Life changes whether we want it to or not. Sometimes these changes align with our expectations and we welcome them. At other times we’re caught off-guard, when we feel vulnerable and unprepared. After living for so long on autopilot, I finally received the wake-up call I’d been dreading.

What followed would be a long and considered re-assessment of my attitudes toward self-care and health and a significant re-ordering of my priorities.

For many years I worked ridiculously long hours, artificially subjecting myself to constant fatigue and harmfully high levels of stress. My attempts to cope and find relief only led to more bad habits, as I tried to maintain a lifestyle everybody else already knew wasn’t working.

Along the way, I developed a host of health problems, including constant heartburn, and food and seasonal allergies.  My entire system was inflamed, swollen and uncomfortable. The cocktail of medications interfered with my digestion, leading to additional issues that included a slow but steady increase in body weight.

Despite my desire for better health, I lacked the knowledge and tools to bring about meaningful change. I was unknowingly stuck in a vicious cycle of my own doing.

It was like playing a game of Whack-a-Mole!

Vainly attempting to manage my current problems, while new issues kept popping up to join them.

Without addressing the root causes of my health problems, nothing superficial I tried could be effective.

Naturally, there were some token gestures here and there. Short periods where I worked fewer hours and got myself to bed a little earlier, but these were not serious commitments to change. I was essentially giving in to my exhaustion to relieve my symptoms. I’d be back to my old routine within a couple of days.

Occasionally I’d attempt to follow a diet of one type or another.

These half-hearted attempts made me acutely aware I was missing out on my comfort foods and after a few weeks, my longstanding eating habits had taken over again.

When I felt tired, I would drink some coffee and soldier on. When the constant chatter in my mind got too much, I’d zone out with the types of entertainment that increased my agitation, rather than provide the calm and relaxation I so desperately needed.

And like so many before me, I got stuck right there for many years, in a never-ending, habitual loop.

Blindly treating my over-stimulation with more stimulation. Sadly this self-defeating approach is routinely encouraged as ‘normal behaviour’ and even sold as an admirable solution to help you get those so-called ‘important jobs’ done.

Despite what we are often and subtlety led to believe, it’s not possible to solve chronic problems (health or otherwise) with superficial relief, stimulation or distraction.

No idea what to do or how to do it, coupled with a lack of will and energy is a recipe for disaster for anybody trying to juggle too much, for too long.

On the rare occasions I did pay attention, my situation had worsened and despite knowing full well I’d be sorry, I couldn’t break the cycle. Sound familiar?

I can imagine you nodding your head in sympathy. After all, situations like these are more common than we would like to admit.

The ease in which we recognise the problems of others, while simultaneously finding it so hard to acknowledge our own, never ceases to amaze me.

It’s one of many conundrums in life that deserve more thoughtful consideration that they receive.

Every so often, the voice would repeat its mantra, ‘You’ll be sorry!’ –  and I would ignore it, yet again.

The voice would never give up and I would never heed its warning. I did get better and better at making excuses though. Practice makes perfect!

Deep down I knew it would all catch up to me. Yet despite an intellectual awareness of my situation, I had no idea where to start.

It always seemed easier to push the thought to the back of my mind and carry on like always than to attempt to contend with myself.

Fast forward a couple of years, everything had gotten worse, much worse.

I was sleeping poorly at best and never felt truly rested. I lacked energy and focus. No surprises there, just worse than the last time I’d allowed myself to notice.

I was now significantly overweight and a heavy smoker. A dangerous combination I never envisioned for myself. My health was going downhill at an ever-faster rate.

As is routinely the case, my terrible situation was causing suffering to everyone around me. This only made me feel guilty and resentful, making matters even worse.

It was next to impossible to focus on my work, which was very technical at that time. My mind was too busy and distracted to allow me to concentrate for an extended period.

Even simple, everyday tasks felt like more trouble than they were worth.

It was then that I finally decided (after a great deal of, let’s call it ‘prompting’ from my wife. Thank you sweetheart!) to get some outside help and try to get to the bottom of it all.

I’m a fiercely independent person and even though I knew I was doing a terrible job of looking after myself, I couldn’t bear the thought of handing control of my life over to anybody else. My pride would not allow it.

In the end, I gave in out of a sense of apathy. I just put my hands up and said OK. There was certainly nothing brave or heroic about any of it. That’s for sure.

After months on the ‘specialist treadmill’ and what seemed like an endless series of tests, combined with the stress and anxiety that waiting for results adds to the equation…

I received an SMS to contact my Doctor ASAP. After hearing nothing for so long this sudden urgency was quite jarring.

