which yoga class or practice should we choose?
If somebody asks you about your interests, your hobbies, how you spend your evenings how would you respond? Would it be with an answer that may have applied a few years ago, but that you have allowed to lapse? Or would the answer trip off your tongue as you spend any moment you have available exploring the interests that make you smile, that inspire or challenge you, or that you just enjoy!!
This new term of classes includes an interesting challenge…to give myself more time to enjoy my life & explore my interests. I have tried to re schedule both Mid Cheshire & Warrington yoga classes to allow myself more time to enjoy interests I have allowed to lapse. In recent years I have often put off the simple pleasures in life in pursuit of future dreams. It may have been study, research or building my yoga teaching into a feasible business that supports itself. I have restructured my teaching schedule & promised not only myself, but oft neglected friends & family, that I am to re emerge from my chrysalis.
I am going to try & re prioritise those hobbies, interests & simple joys that make me smile. Much as I love my teaching & my training it shouldn’t be my entire life! Now I will have more time to enjoy new interests, rediscover old hobbies & to be a yoga student at classes more as well as enjoying my own home practice. Just doing something new is often enough to re inspire our joy in living; moving outside of our comfort zone, getting off the sofa & moving away from the screen (be it a computer or a TV), doing something that scares us or learning a new skill. These are the moments which allow us to grow & often to re observe our life from a new perspective. So I’m looking forward to enjoying those moments 🙂
My tendency has always been to veer toward the stronger more physically challenging yoga practices. I have known, & been reminded by my tutor, that this may not be the best idea to ground me so I have tried to keep my personal practice gentler, more healing physically & mentally as I focus on stilling my mind & exploring the potentials within the breath. In recent years I have actually started to enjoy these practices… in much the same way I suppose as you may eat healthy food initially because you know ‘it is good for you’ but then tastes change & you actually begin to prefer the healthier options.
Choices are often easier to make for others. I often get asked which of my classes may suit a new student. If they have a physical limitation then it is often sensible to direct them toward the therapeutic yoga classes. If they are looking to improve flexibility & stamina of mind & body, & improve core strength & awareness then the later more dynamic classes would suit them better. It is often personal preference dependent on disposition, lifestyle & experience. Plus that people often don’t like to move outside their comfort zone. However like myself the moving outside of what they tend toward can often be what they need. After all
If you do what you always done then you will get what you’ve always got
I’m continually having to remind myself there is a life outside yoga, that the present is as important as the future, & that moving outside my comfort zone is often what I need to do even if it may not be what I want to do! So try something new, be it a different practice, a new hobby, an interest. Expand your world and move out of your comfort zone. Without change how are we to discover new paths or find more doors to open. If we continue to follow our initial tendencies, be it for a yoga practice we think we prefer, a food choice or how we spend our evenings, how can we expect to grow, to nurture our soul with variety & expand our mind with new experiences.