I can feel it... the end. I know I have said it in previous posts, but I honestly couldn't even imagine what "the end" of this 60 Day Bikram Challenge would feel like. When it started the excitement of doing something new and challenging myself kept me going. Around Day 30 all I could think about is, "Why am I doing this again." And now after class #58 today, I am so proud of myself. I am going to do this.
I was Blessed this week, by my two best girlfriends coming to their first Bikram class to support me. Felicia hated every 90 minutes of Bikram yesterday and I'm pretty sure Lisa felt the same way today. Neither one of them liked it or saw why I would want to do such a crazy thing. I don't know if I was expecting them to fall deeply in love with the practice, (which clearly they did not), but I thought maybe they'd see why I have a new love affair with this yoga. It actually does make me smile though when I think about it. Good friends are so priceless. They support you when they don't know what they are getting into and trust you to stay in a 105 degree room for 90 minutes. And they cheer you on when they have no clue why you decided to do a crazy challenge involving HOT A** yoga class for 60 days straight. I can honestly say I have some of the best friends a girl could ever ask for.
A few weeks ago I was searching (i love google), about Bikram's 60 day Challenge. One of the sites of a fellow yogi that I came across explained that the first 30 days of the Challenge is physical. Your body will change drastically and you feel yourself getting stronger. CHECK! The last 30 days is mental and you will stretch in ways you never thought possible. CHECK!
It's funny how even though I took this practice serious when I started 6 months ago, you really do hold yourself back mentally even when your body can and will keep going. For example, I realized as I was talking to my little sister tonight one thing that really threw me.
Since day one of yoga I have HATED the triangle posture (this is not my first mention of my hatred of triangle). It was the worst thing I have ever had to do physically and I would sike myself out the whole beginning of the class until it came time and at some point would lay down and give up. Ever since last week when one of my favorite teachers, Carlos threw a stuffed tiger at me in class and told me to get "Bengal Tiger Strength" in front of the entire class, I changed. I haven't laid down once during Triangle posture. Not once! There is no coincidence here.... I have stopped thinking about it and now I just do it.
WOW... in what other areas of my life am I doing this?
"The last 30 days of the challenge is mental....."
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.".... You must do the thing you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt