With the new year, it’s the infamous time for those new year’s resolutions. Often, they are eerily familiar resolutions to the previous year’s (sometimes with some clever synonym usage to make them sound unique in case someone was to notice). 🙂
Many people include something about getting healthy or working out, adding physical exercise to their daily routine, etc. Sometimes that is to take up running or lifting weights with hopes of shedding pounds and looking magazine-worthy.
Sometimes, though, it’s to stop feeling haggard and constantly fatigued at the end of the day. Sometimes it’s to just feel better on the inside. Sometimes its to feel more in control, more clear, more stable and steady. It’s to stand tall again, to combat feeling constantly hunched over a computer screen. Sometimes its to tune back in to yourself instead of feeling depleted at the end of each day from giving to others.
Is 2019 a year for you to feel better in these ways?
What goals do you have?
Is one of your goals, as a yogi I follow on Instagram (@namastaywithme) said, to work on “humaning more humanely”?
I am not saying yoga is for everyone (I might, but I am trying to show restraint here). But it’s what I do, so I am going to use it as an example. Feel free to apply the message of my story to whatever goals you have and whatever path you are on. I, simply, have found that a consistent yoga practice (even just once a week when I first started) tremendously helps me treat myself better, physically and emotionally and mentally. And the benefits continue to compound year after year.
When I first mention yoga, most of the time Instagram yogis and the crazy feats and poses they pull off come to mind. That’s not a knock on instayogis (since I am on there too, lol). It’s actually part of my point. We see these yogis where they are now and what they are posting today without considering what they looked like the first time they stepped on the mat. They are on their path and have been working hard on their yoga journey sometimes for decades. They started somewhere too. Can I tell you where I started? (Feel free to read “My Origin Story” for the full details.)
When I first came to yoga, I came to Tabletop position (hands and knees), and because of a car accident that damaged my dominant arm, in this somewhat basic position of being on all fours, my arm just shook. Really shook. Embarrassing levels of shaking here. Frustrating levels of shaking. Downright infuriating levels of shaking. When it came to Downdog….I couldn’t hold for a full breath. It was MONTHS before I could.
BUT if you look at my Instagram profile now, you will see an occasional headstand and arm balance. You might say — “Oh, she can do those things, but I never could.” Maybe not, but I can assure you that I NEVER thought for a second in those yoga practices where my arm was shaking on all fours that I would be able to either. Never. in. my. wildest. dreams. And yet, I kept coming back. I kept working on accepting myself for where I was each day and for taking practice each day for what it was and for what it could give me.
Sometimes when we think of resolutions we are focused on the end or at least further down the road. Sometimes when we start something new, we picture ourselves as we want to be, but we don’t always consider that we must start where we are, in the body and the mind we are currently residing in. We use those who are further ahead of us on the path as people to compare ourselves to instead of to use as motivation for what might just happen if we keep going. If we keep giving ourselves a fighting chance. We all start somewhere, not just finish somewhere.
Where are you starting?
Remember — that is a perfect place to be. It’s a journey. It starts here, and that is ok. The ending is so far down the path you can’t see where it might lead, and that is ok. Take it one step, one day at a time.
Get your mat out.
Feel better in 2019.
Be Stretched…Not Stressed.
