itsnatayoga

As day 100 creeps up on me, I can’t help but feel a sense of failure around this challenge. The past 3 weeks in particular have been almost nonexistent after all. What have I really achieved from embarking on this challenge?

BUT instead of letting the negativity set in, I took some time to get a little perspective and made a list of all the benefits this challenge has provided...

Consistency. For 52 days in a row, I practiced. Something I have never been able to do. Then every other day from day 52 to day 77.

Strength. And a lot of it.

Confidence. I am attempting poses that I previously had a lot of fear around.

Creativity. I have begun to play in my practice again!

Realisation. I definitely notice a difference between the days I do practice/meditate and the ones I don’t. (My arms are undeniably aware that I did 99 sun salutations yesterday!!!) 

Forgiveness & acceptance. I missed days, sometimes days at a time. I am human. It’s ok. Let it be and move on.

There are days when I sit on the couch, my stomach in knots and my jaw clenched shut. Irritated and just generally uncomfortable; I seem to be waiting for something to go wrong.... Nothing does. Nothing happens. Nothing changes.

“The Other Shoe Syndrome”: the anticipation that something bad is about to happen.

(Thanks for this pearl Lena Dunham!l

It seems my greatest struggle is to just let it be (déjà vu, didn’t I write about this in a previous post?) To stop resisting how things are. This is easy to do when things are calm, tidy, quite and comfortable. Applying it when things are hectic, messy, loud and uncomfortable is when it goes out the window from me. During these times my mind jumps from one thing to another; I tidy incessantly, check my emails repeatedly and walk around the house like I’ve lost something. If I’m teaching, I switch to autopilot and later obsess over whether or not that affected my students’ and their class experience. If you ask me what I did during these kinds of days, I would not be able to tell you. There is absolutely no presence and I have no recollection. I often describe this as feeling like my mind is full of fog.

This can be avoided. Mindfully and completely accept how things are and be there or mindfully make a move to change it.

Challenge journal entry June 15 2018:

“Sometimes life throws you curve balls. Big or small, they can knock you off course. That has happened, obviously, because I have not completed my challenge for 3 days in a row. Dealing with emotional change has left me drained in every sense of the word. And so, I will forgive myself. A little compassion as I take the time to say goodbye to my family home and the part of me it represents. The 4 year old me who was so excited to have a brand new bedroom to herself (after having shared a caravan with the whole family for what I think was about a year). The 9 year old me that began a lifelong love affair with Britney in said bedroom. The endless birthday parties and Christmases. From it being a household of 5 to just being Mum and I. From doing homework by the fire to a weeklong celebration of drinking in the spa with my friends once we finished year 12. From moving to Melbourne to study resort management to now coming back every week as a yoga teacher. That house has seen me through every moment of my life since 1994. To let it go is hard. Moving on always invokes a pang of pain and as much as I’d like to ignore it, when Mum asks if you’ve said your goodbyes, you just have to let the flood gates open.”

I used to be (and sometimes still am) the kind of person who as soon as I felt the tears starting to build, I found a way to shut down. It’s kind of disturbing in hindsight. I remember in primary school I wrote “I will not be a wuss” somewhere I would see it every day in an attempt to stop myself from being the one who cried over everything. And apparently it worked because I got to a point where the tears would come to edge of my eyes and I would literally shake it off and switch my focus. I’d feel nothing; completely numb. Perfect, solved, moving on. Healthy right?

I am now (mostly), past that. I was shown that crying is no sign of weakness. Letting it out is not just important but incredibly therapeutic. Once I started admitting to myself how I was feeling, it all became a lot easier to accept, experience and then let go. This has had a surprising little side effect in my meditation practice.

Allowing this release of emotions has let me sit with them more truthfully during my meditation practice. If, for example, I’m battling during the day trying to ignore the fact that I’m irritated with the amount of work I’ve yet to do, or that I’m sad after moving out of my childhood bedroom, imagine how hard it is going to become when I sit in meditation and take a moment to try and recognise how I’m feeling. After having practiced ignoring those emotions all day, I’ll continue to do so, leaving me feeling more frustrated and agitated. And so the vicious cycle begins again as “I can’t possibly be agitated, I just meditated”.

