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I’ve Got the Power

13 Aug

Peacock Power

I am now in the last month of my Hanged Man growth cycle year and have been reflecting on the breakdown/breakthrough opportunities this year brought me. As I shared in the post SPARKLE = POWER, I realize that this process of breaking and releasing stuck patterns, although it can be challenging and painful, leads to freedom and reclaiming power. Power is a major component in my personal definition of beauty. Here are some ways I claimed my POWER this year:

+ Bikram Yoga 3 times a week = has helped with my health,  my energy level, my back pain, feeling strong and POWERful in my body, and creating more and more flexibility and openness physically and emotionally – not to mention feeling strong and powerful in my body also helps me feel hot and sexy!

+ Chiropractic = chronic back pain resurfacing served as an opportunity to heal the patterns in my spine… I committed to a healing process with Dr. Jennifer Liming at the end of April and this month was featured as her Patient of the Month due to my success (read my testimonial here to learn how Dr. Jennifer can help to turn your POWER on: Dr. Jennifer’s testimonial)

+ Seeking my own approval = in June I took the brave step to separate from my husband (healing love to him) whose inability to deeply value and desire my beauty created internal questioning of my worth physically, emotionally & spiritually, leading me deeper into my own reclaiming beauty process

+ Sitting with aloneness = rather than dwelling on the perceived rejection from the breakdown of my relationship, I have been working on deeply loving and accepting myself in my aloneness, recognizing that in order to stand POWERfully in intimate relationships my next lover needs to be ME

A POEM that has been guiding this process for me:

Unconditional

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is purest delight;
To honor its form–true devotion.

- Jennifer Welwood

And a SONG  that is my current MANTRA and has been guiding this process for me: I’ve Got The Power - by SNAP

Another song from my POWER playlist… oh, Kanye, you are so very pompous, but we could all use a bit of your CONFIDENCE: Power – by Kanye West

Today I stand with confidence that I am doing the challenging work of walking my Reclaiming Beauty talk with integrity. I can be a testament to the truth that this process of Walking in Beauty is hard, but so worth it.

I would love to hear ways you have been claiming your POWER this year. In the comments below, please share some of your power wielding inspiration.

If you are interested in learning more about your tarot PERSONALITY/SOUL symbols and your current GROWTH CYCLE YEAR, send me an email. I am currently offering tarot readings that will include this information on a sliding scale.

In the words of Kanye… At the end of the day, I’m killing this sh%t!,

I’ve got the power!

~Heidi

Image: Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson

How to be Beautiful for the Rest of Your Life

25 Jun

Skills: Yoga

from Contributor: Mado Hesselink

I have never been a pretty girl. The asymmetry of my face made that an undeniable truth from the time I cared. Though I will never be pretty to everyone, to the right person I am beautiful. This is because beauty is about spark and connection more than textures, colors, and proportions. Beauty can deepen over time, prettiness only fades.

The body is but a vehicle that carries us through life in the physical realm. Like any vehicle, it is destined to age and eventually cease functioning. This can occur suddenly as in a car crash: our flesh vehicle and metal vehicle fittingly becoming “totaled” at the same moment. Or it can occur slowly, one piece of rust at a time.

The cult of youth and beauty that dominates advertising and media in most of the world both belies and preys upon the inexorable process of aging and death. It belies it by implying that there is some sort of inherent value in youth and preys upon it by either explicitly or implicitly offering a solution.

There is an undeniable spark of beauty in youth, but it comes precisely from its impermanence. If anything, youth itself is mostly wasted under the assumption that it will last forever. It is only when we become aware that it will fade that we are motivated to savor its’ gifts. My mother discovered last summer that she had a very rare form of cancer. After surgery and recovery, some of the symptoms came back. She described to me how very very alive she felt in the weeks before the last round of tests showed that the cancer had not actually returned. As soon as the relief of immanent death faded, so did the heightened state of awareness.

Some yogic and Buddhist texts and teachers recommend meditating on your own death every day. Not only will this fill you with zest for the present, but it will also prepare you to go gracefully when the time comes. The impermanence of your body makes defining your identity by your looks an incredibly folly – and yet that is exactly what so many do. This is taken to extremes by the people (mostly women) who totally transform their bodies through plastic surgery. The illusion that they can control aging only lasts so long before their looks begin to take on a tinge of monstrosity.

