Peace of Mind Organizing

Starting yoga where I am

17 December 2018

In years past, I’ve blogged about how difficult it is for me to keep an exercise routine going. I’m not typically someone who needs to lose weight and my work is pretty active, but I know, intellectually, the importance of regular exercise, particularly in the aging process.

For some months, I kept having the thought that I should give yoga a try. It just seemed like the type of exercise I might most benefit from now. But I had all these barriers to getting started.

For example:

• I didn’t know what type of yoga I should try.
• I didn’t know where to go to learn.
• I was afraid of doing it wrong and hurting myself.
• If I was being honest, I feared I’d invest money and then stop doing it and beat myself up or feel bad about myself.
• I didn’t think I had a lot of time to spend doing it.
• I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it.

And that’s just for starters. I also have this weird compunction (which I’ve talked about more than once with my co-host Shannon on our Getting to Good Enough podcast) to start any new practice or habit on the first day of the month. If I missed the first day of a month I felt like I had to wait until the beginning of the next month to think about doing it again. Not beneficial. And completely unnecessary.

Then my lovely 24-year-old niece came for a visit. She and her dad (my brother, Larry) were at my house for 10 days and then the three of us went to Walla Walla to visit our father/grandfather. Miranda and I shared an Airbnb for a week. (It was this place and it was awesome!) Miranda has a morning routine that’s very important to her that includes yoga. Since we were sharing a space I got to observe her effortlessly doing yoga at home. It wasn’t terribly time consuming but it was clearly beneficial to her. She could do it daily despite a demanding travel schedule. Miranda made yoga look very appealing.

When I told her that I’d been pondering getting started but didn’t really know where to start, she suggested the free online videos from Yoga with Adriene (which is what she uses) and specifically that I start with Adriene’s 30 Days of Yoga series.

This is exactly what I needed: A specific recommendation of a 30-day program that mixes things up and tells me exactly what to do every day. It doesn’t get boring and there’s no guess work and no choices to make. I’m making a 30-day commitment, which I can handle. The final component, for me, is external accountability. By telling you all about it here (and mentioning it on the podcast), I’m making it easier to stick with the program.

I ignored the fact it was the middle of the month and on December 12 I got started. I completed Day 6 today. Guess what? I’m absolutely enjoying it! The time commitment is 15-30 minutes daily. I try to do it in the morning but a couple of days had to do it in the afternoon. I do it in my home’s guest room, which is opposite my office, and I don’t need a lot of set up or anything. The barriers have vanished.

Adriene explains things well, has a great sense of humor and gives you permission to just work where you are. I am not as flexible as she is (obviously), but she reassures me that that’s okay. I’m starting where I am (we did an episode of the podcast on that) and I am happy!

If there’s something you’ve been meaning to try, perhaps you can just go ahead and give it a shot and try to ignore all your inner objections. I’m glad I did!

ETA: It’s January 15 and I haven’t missed a day of yoga. It’s been weeks since I’ve had any reluctance to do yoga. I’m feeling stronger and more flexible. I finished 30 Days of Yoga and have moved on to Adriene’s 2019 30-day journey, Dedicate. She’s all kinds of awesome!

Tagged with: exercise, habits, routines, yoga

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