Balance + Peace :: Incorporating yoga into my daily life.

I don't consider my daily life to be overwhelming or hectic.  I work normal hours, Monday through Friday, and don't have many social outings.  The most stressful parts of my day can be my students or co-workers.  That being said, I am an overly anxious person.  My brain tends to work in overdrive, considering all possible options and outcomes of any given situation, large or small.  This is the reason the idea of putting our house on the market and buying again is extremely stressful for me.  I get the feeling 2015 is going to be quite the stressful year for me.

Over the past six months, I have made an increased effort to bring yoga into my daily life.  I've practiced yoga for almost four years now, but that participation may vary between 1-3 classes per week.  My goal for the month of February is to practice yoga every single day and build my practice into week day mornings before work.

TIME FOR PEACE

When I started consistently practicing yoga, it was my time to relax and be at peace.  I still prefer a gentle, restorative, or yin yoga practice to any other type.  These classes allow me to stretch my weary, run-exhausted muscles and truly focus on my breathing.  My stresses and anxieties slip away, and I can {mostly} enjoy an entire hour of bliss.  I don't always have the time, energy, or ability to fit in an entire hour of practice into my daily routine.  For that reason, I always make some time for peace and relaxation even if it's with an extended savasana at the end of a practice.  Ultimately yoga makes me more at peace with myself and the world around me, and I want that awareness to become a part of my daily life.

THE CHALLENGE

I am in awe of the strength and health of many of my yogi muses.  This is the strength I want to build within myself.  I am trying to amp up my practice by challenging myself more.  With my goal of participating in an obstacle race, I know that upper body strength is crucial.  Yoga can be the perfect balance between challenging yourself and letting everything go.  I can always tell a difference in my running when I've been consistently utilizing yoga to strengthen and stretch my muscles.

YOGA AT HOME

If you practice at a studio, the cost of yoga can become increasingly expensive.  Many of the studios I've found in Raleigh average around the $100/month range.  My YMCA membership is around $35, and I certainly can not afford both.  I've been lucky enough to find a class here and there at the Y with which I've fallen in love.  While there is little comparison to actually attending classes at a yoga studio, I've found a few resources that have made my at-home practice a bit more enjoyable.

-I discovered Yoga by Candace last month when I started her 31 day strength challenge.  She has a YouTube channel with a ton of great yoga classes.  I like the options (such as a quick 15 minute pre-run warm up or even a 60 minute flow) and her style.
-Doyogawithme.com is another great, free resource with a ton of options depending on what you're looking for.  There are a lot of different teachers there, so you may want to play around to find one you really like.
-The Yoga Studio app is amazing!  Again the variety is splendid, and they even have an entire section with runner-specific classes.  You can download a class and utilize it anywhere.  I appreciate that I can easily choose a class based on the amount of time I have.

I have found that I prefer websites with lots of choices in comparison to a DVD because I get bored participating in the same practice over and over.  I'm still trying to find a space in my home where I can truly detach like I can in a class outside the home.

Do you practice yoga?  At home or somewhere else?
How often do you practice? 

Health + Happiness.

Every now and then, I'll find myself looking back at old pictures.  In the process of ridding our house of excess junk, I've come across many of these photos and journals from what feels like a former life, the shell of who I once was.  In all honesty, I don't like to look back at these mementos.  They make me cringe to think of that girl.

[2008]

That girl was insecure and mostly unhappy.  She was always searching: for love, acceptance, security, happiness.  Photos from high school seem to be more torturous.  When I reminisce on times of supposed happiness from those years, such as proms, graduation, parties, I shudder to think of the person I was.  I can still recall the desperate thoughts of trying to fit in, wanting to be "chosen" by this boy or that one, wondering if I looked as good as the others.  College did nothing but to drive me further into my insecurities instead of helping me discover who I truly am.  Old journal entries mulled over old friends being "taken away" by new boyfriends.  My insecurities caused me to push people away, and to this day I still regret friendships lost.  Nonetheless, I'm incredibly lucky that D was able to see past my insecurities; instead he saw my potential.  

[2010]

It took me until the age of 25 to discover my own happiness.  I feel that I owe this transformation to D, for sticking by and believing in me, and to running.  It was not until I started training for my first half marathon that I started to believe in myself.  Over the past four years, I have developed a true love for sweating and running.  I've discovered one of the keys to my happiness.  Being strong, healthy, and confident makes me feel like the best version of myself.  

[2014]

This is not to say that meeting a goal weight or losing x amount of pounds is the key to happiness.  For me, it is actually the opposite.  I rarely weigh myself and don't believe in counting calories.  My happiness and confidence comes from continually staying active, from setting health goals for myself and achieving them, and from nourishing my body in the best way.  When I challenge myself physically, I have no reason to feel insecure.  I feel strong and disciplined.  So what if I don't have six-pack abs?  I can probably hold a plank longer than many women my age.  When I feel my best, this carries over into the other parts of my life.  What they say is true...it starts with loving yourself.

While I'm trying to work on a balance between spending time on me and prioritizing other aspects of my life, I still have some health goals I've been thinking about for this year.

