Ok, maybe it sounds a little over-dramatic but I realized yesterday that it is my yoga practice that is helping me feel sane during this very intense time of my life. I never thought I would say this as I actually thought taking a year off work to raise a child was taking a break from my busy life and having lots of time to myself, partly to figure out what I want to do next and partly to chill.
Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong - but please don’t think I mean this negatively, it just is a fact that as a mom you need to be on 24/7 versus going home from work at night and having weekends off. So most of the breaks I have, I use for yoga (or blogging about yoga in this case) and meditation. When people ask me how I squeeze my daily yoga practice, it really isn’t a question of if but rather when I do it. It now feels like I am incomplete if I don’t practice in one way or the other. Yet, I still always long for more time off - I guess that’s a normal feeling when you are suddenly responsible for this little human being. Especially breast-feeding leads to me having to be there for him every day/evening/night/morning - simply non-stop. In a way it is an amazing honour as well - this little being is completely dependent on his mother to be able to grow up. It’s just something I underestimated and I sometimes feel overwhelmed. But then again there are also times where I realize - it works. You can go on less than 5 hours of sleep and no uninterrupted night for months, if not years - you simply learn to live with it, it becomes normal and you don’t even remember how it was before…
But coming back to yoga- for some reason whenever I contemplate using the time that I have to myself for sleeping/resting versus a short yoga session, I end up opting for yoga, simply because I know it energizes me more. One of my teachers just put it very nicely: “ Yoga is paying now versus paying later..." and the best part - it's never too late to start and you will never be done :-)
I have started to enjoy and value the time I spend on my mat so much more - it has become a precious thing to do only for myself and while I used to attend classes I have gotten very used to online yoga and my own home practice, a distinctly different experience that requires more discipline but is very rewarding as well. Then again being a mum is a yoga practice in and of itself as well - this article really resonated with me - as mothers we tend to have extremely high expectations both self imposed but also reinforced by society (especially in conservative Bavaria) and there simply is no perfect way to handle things, we just need to find the right balance of nourishing ourselves in order to be there for our little ones but also living with other demands such as fostering a professional career, being a wife etc etc. I have come to realize that my biggest challenge is to work up the patience required for handling a child. At times I am very impatient and need to remind myself that this a great challenge for my mind, using techniques such as mantra and breath to help the little one go to sleep for instance. In admitting what you are working on, you are taking the first step, right? Like I said earlier - yoga never stops and that's a good thing :-) Not sure if I am making sense at all - if not the lack of uninterrupted sleep is to be blamed... Back to diapers and baby talk!
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