest gesture that saved me from my plan, the right questions asked, the immediate attention in a hospital and the weeks and months that followed full of support. 

My healing began in the hospital and continues today. It is using all the tools that I have learned along the way. It is a consistent Yoga practice and staying open hearted and curious to my growth and to my setbacks. I have become so much more connected to my feelings and stand before them as a stronger person with the ability to realize what I need and what no longer serves me.  I have spent these last 4 years sharing my heart and re-building the strong ground under my feet. It has been filled with teaching hundreds of   classes, donating many hours to community activism and learning more about who I am and how my experiences will help me create a better world for our children to live in.

It is with great courage that I ask for your help.

I will be celebrating my 4 year anniversary of survival by attending a Yoga Therapy Training beginning on February 12th.

Your donation, none to small, will directly support my:

-Yoga Therapy Teacher Training where I will learn and be able to safely share more tools to alleviate un-ease in Body, Mind and Heart
-Creating an Online Class Structure that is Affordable and Accessible 
-Supplies for MORE Community Classes by Donation 
-Continuing to share My Story of Survival with the intention of helping others by removing the stigma of these experiences and shedding light on the tools that might be used for intervention.

I hope that all of you who read this will consider donating towards my goal. I will be forever grateful for your support.  I truly believe that it is the smallest acts of kindness which allow all of us to live more fully in love and light.

Forever with love and gratitude, 
Rachel  Lauren Krieger