Month of Yoga Retrospective

The other night I thought, "I've done yoga every day, just like I said I would. I've got this in the bag!" Then I fell asleep reading on the couch. Upon waking up I realized I had not yet practiced, so I dragged myself off the couch and onto my mat. Each day presents a new challenge!

By Carolina Arevalo

I have stayed true to my commitment and month of yoga has done exactly what I had hoped: I have strengthened my discipline to make time to do the things that foster joy, serenity, and confidence.

I was chatting with Sarah (check out her 12 Experiments) about how I often get distracted by the little things I have to do and don’t leave time for what inspires and adds value to my life. She replied that she has the opposite problem! She does the fun things and forgets to work. It is easy to convince yourself that you are having a universal experience. It is so important to share your experiences and points of view with others, because it is so easy to be swallowed up in the “that’s just the way it is” fallacy. There are somethings you can’t change, like the past, but you can always shift the way you feel about them, the gravity you give to them, and the impact you allow it to have on you as you move forward.

Yoga for me is an exercise in incremental shifts. I practice with my body, because it is my access point to my mental and spiritual dimension. On my mat I can practice what I want to become.

Week 1: I'm flying...oh wait no, I'm crashing.

I froze my gym membership for the months of November and December because I was out of town a lot. I had told myself that this would be an opportunity to focus on my home practice. Instead, predictably, I fell off the wagon.  Leading up to this experiment, I began unrolling my mat at home and re-familiarizing myself a bit, but public classes are what really push me. I kept a log throughout my first week of this experiment:

Day 1 -  4pm 75 minute Vin/Yin class

This was a perfect class to start the year.  45 minutes of flow and then 45 minutes of slow, juicy, deep tissue yin. This experiment will be easy because I am a golden goddess.

Day 2 - 6:30 am Vinyasa 2

Oh jeez. High intensity early morning class that felt like 2 classes crammed into one.  I felt simultaneously strong and out of shape, but I kept up. Afterwards, I felt inspired to practice some of the poses that I hate  *make me pretty uncomfortable*: Dolphin, crow, headstand, approaching handstand, humble warrior, fire logs... I felt great for a few hours, but by 9am I wanted to curl up under my desk to take a nap.

Day 3 - 8:30 am 15 minute home practice

My alarm didn’t go off this morning, so I missed the 7:30 am class. Even though I was running late to work, I did a few Sun Salutations, cat/cows, and a healthy amount of time in child’s pose. Nailed it.

Day 4 - 6:30 am Vinyasa 2 class

Woof. I did not want to get out from under my warm down cloud of a comforter to stretch out my still-sore body. It was pitch black and so peaceful as all of the sane people in my neighborhood lay sleeping. Walked in late and basically never caught up. While two days ago, I thought ‘I should really work on developing my inversion practice.” This morning I laid in child’s pose as everybody else flew upside down in impressive handstands. I left only vaguely glad I went, but mostly in a sour, withdrawn mood. I thought I could just throw myself back into the same level that I had been building toward with a year of consistent practice. Not so. I really felt those 2 months of languishing. This Month of Yoga is going to be a bit more challenging than I had expected.

Super Soldier Pose

Day 5 - 10 am 60 minute Vinyasa 2 at ABP

Dragged by patootie over there. Tried and epically failed my first attempt at Super Soldier Pose, but I had a good giggle experimenting.

Day 6 - 10:45 pm 15 minute home practice

Snuck it in under the wire.

Day 7 - 4pm 60 minute Yoga for Climbers at ABP

I got up at 5:45am to make a 6:30 am yoga class. After wedging myself out of bed, stomping around, and just staring angrily at my dresser, I finally thought, why am I doing this? I went back to sleep and went to the 4pm.

Lesson 1 : from this experiment so far: I am very unhappy waking up before sunrise during the winter. I am in hibernation mode, which means I sleep more, eat more heavy, hot meals, and don’t get up several hours before the crack of dawn to do a restorative practice. Plus I am stiff and cold in the mornings and need a couple of hours to warm up. Late morning to evening are the good times for me.

Lesson 2 : Never take a 2 month break from yoga again, duh.

Lesson 3 : For henceforth experiments I will only make myself do something 6 days a week, cause let’s be real, everybody needs a day off every once a week.

Lesson 4 : This post is too long! Write shorter posts, more often.

A Month of Yoga

“Motivation waxes and wanes but discipline will carry you through those hard times”

~ Todd Cline

As I thought about what it would mean to give myself over to a year long experiment, I thought about something I read once about the benefits of “SMART goals:” Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. I chose A Month of Yoga as my first experiment because I want to start the year off cultivating discipline. If my larger goal is to seize 2019 and live more intentionally, I feel like I should start with the basics.

I have been practicing yoga for 12 years. It hasn’t been all beach yoga and handstands.  More often than not, I am the type of yogi who can be found weeping softly in half pigeon. Some of those years I barely looked at my mat while other years it was the one thing that could reliably bring me peace throughout the day. My practice has been patchy at times, but I keep coming back to the mat. I’ve found it is a practice that really works for me.

This past summer, after years of thinking about it, I finally did a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification. My nebulous goals for the course were to deepen my practice, master proper alignment, explore anatomy, delve into yoga philosophy, learn smart sequencing, lead confidently, and develop this as a hard skill I might be able to use as a side-hustle. I was all gung-ho about teaching privately and creating workshops when I landed a full-time job and my priorities began to shift. It was easier for me to prioritize my practice when I had the flexibility to go to class whenever I felt like it. My preference for mid-morning yoga didn’t exactly jive with my new 9-5 work schedule, and I fell off the wagon. So, my first challenge will revolve around sticking to my personal routines and prioritizing that which brings me peace.  If a happy and fulfilling life is the goal, I must routinely do that which makes me happy and feel fulfilled.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

~Aristotle

Specific: Practice a whole lot of yoga

Measurable: I will keep a log of my practice

Achievable: At least 15 minutes a day. Not a huge time commitment, more is better, but focus on consistently achieving the goal.

Relevant: Having a daily yoga practice helps me to cultivate discipline, mindfulness, and intention. This will set the groundwork for the rest of my experiments.

Time-bound: 15 minutes per day for 31 days. How hard could it be?

Wish me luck!