Practice Blog for Weeks Oct 3-22

First I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “really….really Ashley really” yes I am really going to do this because I notice a trend and how said trend made me feel. So my practice for that week October 3-8 was awesome. I found a rhythm that didn’t take much time out of the day and made me feel wonderful afterwards. Since I my inversions were getting better I did them often for a longer amount of time. My routine for this week went as follows Tadasana, standing forward bend, downward facing dog, plank, upward facing dog, hand stand, head stand, shoulder stand downward facing dog, and restorative poses. It was a mighty good routine not to many poses but works up a nice sweat, which makes me feel like I have accomplished something. So I followed this routine for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then Saturday I did a full blown practice: standing poses, sitting poses, backward bends, forward bends, and of course inversions. However, I noticed that I stopped actively planting seeds. I am not sure if I stop because I wasn’t reading or what but I noticed my practice didn’t feel complete.  Though I noticed this I didn’t do anything to correct it. I just went on with my days.

The next week my practice slowed down significantly (Oct. 10-15….you can tell by how I didn’t write a blog because I didn’t check my syllabus). The routine that I started the week before slowly reduced itself to just headstand by Wednesday because of all the work I had to do and kept putting off. I remember telling you the Thursday in class that I was going to make my mom do some yoga. Yeah that did not happen. Not only did I not introduce my family to Iyengar yoga, I also didn’t practice it. This happened for a couple of reasons. First,  I have two dogs that are not trained so when I showed my mom a headstand (not that I was going to make her try just showing her) one of my dogs started licking me in the face; and  If I weren’t against the wall that would have ended badly. Second, my mom was less than enthusiast and found that I didn’t have the energy to make her try something new. Third, I fell back into the routine of being lazy at home. The environment at my house and at school is drastically different and it was so easy for me to not do what I knew I needed to. So that being said I know I am going to have to work extra hard when I graduate to keep up my home practice and even harder to try to get my family into a healthier routine.  

So by the time I get to the week of Oct. 17-22 by I am back to my old way of thinking because not only was I not knocking on the pipes hard enough from the outside; I also was cleaning them out on the inside. You know the being harassed by negative thought concept well my negative thoughts that were slowly starting to change attack me with a vengeance I haven’t seen in a long time. Which shows me two things: first it shows me how far I came and second how easy it is to get back to the negative place inside my head.  Then I started my cycle sometime this week and I thought “Yes! This is the reason I am acting moody”. Which is halfway true but I know if I were diligent in my practice both physically and mentally, my thinking process would not have been that bad. So this past week not only have I been cranky and negative; my body has been yelling at me because I have neglected it. So I have to make up for that this week. Writing this blog is a good start and so is reading The Bhagavad Gita. So yeah the moral of this story I am not strong enough to go a week without serious practice and reading because if I do I will spiral downward. Oh and I realized that I need to make my blog page happier but not yet(Halloween and all).