Day 2 of 21: How do you invite inner stillness?

One the one hand, you can use discipline to create habit, rituals, and schedule to make life easier. "A place for everything and everything and everything in it's place," as is attributed to Ben Franklin, I guess meaning that one can keep track of of stuff if you set up a way to keep it organized, and follow through with using that plan. Fight, chaos/entropy per se, right?

So, in theory, we commit to doing an action, like practicing yoga for 21 days, and we even set the actual time aside, with a plan for what we are going to do. We have our little mat, we have our basic moves, we know the right words to say, but then what? How do we find "yoga," that meeting space of  where inner stillness sweeps through and calms the mind, eases the body and soothes the spirit?

The book A Year of Living Your Yoga suggests, as do so many texts, that we invite it in. You cannot force stillness; that would be like trying to contain a boiling pot of water with a paper plate. You have to turn down the heat, gently slide the pot from heat source, and let it cool naturally, even using something to protect your hand from being burned when you move the pot. Overextended metaphor notwithstanding, the point is, inner stillness is something for which you can only make space, with no expectation that it will spontaneously happen. It's a feeling, a mood, an amorphous experience rather than a set place, or thing you can wear like a suit of armor (or pajamas).

Every class we take, teach, or do on our own, has moments at the beginning where we center, and have the opportunity to set an intention. Perhaps the best one, at this juncture, for me, would be to continue to extend that invitation to Inner Stillness. I've tried in earnest to set "good" intentions, like healing (for myself, and others), patience, strength, and being present, but they all end up feeling so esoteric and disconnected from my practice. So maybe the rule here is keep it simple; and what's simpler than stillness?

Make space for it, and it will find it's place. It's a practice. 

Day 1 of 21: Without discipline, there is no art

From A Year of Living Your Yoga by Judith Hansen Lasater, PH.D., P.T., this is the daily practice for January 26. 

Living Your Yoga: The art of yoga comes from the consistency of discipline. Today resolve to practice for the next twenty-one days without missing a single one. Note it on your calendar. 

I read this to class today, and after wrestling with what it means, and whether or not it's important to take it at face value, 

I joked with the class today that as soon as I saw that words "discipline" and "without missing a single one" part of me immediately railed against the idea, defensively citing it as "too strict," "unrealistic," and "authoritarian." I had to take two steps back to remember the book we use as a guide to daily yogic ideas was written to plants seeds, not smash them. My reaction spoke more of my personal and controversial relationship with structured time and temporal commitments (insert my mother laughing here) than anything the author could have intended.

So because the idea of the challenge struck a nerve, it made it all the more important for me to accept it.

Today was day 1. I practiced with two classes. Tomorrow, I will teach another Zoom class as well as be a student in a two-hour Yoga for Mental Health training. Thursday I will teach two classes, Friday two as well, then Saturday if all goes according to plan I will log on to be a student in a rather active mat yoga class. Sunday is the day I must make the concerted effort to carve out some allotted yoga time, some mindful activity. It's been our family habit to take a walk, a hike, of some sort, and we usually conduct some philosophical discussion along our route (11 year old Eli included). 

The two weeks following will be similar. So I think I'll be able to do 21 days without too much difficulty. 

To keep myself honest, however I "practice," I also am committing to validating that experience on this blog - a public journaling of the journey. Often I have difficulty coming up with fresh content, so perhaps this experiment might help. At the very least, I'm finding discipline in my practice, and maybe inspiring someone else as well. 

Not sure if we'll be able to call the blog art, but the yoga, definitely. 

Update: I want to thank Christina Alexander for sending me this: https://www.capespace.com/how-the-21-90-rule-helps-you-build-good-habits-and-a-better-life/