Day 24: Do Not Do Yoga After Eating Pasta

I've been working on organizing my schedule today and I decided to work in doing yoga a little earlier so I wouldn't be doing it at nearly midnight. However, I made the mistake of doing it a little too soon after dinner and tonight, my husband made a very delicious but very decadent pasta.

Learn from my mistakes: do NOT attempt bow pose after eating something really rich and dense.

I didn't actually throw up
but I sure thought about it.

I spent a lot of time in puppy pose convincing myself not to barf before moving on to other poses. I did my usual suspects and noticed serious amount of tightness in my Edelman shoulder and my hips. I ignored the shoulder (because that's obviously going to turn out well) and focused instead on my hips. I did a couple poses that I used to do in prenatal like burning logs and one that my instructor jokingly called "mudflap girl pose."

Yep.

Basically you get into the same position as a mud flap girl and then cross one ankle over the opposite knee. It's really important to flex your foot and keep your legs engaged and it's a really great hip opening stretch. My hips feel looser after practicing yoga but the right one still feels like it needs to pop. I feel like I want to pop it but I'm honestly afraid of popping it out of place since I've done that before. For the time being, my right hip and my Edelman shoulder (also on the right) can just hang out and talk about how hard it is to do basic yoga poses.

From an emotional standpoint, when I was in savasana I started out unable to think of anything other than my friend's daughter who passed a few days ago. As I lay there though, those thoughts were replaced by memories of taking prenatal yoga while I was pregnant with my son. It feels weird to remember the time before we got his Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) diagnosis at the 20 week scan. I thought back to when I first started taking prenatal yoga at about 14 or 15 weeks and my biggest worry was picking a nursery theme and trying not to throw up; I worked in a restaurant which is TERRIBLE when you're pregnant, especially if you haven't told anyone yet.

"It's taking everything in my power not to throw up on your food.
Enjoy."

It feels surreal to think back on that time and it also makes me smile a little. I had no idea what was in store for my son and our family but I also had no idea how much stronger my husband, son, and I would come out of the birth and transplant. Yoga has a way of keeping me from running away from my emotions but it also reminds me of the good ones, balancing me out.

My body might be stiff but my emotional state is more level. I know yoga is good for mental wellbeing but honestly, I wasn't necessarily expecting that to happen, at least not so soon. Apparently my weak sauce practice is doing me some good even if I don't immediately realize it.