200 Days of Yoga: Mindful Meditation or Mindless Meditation
Yoga
(c)Melanie Parish, 2013
I breathe, I rest, I lie face up on my mat with my head toward the mirror. I feel my shoulder blades under me opening up my chest. I stretch my feet just outside the sides of my mat. I place my heels just over the ridge that is my mat onto the floor. I let my feet fall outward. My palms face up. Ready to receive, I think. My head tilts back slightly. I breathe deep into my belly. When I do the first deep breath on my mat, sometimes there is a breath so deep it is like it finds an extra pocket in my lungs and more air goes in at the end. Not every breath is like that but when it happens there is a sweet release. My favorite breath starts with a really good exhale. Sometimes I realize I don’t really finish breathing out before it is time to breathe in again.
I lie in shavasana trying to keep my mind clear, focusing on my breath. As thoughts come, sometimes I try to clear them, sometimes I watch and release them, sometimes I work too hard trying to turn them off. As I become more fit, my mind is more and more active. I am having more and more challenges as my mind tries to get work done during my yoga practice. In the beginning, this was almost a non-issue. I was really working on the postures and breathing and I didn’t have all those racing thoughts. Now I actually need strategies for my emerging thoughts. I have tried breathing and holding a thought like “clear” or “present’ in my mind with each breath.
The other night during a discussion about meditation, a guy I had just met told me to notice my thoughts and release them so I have been trying that, although I have to admit, I may lack some discernment by implementing new methods into my yoga practice just because I talked to a guy over dinner. I realize there is learning here I could do and I could also be a rebel and use my yoga time to think about whatever I want. Makes me wonder what my goal is and how it will serve me.
All of a sudden, I need a mission statement for my yoga practice so I know what my purpose is and how to make decisions. This seems so ludicrous and still true. Hmmm… Is my mission weight loss? Is my mission health? Is my mission spiritual practice? My original intent was probably weight loss–it’s usually why I start exercising. But somewhere along the way, my yoga practice has become so much more. I think my mission has changed to become the daily practice of yoga. At least that is what it is now. If I practice daily, I am given gifts beyond what I can imagine.
**My initial 21 day yoga challenge turned into a 200 day yoga challenge – share the journey with me starting here
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