Elena Brower
Standing on my roof, squinting my eyes on that last bright day, reality hit me. The sun shone on the East River, the October air was the perfect crispness in New York City, and I was thirty-two floors up, praying. Praying for freedom. Praying for peace. Praying to be released from this prison of my own design, from this prison of addiction that I’d built around myself thirty years prior.
I was praying that I could do what I knew I finally needed to do. Praying in my heart and soul that this was the end of the road. That I would not be getting high again, I would not be hurting myself again, and I would not be spending any more time hiding and lying again. I was ready for the end, and I felt the burgeoning beginning of significant shift. I was ready to grow up. I’d just turned forty-five two weeks prior.
My relationship with addiction began when I was fifteen. I’d begun hanging around with a bunch of older kids, mostly seventeen-year-olds, who were “popular” pot smokers, who made life seem far more interesting than I’d ever imagined. Soon my grades deteriorated, but I knew I wanted to go to a great university, so I figured out how to maintain my grades and keep on partying.
Around that time was the first time I’ve ever smoked a cigarette; an unforgettable afternoon in a tree house with my unconditional best friends, and we must’ve smoked an entire pack of Parliament Lights. We laughed, we stunk, and we managed to keep that secret for a long while. After emerging from a childhood of endless car rides during which the elders in the car would smoke (and we’d cough, complain, whine, and moan to PLEASE open the window a bit more), smoking suddenly became sexy, and I was hooked.
I’d sneak cigarettes in the bathroom at home, blowing smoke into the ceiling vent, saved by the fact that both parents smoked so it was relatively undetectable. I loved the look of my hand holding the cigarette—it reminded me of my mom’s hand out the car window, during those moments when she seemed most calm, whether she was driving or standing out in our backyard taking some time to herself. I was growing up and I loved the feeling of autonomy that smoking seemed to bring me.
While I’d quit several times over the course of the next three decades, tobacco and marijuana were simultaneously my salvation and my prison. At times I could convince myself that my most treasured moments of release were accompanied by both; at other times I knew that these addictions were my most profound sources of despair and doom.
When I look back, I loved the secret of it all. The hiding, the lying, the subversive behavior. It made me feel important, it gave me the illusion of freedom, and it felt like I had control. The salacious paradox: I truly felt as though I was more free by having my secrets. The truth: I was a slave to all of it. At the time, it was a fun game for me; I felt useful, busy, and real when I got to play it. I’ll sneak out on my free period, get stoned, clean up, come back, play it cool, and get away with it. When I faltered in a couple public-speaking assignments and fell asleep in classes, a couple dear teachers who cared about me called me out on it, I pulled it together just enough to land me at the university of my dreams.
Within a few days at Cornell, I managed to find a handful of girls who welcomed me into their posse, and I was subconsciously thrilled to see that their secret life was as compelling as mine, except their secrets were all constructed around food.
I began counting. One slice of cheese, four leaves of lettuce, two crackers, one cup of tea. The perfect meal—1,500 calories per day, at the most. My friends were beautiful, perfectly thin, and utterly exotic to me, and I chose to follow and copy every bite they took. By the time I’d reached the end of freshman year, I was getting alarmingly thin, about to spend an entire summer dedicated to losing more weight, and loving every second of the charade. Controlling, lying, sneaking, pretending to be eating more—it was strangely thrilling and scary, and I felt free. My diminishing weight garnered the attention of my employers; attention I subconsciously wanted and subconsciously enjoyed.
By the end of that summer, I realized I was in trouble. I was addicted to the control, and while I was watching myself count pieces of cereal, relishing the feeling of my bones against my clothes, I realized that I’d “earned” the glances of my friends—looks that I mistook for admiration and jealousy.
Finally, I called a friend who had also battled with and overcame anorexia and asked her how she’d done it. She told me she wanted to have kids someday, and she knew that if she kept starving herself arbitrarily, her reproductive system would shut itself down and there’d be no option. That one truth was enough to help me turn the ship and get my act together.
I snapped out of it and reined it in. I started to add back what I loved to eat, and I willed myself to enjoy my food. It took a couple of months to get my weight back, but I did it.
Within one year, my other two beloved addictions—tobacco and marijuana—replaced the food control; both would plague me for the ensuing thirty years.
