Mark Bishop
For EternallyBlissfulYoga Super Magazine
In a disturbing trend, the United Council on Yoga Addictions reports seeing more yoga addictions occurring amongst the middle class. Though the UCYA is at a lose to explain this increase, the story of 38 year old Melissa Jeffers of Sunnyvale, CA, might shed some light on the problem.
Melissa explained her harrowing plunge into yoga addiction this way; "It all started when I saw Rodney Yee on Ophra", she started. "The very next day, I took my first yoga class at the YWCA and before you knew it, I was taking yoga classes in every studio that I could find between LA and San Francisco. My family started to wonder what was happening to me as I was rarely home. Those yoga classes were like crack. I drained the family bank account paying for bulk class passes in all those studios and eventually quit my job because I just wanted to do yoga day and night. Eventually, I blew through our 401k going to yoga conferences and workshops around the country. My husband finally divorced me and took the kids".
And yet Melissa had not hit bottom at that point, as she added, "I knew that I needed to get help when I found myself begging for yoga classes on the streets in Mysore, India. I had gone there because I wanted to take yoga classes with real Indian yogis".
EternallyBlissfulYoga Super Magazine is happy to report that Melissa is on the road to recovery now, staying in a half-way house for recovering yoga addicts. When asked if she has any advice for people to help them avoid the experience she had, she simply said, "Do Pilates"!
Yogi begging for Yoga classes
