I have a confession to make. I recently fell out of a habit.
I just stopped my regular asana (physical posture) practice of yoga. Shock, horror and gasps are what I hear from the yogis reading this. But in reality, most of you reading this are probably thinking “that doesn’t sound like such a big deal”. However, I am a yoga teacher. And here’s the thing I actually seriously LOVE yoga. I love it so much, that I’d still make my 6am class even after frequent overnight wake ups to breastfeed my then newborn. In the past, prior to above mentioned newborn, I would happily to get up in the 4’s, yup you read that right, I’d wake up at 430am (even in winter) so that I could take the dog for a walk, or go for a run before my 6am yoga class. That’s the level of love I’m talking about.
Therefore, of course at the realisation that I’d fallen out of my beloved habit, I got the guilts big time. The negative-self talk started playing up in my head. For weeks, I beat myself up; how could I have let this happen? My narrative went a little like this; What’s wrong with me? Why am I being so lazy? Why did I think I was disciplined enough with my self practice not to sign up to online classes during Covid’s self-isolation. I’m a fraud! I’ll never be respected as a teacher.
Then the excuses and justifications started. We had just moved house and city and we went on a holiday. These disrupted ‘my daily flow’ (excuse the pun). I hadn’t really settled into my new yoga community yet aka there was no one who would miss me or hold me accountable to my absence. Covid and self isolation meant I couldn’t go to a studio to practise and that’s how I prefer to practise. Let’s face it Covid has been the perfect excuse for anything it seems, these days. I was too busy, because; I am setting up a business, doing an intensive course and raising a small human. I’m too tired! These two even come with an additional sprinkle of negative self-talk: “this was never a problem before, when you had a full time job, were training for a marathon or when pregnant – you’re so useless!” I had also started teaching online yoga tutorials for beginners (check them out here: ‘Let’s Practise Yoga Together’) and I’d convinced myself that these counted as my ‘daily practice’….um really Nikki?! Or the last one; it’s ok because I had dedicated more time to mediating daily and that still counts as an arm of yoga right?
As you can see the range of emotions were diverse. I went from excuses to justifications as easily as child’s play. I almost managed to convince myself that I had valid reasons for not practising yoga. What the actual?
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, I recalled one of the lessons that years of practising yoga had taught me; Patañjali’s Sūtra 1.2: “Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah” which can be viewed as the “goal of yoga”. When directly translated; “The restraint of the modifications of the mind – stuff is Yoga”. I remembered another reason why I love yoga, because of what the practice is all about, ultimately in yoga we are aiming to quieten our mind chatter. With that thought in mind, there was no longer the need for excuses or justifications, no need to jump on-board every train of thought I was having. Rather I just had to get back to doing the yoga and moving my body. Without any further deliberating the next day when I woke up at 5am to feed the baby, I didn’t climb back under the covers to get another quick hour of shut eye, I decided to roll out my mat and get moving. It felt great! I instantly forgave myself for all the mean, negative self-talk and I made a commitment to get back to my yoga at a minimum 4 out of 7 days a week, even if just for 10 minutes. Because as I love to say; ’10 minutes are better than no minutes’
Nikki Tiedeman
Now, yoga is the type of practise that has so many lessons to offer and I believe that it itself helped me in being a little kinder to myself in this situation. It definitely helped me to start up my habit again. However this whole experience made me think about what the specific steps were that I took in order to get ‘back on the wagon’ or should I say, ‘back on the mat’.
Here are my 4 steps to creating good habits by being kinder to yourself:
Acknowledgement without judgement – Once you gain the awareness of the area of opportunity for yourself, simply acknowledge yourself. Most importantly, acknowledge without judgement. From here, it is time to take action steps toward your new habit.
Be kind to yourself – Forgive yourself. No matter what the reasons are or how you ended up in this position, just let it go and give yourself permission to move on.
Quit the excuses – There’s little trick I like to use when faced with tricky situations; it’s assessing what is in my control and what is not. Anything that I cannot control I do not concern or expend any further energy on. So work out of your excuses or justifications which you have control over and which you don’t. And then quit making them (excuses).
One step at a time – 10 mins is better than no minutes people! So celebrate every single little step, no matter how small.
It is a known fact that it is much easier and so much quicker to break a habit than it is to create one. All too often when you derail and realise that this derailment has occurred, you automatically go through a cycle of guilt and frustration or even anger at yourself. You start to mentally attack yourself with negative self-talk. But this solves nothing, it leaves you feeling down on yourself. So the next best thing is; you make excuses and play the blame game . Excuses for your actions or blaming your circumstance. All in an attempt to solve the issue. But here is the thing, when you don’t accept responsibility for your actions, a do so with loving kindness and compassion toward yourself, you set yourself for failure and it becomes trickier and trickier to start up your habit again. Because the cycle of guilt, anger, excuses and blame is continuous. So the key is to show up for yourself, show yourself some kindness via acknowledgement and acceptance and let some shit go so you can move on. Just one small step at a time, one foot in front of the other. Remembering the words of the great Martin Luther King Jnr that; “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King Jnr
Have you fallen out of a habit? Was the recent time in isolation kind to you or not so kind? Are there areas in your life where you can be kinder to yourself to help get back on track?
Why not give my 4 steps a try, and let me know how you go. I’d love to hear from you.
Big love, Nikki x
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