I’ll bust one meditation myth right here and now.....you do not stop your thoughts! You do not stop your emotions!

I hear it over and over again. “I can’t meditate because I can’t stop thinking.” But honestly, think about that logically for a moment. Who the hell can STOP thinking?!?! It’s actually impossible. What we CAN do is observe, take a step back. Mediation is about becoming aware of the thoughts and emotions that would otherwise run rampant without you noticing until all of a sudden you’re driving down Chapel Street when the last thing you remember was brushing your teeth (FYI, both driving & brushing your teeth can be made into mindful-mediation practices!).

And so, how do we break through the myth that your mind is a computer you can simply switch off, if only you knew how?

Try it!

Find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted (phone on airplane mode!)

Set a timer so you won’t wonder how long it’s been (start with 3-5 minutes and work your way up from there)

Sit comfortably and observe your breath

The thoughts will come. See if you can let them pass. It can help to visualise them like a movie playing on a screen and try to let your attention remain on your breath while the movie plays in the background. Or perhaps your thoughts are clouds moving across the sky and your awareness remains on the clear blue sky behind them.

Mediation doesn’t have to be sitting still and quiet though. Be aware of your steps while walking, of every movement you make while driving or brushing your teeth. There is a lot of power living in this mindful way. I find that I enjoy the experience of even the most “mundane” things more when I am completely conscious of say....reaching out for my tea cup. Feeling the warmth on my hands, the smell of the tea, the taste as it touches my lips and warms my belly.

Well it finally happened. I did not complete my challenge on both day 53 AND 54. I know! Shock horror. The inevitable has happened. I. Am. Sick. 😔

Now it could have been very easy for me to get angry at myself and think “well, I may as well give the whole thing up. I’ve missed 2 days so I can’t possibly complete what I set out to do.” Lee would be reading this thinking “that’s exactly what she sounds like.” BUT let’s think about it for a moment. What was the goal of my challenge? To complete 108 Sun Salutations in 108 days. Actually more accurately, it was to create a consistent practice. Can I still do that having missed 2 days due to sickness?... um yes, of course. I just pick it back up when I’m feeling healthy again. In all honesty, I am still not feeling 100% and just the thought of jumping straight back in to 55 rounds makes my body ache, so I am probably going to do around 10 or so to start with and I should be back on track within a few days without the world ending, losing all credit as a yoga teacher and student and well anyone really caring for that matter. I have still maintained my meditation practice (that one I can do in bed 😋) and after all creating a consistent practice (meditation included) is the aim here.

If there’s anything I’ve learnt over the last week (that really I should’ve known all along as I say it in every single one of my classes) it’s to listen to my body. During my challenge last Sunday, after a very long weekend, I went off into the spare room and set myself up with my heater (red flag number 1), a few candles and some soft lighting (red flag number 2). I got stuck into the challenge, taking a few child’s poses instead of downward dogs as I was very tired (red flag number 3), and before I knew it.....woke up from a 15 minute nap in child’s pose after completing only 13 rounds! I wonder what my body was trying to tell me there?! R.E.S.T. And so I did.

So when it came around to day 52 and my shoulders started to get that really achy feeling, you know the one, where your joints start begging to be soaked in a steaming bath? It was much easier for me to accept that as a sign to slow down. I completed half my challenge that day and then rested. The following 2 days as you already know, nothing. I still taught classes on those days and that was a challenge in itself.

When the body is asking for rest, how do you think it would respond to me shaking my finger and saying “no, no, no body, we committed to do this challenge so up you get to do 54 sun salutations!”? Just like my year 8 English teacher, it would punish for not listening by having the sickness last even longer than it was already going to.

