Today marked the last day of my May fitness challenge
(I know I took some days off so it spilled into June). Anyway, for the month of May, I completed Yoga with Adriene‘s HOME – A 30 Day Yoga Journey. So here is my Reflection on HOME – A 30 Day Yoga Journey.
Logic for ‘The Journey’
In honor of completing this, I thought I would take some time to reflect on what the journey has been like for me. First, I’ll give a little bit of a backstory to explain why I decided to start. Since the start of quarantine, I have gone through ‘stages’ for lack of better term. First, I was a little on edge and stressed out. Then, I accepted to situation and embraced the necessary break and (semi) laziness that it allowed me to have. After that wore off, I realized that I needed to foster new habits to help ground me.
Throughout the past 3 months, I have maintained the habit of walking Django and strength training. I felt like I needed something to create a new morning routine – that’s where Yoga with Adriene came in. I knew she had done some 30 day challenges in the past so I thought I’d find one to do. Coincidentally, her most recent challenge was from the beginning of the year and it was titled HOME – how fitting!
My intention was to do a video each morning for the month of May. I’ll be honest, I took some days off during the weekend. Sometimes I did it in the middle of the day or at night. Even if I did add some days on, I still did it and I lived to tell the tale.
Challenging my Mindset
For me, the purpose of this journey was less about the exercise and physical work, it was more about the meditation and staying grounded. This is a different approach than my usual push myself physically. Which meant at first I struggled to let go of the mindset that my morning yoga was ‘exercise’. Honestly, the first half of the journey, I approached the videos as exercise videos. For me, this meant looking at how long it was and reading the comments to see if it was more challenging or relaxing. I let that dictate my expectations for the day.
I enjoyed the first half of the journey and I found the videos to be a good blend of work and stretch. However, I feel like it took me a while to get used to the style and really fall into the meditative area of the practice.
Fostering Balance and Center
Around day 20 or so, I hit a point of starting to lose a little bit of motivation to continue . The practices were similar each day and had little physical challenge for me personally. I stuck with it though, reminding myself that I wasn’t doing this for the exercise, but rather for the mental/emotional aspect of it. I am glad I continued the journey and made it through to the end. Personally, I did not have any ‘breakthrough’ moments or days where I got emotional, but I still think the journey allowed me to ground myself to something that helped create a balance and centeredness within myself. If nothing else, it gave me something to wake up and do every morning during a time where I am at home with no external thing pulling me out of bed in the morning.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I think that this journey can be beneficial for those looking to add activity into their lives as well as fitness gurus looking to bring some active recovery into their lives. For me, it was the latter and it allowed me to take time for myself in a more meditative space, which was something new to me. However, after completing the journey, I have learned and experienced the value of using meditation-based activities as a way of grounding and centering myself. So if you are looking for a new experience to create regularity in this time where things are opening back up with so much uncertainty still, this may be a good place to start!
Did you enjoy my reflection on HOME – A 30 Day Yoga Journey?
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