Tags
Autumn, Charity Miles, engaged, Fall, Fall 2015, Fitness, Health, Lifestyle, national yoga month, September, Wedding, wedding planning, Wellness, yoga
If you’ve been keeping up with my Instagram lately, you’ve likely noticed it’s taken a slight, okay sudden, turn from nail polish and beauty to fitness and health. Earlier this year, I got engaged and instead of it being this super duper happy bubbly experience I thought it was going to be, it turned out to be ridiculously stressful. As a result, I threw myself into fitness to alleviate the stress and while it’s helped immensely with stress, it also led to focus more on my inner and outer health. Things have calmed down thankfully, not fighting with my mom and fiance helps a ton although the Catholic church is being hugely annoying so there is still stress coming from that ugh, I’ve found a really productive way to channel that stress and deal with it: yoga.
I’ve always taken at least a weekly yoga class at the gym, normally Saturday mornings, as a way to decompress from the week and used to do a couple of sun salutations every morning as a way to wake up my body and stretch a bit but I’ve gotten deeper into yoga and its benefits over the summer. I took it beyond the gym and went in search of studios that specialized in yoga and offered a wide array of different yoga based classes. I took my first Bikram class back in May and have really come to enjoy it. It seems delusional that someone would enjoy being in an 105 degrees Fahrenheit room for 90 minutes but if you’ve never taken it before, I promise you it’s not that bad and although it’s not for everyone, I urge you to give it a chance. Hot sculpt yoga with weights has come to be my favorite forms of yoga and if there’s a Core Power Yoga near you, I strongly suggest you get in there and take some hot sculpt classes, they’re amazing!
The studio I normally go to for barre classes (they also specialize in yoga, TRX, and Spin) offered a 108 Sun Salutations for the Autumnal Equinox in honor of National Yoga Month and I immediately signed up because I thought it sounded pretty cool! Also all the proceeds went towards charity and that is something I can always get behind. I’d never heard of 108 Sun Salutations however it’s pretty cut and dry- it’s literally a class dedicated to 108 sun salutations in order to usher in the seasons, namely Spring and Fall, and while it seems pretty simple, it was more than that. I
I’ve never counted the number of sun salutations I do in a typical yoga class however I am fairly certain it is nowhere near 108 and halfway through the class in a puddle of sweat (no the room wasn’t heated I just sweat like a heathen) I started to think “Lord how am I going to get through this?!” When the instructor told us we were only at the halfway point I was like “HOW?!” She did warn us beforehand that the class would be challenging but we would get through it, all we needed to do was draw ourselves inward, breathe, and focus. Just connect our breath with our body and movements and focus on that. After a while I found myself centered, at peace, and flowing through my vinyasas with ease of mind and before I knew it we were done. Small breaks in between helped!
I’m really glad I went to the class. I always have thought to bring in the changing of seasons with different wardrobes or nail polishes, and that hasn’t changed, but I do think this class was a cool way to usher in the Fall and say goodbye to summer. I also feel more connected and aware of what this season will bring. I’m Catholic and there are 108 beads on the rosary so in some interesting way, I’m looking at this experience as a Rosary Prayer intention for a good and blessed Fall. I hope to tap into that same focus and peace of mind I felt as I take continue to blog, plan this wedding, change careers, get my Spin certification (something I’ve been wanting to do for a while), and take one all the wonderful and unexpected things life brings! Hopefully you all did something to welcome in the Fall and say goodbye to summer, whether it was grabbing drinks with your girlfriends, going for a run, saying a prayer, pulling out your Fall wardrobe, or doing 108 Sun Salutations!