Monica Biasiolo: A Big Wake-Up Call
GUEST WRITER: How can a health crisis be a big wake-up call? In this article, Monica Biasiolo, certified Yoga Health teacher and Life Coach, shares her story of:
- how mindfulness helped her become aware that she needed to start paying more attention to what her body was telling her.
- the power she gained from going within to heal from Stage III breast cancer.
- how she used a healing practice called Ayurverda, alongside other modalities like yoga, to take back control of her life on her healing journey.
Have a read of Monica’s article and see if you’d like to join her private Facebook group where she offers group coaching and a support network for women seeking to get back in the driver’s seat of their lives.
MONICA BIASIOLO: MY BODY’S SIGNALS OF EMOTIONAL PAIN
Five years ago all I wanted was to be happy. I was living the life of an expat in Bahrain, practising yoga and meditation, nurturing my body with healthy food and my social life was quite active. All seemed good from outside but from the inside I was experiencing a lot of shame.
“Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance”
Brene Brown
I was married for the second time and my relationship wasn’t the happiest. I felt disconnected from my body, in a constant stress mode and doubting myself. I was living in an automated mode, letting other people or life events deciding the direction of my life. There was a lot of sadness when I remembered how cheerful and energetic I felt before, but I couldn’t break the cycle I was in. I didn’t want to break another marriage. I saw how my older children had suffered and I didn’t want my youngest boy to experience separation. I was doing all I could to avoid it and internalizing all the pain because I didn’t want to experience another failure.
My body was sending me signals to let me know that I had to process a lot of emotions and thoughts, but I wasn’t listening. Then at one point, after many meditations, I came to the gradual realization that energy wasn’t flowing in the right side of my chest. It felt like a huge black hole. It was a message from my body telling me to pay attention to what I was holding emotionally because I was getting sick. One evening I had a sharp pain from under my armpit until the center of my breast. It was too loud/painful not to be noticed so I took immediate action. The next day I called the hospital and took an appointment to do an ultrasound. The doctor who did the ultrasound asked to do an urgent mammography followed by a biopsy.
After I did the biopsy the doctor told me kindly to come with my husband or a friend to get the result of the biopsy. He announced to me that I had Breast Cancer. I was very calm receiving the news. The time stopped in that moment. My three kids were the first thing that came to my mind. I said to myself : “I can’t leave them yet so I have to do all I need to heal. I have many things to fulfill in my life.” I drove home alone and saw all around me with different eyes. I called my sister in Italy who immediately took action and organized everything for me to travel to Italy to do more tests. After a few days I went to see the doctor again, this time my husband came with me and the doctor told us that I had a Stage III breast Cancer. I was very calm and grounded while the doctor was talking to me explaining the next steps. At that moment and during all my healing journey all the meditation and yoga I have been practising in those years before my diagnosis, helped me to stay calm, positive and present during all my healing journey. It was like a withdrawing energy from a bank account that I had deposited presence, positive energy and resilience from my daily practice of Yoga.
going inward to heal: Recovering from breast cancer
The breast cancer was eye-opening. I felt that this challenging experience was an opportunity for growth. I went inward hunting my fears and befriending all the emotions I was avoiding. I sat with them and listened to the messages that they wanted to give me. The message I got was that I was going to a different path from where I am meant to go in this lifetime, and I was disconnected from my body and mind. During this time of discovery, my breath was the most valuable tool. I emerged from the dark space I was in and started to change my life.
Once I finished all my treatments, in order to go forward in my life I had to make some changes. First thing, I had the courage to face my biggest fear which was to break a marriage for the second time. I had to admit to myself that my marriage was nonexistent. It was a facade. So I talked to my husband and we agreed to separate.Then I had to take a step backward to understand how I could reconnect with my body and mind. I had to shift my energy so I went from the dense part, which is the body, to the subtle part of the emotions and the mind. The first thing I did was a deep cleanse to reset my body and learned the Ayurvedic habits that changed my life. I then started to notice how the emotions sit in the body and I learned to recognize those signals as a tightness in my body or a contraction of my breathing pattern. I became sensitive enough to recognize the emotions sitting in the organs of my body and when I was self-sabotaging and avoiding to process them.
