A few weeks back I finally got round to going back to my much-anticipated yoga class.
When I first attended the class a couple of years back I was thrilled with the difference not just physically but mental that it made to me so getting back after my recent major surgery was something I was really eager to do.
Within the first few minutes I was so pleased I was back in the class. I mentally felt like the anxiety and stress of the last few months since surgery was starting to melt away.
For the first time in a very long time I didn’t feel self-conscious about my weight or my body shape or even if I was in time with everyone else as the class is of mixed ability, ages and sizes and being there felt great!
Around 30 minutes into the 1 1/2 hour class I was feeling good, I felt calm, relaxed and mentally in a really good place.
Then it hit me.
No really hit me.
The smell.
It seems that someone had taken to relaxing a little too much. However I was stranded on my mat with no means of escape and my worst fear of maybe the lady next to me was thinking that awful stench was in fact me.
The shame.
Thankfully the smell filtered away but my mind was no longer in that calm and peaceful place it once was. Instead I was clock watching.
Twenty minutes from the end of the class when the relaxation part features heavily and if I am honest it’s my favourite bit. the wave of noxious gas was back.
This time in my relaxed, almost comatose state I worry that maybe it was in fact me.
However a sniff round my mat led me to believe that in fact the whiff was coming from my left. After saying a silent prayer that in fact my insides had not lost all decency and control I tried to slide centimetre by centimetre to the right but there really was no escaping.
At this point my relaxation had left building and was in fact on its way home without me and now I was filled with an anxiousness and dread that I was surrounded by people and god forbid they actually might think the noxious gas was mine!
Just when I thought nothing on earth could be that pungent and my eyes were in real pain and beginning to water, I hear a whisper behind me from a couple of ladies that came in together and I hear the words I had been dreading.
“Please tell me you can smell that, its making me gag”
At this point I forgot to exhale and hold my breath.
“Don’t worry its her again at the front”
I loudly exhale, this sentence means I am free and clear. You see that was my first class and obviously this means that it’s happened before.
It also means there is a repeat offender in the room and I made a mental note to no pick my mat on that side of the room again …
Since then I have found a really nice calm quite and stench free area of the room and I am loving it.
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