Stay In Alignment
This stretch between Thanksgiving up until New Year’s can be the most joyous of occasions for some— time with family, gift giving, holiday parties. It can also be the most difficult for others— estranged from family, isolated, lonely.
Wherever you are on the spectrum of feelings towards the holidays, you will probably eat too much, drink too much, spend too much time on the computer, spend too much money on gifts, travel, food and drink.
Whether it is out of necessity, an annual ritual, or a coping technique to numb, check out, or avoid— this year, I invite you to do something different.
You see, most of us spend a great deal of time and mental energy the other 11 months of the year trying to establish healthy habits. Why is it that during the holidays we feel we have an excuse to legitimize our unhealthy behaviors? I’ll tell you why— because everyone else is doing it! Peer pressure to take another bite, spend another dollar (Can you say “Black Friday?”), drink another drink….
Here’s where I want to help. I want to invite you to stay in your lane, keep on with that diet, budget, exercise routine. DON’T put it off until the New Year.
Yes, you can and probably will do something to excess or at least more than you would like during the next four weeks, BUT/AND you can pull yourself right back into your normal routine that very next moment. I know! We never think about that… we tend to overindulge and give up.
What I’m saying to you is DON’T GIVE UP!
The “yoga” of life is to always be bringing yourself back into alignment with your highest self. The self that knows better. This is hard work when someone is offering you a second helping of your favorite dessert, the media is pressuring you to buy more, more, more with better and steeper discounts, it’s colder and darker outside and that morning walk isn’t sounding as good as your cozy bed.
I KNOW!!! Why do we do this to ourselves???
We humans are funny things that have selective amnesia. We forget. We forget how bad we feel the next day when we overindulge. We forget what it feels like when we get out of balance so we do it over and over again until we get to the point where we are fed up— literally and figuratively.
We are fed up with feeling lousy about X,Y, Z. We are fed up with saying we will do one thing and then doing the opposite because the effort to stay in our lane just feels a little too hard.
You know you are not alone! Where do you think New Year’s Resolutions came from?! From all the other people that feel just as bad as you because they, too, fell out of alignment and are now resolving to jump back in.
What a yoga class will teach us is that at any given moment you can fall out of alignment - fall out of a pose, lose your breath, give up, let your ego take over, lose yourself in mind chatter, etc. We all do it… but it’s what happens next that matters.
Do you give up? Pile on the criticism, perfectionism, resignation? Or do you jump right back in?
I’m saying JUMP BACK IN to your “bad-ass” self! Get back into alignment. Don’t wait three weeks until the guests are gone. Don’t wait until you’re bankrupt. Don’t wait until you’ve gained 5 pounds. Don’t wait!
This is the journey of life— to know we will continuously fall out of alignment— we are human after all.
To make this the BEST journey of your life is to make the mistakes and then learn from them. Get that voice in your head in tune with how you feel. Keep revisiting your feelings. When you are awake and aware of how “X” makes you feel, you can begin to make more conscious choices.
From this place you will start to choose the actions and behaviors that make you feel your best no matter the time of year.
Start practicing now! Get in the habit of feeling GOOD about your choices and stay in THAT lane… and if you don’t, remind yourself that it is never too late to JUMP RIGHT BACK IN after falling out of alignment.
Namaste.
Let your mantra this week be: “Stay in alignment.”