One day at a time...

Last I wrote, it was Sunday and I had the worst class (ever?), what with the throwing up after class and just generally feeling destroyed.
Monday I was going to do 6am to start my week of 6ams.
But I couldn't sleep.
I was starting a class the next day with an unknown group of teenage students, the house I am staying in was cold, and I just felt scared.
When my alarm woke me up (I'd already been up pretty much every hour), I felt such a fear and panic that looking back it was almost silly. It was as though the yoga room had my number and that number spelled doom.
What was I afraid of?
I guess I was afraid of busting my ass that hard, feeling sick and nauseated, and having to go through the day exhausted with no escape. There was more though, somewhere deep in my stomach -- like Yoga would find out about every fear, bad thought, or pain I had experienced in my life up to this point and make me simultaneously relive it all for 90 minutes (or more!)
I did not go to the 6am class. I slept an extra 2 hours --as late as I could, and then taught my course.

At 4 o'clock I was still dreading the yoga room. I even thought to myself '' Maybe I should take today off and do Saturday, but I caught my little sneaky brain in action and insisted that I go simply because I needed to face whatever was chasing me out of the room, AND because if I go Monday-Friday it takes the stress out of decision making.

So I went.
At the studio there was the teacher I had had the day before (who somehow manages to work me into the ground every time as my connection with my body shuts off and my response to his voice just talks straight to my body), and there was Walter.

Walter has always been my favourite Bikram instructor. I'd say he's somewhere in his fifties, originally Swiss with a decently thick accent still, but a sense of humour and an ease about the whole thing that makes you remember to smile (and even sometimes laugh) in the room, and at yourself (and sometimes at him). I got changed not knowing who it would be teaching but counting on the universe to pull me through and reward me with a Walter class -- I actually found him on Facebook and asked when he would be teaching so that I would be sure to get his class. I thought, from his response, that I had missed his last teaching class before he leaves for Malta (tomorrow) to take Bikram's advanced course.

Well, it turns out I did right by the universe by going to yoga.
Walter taught the class and I had maybe my best class yet. I felt great, and was so thankful for the reward of not having a repeat of the previous day.

Today's class was also 5pm (I must do 6am at least on Friday!), and it started off well but by the spine strengthening series all my bengal tiger was totally gone, and although I carried myself on my breath throughout, by the end I felt like a weak little kitten.

Every day is a new day with this stuff. Your expectations of the class you're going to have don't necessarily affect your class, only they affect your attitude towards the work you're doing, and yourself.
Tomorrow's another step in the journey...