Dear friends,
Many of you know that at the beginning of this year I made the decision to leave my job at Caterpillar. As you can imagine, there were quite a few things that prompted such a big change. One event that factored into this decision was the loss of my mother. Many of you remember how incredibly close we were and how much her death affected everyone she knew.
But what most don’t know is that Sunny and I have been trying to start a family. After a number of years, it became clear that we would need help to achieve parenthood. So, we began fertility treatment.
However, after many tests, procedures and a surgery later, we were still unsuccessful. At that point, we made the decision to stop treatment. As you can imagine, this was an incredibly painful and heartbreaking decision.
And honestly it is not easy sharing this with you. At all. I am a very private person and would rather keep this hidden. But that is the harmful temptation of infertility. A temptation that leaves you alone and ashamed.
These hardships from the past 4 years along with a general ill fit in the corporate world influenced my decision to change careers. I wanted to alter the course of my life to help other women struggling with infertility.
So last year I spent 5 weeks in India receiving my Yoga Teacher Certification. Upon my return to the U.S., I felt an intense urgency to tailor my Yoga classes to help other women who struggled like I did. My heart ached for the women I knew that continued on in fertility treatment without me. All of them, including myself, were gripped by an all-consuming feeling of failure. Failure as a WOMAN first and foremost.
And from my own experience, I knew that there are very limited resources for women going through this painful diagnosis. I searched for “safe” low impact exercises that took into consideration the restrictions of fertility treatment and found none. A lot of time, money, and emotion is invested in this process. So unfortunately, many women give up exercise altogether so that they don’t put all of this effort into jeopardy. This further exacerbates the stress and weight gain that oftentimes accompanies treatment.
So through the customized Yoga for Infertility classes I’ve created, women will not only feel better about their bodies, but also who they are as a person. The goal of each of my classes is to help women remember their value regardless of their parental status. Their core identity should never be in question DESPITE this hardship.
Infertility has the tendency to make you question that however. But it’s not any less true.
I am reaching out to you because each and every one of you is important to me. I value your input. And your support. There are so many women out there who need help. At this point, probably all of us know at least 1 woman who is struggling with infertility.
I would like to ask for your support in my effort to reach and help these women, especially in the early stages of my business. I teach customized Yoga for Infertility classes privately and in groups and would love to expand my business to reach more women.
Each class that I teach is tailored according to where each woman is in the treatment process. But I also take into consideration where she is emotionally and physically. I really like to get to know the women I work with so that I can not only provide customized Yoga sequences just for them, but to be there for support as well.
I’ve also been building my website for the past 4 months. HealYourselfYoga is a place where I talk not only about Yoga for Infertility, but so many other LIFE topics. This website is real. And raw. I delve into the nitty-gritty details of life!
So please visit my website and reach out with suggestions and ideas. If you like what you see, sign up to receive new articles and business updates!
I would love that.
I deeply appreciate the time you took to read this. And again, I value your input and reference!
Jessica Desai ♥
