I met JoAnn when I got to sell her a totally fantastic side-o-the-mountain property a couple years ago. Still one of my best deals ever – Guys I beat the BRAKES off the listing agent on this negotiation I actually felt bad 🫣 (kinda). Haha (insert braggadocios sigh). After closing I would see JoAnn sporadically… much like how I see most people…sporadically. Until recently.
JoAnn’s house happens to be seconds away from where I started doing hot yoga and we ran into each other when I decided to try the early class about a month ago. Now a month or so later I truly look forward to seeing her there in class along with a bunch of other people – 90% of them I don’t know their names or even speak to them but we smile at each other and then embark into this quiet, intense, *experience* together.
Truth is, I rarely feel like I “fit in.” In fact even at my own gym THAT I OWNED I didn’t feel I really fit in. It’s easier for me to be DOING something for someone than to just BE with them for myself, as myself. But this ritual of choosing into the heat, folding and stretching into new poses, pretending my occasional tears are sweat, and experiencing my own internal conversations *now amplified by stillness btw* is helping me see that the part about fitting in was always more about me choosing to hold myself separate than not being accepted.
Yah I know, you realize profound shit in that room.
So here I go, flipping my shoes off at the door of the studio catching myself truly excited to figuratively and literally stew in a room full of stranger/friends with my mat and towels beside someone who was a stranger and now is a friend. Cool thing is, we all know the flow – just like a group of people fitting in beautifully.
