Strength and love to us all.
Lessons from sweating in a hot room for a breakthrough year I'm having.
In 2007, I took my first Bikram Yoga Class1. For almost a year, I went to class about 6 days a week - no small feat for a class that’s 90 minutes long and absolutely requires a hair wash after each one. That first year, I loved every moment of every class and it felt, with hindsight, effortless.
But when I transitioned jobs, I started a new relationship with my Bikram practice. For the next decade, I came back to and left the practice repeatedly, sometimes for a 30 or 60 day challenge just to leave after the last sticker was put next to my name, other times for an errant class here or there, still other times, I did more of a regular practice 2-4 times a week for a few months. In this practice-leave-return cycle, I learned a lot about humility and my relationship to it.
If you’ve ever taken a Bikram - or other hot yoga - class, you know that it takes something to go back, whether that’s to your second class ever, or to return after some length of time away. Let me paint a picture for those of you who haven’t endured this particular bliss-torture.
In a Bikram class, the room is heated to 105°F, and the humidity is set to a minimum of 50%. You go through 26 postures, twice, and 2 breathing exercises and the instructors train for weeks so that they, among other things, say the exact same script for each posture in every class across the world. It’s an exacting environment, and meant to be so. It is rare for the instructor to offer corrections or acknowledgements of a job well done in the class itself. First timers are told to set up in the back, watch if they get lost, but otherwise just do what the instructor says. Repeatedly, everyone is reminded to keep their eyes on themselves in the mirror, only breathe in and out through the nose, and only take water in between sets.
It is designed to test you mentally as you physically move your body through the postures. You are meant to do battle with your mind absolutely SCREAMING at you to get the hell out of a room this uncomfortable. You are meant to face your limits in every posture - exploring where you should push, where you should relax, where you should go only about 60% so you can maintain your energy for the remaining postures, where you should simply, as my dad might say, “make sure the floor doesn’t go anywhere” by sitting on it for 90 minutes because, sometimes, even with a regular practice, staying in the room is all you can do. The instructors say the same thing in every class not only to ensure consistency across classes (others might have more colorful language here about the founder’s ego), but also to eliminate distractions for your mind - you have only your body’s movement and your mind’s activity to engage with when you aren’t looking at anyone else and when you aren’t thinking about what the instructor might say next. It is, in short, designed to help you face how you react to the difficulty that is living. Do you run from discomfort? Do you burn yourself out to keep up with some idea of what you should be doing / how far you should be going? Do you compare yourself to everyone else around you? Do you attack yourself or someone else to keep yourself feeling safe? Or, can you, over time, learn to trust your breath and your body, to quiet your mind, and go exactly where you can, no further, and love the journey of it all?
I have consistently enjoyed it when I’ve maintained a practice. And I have consistently had to face the part of me that wants to be good at everything I do, to never fail, to not face my limitations, to not be uncomfortable in the face of challenges, whenever I consider going back.
I haven’t been to a Bikram class in years. Definitely pre-pandemic-and-then-some kind of years. I have been considering going back recently - perhaps that I’m considering going during what’s already being predicted as one of the hottest summers on record says a lot about my maximalist tendencies, if not my masochistic ones.
I know if I do go back, for some length of time, it will be excruciating to face myself. I’ll have to face remembering what my body could once do in a regular practice and the fact that it cannot, today, do that. Some of the excruciation will be because the first seven classes will, if the past is any indication, feature me babysitting my mat on the floor more than me working the postures themselves. Some of the excruciation will be because, well, I’m no longer 23 (thank the goddess) and my body moves wildly different than it did then (less thanking of the goddess). Relatedly, some excruciation will be because I absolutely know I haven’t made any real peace with the new way my skin moves against my bones, or how gravity is being well…gravity on a nearly 40 year old body.
Going back to Bikram is always a lesson in my humility - where it stands currently, how much of it I can be with, how much of it I can appreciate, how much of it I can work with, and how much of it I resist.
So far, this year has been a lot like going back to a Bikram class, presenting me with my limitations, my gifts, my stuckness, the possibility of what I might be living into, the fear of what I’m trying to live into, and the challenge of it all. I feel confident this is a good thing - that something powerful is trying to be born in my life and the way I show up in it. I have a knowing in my gut that I will look back on this year as a breakthrough year - it’s got that energy.
I’d be lying, though, if I didn’t admit I’d like to skip to the end. It isn’t pleasant doing the self-work necessary to truly stand in the belief that I am worthy and valuable. To face the demons that keep me from standing up for myself in relationships and friendships, or setting the rates for my coaching that reflect the contribution I’m making, or continuing in my coaching business at all, or remaining committed to operating a business in a capitalist world in a way that isn’t as diseased as what I learned with my business degree, or to put myself out there in new friendships, or to show up in existing friendships as who I am now not who I was then. Everywhere I look in my life right now, I’m facing the reality of what it will cost me…what it is already costing me…if I keep showing up as I have been - as someone who isn’t valuable, worthy, or loveable, period. It is fucking exhausting and terrifying and exhilirating to be in 2023 in my life.
For months now, I’ve been mining the experiences of returning to Bikram to rediscover lessons from my past for my present. Here’s what I’ve remembered from showing up to the studio over time:
Go as hard as your breath will allow. One of my favorite teachers used to say “if you can breathe in and out through your nose, you can be in the posture”. Sitting in my dining room, this sounds reasonable. In a Bikram class when triangle pose is called, this often feels truly ridiculous. This year, I’ve been coming to this as a reminder to source safety as I go through this breakthrough year. Sometimes that means realizing I can’t breathe in and out through my nose, and I should take a pause. Most times, though, I’ve realized that I can look around and do what I said - source the safety I need to take the next step.
