Replenishing Sleep

My dog, Grace, who can sleep anywhere, in any position, has this replenishing sleep thing down.

Last week, I wrote about replenishing you time. This week, I’m talking about possible the most elusive replenishment of all, especially during this busy season - replenishing sleep. Before I go any further I would like to say up front that I know we all have different patterns and schedules and habits, and that what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. I’d also like to add the reminder that I’m not a medical professional or mental health professional, so I’m speaking purely from an experiential point of view - if you are struggling with insomnia from a sleep disorder or from some other medical condition that disrupts your sleep, I definitely suggest discussing with the appropriate health/medical professional.

So with that out of the way… sleep. Sleep troubles certainly aren’t limited to this time of year, but I think the busy schedules and the running around the increased social demands and end of the year deadlines and all of these things can lead to decreased sleep. And decreased sleep can affect … basically everything - our moods, our stress levels, our ability to concentrate and focus, our decision making abilities, and so much more. Not to mention the fact that if we lack sleep, we may be going through the days in a bit of a haze and not able to enjoy the time with family and friends that we normally would find fulfilling.

So I wanted to share a few things, both on the mat and off, that have helped me feel more replenished sleep wise:

• Yoga Nidra - yoga nidra is essentially yoga sleep. It’s not REM type sleep, more of a deep meditative state type of “sleep”, though for many people (myself included) it feels easier to get accustomed to than meditation. So if the word meditative makes you wary, I wouldn’t write yoga nidra off just yet. It might feel more accessible because you’re generally lying down. Furthermore, while the goal isn’t to actually go to sleep, it’s not the end of the world if you do, which makes this a great practice to include in your bedtime routine. There are plenty of apps and resources for guided yoga nidra. I personally use the Insight Timer app, which allows you to choose based on the length you want as well as other filters, but there are certainly numerous options. Many yoga studios also offer Yoga Nidra classes or workshops as well, if you like the idea of yoga nidra but would prefer to be in a class setting.

• Winding down your day with a restorative or yin class. If you like the idea of ending your day with yoga to relax, but yoga nidra isn’t your thing, you may prefer restorative yoga or yin. Both use plenty of props, and unlike a vinyasa class, where you’re moving from pose to pose relatively quickly, you hold the poses in these classes quite a bit longer - several minutes in yin (usually somewhere around 1-3 minutes or so), and up to about 10 minutes in restorative. These practices also tend to be more grounded, so instead of standing poses and flows, poses in these classes tend to be mostly seated, lying down, or have a good amount of contact with the floor.

• Meditation and breath work. Adding some meditation or breath work before bed - whether it’s a guided meditation, or you use mala beads, or you simply sit or lie down and focus on your breath - can be a helpful way to come back to yourself, and ease into sleep.

• Sticking to a sleep schedule as much as possible. I know this can be tricky. I’m not going to pretend it’s easy to say, “Well, I’ll just make sure I’m in bed by x time every night, no matter what” and actually do it. Life happens. Especially during a busy time of year, where we seem to have an increased number of work and personal events to attend, this can be especially tricky. Or if you’re like me and teaching classes at various times in the evenings, no evening throughout the week has the exact same schedule. But as much as you can, try to regulate it. I find having bedtime routine helps. Set a time (i.e. 30 minutes before I’d like to be in bed) that you want to start your bedtime routine. Do the same activities - whatever your bedtime routine entails - in the same order if possible. It signals to your brain “I’m getting ready for bed now” and that, along with the activities, can help you prepare for sleep.

• Schedule some unscheduled evenings and/or mornings. Block them out as if they’re a super important appointment - because they are. Set aside a morning where nothing’s planned (i.e. like a weekend morning if you have a traditional work week schedule). If possible, let yourself sleep in or, if like me you aren’t a sleeper-inner by nature, let yourself “rest in”. If there are morning duties that another person can help out with (walking the dog, getting the kids breakfast, etc), help each other out by alternating responsibilities so that you each get a morning to get some extra rest. If this isn’t an option, still take the unscheduled time. Allow yourself some time in pajamas with your coffee. Watch Saturday morning cartoons with your kids (is this still a thing? I’m dating myself here!). True, it’s not sleep. But just the idea of knowing you have down time in the morning instead of waking up to an alarm and having to rush around might help you sleep better. Do the same for evenings. Take an evening with nothing to do. Get in pajamas early. Relax and unwind. Turn off electronics a while before bedtime. Get into bed extra early. Give yourself this break.

