The Origin Story: As Is—A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga

By Rachel Krentzman PT, C-IAYT, MBA

When I began writing my memoir, As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga, it felt as though the story was burning inside me, demanding to be told. And yet, I didn’t quite have the courage to share something so raw and vulnerable. It was safer, at first, to write about what I knew best: my professional work as a physical therapist and yoga therapist.

My first two books, Yoga for a Happy Back and Scoliosis, Yoga Therapy and the Art of Letting Go, were written primarily as instructional guides. I embedded pieces of my own journey into them, but always as side notes, tucked carefully between anatomy charts and therapeutic sequences. To my surprise, the feedback I received most often wasn’t about the techniques I taught. Readers wrote to me about the personal stories I had slipped in almost hesitantly. Those fragments of vulnerability—tiny windows into my own life—were what people connected to the most.

That feedback planted a seed. Maybe my own story had value beyond what I had feared. Maybe it was worth the risk to bring it into the light.

The Journals Waiting in the Drawer

I had always loved writing. Since my teenage years, I kept journals filled with daily reflections, heartbreaks, small triumphs, and endless questions about life. When I finally allowed myself to consider writing a memoir, those journals became both a compass and a lifeline.

I spent evenings rereading pages that brought me face to face with younger versions of myself—lonely, grieving, and uncertain, but also brave, curious, and willing to grow. What struck me most was how yoga had been a constant thread running through those years. No matter how chaotic life felt, stepping onto the mat gave me a place to breathe, to listen, and to begin again.

As I sifted through my journals, I started to see the arc of my story more clearly: a journey of falling apart and piecing myself back together, of learning that the body holds not only trauma but also the potential for healing.

Permission to Begin

The turning point came when I started working with a creative consultant. He told me to begin the book not for an audience, but as a gift to myself. That single piece of advice was liberating. For the first time, I wasn’t worrying about whether my story was “good enough” or how others might judge it. I simply wrote.

Later, he encouraged me to see the work as a gift to others. That shift opened another doorway. Writing became not only self-healing but also an act of service—a way to offer my journey as a mirror for others walking through their own struggles.

A Decade of Writing

It would be easy to say that the book flowed out once I gave myself permission. The truth is, it took ten years to finish. There were long stretches where I abandoned the manuscript altogether, convinced it was too heavy, too complicated, or too revealing. At times, I put it away for a year or more.

But something inside me refused to let go. Each time I walked away, I felt the story tugging at me, whispering that it still needed to be told. Slowly, with the help of editors, writing coaches, and supportive friends, I returned again and again until it was done.

There were tears, exhaustion, and plenty of self-doubt along the way. Yet there were also moments of joy—the thrill of finding the right words, the relief of naming something that had lived unspoken inside me, the sense of integration as the story began to hold together.

Facing Family

Perhaps the most difficult part of writing a memoir is the impact it has on family. To publish my story, I had to confront painful truths, some of which included the people closest to me. Having those conversations was excruciating. I had to explain why I was telling this story, why it mattered to me, and why I believed it could matter to others.

Holding steady to my truth while navigating those relationships required courage I didn’t know I had. In the end, I learned that writing honestly doesn’t mean writing with cruelty. It means writing with clarity and compassion, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

Yoga and Hakomi: Guides Along the Way

Yoga philosophy shaped the way I wrote and understood my own story. On the mat, I had learned that falling down is not failure—it is part of the practice. Healing, too, is never linear. It spirals, circles, and repeats, until the lessons are fully absorbed.

My study of Hakomi Psychotherapy deepened this process. Hakomi teaches that our lives are governed by unconscious core beliefs, often formed in childhood, that become embedded in both mind and body. As I wrote, I recognized those beliefs in myself and how they had shaped my choices, relationships, and sense of identity.

As I wrote in the memoir, “Deep binding beliefs about ourselves and others are held in the littlest stories of our lives.” Examining those stories, with honesty and compassion, became my path to freedom.

Writing as Healing

By the time the manuscript was finished, I realized something profound: I was no longer writing just to tell my story. I was writing to separate myself from it. To see that what happened to me was not who I truly am. To remember that beneath the layers of trauma and belief lies something deeper—an essence that cannot be broken.

That realization was healing in itself. The act of writing transformed me from the inside out.

A Message for Women

My hope is that As Is inspires other women to find the courage to face their own stories—not as definitions of who they are, but as pathways to who they can become. Life is rarely linear. The falling down is just as beautiful, and as necessary, as the rising up.

We each have a dharma, a true calling. Following the thread of our own story with honesty, compassion, and courage can lead us there.

If my memoir shows anything, I hope it shows this: you are not your story. You are something much greater, waiting to be discovered, lived, and shared.

***

Rachel Krentzman PT, C-IAYT, MBA is a practicing yoga and physical therapist and certified Hakomi psychotherapist. Born in Montreal to an Orthodox Jewish family, she experienced the trauma of her rabbi father’s arrest, shed her strict upbringing, and found herself. She specializes in personal healing through somatic, body-centered psychotherapy and yoga therapy. Afflicted with scoliosis and damaged discs, she created a powerful therapy that helps hundreds of students and patients around the world. She now lives with her husband, son and two dogs in Israel. Her numerous books on yoga include Scoliosis, Yoga Therapy and the Art of Letting Go (2016). Her new book is As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga. Learn more at happybackyoga.com.

 As Is: A Memoir on Healing The Past Through Yoga

Everything I had considered my path up until that point meant nothing anymore.

As I walked out, closing the door to the women’s section of the synagogue behind me, I suddenly found myself out at sea without a buoy to swim to. It was a strange and terrifying place to be, but at least I wasn’t willing to stay on the ship, floating aimlessly to a destination predetermined by others. Perhaps it was at that moment that I took up my quest for authenticity, at any cost . . .

When recently married Rachel Krentzman’s Orthodox rabbi father is arrested and imprisoned for drug trafficking, it sets her on a path in search of a more authentic and fulfilling life. Questioning her roots and religion in the cold, constricted Jewish community of Montreal, she attempts to recreate herself as a divorced, single mother in carefree California.

She soon learns, however, that she can’t run from her painful past or the beliefs that hold her captive. When she discovers yoga, Rachel begins an inward journey that leads her to move to Israel, where she must finally come to terms with the family hypocrisy and intergenerational trauma that have left her trying to fill the emptiness inside.

As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past through Yoga is a story about reconciling with yourself-imperfections and all-and finding love and contentment regardless of your external circumstances.

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Category: On Writing