Is everyday to much?

Hi Cory

I know the feeling! You just love it and you crave it. And life would seem empty without it.

This is oh so common. I have also been there. I know I have even written about it elsewhere. The point is, that the body needs recovery time. I typed in the word ‘recovery’ into the search facility and came up with loads of results. Robert loves the work of Tony Schwartz and he talks about it here: 3 weeks on, 1 week off, good idea?. Maybe one’s mental recovery can be regaining perspective. Every one has their own path – so these are simply ideas.

The other thing is that although yoga is a fine addiction to have, one has to look at how much control it is having over you (also written about elsewhere 😉 ). I know it helped me a lot to ‘let go’ of those, what were they? feelings of guilt? when I didn’t attend when I had every expectation to. Perhaps don’t go one day, and then get over it! You will grow as a result. Allow yourself to make a minimum commitment to yourself of x number of classes per week. Extras are a bonus. There are all kinds of strategies – like a day off with a double on another day, or a class early one morning, and a class the next night with what feels like 2 days off in between. That could even be the weekend. Live your life, do your yoga and also plan for recovery!

What you want is choice with your ‘habit’. This is what your recovery will give you. Not being beholden to your yoga to give you what you want may allow your unconscious mind to provide you the same outcome in a different and maybe a delightful way you hadn’t even thought of.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

I was the same way when I started about 4 months ago. I tried to go every day and if I ever missed I felt guilty! The turning point for me was a few weeks ago when I had a weeks vacation from work and went out of town to visit my family. Because of financial issues, I couldn’t afford to go to bikram for a whole week! I thought I would die or go crazy, but guess what? I didn’t. My body didn’t rebel against me and I was just fine. I did go to one regular yoga class and did yoga exercise videos about 3 times that week as well. What I discovered when I came back home and went back to yoga was that nothing had changed. The world didn’t end because I didn’t go for a week and my body didn’t need any adjustment to get back into the practice. I actually feel that time off helped me to let go of control and just accept that I do love this yoga but I also have a life! I don’t need to be making myself crazy over going to yoga or not. If I want to make this a lifelong practice it needs to be healing and relaxing, not stressful and guilt-ridden! I’m currently just listening to my body about what days I want to take off but I’m still practicing 4-6 days a week. Also, maybe on your days off, if you feel that bad, try out a different style of yoga or do an exercise video! That way you will still be working out but you will get a different perspective and maybe work out different muscles.