Yoga is a funny thing. I've enjoyed going to classes here and there, but never stuck with a practice. Especially with kids, it always seemed too expensive or too time consuming.
I'd tried doing exercise at home with various YouTube channels and DVDs. That didn't stick, either. Sleepy kids would sneak out of their bedrooms at night to see what was playing on the screen. Mornings would get too chaotic to actually finish a workout in time.
Should I have woken up earlier, when the kids wouldn't be able resist the call of their warmed blankets to desnuggle out of their beds? PROBABLY.
But here's the thing. Something is better than nothing. I am not going to keep letting perfect be the enemy of good. It feels good to do it whenever I do it; that's a delicious feeling to remember and reproduce.
And there's something about this particular practice-- with Adriene!-- that manages to be gentle and challenging and totally restorative.
My favorite activities are the ones in which I'm able to completely sink my full attention, where I'm fully present, and I'm delighted to be fully present. It's no struggle at all. These activities, for me, are usually yoga or dance or something related to making beautiful movement, or related to making beautiful essays or poems or stories. Sinking into those things is life.
I know these are who I am because inevitably, I think, "There is nothing more important I could be doing than what I'm doing" while settling into a deep forward fold stretch, or laying myself down in savasana (sidenote: this Wikipedia article says ideally you stay in savasana for 20-30 minutes, which I absolutely need to do and not while in bed), or reading a favorite author, or writing something that I love and still love years later.
This is that. And it's reminding me that my own health is worth taking a break from work and from parenting and from cooking and from cleaning.
Let's get it: