I want to tell you about a time I cried my way through a 20 min Peloton yoga class…

📖It’s story time…

Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

The queen. The icon. My friend. (I don’t actually know her.)

(Almost) Every Monday evening since January of 2021, I spend 30 minutes with my (para-social) friend Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts doing her live yoga class: Music Mondays.

Yacht rock.

Quiet storm.

90s pop.

Classical.

Every week, a different genre of music.

Seated body rolls.

Sun salutations.

Self-love hugs.

Catching the wind.

Every week, THE. EXACT. SAME. YOGA. ROUTINE. FOR. THREE. AND A HALF. YEARS.

Well, a few months ago, I was having a day.

In fact, it was probably a week.

Ya know, just having a rough go of it.

And at 5:30pm, I opened my computer and sat on my mat to start my tried & true ritual of a lovely yoga class to transition to my evening.

I was also stiff from the weekend and was really looking forward to stretching my whole body out in the way I knew this class would.

Except this class wasn’t 30 minutes.

It was only 20 minutes.

And we didn’t start with seated body rolls.

We didn’t even start seated.

We started by standing!

That is NOT how I start my yoga.

And certainly NOT my Music Mondays with Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

I burst into tears.

I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED, AND IT WAS NOT THIS.

I knew there was an entire library of classes I could choose from that would be exactly what I expected and wanted…

But another part of me paused.

My inner voices had a conversation:

What if I did this class anyway?

But I wanted the usual and now I’m mad and sad.

Okay, what if I did this class mad and sad?

I might not like it. But I could find a replay of a past Music Monday class if I really hate it.

Would it be the end of the world if I do a yoga class I don’t like?

What does it even feel like to do yoga when I’m mad?

What does it feel like to do yoga when I’m mad at the yoga itself?

Can I sit with the uncomfortable feelings about this unequivocally NOT scary thing and be gentle with myself throughout the process?

What if Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts is not steering me wrong, and she’s giving me my new favorite yoga routine?

So, after a bit of a back-and-forth, I did decide to stick with this NOT Music Monday yoga class.

And I did, in fact, sob real tears the entire time.

But they were NOT because I was making myself do something I didn’t want to do.

Honestly, there were lots of tears for lots of reasons.

One of which was that I was proud of myself for stepping half a millimeter outside of my comfort zone (when, admittedly, I was already having a tough time) AND being caring to myself at the same time, which is not always easy for me.

By the end of the class–which was 10 minutes earlier than expected–I realized I probably needed to cry all the tears more than I needed to do the usual stretching I was expecting, and had it been the usual class, I probably wouldn’t have gotten any of that out of my system.

Music Mondays is no more.

I did NOT end up loving the yoga flow from that class.

I still absolutely prefer the OG routine that made me love Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

But I’m so glad I tried it, got what I needed out of it, AND know myself and my needs well enough to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to things that don’t fit for me.