Yoga Saves Stephani Lindsey’s Life

A warning: this episode deals with a traumatic event that may be triggering for some listeners.

When you meet Stephani Lindsey one of the first things you notice is she’s almost completely covered in tattoos. 

STEPHANI: There’s a lot of em. (laughs)

LAUREL: Is there one you want right now?

STEPHANI: Well, there's this space I have left when there's not many, so it's kind of like a filling in game. Um, but I'm going, I want to get like a pretty mandola on my right knee because the left is taken already.

One of her first big tattoos was of a lotus on her chest because of its symbolism.

STEPHANI: It’s roots are in the muck but it sits on top of the water. So lovely. So colorful, so beautiful. So that’s rich symbolism right there we get our beauty from like the ickiness that came before from rising up out of it, you know? And so it nourishes us like that root is still in the muck. It nourishes us and continues to fuel us and our endeavors. 

It’s a reminder that beauty and light can grow from dark, ugly places.  

This is 2 Lives -- stories of people who faced darkness and how those moments transformed them. I’m Laurel Morales.

Stephani grew up in Phoenix surrounded by addiction.

STEPHANI: ...drug addiction, alcohol addiction, food addiction...

Both parents were struggling so she and her twin sister were raised by their grandparents until they were six. 

STEPHANI: My twin and I relied on each other and were forced to just, um, yeah, grow up quicker...but I think in many ways, you know, there's a lot of immaturity there because of addictions and inherited issues. 

For Stephani her own addictions started with food. Her grandmother raised her and her sister.

STEPHANI: hostess cupcakes, gallons of ice cream and soda pop. That was her way to show love.

Then when Stephani was in the eighth grade she started drinking. A friend whose mom was a counselor told her about ALATeen -- a 12 step program for teens. 

But when she checked it out with her twin sister, both decided they weren’t ready to be so open about their problems. 

STEPHANI: I was pretty turned off by it because from my limited perspective, it made me feel like I was a problem. It was magnifying and putting a spotlight on issues that made me feel uncomfortable...I remember not wanting to go back, but I wished I wish I had gone back.  

Stephani says if she would’ve stuck with a 12 step program she probably would have bypassed a lot of suffering.  

Growing up Stephani was withdrawn and quiet.

STEPHANI: ...to the point that it would make people angry that I was speak so quietly that they couldn't hear me. I remember being in student council when I was in high school and like the older girls would just like shunned me because I would be so timid and shy and like insecure.

Stephani lived with her mom at the time who by this time had split from her dad.

STEPHANI: My mom had been in some very, um, unhealthy relationships... the boyfriend that she was with was physically abusive and bless her sweet heart that she would come and tell me about what he did to her and be crying and distraught. And I would cry and hold her and hate him and, and then witness her, allowing him to come into our home after that. And it was, there was nothing I could do to protect her. And anytime I would see proof of him in our house, I would throw it out into the front yard.

Stephani was 17, when she put on her favorite top and jeans to hang out with a friend who drove over to pick her up. Stephani rode shotgun. It was one of the last days of summer before her senior year, a hot August night in Phoenix. 

STEPHANI: I remember my mom at the time was not in the best shape, we'll say. But I do remember her poking her little head in the car and saying, make sure she's wearing her seatbelt. 

So Stephani buckled up. And that’s one of the last things Stephani remembers.

She was told later her friend turned left in front of a moving van. It T-boned the passenger side of the car, the side where Stephani was sitting. When the firefighters arrived at the accident they had to cut her out of her clothes. 

STEPHANI: I broke my tibia, punctured my lung, had a big hit on my right temporal area. So it was like 10 stitches in my head, had a concussion. There's like still glass in my face today from the car accident. And, um, but yeah, I'm so lucky, you know, I still have my eyeball. I had a broken pelvis in three places.

Her half sister Jessica Mastorakos remembers the night vividly. 

JESSICA: I remember that it was like the middle of the night when we got the phone call…  I remember how worried I was as a kid ... 

Stephani was in a coma for three days. The nurses told her she set the record for the number of visitors to the emergency department … just a flood of family and friends. But Stephani doesn’t remember. On the third day she woke up. She recalls the moment and laughs.

STEPHANI: I remember seeing the little red light on my pointer finger, cause they had like to measure your heartbeat or your oxygen level oxygen saturation or something. Um, and I think I was all doped up on morphine or something, but I, I remember making jokes. Like I was, I was like ouch. And my twin sister was right there and she was like, oh my God, she's hurting. And um, then she realized I was making a joke. 

Her sister explained she had been in an accident. Stephani had lots of questions.

