The Detox

I sweat a lot during yoga.

Obviously, this is mostly true in hot yoga classes since those rooms are heated to 105 degrees, but I’m a wet, salty mess in all the other classes too.

I’m not just talking about a healthy glisten; I’m talking about sweating out of places you don’t think you typically sweat, places like calves and forearms and big toes.

Sexy, right?  I know.

Of course, at the end of class it feels pretty damn good. It’s refreshing.  It’s supposed to clear your pores. Regenerate your skin, they tell us.

And LET ME TELL YOU.  Considering my forehead currently thinks it belongs to a 14-year old pubescent BOY, I’m absolutely buying into this whole “impurities are all coming to the surface thing.” Oh, impurities are surfacing alright, and they’re surfacing with a vengeance.  My fair skin’s never seen such an effort trying to get back to the radiant glow we all saw here.

I get what’s going on in this whole process. Sweat, dirt, impurities, pores, breakouts. We all know our basic skin care; dealing with this is a pretty straightforward process*:

Cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize (protect!), repeat.

Fine.  I can handle all that.

Turns out yoga’s more than just physical, folks.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the emotional reaction (cleansing, if you will) I’d go through at the same time, but it NAILED me this week (Monday morning, to be exact).

Absolutely NAILED me.

It started when I realized I was taking everything personally. Little things that shouldn’t have even hit my radar were making me feel like people were attacking me.  Like I was letting everyone down.  Every conversation I had made me question what I was doing with my LIFE, and when you’re talking about things like Kings of Leon concerts, Scrabble, and Sam’s Club, this should NOT be the case.  My eyes were doing that whole tears-welling-up-but-OMG-PULL-IT-TOGETHER-YOU-ARE-A-PROFESSIONAL-thing every five seconds.  FOR NO PIN-POINTABLE REASON.

Fun little personality trait about me: when I get cranky and don’t know how/why it started, I get even MORE upset because 1) I feel like I’m wasting my time, and 2) If I don’t know how it started, how do I make it stop?!

And then I got mean (and I’m not mean!)

I knew it HAD to be addressed when I watched myself react in conversation with one particular [great, undeserving of my taking out my moodiness on them] friend, and it felt almost as if I was watching another person.  Despite attempts to cheer me up and play nice (when I was certainly not playing fair), I resisted and pouted.  The conversation went something like this:

Friend: Idea!  Good feelings!  Here’s something I know would make you smile!  Go dance around in your kitchen and pound a bottle of champagne!
Me: Grumble, grumble.
Friend: No?!  Ok!  Here’s something funny!  Laugh!
Me: Grumble, grumble. Throw dagger.

When I treat people the opposite of how I feel about them or intend to, when my sour mood affects my relationships, I know that’s something I have to remedy immediately.

To sort through all this, I decided to write things out.  Write honestly.  Write privately.  Write feverishly.

So that’s what I did.  When I stepped back to assess what was actually happening in my mind, I realized I was face-to-paper with a laundry list of negativity, self-doubt, and questions about EVERYTHING.  Did I make the right decision when I decided to do this and not that?  Am I being a good friend?  Am I being a good daughter/sister/writer/yogi?  What about this particular situation is actually what’s bothering me?

What is important to me?

The light bulb moment

Physically, yoga makes me sweat because I’m pushing muscles to strengthen and joints to open more than they ever have.  It’s exertion.  Sometimes it’s in 100+ degree studios.  The result?  During the getting-acclimated phase of this, I’ll break out.  All the dirt and impurities hiding beneath the skin are pushed up and out, and my hairline decides it’s a hormonal teenage boy until I’ve cleared everything out of my skin system.

Emotionally? Same thing.  I’m pushing myself to mental and physical limits I haven’t yet known or realized.  I’m studying an open-heart/open-mind yogic lifestyle that’s forcing me to literally come face to face with fears, doubts, negative thoughts, and not only acknowledge them, but deal with them.

Did you catch that?  I have to deal with them.  Isn’t avoiding and denying your issues more fun?

We are our toughest critics, after all, and this is why it’s tough for me to ask myself the tough questions:

Are you prepared to do this (not just yoga but a number of things, anything)?  Do you have the discipline and passion it takes to make shit happen?

You’re pushing every limit you’ve ever known, are you up for this?

Of course I am.  One might even say I’m karmically ripe for this particular time in my life.  The decisions I’ve made leading up to these moments have landed me exactly here at exactly the right time.  And I’m going to own it.

Life is connected, things aren’t accidents, and I was never not coming here**.

* for all intents and purposes of this post.  I am not a dermatologist and do realize that different skin care needs require a modified version of that over-simplified instruction.
** my favorite quote and the most memorable line from Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, a book that’s come to mean more to me than I can adequately express

Tagged as: Eat Pray Love, karma, that analogy is kind of a stretch but we'll go with it, Yoga