I created this site in 2019 as a place to write. To try to share some of the experiences and tools that have helped me make changes that… and I say this knowing that it sounds like a big statement… have helped me out of a state of low-level depression that I believe I have carried for over thirty years of my life.
I want to write without putting ‘too-serious’ labels on things like depression and anxiety, but when I do use labels for convenience, I will explain what the labels mean to me.
For me, ‘depression’ was related to a sense of ‘never quite feeling at home’, or that ‘things weren’t quite right’, or that ‘things were beyond my control’, amongst other things. But that’s not to say those things equal depression for me. If anything, for me suffering has come from the internal struggle against those things.
Pause.
If you are reading this and thinking this is not for you – I get it! If you aren’t into the whole introspection thing – maybe start with my view on introspection – Introspection 101 – and leave it at that if need be!
Resuming… The purpose of this site is not to tell anyone how to live their lives, or act as a self-help guide. I’m definitely not writing about mental health as someone with professional credentials. I will write as someone with some lived experience, who is happy to share, happy if you find it interesting (or not!) and equally happy if you decide it’s not for you.
So why “yogamatty”? I can hear my 12 year old son telling me it’s “cringe”… haha oh well. It’s certainly not meant to be an egocentric thing, and I’m certainly not a guru yogi! Yogamatty for me represents a period in my life where I have been able to embrace a far more zen approach to life, and perhaps not by coincidence in this period I embraced yoga and meditation. It is a gesture towards those practices that I chose this name for the page. While I will certainly share some yoga experiences along the way, it’s just a small part of the journey ahead.
yogamatty 