Weak-Willed Lisa No More

      The yoga studio that I teach for is also the studio where I practice. Every March they have a thirty-day challenge to get students to recommit to their asana practice. Think Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1:14, “This practice becomes firmly rooted when it is cultivated skillfully and continuously for a long time.” I, being the weak-willed woman that I am, have not participated in the past. This year I inadvertantly stepped into the challenge. I noticed that by sheer happenstance I had practiced asana for seven days in a row; I just started a few days earlier than the challenge, so I thought I'd just see how it goes. Then I really went out on a limb and announced to Phil and Sandrine, the owners of the studio, that I was following along with the challenge even though I hadn't registered for it. Great, now there is someone to hold me accountable! I have avoided situations like this for many years; I like to keep it loose. Goes along with my weak-willed mantra quite well don't you think? So, I was cruising along having made it to day eighteen, I was feeling proud...then we took a college roadtrip to Flagstaff with our daughter.

     I had planned on doing some yoga in our hotel room before we headed to NAU to tour the campus, but my body had other plans for me. I woke up on Friday morning looking and feeling like Johnny Depp in the opening scene from The Rum Diary; it was bad, and I hadn't even been drinking. My allergies had been kicking my butt for days and seemed to intensify with the new location, and I slept for just two hours thanks to my cough that night. I was looking at a five and a half hour tour of a college campus and then a six hour drive home. I told myself that I would surely feel better when we got home and I could practice then. Right, after a twelve hour day? What I did when we got home was pour myself a glass of wine and watched Grimm with Pete. Later we talked about how disappointed I was in myself. I really wanted to follow through this time. I talked about getting up and going to yoga anyway the next morning and Pete suggested I just start over. Note: My husband has run an ultra-marathon, he is not weak-willed. I laughed at that suggestion and thought that maybe I would just give in to the mantra once more and quit. Then, I must have felt Patanjali tapping me on the head, because I realized I could just pick it up today. I didn't miss a day because I was feeling lazy, I was following through on a parental obligation that I felt was very important, not to mention I felt terrible. So, I got up and went to yoga this morning for my (almost) twentieth day in a row. I think I will just tack an extra day onto the end to make sure I actually hit thirty days. It feels to me like Patanjali would approve of this arrangement.