The last photo was taken by the teacher, Megan Young. Me in white:)
My Midsummer’s Eve was amazing! I went to the yoga/meditation workshop, Fierce Gentleness, and it was exactly what I needed that day.
The class was a restorative yoga class with sound baths and a longer meditation in the end. I ended up in the front, right by the sound bowls. I like to be in the front, cause then I don’t have to look at what everybody else is doing. I go to class for my own sake and want to focus on myself. It didn’t really matter for this class though since we were facing all directions, but it was nice to be near the sounds.
The first twist poses was weird for me though. I can usually relax pretty well on the bolsters and I love twists. On the first side I noticed that my breathing was quicker, I was almost panting which I thought was odd. Was I really that uncomfortable in the twist and tight in my muscles around the spine? The second side felt amazing at first. On the first side she had used tuning forks to create music the whole time, but on the second side she started off with a dark sound bowl before the tune forks. It was a weird switch that happened in my body. Long inhale/exhales, very comfy when listening to the dark bowl sound and then immediately when the tune forks started my breathing got shorter and felt stuck again. What’s up with that?
During the next restorative pose she played music from the bowls and I was really relaxed (see the borrowed picture above). Every single muscle was relaxed and the sadness I had felt during the day over not celebrating Midsummer was long gone. We finished off with another restorative pose and she guided us through a yoga nidra (“Yoga Nidra is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness“). Now I was really relaxed. A lot of feelings bubbled up too.
After the class, I met my husband at a bar across the street. Together we walked to an Irish pub for some late night food. No Swedish food and no dancing around a maypole but it turned out to be a perfect evening!