Judith Hanson Lasater in her book “Living Your Yoga” discusses that in order to develop a personal practice you have to well…make it personal.  She suggests in her first section to develop a list of what is important to you about living your yoga.  Now yoga is not necessarily asanas or poses so “your yoga” really can refer to any of aspect of yoga.  I would go further to say that it refers to any part of “spiritual/wellness practice”.  So whether one does sun salutations in the morning or a daily Christian devotion it is their practice and therefore has importance to the individual that practices it.  So what is important about my wellness and/or spiritual practice?   For me it is consistency. I really need something consistent that keeps me balance.  I also need a practice that helps me maintain mindfulness so that I develop the awareness to know what parts of my body are harboring stress or if I’m am emotionally eating and not just eating for nutrition.  I also need a practice that keeps me strong and healthy.   Finally I need a practice that calms me and provides me a space to be me and connect with my inner peace.  She suggests revisiting this list on occasions to see if anything has changed or needs to be added.

Blogs are great for personal challenges so why not jumpstart my blogging with one?  I’m always looking for ways to be consistent in my personal yoga/meditation practice so I think I’m going to make the following  challenge to myself:  Work thru book on “Living Your Yoga” by Judith Hanson, Lasater, PhD, P.T.  I’ve been wanting to go thru this book and have not carved out the time or made it a focus, so this challenge will hopefully do that for me.

So her first suggestion is on “Awakening Awareness-Spiritual Seeking.  She suggests a few activities develop this seeking of the spirit.  Here they are:

1) Create a sacred space (check.  My kitchen has turned into my sacred space with my plant window as my little altar to nature),

2)Write a brief account of why you began practicing yoga (I’ve done this before but I think I could expand some on this),

3) Make a date with self each week to spend time alone whether it be to practice yoga or just take a walk (I’ve been using mornings around 5:30am. The men folk in the house do not venture out until around 7am….)

4)Keep a list of what is important to you about living your yoga.  What needs attention? (Will do this.)

5) Think of an aspect of yoga that you want to study further but don’t where to begin and ask fellow student where they began.  (This might take some time.)

6)Begin and end each day with a Mantra for daily living. (I already have 2 Mantras I focus on in the am but will now add the pm to see what effect it has on my practice/day to day.)

So beginning tonight I will do my Mantra and over the next week work on the other 4 that I haven’t fully implemented.

For those of you who read this and want to take the challenge as well please feel free to email me any successes along the way and if you’re ok having them posted.

Take Care and Namaste