If you follow my musings and movements at all, then you know, I go to yoga,
Moksha Hot yoga specifically.
If you have been than you know what it like to practice in the hot room.
But in the event you do not, Moksha is basically a very specific sequence of poses (35-40), done in a room set to 38 degrees celsius (100.4 fahrenheit), 50% humidity and alongside 40 or 50 bodies lined up alongside each other moving, breathing and sometimes kind of dying, together.     

Hot. Sweaty. Challenging.

This is absolutely intentional.
There is a reason why these conditions are created - a very beautiful reason in fact. The vision of the Moksha founders is to cultivate world peace.  The thinking is if you can learn to breathe, pause and stay present when you are struggling in the heat, your muscles are screaming to get out of a pose and you want to bolt from the room, and then somehow find your peace at the end of it all by the time you arrive in savasana, THEN chances are if you can cultivate peace in those conditions, than you can bring that into the world when you get OFF your mat.  

But it is a practice for sure.
Being able to find calm amidst challenge (rather than when conditions are easy to do so) is no easy task.

It comes down to respond or react skills.

Can I get real here?

We would all like to think we are the ‘responder” type.
You know, that we always remember to take a moment, pause before speaking, texting or sending that ‘reactive’ email. You know, 100% of the time.
Sound like you?
Me neither!
But I certainly aspire to be the kind of person that responds over being the kind of person who reacts before thinking.
But it is tough to do.
And I have definitely learned the hard way what happens when I do not insert pause.
However, if I am tired, stressed or just feeling triggered by something or someone, one of the toughest things is to NOT react and just say or do whatever pops into my head.

Thus, yoga.

Yoga has taught me so many things.  About my mind, about my body, about my strength and community.  About rest.  About silence.  So much.
One of the greatest gifts however is that it has taught me how to breath - especially when things are hard.

So even if you are not a hot yoga fan (although I would invite you to try it!),
you can still practice yoga off the mat.
The next time you find yourself in a challenging situation, just pause.

Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.

And then choose.

Do I want to react right now?
Or can I wait a few more seconds....and respond instead.
Just breathing through the panic, the feeling or the urge to say or do something right now.

This is 'life yoga'.

And in our own way, contribute to world peace.  :)

To breathing,
ox