Skip to main content

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Tuesday, April 4, 2017
The last time I practiced and blogged about it, I focused on being grateful and extinguishing fear.

The effects that this had on me were positive enough that I'm going to try and focus on being grateful today, as well.  The 4 main areas of my life that I'm focusing on are......

  • My family
  • My job
  • My friends/relationships
  • My health

Those are the thoughts I'm going to keep in front of my mind as I move forward through my day.

In addition to focusing on being grateful, I'm going to extinguish and fear and anxiety I feel throughout the day.  Fear, as Master Yoda says, leads to suffering (yes, I incorporated Star Wars into a yoga blog; #idowhatiwant

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 (Part II)
I'm on my mat post-practice, and sweating like its my job.

Had an exceptional practice this morning with intention and focus on the 4 areas of my life that I'm most grateful for listed above.  When I'm moving through my physical asanas/poses I try to keep my mind shut off.  When I do catch my mind wandering (which is often), I bring myself back down by focusing on those 4 areas.

To help extinguish fear and anxiety, I "bait and switch" myself by, first, imagining my life without my family, job, friends, and health.  A world where my parents have been given 2 months to live, I've been laid off from my job, my friends and other relationships end, and I'm diagnosed with something terminal and life threatening.  While it's scary to think of that hypothetical world (and scary to type it out on a blog), I envision losing all of that and then realize that it's not real.  All of my wants and desires are not real.  I have no control over any of them, and they are not real.  This helps train me into letting go of things I'm afraid to lose.

Physically, I think I'm going to put more intention and effort into my backbends.  I notice that they're good, but not great.  My backbends are my crowning glory, when they're deep, and I feel a need to keep chipping away at myself until they're at a point where I'm happy.  #yogavanity

I'm going to shower up and enter the world with the calm and grounded focus my practice gave me.

Namaste

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rebuild

Tuesday, July 10, 2018 Woke at my usual 4:45AM this morning for coffee and contemplation. Feeling wonderful this morning, and not terribly sore at all.  There's a bit of stiffness in my back from yesterday's backbends, but that's to be expected. Ready to sweat it out on my mat. Tuesday, July 10, 2018 (Part II) I'm writing this off my mat, already showered up for my day. I love going to my mat.  The physical challenge alone is reward enough, but, while I've said it many times before, the mental and spiritual adjustments that one can make are priceless.  Physically, I already see a difference in my body.  Arms are still re-building their stamina, but the twists and forward bends I incorporate are already helping with digestion and elimination and the general "deflating" of my body and G.I. track (TMI, I'm sure, but this is one of the main physical reasons why I practice). Mentally, I feel prepared for anything that comes my way today and fe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sleeping In

Wednesday, August 24, 2017 Woke at my usual 5:00 AM and then slept for another 20 minutes.  No big deal. I'm feeling grounded, stable, and balanced, even before hitting my mat. To stay on schedule, I'll hit my mat in about 30/40 minutes. Wednesday, August 24, 2017 (Part II) I not only slept in this morning, I didn't hit my mat until 6:30 AM (30 minutes after my normal time).  I was productive, however, and used my coffee fueled morning motivation to tidy up around my place and take care of some chores that I'd been putting off for a while. When I finally did hit my mat, I began with my standard 5 minutes of prayer and meditation.  After that, I began my standard warmup.  I moved into my formal practice feeling wonderful; no aches and no sluggishness, as I felt yesterday. I finished with 3 beautiful Upward Bow poses and am writing this after having just come out of Savasana. I feel balanced, strong, beautiful, content, solid, gentle, and indestructible. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rebirth and Regrowth

Friday, December 28, 2018 Still enjoying the marvelous holiday break from my normal routine. I still wake around a normal time, but I'm writing this pre-yoga-post at 10:06AM. I already feel the positive effects of my practice.  My mind, and its thoughts are more stable and reliable, I'm physically seeing changes in my body (even after two days), and, even though I'm still eating a fair amount of unhealthy food options, I'm not feeling as "sludgy" as I was earlier this week. I'm going to meditate, pray, and warm up before I begin my practice. Friday, December 28, 2018 (Part II) Three days. Three consecutive practices. Three completely different experiences. The title of today's post is "Rebirth and Regrowth" but I only really felt that way at the beginning/Part I of my post.  As I write this Part II section of today's blog, I feel very different from how I was before.  I feel solid and steady.  I feel like I'm galvani...
Post a Comment
Read more