week 6 FINALLY ends….

worst. week. ever. Everything I heard about week 6 turned out to be true. What an emotional pain in the ass this week was! It’s Friday night and I couldn’t even wait until Sunday to write this week’s post. I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally up and down, it was crazy. Everyone has been really testy and short-tempered, I actually expected to see somebody throw a punch or something! I personally had some really rough days. I’m feeling very homesick and I’m REALLY tired of being told what to do. (Imagine that!) I know it sounds trivial but when you’re a grown adult and you’ve been living your own life for over 20 years it’s very difficult to have someone control every aspect of every day. After 6 weeks it gets to be more than a bit much! I think you’re also bombarded all day by everyone else’s emotional battle. It’s not just me going through this, everyone here is going through pretty much the same thing but at varying levels. You could see it on every face you passed or were around this week. Every little thing that could possibly just barely be a little bit annoying in your regular life is amplified while you’re here. People pushing past you, or someone just stepping on your foot, anything that wouldn’t normally bug you gets amplified by a thousandfold after 6 weeks! I had a couple of good crying jags and my poor husband did a fair amount of damage control on the phone to help me through. James was also a very good sport and text messaged me back to a better place!

It’s hard to explain why it’s so hard, it just feels overwhelming at times. There is so much pressure all the time and so much you expect of yourself and you end up totally frazzled because there’s never enough sleep. It’s definitely a love/hate relationship. There was one thing that I think I was justified in being upset about though. I came in the yoga room to put my towels on my mat and somebody had moved my mat and taken my spot!! I KNOW!!! Seriously?! (it was also Thursday, which seems to be a very hard day!) But, contrary to what you may immediately assume, I did not go apeshit on her and kick her swiftly in the shin! (how very yogi of me huh?) I did, however, move her mat and put mine back where it was. I then went and found her and told her very succinctly and politely that I noticed what she had done and that I had reversed it. She looked a little guilty and spent the next 10 minutes trying to be nice to me! Pretty funny!! It’s VERY bad yoga etiquette to move another yogi’s mat, you just don’t do it. Hopefully she figured that out. It sounds like a trivial thing I know, but in this pressure cooker it’s a bit of a bad idea. The only way to get through this with any integrity is to remember that it’s not all about you. Part of the reason they put everyone through such a difficult time is to break down your emotional, mental and physical barriers. (i.e. selfishness and control!!) I could have just let the whole thing go but to tell you the truth I was just a little bit happy to help her see some of her own baggage! Dealing with her in a very intentionally polite way and not carrying around internal dialogue about the situation was pretty cool so I guess she taught me my own lesson too!! You gotta love it, the way this experience is set up to get you thinking and acting is pretty clever, not too mention sneaky!

I’ve noticed that by Friday I’m really and truly sick of being constantly surrounded by people. That is probably the biggest thing that affects me at the end of the week. You can’t imagine the constant noise and energy drain that 360 people can have on you until you’re always in the middle of it! I absolutely crave silence and alone time by the weekend. Not to mention that posture clinics are done in hotel rooms so you have 30 or so people in a medium sized room for 3 to 4 hours. Yikes! It becomes sensory overload pretty quickly as everyone tries to practice their posture at the same time before and during break! Then you have the energy being expended by the nerves in the room from getting in up in front of everyone to do the posture! This week was also very physical, like week 5, but combined with this emotional intensity the result was over the top! Overall it made it very difficult to hold on to my peace. Hopefully I’m headed in a different direction for next week! I don’t mind the physical so much but the crazy emotional energy if very draining. I don’t like to be so up and down, I have a hard time because whatever I’m feeling is right there on my sleeve. I can’t pretend I’m okay when I’m not so there were a couple more mat crying episodes. I hate Camel, it brings out everything and leaves you laying there wide open! This whole experience is like running a marathon every day on no sleep and having therapy sessions at the same time!!

We’re busting out the spine strengthening series right now and I’m REALLY looking forward to getting done with the last 9 postures. Then I can go back to the beginning and start over! I’m ready to do the left side as well as additional dialogue so it feels like I’m actually teaching. Here’s to the end of the hardest week and the beginning of week 7!!!