I reluctantly phoned the office and was asked to come in, today if I had time.

I sat in the waiting room for what seemed like forever and No, the news I received was not good. Not good at all.

My Doctor informed me that I had prostate cancer. The ‘Big C’ as we so often hear it being described!

It’s the kind of situation that sends a shiver down your spine, makes you go pale and then just sit there, with your head in your hands.

It’s said that life begins at 40 and if you are in good health, you might reasonably expect to be in your ‘Prime’. So for me, having only recently turned 40, this bad news seemed particularly cruel and unfair.

It turns out, that cancer had been growing inside of me for many years, likely starting sometime in my early 20s and was only discovered through testing that isn’t typically performed on men until their mid-50s. It was only because I had such a large number of chronic health problems and was so obviously ill, that I was tested at all.

Besides the initial shock, which was very difficult to comprehend, I took the news pretty well and to my surprise, I decided to make some long-overdue changes to my life and how I lived it.

Looking back on it now, some years later, I can honestly say it was the best thing to happen to me in a very long time. It may sound like a strange thing to say and yet there it is. It’s how I feel.

Of course, at the time my situation would get quite a bit worse before it would get any better.

Additional testing, prodding, probing and poking over subsequent weeks and months uncovered more and more detail, conflicting information and advice on what I should and must, very quickly, do about it all.

As the situation unfolded, matters became more complicated and confusing with no compelling or clear choice to be found. The clarity I had hoped for eluded me.

Regardless of the specialist I consulted, the advice was always a slightly different combination of burn, cut and poison. Not one recommendation included anything I could change or actively do for myself. I was told that while I could try changing my lifestyle, it would have no meaningful effect on my situation and only increase my chances of dying within the next 3-5 years.

The only ‘sensible’ option, was to have radical (and life-altering) surgery in combination with radiation and drugs.

To hear this being said with such casual certainty and urgency, along with the pressure to decide a course of action on the spot, was incredibly stressful, frustrating and disheartening. It didn’t make sense to me and it didn’t feel right. After all, I wasn’t there to buy a Car that was on sale. I was seeking health advice!

Increasingly, I felt like part of a money-making machine because regardless of what I spent, or who I spoke to, I found myself no closer to a solution that I could, or wanted to, live with.

Call it fate, faith, providence, or luck. Whatever you like.

When everything seemed hopeless, yoga suddenly appeared on my radar. It’s not like it had been hiding anywhere, I was just blind to it. Even so, it felt like the proverbial clouds had parted and the Sun had finally come out. I felt like a teenager who had just invented sex!

Here was a glimmer of hope that could not have been timed any better and my life took a sudden turn, in a very welcomed and unexpected direction.

I’m a firm believer that when you are ready for change, the universe will give you a big thumbs up!

You’ll find both your answers and the challengers you need.

The right teacher appeared at the right time, and I listened to the advice on offer and then acted upon it.

Reflecting more deeply on this now I realise it wasn’t advice per se. It was more like being handed a magic mirror, that I could use to see myself watching myself.

By taking a mental step back, I could perceive the bigger picture along with a glimpse of how I might be seen by others.

I realized I was the only one who could truly do something about my situation. Once I embraced this reality, everything got much easier.

Find out what is broadly effective and do those things well. Do them regularly and with a clear intention in mind. See what happens and adjust as needed.

This is one of the many important lessons I have learned through the practice of yoga. This approach works for health, well-being and any other goal you set. Create simple good habits and reinforce them through consistent practice.

Health is a difficult enough concept to articulate, let alone realise. I understand and accept that pursuing ‘health as a project’ will naturally lead to a more sophisticated and nuanced approach over time.

That said, you’ll do far better by keeping things as simple as possible, for as long as possible.

In other words, don’t add. Subtract. The less you do the easier it is to manage, measure and stick with.

All of this took a long time to understand with clarity, and it’s only in hindsight as I write about my past experiences, that I can more fully appreciate what I could perceive at the time compared to what I have since come to realise.

This highlights just how important it is, to find people you can trust to guide you while your understanding is in its infancy.

At the time, the biggest turning point came when I realized I was the only one who could truly do something about my situation. Once I embraced and acted upon this notion, everything felt much easier by comparison.

I stopped searching for quick fixes and silver bullets, realising that true healing would take time and effort rather than bandaids and shortcuts. I accepted that I had a long and difficult journey ahead and the sooner I started, the sooner I would progress.

I took my health into my own hands and began to seek out integrative health professionals who would work ‘with’ me rather than tell me what to do, without any understanding on my part. I believe doctors should be both healers and teachers.

