Hello.
As you might have noticed, I've been on an extended, unannounced holiday from this blog. It was totally unplanned - a few days' break led to a few weeks' break led to a few months' break. How does Blogger even work now?! They've changed the backend completely. Wow. Guess I've been away for THAT long.
I have no other reason than I didn't feel like writing. So I didn't.
It wasn't like I was short on material either... From my last post in July till now, I've had one kitchen drama after another (and the kitchen is STILL incomplete, mind you), my siblings came to visit me in the dam, I went to Berlin to watch a friend run the Berlin Marathon for the first time, I went to Ljubljana in Slovenia and shot in the most magical Hobbitville forest, I went to visit some of my best friends in London after the births of their gorgeous babies, I was getting out and actually socializing for the first time in ages, even meeting boys and going out on dates and navigating the minefield that is "the dating game" (I hate it, by the way. Boys today are just too complicated), I've had visitors from out-of-town coming and going from my flat, I've been practicing ashtanga yoga a little bit, then I've not been practicing ashtanga yoga at all, then I've got back on my mat again and I'm still trying to find the balance between managing yoga and life, and life and yoga.
And y'know... I was just getting out there and "living life". And I guess I was getting out of my head a little, experiencing life without processing too much (or possibly maybe TRYING not to process too much!) I guess if this were a movie, this would be the part where a montage of different scenes from the past few months flies past in fast-forward. HAHA.
I definitely needed that blog-break. Not to say that I'll be back to regular writing again, but as with all things, it's always good to stop what you're doing, take a step back and put things in perspective again. When it came to writing about yoga, I felt like all I was doing was moaning about asana. "Wah wah wah, I can't do this and wah wah wah, I can't do that". I was boring myself to tears. I think I was/am also coming to a point where I don't particularly feel the need to share everything that's going on in my head about my practice. It helped me internalize stuff to blab about it before, but maybe it's coz my practice is taking a more inward turn that I haven't felt the need to talk about it. Also, I'd been going down the same stop-start-stop pattern in my practice that I wasn't even sure what to make of it anymore.
So... I just gave it a break. A break from all that writing and thinking and navel-gazing about it. And I think out of all that time-off to JUST BE, and get out and do stuff without thinking... Now that I'm finally sitting down to think about it, I'm gonna mix it up a little bit with my practice. Sticking to a 5 or 6-day practice a week is just not do-able in my current situation. Not if I also want to have more of a social life, or enough hours of sleep a night especially when work starts to go balls-to-the-wall busy again. And I'm done with feeling guilty and beating myself up on it when I can't stick to that practice schedule no matter what the reason (or excuse) may be. At this point, I'm gonna allow myself a 3 or 4-day practice a week (maybe less sometimes) and say "yes" to more social events. 2011 is my year of "speaking my truth" anyway, and the whole point of turning up on the mat, for me at least, is tuning in to a more mindful/ conscious way of living and not sticking to dogma for dogma's sake. And right now, it feels like this is what I need.
It makes me a happier person, and that's a good enough reason for me.
I guess that's the conundrum of being a modern-day yogi. I felt myself always having to choose between "life or yoga?" or "work or yoga"? (and I refer to "yoga" in the asana sense of "making it to practice") It shouldn't even have to come to this double bind, but I guess life just throws stuff your way and you just deal with it the best you can.
I'd much rather be caught in the RyGos double bind. Mm-hmm.
As you might have noticed, I've been on an extended, unannounced holiday from this blog. It was totally unplanned - a few days' break led to a few weeks' break led to a few months' break. How does Blogger even work now?! They've changed the backend completely. Wow. Guess I've been away for THAT long.
I have no other reason than I didn't feel like writing. So I didn't.
It wasn't like I was short on material either... From my last post in July till now, I've had one kitchen drama after another (and the kitchen is STILL incomplete, mind you), my siblings came to visit me in the dam, I went to Berlin to watch a friend run the Berlin Marathon for the first time, I went to Ljubljana in Slovenia and shot in the most magical Hobbitville forest, I went to visit some of my best friends in London after the births of their gorgeous babies, I was getting out and actually socializing for the first time in ages, even meeting boys and going out on dates and navigating the minefield that is "the dating game" (I hate it, by the way. Boys today are just too complicated), I've had visitors from out-of-town coming and going from my flat, I've been practicing ashtanga yoga a little bit, then I've not been practicing ashtanga yoga at all, then I've got back on my mat again and I'm still trying to find the balance between managing yoga and life, and life and yoga.
And y'know... I was just getting out there and "living life". And I guess I was getting out of my head a little, experiencing life without processing too much (or possibly maybe TRYING not to process too much!) I guess if this were a movie, this would be the part where a montage of different scenes from the past few months flies past in fast-forward. HAHA.
I definitely needed that blog-break. Not to say that I'll be back to regular writing again, but as with all things, it's always good to stop what you're doing, take a step back and put things in perspective again. When it came to writing about yoga, I felt like all I was doing was moaning about asana. "Wah wah wah, I can't do this and wah wah wah, I can't do that". I was boring myself to tears. I think I was/am also coming to a point where I don't particularly feel the need to share everything that's going on in my head about my practice. It helped me internalize stuff to blab about it before, but maybe it's coz my practice is taking a more inward turn that I haven't felt the need to talk about it. Also, I'd been going down the same stop-start-stop pattern in my practice that I wasn't even sure what to make of it anymore.
So... I just gave it a break. A break from all that writing and thinking and navel-gazing about it. And I think out of all that time-off to JUST BE, and get out and do stuff without thinking... Now that I'm finally sitting down to think about it, I'm gonna mix it up a little bit with my practice. Sticking to a 5 or 6-day practice a week is just not do-able in my current situation. Not if I also want to have more of a social life, or enough hours of sleep a night especially when work starts to go balls-to-the-wall busy again. And I'm done with feeling guilty and beating myself up on it when I can't stick to that practice schedule no matter what the reason (or excuse) may be. At this point, I'm gonna allow myself a 3 or 4-day practice a week (maybe less sometimes) and say "yes" to more social events. 2011 is my year of "speaking my truth" anyway, and the whole point of turning up on the mat, for me at least, is tuning in to a more mindful/ conscious way of living and not sticking to dogma for dogma's sake. And right now, it feels like this is what I need.
It makes me a happier person, and that's a good enough reason for me.
I guess that's the conundrum of being a modern-day yogi. I felt myself always having to choose between "life or yoga?" or "work or yoga"? (and I refer to "yoga" in the asana sense of "making it to practice") It shouldn't even have to come to this double bind, but I guess life just throws stuff your way and you just deal with it the best you can.
I'd much rather be caught in the RyGos double bind. Mm-hmm.