I realize what I’m offering isn’t anything new or earth shattering. As I said, I’m simply speaking from experience. But I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves that it’s ok to take care of ourselves. That replenishing our sleep, even if it means saying no to yet another holiday gathering, or taking extra time to establish a bedtime routine that helps you wind down, is so important. Not just during the holiday season, but year round.

How Intentionally Do You Speak To Yourself?

Last week, I wrote about intentionality in communication. And in particular, intentionality in communication with others. This week, I’d like to focus on a topic particularly near and dear to my heart - intentionality in our own self-talk. Whether it’s actually saying it out loud, or communicating it to ourselves through thought, I’d venture to guess that many of us speak significantly worse to ourselves, possibly without even realizing it (i.e. without intentionality) than we do to those around us - especially those around us that we value and respect. 

Raise your hand if you’ve if the following phrases sound familiar at all about your yoga practice: 

• I’ll never be able to do that pose (insert impossible-seeming pose here)!

• If I were more flexible/stronger/taller/shorter/thinner/more muscular/etc ….

• I’m no good at that pose/style of yoga/type of activity 

Or off the mat

• I’m not successful/I’ll never be successful  (Or basically anything that downplays your abilities/capabilities/accomplishments).

• I’m no good at …. (insert anything)

• “Oh I’m such an idiot!/So stupid!/So clumsy!/Insert insult you’d probably never say to your loved one in seriousness. 

These are a few of countless examples of negative ways in which many of us speak to ourselves. And often, we do it without even thinking about it. We state/think these as facts, or possibly as self-deprecating remarks, and often we do so repeatedly without giving it a second thought - literally.  

And don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the ability to laugh at ourselves and to know our own selves and be comfortable with that. I’m able to say with confidence that at 5’0, I’ll probably never be able to dunk a basketball in a regular height net, and I’m totally OK with that. But that’s me looking at the evidence - my height, the height of net, and general body dynamics, and coming to a conclusion that I find perfectly acceptable, because I honestly have no desire to be able to dunk a basketball. But all too often, this negative talk is about something we do care about, whether in yoga or in life. It’s about a pose that we’ve been practicing, or practicing prep for because we hope to get into said pose one day. It’s about a relationship or a friendship. It’s about a type of workout or activity. It’s about a career or goal or dream. Or it’s simply diving into random name calling at ourselves when we do something we don’t approve of, despite the fact that we’d never do so if it was our friend or loved one that took the same action. 

I’d venture to guess that if we paused a moment and thought about it, these aren’t the types of messages that we want to be giving ourselves. They aren’t intentional thoughts that we practice. They come out of seemingly nowhere, and yet they’re often all too familiar. We often don’t think to question them, and if we do, it may be half-hearted. We don’t sit down and actually pick through the evidence and create a convincing case to ourselves of why we can be successful  or could get into that pose or are not an idiot/clumsy/etc. Instead, we often bypass it with some positive affirmation we saw or heard somewhere or were told we should practice. Which, to be clear, is not at all what I’m suggesting. 

What I’m suggesting instead is, as I’ve stated with each post about intentionality, to have a why, a purpose to the way we speak to ourselves. And unless your why is to berate and discourage yourself, (I sincerely hope that it’s not), then phrases such as those above are not spoken/thought with intentionality. So what are some ways we can speak to ourselves intentionally? We can use the same questions as we did for communicating with others:

• Why are you saying what you’re saying? (Tip: “Because it’s true” isn’t a default answer I’d suggest. Especially when emotions are running high, or when we’re feeling particularly discouraged, or when we’re struggling with something, we can easily find “evidence” to support our claim that it’s true). 

• Is this the right time/place to communicate this? In the Communication post, I suggested taking into account the other person’s situation, preferences, etc. In this post, I invite you to take into account your own. This doesn’t mean avoiding difficult thoughts or emotions. But reminding yourself about all of the times you “failed” right before you go up to give a big presentation or for an important job interview isn’t the best time. Yes, we have to be honest with ourselves, but there’s a time and a place to dig into the difficult thoughts and feelings, and that time and place isn’t always right now.

• Am I communicating this in the best way possible? Here, assuming you aren’t calling or texting yourself negative things about yourself, I’m not talking about the actual communication modality - or at least not quite. Instead, I'm suggesting you look at the word choice, the “tone of voice” even if it’s internal (yes, our internal voice can have a tone). And sometimes, it might be the way in which it’s communicated. Maybe instead of having an internal conversation with yourself, you’d be better processing it through writing, or sitting with it in meditation, or some other method that helps you process.

