Drop your usual excuses: Rewiring your mental patterns

The one place where my tailbone feels comfortable in this asana (Navasana): at the beach. Now to bring a bag of beach sand with me to yoga class.

Why do this pose? It's a good way for me to describe what ashtanga yoga does for me.

breathe into challenge

On a yoga mat on hardwood floor, all of my focus is on slow deep breaths and on engaging uddiyana bandha and mula bandha. Going to the edge of challenge and breathing into it cultivates this pattern in other areas of my life.

When I first walked into a mysore-style ashtanga class and was asked to do this, I had all the excuses on why I'm not so good at it (One, I had 3 pregnancies and my abdominal muscles split apart; two, I fractured my tailbone). All of this was ten+ years before but I carried that excuse with me.

transform excuses to power

What I was really doing was coming up with an excuse to hide and not grow into being more than I was. Good metaphor for why I have continued with ashtanga yoga. It has only gotten better (the lessons) since then.

Namaste.

Robin Ellen Lucas, MA