Is Hot Yoga Awesome?

Sticklers argue that overuse of the word “awesome” has dumbed it down. 

“Awe” is defined as an experience so life-changing, it alters your perceptions; your worldview actually has to expand to accommodate it. Following an experience of awe, people experience an expanded sense of time; suddenly you have a lot more of it.

More time? OK, that's awesome.

And it explains beautifully what I tell students who lament their lack of time to do hot yoga:

Get yourself to hot yoga and the time will show up. Not just for hot yoga, but for everything.  Hot yoga has the potential to change your time/space reality, because hot yoga is fertile ground for awesome experiences. Here's how that works...

What’s so awe-inspiring about hot yoga?

Ask the mother with fibromyalgia who says that after her very first hot yoga class, she awoke with no pain for the first time in years. Or the 75 year old racewalker who could touch his toes again. Or the middle-aged woman who couldn’t lose weight or inches around her middle no matter how much she dieted,  but lost 10 pounds and 7 inches after a 30 day hot yoga challenge.

Ask all the hot yoga students who heard the word "never", as in , would never be able to reach their arms overhead after a broken collarbone, would never run again without knee surgery, couldn’t reverse carpal tunnel syndrome, would never be without medication to manage their Lupus or rheumatoid arthritis….and then, they did it anyway.  These awesome hot yoga experiences (all of which I have personally heard) have a common theme:

”I am awesome.“

Hot yoga gives you a venue of pushing beyond your perceived limitations. Feel the breakthrough the first time you balance the full 60 seconds in Standing Bow Pulling. Or that aha moment when open your knees enough to lie back all the way in Supta Vajrasana. 

Any time you do something you "knew" you couldn’t, you inspire awe...in yourself.  

Get just one of the myriad of awesome experiences in the hot yoga room and you may also get this additional bonus:

People who experience true awe report feeling less impatient. They tend to choose experiential goods (movies,  trips) over material goods (toys, clothing). They are also more willing (and have more time!) for charitable work, and that leads to greater overall well-being and life satisfaction.

So – the more you put yourself in awe-inspiring hot yoga classes, the more awesome you become.

Hot yoga is both the answer and the question: how to have more time and what to do with that additional time. How to have the life I really want and what gives life meaning.  How to feel good about myself despite what others see as my limitations. What are my limited thoughts and how can I let them go?

Go to hot yoga. Look straight into the mirror and see yourself for the first time: living at your full potential. Then watch what happens to you outside the hot yoga room.

They may say it too much, but in the end, they're right: you are awesome.

Comments

[JaneC]

Just what I needed to read this morning!

[Amy A]

Love your awe-inspiring positivity Rhonda!

[June Spinelli]

Now I am ready for an awesome day!

[Mary-Rush]

Reading that post made me feel three feet taller!

Plus, it reminded me of something that I already know, but that I keep forgetting--the only way to have enough time to go to yoga is to go to yoga. You are absolutely right--the time magically appears, and not having the time is the "story" we tell ourselves for fear of encountering ourselves unencumbered, of seeing what we are truly capable of.

At this most wonderful time of the year, when time starts to shift and speed and scrabble ("Time... time... time... see what's become of me?"--from the appropriately titled "Hazy Shade of Winter"), nothing could be more welcome than a practice that can re-root and reroute time, slowing it down and reconfiguring our perception of its structure.

Thanks, Rhonda!