So far I’d been coping like a trooper.  For instance, I hadn’t the slightest bit of concern about the run on toilet paper.  And despite client cancellation after cancellation in my leadership development training diary, I still hold faith that these events will eventually be rescheduled, albeit it may take some time.  I don’t care what the so-called experts say, I plainly refuse to believe that training and leadership development has been relegated to a computer screen for the rest of eternity.

In a quest to use this “time off” to my advantage, I had mentally started to compile a list of all the things I would like to do for my business I had been avoiding:  do my taxes, clean up my files, update my coaching log for the International Coaching Federation – a super tedious task I’ve been avoiding for over a year and even start my blog up again.  Like many small business owners I had enthusiastically embraced the blogging and posting practice back in 2015 when I started my leadership training and coaching business, determined to change the world with my inspirational messages and quotes, carefully curated from conscious thought leaders, placed cleverly on calming meme backgrounds like a babbling brook or a starlight sky, and scheduled strategically on apps such as hootsuite to ensure maximum audience attention. 

After about six months of lackluster results I abandoned the practice in a fitful rage, convinced that social media in all its forms was one gigantic scam as well as the downfall of our modern mindless society, perpetuated by higher ups to get us to publicly humiliate ourselves.

But this morning the impossible happened.  This morning I finally hit the wall.  The meltdown I had been unconsciously teetering on the edge of for the last two weeks finally materialized.

The cause?  My local yoga studio temporarily shut its doors, the most recent business to fall prey to the corona virus meltdown.

I’ve been practicing hot yoga for over ten years now.  Since I began my practice in 2009, it’s been the one constant in my life.  The longest running positive habit I have.  The only long running positive habit I have, I might add.

I’ve had loads of negative habits over the years.  I’m really good at these I must say.  I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 14 years, it was only nine weeks of grueling yoga teacher training that finally got me to quit.  Happy hour was always a convenient excuse to avoid doing the things I knew I needed to do at work or at home, under the guise of 50% off appetizers and trying the newest exciting craft cocktail at a downtown hipster bar.  I’ve been biting my nails on and off since I was a child, although I did manage to give up my favorite stained, smelly, blue crocheted blankie at age 8.  I suppose that’s a plus.  I have what one might call a serious addiction to tex mex queso and chips, and have gotten so accustomed to ordering out from uber eats that our recycling bin is constantly overflowing with plastic restaurant containers, chopsticks and brown paper delivery bags.

Swearing too much, abandoning my clothes on the bathroom sink, general moodiness, and leaving half-drunken topo chico bottles in my car are probably also things my husband would add to the list.  But I digress…

In a sea of bad habits, what do you do when the one good one you have is disrupted?

Do yoga at home you might say.  Easier said than done.  Hot yoga is typically done in a very humid room at over a hundred degrees.  I suppose I could turn on the shower and try to balance in tree pose in the bathroom to the bemusement of my husband and our two cats.

But it’s the human connection I really crave.  The companionship and camaraderie of my fellow sweaty, smelly yogis that I will miss.  Even the one creepy guy who always places his mat in the exact same spot in back of the room and breathes so noisily the instructor does her best to ignore him throughout class.  I even miss creepy guy.  Is that weird?

I suppose I will take up walking.  It seems appropriate in this new age of social distancing. 

In the meantime I’m going to search the internet for new hobbies that don’t involve wine. There’s only so much a lady can drink…