Therapy: defined by Google as, “medication intended to relieve or cure a disorder.” Sounds easy enough. However, social stigma persists around the word’s implications: the types of individuals who take part in it and the reasons they’re there.
Having never attended a therapy session and with little knowledge of the subject, I have all the time believed that time is the best source of healing: note my first cliché of the year, please. Common experience confirms that each day, rooted in whatever cause, the feeling of pain becomes more and more bearable. For a long time, I was forced to use this waiting game for closure: a natural action I had absolutely no control over. And then I learned how to get it out.
Thanks to Madonna and other like-minded celebs, who are working effortlessly to challenge the anti-aging process, a new fitness trend is hitting the market. And unexpectedly, taking diverse strange creature poses becomes the new norm: please pay attention to my first new word of the year.
Skeptic: yes.
A regular gym goer, I’d argue that stretching alone is not active enough to be considered a “real” workout.
Skeptic: double yes.
The combination of meditation and physical fitness seems to convey an underlying spiritual undertone, an idea utterly foreign to me.
Often, those who invest lots of time in exercise rely too heavily on standard routines. Same old reps, same old sets. By doing so, they have a tendency to close up. To shake things up, when a friend invited me to join her in a yoga class, I agreed. Initially intimidated by the branded “yogi” culture and the proven fact that students communicate through whispers (not my forte), I quickly realized that yoga is all about pushing yourself over the edge. And that’s my kind of jam.
Since then, I’ve come to embrace hot power yoga as a weekly ritual and the perfect way to start the weekend (I do not know precisely when that changed from fighting the first of a few hangovers). While I identify as a downward dog enthusiast, I’m yet to become a vegetarian or permanently brand myself in the Lulu mold.
Along with triggering physical, mental and emotional stimulation, these exercises teach how to translate lessons off the mat into everyday life. It’s about refocusing your energies, challenging your body, and setting your intentions: all without the use of material and most certainly in the presence of maximum studio capacity limits. Think, last leg day with a side of controlled breathing and a sip of clear thinking. And maybe TMI: You’re going to sweat, where no guy ever sweated before.
There’s something about learning how to trust the strength of a shaking arm or gaining confidence with every drop of a bead that makes you a stronger person, both inside and out. Wet to toe, feeling nearly new, and together with sweat, all negative feelings are released. Dare I use the word clean. Each class is a time for private growth and reflection, yoga serves as my therapy. No need for words, my current intention is to find out how to let go. A lifestyle-changing movement, yoga therapy brings new meaning to lying on your back with your eyes closed.