While plastic surgery addicts are an extreme example, most of us undertake similar craziness to a lesser degree. We shave our legs. Color our hair. Slather our skin with make up. Lay under ultra-violet rays increasing our chance of cancer in the name of a certain shade of bronze. I’m not saying any of this is bad or wrong. Simply that most of it is futile and misguided. How much time, energy, and money are we spending to change the way we look? On our deathbeds, looking back at our lives, how likely are we to think “I’m so glad I spent 1000 hours on my makeup throughout my life!”

Does any of it even work? Does all that effort really make us more beautiful? I propose a resounding no. Passion and vitality are more likely to come across as beauty at any age than layers of make-up and expensive clothes. The older we become, the more glaring the futility of all our efforts.

The yogic texts recommend non-attachment as a remedy for the suffering that arises from the inevitably changing world. Non-attachment does not necessitate indifference. As with any vehicle, to neglect it is a foolish act of ingratitude. I love my body and this love deepens with each passing year. I tend it carefully as an act of love. I nourish it with healthy food, strengthen it with exercise, and pamper it with baths and colorful clothes. I watch with fascination as it changes, muscles forming in my calves, silver appearing in my hair, lines framing my lips. None of this belongs to me. I am a rider, a passenger, and yet also a steward. Everything is beautiful from the right perspective. So turn, and look again, from another angle. There you are. Fully alive, vital, passionate, and yes, beautiful.

About the Contributor:

Mado Hesselink is a yoga teacher in Asheville, NC.  In addition to yoga she enjoys staying active with gardening, hiking, crossfit, and aerial arts.  She writes articles about living yoga on her website: http://www.trueselfyoga.com and she is also the founder of http://www.teachingyoga.net.

Bikram Yoga and Reclaiming Beauty

15 May

I came back to Bikram Yoga last fall because I was ready for the challenge. I had entered my Hanged Man growth cycle – a year to break and release stuck patterns that rob us of our power – and saw the strength, focus and will required of a committed Bikram Yoga practice as exactly what I needed to get Unstuck and Powered On. The teachers often say, “If you can do 90 minutes in the hot room, you can do anything.” Whenever I hear this statement, I wonder what the other students in class are working towards as their “anything”. For me, it is taking the brave step from my safe, stable job to starting my own business as a Reclaiming Beauty coach.

My vision as a Reclaiming Beauty coach is to help women identify and overcome obstacles to embracing their beauty, develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their unique beauty and create a vision to share their strengths and passions with the world. My definition of beauty is inspired by the Native American concept to walk in beauty. I believe a woman is walking in her beauty when she stands confidently in Self-Knowledge – embodying strength, power and a sense of meaning and purpose for her life. A main obstacle on my own Beauty Walk has been self-doubt in my ability to stand consistently in my own power. My intentional choice to head back to Bikram Yoga in the fall, with a goal of taking class 3 times a week, was to practice showing up to myself through the ups and downs, to burn away that which no longer serves me and to get my feminine nature (emotions, sensitivity, compassion, intuition) back in balance with the masculine (strength, power, determination, will).

So – be careful what you wish for, right? One of the phenomenons that happen with a committed Bikram Yoga practice is something called unraveling. The protective layers of muscle, tissue and fascia around old injuries begin to heal and when they do, these injuries will resurface to be healed on a deeper level. So, not surprisingly, an old, chronic back injury resurfaced for me. Enter a stuck pattern – I am so hard on myself when I have back pain episodes. I feel weak, fragile and depressed. It feels like proof that even my body can not be consistently well. My particular pain gets irritated by all of the things I do in my work – driving, sitting at the computer and sitting with clients for counseling. And the pain makes it difficult to play and be with my son with the ease I desire. It is hard to be gentle with myself.

The last time this injury resurfaced in a hard-core way was debilitating emotionally. I had just completed graduate school and was headed up to Massachusetts to complete a yoga therapy program. My vision had been to use my counseling training and conventional credentials as a Licensed Professional Counselor to anchor work as a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist. I took the 15 hour road trip from Asheville to western Massachusetts, and when I got out of the car, my back literally froze up. I spent most of the two week training lying on my side. When I came home, the pain and injury got in the way of being able to do the physical aspect of the yoga therapy work. I gave up hope that my body would ever be well enough to do this work. It even hurt to practice yoga (the Bikram studio wasn’t here in Asheville yet), so I gave up hope that yoga could heal. I felt defeated. I descended into depression.

