Yoga challenge completed

Hello everyone, 

My last post was about the update on my 30 day spending freeze that I did in January this one will be about the 30 days of yoga that I did along side the spending freeze challenge. 

I started this challenge because 1) I love Yoga 2)I fell off the yoga challenge and 3) I figured it was a good way to start the new year.  

I posted a picture of myself doing yoga every day for the 30 days that I was doing this challenge to keep me motivated. These pictures were also posted on Instagram. 

I've learned a lot of this yoga journey and I am continuing in this journey. I haven't been doing yoga everyday but I do take the time for it every second day. I also started a 30 day meditation challenge which is proving to be harder then I thought it would be  ( any ways back to the yoga challenge).

What have I learned and gained from this challenge? 

I am more flexible and strong then I thought I was but I still have a long way to go. I was able to surprise myself with some of the poses and how easy they were. Some of them that were a bit harder for me became easier by the end of the challenge. Finding out that I was stronger physically then I thought also  made a difference in how I thought about myself mentally. I found that I am more confident in my abilities as a person.

Making time for myself on a regular basis is important not only for me but my family. Taking care of a family is a lot of work and taking time for myself started taking the back burner again. When I started this challenge I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it everyday ( I missed two days and made up for them the next day by doing two practices). To my delight I found time for myself everyday to practice yoga. Even if the boys were up I would still practice. Yes, it wasn't all easy to do when they were up but I still did it. It made me smile seeing my kids play on the mat with each other ( even if that meant I had to practice on the wooden floor), sometimes they tried the position I took and other time the practice also became play time with the kids. I learned that taking time for myself was important because I was just walking through my days not really present. I knew obviously what I was doing but I mean I wasn't there in a sense that I didn't feel connected or grounded to anything and yoga has brought that back into my life. 

I've become stronger and less in pain. I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis ( swelling in the joints) and Fibromyalgia ( a pain disorder), doing yoga for some reason or the other has seemed to help with this pain. I don't know if it is because it helps relieve pain caused by stress which lowers the amount of discomfort  ( when it comes to my fibro) or if the deep breathing and different poses we take helps with better circulation of the blood and other fluids that help alleviate swelling ( When it comes to my RA). Either way that is a great thing for me, being in pain often makes me a little bit less patient and exhausted all the time and this practice seemed to help me become a better person because I am less aggravated by the pain I often find myself in. 

Go with the flow. At the beginning of this journey I was following every instruction and following the sequences as we were told. What I like about yoga with Adrienne is that she gives us permission to just do what feels good for us. As I got closer to the end of my journey I started doing just that, I started doing what felt good for me, I often just started doing my own sequences sometimes rejoining in with the video but it was nice. I gave myself freedom to experiment and try what felt good for me. That is a lesson that I am now trying to take into my every day life. To just go with the flow and try to bring things that feel good into my life like, laughter and happiness. 

I will definitely continue in this yoga practice. Right now, I am trying to work on achieving two positions. I am working on the crow pose which is an arm balance stance and I am working on building strength on my arms and shoulder girdle to be able to do a headstand ( don't know how long that one will take to achieve).  I want to continue my journey to becoming a the best I can possibly be.

That is all for now. 

Namaste