Gratitude for my Bod

Everything is as it should be.

In the month of January, I took part in Yoga with Adriene's Yoga Revolution, a 31 day yoga programme that's become an annual tradition of mine following last year's Yoga Camp and the original 30 Days of Yoga in 2015. I love Adriene's approach to teaching and guiding yoga, and I love how it makes me feel. Committing and sticking to 31 days is such a welcome start to the year, setting the tone not only for my ~exercise plan~ but for a fresh outlook. Finishing the final day of the programme is always super special (I wrote more about it last year) and the next morning after completing is always strange because it breaks the chain of a month of continuous practice.

This year, however, was especially strange because on the very next day after finishing Yoga Revolution, I started a brand new job. Finally.

I won't go into much about that now, other than that I'm loving it, but what I will say is that in the two weeks since starting I have had very little time for yoga, or much exercise at all, and I feel guilty. My morning ritual for February and beyond of rushing to an office is so different from my January one of peaceful yoga flows, and while I am so into my new work and everything that comes with it, I can't help but feel that I have undone my month of good, hard work and commitment.

Have I fallen off the yoga wagon?

In the four years that I've been following her wonderful channel, Adriene has taught me about breathing and what different sanskrit terms mean and how to transition from cobra to downward dog, but she has also taught me to have gratitude for my body. Our bodies do amazing things for us everyday that we don't give them enough credit for, and that doesn't just mean thanking them when they've completed a 5k run or an intensive yoga flow.

In January I took time for my body - from my mind to my muscles - to learn how to do new things and to pay attention and tend to what it needed. Now, in February, my body has had to learn a whole new set of skills. After nearly eight months of relative nothingness following university, my body has had to learn to wake up at 6.30am everyday and has had to learn how to sit at a desk again. It's quite the adjustment! I am adjusting to a change that I've been waiting for for months, and while I do so I need to put some things on hold for a while, and that's okay.

The fact is that no, I haven't fallen off the wagon, I'm just adjusting and I shouldn't feel guilty for missing a couple of weeks of working out. There will always be time to get back to it. Adriene has taught me not to feel guilty when things aren't going to plan, but to feel grateful for trying and for everything that is working. To be grateful for my body, and - to use the mantra to which she so often refers - that everything is as it should be.

Namaste. xxx.