I
hate the heat. Let me be clear – I HATE THE
HEAT! There is nothing worse to me than
sweating for no reason. I’ve always said
that I don’t want to sweat unless I’ve done something to cause it. When my sister first told me about Bikram
yoga and that the room was heated over 100 degrees, I thought she was crazy, but
she swore by it. I ignored her
insistence that I try it for quite some time.
I’ve
never really been athletic. When my
parents yelled at me to go outside and play, I was the kind of kid who grabbed
a book and went out under the tree to read.
In addition to that, I don’t have your stereotypical yoga body. Don’t get me wrong, my body is beautiful, but
it won’t fit in no Lululemon, if you know what I mean.
But after trying hot yoga, I was surprised to find that, in my heart, I AM a yogi. The postures
and the challenge of hot yoga spoke to my brain, and my stubbornness pushed me past the mental doubt. And it didn’t take long for me to
know that I loved what was happening to my physical body. But the real
breakthrough was in my emotional well-being.
In
January 2013, I was diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder. For months, I saw a counselor and
dietitian who specialized in coaching people with eating
disorders. I dove in and worked hard to
make progress. I am fully in recovery
now and didn't realize, until I stopped going to hot yoga for a while, how much
the mental and physical elements of hot yoga helped in my recovery.
In
June of 2013, I committed myself to Bikram yoga. I had tried it two summers
before but didn’t make it more than a week or two into the practice. This past summer, I was in
recovery, and the yoga really spoke to me this time around.
At first, I enjoyed the predictability of the Bikram practice, knowing it was going to be the same 26 postures every class. But over time, I felt like I wanted more than the physical challenge. I needed to feel emotionally and spiritually
safe, and that element was missing for me.
Around
the same time, my favorite teachers Jen (Schell) and Jane (Cable) were suddenly gone. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I overheard (and proceeded to eavesdrop!) on
a classmate’s discussion about a new hot yoga studio in town. I immediately went home, searched the
Internet, and found that new studio - Revolution Hot Yoga. Both Jen
and Jane were on the schedule as teachers. I
couldn’t wait to check it out.
My
work schedule got crazy in October 2013, and I took a couple of weeks off from
yoga. When my schedule lessened, I just couldn’t bring myself to return to my previous studio and instead took
advantage of the introductory week at Revolution Hot Yoga. I was instantly
hooked because it was different, in a very good
way. I felt safe there, and I wasn’t just a customer. I immediately felt
like part of a community.
Although
I loved my experience during that first week, I had some financial difficulties
that kept me from going for a while. In
total I was away from hot yoga for 6 weeks.
I had been struggling quite a bit during this time and one day, my fiancee said to me, “Love, you need to find a way to get back to
yoga.” It was then that I realized how meaningful it was to my life.
So I
emailed Rebecca (Jordan-Turner), explained my absence, and told her about my eating disorder. I’m not sure why I told her, because I barely
knew her and at this point, I'd only shared my diagnosis with a few close
friends. But I felt like I could trust
her and that I needed to tell her, and she helped me find my way back to the RHY studio.
Her loving, encouraging, and supportive words
brought me mentally back where I needed to be, and now I am a regular. I try to
practice 4 or 5 days a week, if I can. I don't think that it would be overstating it to say that hot yoga has been life
changing for me. I feel stronger mentally, emotionally, and physically with
every class and more connected to my
body and mind with every drop of sweat that hits the mat.
Hot yoga is essential to my life in so many
ways. I may still hate the heat, but strangely enough, my body
and soul crave it now. Hot yoga is what
keeps me on the path of recovery.
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| This is Joanne's yoga story. |
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| Go to RHY website |
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