Finding My Way Back to Myself

By Jennifer Kelleher

In my 20s, I made a number of big oopsies, maybe you know the kind.

So coming out of that time, I had to face something that felt both uncomfortable and honestly, a little scary: I couldn’t fully trust what I thought was my intuition.

Somewhere along the way, I had overridden myself so many times that I lost the ability to clearly hear my own inner voice. What used to feel like a quiet knowing became hard to access. My sensitivity got quieter, my judgment felt less clear, and I found myself in this strange place where I couldn’t always tell the difference between a true gut feeling and a wave of anxiety.

That’s a hard place to be, because when you don’t trust yourself, everything feels a little uncertain.

I had to find my way back to myself. For me, that path was yoga.

I understood from the start that this isn’t the type of thing you fix overnight. The journey might feel slow and confusing at times, but it is much more real. And somewhere, beneath the surface, I knew that positive change was being made.

It started with learning how to pause.

To sit for a moment before reacting. To notice what I was feeling instead of immediately trying to fix it or push it away. Through breathwork, I began to calm my nervous system. And then in those moments of calm, something important started to happen– I could hear myself again.

Through movement, I started to rebuild a relationship with my body. I began paying attention to sensation. Where I was holding tension. Where I was forcing. Where I needed to soften. And over time, I realized my body had been communicating with me all along. I just hadn’t been listening.

Little by little, the way I lived started to change.

I became more curious, and less reactive. I gave myself more space in between feeling something and acting on it. I stopped looking so quickly outside of myself for answers and started getting more comfortable sitting with what I felt inside.

It was as if the part of me that had been running the show– the part driven by urgency, pressure, and outside noise– took a step back. And another part of me, one that felt quieter but much more steady, slowly began to take its place.

A decade later, and after shedding a lot of layers, I can honestly say I feel sensitive again in the way I did as a child.

And while being deeply sensitive isn’t always easy, it’s also where so much beauty lives. Sensitivity allows you to feel things fully. To experience connection more deeply. To notice the small shifts, the subtle cues, the things that don’t always make sense logically but feel true in your body. It becomes a kind of guidance system– one that’s always there, if you’re willing to listen.

The practice isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about coming back to who you were before you learned to override yourself.

Yoga, and Pilates too, can be such powerful tools for that. They give you a space to slow down, to reconnect, and to rebuild trust with yourself over time.

And that’s really what it is. A rebuilding. A remembering.

If any of this resonates with you, you’re always welcome to come practice with us at Ocean Bliss. Our space is here for exactly this– to move, to breathe, to reset, and to find your way back to yourself, one small step at a time. Website: www.oceanblissyoga.net Phone: (917) 318-1168.