Cold, Lavender Towels

Healing from a breakup, over and over and over.

It was nearly 100 degrees in the room. I got there early, I did my stretches, and I laid there quietly until we began. I was a very good yoga student. I followed every instruction for the warm up. I jumped right into the first few sequences building the flow.

But suddenly I just couldn't. I froze. It was too much. I couldn't control the tears, not even a little bit. They kept flowing. I've never quit that early during a class before. But I just couldn't keep going. I listened to my body and my heart. I sat down, buried my head between my knees like a child, arms stretched out in front of me. And there I stayed until the cold, lavender towel.

A year ago, I committed to going to hot yoga a few times a week, and I quickly discovered the best part of hot yoga: the cold, lavender towel. Or better: the best part of hot yoga class is the end of hot yoga class.

The cold, lavender towel is somewhat of a mystery to me, and I like it that way. At the end of the every class, the instructor steps out into the hallway to retrieve the mysterious basket of lavender towels, each one neatly rolled up like a little, arctic burrito. Are they completely frozen before class, then thawed? Are they just kept in a refrigerator? But they seem colder than just a fridge. Or maybe that’s just how hot we are. Regular-fridge cold feels more like back-of-the-freezer cold when it’s rolled out across your sweaty forehead in a 100 degree room.

However they achieve the perfectly cold temperature of the lavender towel, the anticipation of this brief moment of nirvana is what gets me through every class.

It always feels nice through the winter — the best time to sit in a 100 degree room for an hour. But as the weather turns warmer, it becomes harder to show up to that room. Spring fever is a frequent pull.

But last year, something else happened in the spring. And showing up to that 100 degree room became my lifeline. I needed it to stay grounded, to stay sane.

I went to my usual Friday noon class, and when Friday night rolled around — my daughter at her dad's house — I found myself alone in a too quiet house. These nights looked much different than they did a month ago. The person I used to spend them with was no longer in my life, and it was breaking me wide open. And so I found myself driving back to the yoga studio that evening. I needed to be in that room. I walked into the studio, and the owners, now friends, made a joke about my being there twice in one day. What's the occasion, they asked. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I broke down crying, to their surprise, and held my face in my hands.

"A breakup," I said through tears. "A month ago."

One hugged me, and the other said a sentence that I have repeated to myself hundreds of times in the months since that Friday night class:

"A lot of people have healed in that room. Keep showing up, and you'll heal there, too."

That's all I needed. The healing was already happening in that room for the last year — healing from so many different things now. But this season of life, in that particular room, it was like oxygen. I needed it to survive. To get through the week. And so that's exactly what I did. I kept showing up.

A couple weeks later, I broke down crying in that room as they played a song — Unstoppable — that reminded me of a very specific memory with him. I stopped mid-pose when I felt the tears were going to be... and I’m so sorry to do this, but it I can’t not at this point... unstoppable. Ugh. Even the song itself was unstoppable — how many damn times does Sia sing that damn chorus?! I stopped mid Warrior B when I felt the tears coming. I turned around, laid down on my mat, and cried. Tears mixing with sweat. I stayed there the rest of the class, burying my face. When she finally passed out the cold, lavender towels, I pressed mine hard against my eyelids in an attempt to push the pain right out of my head.

I breathed in the lavender as deeply as I could.

I sobbed as quietly as I could.

Staying long after she said namaste, I was the last one in the room. As I lay there, I repeated it in my head — Keep coming back to this room. You will heal in this room. Keep showing up. Keep showing up.

My time in that room looked like this for weeks on end. (In fact, I just counted: I went to 33 classes in the span of 8 weeks.) Tears and sweat and cold, lavender towels to hide under.

Another couple weeks, and I spent the entire first 30 minutes of class in child's pose, tears streaming backwards up my face. Eye lashes to eye brows, up my forehead, into my hair, dripping onto my towel. Upside down crying.

And then — a cold, lavender release.

Some days I would power through and feel strong — proud that I kept doing the thing even when it got really hard. Dare I say it: unstoppable?

But other days, I quit. And I quit earrrrly. I let myself crumble down onto my mat, fold up, and hide away. I didn't listen to the voice in my head that said, it's been 2 months, you shouldn't be breaking down during yoga anymore. Instead, I told my body and my heart, it's only been 2 months, you can break down during yoga if you want to. And so I did.

And then one day, I noticed my thoughts during class were different. Usually my mind was racing: thoughts and feelings coming in and out, spinning around, like flies buzzing around my head. Chaotic. But today felt different. It was slower, calmer. My thoughts were like molasses. Intentional, methodical, they literally seemed to pass by in slow-motion in front of me.

Peace was making an entrance. Something was shifting. Finally.

One yoga instructor always repeats the same phrase when we hold a plank — chin is up, core is strong. What I love about her mantra is that she doesn't say it as a reminder — your chin should be up, your core should be strong. She says it in the present tense. She says it like it's already true.

Chin IS up. Core IS strong.

You're already here, doing the work. The hardest part is done — you're in the room. Just keep showing up.

And then I found myself in the room on another quiet Friday night. The same class I took 5 months before — the exact same spot in the room, even. Left side, middle row, right next to the mirror. (You can't hide when you're right next to a mirror.) My tears didn't come until the very end this time — they came with the lavender towel.

How many times had I cried in this hot room, covered in sweat in between that Friday and this one? But these tears felt different. They weren't sadness or grief or longing. They were relief. Pride. Joy, even.

I had pulled myself out of this muck, this pit that had sucked me down so deep it scared me. I was proud of the work I had done to get to this Friday night.

The healing wasn't over, no. I had plenty more work to do (still do), and it’s not just showing up to yoga that did the trick. But that surreal feeling of noticing your healing in real time was overwhelming. I thought I would never be on the other side of it, but here I was. On the other side and okay. Still in the room. Still showing up.

I kept the cold, lavender towel over my face; it did its job soaking up the tears and the sweat. Bringing me back to baseline. The temperature was cooling off, and the others had all tiptoed out. I was the last one in the room.

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