Class 126, 127, 128, 129 – Trying to Fight Anxiety & Depression with Yoga, and Losing

I tried to get back into it, I keep trying to get back into it.

Nothing really resonates.  It seems to stress me out to get to class, I stay stressed during class, I keep looking at the clock… I know it’s good for me, for my body, but I find it boring and hard to concentrate.

1 class at Moxie, “fundamentals,” OK but slow and boring.
1 class at Moxie, “fundamentals,” same teacher, OK but slow and boring.
1 class at Moxie, some other name, it was harder and did a lot of standing poses I found difficult but interesting, but I was a nervous wreck b/c of a lot of stress at home, plus I knew I’d locked my bike wrong and I couldn’t stop fixating on it getting stolen. I left the class, not once but 2 or 3 times, and apologized to the teacher for disrupting her class. I’m mortified.

1 class at Flying Studio in Oakland with my friend, who taught a very nice class, I really enjoyed it without the music, but again, it was hard to stay focused and concentrate when all I want to do is cry.

I feel like I have no “safe” place to live — I’m not in danger, just have some trauma reactions at my place which cause extremely high anxiety pretty much all the time, since I have no place to go to decompress.

I know yoga is supposed to make it better, but all I want to do is rest, and getting to and from yoga then staying during the class with my mind racing doesn’t seem to be helping much these days.

I know I need to give it a better shot, going more than 1x/week, but I’m doing the best I can.

Does it ever get better? I know it always goes up and down, but it feels like the downs are winning out these days.

 

Class 125: still about the Shavasana adjustment

Yup. 

Class 124: Yoga is All About the Shavasana Adjustment

I couldn’t concentrate in class. Sometimes I wonder if this is doing anything at all. I can do more push ups now. I guess that’s something.

Class 123: Yoga is Returning to the Breath

Back to a Fundamentals class.

It went slowly, which in some ways was good, but in some ways it was bad because I got bored and distracted…

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts!

Luckily it was slow enough that I was able to keep returning to a steady, deep breath.

That’s what it’s all about, right?

Well, that and the shavasana adjustment. Boy, those are nice!

Class 122: Yoga is Avoiding Flying Fluids

The studio by my house is pretty small.  Apparently they can jam 22 mats in that room, and it appears today they did.

I was sandwiched between 2 dudes (ahem!); having more than 1 or 2 dudes per, oh, 10 chicks is fairly uncommon in yoga classes, and today the ratio was quite high.

And I had the misfortune of being ridiculously, uncomfortably, grossly close to them.

The guy to my right sounded a bit like he was snoring the whole time. You know when someone either has so much mucus or so much nose hair that no matter what they do you can hear them breathe? It was supremely disgusting. And he was so close to me, no matter where I tried to move on my mat it sounded so loud and distracting it made following the teacher very difficult.

I tried very hard to pay more attention to the music and the teacher and tune out the sound, tried very hard not to be angry at him for making the noise and tried very hard not to criticize myself and judge myself for hating the noise. There wasn’t much I could do about being repulsed by it (MUCUS NOSE BREATH!?!? Ew.) but I tried to have compassion for him and me and I did an OK job at it, I guess.

(C’mon, we’re all learning here!)

And the guy next to me was just a sweat machine. He was dripping so much sweat it came off his mat in rivulets and made its way toward my mat and towel with a creeping insistence.  And it dripped off his body in giant, slow-motion drops, sinister globules threatening to land on me at any moment.

Luckily I only noticed the proximity toward me at the end, and only had to tune it out for a short time.

I’m glad I got in a workout, and glad I got to challenge a lot of my sensory overload — I feel like years ago I would have bolted out of that room, being walled in on one side by echoing mucus noise breath and on the other by creeping sweat fingers, but I made it through the class without fleeing or crying or even going into child’s pose.

So go me! Victory, I’d say!

Class 121: Yoga es en Español

Fue a una clase de yoga en español!

Era un clase muy básico, pero me encantaba escuchar las instrucciones en español, yo pude poner mas atención a mi respiración y las movimientos.

Era mas un workout por mi mente que por mi cuerpo, pero está bien, lo necesitaba. 🙂

(ps, y si, “Downward Dog” es “El Perro…” jejeje)

Class 120 : Yoga is Twisting the Feelings out of You

Chair pose. 

Bring prayer hands to the heart. 

Twist to the right, hook your elbow over your knee. 

Hold it. 

Feel the twinge. 

So little range of motion on this side. Feel the muscles seize, tighten. Breathe. Ask them to release, just a little. Lengthen. 

It’s all bottled up in there. 

It’s all right to cry. 

Class 118 & 119 – Yoga is Saturday Morning

Trying to get back in the swing of things, going to class on Saturdays. I like the teacher, she gently corrects me and I try to not be too hard on myself for having done so much yoga and still having no clue how to do it. 

Interlude – Yoga is a Big Business

Well, that’s annoying.

After my great experience with Moxie letting me into class for free, then forgiving my lapsed membership and re-instating the 5 (now 4) unused classes I had, the woman at the Yoga Tree Valencia front desk seemed awfully judgey and nasty when I asked for reinstatement of the 2 classes I had left on that pass.

I don’t want to go into it, but let’s just say it sure didn’t leave me with a good feeling.

Moxie welcomed me back to the practice; the big-business Yoga Tree clearly doesn’t need or want me as a customer; the front-desk woman couldn’t even be nice.

Ugh.

Anyway, I did 14 minutes of this practice, instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiH0qYK9-cs

I need to do something light in between actual workouts, as my body is not happy with me after all these years of non-exercising; I’m quite sore and recovery is pretty slow.

So, 14 minutes it is!

Class 117: Yoga is … Dubstep????

Back at Moxie. Not digging on dub step for my yoga practice. It’s fine not to have the spiritual practice that I like so much in exchange for the shorter class length, but 60 minutes of dubstep is just ridiculous.