During the holidays it becomes even more challenging to keep up with our self-care. We have almost every loved one asking something of us on top of normal life stuff.
When I was doing my yoga teacher training, the hardest thing we were assigned was to keep up a daily practice. That’s it. We the students could define practice however we wanted, we just had to do it every day. Mine ranged from a vigorous half hour round of sun salutes to meditation to simply writing down how I was feeling emotionally at that moment. I procrastinated, I came up with excuses, I bargained with myself, but I got it done.
Since then it has become harder to practice daily. I slipped. Without the teacher or program there that I felt accountable to, I had only myself and stopped.
Because December is busy with traveling and family time I am recommitting myself to a daily practice for this month. I figure if I can do it now, I can do it when I’m “less busy”. It will be hard to not fall into a pattern of coping and reacting when life happens rather than being aware and mindful, but I’m curious to see what that looks like.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the most necessary.