Smooth

Don't know why I was so drained yesterday, but I got a great night's sleep and ended up feeling a lot better today. I didn't plan a different breakfast, perse, so I had a bagel for breakfast again and I found myself villifying it in my mind oh my gosh, that so many carbs and then I told myself to settle down, it's not like I'm eating ice cream for breakfast. But even if I did, it's just food, it's just one meal, it doesn't change the things about me that matter. Sometimes I do lose focus on those little details.  So I relaxed and enjoyed my bagel and then hit the mat for day 8. 
Today's class was called Salve, as in, everything you need to heal your body is already within.  I really enjoyed this one, even though it wasn't a sweaty session, more smooth stretching.  I really felt the connection between my breath and the movement which gave me a warm, happy buzz. Before I began the yoga, I was feeling a little stress because I was running a little late and my son had to get up for a program he's doing at school so I had a little less time in my morning.  I reminded myself to relax, I knew somehow I'd have time for everything I needed to do. I was allowing the 'automatic' part of my brain to control the situation and that is usually what makes me feel so off-balance.  I am noticing these little moments of anxiety and I'm realizing more and more how I actually create this by not using logic to control their automatic emotional pre-reaction. So the yoga stretching and moving gracefully felt so uplifting; felt like a great release from all my cares.  And I did have time for everything I needed to get done this morning. No stress.
I do think that next week I might experiment with 2 things:
     1. Get up at 4:15 and run through what my morning routine will be during the school year.  That way I can see if that will even give me enough time to do it all.  It will also give me a sneak peak on how my body handles that 45 minute sleep deficit.

     2.  Do yoga after work instead of in the morning.  It will help me see if it is something I can motivate myself to do, and it will show me how I feel in the mornings without yoga, and I want to know if it will interfere with a good night's rest or maybe help me sleep even better.

These two things are going to be part of how I determine how to keep the yoga going longterm.  I really do want to keep doing it, I just know myself, when my schedule gets more hectic my first instinct is to try and get more relaxation time to try and compensate.  Mentally, that feels therapeutic, but physically it is not. So maybe I am in the right headspace to make these changes more permanent. I sure hope so.  I can't believe it took my 46 years to find something physical I enjoy doing so that I actually look forward to doing it most days.
Thinking much further ahead, I do think next summer, after yoga is a habit, I may add some cardio to my day as well, in whatever fashion feels right at the time.  This summer I really became aware of how healing nature is for my mind, and we have gorgeous walking paths and trails along the river that stretch for miles, so I may implement early morning walks there.  I'll see how that all unfolds when the time comes.  Right now I am enjoying my current journey and feeling really good about the physical and mental changes I am making.  They have been a culmination of different things I have learned over time, from Geneen Roth, the Brain Over Binge workbook, learning about Buddhism and now yoga.  It is a pretty killer combination.  I sure wish I would have been able to combine all these things earlier in life, but I think a key element is that your mind has to be open to the ideas of these things.  Geneen Roth taught me to stop stressing out about every little thing I eat because that restriction makes me binge on things I don't neccessarily even like; she taught me that self-love and forgiveness and warmth are the ways to combat emotional eating and being hard and abusive to ourselves keeps us in the diet-binge cycle.  Buddhism taught me to not emotionally attach myself (or my energy) on things that are not permanent.  Brain over Binge taught me that my "lower" automatic brain is programmed to seek out rewards even when I am not in danger, that it is a learned and programmed response and that I can rewire my own brain to stop reacting that way by not giving it what it wants (if I realize that its not a true want); yoga is teaching me that if I make a commitment of one little half hour each day, I will be rewarded both physically and mentally (and, a little bit spiritually, I finally admit).   I'm so glad I overcame the stigma of renting emotional eating books from the library because I never would have discovered Geneen Roth's books, which led me to seek out all I could about emotional and compuslsive eating.  These books, the research, the information shared has been priceless in helping me understand why I couldn't will myself to change.  I was fighting against nature, and emotions, and some hard-wiring of the brain.  It all feels much easier and less stressful now, and for that I am so deeply grateful!
So today I say, Yoga on!  Or run on, bike on, kickbox on, or whatever it is that makes you feel alive!  Happy Thursday!

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