"Salt water is the cure for anything- sweat, tears or the sea…"
~Isak Dinesen
I don’t often talk about personal issues on my blog, I like to be positive and create great energy. However we all go through tough times and it's what ultimately makes us stronger and shapes who we are. The people close to me know that I swear by Bikram yoga. Here’s a little piece of my story and how I found Bikram…
Bikram yoga is known to be a great healer.
On the outside as well as the inside.
I started Bikram yoga to try and become
happier with myself after a bad relationship break up several years ago. I
wasn’t prepared for just how life changing it would be.
It was like a light had gone off inside me
and I was searching for the switch. I knew how I wanted to be living, I just
didn’t know how to get back my spark. A close friend recommended Bikram to help get back in shape so I thought I’d give it a try. At
that point I was still just going through the motions of a day, without really
feeling anything. My first Bikram yoga session was very challenging. A class is a series of 26 postures done in a heated room over 90 minutes. I wasn’t
expecting to sweat so much and being around so many other people and putting my
body through something so intense made me feel very vulnerable and exposed. I can still
remember that feeling of achievement after my first class. I had a silly little
grin on my face and called my friend straight away to tell her. We started
chatting like old times, I felt elated. That
night I got the best sleep that I’d had in months, my body was relaxed and my
mind wasn’t running away with negative thoughts and questions. I
don’t know if it was contentment or just sheer exhaustion! Either way it
worked.
I started doing Bikram about three times a
week. As I did more yoga I could feel my body releasing tension and the
toxins that had plagued me since my break up. I began to have more energy and crave
healthier foods. The change I noticed after the first month was incredible. My
friends and people around me started commenting about my new glow and I
picked up more acting and modeling jobs. I was smiling more, my body felt
slimmer and the detoxifying effect of Bikram had helped to cleanse my skin, reduce
the breakout and give me that ‘glow’. When I got new work I felt as though I
really did deserve it and I put extra effort into my journalism and media
studies, I began to love challenges and to trust my body and mind again. I felt strong.
By discovering Bikram yoga I had literally
stretched and sweated away my stress and created a balance in my life. Bikram
yoga kept me moving at a time when all I wanted to do was curl up and shut out
the world. Now I have a great job that I love and I do a variety of exercises to
keep fit and motivated. The success I have outside the Bikram studio stems
from everything I've discovered about myself during class.
Time is a great healer and now when I think about that time in my life I am grateful for so many things. It's not a time I like to talk about but I hope that maybe my experience can
help somebody else when they are feeling a little lost… It doesn’t have to be
Bikram, but to find something that makes you feel cleansed… that feels good for
your soul; that is the key to healing when you're broken.