This time around, I was prepared to face this injury in a new way. I believe firmly in the healing power of Bikram Yoga if you keep showing up to the practice, no matter what is happening in your body. However, in the face of my pain I struggle not to go to a place of defeat, so I decided to seek additional support through chiropractic care. My chiropractor, Dr Jennifer Liming,  is healing and amazing and I value her thoroughness and the objective tools she uses to measure the healing process. This measurable data helped reassure me that even in the ups and downs of the unraveling, I was still moving forward. The first month I went to her 3 times a week. The pain came and went as the process unfolded. But what happened in week 4 took me by surprise.

During this week, my worst fear came true. The floodgates opened and I cried the entire week. I was descending into the darkness. I would never be stable enough to make my business dreams come true. My husband didn’t love me because I was too emotional. I was a terrible Mom because Joey would grow up remembering my mood swings. Darkness. Drowning. Failure.

Another opportunity to break an old pattern – I did not give into defeat. I kept showing up to myself on the yoga mat, and on about day 7 of this breakdown, I had a realization. As one of my spiritual teachers says breakdown = breakthrough. My breakthrough – just as the physical protective layers of my old injury were resurfacing, so was the related emotional content. The yoga healing process I was experiencing is exactly what I ask of my clients; to explore the protective parts of their nature to allow the more vulnerable aspects to surface and heal. It is a process that requires so much courage to stay present and not avoid/shut down/run like hell. As the physical protective layers were healing, the stale emotions and limiting beliefs woven into my bodymind were surfacing and flooding me. I had a choice; to play them out in the old way and stay stuck, or to break and release the pattern to create freedom. I am choosing freedom… it is my Hanged Man year, after all.

Even though I am still in the middle of his process, I know it is a major milestone on my Reclaiming Beauty journey. I am thankful for the beautiful and inspiring teachers at the Asheville Bikram Yoga studio who provide an encouraging space for anyone to embark on a similar healing journey. I’m going to keep showing up. I’ll continue to take steps towards reclaiming my own power, so I can offer the Reclaiming Beauty work with authenticity and integrity.

I honor the beauty in you from the beauty in me,

Walk in beauty,

Heidi

Image: Ardha-Kurmasana (Half-Tortoise Pose), a particularly healing pose for what ails me

Hot Tip Tuesday: Pay Attention to the Signs

8 Nov

Hot Tip for today: Pay Attention to the Signs

Whatever it is you are currently working with on your Reclaiming Beauty journey, pay attention to the signs and guidance provided to you by Spirit, the Divine, the Universe. Seemingly random coincidences may have deeper meaning pointing you in the direction of your next steps.

This Hot Tip comes straight from my own current experience since transitioning into a Hanged Man year. I have been receiving lots of nudges from the Universe about how to break and release stuck patterns in order to claim my Power and I am so glad I am PAYING ATTENTION.

For example, when I was unable to complete training for a 1/2 marathon this Fall, I noticed I was feeling drawn back out into the world to practice yoga in community. However, to my great surprise, my body was longing for the hot torture chamber of Bikram Yoga rather than returning to my familiar styles of Anusara and Flow. Within a week I had a massage with a woman who loves to spread the good news of her Bikram yoga practice, then ran into a friend at the Oakley gas station who was headed over to the Bikram studio. I took these as divine messages, stepped back into the Hot Room and have been so glad I did. The Bikram style of yoga is complementary to the current work of my Reclaiming Beauty journey. Doing the practice in a room heated to 105 degrees has been great for detoxing physically, mentally and emotionally as well as helping me to cultivate greater discipline, power and determination.

The Universe has been providing continued nudges on exploring Power as well. For example, a fellow mama recommended a great parenting book, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for Turning Conflict Into Cooperation by Becky A. Bailey. The main point of this book is that as parents we must learn to discipline ourselves before we can discipline our children. The author suggests Seven Powers for Self-Control. Her ideas about the connection between discipline and power are really speaking to me and I am sure I will be blogging more about them in the future. Also, when sharing some of my current challenges with my dear friend and tarot mentor, Amy McKissick Reamy, she recommended a book, The Power, by Rhonda Byrne. I accepted the nudge, bought the audiobook, and have begun to listen with open ears.

