This time of year, as the nights get shorter and the mornings crisper often encourage us to move inward to more home based activities and more introspective thoughts. To ensure we don’t get melancholy or start to ponder on the end of summer warmth lets instead look at how much we can achieve in the cooler months.
- Firstly, and obviously, more yoga and meditation!! With the darker evenings restricting your outside activities and the lure of long warm evenings drinking wine outside with friends being a memory there’s less stopping you attending more regular classes and/or establishing a home practice. Finding a time and place for a home practice may need organization, especially if you share your home with children and animals. However all you need is some time you can schedule for you, without interruption so maybe when the children are in bed, somewhere warm and comfortable so you’re not distracted by physical discomfort. Making sure everything you may need is accessible; your mat, props, a blanket, eye pillow, music, candles would be a few suggestions. Maybe these could be stored near to your practice area so that it is not too much hassle to get set up. Thwart your excuses before they happen!! Maybe add a monthly individual yoga tuition session to your calendar so that you can explore ideas for your own home yoga practice with help from your yoga teacher. A personal yoga practice designed just for you can allow you to discover and learn more about yourself than we can attending yoga classes.
- Reflect back upon your year. Look at some of the things you did and those you maybe didn’t get around to. Make a list of things to be grateful for and another noting those you still wish to move toward achieving or making time for. Once we have established goals you can start to ponder upon the path to achieving them… maybe putting these lists near your yoga practice area as something to meditate upon. Gratitude for both the big and the little things in our lives is a great meditation and always allows us to find something to be grateful for as we move forward as well as reflect back.
- Note to yourself how busy you were this year. Busyness has become a fashion accessory…it is trendier to be too busy than it is to admit you enjoy having a quiet peaceful life. Remember that connecting with people is an important part of living, as well as finding and making time to connect with yourself. Maybe make your yoga home practice time some of your ‘me time’ and arrange to connect with friends at yoga classes. Maybe try a new teacher or a different style of class or explore your practice deeper with a workshop or retreat where you get time for yourself and friends as well as the opportunity to deepen your practices. Learn to prioritize your friends and your family as well as yourself to maintain a balanced healthy life.
- Keep your focus on well being and inner health through the colder months. Sometimes it is easier to wrap up in cozy clothes and try to ignore an expanding waistline or bloated feeling as we curl up on the sofa. Instead maintain your balanced diet, maybe focusing on eating seasonally or locally rather than just using your supermarket to access foods out of season that. This can allow your body to adjust to the cooler season and enjoy the warming stews and soups made from the wonderful local seasonal produce. Most areas have a local farm shop or organic supplier who can advise on recipes too, and you may find increasing your vegetable consumption good for your wallet as well as your waistline!!
- Plan ahead for Christmas and rather than getting caught up in last minute shopping instead ask those close to you what they would like. Maybe gifts could be of time or shared activities. It is after all these that we will remember in future years when possessions are long broken or forgotten. Maybe also include planning to spend some time this festive season helping those less lucky than you.. Maybe helping at a food kitchen or baby-sitting for a friend so they get to enjoy a Xmas party or go shopping without the kids!
- Remember also those friends with whom you have lost touch…
maybe use Facebook or Google to find people and organize a get together for the New Year. Admittedly some people are no longer in your life for a reason, but others may have just got lost in the busy ness of life or change of jobs and address. Choose carefully as to whom you’d like to catch up with an actually schedule a time to do so…with the wonder of Skype and the internet even when people have moved away a catch up may still be feasible!!! - Enjoy the friends you do see often, but make it a more special occasion. Maybe organize a meal out or a pot luck dinner in (where people bring a dish) and really make the most of the opportunity to see your friends in a different context, maybe introducing different friendship groups or enjoying quality time with those who made your last year special.
We all have areas we can improve on…many of them predictable… such as being too busy to make enough time for ourselves and those that matter to us, allowing convenience to win over healthy choices, procrastinating over making decisions or starting to work towards a goal. Maybe we need to become better listeners, more compassionate or better at scheduling time with friends (something I am working on.. continually!!). Being a better person is an ongoing process so figure out for now, just one area you want to focus on and work at making it better. Work can be fun, interesting and like any relationship worth having.. The relationship we have with ourselves also takes work and continual effort to keep it fresh, loving and forgiving. I would suggest making the time to establish a place for a home yoga practice as a priority as you may find that from this practice, the self-study and discipline to make changes comes a lot easier. Maybe think of getting some individual tuition to plan your own personal yoga practice working on those areas you wish to explore deeper. A personal practice can be a place of support, of learning about your self, your body and those areas we wish to explore deeper. Having the time you don’t have in classes to ask questions or work with a particular issue or idea. A personal practice is, like all yoga, a journey of self study and smiles!
