Thursday, April 10, 2014

Ten

Ten days in, a third of the way through.

There is a tally board at the studio for students doing thirty day challenges.
Even just these first ten days have been a journey.

Physically, I think my body is scrambling to keep up, repairing and building at its capacity while I feed it, hydrate it, and rest it as best as I am able.  I feel physically warm, like a slight fever, though I'm fairly certain that it is just my metabolism in overdrive.

I want to say that I am bursting with energy and excitement, and to some extent I am, but I'm also feeling somewhat overwhelmed.  The emotional highs and lows over the last week and a half have been extreme, and they take their own sort of toll.

Both classes went very well today.  As mentioned, I've switched over to focusing on my core and my back is thanking me for it already.  I have been driving myself hard, and more than a few times have felt like I was about to pass out.  That's what I meant to write the other day in the post appropriately titled Driving and Passing Out.  Honesty can be its own form of deflection, and sometimes it is hard for me to even catch myself doing it.

Teachers and other students ask me how I'm doing and I tell them that I feel great physically, that I'm recovering quickly and really seeing improvement.  That's all true.

How am I doing?  I'm struggling.

I have a very hard time admitting when I'm struggling.  I'm very practiced at putting on a face, smiling, and saying everything is okay, even when it clearly isn't.

I am loving doing yoga.

The constant encouragement from family, friends, teachers and other students has been vital to the gains that I have made in just this ten days.  I can't express enough how much I really appreciate it.

Another student mentioned in the locker room that even in just the couple of weeks that he has seen a change in how I look.  It is always nice when other people start to notice your physique change.  I've been feeling the change in physique in the way my clothes fit and the way I carry myself.

Dara, the instructor of both of my classes today, has been amazingly supportive.  It was Dara that first approached be about journaling my experience.  Yesterday she remarked in class that my triangle pose looked amazing, and then today, at the end of my twentieth class, she acknowledged the achievement in front of the whole room.  It was totally unexpected and wonderful.  I really love the instructors at Bikram Yoga West Linn.

Jill, my older sister who I have written so much about, called me tonight to congratulate me on the milestone.  I'm glad that this experience continues to draw us closer.  The things I've written in this blog aren't things that I have really previously shared with her.

In fact, when I write these I don't really think much about the fact that people are reading them, though with only five posts in five days I have over four-hundred page views in eight countries.

This may be my most rambling post yet.  It is a little all over the place.  Thank you for reading.

Another class tomorrow at 6 am, and I should just post this and get some sleep, so I will leave you with another little something from the tally board at the studio.  Something which I am going to seek to embody more as I move forward:
Namaste.

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