Yoga For Busy Women: A Beginner’s Guide

Do yoga they say. Find your inner balance and relieve stress, they say.

Relieve stress – are you fucking kidding me. There’s nothing more stressful than being trapped in a room where all your insecurities and inadequacies are SUPERSIZED.

Firstly, there’s the teacher – the bendy bitch up front with zero body fat and perfect tits.

I was 45 minutes into a class the other day when I realised we were wearing the same leggings – it took me so long to notice because the shapes on mine were all deformed and discoloured, thanks to the excessive amount of stretch they were being put under.

I thought it was a retro design paying homage to The Little Shop of Horrors, but turns out it’s supposed to be a beautiful garden meadow.

I bet she has a topiary vagina under there too, as opposed to my wilted shrub.

If her physical body isn’t annoying enough, she then starts spouting out all this weird hippy shit…

Focus on your third eye – the place where your intuition, imagination and insight live. Huh? I thought my third eye was where the babies are made?

Listen to the voice within. What? I thought I was here to shut that fucker up. Why would I want to listen to her when all she tells me is I can’t do anything right and the only way to feel whole is to eat.

Let your inner wisdom out. Trust me love, you don’t want me to let my inner wisdom out right now – I ate a very spicy curry last night.

And what’s with the names of the poses, especially the animal ones. Pigeon, cobra, eagle, swan – not exactly animals known for their calm composure and gratitude. Especially those bloody pigeons – ungrateful greedy bastards.

I think the only animal I’ve ever been good at is the swallow. What can I say, I’m a people pleaser.

The pose I fear the most though is the Happy Baby. As soon as I assume that position on my back with my feet in my hands, I of course get an unbelievable urge to let one go. I don’t know why, it’s like my body is psychologically conditioned to embarrass me whenever I’m in a vulnerable state – which is exactly why I’ve invested so much energy into building walls around myself. Sadly though there ain’t no wall big enough to get round this arse when it’s mid-flight.

But the absolute worst part of yoga, has to be the last bit where you have to lie down, relax and “let go of all your thoughts”. Let go of all my thoughts – no bloody chance.

As soon as I assume the corpse pose (finally an appropriate name), it’s like an invitation for every thought I could possibly have to enter my mind and shoot my anxiety levels through the roof.

You get the weirdest thoughts come through during this “final resting pose” too. Like, what would happen if a donkey mated with a cow – would you get ass cheese? Or, I know I can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but can I just be whelmed?

The annoying thing is though – as excruciating as the whole yoga process can be, I actually do come away feeling pretty good. My muscles feel less like tightly wound elastic bands that could snap at any minute, there’s a slight clearing in my foggy brain, and somehow I feel less bloated – even though I generally manage to hold my bottom burps in.

I guess even though my mind can still go a million miles an hour while I’m doing it, my normal rate is probably two million miles an hour – so I suppose that’s a result, albeit a whelming one (does that work?)

And I do notice that when I get home from a class, my husband doesn’t seem to be so annoying…well for a little while anyway, until the yoga wears off.

So maybe there actually is something to this hippy shit?