I'm Having a Love Affair with Yoga

Don't tell my husband, but I am having a love affair with YOGA.  Yes, it's reached that point.

 I find myself preferring yoga to all other activities. 

When I realized my moms' night out this week will conflict with my Friday night yoga class, I was beyond despair! 

When I realized that the children's Christmas program would conflict with the following Friday night yoga class, I wanted to scream and shout at the top of my lungs.

 When another dear friend sent a message about getting together with multiple friends the first Friday in January, again, my thoughts turned to YOGA.

Is it wrong to be obsessed with my dear flexible, zen-creating friend?Will all my friends start avoiding me because they know that I am being a harlot with yoga?

 

Will my children find out?

 

What will they say?

 

 

Progress

As I wrote last night, I am having a love affair with yoga.  Perhaps I am merely in the honeymoon phase.  Perhaps the passion cannot last.  Perhaps. 

Or perhaps I have found something with which I will have a lifelong relationship.

I hope that is the case. 

As I make progress, I do find myself loving it more. 

For example, last night's class was an excellent, challenging class from one of my favorite instructors.  One of the final poses of the evening was crow pose.  Although crow isn't terribly difficult, initially, I found it tough.  Maybe my arms weren't strong enough to hold my chubby body.  Now I can do it.   I also can shift my body to where I am on my head.  When I first began yoga, the feeling of any pressure on my head was disturbing and uncomfortable. 

My flexibility is slowly improving, though I still have a long way to go.  I cannot get over how difficult it is for me to reach with my arms behind my back.  I often wonder if it is truly lack of flexibility or if it is that my arms are short. 

I'm happy with my progress. 

photo credit:  pixabay

The Relationship between Yoga and Anxiety

A year ago I was having debilitating anxiety attacks.  I seriously felt like I was having a nervous breakdown.  I couldn't function.  I cried multiple times daily because I felt so messed up.  Of course, aggravating my anxiety was my grief over losing my son.  It was my first year without him which meant my first fall, my first Halloween, my first Thanksgiving, my first birthday, my first Christmas.  And all of that was Hell. 

Because of my overwhelming anxiety, I turned to prescription medication.  It helped.  I managed to survive the holidays.  However, my brain and body felt like it was in a fog.  I felt like a zombie.  Sure, this was better than the mess I was before, but I didn't like it.  I didn't like that I never cried even when I felt like crying. 

So eventually, I stopped the anxiety pills. 

I had been exercising which helped.  Though during that time of my near nervous breakdown, I did stop going to the gym.  It was winter.  I was lazy.   Early spring came and I finally made it back to the gym.  Thankfully, I have been going ever since. 

Back-peddling here:  I suffered anxiety about five years prior as well.  I found that simply adding exercise to my life helped.  Of course, I wasn't dealing with the loss of a child at that point in time.  So the anxiety wasn't quite as overwhelming to handle. 

Back to now:  Exercise was helping.  However, I was still feeling some anxiety here and there.  (I think I will always feel some anxiety here and there because of the trauma I have faced.)  After a recent anxiety attack, I decided to try yoga.  I had wanted to try yoga for years.  So I tried it.  I started doing yoga regularly over two months ago.  I still haven't reached my goal of doing it daily, but I try.  I would say I am doing it four days a week now, though I am aiming for five.  I have one day that seems nearly impossible due to my busy schedule.  I will know I have achieved yoga greatness (ha) when I start squeezing it into that busy day. 

Since starting yoga, I have not had any anxiety.  None. 

 Coincidence? 

I don't know.  I just know that Yoga makes me feel the best I have felt in awhile. 

My Yoga Morning Could Have Been Better

There was a lack of sleep last night, perhaps that was part of it.  I awoke with the temptation to skip yoga.  I wasn't planning to skip it altogether.  I thought I'd go to a later class.  I believe there is an evening class on Tuesdays.  Yet, I realized that I may as well get out of bed because I was awake. 

I have come to realize that I am more off-balance at the early morning classes than I am later.  I couldn't hold a pose for the life for me today.  I wiggled, I wobbled, I wibbled, I woggled. 

The instructor did something I am not a huge fan of:  she held the poses for longer and did less.  I forget what that style is called, maybe Hatha.  I know I prefer the Vinyasa Flow yoga where the poses are held for less time.  My biggest problem with the longer held poses is that sometimes I have a pose that is especially tough for me.  If it is tough and I have a hard time holding it period, then the fifteen seconds of it will feel wasted to me. 

The instructor had some serious expectations for the strength of my arms today that is JUST NOT THERE. 

I wish I would start losing weight.  Yoga would be so much easier if I weighed forty pounds less.

