How I Look After Hot Yoga

July 22. This morning I had the wonderful opportunity to go to hot yoga. I love it there so much. And it always gives me a big chuckle how funny I look when am done!

Hot yoga has been in my life for several years now but the beginning of my yoga experience was tough. I struggled with sitting still. I am a naturally high strung person and have always enjoyed energetic, high impact and even contact kinds of workouts.

So sitting in a room being still and then guided in such a lovely way was hard. Thankfully after many attempts I started to settle in and fall in love with this practice.

Today, yoga is more about my mental health than anything physical, although I know there are many physical benefits as well. I use it as a spiritual tool for balancing out my mind and body while also getting that restorative stretch.

There is also a challenge component involved because I am not naturally flexible nor do I engage in some of the super yogi difficult poses. I’m likely never going to be the girl doing handstands in the room, and that is just fine with me.

But even that has been an exercise in growth for me. Accepting that what I am doing on my mat is all I have to think about. Learning to be in a room full of people, accepting their energy, working together in a way, but also not thinking about what they are doing.

Keeping my mind and body fully aware of what it needs at any given time. Sometimes I take breaks (lately a lot of breaks because I am building my strength back) and that is fine. Many years ago, that wouldn’t have been fine. That would have led me down a terrible negative thought spiral with messages like “what’s wrong with you, you can’t even do this”, “you are so out of shape”, “why aren’t you further along you’ve taken like two classes now”.

I am forever grateful this isn’t my experience anymore but it took a lot of intention and practice. I had to keep going back.

I had to let go of my old ideas that perfection was the goal, that working hard was the only way and failure wasn’t an option. That kind of healing doesn’t come without a cost. The experience of feeling the feelings can be overwhelming especially in early sobriety. We used substances to numb these feelings, to escape our lives so we didn’t have to deal with the intensity that comes from emotions.

For most of us there is also early trauma, and then very often a continuation of that in active addiction. So healing the brain is a critical component of this type of emotional and spiritual growth. And there are many tools for that.

Of course therapy is a great one. Obviously as a therapist myself I am a huge fan, but it’s not the only way. Coaching, courses, Aroma Freedom Technique, studying mindfulness, spiritual practices, different physical disciplines are all great for supporting our healing journey.

Feel free to reach out I am more than happy to share more about any of those options or help you decide what would be the best course of action for you. Helping women discover their negative thinking patterns, limiting beliefs and areas where support is needed is my super power.

Things with #75HardChallenge are going well. I am feeling so much better on the inside and although I don’t see much change I think my clothes might be just a tad bit looser. Cheers or cooler temps today for my outside workout this afternoon.

XO,

Shelby