Day 37: Get into Downward Dog Pose and breathe into the places your body feels tight… and where your mind feels most cluttered.
My body was feeling super tight during Downward Dog Pose yesterday. WOW! I had so much tightness in my calves and hamstrings… I think even my ankles felt tight. My mind was cluttered with all kinds of things from work. Breathing into the stretches where I felt tightness did help to improve the overall flexibility in my legs. In fact, later on in the evening, I straightened my legs higher in Boat Pose than I ever have before! I felt like I de-cluttered my mind by focusing on my breathing throughout this asana. This is the beauty of meditation!
Day 38: Count your blessings today, and realize that your life really is perfect at it’s core.
There are days that I literally stop everything, look around, and feel overwhelmed with the feeling that things really are perfect. I am so very grateful every day for my life, no matter how sucky it might seem that day. I do try to take the time to take mental note of the things I am most thankful for daily. Here are just three things from today:
- I get to laugh every day because the people I surround myself with are so fun and uplifting to be around.
- My health, even thought I feel crappy today I am still able to walk, talk, and care for myself.
- Spring. Despite my allergies, I love the warm weather… the greenery… the flowers. I thrive in this type of weather. My heart feels happy.
The readings from Meditations from the Mat for yesterday and today have both dealt with the fourth yama, brahmacarya. This is one that I have not really heard about, so I was excited to learn something totally new to me. Brahmacarya literally translates to “walk with God.” It has also come to mean “continence” and “chastity.”
Chastity. The word evokes a certain meaning when we hear it… no sex. Gates identifies this in the reading, citing a well-known yogi with one-hundred kids who was still living the guidelines of brahmacarya. Gates suggests looking at the things in our lives, even sex, by asking these questions: Does it fill me with vigor? Valor? Knowledge? Energy? Or does it fill me with concern? Anxiety? Worry?
I think these are very important questions to ask. Often times, we find ourselves engaged in activities or with certain people who drain the life out of us. They cause us so much stress and fill our minds with negativity. Brahmacarya is all about moderation and balance. It’s not saying to be celibate in one part of our life or another. It’s simply saying to not spend SO much time with those things with make us anxious and stressed. The truth is, immoderation causes chaos in our lives.
Gates also talks about our relationship with food, and how we especially see moderation with food as “repression.” I struggle with this a lot. I am someone who has a lot of environmental sensitivities (allergies), which could be alleviated through nutrition. I do so well with eliminating certain foods for a few days before I began to feel angry at myself that I am “depriving” myself of other foods, even though I know they cause stress on my body. It’s so ridiculous, right? I also struggled with food in that when I started to lose weight, it was so hard for me to break out of the cycle of restriction in terms of calories. I counted everything in and everything out. I finally was able to break that habit, but still kept conscientious about what I was eating and how much I was moving throughout my day. I must have learned a thing or two because I have kept the weight off for about two years now! Moderation really was the key for me there! I need to get back to that moderation for my own health. This will be my next struggle.
Finished up my detox series today! It definitely aided in my digestion, and provoked me to drink more water than usual. However, I don’t know that I feel different overall. Maybe this is because I am struggling a lot with seasonal allergies right now, but I feel incredibly run down. Perhaps I’ll try it again when Mother Nature is a little more kind.
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