And then yesterday on my Google Reader came this post about this very same subject, Divine Synchronicity, from Gabrielle Bernstein, author of the book Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. (I haven’t read this book, but I like the title! Anyone out there read it or recommend it?)

I’m paying attention to the signs.

For further reading on this subject, I recommend Mary Swanson’s post Grace Under Pressure: Reading the Signs from my favorite blog, Build Altars. And if you want more, I also recommend the first book I ever read that introduced me to this juicy subject, The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield. (I can still picture myself devouring this book on a plane from Colorado to North Carolina the first time I read it in 1995.)

What kind of signs is the Universe currently offering you on your Reclaiming Beauty journey?

Please comment, I would love to hear your stories.

Image: Design Crush

My Fiesta

30 Sep

Skills: Beauty Found

from Contributor: Jane Lawson

originally published in Western North Carolina Woman magazine

Windows on the Body
The Church says: The body is a sin
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The body says: I am a fiesta.
– From Walking Words by Eduardo Galeano

My journey in this lifetime has taken some interesting twists and turns. My body and the way I treat it, live in it, feel about it, view it, and think about it have utilized more of my physical, emotional, and mental energy than practically any other topic. My identification with it and belief that it is who I am has caused me to do some pretty strange things over the years.

As a young girl, I didn’t give my body a whole lot of thought. I was just living in it, and it was pretty wonderful. I had energy to burn and spent my days playing freely and just being. I was a tomboy and especially loved playing tennis. In fact, I played tennis all day long during the summer, and I loved winning.

The ease of this time came to a halt around the age of 12, when puberty hit. Suddenly, I found myself crying for no reason, and my body was changing beyond my control. My family moved, and I was in unfamiliar territory. I started losing tennis matches. My body became The Enemy. I hated myself and didn’t feel at home in my own skin. Thus began the roller coaster of gaining and losing the same 15 pounds over and over again for years.

My self-esteem was inversely proportional to my weight. When I was heavier, I felt defeated, depressed, and unlikable. When I was lighter, I felt happier, more confident, and attractive. Yet I was always fearful of gaining the weight back and thus could never really be present with myself. I developed elaborate routines and rituals around food and exercise. I tried every diet known to man and fasted on a regular basis. My appearance and how others viewed me was central to my self-concept.

As a young adult a couple of things happened that helped me get a healthier perspective on my body. I moved to the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina and lived a “back-to-the-land” lifestyle for several years. This was liberating in many ways and gave me an opportunity to experience myself in connection to the land. I felt I was a part of the earth and could begin to feel the rhythms of life vibrating through me. My body size literally began to carry less weight in my self-concept. I also began dancing. This helped me to discover that my body could move creatively and express deep feelings without having to adhere to rules and winning, as in competitive sports. I felt like I had found myself again.

I became a dance therapist. This wonderful avenue helped me to resonate with my body and also gave me the opportunity to encourage others to do the same. I found myself drawn to working with women who were suffering from depression and low self-esteem. Many had eating disorders and body image distortions. Through years of working in this way, I became more and more convinced that many women in our culture live with varying levels of anguish regarding their bodies. I discovered that even the women with “perfect bodies” are not necessarily happy with themselves, and so many buy into the never-ending cycles of dieting, cosmetic surgeries, and shopping addictions in a desperate effort to feel better.

In the worldviews of many, the overwhelming desire to lose weight and look young and thin overrides everything else. I found that counseling and movement therapy work was helping these women address the issues underlying their problems and was making a dent in the armor of the self-hatred and depression. However, over the years my inner voice kept telling me there had to be a way to help people connect more deeply with their true self.

In the last few years, another great opening has occurred in my life that has shifted my perspective on this issue in a much more profound way. My inner experiences while practicing meditation and yoga have helped me to discern a great understanding. It is the growing knowledge that we are so much MORE than our bodies; that our bodies are really our vehicles for enlightenment, for knowing who we really are.

Our bodies are the gift we have all been given to experience the energy that flows through everyone and everything. When we are in touch with this fact and then nurture ourselves so that we can feel more of this joyful energy, things just seem to make sense. This shifts us into another realm of consciousness, into embracing and opening to the sacred energy that is so life giving.

