Goal for the holidays: try to relax

Hot yoga has been really awesome. I really love the strengthening aspects of it, and the heat.. sweet sweet heat (plus the asana sequence of course) warm me up internally and externally in this perpetually snowy weather. When a pose is held, the pose actively makes me tense up everything, so that in rest poses, I relax and let the blood circulation rush to areas where I normally permanently hold tension all day long. In a yoga class when I lie on the floor I can really feel that it is one of the few moments when I am relaxing as opposed to most of the other moments during the day. I'm lucky that the studio happens to have an American teacher with amazingly well enunciated crystal-clear instructions that kicks me in the butt and gets me through the two hours trying my best. The other day the tram was delayed 20 minutes due to too much snow and I went to a class with Swedish instructions instead. I didn't understand a thing, but it didn't matter. The teacher had a voice meant for gentle hatha or restorative yoga. I couldn't hold still for most of the challenging balancing poses. I guess manner is everything for a Bikram teacher, Japanese ham sandwich or not (I'm pretty sure that phrase got taken out of the Swedish instructions). In the moments of savasana in class, I felt pretty close to total relaxation. But I still miss my yoga studio back home in Vancouver dearly, as it is a really special, heart-warming space with lots of compassion and care.

One of day of "work" and it'll be holiday time for moi! Was still really uptight the second last day of work because every day I don't feel like I get enough accomplished (most of the time I'm just figuring out how I should do things rather than actually doing things). As I mentioned in the title: I need to try to actively make myself relax over the holidays before I die of cortisol overload!