My GP at the time, did not see the value in this approach and would not even agree to order the blood panels I wanted, saying only ‘You don’t need them’, without further explanation.

My new doctors were far more amenable and were able to help identify various vitamin and mineral deficiencies including some elements at toxic levels. This resulted in me ceasing to eat some foods and adding in others. To help things along, we included specific supplements. It felt great to be finally doing something rather than just speculating in circles.

Over the coming months, I accepted some recommendations and rejected others. The more empowered I felt, the easier it became to say ‘No’. No to advice that didn’t sit well with me, and no to many of the unhealthy temptations I’d previously given in to.

Over the next several years, I dove head-first into the scientific literature and esoteric practices surrounding nutrition, exercise and self-care, along with the kinds of self-experimentation that tend to come with such an endeavour.

I became my ‘own experiment’, following my intuitions and carefully measuring the effects of whatever I tried.

While I realise that my path is not for everyone, nor even available to many given the cost and time required, it was what I chose to do for myself with the resources I had. I much prefer to blame myself when something goes wrong.

Eventually, I settled on a manageable daily routine that included eating smaller, better-quality meals and the short-term use of targeted supplementation based on deficiencies revealed through testing.

Many of us take a scattershot approach to using supplements. Thinking that if something seems like it should be good for us taking lots of it must be even better for us.

This is not the case at all. By taking this approach, we are far more likely to cause additional dysfunction than we are to fix or improve anything.

Getting to bed early after a day that always included yoga practice in addition to whatever else I may have been doing (good and bad included).

I followed this approach every day. Over and over and over again, regardless of how I felt on any particular day.

Naturally, replacing the bad habits I had been practising for so long with new and better habits would take time, effort and self-reflection. I had a good deal to unlearn and then re-learn.

There were many stutters, stalls and frustrations along the way. The imbalances in my health and life would take much longer to address than I’d first anticipated or hoped for. Because just when I though I’d gotten to the bottom of a matter, there was always another layer beneath it to consider.

I had good days and I had truly awful days. Sometimes I followed my advice and sometimes I misbehaved.

Although I often didn’t feel it, I embraced the notion that every day was an opportunity to start anew.

Or to ‘start and keep starting’ as I like to say!

This is not the same as ‘fake it until you make it’. It’s more like ‘keep at it until you get better at it’.

I began to see my life from a larger perspective and better understood the interrelationships between health, well-being and purpose. I felt more inspired about my life, as well as more hopeful for the future. This was quite a big and sudden shift from the lethargy and disinterest I had been living with for so long.

I trusted more would be revealed and fall into its proper place over time. Moments of Self-reflection had become a part of my daily yoga practice and I began to perceive, and then make sense of the complex interplay between my habits and actions.

Although I often felt frustrated with my situation or progress, I never felt worse health-wise. Other aspects of my life and general well-being were also improving and being noticed by others, who’d say I appeared healthier than I had previously and wanted to know what I had been doing.

So I kept my faith and trusted in the process, believing that by repeating these simple habits and practices with persistence and discipline (rather than expectation), I could (and would) turn my situation around.

Taking this ‘In for the long haul’ approach helped me to stick with my routine when I felt I wasn’t making progress fast enough.

These are key lessons I learned from reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and applying the wisdom, directly, through daily yoga practice.

Have faith in yourself, and those helping you. You can do it!

Although one could argue a scientist who practices yoga will make better rockets, yoga itself, is not rocket science.

If you do some practice you’ll get some results. These will include some that you expect and others that move between pleasantly surprising and outright confronting.

Don’t presume more is better. There is an upside and a downside to everything. Less of a higher quality is often more beneficial while being less harmful. The opposite is also true.

Every choice we make will exclude another we could have made and there will be a price to pay for either choice.

It almost goes without saying that with so many bad habits, I had significant blind spots. Important pieces of the health puzzle were either missing altogether or understood poorly by me at the time. Many of my existing ideas and beliefs were not achieving the results I wanted, or expected, and needed to be abandoned.

Fortunately for us, the human body is intelligent and naturally resilient to harm with the unique ability to maintain equilibrium, regardless of the less-than-optimal situations in which it is placed.

Taking resources stored in one part of the body, and giving it to another part, where it is lacking. This is a great strength for survival but is always at the cost of overall health and longevity.

When you are very sick you might believe that your body is working against you, or even that it hates you.

Feeling this way makes it easy to hate it back and can lead to forming habits that are detrimental to health.

Habits resulting from a desire for dominance over something, especially things we don’t fully undersand, never end well, or in better health or wellbeing.

