Find Your Happy Place

I’ve been practicing Bikram yoga for six years. The yoga room is my happy place.

When I first tried yoga in high school, I was completely bored. In my gym rotation I practiced the sunshine series. I found it repetitive and slow. But when I found Bikram—and I grew up a bit—the yoga room transformed from a place of tediousness to a sanctuary of smiles.

Practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees I complete a 90-minute moving mediation of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises two to three times a week. When I leave the room, I drip as if I had climbed out of a lap lane.

But I feel incredible. No matter how my class went—I could have been nauseous or dizzy, I could have sat out multiple postures—I feel revitalized and wide-eyed after. Literally, my eyes dilate and I see more clearly.

The endorphins pace through my veins and I feel light and rejuvenated. At times, I think to myself this is bliss. What the hell happens in that yoga room?

Sure Bikram is a fantastic workout (you can burn up to 900 calories in a class) and there is a piece of me that feels productive knowing that I worked out so hard. But when I do an aerobic workout or a cardio workout, the high is never as euphoric or whole.

Why does yoga feel so happy?

1) Yoga is the one place where it is my job to dedicate time to myself. Teachers coach: this time is for you, so I don’t feel guilty about being “selfish.”

On Friday night, I took class with Emily Vartanian who injects a bit of silliness into her class to keep the hard work and concentration that we perform lighthearted. The clock struck 6pm and Emily welcomed the class to “your date with yourself.”

After the standing series—Bikram divides the class into a standing series and a floor series—Emily congratulated us, “you’re halfway through this date and it’s going great.”

It is healthy to get to know yourself. It’s important to spend time with yourself. Not enough people spend time with themselves, as if on a date getting-to-know-you style.

2) Yoga is time away.

No one is going to chase me down into a hot room. I check my cell phone and internet connection at the door. This is the ultimate me time.

3) I slow down in the yoga room. Life, particularly in New York, moves so fast. But in the yoga room it slows down.

I’m not a master yogi. I cannot silence my thoughts, but I have learned to slow them down. Instead of whirring around in my head like a tangled ball of yarn, they come in one at a time and in order like a smooth string.

This past weekend I saw The Shawshank Redemption for the first time. In the movie, Shawshank releases institutionalized prisoner Brooks Halten after 50 years of living inside the walls. Brooks writes to his fellow inmates, “I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.”

We did. We are all in such a hurry. Life feels more like a race than a journey. Yoga, even if temporarily, allows me to experience life at a more enjoyable tempo.

4) I feel accomplished.

When I leave the yoga room, I feel like I did something productive to improve myself.

5) I achieve mental clarity.

I feel like when I leave the yoga room, I linger in a state in which I understand what is truly important to me.

When I leave yoga, I often make a phone call. My friends can tell when I’ve just come out of yoga. My voice is clearer. Happier. Uplifted. Unbogged by worry or self-judgment. I feel fantastic.

Of course, there is always a threat that the happy place will begin to feel like an obligation. Beware of this.

Before Friday, I hadn’t been enjoying yoga as much. Of late, I entered the room very seriously. “This is work out time,” I said to myself. I was getting upset when I wasn’t hitting my mark in poses. I had lost sight of the happiness in my happy place.

The atmostphere of the 2012 National Yoga Asana Championships held in New York further fueled an idea of competition and a goal within myself. The championship had been in the media, reporters questioning if the integrity of yoga had been compromised by the idea of quantitative judging and medals.

As an attendee, I had been looking forward to watching the best in the world demonstrate the poses for which I aim. But sitting in the darkness of the auditorium, watching people bend their bodies in what I previously believed were impossible ways, I felt that something was missing: peace. The peace that I strive for, I did not see.

As productive as yoga is, I needed to remind myself that accomplishment and production is a bonus. The champions can do what they like (impressively, I might add). There is some inspiration in seeing the greats reach the full expressions of postures. For now, I go to yoga to relax. I go to yoga to detach from the outside world.

I needed to re-enter that mindset. I needed to allow my happy place to be happy again.

My point is not that everyone should embrace Bikram yoga, or even yoga. My point is: find your happy place.

Find the place where you make uninterrupted time for yourself. Find a place where you slow down and silence the outside world. Find a place where you feel accomplished—where your desires become clear. Find something that makes you happy. Be gracious to yourself. Visit your happy place often and I promise, you will feel fantastic.