• Am I being fully present during this communication? It’s honestly incredibly difficult to be fully present if you’re stewing in your head or ruminating or calling yourself a torrent of names. Just as arguments with others get away from us, our own self-talk can quickly snowball. Often, we stop being present in the actual circumstances, and as I mentioned above, we can almost always find proof of what our brain has decided is true. 

So this week, I invite you to think about how intentionally you speak to yourself. Whether it’s about your yoga practice or, if you’re a teacher, about your classes/sessions/yoga business, or it’s everyday life, take note of your self-talk. Are you being intentional? What is your why for the things that you say to yourself, and the way that you say them? Is it possible you’re repeating an old story, almost on auto-pilot, that your brain likes to rehash without actual proof? And then perhaps see how you can take a pause, and make that communication with yourself more intentional. 

Letting Go of the Negative Stories We Tell Ourselves

Looking ahead (Atlas Mountains outside of Marrakech, Morocco).

For the last blog in my series on letting go, I wanted to write about the “letting go” that I think can potentially be the trickiest of all (or at least of the topics discussed in this series). It encompasses a bit of everything I’ve posted about this month, and it could honestly be a series of blogs on its own, in my opinion. As with each of these topics, it can be applied both on and off the mat. That topic is Letting Go Of The Negative Stories We Tell Ourselves. 

In yoga, these stories may surround our abilities, our flexibility, our body, our fears or worries (i.e. that there’s no way we could even attempt a pose because what if we fall/can’t do it/etc). And certainly, we need to listen to our bodies, to our intuition. We don’t *have* to try any particular pose. There’s no reason we need to reach our toes in a seated fold, or balance perfectly in tree, or anything like that. But so often, it’s not simply that we’re accepting where we are in the moment and saying “Today, that pose isn’t going to serve me because ...I have an injury, I need something more restorative, it simply doesn’t feel right in my body at the moment,” etc. Instead, we tell ourselves things like “I’ll never be able to do that”. “I’m not flexible enough, strong enough, don’t have good enough balance.”  We have so many stories about who we are and aren’t, what we can and can’t do, that we put ourselves at a disadvantage even if we do attempt it. Instead of going in with the idea of “let me give this a go and see how it works,'' we're going in with the idea that we’re going to be “bad” at it (in quotes intentionally, since there is no bad in a pose). Or maybe it’s that we don’t go to a class at all. Maybe you’d like to try yoga, or to try a type of yoga, but you tell yourself you can’t do it, that you’ll embarrass yourself, that it’s too hard, or whatever it is, and you stop yourself before you even get in the door. A few weeks back in a post about My Yoga Story, I wrote about how I told myself for months, or maybe years, that I wouldn’t be able to do yoga because I wouldn’t be able to be in class and not talk for a whole hour (seriously!).  Whatever the story is, that’s all it is - a story. It’s not a fact. Even if you’ve tried that form of yoga or that class or that pose before, the only facts are that you had a particular experience on that particular day at that particular time. Everything interpreted and extrapolated from that is just a story. And if you’ve ever listened to a friend or family member or coworker tell a story that gets funnier/scarier/more phenomenal with each telling, you know that stories can change. 

It’s much the same way in day to day life. We tell ourselves stories. About our career/job. About our relationships. About our skills and abilities. About what we are “good” and “bad” at, about our strengths and weaknesses. And most notably, about what all of these say about us as human beings. We interpret information, form stories about ourselves, and call those stories facts. Or maybe someone else has interpreted the information and told a story and called it a fact, and they’re convincing enough, or do this often enough, that we begin to believe them. And eventually, we are told or tell ourselves these stories enough that they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just as we may not try a pose in class because we’re convinced we’ll never be able to do it, and then without practice, we struggle to do the pose, the same happens in life. For example, despite being a yoga and barre and group fitness instructor, public speaking is not my favorite. I’ve always said I’m no good at it.  So I generally haven’t volunteered for things that involve public speaking. Which means I’m never going to be more comfortable with public speaking (that’s not teaching a class), and I’m always going to feel like I’m bad at public speaking. And truth is, it may be that I’m never going to be a great public speaker - we all have different skills and preferences, and I truly am an introvert that feels better behind the screen than in front of a crowd unless I’m teaching some sort of a yoga/workout class. But if I keep telling myself the story that I’m never going to be a good public speaker, chances are, I'm never going to do anything to change that perception because I’m too worried I will be bad at it, and I’ll always feel uncomfortable speaking in public. 