As I try to write about this I realize that words can convey only so much. Eduardo Galeano’s poem “Windows on the Body” says it better than I can. I guess it must be experienced to be understood. I do know that from this perspective, it is essential to cherish our bodies as manifestations of divinity, to nourish them with healthy foods and healthy activity, to aim for balance in all of our endeavors, and to open ourselves to the formless and boundlessly compassionate energy that pours through us. It beats the heck out of worrying about carbohydrate grams and wrinkles.

About the Contributor: Jane Lawson, MEd, LPC, MBA is a psychotherapist and energy healer in private practice in Asheville, NC. She also founded Hickory Nut Forest, a sustainable eco-community in Hickory Nut Gorge and Laughing Waters Retreat Center.

Image: from the We’Moon Calendar, Artist Unknown

Bikram yoga class 4/5 and my inner Joe Moretto

27 Sep

Continuing on my journey to balance by seeking more of the masculine archetype in my life…

Although Bikram classes 4/5 were the exact same format, poses and languaging as the first 3 classes, they were very different experiences for me. The initial shock of the heat and detox process was starting to wear off, but I still felt such harshness in the practice. My mind was able to tune more into the languaging of the teacher… and much to my surprise, she wasn’t running the class like a boot camp, she’ wasn’t callously pushing people past their limits, she wasn’t commenting on poor form and “junk bodies” (a quote from the man, Bikram, that utterly offends me.) So I began to wonder… where was this experience of harshness coming from? And of course it didn’t take long to realize, it was my own mind, my inner Joe Moretto.

Joe Moretto was my junior high soccer coach when I played with the Huber Heights, Ohio Warriors Soccer Club. He was rough, callous, totally insenstive, and 100% masculine archetype. He had a daughter, Mary Moretto, who was the toughest girl I knew. She scared me, but she also scared our opponents, so that was good for our team. I loved playing soccer, but was not at all an aggressive player. Both my sisters were soccer players who started playing young, but I was hesitant because of the roughness. Soccer was in our family blood, so it was inevitable for me to start playing. But I was who I was, a sensitive girl, and when I’d get roughed up, I’d usually cry.

I’m reminded of Tom Hanks coach character in the women’s softball league movie A League of Their Own bellowing to one of his players, “There’s no crying in softball!” That was Joe Morreto trying to deal with me.

A childhood memory… a particularly physical soccer game… lots of pushing… yellow cards flying… half time… tears running down my face… Joe Moretto shouting at me, “You’ve got to toughen up!” as he’d push me down on the field, I’d get up, he’d push me down again, “Stop being a baby!” he’d yell, I’d get up, he’d push me down… more tears… then I started seeing red… and off the field I walked.

So here I am in the present, in my yoga class, and my inner Joe Moretto is cracking the whip. I have been practicing yoga for 10 years, and my practice constantly changes. In 2005 I had a mysterious infection that caused me to take antibiotics for 6 months. I was eventually diagnosed with a ureter/kidney infection, and surgery followed. After the surgery, I couldn’t even do a child’s pose without pain. I was toxic city from the antibiotics and the anesthesia. My yoga practice hasn’t been the same, and it has been hard on my ego! So at this point in the Bikram practice, I am face to face with those critical voices. Poses that at one time were natural and easy for me freak me out, make me feel sick, and just plain hurt. That old familiar voice, “Toughen up! Don’t be a baby!” begins to ring loud. It is the shadow side of the masculine archetype haunting my mind.

I say shadow side because of the lack of compassion in the voice. Although my experience with Joe Moretto was a little developmental trauma for me, it was also an experience that taught me a lot. His method was effective in that it helped me access my anger, my boundaries, and as much as I hate to admit it, to toughen up a bit. But again, here’s where the balance comes in… because I need the warrior of the masculine paired with the compassion of the feminine. It really does no good if I am all feminine on the outside, but all masculine inner voices. Developing mindfulness of this external/internal imbalance, I am able to bring some compassion into the places where the inner Joe Moretto fires up.

