Rekindling My Inner Yogi

Lacey, here!

Over the past week, my morning routine has slipped into place (can I get an AMEN!) and I've really rekindled my love and joy for Ashtanga yoga.  I practiced this variety pretty heavily for about 5 years. It started through attending a class at a friend of the family's gym.  There was an incredible instructor there who really helped me get into my groove with yoga, and I adored it. Then college hit, and I had nowhere of real worth to go. The college yoga class was extremely basic and very...ugh. I don't know how else to explain it other then the few times I tried to go, I simply sighed with disappointment and said something along the lines of "ugh".  It just wasn't what I experienced for all those years back in that dim room.

But, during my yoga-ridden phase of life, I bought a really good book (sort of life an instruction manual), with the intentions of having it as a reference when I did yoga alone in my dorm room.  That was, until I moved into a forced triple and couldn't take more than 2.5 steps in my room, let alone set up a peaceful space for my meditation and movement.  The book "Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual" by David Swenson has truly been a lifesaver in helping me remember my sequences and positions.

And yet, years later, here we are. I'm 25 and married, starting fresh in so many ways, and finding my passion for the Movement. So, last Monday, I did the first Surya Namaskara that I've done in years, and I took the deepest breath, and I found that relaxing peace I could never really find through anything else other than prayer. And I'm thankful. So very thankful.

I went through some of the sequences, struggling to "weave the tapestry of vinyasa". It wasn't the prettiest, I promise. But it felt really, really right. My body may not be not where it was when I was 16, but my mind remembered, and it's oh-so-excited to get back, physically & mentally, to where I was before.

My husband leaves for work around 5:30 or 6, so as soon as he walks out the door, I turn on the fireplace, move the coffee table, turn on the subtle music, and dim the light. This is my peace. It's my hour in that unforgettable dim room, the sweat dripping down my face, and the threads of breath and movement intertwining.

So, why do I do yoga as exercise? Well, that's a more technical post for another day, and I'll get to that. But for now, I'll just let my inner yogi makes it way out.

Twenty Minute Tuesday: Yoga

Yoga has done a lot of amazing things for me. It's the perfect workout in the evenings when I'm recovering from a long, stressful day, in the mornings as a calm way to wake up, and it especially helped me as a way to recover from my surgery.

A couple weeks after having my gallbladder removed last month, I should have been feeling back to normal but I was getting pangs of sharp, really unexpected pain where my gallbladder used to be. I initially freaked out and thought one of my bile duct clips came undone but after dong a little research I realized I would have been in a lot more pain than I actually was. Running wasn't going so well for me since the bouncing was really aggravating my insides.  When I went back to Pennsylvania to visit my family a couple weeks ago, my Momma invited me along to her hot yoga class, where the room is kept at steady 105 degrees and the class lasts an hour and a half (really, the temperature doesn't feel as extreme as you would think because it's not humid.  It's very dry heat which makes it totally bearable). I was really, really hesitant to go as just that morning I was feeling some sharp pain. Since my wonderful mother had already signed me up the week prior, I obliged.

Now, just a little information that MAY be TMI for some of you, (but since my readers are mostly women, you may able to relate): when visiting my mother, I was over 2 weeks late for my menstruation and there we no signs of getting it soon. Husband and I talked and we attributed it  to my surgery and my body going through so much in the past couple weeks. And that makes complete sense. My body is pretty sensitive to environmental changes like moving (physically, like, to college, a new state, etc) and emotional changes (like intense stress).

So, with that said, I took the 7:30 pm hot yoga class for an hour and a half, sweated like I haven't sweated in a long, long time, and went home relaxed, refocused, and my body felt as though it had be realigned in some way. Something just "clicked" inside.

I haven't had even the slightest of pain since. My menstruation started that next morning. Literally, 10 hours later.

It could have all been coincidental, but let me tell you, since then, I was able to get back into running with no pain, my body felt better than it did prior to having surgery, and my emotional state was really improved.  Surgery can take a lot out of you.  Now, I'm not suggesting you take a Hot Yoga class specifically. In fact, I practiced Ashtanga yoga (a very different form of yoga, not hot at all) for about 6 years and absolutely love it.

I'm not saying you need to practice yoga morning, noon, and night. But for a good body realignment after a couple days of intense workouts and a way to refocus maybe just once a week for some of you, I suggest doing something like this video. Yoga offers something a lot of other workouts don't. Try it out.

Here's your Twenty Minute Tuesday Workout. My challenge for you: Do this video by PsycheTruth every other day for the next two weeks.  Let me know how you feel!