And of course, we are perfectly within our rights as human beings to not do something that we don’t prefer. If you just plain out don’t enjoy yoga or running or public speaking or whatever it is, unless for some reason you’re required to do it, you don’t need to force yourself to. Just like, if you really don’t want to apply for a job because it doesn’t sound like something you’d enjoy, then don’t do it.  But if you aren’t doing something, be it a yoga pose or a life thing or a career thing, because you’re worried about somehow not being enough/bad at it/etc, I’d ask you to pause before committing to not doing it. Ask yourself if your reasons are actual facts or preferences, or if they’re based off of a negative story that you’re telling yourself. Because often it’s holding on to these negative stories, not actual fact or ability, that’s holding us back. 

Letting Go of the "Full Expression of the Pose" - In Yoga and Life

Pavritta Konasa - I have no delusions of being able to grab my foot with my top hand, and that’s completely OK. This is my “full expression” of the pose at the moment.

In yoga, you’ll often hear the phrase “full expression of the pose”. It’s a phrase that I’ve both caught myself saying, probably because I’ve heard it so often that it sometimes slips out, and also a phrase I don’t love and try to correct when I accidentally say it. The “full expression” basically means “how the pose looks if every arm/leg/foot/hand/body part” is where yoga guidelines, or at least that particular yoga type, indicates it would be. (Very rough translation of the phrase, by the way). And I get that there have to be some guidelines that indicate what a pose ideally looks like, as it gives a starting point, helps us to work into proper alignment, and provides us with an image of what we’re generally trying to make our bodies do. Without this, it would virtually be a game of Simon says, telling people where to put this arm and that leg, which obviously is not what we’re aiming for in teaching yoga. But we also talk often in yoga about meeting yourself where you are. About there being no right way to be a yogi, about it being a process, about it being for everybody and every BODY.  So I don’t love the idea of saying “be fine with wherever you are right now” and then following it up with “and here’s how it should ideally look”. (Note: obviously if someone is doing something unsafe, that’s a different story, as safety has to be a priority). 

So with October’s theme of letting go, I’m inviting you to let go of this idea of the “full expression of the pose” as we’ve traditionally used it in yoga. Instead of thinking of the full expression of the pose as this ideal version of a pose where everything is perfectly aligned, what if we think of it as “OUR full expression of the pose” at this moment. Like for me, right now my full expression of Pavritta Konasana (revolved wide legged forward bend) pictured above, does not involve my top hand reaching anywhere near my flexed foot. Sure, I could maybe reach closer to my foot if I contorted my body and focused on hand to foot at all costs, but it would involve me crunching my ribs/belly/everything else, instead of opening up the chest and side body. I’d be missing the intention of the pose, the reason we do this particular asana in the first place. So, at least for the time being, the version pictured above is my full expression of the pose. And in fact, if I allow the “full expression as it is to me” to be a bit of a fluid or moving target, it helps keep me more motivated to continue to work in the pose. Instead of trying to get to some ideal, I’m working on small adjustments in my body that, over time, might help me feel more comfortable in the pose and adjust as needed to my body and what serves me best on any given day. It allows me to truly meet myself where I am, instead of “meeting myself where I am but really aiming for xyz.”

And we don’t just do this in yoga; we do it in life. A perfect example is the novel I published this past summer. It’s my first novel, and I’m incredibly proud. Still, at first, whenever anyone said something like “Wow you published a novel!” I would reply with a joke like, “Well,  I mean, it’s self-published, so, not like they could turn me down really….”. Basically, I concluded that I wasn’t the “fullest expression of a published author” because of the publishing route I’d taken. And in doing so, it dismissed all the work and creativity and effort I put into it. It dismissed the fact that I have a novel on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, that I have a paperback with my name on it that I can hold in my hands, that numerous friends and family ordered and read and enjoyed, simply because I didn’t view it as the “fullest expression” of being the author of a published novel. But several months into having my book out in the world, I’ve let go of this idea.  Now, when people ask me who my publisher is, I give the name of the company I used to self-publish. If they ask further details, I tell them about it, and I’m happy to tell them it’s a self-publishing company, not because I’m diminishing my accomplishment, but because I am a big supporter of both the company and the self-publishing industry, because I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I want to share with others that it’s not one size fits all, that there’s not one “fullest expression” of being a published author, and to perhaps encourage them, if they’re thinking about publishing their work, to consider all “expressions of the pose”, as it were. 

