☀️ take off your self-critical glasses for a sec

When I first started my radical year of self-improvement, I tried all the wellness trends so you don’t have to.

I did everything from cold plunging to vision boards. I tried CrossFit. I tried a dopamine detox. I gave up TV for a while. I went and saw an astrologist. 😆 Some things were one-and-done, some things I kept forever, like therapy and sobriety.

One experiment that’d been burning a hole in my yoga-pants-pocket was trying Hot Yoga.

In fact, I might have been the very last basic b----* on earth who hadn’t tried Hot Yoga.

I’ve always really liked heat. Hot tubs, saunas, Summer. Hot Yoga feels like a given.

(Side note: please reply and let me know if you would rather be too warm or too cold. I would always rather be too warm. See the time I did a cold plunge in the middle of my “No Complaining Experiment”.)

Fortunately, my friend Kelsey is a frequent hot yoga person. (Yogi? Hot yogi? Hoagie? Nope that’s a sandwich.)

Kelsey is a dream of a human and absolutely the kind of person you want to try something new with. She is like the world’s safest tour guide.

She pre-explained everything to me — what I should bring, what she would provide, even “this is where I normally put my shoes”.

She also explained that there would be an ice-cold lavender towel toward the end. I’ve been thinking about this ice-cold lavender towel ever since she wrote about it years ago in her own beautifully written, deeply relatable Substack.

AND GET THIS: Once we would enter the hot yoga room, there would be no talking or cell phones.

Okay. I love this. Picture: Me, a self-deprecating improv comedian who does not know the difference between a “cat-cow” and a “happy baby” (THESE ARE REAL NAMES PEOPLE, THE COMEDY POTENTIAL!) is required to make NO JOKES as she attempts something new.

Them are some high stakes right there.

The lights were low: major plus. I think all lights should be low in every workout room ever. (Or honestly, any place where you have to be vulnerable. Turn those lights down!)

I was not expecting to get to lie there for so long before the class started. Also a big plus.

I even started to think I might just pay money to come into this hot room with low lighting and lie there. That alone might be worth the price of admission. Kelsey even said that if it gets too hot or if you don’t feel like doing something, you can just lie down.

And I thought… what if I just lie the whole time? Do they have a plan for that? I started mentally creating a marketing plan for the studio called “Pay to Lay”. This is a great idea.

Just when I started getting excited at the thought of the chance I won’t have to actually move at all, a gentle voice began speaking softly.

As the bodies began to move in unison, I thought about my eyeglasses.

If you’ve been following along my eyelash journey, I currently do not have eyelash extensions for the first time in five years. So my go-to “always semi-ready” look has become: “I’ll just pop glasses on.”

So I wore my glasses in, but quickly realized I don’t really want glasses when I’m about to be sweaty. So I took them off.

As I looked into the classroom mirror, I could only see the blurry forms of everyone around me — and my own blurry form doing roughly the same thing as their blurry forms.

It actually was kind of perfect.

It was the exact amount of vision to let me follow along without being hyper self-critical. I couldn’t really tell if I was doing it completely right or wrong. I couldn’t tell if I was more or less flexible than the person in front of me. We were all just sort of moving in blurry zen harmony.

With the safe low lighting, the safe non-critical blurry vision, a gentle instructor rooting for me, and the ultra-safe encouragement of Kelsey giving me approving nods every now and then, I have never felt more supported while trying something new.

The workout was a little bit fun, a little bit challenging. The heat made it interesting. And I was delighted to find out that the last part of class also involved lying down again!

Like a massage, I could sense it was coming to an end, then I had this panic thought, “What about the cold lavender towel? Oh no, maybe they don’t do it anymore! Maybe it’s only certain types of classes?”

I squinted my blurry eyes to see Kelsey motioning behind me. There it was! The stealthlike instructor had dropped it off somewhere between my downward dougie and my PinkPantheress**.

I draped the cold relief across my face, breathed in the scent. Acknowledged that it was nice not to have to worry about my lashes and smiled.

I popped my glasses back on, could see the world again with clear vision, and walked out of hot yoga with a euphoric sense of gratitude.

It reminded me how much I love trying something new.

How nerve-racking it can be to be a newbie in a room full of experts.

How heartwarming it can be when those experts are rooting for you, never judging you.

And how the most generous thing you can do for yourself when trying something new is to take off your metaphorical judgment glasses and put on your generous glasses of: Look, you’re trying. You’re doing it. Close enough is great.

You guys, we all need to take off our judgmental glasses whenever we’re trying something new! Maybe that would make us try new things more often.

So if you are trying something new this week — or even just thinking about trying something new — a new habit, a new class, a new whatever… I encourage you to just go for it.

Maybe even be vulnerable enough to tell someone you’re new and nervous.

And then reserve your own harsh criticism.

Because look at you!

You’re trying!

(Just make sure your vision isn’t so blurry that you miss the lavender towel.)

xoxo-Katie Day

*I use this term with great reverence and pride. You have never met a b**** more basic than me.

**those are not real yoga positions (I’m almost sure. Side note: I still have never found anyone who can teach me how to dougie)

Current Podcast Release:

Shailey & Katie's Lemonade Stand:

Happy Home Organization & Style Series Part 3: Kids’ Rooms That Actually Work

How to create kids’ spaces that actually work—for real life. We’re talking functional layouts, calming environments, and systems that help kids take ownership of their space (without you becoming the full-time cleanup crew).

We get into the balance every parent is navigating: creating a home that feels good and letting kids be kids. That means normalizing mess, designing for independence, and letting go of perfection in favor of something way more sustainable.

Listen on Apple or Spotify