+Be the healthiest and strongest I have ever been in my life 

+Run a marathon (or at least be training for one)

+Become more disciplined with eating on an 80/20 balance and nourish my body with fuel for health

+Incorporate yoga as a daily routine

+Compete in an obstacle race (I'm considering the Spartan Race in Charlotte, NC)

+Continue to balance running, strength, and yoga 

Oddly enough, many of my goals were the same as Megan's.  I thought she spoke so eloquently on being healthy and strong for 2015 (and had pictures that were a hell of a lot cooler than mine).

What are some of the keys to your happiness?

I'd love to hear your health + happiness goals for the year!

Minimalista.

To bring a bit of clarity to my 2015 word, I should mention a few areas of my life in which I am aiming to improve.  The short list: being content with having less, health, and finances.  Let's start with the idea of having less.  Alex wrote a great post about comparison in this day with the internet, specifically social media, being such a prevalent aspect of our lives.  Admittedly, I desperately struggle with comparison syndrome. To begin working through my condition, I significantly parred down the number of blogs I followed; I unsubscribed from a ton of email lists.  Nonetheless, I still battle with the comparison trap daily.  A beautiful Instagram of my favorite home has me searching the internet for a specific, out of my price range, blanket that will certainly "complete" my living room.  That 40% sale JCrew just tweeted about?  Well, I obviously have to find a piece for my spring capsule wardrobe (which won't begin for another two months).  I have much to be desired when it comes to rehabilitating this comparison problem.  Nothing a little discipline can't fix.

Minimalism seems to be a hot topic.  My Pinterest feed has been bombarded with articles about minimal lifestyles, capsule wardrobes, and DIYs.  Last October, I decided to remedy a bit of my spending habits by trying my hand at a capsule wardrobe.  I learned a lot of lessons, and one was that I enjoyed not wasting as much time shopping and searching through my closet on a daily basis.  As winter rolled around and I planned for my second capsule, I did not do such a great job.  I practically ended up buying an entire new wardrobe thus making anything I saved in the previous months null.  I'm going to save the spending conversation for another day, so my point is that living with less clothing made me feel happier and more like me (due to my refined and true style discoveries).  If having less in my closet impacts my life in this way, what would be the impact of narrowing the clutter in other aspects of my life and home?

D and I are in the process of prepping our house to put on the market to sell.  This has created the perfect opportunity to organize and de-clutter our home.  We are stage one hoarders, so this process takes an immense amount of time and energy.  After completing three rooms, we have already learned so much.

It's ok to keep special items with memories attached.  I have so many things that have sentimental value.  I constantly think that I would love for these things to still be around if I have kids/when I die.  It is ok to keep these items but just store them!  We have an attic for a reason.  We got a lot of large boxes and plastic bins, then threw everything in them.  It was that easy.

I don't need that extra notepad from Target because it's cute.  It is becoming more important to me that most things I own have a purpose.  I can buy more notepads if I ever run out (which may never happen at the rate I've stocked up in the dollar section).  Just as I learned via my capsule wardrobe experimenting, a sale does not mean I have to buy.  Now does that candle on clearance have a purpose?  Yes!  With four pets and two litter boxes, candles are a necessity in our household.  Everyone has different needs, but I am attempting to buy more purposefully to reduce my clutter.

Less really is more.  Our living room has large built-in bookshelves which I adore.  I love having books and displaying them.  Over the course of the nine years D and I have been together, we've accumulated quite a few books and gotten rid of little to none.  After donating maybe 30% of the books and taking down almost all of the vases and random decor, our bookshelves look amazing!  We have said numerous times how this decluttering process actually makes us want to stay in our house longer.  It makes me appreciate the beauty of the house I fell in love with four years ago.

What steps do you take to live minimally and purposefully?

The word.

I have desperately wanted to take time to resurrect this space with the entrance of 2015.  Something, or lack thereof, has been holding me back.  It's not a lack of time; I have plenty of extra that I choose to fill with reading and exercising and sometimes Candy Crush.  There is much in my life that I could bore you with: painting our bedroom, getting a house ready to sell, running another half marathon, yoga challenges, and so forth.  Nonetheless, there is still something holding me back.  I believe I'm missing a little inspiration.

The welcoming of a new year always ignites a spark within me.  It is cliche, but I find no fault in embracing a fresh start.  This time around I didn't think too hard about resolutions.  I'm pretty content with my health and exercise routines.  There wasn't really one single thing I was drawn toward fixing or changing.  I have been thinking about my overarching theme of this year for half of 2014.  I'm turning 30.  For me, it simply feels like a milestone, but a big one.  It will mark the decade of so many new decisions and changes.  For this reason, I want to make 2015/the year of 30 awesome.  Instead of a single resolution, I'm choosing a word.  

After much thought (and a little extra time as it is now the second week in January), I think discipline is exactly what I want to focus on this year.  While I'm so happy with most things in my life, I definitely have a few areas I want to refine and improve.  It takes discipline and dedication to truly make a change.  If I want to keep this space alive, I need discipline and direction.  With that, I say bring it 2015!