And so, whether it's an actual yoga pose, or an area in your life where you diminish your accomplishments because you feel it doesn’t meet the ideal criteria, I encourage you to let go of that “fullest expression of the pose”. I encourage you, instead, to focus on what feels good about what you’re doing, where you feel accomplished in it. And of course it’s great to have goals that you work towards, both in yoga and in life. But they should be goals that you want to work towards because you want to work towards them - not because someone else has decided that it’s the ideal point for you to get to, or that you’re not “fully there” if you don’t meet those expectations.

September Theme: Connecting

Happy September! September is a particularly exciting month for me. It’s my birth month, and this year’s a big one - I turn 40! But that aside, I love this month for numerous reasons. It’s the start of fall. A time of transition - both in seasons, and in life. It’s the season in which we begin planning for the upcoming year. It’s a particularly earth-and-nature-focused season - leaves change color and begin to fall from the trees. We go apple and pumpkin picking. We take hayrides and sit around the fire pit with friends. It’s the perfect season for hiking and other outdoor activities that can be a little rough during the hot, humid summer. As it gets cooler, we put on more layers. We curl under blankets. This all feels super grounding,and I love it. 

For me, I also connect more with myself. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s my birth month, and that always makes me reflect and look forward and look inward, and basically just look everywhere. It’s a time for me to think about what I want to do/be/experience in the next 365 days. It’s a time to consider what changes and adjustments I want to work on, what paths I want to explore. 

And so, my theme for the month of September is Connecting. Whatever that means to you. Maybe it’s connecting with your yoga/wellness practice(s). Maybe it’s grounding, connecting through the earth, whether that’s being out in nature or sitting in meditation or some other way. Perhaps it’s connect with each other, with friends and family. Or connecting with yourself. It may several or even all of these. 

Throughout September, I’ll be posting and sharing about connection. And because we’re each different, because we each connect in our own ways, I’d love to hear what makes you feel most connected, too! 

August Theme - Getting Uncomfortable

Happy August!  I don’t know about you, but it feels to me like this summer is flying by. I can’t believe it’s time for the August theme already, but it’s one that I’m excited about, in that  weird way that we feel excited when we push ourselves out of our comfort zone. I spent July focusing on being patient with the process, both in yoga and in life. August’s theme is a bit of an extension on that, because this idea of being in process feels super important and multifaceted to me, so I want to spend a little more time on it. This month, I’m focusing on getting uncomfortable. 

Before I continue, I’d like to make a few clarifications: when I say uncomfortable, I’m not talking about 1.) Pain/something that could be injuring you. Don’t force yourself into a yoga pose if it feels like you’re about to rupture something, and don’t force yourself into something in life if it feels like it’s legitimately not right. 2.) I’m not talking about letting other people make you uncomfortable (or making them uncomfortable, for that matter) in any type of inappropriate manner/way that feels wrong. I feel like this goes without saying, but I want to be really clear here. That is never OK. 

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I’m talking about the type of uncomfortable that pushes you out of complacency, or OK-ness. The kind of uncomfortable that makes you get really honest with yourself. The type that helps you grow, whether it’s in your physical yoga practice, or in life. The type of uncomfortable that we really know we should face but we put off because it’s easier not to, because letting ourselves stay comfortable doesn’t rock the boat and keeps everything status quo and it’s natural to want to stay comfortable.

Let me give an example: I am super uncomfortable speaking about my talents and skills. It feels like bragging, like I’m saying to people “look at me”, when I, in fact, strongly dislike having attention focused on me (exception: I’m fine when teaching, and I think that’s because I see it as guiding in a shared experience). But in order to grow my business, I have to tell people what I do. And I have to show them that I’m skilled at it. In the days of social media, I more or less have to post pictures, videos, evidence of me being good at it. I have to say (and show) “hey I have something valuable I can offer to you.” Whether it’s posting on social media to get people to come to classes, or it’s approaching a studio about a subbing or teaching position, or it’s posing my ideas for workplace benefit yoga to a company, I have to tell people about what I do and why I do it and how they could benefit from it.  Because I’m not going to get far in building a business that nobody knows about, or that doesn’t show potential clients the value that I can offer them. So I have to deal with getting uncomfortable. I have to share what I do, why I do it, how I do it, and my skill level/knowledge at it. I have to get past the self doubt and the impostor syndrome and the having attention on me (even from behind the screen of a computer or phone) because without clients, I won’t have a business. At least not one that’s sustainable as a part or full time endeavor. 