Yoga Thoughts for Today

We are still down to one vehicle which hinders my ability to travel!  No driving means no yoga.  Well, it means no yoga classes.  I can still do yoga at home.  I just am not that good at doing it at home. 

Especially on a day like today where I am feeling lazy and tired. 

I did it though.  I am wearing very uncomfortable pants though which inspired this post:

http://www.bubblews.com/news/9362137-a-yoga-journey-comfy-clothes-are-a-must

It's sad when my comfy workout pants have become so tight that they are no longer comfortable. 

I really need to start dieting.  It's depressing me. 

That's not good stuff.

Yoga: Hope for the Newbie

Yesterday, my friend posted a photograph of herself in a difficult Yoga pose.  She was in a sort of back bend with one leg kicked upward.  I was impressed!  When I ran into her today, I asked her if she had always been that flexible and how long she had been practicing yoga.

Her response to the first inquiry was no, she has not always been that flexible.  Yay!  There is hope for me!

Her next answer was that she has been practicing yoga for two years. 

The other thing that gave me hope is that she has been doing it at home using a simple app on her own for all of those two years.  She has gained that much strength and flexibility by simply following an app. 

I'm having a rough week due to vehicle things.  Getting to my Yoga classes is going to be pretty much impossible.  So I will do it at home.  And I am going to learn to not make excuses anymore.  If I am home, I can squeeze in at least thirty minutes of Yoga. 

She seriously motivated me!

Photo credit:  my own

The Yoga Chronicles 11/7/14

Sadly, today was a day without yoga.  I probably snuck in ten poses.  Maybe a total of five minutes or ten.  Tomorrow I shall definitely do it at home due to lack of transportation to the gym.  My plan is to do it immediately after finishing my coffee and breakfast (first htings first!  priorities!)

Sometimes I just wish I had more time to my day.  No, not sometimes.  All the time!  By the time I do what moms do, the day is gone.  And I don't even do close to what moms should do (i.e. clean house?).   I would love to do Yoga EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I would love to sneak in some cardio each day too... swimming?  elliptical?

http://www.bubblews.com/news/9327052-a-yoga-journey-none-nada-zip

Yoga would be easier if I were Skinny!

The practice of Yoga is so beneficial to me.  I can tell that after merely two months of doing it.  If only I could lose weight too, I can only imagine how much easier some of the poses would be. 

Example: 

Downward facing dog and plank poses put much of your weight on your arms and shoulders.  Boy, this is tough when you are overweight!  If I weighed fifty pounds less, my arms would be saying "this is a piece of cake." 

Another example:

many poses that require reaching or twisting seem to end up with my boobs in the way!  if they would shrink just a little, I think that could be much easier as well.

Regardless, I'm doing yoga and loving it.

Here's a post I wrote on my other site about Yoga today. 
http://www.bubblews.com/news/9274499-a-yoga-journey-after-a-break

Photo Credit:  my own

Time for Another Tree Photo

I did Yoga today which has become one my favorite pleasures.  (yoga, coffee, wine, and chocolate).  I'm writing posts on another site that are a journal of sorts for my yoga journey.  I hope to eventually feel like a Yoga expert, a guru, a yogi if you will.  Here's the post I wrote today about breathing. 
http://www.bubblews.com/news/9006421-a-yoga-journey-breathing
And btw, we did NOT do tree pose today.  Bummer.  That's my favorite.  We did do Eagle pose which is similar.

My Yoga Experience Today

I have a feeling I may post a lot of tree pictures when I write about Yoga.  Number one, I have a lot of tree photographs because I love the way they look.  Number two, I do enjoy the tree pose.  So hey, it works.  Though now that I think of it, I only did tree pose briefly today.  Perhaps I will do it again later.

I did twenty minutes of yoga at home today.  Here's a post from my other blog explaining why. 
http://www.bubblews.com/news/8981533-a-yoga-journey-i-chose-sleep-over-yoga

Of course, it was not quiet at all with an 8 year old and a 3 year old running around me. 

20 minutes is better than nothing though. 

The Good Stuff: Yoga

I have no photographs of myself practicing yoga.  Perhaps someday.  At this point, there is no way I'd like my chubby little body photographed in all those unusual positions. 

I do however have to say that Yoga definitely falls under the category of "good stuff" in my life these days.  I have to find time to focus on the good.  Sometimes that is so difficult after losing Nolan. 

The other day my husband said that I seemed less than enthusiastic about the prospect of sex that evening.  And I said to him (honestly) that I just don't feel enthusiastic about much these days.  Yoga is changing that though. 

Yoga Observations: Big Busted Women are at a Disadvantage

Here's a little post from my other site about my yoga experience today.

http://www.bubblews.com/news/8941105-yoga-for-the-bosomy-woman