How to show up on the mat regularly?
✦ 3 min
I often notice that people who want to keep a regular practice, especially at the start, set themselves rigid rules around it.
For example: "if I don't have a free hour, the right place and quiet at home, better to put yoga off until later." The problem is that the "ideal later" often doesn't come anywhere near as fast.
So it's worth opening up to the idea that practice doesn't always have to be "ideal," the way we planned it during our New Year's resolutions.
The key is to come back
The key to regularity is to COME BACK:
- Come back during an intense week (legs up the wall and belly breathing before sleep, and 3 sun salutations in the morning).
- Come back on holiday (treat yourself to an hour of yin yoga and daily 10-minute meditations outside before breakfast).
- Come back during a cold (take your favorite reclining pose and return to conscious, deepened breath).
- Come back when the world turns upside down (even just to have a good cry).
Some practices last an hour. Others ten minutes. Some energize, some lift the weight off your shoulders, and others are simply conscious breath and a few movements. All of them are needed.
The flexibility that keeps you in touch with practice
So it's worth building flexibility — the emotional kind, the kind that makes space for adapting what you do to the situation. That's exactly what lets you stay in touch with practice for years.
And when the world turns upside down now and then, stop asking: "Do I have time for the perfect practice?" Ask: "How can I take care of myself today, with exactly as much time and energy as I have?"
✨ Let me know what your practice looks like in the more demanding moments of life.
