Day 15: Reveal

Today we are halfway through Adriene's dedicate series. While trying to do yoga every day isn't necessarily a new thing for me, actually doing yoga every day (barring Saturdays) is. Whenever I commit to a project, a subconsciously think that I won't actually get to the finish line. My personal history certainly shows this to be a pattern, but that's one thing that I learned from this journey: you don't have to harp on the past, and you don't have to push yourself to be different or better in one fell swoop. You can observe as you grow and change, and commit to manageable progress.

The Dedicate series has revealed a few key lessons—in keeping with the pattern of my observations, most of these observations are things that I knew on an intellectual level, but struggled to apply to my life.

1) Start small. This is especially important during a morning practice. I used to want to jump into side planks and chaturangas, again, to get the most efficient workout in the least amount of time. But when the body is just waking up, it is alarmed and confused by aggressive movements. Actually taking the time to sink into child's pose, or take two minutes to set the tone and an intention for the day is worth just as much time (if not more) as hopping into headstand.

This is a lesson that I just realized—really realized—yesterday. While talking with a former co-worker, I said "I think I should undercommit during my first year of my PhD, and then see how much I can take on." To which my body was alarmed and confused, as it didn't know how to stop worrying about doing all the things: wake up at 5:00! Have 3 jobs! Do the extracurriculars you didn't do in college, and volunteer while you're at it!

In any given semester, I mentally commit to all of these things, and can do two of them. Or I commit to all of them, and don't do anything well. Starting with that metaphorical child's pose and setting an intention for the semester can help with the transition from doing nothing to doing everything.

2) Don't take your practice too seriously. There are a lot of yogis (usually ones who have just started getting serious about their practice) who are just so spiritual and can never joke again. Our inner selves usually find things funny—one thing that I appreciate about Adriene, is that she jokes and sings things other than chants and makes pop culture references. In other words, she doesn't take herself seriously.

Life is arbitrary. We can either panic about this and scramble to find the purpose, the meaning of it all, or we can laugh at the ridiculousness of life, and observe the things that are out of our control. This is difficult to achieve when everything is going terribly, horribly wrong, but at the very least, avoiding framing largely temporary issues as doomsday can help us get out of the vicious cycle of despair and hopelessness.

3) Allowing leads to creating.
I was initially suspicious of allowing, as I was trying to get away from passivity and letting things happen to me. Allowing external influences to infiltrate your life can become dangerous—for all you know, you might find yourself on a mountain at midnight with a gun-sporting sociopath. But allowing yourself some space to explore how you feel, how you move, and what you need can lead to agency in other aspects of your life. It has been well-established the mindfulness leads to better decision-making  Rather than worry and push yourself to always make the best decision, you might use a mindful yoga practice to listen to yourself and think about what makes you come alive, what sparks joy, where your heart is pulling you.

Unless your heart is telling you to snort cocaine and stay out until 5am. Don't do that.

One of the biggest eye-openers (while doing heart-openers) is that I thought I would struggle through this series, and then I would stop. It would be over. I would still do yoga, but I wouldn't have to blog, and I would rush through my yoga practices (for what, I wonder? My 5 hours a month job? To sit on my bed and panic that I wasn't doing anything?). Now I'm prematurely mourning the end of this series, and am starting to look at Adriene's older 30 day journeys. I probably won't blog every day, but I've started to get ideas for other blogs, a welcome change after nearly a year-long hiatus.

So while I previously that that control and discipline led to consistency, so too does allowing and inviting delicious, enriching, and inspiring forms of self-care.

Namaste.