Yeah, my body’s telling me I shouldn’t be blogging or working whatsoever right now. But, as usual, I defy it. I’m sick. Feels as bad as swine flu, but it’s probably just a common cold — sore throat, fatigue, chills. Still, I have something to share, and I think it’s important because a lot of us are feeling anxious and tired and stressed out right now.

See, I’ve kind of had enough of fear, anxiety and stress lately. It’s, like, ENOUGH. The stress, guilt and anxiety of motherhood, work, work, work and work is just too much. And it’s not anybody’s fault but my own. Because, when I look at the whole picture, it is seriously ALL GOOD! It’s ME. ME. ME who needs to CHILL OUT.

Anyway, as you may know from prior posts, I don’t get a lot of sleep because it’s hard to sleep with a two-year-old ON TOP OF YOU. And this overtiredness, as my pregnancy-depression psychiatrist used to repeatedly remind me, is a recipe for major anxiety. INDEED, I’ve always been a big believer that the body is WISE and produces emotions like anxiety to tell us something needs to change.

Of course, there are definitely external factors involved, too. All the hype about the swine flu doesn’t help: MILLIONS TO BE INFECTED BY THE PLAGUE, the newspaper headlines read. Egad. Media. Buggers. Fear mongers. All this media hype is just a constant, anxious reminder to me that life is so damn fragile.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Gahh! I was all set to vaccinate, and then my usually-pro-vaccination pediatrician said “HELL NO”! Gahh! (And I’m not allowed to research medical things on the internet…because I get anxious.)

My throat — it HURTS. This better not be THE PLAGUE.

BUT.

Yesterday I went to yoga class.

And it all went away.

The fog of fear and noise and guilt that I’ve been living under every day for months (I haven’t been to class in 4 months) miraculously lifted. And it’s possible I reached what might be termed BLISS.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not being hokey here, even though I’m all for hokey. I’m not saying I reached any kind of spiritual-nirvana-type bliss while standing on my head or bending backwards with one leg up, no. Just a kind of JOY. I did something for myself. I BREATHED. I stretched. I enjoyed. I laughed. I joked. A lot. I was SO excited to be there. And to think I’d been dreading it. To think I’d had to FORCE myself to get to that yoga class — didn’t think I had the time in my day, and didn’t think I could lie there or sit there or stretch or breathe without writhing in anxiety. But, it was so easy.

In the hour-and-forty-five-minute class, we did a full forty-five minutes of pranayama — or breathing exercises — which is intense after four months of NOTHING. And I felt relaxed, and lighter and stronger and tighter in the right places and looser in the right places than what feels like YEARS.

I’d been WONDERING how to increase my energy, and here was my answer loud and clear. I’d been WONDERING how to stop racing against time, and here was my answer. It may have taken an hour and forty five minutes from my day, but the “presence” it gave me lasted throughout the day and made me feel as if I had all the time in the world for everything.

It was a big epiphany realizing I could escape my anxiety, ground myself in the here and now, and feel so damn good, at ANY TIME, with just a little breathing or sitting quietly and — from now on, come hell or high water — a weekly yoga class.

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