Daily yoga practice: 30 days, 30 snapshots

#theresnoplacelikeom

At the beginning of August, I decided to document my yoga practice for 30 days on instagram to share what a home yoga practice – my home practice – looks like. Each day I do many different things that I would file under “yoga practice”, so figuring out what one snapshot to share in that day so that within 30 days I gave a flavor for the many ways one could work yoga into their life made me feel as if I were being a bit selective. Overall I think it worked out nicely, though, because my goal was to figure out how to start sharing ideas in smaller bits instead of one long, rambling article. At the end of the 30 days, I learned some things about myself, and I really wanted to have a record here on my site of this project, so here is my long, rambling article in picture form!

As for what I learned:

  • I’ve made so many things habit that I didn’t realize how much I focus on my alignment as I move throughout my day. Trying to figure out what I was going to post brought a new awareness to everything I did from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep.
  • During this 30 days, I spent a week and a half in New York, mostly in a very small, very warm studio apartment. Luckily, there was enough room to roll out a yoga mat, but my home practice did become a bit shorter here, and the lure of heading to the studio to practice was much stronger than when I’m at home.
  • That week and a half in New York did teach me to look at my surroundings for props in a new way. There was a ladder running through the middle of the room that was a good place to balance & stretch, and the dresser was a good item to do legs up the “wall” against. When I started practicing at home again, I found myself missing the ladder and looking for new ways to play around with certain asanas, like splits against a palm tree.
  • I’m glad I honor my body and don’t push too much. I fully had in my head on day 4 that I was going to do something along the lines of day 29, but my body was wiped out when I got home. Deciding to do a few restorative postures instead of continuing to push myself wasn’t the lazy choice, it was what allowed me to recover and have stamina and my sense of playfulness over the next several days.
  • Speaking of playfulness, while I know I like to play possibly more than the average person, I’m not sure I realized how much. I started looking into research a while back on the importance of play, especially in adults, but I became distracted and never followed through with digging deeper into the research. This past month I’ve realized how much easier life is if approached with a ‘playful’ attitude, not expecting results, laughing at failures, being rather amazed by success. It’s renewed my interest in seeing what is out there on the subject.
  • I do a lot of breath work in my practice and throughout my day. It might possibly be more important than the asana… Though the asana is essential to keep my body moving and enable me to breathe fully. Breath has such an impact on how I feel both physically and mentally. Awareness and manipulation of the breath is something that can be done anywhere, thus it is easiest to work into your day.
  • Man do I hate a neti pot. It is the one thing I thought I would show, but in the 30 days I did this challenge, I could not bring myself to use it. Shortly after, I started again, because it does make a huge difference in my allergies and my ability to breathe. I feel better now. It goes to show, even though I try to inspire people to do things that will make them feel better, even I have issues following through with this instruction if I just don’t enjoy/like that thing. So find what you do like and work it into your life. Then, slowly work on bringing the other things that make you feel good but you don’t particularly like into your life. I may never care for a neti pot, but getting into the habit of using it is step 0 in my clearing up chronic issues with post-nasal drip and a sore throat.
  • Even if people rarely comment on social media, it seems posting these things does inspire. Thanks so much to the people who reached out to say, “This is inspiring!” or “I tried this,” or “Thanks for this reminder…” because it makes me feel like I’m not shouting my message into a vacuum. Hearing from people in person that these posts had a positive impact helped too. Now hopefully, the next step, getting some people to participate! Everyone has a unique perspective, and while you might not think what you do in your day is special, you never know if it will be eye-opening to someone who never thought about doing X. So share your practice! Feel free to tag me on instagram (@omfairy) or post to my facebook page (omfairyyoga) to share your #theresnoplacelikeom #practicedaily moments!

To read the full description that goes along with each photo, click on the photo to see it on instagram with caption – no need to have an ig account! For the videos, click on a photo nearby and you’ll be able to go forward/backward to the video. Apologies for that being a bit of an extra step, but I was just happy to figure out how to post the videos with the images in a streamlined manner!

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
Day 4 Day 6
Day 7 Day 8 Day 9
Day 10 Day 11
Day 14 Day 15
Day 16 Day 17
Day 19 Day 20 Day 21
Day 23 Day 24
Day 25 Day 27
Day 28

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