“I can honestly say that yoga saved my life,” says Rachelle Welda, who now teaches yoga and helps other people to find bliss. (Richard McGuire photo)

After years of abusing her body and mind with drugs and alcohol, Rachelle Welda has chosen spirituality and meditation over getting high and she’s never been happier.

And she credits her passion for practicing and teaching yoga and her business – Yoga Nature by Rachelle – for keeping her clean and sober and incredibly happy at age 30.

“I can honestly say that yoga saved my life,” said Welda, who has called Osoyoos home since moving here from Red Deer, Alta. as a teenager back in 2003. “When I was abusing myself with drugs and alcohol, I always found my only peace through yoga. I always wondered what it would feel like to feel that good as I did when I did yoga if I didn’t feel so bad in my body and my mind because of the abuse.”

When she was 16 and attending Osoyoos Secondary School, Welda met “the love of her life,” who was five years older.

They remain together 15 years later and “have been to hell and back” together as they embarked on a party lifestyle of drug and alcohol abuse that lasted for more than a decade, she said.

Welda was diagnosed with epilepsy in her early 20s and feels it was “almost self inflicted,” because her party lifestyle meant she didn’t eat properly or get sufficient sleep for years.

“The epileptic seizures made me feel like I couldn’t speak, think or do anything,” she said.

To find peace of mind, she read about and started meditating and “learned how to control my mind” and found peace as she and her boyfriend got out of the party scene for relationship and health reasons, she said.

She started a successful house cleaning business, but the long hours were exhausting and she was reintroduced to drugs when her boyfriend was injured in a snowboarding accident and was introduced to Percocet, said Welda.

It quickly became a daily habit.

“When I was high on Percocets, I never got tired and I would clean houses in a frenzy,” she said. “I was hooked.”

When Percocets didn’t create a strong enough high, they switched to oxycodone and were quickly spending $100 a day on pills, she said.

This was back in 2013 during the time when the longtime owner of Matrix Yoga, Nancy Sommerfeld, had become pregnant and offered to turn over her business to Welda.

“She more or less gave me her business … I will be forever thankful,” she said. “I kept the name for the first year and then changed it to Yoga Nature by Rachelle about a year later. We’ve been operating out of a room on the second floor of the Sonora Community Centre ever since.”

When she and her boyfriend tried to quit drugs for the first time in 2013, they had brief success, but it didn’t last long.

Only three months after telling friends and family about her addiction problems, she and her boyfriend relapsed “and the vicious cycle started again,” she said.

She started sneaking pills to get high while cleaning houses and the downward cycle continued, she said.

She started distancing herself from family and friends and was preaching peace and meditation to her yoga students, while living a lie, she said.

“I was living a lie and I wasn’t happy,” she said.

It wasn’t until early in 2015, that she and her boyfriend decided to quit drugs for good, she said.

“It took over a month to feel normal,” she said, noting your body goes through terrible pain enduring withdrawals from powerful opioid drugs.

“You can’t sleep, you can’t eat and you’re trying to come to terms with facing the feelings that made you want to take drugs to numb yourself in the first place,” she said. “It was hell, but we had had enough and were determined to quit for good.”

Her boyfriend was “incredible” during this period and took care of her, while she comforted him and they regained the spark that made them fall in love many years ago, she said.

At was at this time, she decided to enroll as a yoga instructor at the South Okanagan Yoga Academy (SOYA) in Penticton.

“You do a 16-day intensive training program at a place called God’s Mountain in Penticton … 12 hours a day,” she said. “I met some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met in my life at SOYA. I not only learned about all of the techniques needed to be a good teacher, but about the history of yoga and meditation.

“At the end of the course, you have to do a test and teach a class where all of the teachers grade you and that was incredibly scary, but I managed to pass with flying colours.”

Welda decided to shut down her cleaning business and concentrate solely on Yoga Nature by Rachelle as well as eating properly and returning to full health.

Since she shut down the cleaning business, her entire focus has been on leading a healthy lifestyle and being the best yoga instructor possible, said Welda.

By sharing her story of addiction and abuse, Welda hopes she can be a shining example that you can overcome darkness and pain and find light and happiness by being clean and sober.

“My only hope is that I can help past users, current users or friends of them to see that anything is possible,” she said. “The truth is the choice is yours. It truly is possible to rise above the darkness and feel worthy of this beautiful life and still make your dreams come true.

“We all make mistakes and it’s time to let go of guilt and feelings of judgment. Your life isn’t defined by past mistakes.”

Looking back at her journey, Welda says “I feel blessed … and I’m really looking forward to the future. I really wanted to share my story as I think it can help other people. I just want people to know you can free yourself from addiction and you can find real happiness.”

Yoga Nature by Rachelle offers meditation, moon rituals, vinyasa flow, rise and shine yoga, hot yoga, community classes, private workshops and corporate bookings.

You can read about Welda’s journey and everything you need to know about Yoga Nature by Rachelle on her website at www.yoganaturebyrachelle.com. You can also contact her by email at info@yoganaturebyrachelle or calling or sending a text to 250-485-8363.

KEITH LACEY

Special to the Times