Yoga and Meditation Journal - Week of 10/21/13

I have been doing yoga and meditation every day for a month and it is transforming my life!

I started doing yoga and meditating daily on 9/27/13 starting with a wonderful Restorative Yoga workshop that Friday. The workshop inspired me so much that I wrote the poem "On My Mat" about how yoga makes me feel, each time I step onto my mat. It is like the poem cemented in me the love for yoga that I feel, and stimulated and encouraged me to do this daily, which has been a wish I have had for years now.

I started doing yoga in 1993 when I was looking into healthier ways of living. I became a vegetarian about the same time. I have been more devoted to yoga some times than others, but never for lack of loving to do it. I just let life get in the way of allowing me to do it regularly. It never left my heart, and I have always loved how it made me feel.

I find yoga meditative when done in its true spirit, not just for fitness reasons. If you focus on the breath (prana) that is the key to yoga. Not the postures. The Breath. If you only breathed and watched it closely, that is yoga. Yoga is the union of mind, body and soul. That is the purpose of it. The postures are just a way to stimulate this and facilitate, allowing the mind to quiet and the body to become ready for further meditation. The postures are not an end in themselves.

Meditation has always come pretty easily for me. I am lucky in that I can detach from my thoughts enough to find that center and peace that comes from within. I haven't practiced it daily though until now, and didn't know much about it for years. I had only dabbled in it after yoga mainly. I discovered it again, in a new way, about three years ago. I found it after a very difficult year in my life. It has helped me tremendously. I mainly practiced it in workshops with a group, but sometimes on my own. I found it easier in groups. Now I am enjoying the special relationship with myself that comes from a daily practice. It is truly wonderful to find that quiet time for myself, even if sometimes it isn't quiet around me. That is the true test of whether you can find that place within you. It isn't easy, but worth it.

The daily walking is so wonderful also. I often find that I meditate now while walking, if I am by myself, especially in the park by my house. At lunchtime at work I catch up with a wonderful co-worker as we have been walking together a few weeks now. I realized that I have walked outside every day but one. The one day it was raining I went inside to the gym to walk on a treadmill. It was okay. Just not the same as moving forward on the ground, with the elements all around you. Even though it has been cold lately, and will get colder, I will find a way to walk outside unless the weather is truly bad. I will bundle up as much as I need to, especially in these Michigan winters. Otherwise I will settle for the treadmill. Whatever the case, I have no excuses. Park, track, treadmill. I will find a way to do it!