Before Ms Anthea Ong discovered yoga in 2006, she was a driven yuppie juggling the demands of her job, husband and fervour for the good life.

The 40-year-old said: ‘I was very career-minded.’

Then her marriage of three years to her American husband fell apart. Soon after, the education technology business she founded and ran for six years also wound up.

Distraught, she plunged into workshops and conferences teaching positive thinking and feminism, and visited healing centres, tarot card readers and religious institutions.

She said: ‘I was trying to understand why something I thought would last forever didn’t. I wanted to find another way of looking at life.’

Then she attended a beginner’s class in Ashtanga yoga at the Ananda Marga Yoga Society of Singapore in Parkway Centre. Lessons focused on breathing and the meditative aspects of yoga.

Dada Shankarsanananda, a trainer at Ananda, said: ‘Yoga without meditation is like fish without water.’

Ms Ong, who is the managing director of a business consultancy firm, recalled: ‘When I first started, I had a broken heart and was nursing immense and severe emotional pain.

‘I felt good after that first lesson as I had to focus on the breathing and postures so my pain had no place for those two hours. I was calmed in a very deeply soothing way.

‘When you’ve cried your heart out, it’s a wonderful feeling to know there is another way to cope with these all-consuming emotions.’

Now she goes to the gym three times a week and recently picked up inline skating. She wakes up every day at 6am to practise yoga and meditate.

She returns to Ananda every Tuesday for a review session.

‘Yoga taught me to stop sweating the small stuff. I’m thankful for how it has awakened a part of me and made me a better person. It’s still a learning process but I do feel more centred and I now have the tools to handle any challenges that may come my way,’ she said.

Yoga even helped her give up smoking and to find joy in helping others.

For her 40th birthday, she organised a party which raised funds for Very Special Arts, a charity for people with disabilities. She got her friends to buy the charity’s artwork instead of showering presents on her.

She is also an adviser at youth charity Youth Challenge.

She said: ‘I’m glad things happened the way they did. If not, I’d still be living my life the way I did.

‘I feel so grateful (for having found yoga) because I came out feeling happy for who and where I am. I lost everything to gain everything.’

Source: asiaone