So I’m all ears body. Thank you for having me xx

It’s Sunday afternoon and I walk up the stairs into the Jessica Dewar Yoga studio. I absolutely adore this place. I’ve been here for nearly 2 years and I have had the privilege to watch it grow from very humble beginnings into something much bigger. I love my fellow teachers and my students are some of the loveliest, kind spirited people I’ve ever met. Even though I’ve had a cold for upwards of a week, I waltz around the place like Cinderella’s fairy godmother lighting candles, turning on heaters and watering plants because I care about the place so damn much. Students begin to arrive, class begins and we start to breathe. I love my job. Then we come into Mountain pose and begin the first round of Sun Salutations, and then the second, then the third and I think “If I have to say Downward Dog one more time, I am going to scream!!” I’ll say it again, I love my job, but even the things you love the most have moments (some longer than others) that are downright boring.

And so, at day 44 of my Sun Salutation challenge I find myself getting a little uninterested. The same sequence of poses repeated over and over again can get a little, well.... repetitive. I’m at the point where it’s not so much the physical challenge that is testing me, but the mental one.

It’s ironic that the lack of challenge is making it challenging to get motivated. Each day it gets more and more time consuming and so the morning is not always an option (the challenge has made me realise I am NOT a “get shit done in the morning” kind of person). I need a good 8 hours + followed by a cup of tea and meditation. That is how I roll. Ease into the day. None of this get up and go, go, go.

Now here I am, searching for something that will keep bringing me back to my challenge over and over again. What is that something? Perhaps it’s nothing. Maybe there is some benefit to be had from the boredom.

My life is getting busier and busier at the moment. Adding 3 more classes to my teaching schedule has brought me up to 15+ classes a week. It can be all too easy to keep pushing “sequencing” to the bottom of my to do list especially when I am starting to plan specialist classes (like kids yoga, yay!). My trip to Bali for the next level of my teacher training in September is fast approaching and not only does that involve a lot of organising, but also a fair amount of required reading and preparation. Not to mention my challenge is building up day by day.

So when I step up to the plate for my challenge, perhaps I should be grateful for the boredom. My mind is able to let the “to do” lists and stress be for a few moments and slow down enough to feel bored. I am constantly preaching in my classes to let things be so why do I find it such a struggle to do myself? Because being a yoga teacher doesn’t mean I am enlightened and zen and have it all together. I am human. And being human does not make me a bad yoga teacher; it makes me a good one.

The reality is life is not always interesting. It’s not always amazing, it’s not always terrible and it’s not always boring. It IS always changing and we must flow with it. Whatever you are currently going through, experience it to the fullest. Whether you’re listening to The Beatles tell you to Let It Be, Kesha urging you to Learn To Let Go or even if you’re STILL hearing Elsa sing Let It Go, it’s a message for any generation.

Walking through the supermarket on a Monday morning, Lee and I are dancing to the song playing over the store speakers. We start to get more and more animated until one of us (me) chickens out and gets embarrassed. Lee then says “It’s good to have you back.”

It’s important to note here that I have not been away. We were in fact together all weekend. I however, have not been myself. I spent 3 days in a tail spin of horribly negative thoughts and emotions. To be honest, I haven’t been all there for the last week or so but over the weekend the storm finally hit the shore.

I came so so so very close to quitting my challenge. I still completed every day but with EXTREME reluctance. Friday I did my challenge with such a scowl on my face it would make a fucking hyena run for cover. I gave no effort whatsoever. Saturday I did the whole thing in tears. Hardcore sobbing while doing Sun Salutations; a funny picture now, but I was truly miserable. The mystery is I don’t even really know why. Surely such an extreme emotional reaction had to have a cause?

There were small things; my exciting plans for the weekend got cancelled, I felt I had let down those close to me in some way and I had a student who seemed to have an extreme hatred for me (even though I had just met her). But none of this should have prompted such awful, self loathing. I hated myself and rejected any positivity, love or affection sent my way because I felt I did not deserve it. I shot down any optimistic thought that tried to enter my mind as if I had a machine gun at the ready.

I could not find the positive....in anything.

