Reflections on my 30-day yoga challenge, COVID and how structures allow freedom:
Later, I wrote some notes in my journal reflecting on the April 2020 30-day yoga challenge. This is verbatim what I wrote on May 1, 2020:
"COVID has been a re-birth for me, for slowing down is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So funny to think about how I’ve done all these hard things in my life--like getting a PhD and learning Chinese and living abroad--and it’s actually the doing of nothing that is the most difficult of all. For in the doing of nothing that is where we cannot find the value in the external, but we can only look inside. When we spend this time doing nothing, we realize there is indeed value in just being, value that was there all along, value in our humanity. I was always looking for home--belonging and love--in the external but it’s been inside me all along. Like tapping a maple tree for syrup, once you can tap into the infinite love inside you, love flows freely to feed and nourish the people around you.
There is value in writing, value in lists, value in planning and agendas. There is value in these 30-day challenges for me—allowing me to try new things and trying new and consistent habits in a routinized and systematic way gives me a lot of joy. AND there is value in presence and allowing and flexibility. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. I needed the vocabulary and some of the grammar before I could start having conversations, just like I needed some yoga moves before I could do it on my own. But from there it was a creative conversation with my body.
You can use structures to create freedom. You get to create your experience."
Ultimately using structures to create freedom is what these 30-day challenges are all about for me: using the structure of the month and a daily routine to create a sense of freedom around the life that I want to live. My intention is to use the vocabulary of the challenges to ultimately create a conversation with my body and my life that builds a co-created experience. Eventually, I want to build trust in myself to create my experience without rules...but structure will always be a part of my life and I'm okay with that. For me, structure and discipline brings freedom.
It's an infinite journey and a never-ending conversation. But it's a start.
Now, over a year later, I know I’ve only just scratched the surface. I am on a lifelong journey of creating conversations--conversations with my body, my spirit and other spirits. I am truly a newbie and still learning everyday more about my body and more about what it means to do yoga in a spiritual, mindful, and challenging yet nurturing way for my body.
How yoga shows up in my life these days:
In the months that followed the 30-day yoga challenge in April 2020, I continued doing Yoga with Adriene videos, but I also had the confidence to start doing yoga on my own. This was especially helpful on camping trips when I didn’t have access to the internet.
Eventually, I completed three more of her 30-day challenges (she has several different ones, I have done Yoga Camp, Revolution, and Breath over the past year). But the next time, I didn't hold myself to doing it every day. It usually took me three months to finish one 30-day yoga journey since I would only do it every few days or so.
When I moved to Prague in February 2021, I didn’t have internet at home for four weeks. Perfect way for me to start transitioning into doing my own yoga with the training wheels of the video. Sure enough, by April of 2021, one year after starting yoga, I was doing it almost entirely on my own. Now, in June 2021, I am doing yoga for at least 30 minutes a day but up to 2 hours on some days. Entirely on my own. I almost never watch Yoga with Adriene anymore—she is awesome, but these days I’m getting a deeper and better stretch and overall experience if I listen to my body. Currently I am enjoying my “hot yoga” sessions in my humid, stuffy apartment during my Prague summer as sweat drips down my face and torso like I've just showered.
Conversations with my body:
Of course, yoga has helped me listen to my body and communicate with my body. But it’s not as though my disassociations with my body have suddenly been cured and I now have full access to my intuition. Far from it. More than ever, I realize how hard it is to really listen to my body and how often I don’t do that.
When I do stop and ask my body what it needs, it usually responds: "Slow down. Be gentle with me. I'm here for you in whatever you want to do. I'm here to be the temple for your spirit and help you serve the universe. I'll take you wherever you want to go and whatever you want to accomplish. But you have to be patient and nice to me."
The other thing it tells me? "I want you to move around and be creative and not sit at the computer."
I have learned that a relationship with your body is not a given, but it is a practice. It’s a conversation, not a dictatorship. This journey is not like you are driving the bus and the body is along for the ride. Your body wants to drive too. If you don’t listen to its requests to have a chance to drive for long enough, it will take over the steering wheel using tactics like fatigue, pain and illness to let you know that it’s driving now. It will take over because you ignored it for long enough.
There is a feeling of infinity to the road trip with your body; the practice of the relationship with the body; there is no no end point nor an end goal. There will always be layers of the onion to peel off forever.
I never thought I would become one of those spiritual yuppies doing yoga and whispering Namaste.
Now I want to tattoo “Namaste” and “OM” on my foot.
What will happen in my future that I had previously thought was “impossible” or “just wasn’t for me”?
What do you want to do today to start creating the life that you want to live?
How can you find freedom in the chaos? How can you find freedom in the structures?
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