Not A Hipster Mom

Continued from the previous post, "How Doing Yoga is Making Me a Better Mother" 2. It is Making My Body Look and Feel Better I started doing yoga more for the mental/spiritual benefits, but it has been amazing for my body, too. When I was 22, I backpacked through Eastern Europe with a very heavy backpack, and I pulled the muscle that stretches from the neck down to the right shoulder. Then when I was 27, I was rear-ended, which made the injury even worse. I still deal with nearly constant neck and shoulder pain years later, and carrying my daughter around for the last couple years has definitely added to the strain. Sometimes it’s hard for me to pick her up, or get down on the floor and play with her, because my neck and back are throbbing, and I’ve had to explain to her a few times that Mommy has an “owie in her neck.” But what I didn’t know when I started attending yoga classes again, is that yoga is amazing for injuries like mine, as long as the poses are ...

I started doing yoga again about a month ago.   A coworker of mine told me that she took lunchtime classes three times a week at the gym down the block from our office, and she asked me if I wanted to join. For me, the idea of consistently doing anything three times a week is daunting, so I knew that while I might be diligent for the first week, I would soon slack off to once, maybe twice a week. But the fees were so low--$29/month for a gym membership that included unlimited classes--that I figured even if I only went once a week, it would still be well worth the money. I tried yoga about a year and a half ago, when I was married and living in Las Vegas. I enjoyed it, but I only went once a week for a couple of months, so I never really got into the groove or progressed with my poses. The class was also at 6:30pm, and the after-work time slot meant I lost out on valuable time with my daughter, which left me feeling guilty. I remember a coworker at the time told me that in o...