1 week into my 100 days of Gita challenge. Only 93 days to go :)
Happy to say I have kept up my daily Gita style yoga and meditation practice.
Though I must admit that there were a few wobbly days. You know the late start, the feeling ill, and the family commitments days. They do say the first few weeks are the hardest, don't they?
Each time I knew I could easily let myself fall off the wagon and some days I had to get creative to stay on track.
What I did learn from this first week though is the great power of setting an intention.
I realise it may seem strange that a yoga teacher needs to create a challenge for herself to practice, but it has been refreshing and enlightening for me which is exactly what I had hoped for my practice.
You see, at some point my practice had begun to feel like a "should".
Just because I am a yoga teacher, I should be practicing daily.
I had started to question my practice and explore other styles.
I was a bit like a teenager on rebellion, testing the boundaries.
But I know Gita works , I keep coming back to it.
And now that I live in Perth I miss being able to attend a Gita class.
So I started this little personal challenge because I wanted to own my practice, remind myself of it's true magic and why I loved it so. {And I wanted to share my love of it here with you}
So setting a powerful intention to practice for 100 days straight gave me a goal and an intention.
It's all about the intention.
A conscious decision made.
A deeper meaning given.
This is what helps during those wobbly times.
Set a powerful intention, and everything is imbued with a sense of purpose!
And this is one of the first things I noticed and loved about Gita style yoga.
Intention, and a spiritual one at that, is what I love about yoga above other forms of "exercise".
The word yoga comes from the root word 'yug', meaning to yolk. To unite.
What are we uniting?
All of us. Our mind, body and breath. Our inner and outer world. Our spiritual and human selves.
Cultivating the inner peace that reflects back out as world peace. Ourselves with the universe/life/God/the sacred/insert term you prefer here.
I know it is possible to achieve this sense though other activities, but this is what had drawn me to practice yoga.
Don't let the spiritual talk put you off, rather I hope that by sharing this extra information with you it helps you connect deeper with your practice when you see that every pose has a purpose. An intention.
The layers of intention is what drew me to Gita style yoga and is what I love most.
Every breath. Every movement. Every pause. Every pose. All has a purpose. An intention.
And its this that I am looking forward to sharing with you in this blog series.
For now, I'd love to hear from you, do you set daily intentions? How have intentions helped you?
Look forward to hearing from you!
Wishing you every success with your dreams and goals.
With gratitude and love,
Tx
PS: Below is one of my henna doodles. In an attempt to get my creative juices flowing more and assist my learning more about henna design I started drawing these a few weeks back. I do one #hennadoodleaday {which you can check out over on instagram}. What I found was that once I put my positive statement, mantra or intention down, every line drawn thereafter was infused with this meaning! So it has become a powerful intention setting tool in my daily practice.
Happy to say I have kept up my daily Gita style yoga and meditation practice.
Though I must admit that there were a few wobbly days. You know the late start, the feeling ill, and the family commitments days. They do say the first few weeks are the hardest, don't they?
Each time I knew I could easily let myself fall off the wagon and some days I had to get creative to stay on track.
What I did learn from this first week though is the great power of setting an intention.
I realise it may seem strange that a yoga teacher needs to create a challenge for herself to practice, but it has been refreshing and enlightening for me which is exactly what I had hoped for my practice.
You see, at some point my practice had begun to feel like a "should".
Just because I am a yoga teacher, I should be practicing daily.
I had started to question my practice and explore other styles.
I was a bit like a teenager on rebellion, testing the boundaries.
But I know Gita works , I keep coming back to it.
And now that I live in Perth I miss being able to attend a Gita class.
So I started this little personal challenge because I wanted to own my practice, remind myself of it's true magic and why I loved it so. {And I wanted to share my love of it here with you}
So setting a powerful intention to practice for 100 days straight gave me a goal and an intention.
It's all about the intention.
A conscious decision made.
A deeper meaning given.
This is what helps during those wobbly times.
Set a powerful intention, and everything is imbued with a sense of purpose!
And this is one of the first things I noticed and loved about Gita style yoga.
Intention, and a spiritual one at that, is what I love about yoga above other forms of "exercise".
The word yoga comes from the root word 'yug', meaning to yolk. To unite.
What are we uniting?
All of us. Our mind, body and breath. Our inner and outer world. Our spiritual and human selves.
Cultivating the inner peace that reflects back out as world peace. Ourselves with the universe/life/God/the sacred/insert term you prefer here.
I know it is possible to achieve this sense though other activities, but this is what had drawn me to practice yoga.
Don't let the spiritual talk put you off, rather I hope that by sharing this extra information with you it helps you connect deeper with your practice when you see that every pose has a purpose. An intention.
The layers of intention is what drew me to Gita style yoga and is what I love most.
Every breath. Every movement. Every pause. Every pose. All has a purpose. An intention.
And its this that I am looking forward to sharing with you in this blog series.
For now, I'd love to hear from you, do you set daily intentions? How have intentions helped you?
Look forward to hearing from you!
Wishing you every success with your dreams and goals.
With gratitude and love,
Tx
PS: Below is one of my henna doodles. In an attempt to get my creative juices flowing more and assist my learning more about henna design I started drawing these a few weeks back. I do one #hennadoodleaday {which you can check out over on instagram}. What I found was that once I put my positive statement, mantra or intention down, every line drawn thereafter was infused with this meaning! So it has become a powerful intention setting tool in my daily practice.
PSS: You know how I said I had to get creative on the wobbly days, well I decided to film my practice to keep myself accountable, document my progress and also as a way to share it with you. Here is week one's compilation of my practice videos in time lapse mode. If you want to see more, subscribe over at my YouTube channel, Pocket Yogini TV!
