http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xm6ihZR5Pt4/TasJa8VK3rI/AAAAAAAAB9c/pd8NPuxjq08/s1600/Liberate-your-Art-B

Friday, June 1, 2012

I Can Breathe Again!


It may not look it, but this is the most wonderful thing ever.  Don't be smart -- not the guy in the lycra shorts who's all sweaty.... Ok, kind of... but I was meaning the yoga pose.  Well - its one of the most wonderful things ever!  There are actually 26 of these poses that are sublime and, after I do them - I am a human being again!

My name is Alison and I'm addicted to Bikram Yoga!

I got back home from "vacation" last Monday.  I say "vacation" because, as usual, the last week I ran myself trying to see everything.  But, more on that later.

When I got in on Monday evening I picked up a message from my friends who are living in Utah and working with the Mormons (they are not, I repeat, NOT, Mormons ... even though they have 6 kids and my friend's sister now lives with them so when they get out of their van everyone says "where are you from?" and they say "Utah" and then people nod knowingly...).  So, I found out on Monday that they were for sure going to be in my area on Tuesday and were planning on staying with me as I had offered earlier that year.  They have a camper that they use as home base when they travel so we didn't actually have to put them up in the house, we just gave them an extension cord and called it a day.


Anyways - so I worked in my office during Tuesday-day and checked my 9000 work emails that I hadn't looked once at while we were gone due to the fact that we bascially never had wi-fi - that was SO nice!  Matt and Karlene got in around 5ish and so I was busy with them and then the rest of the week just flew by between work and them (they left on Thursday).  I had a ton of area visits I had to do to catch up with all my customers and while I'm on those calls, more work piles up back in the office so - on top of what I hadn't finished from before, it kept on rolling in.

Needless to say, I've not had time to actually feel like I'm caught up enough to try to do anything personal.  So, my apologies that I've been neglecting my blog.  I did get my pictures up and posted so everyone from my trip had something -- if you want to check those out....  http://alisonspicts.shutterfly.com/

Run on the weekend as we had family in town.  But I have to add that it was an enjoyable time "running"....

We did have Monday off for Memorial Day so we went out and paid dad a "visit"...

Run during the week -- I did go into the office one day this week and got NOTHING done as usual.  When I finally do sit down to do work I always seem to have problems with my laptop and connecting in the office so by the time I got connected, it was time to go home and I hadn't finished anything.

I'm finally pretty caught up from my trip and yesterday I was back downtown again working with my big customer.  It was a horribly rainy day and I had set my alarm to run early but looked and thought - no way.  So then, a little thought popped into my head -- BIKRAM!  I haven't done that in like a month and I felt like I needed it so, I packed my yoga bag, worked downtown and then chugged over to the corner of Erie and Rush to catch the 4:30 Bikram class.

It was marvelous!  When you get a good teacher you learn something every class.  Yesterday I needed what she was trying to drill into us.  There were a lot of new students and so she spent a lot of time just talking about breathing and it kind of hit home with me.  When you do the savasana pose (which is lying on your back with you hand straight at your side and just looking up at the ceiling), its the time to let the blood just go through your body and breathing is so important.  Unless you're told, the only way you should breath in yoga is through your nose.  So, savasana its really even more important to breath through your nose.  She was discoursing yesterday on how this applies to life -- when you breath through your mouth, your heart rate speeds up.  And if you are in a taxing situation, you breath through your mouth and your head takes on the "flight or fight" mentality.  You breath through your nose and you heart rate slows down and you can control your emotions.

I actually tried it yesterday.  The room is so hot and its been a while so there were a few times I started to "eeek" in my head so when we were doing savasana I breathed through my mouth a few times I totally felt my heart speed up.  I went back to my nose and it slowed down and I felt like I could tell myself to chill out.

That was a free life lesson for you all - when you feel yourself freaking out in your head - close your mouth and breath through your nose - slowly, calmly and evenly and tell your head to back off.  It really does work -- you're in control!  I needed that yesterday!

Today I feel a lot more put together.  It also helps that I have an office day at home because I have a meeting in the afternoon.  I've gotten a bunch done this morning - so much so that I gave myself some time on my blog.  I still intend to post pictures on my blog, but until I do so you can go to that link above and look at them on my Shutterfly site.  I'll hone in on the good pictures and stories on my blog this weekend as I have some time.

Next weekend gets crazy with open houses and graduations and such.  But this weekend, I'm going to get some plants in the ground and post some pictures on my blog and experiment with some cupcakes --- and BREATHE!


No comments: