The YOGA Cure

I am trying to kick my coffee habit. I have been drinking more and more and finding myself more and more tired in the afernoon, so I decided it's time to kick the habit. Going to work this morning at 5:45 with no coffee - ouch! Hopefully I made sense to my ever so patient client who is working very hard to learn to swim after 60 years of aquatic fear.

In another effort to become healthier I decided to give up my pre-breakfast breakfast that I usually have before I go to work. A gluten free waffle or two before work is just not needed for short mornings now that my exercise load has been cut in thirds! I was hungry and quite grouchy by the time I got home and my poor children suffered the brunt of it while we were in the mad dash out the door.

After returning home I decided to do a few of my new YOGA positions that I discovered in my new YOGA magazine that I picked up yesterday. Low and behold, twenty minuites and five YOGA poses later I wasn't so hungry and grouchy any more! Hmm, maybe I should be doing this in the wee morning hours instead of brewing coffee!

Aaaaaah!

Like the one word titles? I gave myself an attitude adjustment with a nice hour and a half of yoga. I think over the next 6 weeks yoga will be my treat that I give myself. It makes me feel strong, focused and peaceful. I have even remained zen with 4 kids (my 2 & my 2 nephews) for the day - including a trip to the dentist w/ them & a visit to McDonalds playplace for lunch. Man, this is better than any drug!

Things We Dread

I am famous for signing up for things, volunteering for things, scheduling things that sound great only to dread them when the event draws near. In addition to social and volunteer activities I do this with workouts too. I'll get myself all excited about an outside ride I have scheduled later in the week only to find myself dreading it and trying to make excuses to get out of it the night before.
I'm great at planning FOR the moment, but I'm not very good at being 'in' the moment. My lenten discipline for this year is Yoga. I am trying to improve my body, mind, spirit connection and better myself at being more present in the, well present moment. So, 40 days of Yoga for me!
Right now I am just doing tapes that I have at home. For now that is enough, but I suspect soon I will need more and will have to seek out a good class. The first couple of times I did my yoga tapes I HATED the meditation at the end. My skin was crawling it was so hard for me. One time I even just shut the tape off and walked away. After reading Eat, Pray, Love (what an AMAZING book) I learned that I needed to embrace this strong emotional response and face it head on.
So, I squirmed through a couple more meditation sessions, not fighting the squirming but not shutting off the tape either. What do you know, after 2 weeks of squirming I am learning to relax and enjoy the meditation. I am learning to dedicate that 15 - 30 min. block to just Yoga and not think, worry, plan for the next 30 min. I've still got a LONG way to go but so far I think I'm doing pretty darn good for a novice!!
I can also feel myself applying the technique to my workouts. Instead of squirming and trying to excuse myself from the difficut times of my workouts I find myself asking why I am so determined to give up, the answer is almost always that I have lost my focus. So now I have learned 2 things from 2 weeks of Yoga, be still & focus.