In the early 1990s, after graduating Cornell University with a degree in design, I was taken to a class at Yoga Zone on the Upper East Side, founded by Yogiraj Alan Finger. In my first class, I found the emotional freedom I’d sought in other physical activities. The teacher was kind, supportive, even nurturing. I followed a few teachers there for a few years and realized that I hadn’t been breathing properly, nor had I been seeing myself clearly, and I certainly hadn’t considered the prospect of loving myself. I caught a real glimpse then, a taste of how true self-love might one day feel—but I was still addicted, with no idea that I shouldn’t be.
For those years, I worked in the industry of my dreams—textiles and fashion. First as a woven textile stylist, then an assistant to a gifted designer, then I moved to Northern Italy for just over a year, where I worked for a design firm. I loved my work, meeting heroes like Martin Margiela, traveling, learning a new language, and discovering new boundaries for myself—but I was still struggling to quit substances. I’d roll out my mat almost daily, wherever I was, and do a few postures, listen to my breathing, knowing I needed to shift.
In 1998, sitting at my kitchen table in Turin on a late Sunday afternoon, listening to the sounds of families cooking and talking in the courtyard below, something did shift. I took out a pen and began writing on a paper towel all of the jobs I’d do if I could do anything in the world—and teaching kept landing on the page. Teaching kids, in particular—and I gave notice that I wanted to freelance in New York and went home months later.
During a positively transcendent year of learning and training in Art Education at the New School in New York City, I met Cyndi Lee, who was just about to open OM Yoga on Fourteenth Street. It was a potent time; there were maybe five yoga studios open in the entire city, and we trainees were smitten with her style—her amicability, accountability, openness, and willingness to share her own personal practices deeply benefited us all. From her meditation practices to her style of Hatha vinyasa yoga, we were seeing an original offering, a combination of practices that hadn’t quite been taught previously. At the same time, she was committed to learning, and would bring in teachers she respected, studying right alongside us.
Cyndi imprinted upon us the valuable practice of bringing our own flavor and love to our teaching. Our work needn’t be relegated to copying a teacher or a style or a body of work. It could be ours, even as we respected the source of the teachings. Cyndi made the yoga personal, and when each of us put that personal offering into practice for ourselves, our classes began resonating with more hearts, more souls. Her personal style made our teachings more universal.
When the training ended, I began teaching at her studio, and I relished that time teaching—I saw myself differently when I was in the seat of the teacher. The struggle disappeared, in its place was a new voice, one that listened prior to speaking. I began the work in earnest then—finding teachers of the Fourth Way, as well as mentors and friends who cared about my well-being. Studying with master teachers for years, learning the best of alignment, anatomy, and architecture. In 2002, I opened my own studio in the SoHo district of New York. With a rent break due to September 11, a big dream to serve, a thirty-thousand dollar loan from a client, and a team of dear friends to stand with me, Virayoga became an international hub for yoga for more than twelve years.
During that time, I eloped, had a son, made myself exceedingly proud, and made a series of questionable choices. I learned, I lived, I loved deeply. I managed to give up substances for more than three years, during a few months prior to conception and until almost two years after the birth of my boy. I watched my mama go through a stem cell transplant for lymphoma and live for another five years. I met gifted life coaches, and I cleared up what had haunted me for decades, which culminated in my getting clean and sober on that fall day in 2014.
The many conversations I’d had with colleagues and teachers like Yogarupa Rod Stryker, Tommy Rosen, and Gabrielle Bernstein made it abundantly clear that my finest work in the world could never be fulfilled if I was high—even infrequently. The hundreds of hours I’d spent practicing yoga, then teaching yoga, along with all the moments staring myself down in a posture or a meditation—I finally realized I was utterly divided within myself and couldn’t bring myself together with substances of any kind.
In the summer of 2015, I finished the formal coaching process by writing a letter to each of my parents with the help of my coaches, and read the letters to each of them out loud. These words were meant to absolve them of all the “wrongs” I’d still been inappropriately holding against them, and to apologize for all the ways in which I’d made things unnecessarily personal, alienating and hurting both myself and them. That was a profound healing for us.
Thousands of days engaging in the dance of addiction, I’ve learned a few things about the indelible impressions of childhood that lead inviolably to the tragic ritual of adulthood doubt. Each time someone in authority diminished me, I chose to take it in and make it my truth—and that choice added fuel to the fire of my future addiction. Nobody else had chosen that for me, and nobody can or will be blamed for my circumstances.
