1. 30 days is a long time.
At some point in my life, I stopped being able to commit. Actually, I take that back. I'm not sure I ever learned. I have grown up on a "project basis." So now I'm faced with the question of what to do when I don't have an explicit project. There are crickets there. That is all. I think this is why humanity has kids. Kids are the ultimate project and only until they leave does that become apparent. So I'm basically having an "empty nester" experience. I am not yet 40 and I don't have children.
It's bizarre. Not much of a peer network there, it seems.
2. Yoga will bring massive shit to the surface.
I hesitated to pick yoga as a project for this very reason. My commitment to restart a practice can be 30 days but yoga itself will bring up a lifetime of turmoil that you've unwittingly stored in the great void that, apparently, are your hips. So, after about 4 days of a pretty light practice, I was a wreck: anxious, agitated, distracted, uncomfortable, sometimes inconsolable. All because of yoga. Not a bad thing; I see it as a "flushing out the crud" exercise but, geez. I should've built in breathers (ironically) which I ended up taking as some days I
3. Amazing things can happen.
Where's there's massive shit, there's also the potential for great, great opening. For the first time in a long time, coincidences or serendipitous things started happening again. I think those things are a kind of manifestation of hope. When you lift a little weight off or change things up, the world around you flexes to accommodate that in sometimes the most unexpected but spectacular ways. It really can be a seeing with new eyes. If you're keeping track, this paired with the last learning amounts to what could be seen as significant mood swings. Ah well, can't win 'em all.
4. I thrive on novelty.
I think this is the key to my commitment hesitation. I'm definitely a "when the newness wears off..." kinda girl. I've not really ever seen myself this way but even this project makes it an unavoidable truth. I was beyond enthusiastic about this for the first 4 days and then I started getting bored. I haven't given up on it but I do have to acknowledge my growing "meh-ness" toward the whole thing.
5. Sense memory is everything.
I have always known about myself that I live in my brain's world. I can outthink just about anything and come around to the rational conclusion that I want to come to if given enough time. Commitment like this requires a quieting of that stupid, chattering "monkey mind" and a subtle but sound resolve stemming somewhere from the core area that, "No, we're going to do this today because the sun rises and sets with complete regularity every day and not just when it feels like it." What I've noticed more particularly now than ever is that the motivation for that gradual "slow and steady" approach has to come from something other than reason (which is where my motivation for literally everything else comes from).
In this case, I think that's sense memory. I have to tuck away the exact feelings that I have at the end of the practice and go back to those to find motivation. It's not what I think about it but how it feels in the process. Somehow, I always get into the middle of a practice and think, "It's absurd that I fight doing this so hard every day." It's that moment I have to return to. It's the feeling from the core that has to drive it. Because if it's up to my mind, I'd rather lay on the couch.
I say all of this with trepidation because I haven't even cracked two weeks on this thing yet and I can already feel the urge to just toss the whole plan. Maybe that's part of a sort of detox in a way. It's retraining what is ultimately impulsivity into a balance with longevity. Both are good but impulsive is definitely winning right now.
Well, the urge and not the practice.
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