Inhale/Exhale

Tuesday night I went to “power yoga”, this is the 2nd time

I’ve attended this class.

When I went for the first time, week before last, I was standing

outside of class, waiting with the other students as the PiYo class

ahead of us was finishing up.

Class Chatter:

“Steve (our instructor) is taking the PiYo class”

“I wonder if that means he’ll be harder than usual because

he’s loosened up or easier because he’ll be a bit more tired”

“Last week was really hard”

“I hope it makes him tired”

I’m standing there, mat in hand.

The people around me are mainly men who are younger than me,

(oh wait, he was not in my class, just a gratuitous

photo of a hot guy doing yoga)

(oh wait, here he is again….okay, back to the story)

a few women, younger than me,

and most of them are toting mats, water bottles and hand-towels…..

My Internal Chatter:

“holy CRAP! What have I signed up for!”

“definitely putting my mat in the BACK of the class”

“wonder if I have time to run downstairs and get some water out

of the vending machine?”

“I didn’t bring any money in with me”

“oh well, we’ll see how it goes”

 

Do you ever do that?

You know…

beat yourself up before you even start something?

Rather than looking at something as a new experience,

an adventure, you look at it as scary obstacles?

What do you see here?

(it’s that hot guy again!)

No, I mean this picture here…..

What do you think?

a) Where is this, I really want to go there

b) I’ll never get across that water to get there

c) I wonder what the view looks like from the top

    of those mountains?

d) There is no way I’m climbing up those mountains!

 

Now what if I show it from THIS perspective…

Hmmm, I’m thinking heaven on earth! I don’t want

to leave! I don’t even have to climb those mountains

or swim across there, I can enjoy myself right where

I’m at!

So is there a purpose or a moral to the whole story I’ve

been telling you about being scared by the other people

who were going on about how hard the class is?

Kind of…..

I got in there, I DID put my mat in the back of the class,

and you know what?

I did okay, I went in tired from lack of sleep, and I came

out feeling great, more awake and realizing I was

stronger than I thought I was.

So rather than looking at mountains as obstacles, look at

them as things of beauty, enjoy where you are and don’t

be afraid to dream about where you want to go.

(for me in yoga, I’m wanting to be able to do the pose

at the beginning of this post…..elephant trunk pose….I was

able to get my leg up on the upper part of my arm, and my

butt up off the ground for about 2 seconds, but if I never had

gone into that “scary” class, I wouldn’t even KNOW about that

pose…..or the hot yoga guy ! As for the pictures of the mountains,

that is one of my dream vacation spots….St. Lucia…..would love to

go there with MY OWN

 

hot guy!)