The Yoga Challenge

Holy Shit it’s been a million years since I’ve been here.

I have set a goal (challenge) for myself – going to hot yoga 5 times a week. Not Bikram, mind you – I refuse to do that commercial torture anymore. Simply hot yoga. 1 hour in a 98 (or 90) degree room, ending in a glorious Shivasana.

I’ve been going to yoga for about a year now and I’ve done a few different types – hatha yoga, restorative yoga, Bikram yoga, and hot yoga. It is my new passion. But I have found that over the last few weeks I’ve been slacking. It’s a conflict because my brain says "if you love it, why wouldn’t you want to go – maybe it’s not the passion you thought it was."

But I also know that a lot has been going on in my life, mind and heart lately and when that happens, I have the tendency to take the calm time I do have and just sit in nothingness. My heart also knows that yoga has changed my life and even though I have been slacking on yoga lately, it doesn’t mean I don’t love it. It just means I’m being lazy and not putting my faith in the fact that I will feel good both during and after I go to class.

So here it goes, I’m taking my 2-3 (most of the time, 2) times a week schedule and bumping it up to 5. Starting with today’s 4:30 class.

I will also set an intention for class each day. Today my intention is acceptance. Being accepting of my body’s abilities and also accepting of myself as a whole – flaws and all. I am just a person, after all.

I’m going to back to an intention I used to set every time I walked into that hot room: "Do what your body will let you, one posture at a time."