Relax, You’re Actually Doing Great

Yesterday it hit me like a ton of bricks. Two weeks of battling the flu and the busy administrative life of teaching yoga has surreptitiously pulled me off of my daily meditative and restorative yoga practices. As usual, the anxiety began and I promptly took the role of berating myself for all of my shortcomings and sidesteps—a common exercise up here in the space between my ears. Umm, clearly time to hit the restart button. Pause, breathe and remember this is part of the cycle—rebirth.

After putting away the magnifying glass of scrutiny and zooming out to see the bigger picture, it turns out I’m actually right on track. With the new moon in Aquarius, a rebirth is exactly what we are being called to embrace. Friday marks the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the year of the horse. Here’s a great link on a bit more astrological insight.

http://www.mysticmamma.com/new-moon-in-aquarius-supermoon-january-30th-2014/

All of these are indicators that right now is the perfect time to start over, to pick up something we may have left behind while living our lives. Instead of getting dramatic and having an existential crisis about how hard things are and how awful I am for letting my meditation slip away (because I ‘m a yoga teacher and that’s my job), this time I choose to realize this is part of the cycle. This time I’m just hitting reset and being grateful that I can always just pick up and start over. That’s the beauty of life.

I commit to at least 30 minutes of meditation for the next 30 days and minimum 10min of savasana to help me ground and restore. I also commit to being sweet with myself and realizing that this will look look different each day and that’s ok. I might meditate for 10 minutes, 3 times and that will be perfect. My new mantra is “relax, you’re actually doing great” and by all means, please feel free to adopt it.

What are you choosing to restart today?

We’re all in this together and as long as we do our best, that’s perfect (more on that soon). Here’s a little video to help support you (and me) in implementing some daily practices that support and nourish.

Ashleigh’s Morning Ritual