Joining Yuliana today is Sari Velar, a yoga teacher and yoga therapist, to share her incredible phoenix tale. Over 20 years ago, Sari turned to yoga as an alternative therapy after a life-threatening cancer diagnosis and a subsequent battle with an eating disorder and addiction. These days, Sari facilitates classes at local cancer and mental health treatment centers, hospitals, and with Warrior Flow TV, whose Foundation she also works at as the Director of Training and Education. As you will hear today, Sari credits the struggles she has worked through in her life with shaping her to become the remarkable woman she is today.
Sari begins the conversation by sharing the event that reshaped the course of her life - getting cancer at 19 while dealing with eating disorders - including the events that occurred during and after her cancer treatments and how these affected her illness. She also describes the social stigma she faced at this struggling time in her life as well as finding yoga during her later years and going on to become a yoga therapist to help others who have had experiences similar to hers. The episode rounds off with Sari talking about past historical figures she would love to spend an afternoon with - her parents when they were younger - to have honest conversations that would pave the way to healing.
Episode Highlights:
- The challenging events that redirected the course of Sari’s life
- Battling with cancer and an eating disorder at 19
- Sari discusses having to grow faster following her diagnosis
- Experiencing and coping with the social stigma in college
- Falling into alcohol addiction
- Getting into rehab
- How to quiet the inner critic
- Seeing her diagnosis and illnesses through a new lens
- Finding out the root cause of her eating disorder
- Making the transition to the yoga profession
- Coming face to face with her mortality
- A historical figure Sari would love to spend an afternoon with
Quotes:
“I've always struggled with food and had a very interesting, strange relationship with my own body and appearance.”
“Parts of me matured incredibly, and I think a lot of parts of me stayed stagnant.”
“When you are battling an eating disorder and an addiction, it's kind of in charge, no matter how much you want to mature. It was always at the helm and in control and really making a lot of my guiding decisions and principles.”
“Trauma doesn't need to necessarily be a car accident or an act of violence. It can be an experience or a period of time where you're just not able to function.”
“The notion of recovery from anything - eating disorder, substance abuse, whatever it is - it's a lifelong process.”
“I'm thankful every day that I work within the same realm and universe. It has inadvertently become part of my healing process.”
“The focus has been a lot more about not looking at it through the lens of my body betrayed me, but my body had to go through this situation because maybe it was in so much excruciating pain from a lot of other things that had happened. And that was just the physical manifestation of it.”
“Everything that has happened to me was necessary, 150% necessary. These experiences have been my teachers, my guide. I would not be the person who's talking to you right now had I not gone through those experiences.”
“What society prescribes to you as being happy and fulfilled, having the nice house, having the nice car, having the 401k, working that corporate job and whatnot, that's not what I wanted. That's what I set out to do to make others happy, but that's not what filled me internally.”
“My experience is my experience, it doesn't have to be projected onto another human being. What it does
