The Yoga Panic Threshold

The sure sign that my life is a little too frazzled for my own good is when Yoga Panic sets in. It doesn't take a lot to send the alarm bells shrieking in my head. This week, the alarm went off on Friday when I realized that if I didn't squeeze in a lunch-hour class that day, I would only practice max three times that week. ALERT. Yoga meltdown on the horizon!

How did I get to this (admittedly) mental place? Yoga is kind of funny like that. It used to be three times a week was OK. It was not ideal, but I could live with it. Then that number crept up to four. Then five. Now it's six. In my perfect world, I cut my body a break one day a week and stay sane the other six. I'm not sure how I got to this point, but yoga is sorta sneaky. You start off thinking, "Oh, I'll go a couple times a week, yoga will help me get more flexible, yay, that sounds great." Then all of a sudden you look around and you're practicing six times a week and teaching and it's like, whoa, what just happened?

Yoga Panic also is a useful barometer for me to see what's happening in the bigger picture of my life. It lets me know if I'm overbooking (almost always), working too much or generally not making enough time for myself so the people in my world do not have to duck and cover to protect themselves from a raging yogini. For all those who have suffered, knowingly or not, I beg for your forgiveness. But I know I'm not the only one. Do you have a Yoga Panic Threshold? What sets it off?