My Life as a Movie: Rewriting the Script

If life were a movie, my script would feature a full spectrum of genres—vibrant dramas, lighthearted comedies, and more than a few uncomfortable scenes born of my own mistakes. But my story also contains an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction movie-like twist—the kind of pivotal moment that snaps the main character out of resignation and saves him from giving up on his own life.

That movie-like twist came only after I had faced trials I would never have chosen. Despite my best efforts to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle, I began experiencing strange body sensations, followed by a frozen shoulder and unrelenting fatigue—mystifying symptoms that ultimately led to a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.

In the wake of a life-altering accident or chronic diagnosis, almost everyone instinctively asks the same question: “Why me?” We rarely believe such things will happen to us until they do. Psychologists point out that people facing sudden physical loss typically move through predictable stages: denial, anger, depression, and eventually resignation. It is this final stage—resignation—that carries the quietest danger and most harm.

As my initial denial, anger, and depression began to lift, I settled into a prolonged period of quiet surrender. My overall health deteriorated, I gained weight, and I felt as though I were trapped watching a bad movie that I couldn’t leave and refused to end. After decades of dedicated practice, teaching, and writing books on yoga, I felt as if yoga had failed me. Disillusioned and exhausted, I quit entirely.

Then came the plot twist I never saw coming.

A friend of mine, an incomplete quadriplegic, asked if I would help her adapt the protocols in my book, Recovery Yoga . Reluctantly, I agreed—guiding her through the very lessons and practices I had abandoned in my own life. Months into our work together, we met for lunch. She shared that her breathing had deepened, her blood pressure had normalized, and her sleep had dramatically improved. But what struck me most deeply was when she declared that she had subtly increased the mobility in her arms and hands—and for the first time since her accident years earlier, could actually feel her abdomen again.

While I felt immense joy for her, I felt a sudden, profound embarrassment for myself. Here was someone using the very tools I had designed to reconnect with her own body, while I sat as a passive spectator in mine.

That moment was a watershed. Quitting yoga had been an understandable human reaction to grief and frustration, but staying resigned was a choice. I realized that while I had no control over having a chronic illness, I still held the power to choose how I responded to it.

That realization isn't unique to me. Unpredictable circumstances will always interrupt our lives, bringing changes we would never actively choose. Yet in the space between an unchosen event and our ultimate outcome lies our power to choose our response. By rejecting resignation and returning to a gentle, intelligent yoga practice, we can once again become the active director of our own life.