“Relaxation is the doorway to both wisdom and compassion.”

Tara Brach

If you signed up to follow me here or are reading this post to find out how to do something with QuickBooks or accounting for law firms, you may have to skip this post.  

I am just returning from a week off of work and a week of advanced yoga teacher training.  And I learned a lot about myself.  It’s funny, this week began just after the fourth of July.  I love Seth David’s Friday Zoom meeting.  It is free for everyone.  He sometimes evaluates apps, sometimes shows you how to do cool things in Excel, sometimes talks about accounting.  But this particular Friday Zoom touched my soul and was the kickoff to a week of learning for me.  Discovery.  He spoke about self-care.  Making choices from the heart.  Letting things go.  If you get to know Seth personally, he always speaks from the heart.  I felt like he created this show just for me.

Fast forward to Monday, and I began my yoga training.  This topic was about the spine.  No need to get into the details here except that most of us at some time in our life experience back pain.  These classes are a way for me to “geek out” on anatomy and learn some really creative ways to incorporate some healthy back sequences for my students.  I teach one class per week at a beautiful yoga studio here in Estero, Florida.  It is called Fusion Yoga and Wellness.  If you are ever in SW Florida near Naples, I would love to have you come in and take my class.  

One of my primary focused goals four years ago was to become a 500 hr certified yoga therapist. I have 60 hours to go. My focus shifted last year, just after the training I did in April 2018. My yogi friends could not get over the difference in me. With my mind so concerned about my business, my customers. But I lost the focus on the task at hand, deep learning of the spine. I distracted my education on keeping an eye on my phone. Checking my emails. Checking my Facebook group, contacting my business partner on my breaks. I never shut my brain off. Even during our 30-45 minute meditations, I was multi-tasking.

Our days were long at this training. They started at 7am thru to 7pm. The physical practice that I had let go so I could work in my business wore on my body. My stress level was thru the roof! It took the full 6 days of this training for the lightbulb moment. In the very last 2 hour practice, the very last extended meditation, was when I finally let go. Every seed that Seth planted on the Friday Zoom took root. Instead of fighting the tide, I let the wave take me.

The purpose of this post is two-fold. One is I hope that I can help others have the same epiphany that I had. The second is to hold myself accountable:

1. Meditate daily – schedule this so it happens.  It can be guided, which is what I know I need.  
2. Yoga daily – It does not have to be a long practice.  My body, the tissues, the joints, right down to the cellular level is better because of it.
3. Journal – daily – You would be astonished what you can learn from journaling.
4. Walk – get out in nature.  This is difficult in Florida as temps top 107 degrees with the heat index in the middle of the day.  But again, schedule it.  Get out early.  If it rains hard, treadmill.  All doable.
5. Stand to do my work.  My favorite line is “I sit at my standing desk”.  But no more.  Schedule this too.
6. Evaluate your own business.  Does more work equal more profitable?  What do I like to do? What do I dislike?  How can I organize and delegate.
7. Eat better– Being away has not been good for my diet.  Being in California always means tacos and nachos.  Lots of nachos.  Being home now, I will refocus my diet back to healthy.
8. Sleep – 7 hours per night is my sweet spot.  Rarely is this obtained.  It has been more like 4-5.
9. Read a book per month.

I would love to hear other your thoughts on this post.  Do you have any tips to share? Did you miss the law firm or QuickBooks stuff?  

I will leave you with one last quote that connected to me and my week.  And to that special someone in my life who may be reading it, know that this is my #svadhyaya or self-study.  It is what I am working on.  It is my #truth, it is my lifelong work.  My #focus.

Self care…

“isn’t just about bubble baths and spa days.  Self care also includes self-examination and unpacking the ways in which we perpetuate traumas onto one another.  In order to feel better, we have to get better”

Yoga Journal