A funny thing happened in Hot Yoga class....
"Pranayama began. I was compressing my belly exhaling, taking big balloon belly breaths. I imagined absorbing energy into my organs with each breath. In my mind, I was doing a great thing, really helping my body heal itself.
Then... I felt like vomiting
I was dizzy, nauseous, worried about how I would exit the full class without stepping on someone to get to the ladies room to throw up..."
You come to hot yoga to get toned, lose weight, loosen up, stretch out, relax, de-stress, but...
One day you fall apart.
You're a beginner so you don't expect this. Or you're a longtime hot yoga student who knows exactly what to expect - except that you don't. It comes when you're ready, even if you don't know that you are. It won't always "feel good" - most detoxes don't and hot yoga is one major cleanse from the inside out.
Are you up for it?
Hot yoga Teacher Trainee Marguerite shares the unexpected gift she got in a hot yoga class that started out like any other, except that life had something better in mind: to match her dreams. Read the rest of her story here...
"My balance was off; I was irritable, and if I looked at myself in the mirror one more time I knew I might start crying.
I am not usually an emotional person – I really do not know why I had this reaction, but I very much felt like shit for most of the class.
Then I convinced myself to do pranayama breathing between (and a few times instead of) the asanas, and I felt that I would be fine. And I was.
As class continued, I had challenges with almost every pose and nearly got the point in every one where I thought I might just say ‘eff’ it.
But I kept breathing, and by the time we got to kapalbhati, I was fine.
After class and for the rest of the day, I had many meditative thoughts about having a positive sense of self vs. worrying about what others thought of my choices. I felt more positive and optimistic.
And then the unexpected happened.
I have never felt accepted by my own mother. All the great, damn hurdles I have jumped to try to get it, yet to no avail.
But that night, my mother said this to me:
‘I don’t tell you this often, but I am very proud of you, of all that you have done and continue to do; and I am proud of how you live your life.’
Nothing could have prepared me for that moment better than hot yoga.
This was a moment I had waited for my entire life; I had all but given up hope of ever getting any acceptance from my mother. My husband and my friends told me to just eliminate that hope, yet I never did.
Today, in hot yoga. I stopped pushing and pressing; I focused on myself and my own breathing, my own self acceptance, aligning my own energy, and then....life came up to meet me, just as I had always hoped it would.
Is it a coincidence? Or is there a connection between what happens in hot yoga and what happens in your life?
The saying is, "How you do anything is how you do EVERTYHING."
Pay attention to how you do your next hot yoga class. If you muscle through it, it you give up on yourself, if you decide to do it your way, if you are irritable with the person beside you, if you are angry at yourself for not doing better - these are glimpses into how you live outside the yoga studio.
And once you are aware, you can choose.
Hot yoga is your mirror (ever wonder why all the mirrors in the hot yoga room?) It can show you why your life is the way it is. It can teach you that yes, you can transcend your limitations (are they real anyway?)
You can feel all this and more in any hot yoga class; simply let go and hang in there. It can be pretty easy: follow your teachers instructions, stay in the room, to breathe, give it all you've got and be ok with whatever you get back.
You came to hot yoga for a healing and there is one in store for you, and it that's just the right fit.
Keep coming back to hot yoga and try it on for size.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Reader Comments (4)
Perhaps you were releasing in that hot yoga class the imbedded desire to gain others' acceptance. When you left it was replaced by giving YOURSELF permission and self-acceptance for your being and choices. Not surprisingly, once you released the lifetime clench inside of you for outward acceptance - the Law of Attraction delivered it in a matter of hours, flooding you with the very words from the very person you felt like a beggar wanting to receive before. But now - that experience was doubly satisfying. You received the acknowledgment that you desired, but you received it from a higher place of inner peace and acceptance, not a place of twisted hurt, fear, or insecurity. Bravo!! To many more healings and breakthroughs on the hot yoga mat and beyond...
So true Melina. People say "things take time," and "work hard and it will come," but the moment you let go, the instant you become what you are looking for on the outside, the manifestation can be instantaneous - of all that you want.
Sometimes I still fall into the trap of 'things take time' - I'm finding however that by giving myself the energetic essence of the result I'm after (feeling safe, loved, prosperous, successful, creative, confident, etc) it softens my hardened beliefs - soaking them until hopefully they'll just slough away in my own bliss...
Time is always on your side. Sometimes, what "takes time," is your letting go. "Instantly" can be challenging when your core belief is that things must take time...so go easy on yourself and try telling yourself that everything happens in the perfect timing, and you don't have to be in charge of that timing - you just sit back and breathe.