On the mat & in life
How we are on the mat reflects how we are facing life!
Yoga offers opportunities to meet challenges with a calm mind, determination, and curiosity; to fail and not give up, to persist. How you meet challenges on the mat in a daily practice trains your mind to meet life’s challenges.
Yoga requires self-disciple!
Lately I have been asking myself these 3 questions when I find practice difficult, or don’t even want to start.(I still have days where I don’t feel like doing it at all! )
- Is the mental chatter in my brain quiet?
- Am I accepting of myself exactly where/how I am?
- Am I clinging to the “comfort zone” or do I want growth and change?
Once I’ve gotten 5 minutes in…. the answers are: Yes, Yes and I want to grow and change! It is rare that I don’t continue practice for an hour or more. The magic is outside the comfort zone. (For me, “outside the comfort zone” is: starting and going 5 minutes, day after day, week after week, year after year.) It is starting and that 1st, 5 minutes that require the most discipline! After 5 minutes I remember who I am and Why I do yoga.
I have begun asking these 3 questions about almost everything I “feel” like avoiding in life. It’s amazing! If I show up I’m all-in. If I choose not to do something it is with no judgment or guilt.
Discipline when Aging and with Disabilities:
I have taught yoga mindfulness for over 8 years with elderly persons in an assisted living setting. I have formed relationships, seen many people at the end stages of life, and said many goodbyes.
I have learned from watching people give up one thing, activity and then another and another untill not much is left to call living. I have learned and been inspired by people who discipline themselves to show up for class and activities (life). I have watched these people having purpose and meaning in their lives: they keep building relationships. They are happy and spread goodwill and joy. Profound physical limitations do not stop them. They show up, they start things, they persist even with on-going pain. They feel better after being active. They keep showing up! When these people pass it is a graceful letting go.
There comes a time when it is about giving-up, letting go, but let’s use our self-discipline to live to the fullest and build many bridges in the meantime!
Keep venturing out of the comfort zone, my friends and live with magic until we finish this ride!
Peace, Christina
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