Pretty in pink

Something bizarre has happened to me. It's occurred to me before, but it was blatantly obvious in this morning's Bikram yoga class. I was standing on my tippy toes in the second part of awkward when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. There I was, ballerina like, wearing my pink sunrise shorts and standing on my pink towel. Pink?

Let's go back a bit.

Growing up I was a bona fide tomboy. I spent my days digging in the backyard and making mud pies (much to my father's horror). While my younger sister only wanted to wear pink dresses and play princess, I wanted to wear my brown overalls and play cops and robbers. My mother tried to get me into dresses and would often give them to me for birthdays or Christmas. I refused to put them on and they'd hang in my closet until my sister was big enough to wear them.

When I was a teenager, I decided that black was the only colour I'd wear. Everyday -- head to toe -- in black. You'd open my closet and not a single garment of any other hue could be spotted. I even dyed my hair black and wore a dark shade of lipstick that looked almost black. This went on for years and years. And when I finally did introduce colour into my wardrobe, I stuck to browns, greys, blues, and greens.

This tradition of sporting dark colours continued until only recently. Most of my early yoga wear is black. Then I got a bit braver and added some blues -- dark at first, but eventually lighter shades. And then last summer, I bought my first pair of pink leopard print shorts and picked up a pink sports bra to go with them. I felt hugely self-conscious the first time I wore this outfit, but I got a lot of compliments and came to like the way I looked in it. So at Christmas, I bought myself a couple more pairs of pink shorts and eventually added pink towels and a pink mat to the mix. Pink has even started to pervade my attire outside the hot room.

Why this sudden change?

My theory is that Bikram yoga has opened up my mind to new possibilities. If someone were to have told me two years ago that I’d consider becoming a yoga teacher, I would have laughed. Me? A yoga teacher? It was so far removed from my reality at the time – I didn’t even work out let alone do yoga. But now it is my reality. It’s funny how something can enter your life that completely changes your perspective and trajectory. Bikram yoga has done that for me. It has forced me to step outside my comfort zone and look at my life in an entirely new way. It is redefining who I am, influencing my likes and dislikes, and evolving how I interact with and experience the world around me.

So the tomboy of yesterday now sees the world in colour. And the future has never looked brighter!