STEPHANI: The first question was where was Sushi? which was my cat that had died the night before my car accident, um, right in front of our house. Somebody hit my cat. And so I think that was my first question is, is sushi okay? Or where's sushi. And then my mom and sisters eyes welled up with tears, we were like, she's fine. No, she's fine. And I, then I realized that I was like, no, she's not, she's dead. Don't lie. And then I said, um, have I missed the Tori Amos was concert because I had been like for months and months planning...and they were like, no, no. And I was like, did I miss my high school graduation? And they were like, no, no, 

She stayed in the hospital for a week. When she was finally allowed to go home she remembers she could feel the bones in her pelvis clicking. Then she was confined to a wheelchair for three months. 

STEPHANI: Yeah, that was a game changer. 

Stephani didn’t like the way the pain meds made her feel. It was the recreational drugs that were hard to avoid. 

STEPHANI: They feared that I had epilepsy from the big brain injury that I had, um, because I had like a hit right on my temple ...so I was having these sort of seizures. So the doctor urged me to make sure I don't do anything within the next six months or whatever it was. And so I had a girlfriend, I told that to. And so she wanted to stay strong with me and not do any drugs. And so we would like hang out and watch movies on my house and not do drugs.

She had only a month of physical therapy. That was all their insurance would cover. After that month she made up her mind to try to reclaim her body. She tried running...biking...she even tried to climb a mountain what’s now called Piestewa Peak. 

STEPHANI: I ended up falling, climbing down the mountain right on my bottom. They told me things like, you'll never be able to run like other people you'll never be able to ride your bike, like other people. So I’ll tell you I was in my walking cast and my mom had this crummy old bike in the garage and I like pulled this bike out I'm in a walking cast and I'm like, trying to ride this bike. And I could feel my pelvis, like clicking.

Meanwhile, things at home weren’t getting any better. Her parents were still using...so shortly before her 18th birthday, Stephani went through the legal process of emancipating herself from them. She packed up her things and moved out to Flagstaff, where she was planning to go to college in the fall. 

STEPHANI: It was close enough to my twin sister but far enough away from my family which was my main goal to get far from my family...when I moved to Flagstaff, it was just for me it was like getting away from that quote unquote crazy. But, it was just my opportunity to be free and get out.

Now 18 and free of her family’s choices she was able to make some decisions of her own. One of the first -- a tattoo on the back of her neck of three interconnected spirals to mark the new chapter in her life.

STEPHANI: I had been thinking about it and designing it for awhile and drawing it in my notebook. I was always thinking how we're always on an upward spiral or a downward spiral, but we're always on the spiral and things were always circling around… So that was my very first one and  I hated it. I was like, this is the stupidest thing ever. Like it was like, like a knife in the back of my neck. And I was like, this is horrible. I am never going to do this again.

Stephani was walking across campus everyday to get to class and still dealing with pain from her accident. But she was doing her physical therapy exercises every morning.

STEPHANI: My roommate would be sitting in laying back on her bed, eating her cereal, like watching me do my stretches and stuff in the morning. ‘Oh, that's a yoga pose. Oh, look, if you put your arm there, that's a yoga pose.’ And I was like, ‘really?’

Stephani signed up for her first yoga class. At first she hated it. She remembers the teacher hounding her to straighten her leg. 

STEPHANI: And I was like, whatever in my head on my, whatever, it's totally straight. Okay, look back at my leg and it's bent. And I felt like, kind of like betrayed, like what, like I thought it was straight and it wasn't straight...you're not in charge of your own body. And that, that was a powerful moment. 

Stephani some days she’d just show up and cry and have to leave the room. 

STEPHANI: I would leave crying and it was a combination of the pain I had in my body, but also like, like the embarrassment of like how hard it was. I couldn't feel sections of my body. Like I couldn't feel my hips. I couldn't feel my legs the way I thought I should.

Yoga helped Stephani integrate her body, mind, and emotions. She says she felt like Humpty Dumpty.

STEPHANI: On that physical level, um, it, it put me back together and then on the mental level, like it just, it filled me up in ways I didn't, I just didn't know you could and just excited me. I was in so much pain from the car accident, from the pelvic injury and, um, the leg injury. It was just so much pain. And I remember every night, like laying there, massaging my back. Um, and I just thought that that was always going to have to be that way. And like today I don't have it...

Stephani was all in. She practiced for three hours almost everyday. Her body transformed. 

I was taking yoga classes with Stephani at this time and I remember a few months going by when I hadn’t seen her and she was transformed. She started to wear tops that showed off her defined abs and carved biceps.

Her accident had piqued her interest in the body so she took biology, anatomy, and physiology courses. After she graduated from college with a degree in community health promotion, she signed up for massage school and yoga teacher training.

