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We don’t always know our path when we set out, but we try our best to adapt to challenges and heal ourselves in the wake of pains, but it’s just exactly that: we try our best. There is a lot of self-searching that has to be done before we can really move forward on our own and learn to love ourselves before can learn to love others.
Amanda Cooley went on this journey long ago, going in as one person and coming out the other as somebody different. You see, in the wake of challenges we are tested and we bend.
“I was in university and it was my second year,” Amanda said, recalling when it all began. “I was in severe depression and a girl I was working with asked if I wanted to go to a yoga class with her. I wasn’t motivated to do anything, so she said she’d take the responsibility to pick me up and drop me off afterward.”
She was brought breakfast and coffee on their way to that very first class—the first step in what would be the journey of a lifetime for Amanda.
After the first class, something had changed within her. She had enjoyed herself, had felt an emotional shift and realized how a single yoga class had affected her mood.
“I was energized and didn’t want to crawl back into bed,” she said, her smile widening at the recollection. “I wanted to stay up and awake and be around people and be social.”
But there was still much more that needed to happen before she’d take the next step. Over the next month, she continued to go with that friend, building her resolve, strengthening her mood, and solidifying her passion. She no longer needed somebody to keep her accountable for making classes. Amanda had the motivation to go on her own.
“I developed more of a connection with myself, my feelings, and what I was going through,” she described. “And I understood how to cope with it.”
Amanda continued going to weekly yoga classes throughout her second year of university at Carleton in Ottawa. She was studying sociology, but like many high school graduates were taking the path of post-secondary education without any real clear path afterward.
Little did she know, by her second year of studies and for the remainder of her time at Carleton University, she was no longer on that path and she had already begun walking another.
“A different friend wanted to come with me in my second year and we’d go every Sunday together because it fit our schedule,” she said. “It wasn’t until my fourth year where I wanted to learn more about yoga.”
Her curiosity got the best of her and while in her final year in Ottawa, she began asking yoga teachers about their own certification, what they found helping in their experiences and continued picking their brains.
While she received quality resources, she just wasn’t finding programs that really fit what she was looking for. Amanda said many of the teacher programs require an intense commitment of three to six months without room to work and support one’s self at the same time.
It wasn’t until that final year when a best friend of her—living in Calgary at the time—asked her to come and visit during reading week. While across Canada, Amanda found a yoga studio that had a teaching program that fit her needs.
“I went back to Ottawa afterward and started planning to move to Calgary and sign up for that certification program,” she said. “It was a yearlong program and offered me the ability to work and participate.”
So after her final exam in 2006, Amanda packed up her things at her Ottawa apartment, came back to North Bay to tell her parents goodbye before boarding a plane and leaving for Calgary—the next step on her Odyssey.
“The program didn’t start for another couple of months so I applied for a job at the yoga studio and was able to work there part-time while also taking the teaching program,” Amanda said. “That was really cool so I could be immersed into the yoga community and I finished my certification in 2008.”
When asked to describe her year in the program, Amanda used one word...Intense.
“There were a lot of ups and downs emotionally, physically, and mentally,” she said. “It asks a lot of you but it felt right for me. There is a vulnerability that happens in your teaching program that happens where you actually have to look at your behaviour and yourself and good things and bad things. Some of the bad things you want to start to change to become a better person. That was all the philosophy.”
She said learning non-violence was one of the first philosophies in the program, but not exclusively in the traditional physical violence one performs against another, but even the emotional damage we cause ourselves. While Amanda had come from a darker place, healing since then, it was still a challenge to catch her talking to herself in bad ways.
“I think there was a really quick maturity that had to happen,” she recalled. “I was the youngest in my program—in my early twenties at the time. Everybody else was much older. Looking back on myself before, I was very angry.”
But there is no shame in bending in the face of adversity. At the end of her journey, something had changed.
“I came out at the other end and there was a more adventurous side of me—a curiosity in others as well as myself,” Amanda said. “My behaviour changed and I developed a lot of respect for myself and a lot of the things I had been through. Self-love and awareness was the big thing for me coming out of it.”
When she had completed her time in Calgary, she returned to North Bay, still a little unsure of her path, before making the biggest recent decision: starting her own yoga studio.
“I feel like the studios that I taught for in Calgary and the vision they had was something I really connected with,” Amanda explained. “When I came back from my travels overseas and I was in North Bay, I felt like I was killing time—having odd jobs here and there—but they weren’t fulfilling for me. I wanted to teach more of what I learned and I wanted a space where I could feel safe, explore the things I learned in my own practice, and then teach it to others for healing purposes, pain management, and rehabilitation. I came back in 2010 and opened up Ruby Yoga in 2012.”
For the next five years, Amanda went through the same growing pains any Northern Ontario entrepreneur experiences but never broke.
“Owning your own business has its ups and downs, and when I look back over the past five years there have been some hard times, but those don’t stick out to me. What sticks out for me is the continuous uphill climb and that really excites me because I’m free to explore many different aspects of healing. For the last five years, owning my own studio has given me the opportunity to explore my passion.”
But just because she owns her own studio and teachers others doesn’t mean Amanda has completed her own journey. She still walks the path, bringing others along with her as she continues onward.
“My learning never ends,” she said. “That’s really important as a teacher. If you don’t stay inspired and keep learning it will get stagnant and if it’s not inspiring for you your students feel that.”
Looking back over the past five years—and forward to much more ahead, Amanda swelled with joy over the differences in people’s lives she was making—be it through sharing her passion, healing, and so much much—she couldn’t believe her journey had taken her this far.
From a pained soul in a bed, unwilling to get up, has developed a calming and healing voice within the community of North Bay, a testament to the serene effects of soul-searching and self-love.
“I am making a difference in people’s lives, healing them in some way,” she said with pride. “I learn as much from them as they do with me. After five years of doing this, I still have people that continue to come and dedicate time to themselves, so the personal relationship that develops between us is really special to me.”
So when life gives us challenges, we—Like Amanda—learn to bend. We learn to bend, but we never break.
