Lauren Vogel
E-RYT 500
Yoga found me as a teenager in the living room of my childhood home through a VHS tape, back when yoga was still this mysterious, strange thing that only hippies and weirdos did. At 17, I faced all the typical teenage struggles but with the added weight of diagnosed depression. When I first put on my blue stretchy track pants and followed Kathy Smith on that VHS, I had no idea what I was doing. But I did know that it was special. Something in me sparked, and for whatever reason, I wore that VHS out.
In my early 20s, the VHS obsession turned into Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga DVD collection as my living room guide. At that time, in and around Birmingham, AL, there were ZERO yoga studios, so a virtual experience in my living room was my only option.
Moving to Chicago after college gave me my first real studio experience, where I deepened my practice with real-life, in-person yoga teachers. I have fond memories of hauling my yoga mat with me all over Chicago to get to the yoga studio after work in the evenings. Fluctuations in life brought pauses in my consistent practice, but each break reminded me over and over how vital yoga was to my mental health. I’d neglect my practice and then fall into a depression.
Here is where I put two very important puzzle pieces together. When I practiced yoga, my depression symptoms were nearly nonexistent. When I skimped on my yoga practice, I was dragged back down into the doom and gloom.
I had bad experiences with anti-depressants, so I avoided them and used yoga as a replacement. In a very real way, yoga became my anti-depressant. But I learned through those trials and errors that just like you have to take an anti-depressant every day, you have to practice your yoga every day as well.
After returning to Alabama and dealing with a low back injury (the result of a hit-and-run from a cyclist in Chicago—another story altogether!), I was struck with an unstoppable urge to do Yoga Teacher Training. It was a sudden and undeniable KNOWING that came from the depths of my soul. I just knew in my bones that it was my Next Right Thing.
I didn’t do it because I wanted to teach yoga. I did my first YTT because I was determined to understand why yoga was so powerful. I knew that it was essential in managing my depression, and it had healed a bulging disc in my lower back. I was on a mission to discover why and how it worked.
I signed up for the Birmingham Yoga Teacher Training without ever stepping into the studio or meeting the teachers. It was the only training in town and because my soul was quite literally aching for this knowledge, I took the leap.
The 200-hour training was focused on Ashtanga and Kundalini (a strange mix now that I reflect on it). Led by Akasha Ellis and Terri Sellers, this experience was life-changing. It combined history, the Ashtanga primary and second series, Kundalini kriyas, and bhakti yoga chanting.
From there, my path unfolded organically as teaching opportunities kept popping up without me seeking them out. My dharma was revealing itself. The Universe was calling me to teach and so I just kept saying yes to all the teaching opportunities that came my way.
Saying yes, eventually led me to LifePower Yoga at LifeTime and to Birmingham, Michigan where I completed two more YTTs with Jonny Kest (the brother of my DVD teacher, Bryan Kest). I finished an additional 200HR training and then another 500HR training with Jonny. Inner mixed with those trainings in Michigan, I led seven Yoga Teacher Trainings of my own alongside my yoga soul sister, Terri Sellers.
And then….(Insert halting tire screech here!) MOTHERHOOD.
In 2017, motherhood transformed my life. A challenging pregnancy limited my physical practice, and yoga—my lifeline—was now not something I could do on a daily basis. I turned instead to meditation and eeked my way through.
This photo of me and the boys was not staged. The look on my face is genuine irritation that my husband was taking my picture rather than helping me. I’ve never shared this photo publicly (for obvious reasons), but I think it’s the best representation of my state of being in the early years of motherhood. (Note: my husband always helped! He’s a great dad, but in this moment, I was pissed!)
I thought the challenging part was over, but it was only the beginning. After having my son, time for myself vanished as I poured everything into being a mom. My mental and physical health was more about surviving than thriving.
The first two years of being a mom was a mixed bag of harrowing joy. I’d never known love that big and blind and yet I’d never been so exhausted and spiritually starved. I was plagued by Mom Guilt. I couldn’t do even the simplest things without a voice in my head urging me to go back to my son, insisting that leaving him in the care of anyone but myself was neglect and abandonment.
This Mom Guilt was heavy and ran deep in my subconscious scars, my samskaras. Mom Guilt is natural and something that every mother experiences to some degree, but mine was amplified by my own deeply rooted childhood trauma and abandonment issues.
Somehow, I soldiered on through another difficult pregnancy two and a half years later. If I thought having one kid was a shock to the system, I now had two—a two and a half year old and a newborn. Making time for yoga was a joke. I was working a full-time marketing job, teaching a few yoga classes a week (because it was my life’s calling) and trying to be a present and involved parent to my two boys. Not to mention nurturing a relationship with my husband.
Postpartum depression claimed me. And since I couldn’t practice my yoga regularly, I turned to two other lifelines…anti-depressants and pranayama.
No regular yoga + two boys + pandemic = anti-depressants.
I’m not ashamed to say that I resorted to pharmaceuticals to get me through the hardest time of my life (so far). In those sleepless nights of the newborn and infancy days, while breast or bottle feeding at 2am, I’d practice my 3-part yoga breath and apana meditation.
This saved me.
As the kids grew, I slowly reclaimed my practice, fighting the Mom Guilt each step of the way. It took years to accept that prioritizing my health—physically and mentally—was not selfish but necessary for my family. It took years for that saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” to really take root in my life and to put it into practice.
Today, my kiddos are 7 and 5, and I’m happy to say that I have recommitted myself to yoga, meditation, and self-care. I know that my well-being fuels my ability to care for others.
With my dear friend and fellow yogi, Lara Donnelly, I created Zentric to offer people a place of connection, understanding, and acceptance.
We believe prioritizing self-care is essential to happiness and peace of mind, not only for ourselves but for our families.
Zentric is the embodiment of sacred space. A space to exist exactly as you are no matter what season of life you’re in, no matter what physical shape you’re in.
Our mission is to support every dimension of wellness—physical, mental, and spiritual—while creating a community free of judgment and full of LOVE & ZEN.
I’m so happy you’re here!