So last night I decided to sign up for tonights “Savvy Self-Care” teleclass taught by Kimberly Wilson of Hip Tranquil Chick. I’ve been listening to her podcasts for a while, now, trying to catch up on the backlog as well, and really like what she has to say and how she chooses to say it. I thought yoga, etc. might help me not be so ready to fly of the handle (i.e. reactionary) along with increasing my flagging endurance and flexibility. While it’s working, the mindset is actually coming sooner than the mat-practice.

Anyway, for the teleclass tonight the instructions were to re-read chapter 5 of her book and, well, I hadn’t even bought it yet, so I headed out to Borders at lunch to pick it up so I wouldn’t be so in the dark. You gotta love (or, well, I do at least) a book whose back cover starts off with “Lead a Mindfully Extravagant Life.” This is not some austere yogi who insists you live like a monk and eschew all earthly indulgences. Nope. She’s all about the pink and leopard print, of being mindful while being chic and playful.

The teleclass was great and included some simple spine stretches and even a brief but to-the-point meditation while she discussed her 8 principles to self-care (taking better care of yourself for all the right reasons). I’ll be on the lookout for others in the future. Now that I have the book I’ve only just flipped through the rest of it but it’ll definitely be good reading.

While at the bookstore I also tracked down another item of interest: MegaYoga by Megan Garcia. A pretty big (hah!) reason why the whole on-the-mat activity has been slow to catch on is that certain things (for instance, my boobs) get in the way. One pose in particular has you lying on your stomach with your forehead touching the floor and your chin tucked down with as flat a body to the mat as possible and breathing deeply. Hello, instant suffocation! So Garcia, who is a beautiful plus-size model and yogini, has written a book that shows us fluffy types how to modify the standard poses and do things in a way that’s both beneficial and still comfortable. I think there’s a DVD as well, but Borders didn’t seem to have it so I’ll have to look elsewhere.