I learned from Ayurveda that health is order and disease is disorder. With time I started to tune into my body and recognize when I was out of balance and used the habits to bring balance and experience health again. I wanted to know how Ayurveda was defining Disease. I noticed that Dis means “deprived of” and ease means “comfort”. So in order to experience comfort or health, I took care of my digestive system and elimination. I paid attention to the imbalances of the Dosha (Vata-Pitta-Kapha). I took good care of my five organ senses, then the body, mind and consciousness started to work harmoniously as one.
Allow me to introduce you briefly to some Ayurvedic concepts to understand the Dosha. In Ayurveda the five elements (Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth) exist in all matter and within each individual. In the human body Ether or Space is present in the mouth, nose, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract, abdomen,torax, capillaries, tissues and cells. Air manifests in the larger movement of the muscle, the pulsations of the heart the entire movements of the central nervous system are governed by air. The fire is in our metabolism and works on the digestive system, it also manifests as intelligence. Water manifests in the secretions of the digestive juices and salivary glands, in plasma and cytoplasm. Earth is in the solid structure of the body like bones, cartilage, nails, muscles, tendons, skin and hair. The five elements manifest in the body as three basic principles or humors known as Dosha. From Ether and Air elements the body air element called Vata. Fire and water elements manifest as the fire principle called Pitta. Water and Earth elements manifest as bodily water humor known as Kapha.
One who indulges daily in healthy foods and activities, who discriminates the good and bad of everything then acts wisely, who is not attached too much to the objects of the senses, who develops the habit of charity, of considering all as equal, of truthfulness, of pardoning and keeping company of good persons only, become free from diseases.
Ashtanga Hydrayan, Vol.1, 4:36
This is how Ayurveda teached me the recovery from a disease. Our body is a perfect gift from nature that allows us to experience life. So I started to think that my body is like a Ferrari and I was the driver of this perfect piece of engineering. This helped me pivot and change my life. I recognized that I was allowing others or my limiting beliefs to lead my life. For years, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. And then one day when you are really close to death, you think – okay, where did I want to go? Because this body, it’s going to leave. It is like a BIG wake up call. So I realized what I wanted is to help women learn how to connect with their body and intuitions. It was clear to me that my mission in this lifetime was to teach them how they could experience a healthy body and mind to live their life purpose (Dharma), age with grace and model for the next generation.
TAKING BACK CONTROL: CHOOSING THE DIRECTION I WANT TO GO
I have done a lot of studies in yoga and philosophy, so once I finished my cancer treatments, I got certified as a Yoga Health Coach and then as Life Coach. I wanted to empower women by helping them value their uniqueness and create for them a safe container where they could be supported by like-minded people.
I was inspired by my own personal journey of finding the balance of body and mind, and how I started to experience ease and live a life without stress. I wanted to help women who are experiencing a lot of anxiety and are overwhelmed, to connect with their body and intuitions, live in the present so that they have clarity to decide and choose the direction where their Ferrari goes.
Shifting my mindset and perceiving challenges as big opportunities for personal growth was another lesson that I learned from Cancer. This wasn’t an easy lesson to embody but I learned to come out from my comfort zone and embark in a journey that wasn’t easy because it was unknown territory. The power of choice was a precious tool to experiment and find the way to the next place I would feel comfortable again, and then the journey will start again.
The support of other like-minded people is the other important tool. Community helps not to feel alone and when we are part of a dynamic group we get faster results in terms of habit change. There is a mechanism where we give support to people in the group when they need it, and we receive it back when we need inspiration to come out from a roadblock.
I now found how to be happy. I learned that living intune with the rhythm of life brings a long lasting happiness. There is a pulsation that regulates life which is contraction and expansion and the rhythm of the pulsation is regulated by time. Living with ease expands time. It allows us to live our life with purpose. We are more grounded and present to choose with clarity our action steps in relationships and our career. We develop resilience. We also learn to navigate the moment of contraction with a flow. As we see the seasons flow we learn more about how our body and mind are connected to nature. We have natural elements running through our body. So stop for a moment. Put your hands on your chest. And listen to the natural beat of your heart. Can you hear that beat of life?
About the author
Monica Biasiolo is a certified Yoga Health Coach, Life Coach and Yoga teacher. She is a mother of three kids and lives in Rome. She is a lifelong learner and her mission is to empower women to thrive in their life. She uses the wisdom of yoga and Ayurveda backed by the modern science of habit change to help women connect with their body and intuition. She teaches Mindfulness as a tool to stay present and grounded. Her personal healing journey was a big call to help women who are feeling like they have no power, because they are living life on autopilot, to shift gears into taking back control of their life.
