may i be happy

was the mantra for yoga practice tonight. i am so glad that my beautiful friend tati decided to make yoga class part of her birthday party tonight! there is nothing like yoga to settle the mind and the body. as i have gotten out of practice with yoga i've forgotten the transformative nature of the practice-- i walked in exhausted tonight, and full of nerves, and walked out rejuvenated and stretched but tired and sore, all at the same time.

the incredible change that comes over the body during a yoga session is unbelievable-- your last downward dog is nothing like the first, your last chattaranga is a 180 from the first, the three closing oms feel like you're speaking a different language than when you opened the session. for $18, you can change your life!


yoga tonight even embodied my challenge to myself this week. i, historically a fearer of inversions, did a shoulder stand tonight. SO proud of myself, and when i released my legs i felt a million times stronger. shoulder stands aren't that hard. they aren't. but i am a coward in a lot of really nonsensical ways (hence the need to face my fears!). my stand wasn't the straightest or the most intricate, but i tried and i felt liberated of the fear that i'd somehow be hurt for good by trying. letting go of fear, that's what it's all about.

so i bought another class, to be used sometime within a month. i'm thinking friday yoga might become a practice of my own.