Don’t want to practice? Practice anyway.
This Spring has been quite the slog for me. It’s my first Spring in New England in over a decade, and somehow, I’d thought that the New England Winter would dissuade me from an extended stay. Turn’s out, it’s the Spring that’s the kicker. At least this Spring.
My husband and I started to laugh that there’s no reason to check the weather. It has been the same every day since April 2nd: 45 and raining. Dear god.
I have been feeling the acumulation of the kapha qualities of Spring in my body: a weighty sluggishness.
I’d embarked upon 40 Days of Creative Practice and the chanting of a Saraswati mantra, hoping for a lightness—and a creative spark. This was going to be great—and much needed.
But, what I actually experienced in those first few days of our 40 Days of Creative Practice, was extreme heaviness. I had the feeling of picking myself up and dragging myself around by the scruff of the neck.
I did not want to write. I did not want to market. I did not want to move forward on my vision for my work. I couldn’t even muster up a connection with it. I could no longer feel it’s energy.
And, I’d committed to writing every day, sharing every day—and leading you, holding a sacred space for you, in your own exploration and immersion into the vibration and nature of creativity and creative practice.
At which point, I could hear my Swami in my head. (Practice yoga long enough, and you not only walk around with mantras in your head, but your teachers. It’s marvelous, and maddeningly inescapable.)
Sit anyway.
Sit on your cushion and do your meditation practice anyway.
Achy? Sit anyway. Sleepy? Sit anyway. Defeated, enraged, afraid, ashamed? Sit anyway.
I have a toxic history with the notion of “Do It Anyway.”
For many years—okay, let’s just be honest, for decades—“Do It Anyway” meant continue through self-harm.
Stress fractures? Run anyway. Mono? Study anyway. Depression, exhaustion, pain? Work anyway.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about the practices that are for you.
Things that keep you well. Things that give you joy. Things that instill magic and wonder and calm. Things with undeniably long-term benefits to you living a fully engaged and satisfying life, to you creating your most brilliant work, and to you just damned plain feeling good in your skin.
The things you do for you. Because you’re worth it. Your work is worth it. (And the world needs you.)
Do those anyway. Despite what your mind says about the conditions that have to be there to do it.
Because, that, really, is where your aliveness is.
That’s where mine is too. So, with my Swami’s words in my head like a refrain, I dragged myself to my yoga mat and started to practice a sequences of poses to move the stagnant heaviness out of my body. And, surprise, I felt better. (If you want to try this, I have a 10-minute yoga video for balancing the kapha qualities of Spring for you here.)
Kapha—Spring in Ayurveda—is all about structure, strength and stability. So, I decided that my practice needed more rigor: a physical practice and a mantra practice at the same time, first thing, every day. (Ironically, by calling upon kapha’s strength—providing structure and stability—you can move yourself through any excesses of its qualities you’re experiencing.)
Since Monday, I have practiced first thing in the morning, every day. Today, four days later, I feel like a different person than I did on Sunday: light, joyful, connected.
Yoga, my friends, is a miracle. Practice is a miracle. Devotion . . . well, that’s a way of life. One to which I’m grateful to subscribe.