Too many excuses.

On a weekly basis i hear a number of excuses or should i call them reasons? as to why people find it tough to keep up their yoga ” sadhana.” Ive heard them all from work overload, total exhaustion to experiencing the most herific period pains. However the greatest one i hear, believe it or not is ” children.”  ” My children get in the way, the house is a bomb site and there’s no way of finding peace.” If this is familiar then read on.

Complain or blame.

Briefly id like to add, all these excuses can cause a serious amount of stress on the body both physically and mentally, so shouldn’t that be the perfect inspiration, the kick, the REASON, to keep up with a regular practice? It’s way to easy to blame others when we fall short. If we can blame then we can feel justified, right? but in the mean time we continue complaining. Complaining and blaming is a natural human process, we all do it, ( i blame soap opera’s ) it has sadly become a way of life, but it would be great if we could all make a conscious effort not to ” complain or blame .” The world would be such a brighter and more sparklier place, don’t you agree?

So i ‘m lovingly giving you 5 reasons to keep up your ” sadhana ” and at the same time it allows you to keep your wee babies happy. Oh, and please if you have a point to add leave a comment below, I would personally love to hear how you all cope in your own yogic way and i ‘m sure other readers would too. Happy yoga-ing and child rearing. 🙂

1. Allow your children to take part in your practice. This allows you to teach your children the benefits of yoga as well as having fun at the same time, i ‘m personally all about having fun. Yoga doesn’t have to be serious.
2. Politely ask for time and space to do your practice. A simple point but have you tried it? You may want to help this process along by investing in a few new books for the children to keep them busy while you take your yoga time out. Or even purchase some new art and craft goodies, but be careful of included anything that involves scissors or glue, especially if your children are young, you may return from an enlightened state to find your house isn’t quite as you left it.
3. My personal favourite is ” Start your sadhana early ” even before the sunrise, you up for the challenge? 5 am is a great starting point. When you start yoga early your almost always guaranteed peace and quiet, but most of all the earth energy is high, ( also known as Prana, Chi or simply life force ) at this time of day it’s at it’s ultimate peak. If you don’t believe me try it for yourself. Go outside between 3 am and 5 am and take a few deep breath’s and then do the same when the earth starts to waken between 8 am and 10 am, take note of the difference and if your tuned in you’ll feel it, you don’t need me to tell you.
4. Create your own yoga community or ” Sangat.” If you have friends and family who would like to practice too then device a system to suit you all. While a couple of you take care the children the rest can practice yoga in total peace and harmony. I’d class this as the guilt free option and a chance for everyone to be a happy. Unfortunately not all of us live in an environment full of enthusiastic yogi’s, but it’s worth a shot.
5. Finally the most challenging of all. If you achieve this point after a period of time without exploding then your nothing less than a ” Pure, Enlightened, Wonder ” and i’d love to hire you as my personal guru. 🙂 Use the interruptions as part of your practice and as a way of staying mindful. This is a perfect way to intensify your personal ” Sadhana ” and step it up to another level. Children are perfect teacher’s use them wisely.

Failing all this ” Batten down the hatches, ” in other words lock all the doors, create the most elegant ” KEEP OUT ” sign, and continue with your practice. Although i haven’t included this as an option for various reasons i’m guessing this would create enough guilt to sink a battleship and as guilt isn’t the healthiest of emotions id leave this one as a final resort or even better, leave it out. It’s not likely to create the greatest household environment.

Namaste!