Hip and Tranquil

I was inspired to sign up for the yoga seminar during one of my "10-minutes of quiet" mornings. I had been going back and forth about whether or not to attend and the direction I got was, "Attend!"

So I was really looking forward to it despite the fact that it would interrupt my Saturday morning coffee shop routine with Pete and Ava. But the point was "new and different" so I just made up my mind to make it okay.

I drove up slowly to the place and kept on driving slowly past it. Like three times. I was intimidated by all the "yogis" passing by with their pretty mats and swirly paraphernalia and here I was with a borrowed mat, running pants, and a couple of diapers I'd forgotten to remove from my gym bag.

The GPS that we got for Christmas kept saying, "arriving at Maureen's seminar" and when I kept driving by it would say, "recalculating...turn right to arrive at Maureen's seminar"...and so it went for three more rounds.

Third time (it's a charm, right?) I parked the car and went in. Most everyone was so normal- nice. There were about 30 woman, ranging in age from early 20's to mid- to late-50's.

I didn't have any expectations. All I knew was this: I liked my comfort zone, I was good at strength poses, not good at flexibility ones, and I was looking forward to the goal setting activities we'd get into.

I sat next to a girl (I guess I should say woman but I don't feel old enough for that yet) who had the kindest smile ever. She was long an pretty, like a harp. We hit it off well.

After a little bit of introduction and some drama-sharing (not on my part because I really have none) we started our yoga. Breathing was the focus (inhale exhale in case some of you forgot how, I know I do most of the time).

After an hour of breathing and twisting and humility (on my part) we sat down to write in our journals. These are the prompts I want to share with you. Think about them, write about them, even if you only have two minutes. You'll be amazed how far you can get:

1. Where am I struggling?
2. What am I most proud of?
3. What is my biggest dream?
4. What is holding me back?
5. What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?

I wish we had spent more time on those prompts--but other activities took their place. Ones that were good, but like I said, would've rathered the time to plunge a bit more into those questions. I was surprised at where some of my answers took me.

So bottom line: just make up your mind to make it okay and try something completely new and different. If nothing else, you might make a new friend (or two).

::

Splurge Tuesday:

I've really been great about not spending money lately, so I'm a little lean on the monetary splurge side of things...but today I am taking Ava to another program at the library. Rock n' Roll Toddlers. Did I mention that she can sing the first verse of the Beatles' Strawberry Fields?