Every mom should do yoga!

So, in my pledge to take better care of myself, I've been going to yoga 3 times a week for the past 3 weeks. What better gift to give myself than the gift of relaxation and peace? I happen to live in one of the biggest yogi towns in the nation- there are yoga studios everywhere, a meditation garden whose founder was a yoga master... it's just one of those beachy, organic, whole foods, new wave type of towns. So, even though I go to the very generic, unexclusive 24 hour fitness- the class is full of experienced yoga people who know how to bend like a pretzel and balance their whole bodies on one pinky toe while pointing their hands to the sun and connecting with their inner chakras. I'm so not into the whole religious experience.

I laugh at myself and am astonished by just how unflexible and crooked my body seems. I can barely do tree pose without falling over and have visions of knocking the person next to me over and watching the class fall one by one like dominoes. My downward dog looks more like an awkward mutt and I quiver when I'm in chaturanga for more than a few seconds. But the beauty of it is, nobody cares. Nobody is watching you but yourself in the reflection (even that's too much for me sometimes, so I usually sit in the back). You do what you can and go at your level and since I've been going I've gotten just a smidge more stable and more flexible. It is an amazing tension release and so therapeutic.

And the music! I do love that hour I get to spend listening to Enya. It's impossible to be stressed while hearing Orinocco Flow. Sail away, sail away, sail away. Ahhhh...listen to your breath and feel the rise and fall of your chest as you inhale deeply and exhale slowwwwly. It's so opposite of my high paced rush rush, mommy-I-need-you-now world. It is SERENITY NOW for an hour and it is wonderful.