So, to the first grade teacher who told me I was too slow, the third grade teacher who told me I was too fast, the fifth grade teacher who made me feel like a criminal for passing a note to a boy I adored—I forgive the teacher, and I forgive me. I chose to let you in and make your words part of who I am. And that choice led me to turn on myself time and again, when the option was on the table to run, numb, stop the flow, try to control. Drugs, food, denial, overindulging—it’s all the same pain, all the same blaming.
The most salient question for you and me is this: Will we spend the rest of our lives blaming those who put us down and made us feel small, or will we amplify the moment in which we chose otherwise? Will I remember each day from here on out the freedom I found in my own eyes when I reached across time and quit it all, to devise a better way for myself?
Throughout this process, I’ve learned about my first nature—the path I’d have taken if I hadn’t quit—as well as my second nature—the new rituals and restorations that have become the cornerstone of my clarity. Now I’m learning how to make my second nature into my first nature; transforming the most nourishing behaviors into my daily habits. This has taken almost twenty years; it’s been a cumulative process, this work of putting intellectual knowing into practical understanding. May you be patient with yourself.
First Nature
My first nature is a collection of tendencies and practices I’d be able to call mine if I’d stayed in my addiction. The daily secrets, hiding, lies, coverup, cleanup, and unkept promises. The pain of wishing and not willing. The volatile temper. The misidentification with substances, food, men. The sadness of knowing there is a better way.
Second Nature
My second nature is an aggregate of the practices I’ve undertaken to become who I’m becoming now. Creating beauty through art and music. Empowering myself and others. Generating abundance. Meditating regularly. Trusting myself. Taking time to care for my body, my heart, my mind. Being grateful for my sobriety. Being ready to apologize and to forgive. Cultivating a nurturing circle of friends and family, and keeping them close so I can live true to my highest. Staying in steady communication with my child. Being consistent in my love for my man and holding him closely whenever I can. This is the high I was seeking all that time. The feeling of knowing who I am and knowing where I stand.
I’ve begun to make these practices my first nature over these past months, with a fair amount of success. One day recently, I found myself sitting at my desk in my home, which is really a beautiful old mirrored coffee table. Light streaming in onto the surface of the table, a brisk cold wind whistled through the long panes of the windows, my collection of crystal singing bowls sparkled on the surface of the table just beyond my laptop, the long arm of my white orchid was reminding me of how to stand elegantly in the sun. It was 1:22 p.m.; I cannot forget that because I had the distinct thought of having arrived in myself, and twenty-two is one of my favorite numbers. It was a sense of quiet knowing, and it was exalted. I smiled to myself. I remember thinking I wanted to call my mom, or someone, to celebrate—but then I thought better of it—since I’d finally learned how to be sober, solo, and steady, I should simply savor this moment on my own. I was free. I was me. I was enough. I had so much. It was almost too much.
Two hours later, I went to pick up my son at school, and he wasn’t feeling well. He was meant to accompany me to teach an early evening yoga class in Brooklyn, and he didn’t want to; I was scrambling to text a sitter and having no luck, becoming more agitated. I agreed to play his beloved table hockey game in an attempt to bring him around. At 3:45 p.m., I received a frantic phone call. My mom had had a heart attack, and could I stay calm but come straight away.
Two days and one whole lifetime later, Mama had passed. We’d spent that day surrounding her with light, with our voices, with song, with the presence I’d so gratefully noticed just hours before. My sibling and I, over the course of that day she died, became one entity after years of being so separated from one another, and we were both reborn, more purposeful and with intention to carry forward the legacy of our mother’s depth of generosity and spirit.
And all I can say, throughout these days, is thank God for my clarity.
My assignments now include staying sober and being a lover. Softness, connectedness, groundedness; the true mother. Engaging in my path publicly has helped me to stay accountable and present to my recovery, and now I have a group of women with whom I’m communicating frequently to help them on their journey. My personal evolution has helped me see that this life is not a problem to be solved but a process of recognition, kindness, and growth. Reliance on a higher power is crucial, belief in my own capacities is crucial, and I have to remember to celebrate simplicity above all.
Mama, teacher, speaker, coach, and author, Elena has taught yoga and meditation since 1999. Influenced by several traditions including Katonah Yoga, ParaYoga, and Kundalini Yoga, Elena offers practice as a way to approach our world with realistic reverence and gratitude. Her first book, x, has been ranked number one for design on Amazon, and has been translated into five languages. She’s an executive producer for On Meditation, and founder of Teach.yoga, a virtual home for thousands of yoga teachers worldwide. Author photo by Sidney Bensimon.