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Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Yikes!!! 10 days with no yoga and no yoga blogging!!

Oh well, I'll rebuild one visit to my mat at a time. :)

Truth be told, I do feel bad that I've neglected my practice.

I'm not going to beat myself up about it, and I'm going to return to my mat this morning with purpose and understanding.

I will not overdo it this morning (as I've done in the past to "atone" for missing a practice).  This isn't a good practice and is reminiscent of unbalanced behavior.

What I will do is spend extra time in meditation and extra time looking inward this morning.


Tuesday, June 27, 2017 (Part II)
I hit my mat at 5:45am this morning to dedicate extra time to mediation and prayer.

It was definitely worth it.  that 15 minutes goes by quickly.  It's little more than 15 minutes of controlled breathing (usually a 4 count breath), and mentally focusing on my body and mind.  Physically, before I practiced, I felt "strong" but a little too "solid" and "rigid".  I'm familiar with this feeling and I know that it's an illusion that needs to be worked through and broken up.

Mentally, before I began my practice, I was feeling good.  I'm excited about the new beginnings I have in my life currently, but I'm also lacking a bit of motivation and direction.  I'm aware that these will come back in due time, whenever I need to refocus my motivation and direction.

I focused intensely on my bahnda system this morning, particularly Uddiyana bandha.  I've neglected my diet (as per usual over the weekend), and I needed to get "unstuck".  In addition to unsticking my digestive tract, I've found that engaging this bandha with focus helps to move me deeper into forward bends (it doesn't seem to have any effect on backbends but I'm sure there's a benefit there that I'm not realizing yet).

I went through my entire modified primary series ending with Urdhva Dhanurasana.  I went through my sequence of 3 and then decided to stop and not push it to 4 (though it definitely crossed my mind).
I'm feeling wonderfully focused, balanced, and proud.  I'm going to take these feelings out into the world with me today.

Namaste

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