Carter herself was once climbing thecorporate ladder.
“I was on the fast track to become an executive,” Carter tells SELF.
Then, in an instant, her life changed as she knew it.
Courtesy of Jen Carter
Carter slipped and fell on the stairs in her apartment building.
She hit the back of her head and sustained a traumatic brain injury.
At the hospital, doctors told her everything looked fine physically.
Before her injury, stress defined Carter’s corporate life.
“I was always go, go, go, always stressed,” she says.
But the symptoms of post-concussion syndrome forced her to press pause on everything.
Balance issues, like the equilibrium problem Carter mentions, can also occur after a concussion or head injury.
For Carter, that was the symptom that plagued her relentlessly.
And the bright lights and loud sounds of New York City caused problems for her, too.
The most frustrating part about these symptoms: There’s no specific treatment to make them go away.
Carter made the tough decision toleave her fast-paced life behindand move back home with her parents in Las Vegas.
There, she startedvestibular therapy, where she worked with therapists to try and regain her sense of balance.
Carter stuck with therapy for nine monthsbut nothing improved.
She felt defeated and trapped in her body, and she started to become depressed.
“At one point I really wanted to die, it really felt like I cant do this anymore.
I dont know how Im going to live in this body.
When youre inflicted with physical pain or a condition that you cant control, it just is so hard.
And choosing to live is harder than it is to choose to die.”
At the peak of her anxiety, Carter decided to turn toyoga.
She realized that now, maybeyogacould help her find balance again, both literally and figuratively.
And her work on the yoga mat proved vital.
She started exploringmeditation, too, as a way to calm and ground herself.
And she started volunteering as another rewarding distraction from the sensations she experienced.
Combined, it was exactly what Carter needed to start feeling better.
Kim says it makes sense that yoga helped Carter manage her symptoms.
He’s not against patients trying their own means of recovery.
(He did not treat Carter.)
“Yoga in this kind of case would be helpful.
She started mentoring and working atYoga Vidastudios, and she even traveled to Sweden to further study meditation.
It was a lifestyle wholly different from her corporate NYC experienceand one with significantly less moneybut it felt right.
After her injury and career 180, she finally felt like she was finally going in the right direction.
Today, Carter is thriving as ayoga and meditation instructorin NYC.
She goes by@zenjenyogion Instagram, and has over 25,000 followers.
And she finds herself back in the corporate worldbut this time as a yoga and meditation instructor.
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Watch: Iskra Lawrence: How I Learned to Love My Body