My perspective was so clouded that I could not (or more to the point would not) allow myself to see anything but the negative. I told myself that no one has ever felt as bad as I do right now (hello ego) and that I would never come out of this. We all do this don’t we? We all experience pain and that evil little voice tells us that that’s how it will be forever. But then we sleep, or eat, or chat to someone over a cup of tea and there is a shift. At some point you have a “grow the fuck up” moment and you realise that it’s all perspective.

While it feels like it will last forever, how long it actually lasts is entirely up to you. It doesn’t depend on your partner, your job, your body, your family, your situation. It depends on you; your outlook. If you look for the negative, you’ll find it; 100%. If you look for the positive (even though your ego might not want you to) you’ll find that too. It’s all just an experience. How do you respond? That’s your choice.

The beautiful thing we can take away from all this is that without the turmoil we wouldn’t know the peaceful. Imagine your life was nothing but ease... alright, for a moment it sounds wonderful. But think about it. No ups and downs, no obstacles to find your way around, nothing to look forward to or strive for. Where’s the adventure in that?! I feel the lows so I can feel the highs and quite frankly that’s how I know I am a perfectly functioning human being and not a robot (which I’ve got to tell you is one of my greatest fears for the human race in this day and age).

My challenges over those turbulent days made for very fascinating experiences. Breathing like a 3 year old having a temper tantrum and taking a few more child’s poses than I probably needed. But if I found every day of the challenge easy could I really call it a challenge? So I endeavour to try to not rush my way out of the “bad” feelings. Better yet, to not even think of them as bad but see them as an experience that I GET to go through. I’ll come out the other side when I’m ready and open to see the positive again.

(For those who are unsure, this is what one round of Sun Salutations looks like. Each round takes approximately 50 seconds depending on the length of the individual breathes. I'm up to 37 rounds.)

Nearly 4 weeks into this challenge and I’ve found myself with a nasty case of the “I want to give ups”.

On Thursday morning I gave some serious consideration to the thought that said “meh, do you reeeeeally need to keep doing this?”... I did manage to make it out of bed and begin my challenge, making one minor but crucial change to my usual routine. I played music. Not the calming, instrumental, “breathe your troubles away” kind of music (which, don’t get me wrong, I bloody LOVE). I needed sugary pop tunes flowing through my veins as I practiced.

When Pink says “there’s not enough rope to tie me down”, Sia declares “I keep gettin’ up when I hit the ground” and Kesha tells me “I’m a motherf*ing woman!”, not only does it give me a massive dose of motivation, it also adds a whole lot of joy and requires less willpower on my behalf.

Making things enjoyable is essential when it comes to forming habits. All I have to do is look at my love of desserts to understand this. Eat a chocolate, feel the joy, crave more joy, repeat. Vicious little cycle this isn’t it? But I’m not here to kick my love of desserts. I love them and I don’t want to stop eating desserts (it’s NOT a pretty picture when I try). Sure I have days where we may have a few co-dependency issues but, for the most part, dessert and I are in a committed, long term love affair and I am ok with that.

So how can joy make good habits stronger?

Add music. To exercising, cleaning, cooking, travelling. Have a playlist of your favourite songs on standby for when you need a little extra motivation.

Add a buddy. Whether it’s at the gym or in the kitchen, having someone else there to help and share the experience with can add a little joy. Side note: if you commit to exercise with a friend, you are more likely to go.

Add ambience. From meditation, to exercise, to doing admin work; do not underestimate the power of a positive vibe. Light your favourite candles, use lamps instead of bright lighting, adjust the temperature; anything that helps the room to feel more pleasant for you.

This can increase the desire to actually DO them when we may not be “feelin’ it” say at 6 o’clock on a rainy morning. The more enjoyable you find something; the more likely you are to do it. The less you have to think about doing it; the less willpower it takes to do it.

Think of willpower as cash. You put $50 in your pocket for the day and once it’s gone, it’s gone. You spend $15 getting out of bed, $10 ignoring the donut that calls out your name from the bakery you walk past everyday, $15 getting your work tasks done, $10 choosing healthy ingredients at the supermarket for dinner... that’s $50 gone! You’re spent (pun intended) when it comes to things like cooking and getting yourself to exercise for the day.  So how do we use our willpower more mindfully?

