No matter where you go, there you are....

Awhile ago I fessed up to having joined a gym. I said that it allowed me to compartmentalize "exercise" and "yoga". Turns out...I had no idea what I was talking about. Yoga is so much a part of my life...inner and outer...that I can't compartmentalize it. It's everywhere.

When I'm lifting weights or doing other sorts of strength building work, I'm listening to my body (yoga-speak for feeling what's really happening rather than what I wish was happening, or simply ignoring what's happening), I'm following my breath, I'm noticing my mind and how it participates. So why is this not yoga?

I like having an indoor space to do cardio work. I will confess, I'm delicate. I don't like walking outside when it's too hot or too humid. (I spent the first 35 years of my life in temperate Southern California...what can I say.) So now I can be nice to my heart and lungs without collapsing in an irritable puddle of sweat afterwards. In fact I prefer to leave sweaty workouts to those flowers that thrive in the hot house climate. Dewy is about as far as I want to go.

After my workout, I put some peaceful music on my iPod and take a leisurely stroll around the indoor track. There's this one song that has the lyric..."breath connects us all". I meditate on that while I walk and breathe with everyone else in the gym.

Yeah...so I just added a different sort of yoga practice to my life. It's all good.

Have you been working out?

My husband and I joined a gym recently. I don't know why that feels like a guilty secret. I guess it isn't now, is it? I'm really enjoying it. I like doing a little cardio with some fun music on my iPod. I'm playing around a bit with some resistance stuff too, mostly machines. I don't know enough about free weights to use them although my husband has shown me a few things.

So here's what I'm kind of happy about...from now on, when I decide to go for a walk in the woods or (when the weather gets better) ride my bike it doesn't have to have anything to do with exercise. If I ride or walk for 5 minutes or an hour, it will be driven only by the joy of being outside. My yoga practice is about mindfulness and energy flow and finding balance and harmony within the whole of my life. The gym allows me to compartmentalize "exercise" in my life. And I like that.