 I graduated from law school and I took a year because I was so depressed I waited to take the bar exam. I felt really alone. I felt like I couldn't communicate my heart and I had lost that zest and thirst and love for life and that passion for discovery that I had once kind of just lived in. I turned everything off so I was definitely not functioning at all. My name is Elise Kerrigan and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I am the center manager at the Arlington Body and Brain Studio. My story that brought me to brain education really takes me back a long time. I think my whole life has kind of been a journey towards meeting with this practice. There's a few different things that I feel were stepping stones that brought me here. The first one was my love of movement. As a child I was a dancer, I was a gymnast. One of the things my parents always said about me is that they couldn't keep me still. They wanted to get me moving really early. Later in life I became a gymnast and I was a competitive gymnast all through high school. The next thing that kind of moved me towards brain education is my thirst for meaning and purpose and understanding why we're alive and I remember really feeling that from a really young age I really wanted to know why we are here. And then when I was in high school I had a history teacher who really moved my mind and my heart. I felt very lucky to have this teacher who mentioned enlightenment. He's like, why not? Live your life for enlightenment. I was like, well, is that a possibility? This history class, we would sit under this tree outside in San Diego and we would read Socrates and Plato and I was just like, well, okay, this is heading me towards something. And so then when I went to college I couldn't decide what do I want to do with my life. I moved from different majors so I started with communications and I was like, oh, this is not so much my thing. And then I thought, oh, okay, international business because that's what my dad does and I really like languages. And so I studied international business for I think maybe a semester or two. I couldn't make up my mind so I was undeclared for the first like three years of college. I was like, I only have one more year, what do I do? And so I was like, philosophy, let's major in philosophy, which was awesome because I fell in love with it. And I really got to ask those questions that were meaningful to me. And then when it came time to start considering what I was supposed to do with my life, I was very unclear. I had spent some time in London doing study abroad and philosophy and it was, I had one more semester left after that trip. And I really didn't know what I was going to do. So I had kind of, in my mind I had two options. I could get a PhD in philosophy and teach or I could become a lawyer. So I chose to become a lawyer and I studied for the LSAT and that's what brought me to Boston about 12 years ago. So I studied at New England School of Law and I was very fascinated with the law and I think my love for the philosophy of it was really combined with an interest in helping people because I was very connected to children and I wanted to learn more about children's rights and how we could affect the youth and younger generations and make the world a better place for our future generation. But I quickly, I quickly became kind of disheartened by my experience with the law. I just quickly through my different experiences realized this isn't the way I want to help people. Through that experience I started to feel, okay, what am I going to do with this? I felt like I was heading down this path that was not meaningful for me but I had this huge obligation to complete and finish. I had taken out a lot of student loans to go to law school. I had moved across the country. I had made new friends and some new connections and I was living a life that I didn't feel connected with myself and I felt this really, really, really heavy obligation to live this life that I was very clear was not going to make me happy. So I became really depressed. I went on antidepressants because I was really depressed and I gained a bunch of weight and I was working in a bar at that time and I was also in a relationship and living with the person that I was in a relationship with. And I had what felt like opportunities to have a lot of fun but I realized when I look back that I was really just numbing myself. I was partying a lot. I was working in a restaurant where, you know, the culture was just to work and then play. And then we would play really hard. And then I would sleep it off the next day. I would study. I would go to school and then I would work and then play. And there was no downtime. I wasn't giving myself any opportunity to really question what I wanted because I felt like it wasn't an option anymore. I felt like, well, this is the path that I have created for myself. This is the choice I made. Now I have to keep that obligation. I have to keep that promise to myself. It was like there was no opportunity to change anything about my life at this point except to just do what society says to do and just work and make money and do the next thing. Only I was in this position where none of those things were working out the way I had idealized them in my mind. I graduated from law school and I took a year because I was so depressed. I waited to take the bar exam. I felt really alone. I felt like I couldn't communicate my heart. And I had lost that zest and thirst and love for life and that passion for discovery that I had once kind of just lived in. I turned everything off. So I was definitely not functioning at all. It was really down in this hole and I didn't know what to do. So I just kept numbing and that was my preference, just have fun, just go out and drink and come home and sleep it off and do it again the next day. A year later, I took the bar exam and I studied for two months and I passed it but still had no intention really of practicing. So then I decided okay let's go a different direction and I tried to move into consulting and I got a job interview. So I started getting ready for this job interview and I wasn't too enthusiastic about it but it was something. I was shopping for my interview suit and I stumbled upon an information table about brain education and I signed up for an intro session and visited a local body and brain yoga studio in the Boston area and I brought with me nothing. I was just very infested. I did the intro session and I remember it just being this very unique experience. I knew I wanted to move my body again but I felt really cared for in that moment when I was meeting this person, this stranger that just kind of gave me a hug and welcomed me and made me feel like I can introduce you to something that's going to help you. I got energy in my hands for the first time and I was like wow this is cool. This is something I want to explore. When I went to sign up for a membership I didn't really have any money but I really wanted to try something and it had been a long time. I think this is the first time in a long time I had used any willpower to do anything good for myself in probably two or three years. I had really just been so empty and depleted. So I said yes to one month and I actually signed up using money I should have spent on rent but I didn't because I was really just ready to try something and then because of that I had a really desperate mind. So I started coming to the center every day. I would come every single day and I would take one, two classes if I could if there were two in a row I would take them and I just felt myself starting to change. My friends started to notice changes in me right away. I was feeling more bright, more positive, I was losing weight and then I started just taking different programs and learning more about it. I had a weekend long training and it was really challenging to get myself to go but once I got there it was life changing and I remember coming back and I was talking to my instructor when I got back and he asked me how my training was and I remember saying that if I could live my life making people feel what I felt on this weekend then I would know that my life has so much purpose. That's what I want to do with my life. And from there on I just started taking programs and I just moved really quickly and decided I want to become a brain education instructor and I've been doing that now for about six years and it's totally changed my life. So I think the most impactful part of brain education for me is coming to realize that all the answers are in my brain to change my life. That I don't need to rely on external things that actually external things will not make me happy and in a sense I always knew that but what brain education has really offered me is the tools to live it and to do it. And so all the training methods help me connect with who I really am and they help me bring out my willpower and they help me live from who I really am and what I really want and they help me have the energy to overcome the desires or the negativities or the worries and anxieties inside that might be trying to lead me back into my negative habits and cycles but now through training I really know that no matter what even though I have all those things and they're not going to just disappear they're a natural part of being human what I also have is I have power and I have the power to change and I have the power to choose and those powers the power to choose and the power to change those are things that no one can take away from you no one can strip that from you and none of your life experiences can leave you totally and completely without that it's always there it might be hidden underneath something and it might need to grow and it can and what everybody needs is tools to help you grow them and it's priceless. So if I could talk to my old self who is so depressed I really felt limited by my life circumstances and controlled by them I would tell her that every day is a new beginning that you can restart that you can reshape your life and just because you've made certain decisions that gotten you to a certain point and a certain path that doesn't mean that there's not a fork in the road or that you can't pave a new path or there there isn't one already there kind of waiting for you you just have to open yourself up to discover it so if you want to experience brain education and change your life like I did you can experience it at Body and Brain Yoga and Tai Chi Centers and come visit me if you're in the Boston area I teach in the Arlington Center which is the Cambridge side of Boston where we actually have four centers in the area Brookline Cambridge and Riverwalk at Lawrence so it's an amazing place come take training with us and we'll help you feel amazing.