Tazima Davis (Compassionate Renegade), my holistic health coach from IIN challenged all of her clients to integrate yoga into their day, every single day for 108 days starting on 1/11/11. I read all of her e-mails and thought, "I could never pull that off, I'm way too busy". Then I read further and listened to her basic guidelines for what it meant to bring yoga, mindfulness and balance into a daily practice, and determined that I could definitely find time every day to spend 30 minutes in quiet or meditation, ideally on the mat, stretching and toning my physical body as well, but at very least, in a place of rest and inner calm, breathing deeply and steadily, and quieting the chatter in my mind. In fact, this is exactly what I need heading into this new year, a year of building strength.Since January 11, I am proud to say I have met this challenge to very best of my ability and have done yoga for 14 days. I try to get over to HOSH yoga in my neighborhood where they have built a beautiful community studio, which is also pay-what-you-wish and run by volunteers, but I have also done some video tapes and downloads from the internet. On the one day that I could not actually get to a class, I made time to meditate on my train rides (believe it or not on the subway!) and at the end of my day when I was getting ready for bed, I still got on the mat for a bit and stretched while breathing deeply.
I never thought I would even make it this far, but so far the joy of taking that time for myself to turn inward and find the balance in my body has been such a gift that I am looking forward to it again every day.
The most significant thing that I have noticed is how busy my mind is and how long it takes me each class to find my breath and focus on being in the moment rather than leaping ahead to what I have to do next, or hanging onto an experience from my past.I hope I can stick with it and that this begins to lessen as I go....
With compassion I invite you all to challenge yourselves to an exercise or activity that would help to balance your day and make you feel great, but may seem just a bit out of reach. Give
yourself the treat of realizing that there is so much that you CAN do... become inspired.
with love,
Deborah
