Why is it that good and bad things never arrive separately? When you’re having a bad day, or have a ton to do, there’s nothing more awesome than for it to go south. NOT. I had one of those days this week. One of those days where what I really wanted to do was curl up into a ball in front of the TV while watching Pretty Little Liars. And yet, that was not an option. So what do you do when the day is insane and you have no escape? Yoga? Probably not, but you can use the lessons you learn from yoga to breathe through it.
I am going to Canada next week for work. A company I work for has a booth at a fitness convention and I am in charge of preparing all of the product and swag for the event. This includes shipping it all to the show site so that it is there when we arrive next week. No big deal, right? Well this is my first international show = terrifying. Thankfully I had some experienced help with preparing paperwork etc., but I did need to get all of the stuff together. This required many trips to UPS, FedEx, and my boss’s garage in the middle of the 100˚ heat. Not such a problem, except that I hate heat with a vengeance. So on Tuesday, I track down a large enough shipping tube for a poster we need, barely squeeze it into my car, and drive over to the office. Easily 100˚ outside and I am sweating up a storm. As a side note, I like to think that not having A/C in my car provides me with the passive opportunity to sweat out all my impurities. Who needs hot yoga when you can just drive around for a few hours? I’m sure I sweat about the same (haha!). I get to the office to find the door is locked. My office is inside of a Pilates studio, and on the rare occasion that there are no more appointments scheduled for the afternoon, the doors get locked. But this time, they weren’t just locked. The alarm was set too! In my heat-induced stupor, I freaked out and entered the wrong security code. When I entered the right code, the whole system made some weird noise and went silent. Hoping that all was fine, I went to work stuffing this 6ft poster into the largest shipping tube you’ll ever see. I seriously could fend off attackers with that thing. Anyways, about 15 minutes later, a cop knocks on the door!!! Of course it’s the locked front door and I can’t find the keys, so I end up running around the studio like an idiot, just hoping that the cop doesn’t think I’m trying sneak out the back door. Plead my case to Mr. Cop Man, who really could care less about me as his Cop friend is trying to pull over a car on the street and is being thwarted by an insanely slow pedestrian in front of his squad car (haha). I get all the packages together, read the instructions for the labels only to find I need a pouch. Now this information would have been useful during the three trips I made to FedEx, but we must make each mistake at least once. So back into the sauna mobile to grab some pouches. It’s about this time that I wished I were home with PLL, but alas, that was not an option. So what to do?
Hopefully you have someone in your life that can put you into check when you get a little crazy. Lucky for me, I have two of those people who remind me to breathe when I get wild. And so I did. All of those long inhales I did on the mat, both during my practice and savasana served me well, as I was able to calm down and prevent a major meltdown. Best part is everything is fine. And isn’t that how it always turns out? We freak out over so many things, and yet in the end they turn out ok. And if they don’t, maybe it was never meant to be…
Moral of the story is this – it does not matter what the situation or circumstances are. If you can take a deep breath, whenever and wherever, you can help yourself to calm down. It’s built into your physiology and even if you try to resist it, your body knows better. So try it! Next time you feel yourself starting to lose control over a situation and it causes you anxiety, see if you can bring your focus back to your breath. It is one of the tools we always have, so might as well put it to good use.
I am going to Canada next week for work. A company I work for has a booth at a fitness convention and I am in charge of preparing all of the product and swag for the event. This includes shipping it all to the show site so that it is there when we arrive next week. No big deal, right? Well this is my first international show = terrifying. Thankfully I had some experienced help with preparing paperwork etc., but I did need to get all of the stuff together. This required many trips to UPS, FedEx, and my boss’s garage in the middle of the 100˚ heat. Not such a problem, except that I hate heat with a vengeance. So on Tuesday, I track down a large enough shipping tube for a poster we need, barely squeeze it into my car, and drive over to the office. Easily 100˚ outside and I am sweating up a storm. As a side note, I like to think that not having A/C in my car provides me with the passive opportunity to sweat out all my impurities. Who needs hot yoga when you can just drive around for a few hours? I’m sure I sweat about the same (haha!). I get to the office to find the door is locked. My office is inside of a Pilates studio, and on the rare occasion that there are no more appointments scheduled for the afternoon, the doors get locked. But this time, they weren’t just locked. The alarm was set too! In my heat-induced stupor, I freaked out and entered the wrong security code. When I entered the right code, the whole system made some weird noise and went silent. Hoping that all was fine, I went to work stuffing this 6ft poster into the largest shipping tube you’ll ever see. I seriously could fend off attackers with that thing. Anyways, about 15 minutes later, a cop knocks on the door!!! Of course it’s the locked front door and I can’t find the keys, so I end up running around the studio like an idiot, just hoping that the cop doesn’t think I’m trying sneak out the back door. Plead my case to Mr. Cop Man, who really could care less about me as his Cop friend is trying to pull over a car on the street and is being thwarted by an insanely slow pedestrian in front of his squad car (haha). I get all the packages together, read the instructions for the labels only to find I need a pouch. Now this information would have been useful during the three trips I made to FedEx, but we must make each mistake at least once. So back into the sauna mobile to grab some pouches. It’s about this time that I wished I were home with PLL, but alas, that was not an option. So what to do?
Hopefully you have someone in your life that can put you into check when you get a little crazy. Lucky for me, I have two of those people who remind me to breathe when I get wild. And so I did. All of those long inhales I did on the mat, both during my practice and savasana served me well, as I was able to calm down and prevent a major meltdown. Best part is everything is fine. And isn’t that how it always turns out? We freak out over so many things, and yet in the end they turn out ok. And if they don’t, maybe it was never meant to be…
Moral of the story is this – it does not matter what the situation or circumstances are. If you can take a deep breath, whenever and wherever, you can help yourself to calm down. It’s built into your physiology and even if you try to resist it, your body knows better. So try it! Next time you feel yourself starting to lose control over a situation and it causes you anxiety, see if you can bring your focus back to your breath. It is one of the tools we always have, so might as well put it to good use.
