Just Breathe

It has been awhile since I last posted about yoga. That is because there have been changes and I am slow to adjust to change. My favorite yoga studio and my favorite yoga instructor are gone. She announced that there were some big changes coming and I got excited for more class times, bigger studio etc. Those things are all happening but not with her. She sold her studio and is currently not teaching. SAD DAY FOR ME! It feels like I have been dumped by my secret crush...I loved her classes and I loved how she taught.
I went to the new owners class and, although it was a great workout it was not the same. I have been going but instead of really looking forward to going I have been finding excuses why I can't go, and when I go coming home not feeling as good as I used to. So I started looking for different places to practice yoga. This falls under the "out of my comfort zone." I found out where my other favorite instructor teaches and went to one of his classes, again I loved how he taught but it was not hot yoga and I did not come home all sweaty, which makes me feel like I did something.  I let my daughter convince me to go to Bikram Yoga.  She has been practicing that style for about as long as I have been doing hot power vinyasa yoga, and we both try to convince the other one why "ours" is best. I went to my first class and I survived. It was like practicing yoga in the Mojave Desert in July. It was different than what I was used to in terms of how the class flows but some of the postures were the same and I was able to complete the whole class without stopping. I don't know if I am completely convinced yet, it is more expensive so they jury is still out. For now I will just breathe and keep looking for the right yoga fit.

Comfort Zone

I like living in my comfort zone, I don't need to jump off cliffs to feel the excitement of life. My husband loves downhill mountain biking because he likes the feeling of being almost out of control reaching past his comfort zone.
Starting yoga was out of my comfort zone, I spent far too much time worrying about what "others" would think, or how silly I looked. I went out of my comfort zone and discovered that I loved yoga, loved the instructor, loved the studio. Last week my instructor announced that she was selling her studio and taking a much needed break. Now I am back to feeling like I need to step out of my new yoga comfort zone and try something new. Maybe it will just be the new instructor, and maybe I will love her as much as I love my current one. Maybe I will hate the way she teaches, or runs the studio and will have to go further out of my comfort zone and find a new place.  Yoga has become an important part of my life, and I am learning to embrace change and taking those baby steps out of my comfort zone.

It's Been a While.

It has been a while since I posted, it has been a while since I have been to yoga and I need to get back. I can tell a big difference in my body when I neglect to go to yoga. It is amazing how fast I start to loose what I have worked so hard to gain.  My mind starts switching over from thinking that I love yoga to humm maybe I don't. I will make it a priority to get back to yoga this week, I like it when I crave to go.  Walking into that hot room, setting my mat out in my favorite spot and adjusting it just so. Sitting down and stretching before class starts and clearing my mind, relaxing and not worrying about what is going on outside of the yoga room walls. Yes, I will be back to yoga next week.

Some Yoga is Better than No Yoga

That was my thought as I went off to a beginners yoga class yesterday. I couldn't make the "regular" class later that night and I needed to go to yoga, so I went to the class that fit my schedule. It was a different instructor and she was really nice but she had a different style and flow than my normal instructor. I find it funny how I am such a creature of habit,  and it is hard for me to do something different even if it is just a different yoga teacher. I don't live like a hermit never leaving the comforts of home afraid of change, I love change, when it comes on my terms.
When my husband and I were first married he was in the military and we moved a lot. Never living in one place longer than 4 years, until now. I like to redecorate quite often and moving has been a bonus, I have had a clean slate and could do what I wanted to do. But for the last seven and a half years I have lived in the same house and the same town and find that I am very content with that. I have settled in and found a new comfort zone. So I am not a stranger to change, but while I am on the yoga mat I would like things to remain relatively the same. I have not ventured out to different yoga studios, maybe that is not a good thing, but I am very content to practice where I started and stay.  I like going into a situation and knowing what I am going to get. I like going to the same restaurants and ordering the same thing. I like routine and familiarity in my everyday life,  and I like adventure and challenges and change on my terms.

Benefits of Yoga

When I started practicing yoga I didn't really think too much about the benefits of it other than to be more flexible and hopefully loose a few pounds. Each time I am practicing yoga the instructor is always mentioning some health benefit from practicing yoga. At first my friend and I would joke a little, and after the instructor would mention a health benefit of yoga we would wispier to each other, "and it also cures cancer." We really didn't take the healing benefits of yoga seriously, we did a lot of joking at first, mainly to cover up how awkward we felt doing weird poses.
But I have been paying attention and doing some research and yoga is very healing and is a good way to stay healthy. I am an asthma sufferer and yoga has helped me learn breathing techniques that has reduced my dependance on an inhaler, I still need it on occasion but I have not been using it on a daily basis anymore.  I have also been relatively healthy since I started yoga, when the cold season comes around I usually get a more mild version of what everyone else is suffering. Yoga is good for the spine and back problems, my posture is great and hopefully this will help prevent any back strain or problems that come with getting older.
Research also says that yoga is good for fighting depression by improving your mood and lessening anxiety.  They have found that yoga can lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and resting heart rates, leading to a healthier heart. While almost any exercise is good for the heart, experts are saying yoga's meditative component may give it an extra boost by helping to stabilize the lining of the blood vessels that, when irritated, contributes to cardiovascular disease. Since the lining, reacts to stress, and meditation can lower stress hormones, yoga may be causing a cascade of events that could reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke.  Research has shown that women who practice yoga during and after breast cancer treatment experience less stress and discomfort and had higher energy levels. Yoga also helps reduce the side effects of menopause, reducing hot flashes, boosting energy and mood levels.
For me I didn't start practicing yoga because of these researched based studies, I started because my friend bugged me enough and I went. I absolutely love going to yoga and these added health benefits are just the icing on the cake.

Patience and Tolorance

I went to yoga yesterday and I arrived a few minutes later than I like and my favorite spot was taken so I choose a spot a couple of rows back next to the wall. After a few more minutes a nice gentleman came and put his mat next to me, but he was really close, he was violating my personal yoga space, and I was a little bugged by this, he even had his water bottle next to me and I had to move up or down my mat to make sure we didn't bump into each other. I was bugged all through warm up ans as we started flowing and we made our way into the Warrior 2 position the instructor was correcting my arm position and talking to the class she said the two words I needed to hear, patience and tolerance as she was gently guiding my arm into the correct position.  I thought to myself, "Are you a mind reader?" So I decided that I would practice some patience and tolerance along with yoga last night. Soon we were working too hard to worry about who was next to me and how close they were. It always happens she seems to say exactly what I need to hear, when I need to hear it. 

Master of Your Thoughts

Yoga has also been beneficial in helping me control my mind. I have not completely succeeded but I am continuing to make baby steps in this area. Like I have said before, I have a wandering mind and it usually takes me to dark places, and has a great imagination for the negative things in my life, sometimes taking over control, finding myself in a pit of despair in no time.   Trying hard to regain positive thoughts is really hard, maybe it is because it has 40 plus years training in the negative. Just the other night I was going over and over a situation that is not really positive in my life and trying to figure out how I can balance having something that brings out negative thoughts and self doubt without completely removing this "thing" from my life. I have put distance and that helps but it is not possible to remove it completely. I am trying to figure out how I can maintain control of my thoughts and not let what happens, that I have no control over, take over my thought process. I am learning to let it go, and I am doing pretty good with this but I would like it to not even enter, I would like to be in a place where I can refuse those thoughts entirely.
Yoga is a great place for me to work on this,  Just the other day while at  yoga I was doing really well, I was hitting the standing balancing series like a pro, then it happened, my mind wandered off to some other topic and I wobbled and almost fell out of the pose. It only took me a second to bring my concentration back to the pose so I wouldn't hit the floor.  If I could quickly refocus my negative thoughts as quickly as I did in yoga class that stinky thinking would be a thing of the past.