Breathe

it's week 7 and right now i feel like everyone's just doing what they can to put in their time and get through the week. Yesterday was a hell of a day for me, solid morning class, then the rain came down.. literally. the sky was grey and it poured all morning. First posture clinic was not great. I was told I was struggling to much with perfection and I needed to get over it.. not great feedback.. the night before I had been told that I sounded tentative which is even worse. There's nothing worse than a teacher that's tentative because it sounds like they have no idea what there talking about. So i went into afternoon class feeling pretty shitty, and i was upset about silly odds and ends that are totally outta my control. I was on the foot from the start...

The tears started midway through first breathing, which was just awkward because i was right smack dab in front of the teacher. I got the tears under control, but the whole class i felt like i was fighting an anxiety attack. I don't know why but it was such astruggle to breathe. I found myself holding my breath in every posture which is pretty much exactly what you're not supposed to do. and i know that too, which made it even worse. By the time final breathing rolled around, i had myself worked up pretty good, and when we got into savasanah the teacher started singing to us some beatles song (this is the training of the beatles i swear) anyhow, the tears came flooding out. I cried and cried and cried. I layed there balled up in the fetal position for a good 10-15 minutes and i still walked out choking on tears. it was not pretty. we got in the elevator packed with 6 other people and i choked out to erika "Oh, god, INAPPROPRIATE MOMENT!" (my worst fear is that i'm gonna start crying at an inappropriate moment.. such as in posture clininc, in front of bikram, or as the case may be- in the middle of an elevator ride.

Long story shorter, i pulled myself together, realized as much as i wanted to curl up and take a break from life for a few days that was not an option. I had to just keep going. I had to fake it or make it. So i cleaned myself up, did my hair, put make up on, smiled at myself and told myself i was going to bring it at posture clinic. and bring it i did. We were up for camel pose which for some reason seemed scary as hell, and to make matters worse, the teacher that was proctoring our group just had to be the same teacher that taught class. I was mortified. all i wanted to do was apologize to him for my shitty class and tears. Instead, I jumped my ass up, and was the first volunteer.

I f-ing delivered it. I gave it up, and afterwards he kinda laughed and told me I was like a superhero or something. (my hair did look a little supergirl status-- it was all poufed up and I was wearing some sort of red white and blue shirt) he told me it was pretty powerful. i explained to him, that i needed it to be that way, for me. and then i proceeded to apologize for my terrible horrible, class... in front of everyone, he gave me sort of a blank stare and said he hadn't really noticed, and that he doesn't judge people by there practice... without even thinking i blurted out, well, that's okay becasue I judged myself for it. He siad he noticed, as did everyone else in the room i'm sure. i could feel the rising tears in my voice and i was shaking life a leaf. He was pretty cool though and i think that he understood that i needed to get this posture out to prove it to myself. he did tell me i should add a little warmth to my voice next time which is funny because that's the first time i've ever heard that.

there were a lot of good lessons to be learned though. For starters, I'm proud of myself that I got my shit together and was still able to deliver despite how i felt. I'm glad I realized that the students don't need, pay for, or deserve a teacher that brings her own issues into the room. Any bad attitude or personal problem needs to be left at the door. Second though I need to lay off the judgement. I always say i don't judge, but the truth is, I judge myself all the time. I think everyone's worst critic is themselves. Now i need to remember that i do have super powers, everyone does, I just have to rely on the energy inside of me, but still bring with it my heart which makes me me.


(Sidenote: i've got my breath back. today i relished in every breath i took and today's classes were damn near lovely.)