The Daily Durvy

I think I need to stop reading Oprah magazine. While it is a fabulous magazine for, say, super-chic working moms, 22-year old college students just end up wearing clothing that is totally age-inappropriate. Sometimes I will walk out of my bedroom all gussied up for going out and Alex will look at me and tell me that a full pantsuit with matte red lipstick is probably just a little bit sophisticated for a frat party. And then all I can do is look at him and go “BUT THIS IS WHAT OPRAH WOULD WEAR.”

So you can see where that might be a problem for me.

I read an article in this month’s Oprah Magazine about a woman who is committing the next 60 days to the Bikram Yoga Challenge. She basically goes to yoga everyday, and not just any yoga. No, that would be sane. This woman is going to HOT yoga. The studio is heated to 105 degrees or higher for optimal toxin flushing and facilitating flexibility. You basically drip sweat, and it is nasty.

I read this article, which chronicles this woman’s first 30 days of her challenge, and I made the wild, ridiculous decision to take the challenge as well. So today was Day 1, and it pretty much sucked. I’m not going to lie to you, it was hard, it smelled really bad and I came home looking like I took a swim, which is beyond gross.

I have always been a skeptic of the bullshit that surrounds yoga and meditation. “It’s so therapeutic” or “it’s so calming” or (my favorite) “Yes, you can loose weight with some sissy stretching” have always seemed like drink-the-koolaid behavior. However, as I was going through the poses something incredible happened. My constant inner voice was silent. Begrudgingly silent, like she had been hit upside the head and was stunned into an inarticulate pile of mush. And that was nice.

During the rest periods, you are supposed to lie in what is known as the “corpse pose” – on your back, silent, unmoving, just gazing up at the ceiling. What is noticed is that I felt very much alive (and beat up – maybe there’s something to this sissy stretching nonsense) in those moments. My heart was pounding, my breath was calm and the inner bitch was absent. Lying there, all I focused on was leaving the bitch out of this moment, and I did my best to take her criticisms floating around in my head and leave them in that hot, smelly room. It worked, if only for that moment, and suddenly the last 90 minutes of “toxin-flushing” was not in vain, but rather – dare I say it – therapeutic. But don’t tell my inner bitch I just said that because she thinks yoga is dumb.