In yoga, it may be trusting yourself to try a new style, or a new studio, or a new pose (assuming you aren’t likely to hurt yourself or be in pain - please don’t hurt yourself!). In yoga teaching, it is, and I speak from experience here, teaching a pose you yourself aren’t super comfortable in. Yoga teacher confession time: I strongly dislike doing Ardha Chandrasana aka Half Moon pose. I might be the only yogi/instructor on the planet that doesn’t like this pose. It’s not because it scares me,or because I can’t do it. I can do the pose fine - not great, mind you, but fine. I just feel “off” in it. I don’t enjoy it. It’s like putting on an outfit that looks fine on the outside but it just feels eh and you can’t explain why. That’s how I feel about myself doing this pose. And, because of that, my natural inclination is to avoid teaching it because it’s easier to fill a classes with poses you personally love. But I also know that 1.) I can’t let my own feelings about poses limit what I offer my students and 2.) I’m never going to get more comfortable with it, practicing or teaching, if I don’t do it. So, my very first class after graduating teacher training what did I do? I put Ardha Chandrasana into my first standing flow. I made myself get uncomfortable. I made myself sit (or in this case, balance) with my uncomfortableness. And guess what? I’m OK. Nothing horrific happened. I got through it. Was it my finest pose instruction? Not sure, but probably not - it was also my first real class, so that makes it tough to tell. Was it passable. Yep!  Nobody ran out of the class or fell over due to unclear instructions or looked at me funny like I didn’t know what I was talking about. And I got past that first time of teaching the pose. I felt accomplished for doing so, and proud that I made myself go for it.

Life, and yoga, are like that. Often, it’s the poses and pieces that we most need to work on that make us the most uncomfortable. Because deep down, we know that when we avoid them, we avoid (potential) growth. And growth is scary, or at least it can be, because sometimes we have to be really honest with ourselves, and that’s not always the most fun time. 

Luckily, yoga offers us a place to practice pushing our comfort zone that’s relatively low stakes. Most poses have numerous variations and modifications that allow us to dip our toes in and get a feel for it. We have props to help us ease our way in when something feels physically or mentally uncomfortable (i.e. when we doubt ourselves, feel embarrassed, worry what we’ll look like, etc). There are beginner classes and gentle classes for those who may feel intimidated about trying yoga, or who may just want a less physically intense practice (note: I love gentle taking gentle classes myself!). And most of the time, whether you know it or not, there’s someone else in there also feeling uncomfortable, sharing in that same experience, even if neither of you know it. Maybe it’s even your instructor, teaching a pose they don’t love themselves, but value for their students.

So this month, I invite you to continue to be in the process, and to be patient with the process, by allowing yourself to sit (literally or figuratively, or possibly both) in the uncomfortable. Maybe it’s noticing when you avoid doing an unpleasant task by logging onto social media instead. Maybe it’s making excuses (oh I’m no good at that/don’t have the time/will do it later) when something makes you push beyond your usual comfort zone. Perhaps it’s an inkling to avoid teaching a pose you don’t love, or to suddenly need a bathroom break/drink of water/to step out of the room to cough/etc every time that pose comes up in a class you take. Whatever it is, take note. Even taking this pause, asking ‘why’, helps us to understand our uncomfortableness a little better. And the more we give voice to something uncomfortable, something scary, the less it becomes so. 

July Theme - Patience and Process

Happy July! I hope you had a fantastic June, and thanks for being part of my first full official month as a yoga teacher and business. As I’ve written about, June’s theme was growing. We were getting into summer and growing our gardens. The days were growing longer. We were growing our connection with family and friends as we move into summer/vacation/outdoor gathering/etc mode. I was (and of course, still am) growing my website, my yoga business, and everything that goes along with it. I also focused on a lot of internal growth. In June, I began working a lot more with intentionality. I began focusing on being more conscious of what was going on around me, what I was doing in the moment. I began paying more attention to input from my senses - sights, sounds, the feel of the environment, smells (not always the best focus!), really consciously tasting food. I also have been working to focus on one task/activity/item at a time. It’s tough in this society of alerts and pings and texts and everything else, and I’m not great at it, but I’m getting better at it, I think. 