Get in early! Your willpower is strongest at the start of the day. When the alarm goes off, get up. Don’t think, just do it. Nike knows what they’re talking about. The more you think, the more willpower you use. So exercise, prepare your food for dinner that night, meditate; whatever it is that you want to accomplish, do it in the morning. When you get home with your willpower depleted, dinner is a quick task and you can enjoy your evening. And if you didn’t quite get time to pre prepare dinner? Well, pizza definitely brings joy!

So when Sia says “don’t give up”, do you give up? Of course not! You complete your Sun Salutations and start your day like a badass*.

It’s ironic that when I begin to turn my attention towards obstacles we could possibly face that I hit a big fat f’ing wall of burn out.

Sickness, tiredness, time – these are some of the top excuses we find not to commit to things – to let our good habits slide and our bad ones come to life. And to be honest, on days like this one when I find myself day dreaming of naps and seeing just how low I can keep my step count, I’m tempted to just let things slide. Who cares? Watch an entire season of Girls? Yes, please. Two blocks of chocolate? They’re on special and I live a 1 minute walk from the supermarket, so yah. Uber Eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Sign me up!

What’s stopping me? My past self - damn her to hell. She prepared for this very moment. The obligor in me feels obliged (obviously) to you to keep going; to continue my Sun Salutation challenge and to write this blog. Even though it quite probably doesn’t affect your life in the slightest, I have that push to continue because I publicly stated that I would.  Could I just lie to you and say “It’s going so well, I didn’t feel like shit at all Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, here’s how you can feel amazing all the time too...”? Sure, but the reality is that knowing about your tendencies, the habit loop and celebrating small wins makes committing to habits simple, not easy! Some days you will be sick. Some days you will sleep through your alarm. That is the reality of life. So what can we do?

Be prepared.

If we can prepare for things that may trip us up, then we can catch ourselves before we stumble. One way to do this is to consider making things convenient or inconvenient. For example, when I began my Sun Salutation Challenge I removed the process of “getting ready”. I practiced without a mat and usually in my PJs. Now this may or may not have started out as laziness, but it’s actually transformed into making doing my challenge everyday more convenient. In the past, the act of getting dressed & laying out my mat had the potential to stop me from practicing at all. Whereas if I can remove that process, just roll out of bed, meditate & then begin my challenge; starting is much easier.

Food prep is a very common “convenience” method to assist in the habit of healthy eating. Other convenient strategies you can use to help form habits are;

Place your running shoes/yoga clothes/workout gear at the foot of your bed the night before so when you get up, you simply put them on and go.

Keep a container of nuts and seeds handy rather than sugary treats for when you feel the urge to snack.

Write down groceries as you run out of them so your shopping list is full of things you need and less likely of things you want (on that note; NEVER shop while hungry!!!).

While convenience is a very strong method for forming habits, inconvenience should not be underestimated in the power it has in habit formation. 7:30pm, the kettle boils. If that was 7:30AM, that would be my cue to start meditation, but at 7:30PM it’s a whole other cue; sugar craving. My mind races and starts fantasising (yes, fantasising) about all the desserts I could have WANT. Peanut butter cups, chocolate covered caramels and Nutella filled donuts are some of the favourites. So I open up my cupboards and NONE of those items are there. Now you’re probably thinking “it’s your house, shouldn’t you know that you don’t have those things?” Yeah I do, but don’t you try to tell me that you’ve never looked in your fridge for something to eat, found nothing and then 5 minutes later opened it again! The key here is I try not to keep those things stocked in the cupboard because if I have to walk across the road to Woolies, that’s inconvenient and I’ll just settle for my cup of tea. There are of course some days where I do accept the challenge and I am in that store like The Flash, but the reality is most days I can rely on my lazy old self to not leave the house when I’ve already traded “work” pants (pssst, that’s yoga pants for me) for PJs.

So how can we use inconvenience to our advantage?

Don’t keep chocolate or lollies stocked in the cupboard.