One final aside… speaking of all feminine on the outside… My body shape is pretty much a reflection of the feminine archetype as well… voluptuos, round belly, sizeable breasts. There are many poses in the Bikram series that are challenging to me due to pure anatomical reasons. It is obvious this series was developed by a man with not much variation for a woman’s curves. There is one particular pose, Dandayama Bibhaktapada Janushirsasana (standing separate leg head to knee pose), where you stand with one foot 3 feet in front of the other, tuck your chin in, arch your back, suck your stomach in and touch your head to your knee. In this pose I basically feel as if I am suffocating in my own cleavage. I can’t help but chuckle at the irony of this experience in the backdrop of exploring the masculine/feminine balance.

Until next time…

Balancing the masculine and feminine

21 Sep

September has been an inspiring month for me. I had an opportunity to hear Dr. Anita Johnston, the author of Eating in the Light of the Moon- how women can transform their relationship to food through myth, metaphor & storytelling, speak in Chattanooga, TN. Dr. Johnston believes that women who struggle with disordered eating and distorted body image have internalized the cultural imbalance of masculine and feminine archetypal energies. The masculine aspects of our culture and ourselves are logical, linear, action and goal oriented and outwardly focused, whereas the feminine aspects are emotional, intuitive and inner and relationship-oriented. She explains, “If there is an imbalance where, for example, the masculine qualities are valued over the feminine, this can lead to an emptiness that a woman tries to fill with food.”

Dr. Anita Johnston’s philosophy resonates deeply with me. As a person who was born with 99.9% feminine archetype, I have experienced the challenges of not fitting in to a culture that prefers the masculine archetype. In my own journey, I have experienced being labeled too sensitive, overly emotional, moody… When I was young, it was hard for me understand that there were gifts in these qualities. It was much easier to make sense of them through the idea that something must be inherently wrong with me. I had many hot chocolate conversations with my dad that centered around the question, “Why me?”

Self-image becomes a tangible place to focus this feeling of wrongness… ‘Oh, I know what it is, I must not be thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough…’ Until a person can honor the gifts that the feminine archetype brings to them, they will continue to struggle with self-esteem issues. Reclaiming a positive self-image is then linked to reclaiming the gifts of the feminine.

As I have learned to honor the feminine within me, I have also learned the importance of developing the masculine in order to create balance internally. My yoga practice has been a place where I have worked on this balance. When I am in balance, I tend to gravitate towards the practice of Anusara Yoga. This type of yoga incorporates an elegant blend of masculine/feminine with its focus on heart-centered, playful alignment and flow. In the yoga tradition it is the balance of Shiva, the male principle throughout creation, and Shakti, the female principle.

Remember, I said that is when I am in balance… which is not so much the case these days. Under stress I tend to revert to my default 99% feminine energy state, and opt for the more flow oriented and restorative yoga classes. But with Dr. Johnston’s reminder of the importance of balance, I decided to try something different, and headed to the newly opened Bikram Yoga Studio here in Asheville.

For those of you who are not familiar with Bikram Yoga, it is a style of yoga practiced in a room heated to 100 degrees. In every class you do the same 26 poses. The teachers tend to emphasize the results of the practice. It is a type of yoga that attracts Type A personalities. This description from the Bikram Yoga website illustrates its masculine archetype leanings: “Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class is a twenty-six asana series designed to scientifically warm and stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons, in the order in which they should be stretched. Bikram Yoga’s twenty-six posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to one hundred percent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to healthy working order, just as Nature intended. Proper weight, muscle tone, vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being will automatically follow.”

OK… so the first class was torture for me. I sweated out my entire summer of Starbucks addiction… nausea, lightheadedness, and a woozy feeling followed. I spent the remainder of the day lying on the couch, drinking water, and nursing a killer headache. However, I was told if I came back soon, these side effects would subside, so I went back the next day. Day 2 I learned another important hot yoga lesson… don’t wear a white t-shirt to a Bikram class. The sweat through my white t-shirt made me look like an entrant in a wet t-shirt contest… The pay off came after my 3rd class. I made it through the class without the nasty detox side effects and noticed increased energy and decreased caffeine craving the next few days. I am looking forward to continuing my exploration of Bikram yoga as a tool to balance the masculine and feminine inside me.

Nature is mirroring this lesson tomorrow, September 22nd, with the Autumnal Equinox… when day and night, light and darkness, are equal in length. It’s the perfect time to practice the embodiment of this balance of masculine and feminine.