Listen to and trust your body and your breath - they are the wisest teachers you have. It’s been remarkable to truly turn inward and listen to my body and breath as wise teachers. When I’ve considered ending a relationship that I’m not ready to end with someone I care a lot about, my body reacts pretty intensely (I’ll spare the details, but Imodium or Pepto are usually called for). When I’ve taken a client I shouldn’t have, or at a rate I shouldn’t have agreed to, I realize there’ve been signals the whole time - it’s like my body has low blood sugar every time I go to engage with them. When I’ve not shown up as who I really am with others, I have a clawing hollowness in my stomach until I recognize it, name it, and, if necessary, clean up the impact of how I showed up by getting in conversation with those impacted.
Water is only a distraction. To be clear, in a Bikram class, water is a distraction. You’re not actually hydrating when you drink in class itself, it actually only makes you hotter even though you’re convinced otherwise, and it most often makes you lose contact with your breath. But, it’s right there! Your mind is convinced you should have some to cool down! To do anything but keep going in the postures! Obviously outside of class, water is life and you need to drink a shit ton of it to prepare and recover from a Bikram class. I’ve been reflecting on this lesson, though, in the context of this moment I’m in - where am I falling for the distractions? Some I’ve clocked recently: unkept promises, the allure of taking another course as the path to competence, having the clothes that might prevent someone from noticing the new lines on my skin or face, scheduling a trip so I just have an answer to a question I find stressful about upcoming vacation plans, anything I do out of habit to outsource my value to others (this list is long).
Get back in the room as soon as possible. No matter if it’s your first time or you’re getting back into a Bikram practice, it’s incredibly important to go back for your second class as soon as humanly possible. It decreases the soreness dramatically, to start. In my life, I’ve mostly been taking this lesson in social settings. Like many, I’ve found life post-pandemic to be amazing and also so stressful. I’ve always been a bit socially anxious; now, though, I’m absolutely convinced everytime I’m around anyone that I’m doing something so wrong, so unforgivable, so weird that I’ll never be asked back. I know this is a delusion of my own making (and there’s no actual evidence that my friends don’t want me around! A lot!), but phew it’s been SO LOUD these last couple of years. For me, this lesson has meant getting back into social settings as soon as possible - saying yes and scheduling the next get together quickly.
Comparing yourself to your neighbors, or your past self, is a commitment to suffering. Learning from them can be invaluable. Good lord, I’ve been on the comparison train for a minuteeeeeeee in my coaching business. “How can I be as assertive as ____ coach I know?”, “How can I get enough clients to make as much money as _____ friend (or I) thinks I should?”, “Why can’t I do ____ like ______ coach I know does?” and on it goes. When I’m looking around the proverbial room to compare, I suffer. When I reach out with questions I legitimately have and with actual curiosity about the answer, I learn and grow.
You are not your mind’s initial reactions. Mostly, in a Bikram class, the mind’s initial reaction is “get the fuck out of this room”. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, that’s my mind’s initial reaction to social situations, to work, to friendships, to relationships, to life itself. If I listen to my mind’s initial reaction, it’s not usually very useful. I have to slow down so I can listen more deeply and more truly to what I really want to do, how I really want to react, who I really want to be.
You are not your inner critic. An evergreen lesson (do folks still say this on The Internet?). Most of the work I’m doing right now is with my inner critics. They mean so well, and they hurt me so much. I have to remember they want to prevent me from being hurt and that ironically, they hurt me in their quest to prevent others from hurting me as I engage with them. But yeah, I’m not them.
A good class is made from the good sleep, good food, good hydration, and good breathing you do before and after class. It took me a few years to learn that good Bikram classes weren’t really made from some superhuman feat of strength or perseverance in the class itself. Instead, my classes were a reflection of how well (or not) I was treating my body and mind outside of class. How any class went was the outcome, not the reward or punishment, of how I was living outside of the studio. Today, I know that if I skip meditation, if I drink too much alcohol, if I eat out too much, if I don’t sleep very well or long enough, or if I isolate myself from others too much, I am more prone to my depression and anxiety running the show and I am not likely going to be a very good coach, friend, or partner.
It takes strength and love, in equal measure, to keep showing up. Finally, it matters to just get back in the room, but it also takes something to get back in there - it takes strength and love. Strength to face yourself and to face your potential. Love for yourself, who you can be, and how you can be with and for others. As I move through this self journey I’m on currently, I’m using strength and love as a mantra. I say each word aloud when I want to quit - a course, a relationship, my business, myself. And, I celebrate myself for inhabiting them both when I show up instead. I’m absolutely saying them to myself now in celebration for writing this, for publishing this after months of absence, for hitting send on a whole piece about a yoga practice I don’t even do anymore, and for the recognition it’s not about the yoga at all.
However your 2023 is so far, may you keep showing up for yourself in love and with strength.
Stay hydrated. Sleep well. Eat good, fresh food as much as you can.
Much love to you all.
A few years ago, a lovely human shared “love the teaching, not the teacher” with me in response to a class we were in together, where a good number of folks were having difficulty with the teacher. I find this quote apropos here. IYKYK.
I have never sat in a hot room and done poses, which makes me even more grateful for getting this gift of lessons.
love this!