This month marks the 5th anniversary of the first day my life began to change as I walked into the Bikram Yoga Tempe studio.  Although I had done many different types of yoga since 2000, I never felt committed to a practice.  I couldn't understand why yoga was never done in a heated room to make it easier on my sore muscles.  Someone told me there was such a thing; it was called Bikram Yoga. I googled it and took my first class the next day in June 2007.  I immediately knew after class that I had found my yoga. The instructors were great, and the desk staff always so helpful. Yet, I was still going through a very dark time in my life.

In 2003, I was in a tragic car accident where three people died and my life as I knew it changed forever.  My family and I were driving home from a short vacation from Magic Mountain before our girls started back to school. We were about an hour away from home when a tire blew and our SUV rolled several times instantly killing everyone on the right hand side. My husband, my youngest daughter who was 11, and my oldest daughter (who survived the accident), her best friend who was 15, also died.

My daughter and I were air lifted and the doctors actually wheeled me next to my 14 year old daughter to say any words I needed to say.  They told me I had less than a 50 percent chance of surviving the surgeries that I needed.  Little did they know I had crossed over with my husband and daughter and they told me it was not my time, I had to go back.  My injuries were severe, as I went from a wheel chair to walker to finally being able to stand on my own.

When I found Bikram Yoga Tempe, although I always felt great after class, I attended only a couple classes a week and would skip a week or two. I continued this cycle for a couple of years.  In between there, I was in another car accident and needed another surgery for a fractured elbow.   

In 2009, I decided to do the 30 Day Challenge.  It changed my life.  I started making more of a commitment to start taking care of myself and healing myself from the inside out.  I always looked for answers in my savasana's.  In 2010, after a long savasana, I heard a voice say, 'drop everything and go to teacher training.'  So I went.  And the day of teacher training graduation, I received in my hands my first book that I had worked over three years on, Grief: The Universal Emotion of Loss.  

This yoga continues to help center and ground me in the work I do today working with people in grief, loss and trauma. Physically, this yoga has helped me gain back the strength in the left side of my body, and repaired nerve damage in both sides of my legs.  Spiritually, it connects me to a deeper part of myself and my loved ones and helps with the deep self-realization that life after grief truly exists.

My hope is that someday Bikram yoga will be prescribed after grief, loss and trauma as easily as an anti-depressant.

Please join me at Changing Hands Bookstore on July 27th from 7 to 9 PM for a talk and book signing!  You can purchase my book at Bikram Yoga Tempe, Changing Hands, Borders, and Amazon.com.   

Karla Kay has been teaching at Bikram Yoga Tempe since 2010.  Her nurturing spirit is captivating and soothing. We are honored to have her teach at BYT and look forward to attending her book signing! Karla is also a life coach and grief counselor at WellSpring Holistic Health, NEC of Warner and Kyrene.  Her website is www.karlakay.us