Category Archives: Motivate

Honor where you at this moment

One of the things I love about yoga is the idea that you should honor where you are in your practice right at that moment, that day. Some days it takes more work to get out of your own head, and some days it just flows.

The same goes for running. Some days it’s like an impossible fight just to take one step forward. Some days it’s like I was born to run and it just feels right.

The idea of honoring where you are in your practice, be it running or yoga, can be hard, for me especially. I don’t like excuses and I don’t like performing at less than my best. The idea that some days my best is less than perfection is a hard pill to swallow. In fact, most days my best is less than perfection and that’s it’s own struggle to break.

What does it mean to honor where you are in your practice? 

To me, it means to give my best every day at everything I do, but recognize and appreciate that what “my best” is varies as much each day as it can each hour. It means knowing my limits, but pushing what those are to keep getting better. It means balancing priorities each day and recognizing when something needs more or less attention than it has been getting.

But most of all, it means listening and being aware.

In yoga, and running, it means listening to my body and knowing what to tune in and what to tune out. There are days I hear the negative voices and I believe this philosophy means not trying to artificially silence those voices, which I’m starting to see isn’t possible or realistic, but more so, to acknowledge that they exist and let that be the extent of the power you give them. Listen to those negative voices and let them pass through you. Listen to the positive voices and acknowledge they exist as well. As I let the positive voices wash over me and pass through me I acknowledge their power and gain strength from them, but I don’t try to cling to them, I just let them grow and pass.

As life gets hectic, I try to use these tactics in everyday life as well.

I want to do my best in everything, but time and effort is limited and choices have to be made each day. If you make those choices without acknowledging the limits, and the larger picture, you can push yourself to an unbalanced place where stress reigns and drive you. Where negative voices fuel drive you to act out of fear.

There are many days, perhaps even most, when I go to bed with a different definition of the day’s success than I woke up with. Rarely does a day go by exactly as I had planned it would before the sun rose. There are always more chores, work and things to be done than time available. There are always more people to see and information to consume than I am able. But I am trying to live with more balance by listening more and letting those emotions pass through and wash over me, rather than rule me. I am trying to learn to let stress pass through me as I listen to it, and acknowledge it, without letting it take hold of me. I try to let joy pass through me as I listen to it as well and acknowledge it, without trying to capture it.

I am not a master of this yet, and there are probably more days than not that I fail at this. But I’m trying to get better, slowly, and let it pass through me by controlling only what I can – my actions.

 

How do you honor where you are each day? 

Looking to 2014

On my desk at work I have a few personal effects.

I have a framed photo of the Wrigley Field sign featuring a congratulatory message to my husband and I on our wedding, a baseball, a framed picture of my husband and I, a page-a-day tropical calendar and some baseballs and stress balls.

I also have a lucky bamboo plant that I was given by a friend of mine as I was leaving my first full time job and heading to this one. When I started at my current company, the plant is small, no more than 2″ wide, and started rather short – maybe 5″ tall.

I don’t see the change in this tiny plant daily. At my year anniversary with the company, however, I looked at the plant next to a photo of the plant when I got there. It had blossomed and almost doubled in height, without any notice from me each day even though it was right in front of my face. That’s how people grow and change, too, just like that lucky bamboo. Slowly, and without notice each day. But each day’s minuscule growth adds up to big change over time.

Image The danger in that is that without seeing the changes happen daily, it’s hard to really track the progress and tell if you’re growing straight up or sideways or downwards. The change is inevitable, but the factors that you surround yourself will impact the direction and rate of growth.

Points in time when you measure growth like a child’s height chart are important to help you make sure you’re on the right track.

From last New Year’s Eve to this one, we’ve had a lot of changes that are easy to see – we look a year older, we’ve changed our address and we’ve had our ups an down this year. But, what I’ve really tried to look at today, is the smaller, minuscule changes that we don’t notice until years down the road.