She eventually got a job teaching yoga. It seemed like after so much pain, her life was on track. She was on a path, and everything pointed upward.

As she became inspired by the yoga symbols of nataraja and hanuman she went back for more tattoos.

STEPHANI: Rather than like go towards drugs and alcohol and sex and gambling, shopping, we can channel that towards yoga. Like you can channel it towards, um, decorating your body with beautiful tattoos.

Her sister Jess says yoga has been critical for Stephani.

JESS: I actually had a weird flash of the alternative. If Stephanie had never found yoga, she would have been dealing with chronic pain and she would have, um, two parents with a history of addiction and she may have succumbed to pain management in the form of substances and who knows where she would be right now. Like quite simply I think that the mindfulness and the physical healing on her body probably saved her life. 

It also helped her find her voice. 

STEPHANI: Yoga made me speak up and be okay with being seen and being heard. Like all of a sudden my insecurity took a back seat because I'm here to show you and teach you. So that was something that I really loved about yoga is like all of a sudden I wasn't insecure because I'm here to help you.

SFX: Stephani teaching a pose

Stephani moved to Tucson to teach yoga at a large studio there. Her classes soon became the most sought after in town. Her boss told her one day...

STEPHANI: ‘How does it feel to be the most popular yoga teacher in Tucson?’ And I was like, ‘what, what are you talking about?’

It was around this time that Stephani quit drinking and was going to a lot of 12-step meetings, like every meeting she could find. 

That’s where she met Derek. He was tatted up, muscular, and he had a criminal history but he was in a program working the steps. She showed up to one meeting at a halfway house. Derek was staying there at the time.

STEPHANI: He later told me that he went to that meeting cause he saw me go into that meeting and he's like, oh, I'm staying for this meeting...and he just kept like running his mouth. And I was like, this guy with the loud mouth, he's just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then after the meeting, he just wouldn't leave me alone. He was just like, you like burpees, burpees. I gave him my card cause he said he wanted a massage or whatever, but I know he just wanted my number. So I gave it to him like whatever. And then he was like said something like taking, take me out or something. And I just rolled my eyes at him and I say, yeah. And then he was like, come on, I get my together quick. And I was like, oh yeah, but can you keep it together? 

Stephani was moving so told Derek if you want to hang out you can help me move.And she thought he’s in the program. That means he’s like me. He wants to get better...

That didn’t last.

STEPHANI: He was very, just very controlling right from day one. And so he like, literally looked through my phone, you know, took charge of like my life right from day one.

All this work she’d done to find her voice went out the window.

STEPHANI: I just handed over my life to this man in a day. 

What she didn’t realize when she met Derek, she was pregnant. The doctors had told her after her accident it wasn’t possible.

STEPHANI: I feel like a Jerry Springer show a little bit. I had hooked up with my ex as like a quick fling, and I was like, oopsies.

When she told Derek, she kinda hoped it would scare him away.

STEPHANI: I was kind of hoping he would just show his true colors. And I was like, I just went in there with like, ‘we have a 50, 50 chance here. Like this I'm pregnant and it's either yours or a 50-50 chance, or it's my ex’s. And I'm just going to let you know about it upfront. I told him, this is your opportunity to go and never looked back.’ 

But he stayed and told her they’d name the baby after him.

Her sister Jess felt protective of her sister and didn’t trust a man with a rap sheet.

JESS: When you're not exposed to people like that a lot, I think that there's like a caricature in your head from, you know, film and TV of bad guys being, uh, you know, mean and cruel and, and gruff and, um, things like that, things of that nature. But he was a friendly, bad person. I was like wow you could tell he’s a bad person but he’s also a bad guy. It's creepy. It's real creepy. 

But she’d only spent a short amount of time with him because she was visiting from Pennsylvania.

JESS: So what am I supposed to do at that point? It's kind of just like, okay, well hopefully this relationship doesn't last because he's kind of scary. 

Stephani did try to leave Derek before she had her baby but he’d talk her out of it. 

STEPHANI: I felt, I felt stuck. So difficult because dealing with my own addictions, like I have so much compassion for him. Um, but that also set the stage for me staying with him too long and like believing he could get better. 

Growing up seeing the way her mom was treated by men Stephani says children often do what our parents show us not what they tell us. So a part of her stayed because she thought her fate was inevitable.

STEPHANI: I just wasn't strong enough to push him off. I'm not saying that's a physical strength that I'm talking about. It's more of an emotional and mental strength than a feeling of my own. Self-worth that? I felt like the way he treated me was like maybe what I deserved. 

When the baby was born Derek insisted his name be on the birth certificate. She had a traumatic birth because her pelvis never healed properly. So it took time to recover. Derek was able to help with Charlotte. But he was using again.

