Sharada Devi

I come from a long line of folks who struggled with anxiety . My parents grew up during the great depression, and both lost their fathers as young teenagers. While my parents tried their best to keep me safe from their emotional struggles, they still passed on habits of mind driven by fear and anxiety. My mother was afraid to learn to drive, and my brilliant father of failure and success. In grade school there were days I would feel so anxious that on the way to school I’d burst into tears. I remember being afraid I wouldn’t be passed to the 3rd grade. By the time I got to middle school I was also struggling with depression, and a dark voice in my head began an endless loop of self criticism. In high school I learned that not everyone had suicidal thoughts, but I did. I was also a promising young musician and won a scholarship to music school. But I headed off to music school with a brain stuck in self doubt and loathing. This chronic emotional pain caused me to quit music school right after finishing my recital, but before graduation.

By this my brain had become expert at keeping emotional pain going all day everyday. and then, it learned how to create chronic physical pain. I was warming up for a dance class, doing a split with one leg on a ballet bar and one on the ground, pushing to the limit of my stretch, my hands slipped, there was a bad sound and pain shot from my left hip down to my left foot. I managed to peel myself off that bar, but didn’t take class that day. That day my failure in music school, and my dance injury melded and became one colossal painful trauma. All these issues plagued me for decades. Fortunately I had a strong belief that I was supposed to feel happy and healthy in my own body. This gave the commitment to keep looking for a solution to my problems. Sadly, I didn't know about PPDA or this movement. I started studying how the brain works in the late 80s. I combined what I knew about how the brain works, with deep explorations into anatomy, and how the body works to create my own systems for balancing the nervous system and teaching brain to work for me and not against me.