Before
I was born in Istanbul, a city of chaos and depth, where cultures have been meeting for thousands of years. As a child, I was diagnosed with advanced scoliosis. Doctors told me I would either live in pain my whole life or have surgery to rearrange my spine. For years, I believed my body was fragile and unreliable, something to be endured rather than trusted.
At eighteen, I moved to Los Angeles, and two years later I found yoga. For the first time, my body wasn't a limitation. It was a source of strength. Teaching yoga became my way of sharing that with others.
May 2024
After teaching a class one day, I was suddenly struck with excruciating pain from my lower back down my right leg.
What followed was nearly a year of barely being able to get out of bed. I couldn't walk for more than a few minutes. I went from one medical treatment to the next, and nothing held. The yoga that had been my anchor for so many years was out of reach.
Looking back, I can see some of what my body was carrying. Since October 2023, I had been watching the genocide in Gaza unfold, while teaching in a city where almost no one around me named it. I was holding so much grief and rage, with nowhere to put them.
Akyaka
Eventually, I decided to leave the U.S. and return to Türkiye. I settled in Akyaka, a small village on the Aegean coast, close to my family, my community and the sea.
It was there that I found the work of Dr. John Sarno. I read his books, I journaled, and I let myself turn toward the pain that had been running my life. I stopped fighting it, and started listening for what it had to say. Within two weeks, the pain lifted completely.
What I do with it now
As my body healed, I started to notice how many people around me were living with pain too. When we hurt, our world gets smaller. We lose access to movement, to connection, to hope and to our own power. And the loneliness of chronic pain is something only people who've lived it can really understand.
Having found a way through, I feel a responsibility to share it. I trained in the SarnoXSachs Chronic Pain Practitioner Training and Inspire Breathwork, and today I weave mind-body medicine together with breathwork, rooted in what I learn from nature and from my lineage.
If you're in the middle of it right now, I want you to know this: your body is not broken, and you are not alone, and if I found my way out of this, I know you can too.
With love,
Leyla