Put your phone/alarm clock in the next room or at least out of arms reach where it will wake you but you MUST get up to turn it off. If you can place it on top of your exercise clothes, even better.

Remove apps such as Facebook and Uber Eats from your phone so it’s not as easy to access them.

Sadly there is no magic formula that will work for everyone; these are all just suggestions. You must find methods for creating habits that work for you. Once you start to become aware of your own habits, when you do them and why, you can start to take control over them.

My lesson this week? Celebrate small wins every day.

I was sitting at my Mum’s house trying to think of a good quote to describe small wins and as I placed my fingers on the keyboard, The Lorax (my nephew was watching it, I totally wasn’t interested.....until I realised that movie is about saving nature and makes some excellent points) says the following words and I could not and still cannot believe the timing...

“I know it may seem small and insignificant but it’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.”

If your jaw isn’t on the floor, it should be.

(Image: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/68961438021912310/)

Small wins are what make big goals much more attainable. Breaking something down, say 108 Sun Salutations for example, into smaller goals, like 1 day at a time or weekly increments, makes the bigger goal seem much less daunting. This can be applied to any goal you may have and can probably explain my mini jogs around the apartment before hopping into bed after a lazy day on the couch ever since getting a Fitbit. Some steps may seem insignificant at first glance but when your Fitbit tells you you’ve walked the entire length of Italy (1,184km) in a little over 6 months, I’d say those small steps (metaphorical and literal) are pretty important and worthy of celebration.

If you walk into my Mum’s kitchen you’ll notice lists everywhere. Go to my sister’s house – same thing. My place? Tea cups. I keep my lists in my damn phone. Come on guys, we’re in the 21st century! List making is in my blood. Celebrating your small wins gives you a rush of endorphins, fuelling positivity and keeping you focused to stay on track. Lists are a great way to have these mini celebrations. Every time you cross something off your list, congratulate yourself. I do this every morning. “Complete Day X of Challenge” gets crossed off and I feel a kick of motivation. Pretty good start to the day I’d say. Other forms of monitoring you can use include counting steps with a Fitbit, tracking meditation with an app, and “to do” lists (I like to use the one in my phone). I had been doing things like this long before I started learning about habit. I was doing them because it felt good when I completed something. It also felt good to write it down somewhere. I don’t know about you, but if I have something I need to do, it will pester me like that fly that keeps landing on the same spot of your face. It’s not until I write it down to remember to do later that my mind will let it go.

Monitoring is just one strategy I have discovered from Gretchen Rubin that has the power to form or strengthen habits but it does not work for everyone. Lee told me the idea of lists stresses him out, so it would not be an effective strategy for him and if you were thinking the same thing, probably not for you either. It’s so important to find strategies that work for you. If you dread it, it ain’t gonna happen.

Other strategies that are revealing themselves to me after reading “Better Than Before” include convenience/inconvenience, identifying obstacles, distractions, and pairing. I am going to dive into obstacles and the power of convenience next week.

So in the interest of combining small wins and lists, here is my list of small wins for the week...

I am into double digits with 2 weeks of my challenge complete (day 14 was a S.T.R.U.G.G.L.E. Zzzzzzzzzz)

I foresaw that attempting my challenge while at my sister’s house (with three 7am kids) might be.... a little complicated. So I slept at Mum’s.

I have passed 30 consecutive days of meditation.

When my mind wandered during the challenge on day 12, I visualised a positive day ahead instead of what could go wrong.

Quite often we’re quick to beat ourselves down like The Hulk when something tiny goes wrong but are very resistant when it comes to celebrating our small wins. Be more like Glinda The Good Witch - high five (find someone or hell just give yourself one), give yourself a small treat (chocolate is a classic), listen (and dance) to your favourite song, get outside and soak up some sunshine or indulge in an episode of Judge Judy (you’ll feel like you’ve got your life sorted, trust me).

What are your small wins? Let’s find and share more ways we can celebrate them.

Tuesday. Kettle boils. I make tea. I sit and meditate for 10 minutes. I log that meditation in my app and drink my tea.

