In Georgia for the summer I find myself coping with some unrelenting heat and humidity.  I admit to complaining daily but there are those good moments when heat and dehydration leave me delirious enough to embrace the air.  Then my thoughts shift to an internal dialogue that usually goes like this:

“This is fantastic weather for hot yoga, I’m gonna sweat it all out .

I pay good money for yoga in heated rooms and here’s my own free heated space.

… On a sweet front porch looking into the woods of north Georgia none the less.

This is fantastic!”

I rush on this wave of positive spirit.  I change my clothes, throw my hair up, put bug spray on (it’s outside Georgia, I’m sure I can not yet find peace while being eaten alive by mosquitoes), get my mat on the porch, bring out my laptop get an online class pulled up ….

and then ….

REALITY SETS IN

By this time I’m already soaked with sweat just by the act of moving outside. Now the internal dialogue sounds more like,

“Are you nuts?  What the hell are you doing?  You are gonna pass right out on this front porch?  Don’t you just wanna go take a cold shower and have some iced espresso?  Really, really … do you seriously want to do this?”

Having a face off staring blankly at the play button on my computer screen this is when warrior face pose begins.  I know because I can see it in the glassy reflection on the monitor caused when taking it into foreign territory (outside).   I capture the moment ‘face’, I take deep breaths and I give myself one very motivational quick powerful feminine warrior pep talk.

“You just found your first gray hair today and you turn 30 next month, Get Your Ass On The MAT … of course you want to do this.”

I want more then anything to be healthy and fit so I can do all the fun active activities I love for a lifetime.  There may have been some immediate vein personal threat with the word ‘bikini’ thrown in the pep talk as well :)

… So, 1 hour in the heat.  I survived and loved a full thirty minutes of it.   After ten years I’m still at a point in my practice where I just curse myself for the first half  wondering why in the world I’m doing such a thing.  However, the second thirty minutes are bliss and shavasana with meditation remind me why I do it every time.

note: Yes, that is me and my summer front porch above.