Half Way Point

I've made it! I've officially completed the first half of my YTT training. 8 long weeks filled with smiles, laughs, tears, stress, sweat, and even blood (i had a toe nail incident from doing too many jump-throughs one day...i dont want to talk about it) have now come to an end, and I have a short two weeks to digest everything I have learned before I embark on the second half of the training.

As I'm sure that you can tell based on my postings, I have certainly had my ups and downs with the training.  Generally speaking, this was the best thing I ever decided to do, but it definitely came with its challenges.  Never have I been pushed so hard before beyond my limits and faced as many emotional, physical, and spiritual challenges.....and being quite the spiritual and religious skeptic, this certainly was a challenge.  With every challenge and experience, along the way there comes one of those things we call lessons..and of course I have learned many.  But one of the most important ones that I think has made a huge impact on me at this half way point of mine, is really knowing when to tell myself to stop and slow down. Many people will push themselves so incredibly hard and place so much pressure on getting to a certain goal, but will end up experiencing a lot of injuries, whether they be physical or emotional.  And having experienced both types so far in my practice and training, I finally reached a point where I knew that I needed to take it easy.

I started practicing yoga solely to get to the goal.  I wanted to be able to perfect every single pose, and balance on my arms, or stand on my head just like I was witnessing others do in my classes. I would not only become incredibly frustrated for not being able to reach a certain level in a pose, but there were several occasions where I really hurt myself because I wasn't physically ready yet!  As cliche as this is about to sound, but it really truly isn't about getting to a certain pose in a certain time, but rather it is all about HOW you get there (some may say the journey, but I wouldn't want to make you cringe from the cheese).  Since I had an exceptional impatience, and admittedly still do quite often, I ended up pushing myself way past my limits, and as a result, causing a great disservice to both myself and to my yoga practice.

You need to learn to tell yourself to slow down, to pause, or to even stop what you are doing sometimes, because there is absolutely no benefit in rushing to get something done....because even if you do get there that way, it certainly wont be the right way.  Be patient with your body, because sometimes your mind jumps ahead of it. Know that practice REALLY is perfect, and know that with time you will get there.  And really....just hold your damn horses!