Wednesday. Kettle boils. I make tea. I sit and meditate for 10 minutes. I log that meditation in my app and drink my tea.

Thursday. Kettle boils...You get the point.

Right there is a habit loop. I didn’t even notice it at first but I have been doing this routine everyday for the last 26 days without fail, without thinking. Maybe the time I do it changes (we all need a sleep in every now and then) but the sequence has always been the same. A cue that triggers a routine and is followed by a reward - this is known as a habit loop.

This little trick is what has been helping me get my Sun Salutation Challenge up and going in its first week. And.... it’s working!

Cue: I write in my journal about how I’m feeling that morning

Routine: I do my set number of Sun Salutations

Reward: I feel a tingling sensation through my body, a spike in energy that goes a long way at 7am! Maybe followed up with a few minutes of scrolling through Instagram providing me with gems such as the one below from Mariska Hargitay for a little extra kick of motivation.

So week 1 of the challenge is complete and so far so good. As I suspected, knowing that some of you have read my first blog post (and a big thank you for all the kind words!!) placed pressure on me to get up and do it. Thank you very much Obligor tendency. In addition to the habit loop’s assistance, I noticed my “finisher nature” coming out. I LOVE to finish things. Projects, exercises, a block of chocolate - I love the feeling of completion. My best friend Tess and I always talk about how after we clean the house, we flop on the couch and take as much time as we can do revel in the beauty of what we’ve just done. This feeling is key when it comes to making habits stick! Although there are days when I am not really enjoying the process of the Sun Salutations themselves, I find I am still getting started with a fair bit of ease because I want to finish. For me, the feeling of finishing is a “reward”. A reward can then become a “craving”. Once a reward becomes a craving, your habit routine will then become second nature when the cue has triggered you because the mind will start craving the reward it knows is coming.

“But Nat, you said some days you weren’t really enjoying the Sun Salutations... why?”

Hahaha good question, thank you for asking. First of all, my back. I’m that 27 going on 80 year old telling youngsters to look after their damn posture because your lower back can be a relentless bitch. I have been having some pretty intense back pain for the past few years and without boring you with the details; it is at its worst in the morning!

Secondly, as I’m sure many of you who have practiced yoga or meditated in the past have experienced, the mind is one frustrating entity. Here is a list of just some of the thoughts that have been appearing for me during my Sun Salutation practice...

I really need to vacuum.

We need more vacuum cleaner bags.

Why didn’t I buy those cinnamon donuts at the supermarket?

What breath am I up to?

Why can’t vacuum cleaner bags be emptied & reused? (if you know the answer to this, get back to me)

*Writes random section of blog*

Vacuum cleaner bags (seriously? Ugh let this go!)

*Listens to sound of rain*

Interestingly, these thoughts tend to come in the 5 breaths downward facing dog is held for. Which got me thinking, why is it that when I’m moving through postures, my mind is much more focused? It dawned on me; this is a direct reflection of my behaviour in life. When I am doing – or perhaps distracted is a better word here – I feel at ease. When I stop? When I’m just simply being and have no noise or activity distracting me... anxious. There is a constant chatter of what I “should” be doing; that I am wasting time. So while my finisher nature is driving my Sun Salutation habit at the moment, it doesn’t end there. It is present & distracts me when trying to sit and enjoy a single moment. Like during a cup of tea, an unexpected phone call from Tess, an episode of The Walking Dead (think about something else for a second in that show and you’ll come back confused as hell as to how all these Walkers got into The Sanctuary!). I am positive I’m not alone in this. We all let the worry take over much too easily and don’t take the time to enjoy what’s right in front of us.

So on that note, I’m off to enjoy the warmth of a cup of tea on this rainy evening...

...and yes, the vacuuming has now been done!

A yoga teacher who struggles with the practice of yoga? That’s me.

Sitting on the couch, looking at my mat thinking ‘I’ll get up and practice in 5 minutes, an hour, tonight, in the morning...”. Me again.

I teach nearly every day of the week and I absolutely adore my job. After years of waitressing, my mind and body definitely thank me for my career change. My own practice though... Average to poor. Why?