For July, I decided to have a dual focus, because for me, they go together nicely: Patience and Process. I’ll be real - patience is a virtue…. That I don’t have a ton of. To be clear, I have patience with people. I don’t tend to have patience with myself, especially when it comes to process. I tend to want to teleport from starting line to end result, and I don’t give myself nearly enough credit for the steps in between. In yoga class, this could be the frustration of struggling to get my body to move a certain way. I’ll work and work at something, and it’s often tough for me to notice the small improvements, if I’m still struggling with range of motion or pain in a certain position and I have to get myself out of it. (Note: don’t stay in a pose that’s causing any pain that’s not a stretching kind of pain. Yoga should not be acutely pain-inducing!). 

More often though, it’s the life process I’m not great with. For instance, in the past two months, I’ve graduated yoga teacher training, gotten my RYT-200 designation, secured a private client, gotten on a sub list at a studio, am scheduled to teach two donation based community classes for Charity at The Grant Building, and recently found out that I’ve been approved for a weekly benefit class for an organization, which I can’t yet share details of yet but am super excited about! And yet my brain is over here thinking that it’s not enough, because I haven’t miraculously in 1.5 months managed to start a full-fledged business that can pay the bills. Except that in reality, less than two months ago, I wasn’t even officially a yoga teacher!  

For me, it stems from a combination of anxiety and my general personality - the J part of my INFJ is associated with always planning for the next stage, always looking for the next steps, the next experience, the next adventure. And we can only really change so much about our inherent personality, so I’ll probably always be someone that works better knowing the plan, the next steps, working towards the next stage. But I’m trying to also help myself realize that the smaller pieces of the process, the baby steps, are still steps. They’re still part of that plan, that moving towards the next stage, and they’re necessary. And so I’m working on celebrating process, and having patience with it. It fits well into my intentional living focus, to notice all that’s going on right now, instead of jumping ahead to next, next next. 

I’ll be posting, blogging, sharing about patience and process throughout the month, both here and on my twitter and instagram. And if you’re up for sharing, I’d love to hear about the processes that you're working with and celebrating this month! 

This pose is a process for me, as you can see by my back foot turning in, and my elbow not quite hooking over my knee. And that’s all OK. I keep working on it. Sometimes it’s a little easier. Sometimes, I look like I’m taking yoga selfies in my pajamas with less than perfect form.

Growing Through Stepping Back

As I mentioned in my last couple of posts, my theme for this month is Growing. One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is my growth while going through yoga teacher training. Of course, my physical practice grew - in my knowledge of the poses, teaching techniques, how to adjust and assist, what to look for in my own body when practicing - as well as the amount of times per week I was physically practicing yoga. While my physical practice and knowledge expanded in the way I expected, I found that my internal practice grew in the opposite manner - by learning to step back. To clarify, I don’t mean physically stepping back, as in into a lunge or Warrior pose (though there was plenty of that too!). I mean consciously pausing before going into a pose, or even a class, and asking myself “what would serve me best here?”

Throughout my youth, teenage years, and college, I was involved in competitive gymnastics. I was known as the team member that would generally just “go for things”, even if I more or less didn’t have a chance of landing it properly (the number of times I landed almost on my head or straddled the beam was startling). I loved challenging myself to do the toughest skills possible. I physically loved flipping around and I often felt more comfortable upside down than right side up. And this served me really well in competitive gymnastics, where you were awarded more points for more difficult skills, and more points meant higher scores, which meant placing higher in competition, qualifying to select competitions like State or Regional Championships, and qualifying to the next level. In addition, I was self-competitive (still am) and I always aimed to beat my own best, so even without all of the scoring and qualifying, I probably would have still gone for the most difficult skills.

So when I started doing yoga, I was one of those people that always pushed myself to go into the “most difficult” version of the pose, giving myself the most physically challenging practice I could. If there was an option to flow or stay in down dog, I flowed. If there was an option to bind in a pose, I went for the bind. I went into wheel instead of bridge or supported bridge even if my back was like “hey there lady, go easy on me today would ya?!” It wasn’t because I was trying to show off or anything like that. It’s what I knew. It’s how I’d been trained. It’s how I had internally trained myself. Physical activities have always been a strong point for me, and so I pushed myself to physically challenge myself as much as possible.  

