You’ve got your Flywheel and Soulcycle for spin, your Corepower and Yogaworks for yoga, your Purebarre and barre3 for barre. All with their online booking and sleek, polished studios designed to get you in the mood for whatever class you’re about to enjoy (hopefully enjoy rather than suffer through!). Boutique fitness is nothing new. Meditation? Also not new. Sleek, modern meditation studios? New. A few are starting to pop up, such as MNDFL and unplug in NYC and LA (both I'm dying to try and would love to hear from anyone who has gone!). And in the same way that I think someone who enjoys the details of the sleek designs in Soulcycle, with the scent of grapefruit in the air and complimentary ponytail holders is more likely to be enticed to take a spin class who wouldn’t necessarily want to, the luxury element appeals to me. Kind of like the principle of buying fancy new yoga pants to encourage yourself to work out, the whole ambiance of a zen-luxe meditation studio makes it way more appealing than sitting on my bedroom floor for my solo morning meditation. So, when I found out about inscape, I was really intrigued. I suspected that if I enjoyed the atmosphere and looked forward to the instant feeling of calm I felt walking into the studio lobby, with its fruit-infused water and comfy seating and fancy wellness staples like Moondust and chocolate bars containing more superfoods than you have in your whole pantry, I could get hooked. I’m a sucker for pampering. (The luxe feel is what you might expect, given that it was created by the founder of INTERMIX! It’s very Alexander Wang does the Jivamukti yoga scene, if you know what I mean [ie, urban luxe + still true to the spirit of the practice]) If you decide halfway through your next yoga class that you need to curl up into child's pose because you feel that that is what your body is calling for, just do it. After all, the person next to you might be trying to push through an injury, but when she sees you choose to be kind to your body, you just gave her tacit permission to do the same. To be a little less hard on herself. To care for herself.
If you ever have trouble acting in a way that honors your worthiness, think about the instruction flight attendants give to put on your air pressure mask before assisting those around you. They do that because it gives us all a better chance of survival. Sometimes we are the ones needing our seat mate to put the mask on us, and sometimes we need to help others--but only after putting on our own because without having our own way to breathe, we might pass out even as we reach to pull their mask down from above. We can’t care for others unless we care for ourselves. In the end, you need to do what is right for you. And when you are true to that, you give others the space and permission to do that for themselves. And that is beautiful. |