Conversely, when you appreciate just how wonderful the human body is, you can begin to see it as your friend. Perhaps even your best friend. The kind of friend that sticks by your side even when abused. With encouragement and support, this relationship can flourish, developing into mutual respect and love. You may learn to stop fighting against yourself and to start fighting for yourself.

Being aware of your day-to-day habits is very important. Sometimes you’ll do the right things and sometimes you won’t and that’s OK. When I had a tough day and was tempted by (and sometimes gave in to my old habits) I tried to be kind to myself, to be patient and trust in what I was doing the rest of the time.

It’s easy to have an all-or-nothing attitude and respond to small setbacks by giving in to nihilism and just saying screw it!

I think this happens to all of us and is a very normal part of the process of dealing with bad habits, that likely include addictions of varying degrees that we are struggling with.

Noticing my behaviour, both good and bad, (and gradually in a more impartial way) was a profoundly better situation than living unaware and on autopilot.

One of the keys to making incremental progress is not beating yourself up for being less than perfect.

Be grateful that even though you know you have work to do, every positive action is a step in the right direction.

So! Come rain or shine, I stuck with my routine and slowly but surely, began to heal and feel better than I had in many years.

Noticing the improvements to my health and wellbeing that ‘I was driving’ was incredibly empowering and made me even more determined and enthusiastic to keep going.

Good behaviours are self-reinforcing and create better habits, that become easier to maintain over time.

For me, Yoga didn’t enhance a healthy lifestyle. Yoga helped me to turn an unhealthy lifestyle around.

My 20s and 30s were occupied with so much mental and physical activity that I rarely paused to take a breath, let alone consider my habits. Forcing my body to do my bidding, despite knowing better, was typical for me.

Eating the wrong foods, for the wrong reasons, at the worst times, was certainly a part of the problem, but there were many other factors at play.

Although I never had much interest in alcohol, I made up for it by being a heavy smoker and a big coffee drinker. Being perpetually tired and jittery made me irritable and hard to be around, myself included.

There were moments when I stopped smoking, ate better, and exercised, but they were always sporadic and without consistency. I lacked a foundational understanding of what I was doing or why. There was, essentially, a disconnect between what I wanted and what I was doing.

I hoped and sometimes even believed, that enough exercise could counter the damage my lifestyle (excessive exercise included!), was causing. It couldn’t and it didn’t.

You can’t outrun a bad diet. You can’t outrun bad habits.

While you can force your body to comply with your will, you cannot transform the harm you cause to yourself into better health or well-being. Stress damages the body and causes aging, regardless of how you feel about what you’re doing inside your head.

No ‘one thing’ brought everything together or provided the clarity of understanding I needed to care for myself holistically or habitually.

Instead, I did what I ‘thought’ I should do in short, intense bursts driven by feeling guilty about my terrible day-to-day habits.

It’s one thing to fear the likely consequences of doing what you know you shouldn’t do; being fearful of getting cancer from smoking or brain damage from heavy drinking for example.

It’s completely different to view self-care as a kindness and a responsibility; not just to yourself but to those around you, who are also affected by your actions.

Settings things right would require a fundamental change in my attitudes towards myself, including my relationship with myself.

Fear of the results of bad behaviour didn’t disappear altogether, it just took its more rightful place of driving me from behind, instead of standing directly in my path.

Like so many others in similarly unhealthy situations, I had no idea about self-care and how completely different it is from the self-medication that I had been administering, for such a long time.

For me, putting off change was one part procrastination and two parts fear of giving up my broken crutches and addictions.

Seeing this for what it was, took quite a while. I had to trust in the process and do the practices long before I understood the mechanisms behind them.

This wasn’t easy for me, because it felt like blind faith, rather than trusting in something I would later understand to be real and self-evident.

Once this light bulb switched on for me everything shifted.

My life changed in ways I would never have believed, had I not experienced it for myself.

The simple caring for myself, which I had neglected for so long, finally made sense and I realised I’d changed in fundamentally significant ways.

When I say ‘Yoga can change your Life’, I’m sharing my personal experience of Yoga and its ongoing presence and influence upon my life.

Is Personal transformation possible? Absolutely! It just isn’t easy. Things will likely get worse before they get better.

It takes time, effort and a willingness (perhaps even a little courageousness) to let go of those things that no longer serve you.

It requires a reasonable (not perfect) plan and dedication to an ongoing process of Thinking, Doing, Reflecting, Adjusting and Doing all over again.

This will require you to have a little faith in things you don’t fully understand when you begin, and trust in the people willing to help you throughout your journey.

So have a little faith! Because if someone like me, travelling with great momentum towards the cliff’s edge, can turn things around at the last moment, so can you!