But as I moved through yoga teacher training, and my practice expanded in all directions (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, as well as physically), I noticed something - that urge to push myself to the limit tapered. I still challenged myself, but the challenge shifted a bit - instead of “can I get into the most challenging version of this pose”, it more often became asking myself “what would really benefit me most today?”, and challenging myself to stay with that answer, even if meant resting in child’s pose while others were going through a flow, or staying in supported bridge instead of going into wheel.  The challenge wasn’t always about what would physically serve me best, either. Often, it was the mental aspect. I needed to pause and breathe to help create inner space. Other times, I chose based on my energy level. Certain poses, like back bends, can be especially energizing. So if I needed more energy, I may go into a deeper back bend - not because it was physically more challenging, but because that energy served me in that moment (i.e. 6AM classes when I had a full work day ahead of me). If I did not want to ramp up my energy, say, in a later evening class where I’d be going to bed shortly after getting home, I chose something more restorative or supportive. I still love doing inversions (I really do love being upside down) but I do them because they feel weightless to me, like the stress of life is being literally flipped on it’s head, and help me mentally - not because of the difficulty level. And even here, I always ask which version of an inversion serves me best, before I take it (legs up the wall equals awesome inversion option!).

What I found, in taking this pause, was that my yoga practice grew. Not specifically in the physical sense, though it did help my joints and muscles and any injuries recover more fully, but my overall yoga practice. My practice that extends far beyond the mat. I learned that I don’t have to constantly push myself to the limit. That sometimes, what I need - my body, my heart, my mind, my soul - is to take a breather, to be kind to my body, my mind, myself, to know that even if I can technically do something, it might not be what serves me best. And as I’ve continued to practice this in my physical practice, I’ve noticed it in other areas too. I’m working on being kinder to myself, setting boundaries where needed, on listening to my intuition and my inner knowledge, and focusing on what it’s telling me in this moment. And for me, this, truly, is what yoga is all about.

Sometimes my left knee hurts in tree pose (Vrksasana) because I don’t have full flexion there. So I frequently now opt to keep my leg lower instead of forcing myself into it.

Photo credit: Aly Gaul.

Monthly Focus: Growing

I’ve been thinking lately about how to organize the content of this blog. My business/site encompasses numerous aspects, and I want to try to tie things together as much as I can, because I truly feel each of these areas interacts with the others in some way, or at least they all have the potential to. So I’ve decided that each month, I’m going to focus on a theme. Or at least I’m going to give this a go and see how it plays out (hey, you’ll find nothing but honesty here!).  For this first month, since I’m releasing my blog mid-to-late month, this will be the “monthly plus a week and a half-ish” theme (also known as the rest of May and through June).

For this month’s theme, I chose Growing. Quite simply, seems like it fits. I’m premiering this site and my business in the end of spring as we head towards summer, and spring is the season of growth. Additionally, I’ve spent the last 9ish months in Yoga Teacher Training, and if you’ve never been through yoga teacher training, I can attest to the fact that not only do you grow your yoga knowledge immensely, but there’s a significant amount of personal/internal growth as well. And of course, now that I’ve graduated and am starting my business, I’ll be growing that.

Growth can take so many forms. We can grow our food. We can help children grow. We can expand our knowledge, our interests, our skill sets. We can grow in relationships, friendships, careers. And we can grow within ourselves. We can delve deep and get to know ourselves better, become completely (but kindly) honest with ourselves about the good, the “not so great” (i.e. the areas we’d like to work on), the quirky, the beautiful, the messy, the quirky and messy and beautiful (side note: I think this is where many of us fall). Or maybe our internal growth is more subtle. Maybe every day we take five minutes to meditate or to be in alone in nature or to do something for someone else or to do something kind for ourselves or connect with another being or tap into our creativity. Maybe it’s this small gesture each day or each week that we don’t even realize is having an impact, and then one day we suddenly feel different, even if we can’t say exactly how. We notice a subtle shift.

However you choose to focus on growth, I’m going to be right there alongside you (figuratively, unless you’re taking class or doing sessions with me, then literally), probably doing some combination of the above. And of course, I’m always here to kick around ideas or inspiration or motivation. And if you want to focus on your growth through yoga or wellness or travel or writing or anything related to what I do here in my business, well, of course I’m here for that too!

Happy Late Spring!

Maya