Habit.

I’d never given much thought to habit until recently when the idea of this blog came to me simultaneously while listening to the audio book “Better Than Before: Mastering The Habits of Our Everyday Lives” by Gretchen Rubin. One of the very fascinating observations Gretchen has made, is that there are 4 personality tendencies. The Upholder, The Obligor, The Questioner and The Rebel. I can imagine there’s a few of you (maybe Star Wars inclined ones) who want to believe you’re The Rebel but that’s probably not the case as they aren’t all that common (sorry Jedi’s). During the next few months, I will refer to these in more detail. For example though, for those of you who know my partner Lee, he’s a Questioner (no surprise there!).

Amongst the “pages” (what are the audio book equivalent of pages?) I realised a whole lot about myself, and why I may struggle to keep my yoga practice, something I love so much.

Here’s what I discovered:

1. I am what Gretchen refers to as an Obligor. Meaning I have the tendency to meet the demands others make of me, but not likely to meet to the demands I make of myself. Get this, even if I WANT to do them...

2. I am more likely to meet my goals if I have “external accountability” i.e. I tell people about my goals and they are likely to check how I am going.

3. I am a “finisher”. I get a lot of satisfaction out of finishing a project. With that comes a lot of anxiety about having multiple UNfinished projects.

So what did I learn from these 3 points? If my yoga practice is going to strengthen, I must find a way to be held accountable for my practice. Enter you guys!

Now this is not some ego driven, “look at me I’m in a fancy pose” kind of thing. Rather, I want to feel the push to get up and complete my challenge every day in order to submit my blog and for someone, even one person, to be tracking alongside me. And when I finish? Well that’s going to feel damn fine too.

So the challenge is...

108 Days to 108 Sun Salutations. Make sense? No? Maybe... Stopped reading? Here’s what I mean.

By the end of this challenge I will complete 108 rounds of Sun Salutations in one session; beginning with one on day 1 and two on day 2 and so on.

For those not-so-yoga-inclined, a Sun Salutation (or Surya Namaskar in Sanskrit) is a flowing sequence of specific poses connected together by breath usually practiced at the beginning of a class to get the body warm and moving. 108 is the traditional number of rounds that are practiced. I have never done this before. Some of the common emotions I go through when reaching about the sixth round include boredom, frustration, fatigue, boredom, distraction, hunger, boredom...you see my struggle? Once or twice I’ve even tried to trick myself into thinking I can practice while watching an episode or 5 of Judge Judy. But by the 10 minute mark I’ve made my way in to a cosy little “child’s pose” watching the screen more than my breath. Yoga is not yoga just simply because you are doing the poses, or going through the motions. If there is no awareness of breath and movement then there is no point.

So beginning Tuesday April 10 and finishing on my 28th birthday (I may be a little sentimental) on Friday July 27, I will journal my experiences (good, bad, boring, funny) and bring it all to you in a weekly blog. And if you don’t see the blog appear for the week, I’m probably getting a little comfortable in thinking no one is watching so no one will notice. Annoy me to post it!

At first glance, this appears to mainly be about my personal practice of yoga but there’s a bigger picture. I do not consider myself a writer so right off the bat there is step one of trying something new. I believe that this challenge is also going to help me to become better in other areas of my life (or “better than before” – that seems to tie in nicely – go me!). Becoming more self aware will lead me down a path to being a better teacher, partner & friend. Plus learning more about my tendencies towards habit during this challenge will assist me in creating other habits I am working on (more on those later).

Finally, I hope that this may assist someone else in understanding their own habits (or lack thereof) or perhaps just provide some relief in knowing that yoga teachers (or humans for that matter) do not have it all together. WE’RE NOT ZEN ALL THE TIME! Rarely, actually. As in I’m that person who sees red when Woolworths decide to change a perfectly working supermarket. I knew where everything was and they changed it. Now it’s like trying to find the center of the Labyrinth just looking for the milk! I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this. But perhaps the only one who it sent into a rage.

Here we go...