The teachers at this conference are very concerned about my bowels.

I’m slightly embarrassed that getting rid of my shit (literally) has emerged as a conference theme for me. On Thursday, Ana Forrest had us move the crap out of our bellies to open our hearts, and today Amy Ippoliti twisted it out during a detox flow. Ana called it shit, and Amy called it number two. Same result.

I get the metaphor, of course, and I’m not surprised that that’s coming up for me this weekend. I’ve moved a lot of shit in the past year, and I have so much more to go. The promise of Amy’s detox class was enough to get me driving back up to Estes Park from Boulder again this morning despite muscles so sore that I could barely get out of bed. (I thought I was in shape. Three days of yoga with master teachers proves me wrong.)

Amy briefly described anava mala, which she said is poor self-esteem related to being too self-absorbed, and maya mala, attempting to be perfect (yeah, I know nothing about that one). She promised to wring us out so that we could put our best selves forward with authenticity. She said we could use yoga to Swiffer away the dust bunnies, or schmutz, lingering in our hearts.

We practiced deep deep twists and a lot of utkatasanas. The chair poses were not included so much for detox purposes, Amy said, but because they would give us all yoga butts.

“Yoga’s great,” she said. “It can even save your life. But it also gives you a great butt.”

In this moment of not being full of shit, should I admit that that’s really why I drove up here today?

 Robyn Griggs Lawrence is the author of The Wabi-Sabi House, Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House (two books about finding beauty in imperfection) and Seven Steps to a Safe, Nurturing Nursery, an e-book that she co-authored with Dr. Frank Lipman. The editor-in-chief of Natural Home magazine from 1999 until 2010, Robyn writes and speaks about green and healthy living. After decades of running on stress and momentum, she’s changing directions and learning to teach yoga. Her website, robyngriggslawrence.com, should be up soon (but she’s not stressing about it).