If you ever want to reveal your ego and smash it to smithereens, I can give you some pointers.

Here’s what you do:

Enroll in your first yoga class after giving birth.

Don’t bother reading the workshop description because it’s the only one that fits into your schedule and you know you can handle it because you’ve been practicing at home. (Ha!)

Unroll your yoga mat next to a mirror. Take note of your squishy postpartum belly. Be glad you wore black.

When you realize the point of the workshop is to demonstrate how a difficult fitness class (instead of asana) can also be yoga, stay and try to do everything.

When you realize you’re not as strong as you thought you were… Modify, modify, modify!

Pretend the breast milk that drips onto your yoga mat is just sweat. (What? It’s an antiseptic.) Be glad you wore black again. 

Spend the last 15 minutes in Child’s Pose smiling to yourself because you know you get to go home to the sweetest baby girl and a little momentary squishiness and physical weakness is SO worth it. Thank goodness I know that yoga isn’t about the poses (or how you look in Spandex). Thank goodness I can laugh at myself.

While I was physically not at all ready for my first yoga class back, I definitely needed to hear the message from teachers Kathryn Budig and Elli Boland— the importance of positive affirmations, I am in control of my destiny, and I’m stronger than I think (mentally, anyway). Indeed.

Thanks, ladies!

I survived!