HealthSept15

Unity Plaza in Brooklyn, the hot new urban core
neighborhood, hosts free community yoga classes with
meditation components weekly. For more information
visit unityplaza.org.
One Woman’s Story:
Kristi Lee Schatz
Kristi Lee Schatz is emphatic:
“Meditation saved my life.” Schatz, 31,
is the Director of Wellness Programs
for Unity Plaza Center, and she is
open about her past struggles in
hope that someone else will find help
through the ancient practice.
At 19, Schatz, a Florida native,
decided to move across country to
California for college. Being alone
for the first time, and lacking a level
of self-awareness, she became depressed, was physically
unhealthy, gained weight and experienced significant social
anxiety.
“I self-identified with every rambling thought that drifted
through my mind, many of which were rooted in judgment
towards myself or others. I felt like a victim to circumstance
and found myself constantly in reaction to the world outside,”
she says.
Not wanting to rely on medication, Schatz was at an impasse.
“I was bumping up over my own perfections of what was
possible for my life,” she says. “I had a double major, but I was
so depressed I was failing out of school. At one point I was
actually suicidal, because I really didn’t know what to do.”
Ironic that during a visit to a Barnes and Noble, “a book
about women who think too much literally fell from a shelf and
landed in my lap,” Schatz recalls.
“I was desperate for some new information to come into my
awareness; this turned out to be it.”
Flipping through the pages, Schatz found herself intrigued
by the idea that she could retrain her cognitive awareness.
She began spending all her free time reading books about
spirituality and neurosciences. “I wanted to learn more.”
She began her meditation practice by herself, trying to mimic
what she read about.
“I was shocked to learn that I had the power to quiet my
thoughts, relax my body, and release my stress,” she says. “And
the more I practiced, the more I saw results. I started listening
to the rhythm of my breath and I noticed my mind chatter
stopped.”
A wonderment of what else might be possible, Schatz did
the unthinkable. Two weeks into her senior year at college,
she dropped both her majors and began anew—focusing on
psychology. She graduated and went on to obtain an advanced
degree from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in San
Francisco.
“Meditation became a way for me to turn off all those
thoughts that I wasn’t good enough, not worthy, not lovable. I
learned to find a sense of inner peace, to put in new thoughts
that I am enough. I am worthy. I am lovable,” says Schatz.
And while retraining your brain to be positive is not a
new technique, Schatz believes the breathing component to
meditation is critical to her success. “Your breath can’t be in the
past. It can’t be in the future. You have to use your breath to be
in the moment. It’s now.”
Schatz now teaches guided meditation classes for the
community and for at-risk populations, including the juvenile
detention center and the jail. She hopes it can have the same
positive impact on others as it did for her a decade ago.
September 2015
healthsourcemag.com—27