Do you ever leave an experience or walk away from an interaction and truly wish, with all your soul, with a heaviness and sickness in your heart, to take back what you said or how you behaved?
On the yoga mat we have the opportunity to observe our behaviour from a safe place. We can see how we react when we bump up against our own poor choices, our unhelpful thoughts, our negative emotions. We then have a magical choice: sit, observe, and choose differently, or follow the same pattern and make the same choice we always have, and in all probability, end up with the same result.
The ability to reset within yourself on the mat, over and over again, breath by breath, is one of the first places to start identifying patterns, thoughts, behaviours, and beliefs that don't serve us. You can think about it like bubbles coming up to the surface of very calm water, bubbling to the surface of your conscious mind. And as you identify each challenge, each piece of conflict or difficulty, instead of deflecting or shying away from it, be brave! Look at your difficulties in the face, sit with the feeling, take a breath, and then another, so that eventually, breath by breath you are allowing your body, mind, and soul to process your experiences.
Then take this practice off the mat and into your real life. As you notice yourself react, pay attention, be mindful, take a deep breath, and reset. If it's in a conversation, catch yourself, take a deep breath and start again. If you notice after something happens, give yourself a pat on the back - you recognised your unhelpful behaviour (yay!), take a deep breath, and imagine what you would do differently next time. Then when the opportunity presents itself, try again.
Over time, you will notice a shift, a change. You will find space from your mind, from patterns and behaviour, until eventually, you start making new and better choices. As Maya would say:
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” ― Maya Angelou
We can spend our time and energy beating ourselves up, filling up with regreat, feeling nausiated about bad decisions, or we can look at our behaviour in the face and change it. Take a deep breath. Reset. Start again.
With love,
Adrianna
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