Charlotte was almost a year old when Stephani told Derek she was leaving. It was Christmas night and Derek was high -- some combination of heroin, fentanyl, and crystal meth.

When Stephani told him she was done, he attacked her.

STEPHANI: He beat me up and took me to the point of peeing all over myself, um, and blacking out, while holding my baby in the other arm, it was horrible. So it was the most horrific horrible thing because I wasn't strong enough. I was trying to push him off, you know? And so like even with as much passion and strength that I had, like, I just wasn't strong enough and it's so humbling to face like, wow, this is it. You know, and I really thought I was going to die. PAUSE ...the neighbors called the police because they heard the screaming. I remember I knew the police were coming I remember I was like, Oh my God, this is God doing for me, what I couldn't do for myself, because I had tried to get away from him a couple of different times. I had tried to get away and I couldn't, he wouldn't let me. 

The police told Stephani to go to the forensics lab where they took pictures of her injuries and asked her to explain what happened in detail. Her sister came with the baby. Stephani said she was too tired to go to the hospital even though she had difficulty swallowing. By the time they were done it was 3 in the morning so her sister brought them back to the house. 

STEPHANI: She slept in my bed with me and we were so scared that he was going to come back. So we put this giant table, like we scooched it up against the door, um, and stacked all these things up so that even if he did get the door open, we would definitely hear it. Um, and come to find out like he was going to be let out. So he was going to be let out that very next morning and um, but I guess they call it a page two. It's like where like you're going to be released. Everything's cool. Except for, oh, you got to page two. And that means that you have other charges

The next day she got a restraining order against Derek.

STEPHANI: And so, um, I just felt this, like it's over now. And so what I think is important like about this podcast and like the idea of two lives is that like, you, you know, I thought of this Bikram quote, he says, it's never too late to begin again.

She says she thinks about that as she deals with post traumatic stress. The last two years have been really hard with lots of flashbacks to the attack.

STEPHANI: All I could do was replay that incident over and over again and try to see where I could have done different. And my poor baby, you know, my poor baby. 

It’s often Charlotte crying or screaming that triggers it. And then she says she feels a surge of energy and she switches personalities.

STEPHANI: I won't even be like in control of what I'm saying ... it's like a weird, like recording kicks in and I'll start saying horrible things. I would unconsciously take out like all the anger and rage from him, from dealing with his abuse, and like gaslighting on all of that. And I would like take it out on her a little bit. 

Every incident -- and they happened multiple times a day -- would send Stephani into a dark place internally.

STEPHANI: I used to just go into a, like a total spiral of self-loathing and self-hatred about how could I have said that? Or how could I have done that? Um, but to see that I'm in the midst of like a flashback helps me understand where that rage is coming from, where that intense energy is coming from... If I snap at my daughter, I, you know, I say, I'm so sorry. I yelled at you. I, you deserve much better than that. And please forgive me. And so I show her a template of like, how to apologize when you've messed up. It feels horrible to admit and say, but, it's been the hardest relationship I've ever had is this relationship with my daughter.

Today Stephani has found ways to deal with her PTSD. First she recognizes when she’s triggered immediately.

STEPHANI:  I’ve worked with a therapist very closely and for a long period of time and come up with tools like breathing in the stress and I breathe out calm. So I kinda like imagine myself being like this sort of transformer that I can breathe in the stress and take in what's happening. And then inside me, I can transform it and offer out calm….

Yoga has also helped her transform. Today the PTSD episodes have become shorter and less frequent.

It helps that Derek’s in prison now. It took over a year of seeing him in court again and again but he’s finally in prison. Stephani likens Derek to a bad tattoo.

STEPHANI: Tattoos are funny because you can't take them back. You can go get a tattoo removal, which will never completely take it away. I've never had a tattoo removed, but to me, it's all like a story. You can't take back what you just said to so-and-so like, you can't take it back. You can't take back that you just like tripped and fell in front of a bunch of people, or, you know, any of those things, like you can't take back like your first boyfriend or like your last. PAUSE And so when I add a new tattoo, um, it's kinda like, well, I hope this one distracts from the other one that I don't like, this one is really pretty. And people will see that one instead of the one I don't like. 

Stephani says it’s like life. We all mess up. All we can really do about it is focus on the right now -- be kinder now or more loving or mindful right now. She says her tattoos are her post it notes her little reminders to remember what she’s here for. She shows me one of her favorite tattoos on the inside of her arm. It says: Rather than curse the darkness, bring the light.

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.

2 Lives is hosted and produced by Laurel Morales, story edited by Camila Kerwin of the Rough Cut Collective, music from Blue Dot Sessions.