It finally arrived today - the big day 30! The technical end to the challenge at Sacred! It has been a whirl wind of a 30 days that's for sure. I had no idea what to expect going in, but I feel like I've hit my all time yoga low and all time yoga high in this past month. I'm just glad I went in with the complete conviction that I was going to finish no matter what.

(*Right- snapshots of me either about to fall, falling, or having fallen. &don't worry mom, I'm never anywhere close to the edge of the roof!)


Yesterday might have been my toughest day, for many reasons. Emotionally I don't even think I was in my body, and mentally my thoughts were running nonstop all day. It was one of those days where I couldn't let go of my negativity- it just seethed through me and nothing made me feel good. I didn't want to go to class at all, and I seriously considered not going, but with two days left and having accomplished 28 days already, I knew it wasn't an option. So I draaaaaagged myself there, and I was practically in tears before the class even began. 

(*Left - my 30 inversions for my personal 30 day inversion challenge.  I'm so happy with how far my pincha has come!)

How do you let go during days like that? How do you put yourself aside and move just by the commands of an instructor? How do you focus on breathing when it feels like all of your thoughts have been strangling your brain all day? How do you give into release when all you've been trying to do for 24 hours is find control? At this point I'm not sure I could tell you the answer to any of these, because half way through class I gave up.


(*Right - close up 1 of 2 celebratory inversion poses from today. Getting more time in my handstands, perhaps next month will be a dedicated handstand challenge?)

You know, yoga is not something terribly serious. Class is not a life or death situation, and really, from an observers standpoint it just looks beautiful and peaceful. In action itappears to be rejuvenating, graceful, balanced, strong - exactly all the qualities it in turn gives you. But couldn't you say that about most things? Life included? Most of the time it looks rather easy from the outside, and when done with mindfulness, peacefulness, and openness it actually is pretty easy. But a lot of the time it's actually pretty tough, and when you start to notice all the things influencing and effecting a persons life you start to realize it's extremely complicated. 

On my best days I am what yoga gives me - peaceful, mindful, open, balanced. On my worst days I am fighting against what the world is pushing on me - which could be any combination of crazy things that you pull out of the air. And that fight either wins and I surrender into feeling awful about myself, or I win and get a little extra boost of strength that I can hold onto for the next rainy day. Yesterday I lost, and although I stayed through class and tried my best to finish out each pose, I felt defeated. It's a pretty lame feeling. (*Below- my celebratory pincha pose :)


But what I took from the class, which is a lesson that I've tried to learn over and over and over in a million different ways, is that I can not beat myself up about not being able to do something in the absolute best way I can. Yesterdays class only started getting too difficult when I started feeling like I was doing poorly and I started getting angry at myself for it. From that point it's just a vicious cycle of me getting more and more upset with myself and slowly starting to feel worse and worse. I need to know when to lighten up, and when it's okay for me to say "yeah I can sit this one out." No one except me expects anything from me, so it's okay for me to lower my expectations when it's just too much. But damn it's hard to remember in real time.

The funny thing is I must have needed to really get something out of my system, because today's class was one of the best of the whole 30 days. It was just pure fun, and I left feeling all the wonderful energy a great class fills me with. I'm sure it being my official final day helped a lot, but nothing of the tension that I had last night was with me. Isn't that interesting? The universe can one day feel like it's crashing on us, and the next it can feel like nothing could keep us down. Just goes to show that everything is impermanent, the good and the bad. All we can ask from ourselves is to soak in as much of the beauty and weightlessness from the good times, and to get through the heavy times with grace and with patience. Because it will all eventually pass.

So that's it! 30 days done, yoga blog done…. JUST KIDDING! Neither are done in my book. I'm going for the full 40 yoga days, if not more, and you can expect to see a whole lot more posting here for who knows how long. This yoga girl's journey is no where near the end, and as a matter of fact, this is only the beginning :) x