December offers an opportunity to reflect on what the previous eleven months has taught you. It can be a time to explore your own basic goodness and the impact you can have on the world when you practice awareness and act with positive intention.
The last month of the year can also feel stressful.
Yoga and meditation practice as self-care
Each morning after I wake up, I do a few basic things and then I sit on my meditation cushion with a blanket across my knees and sometimes also across my shoulders. Some days I settle in easily and other days I am in a constant dialogue with my body and mind. From what might appear to be stillness, there can be so much restlessness. The value in sitting is to practice on the days that feel peaceful as well as on the days that aren’t. It is a way to practice ‘being’ in all my varied seasons.
Practising yoga offers similar opportunities through movement. Transitions to poses and within a pose are expected. A busy mind might settle down from the awareness of hands here, strength there and length in another place in the body. There may be the recognition of the stories you tell yourself, how you bargain and judge on how to stay or move away from this pose or that one. There is the steadiness of the breath and the heart beating; an increased awareness (and maybe appreciation) of aliveness.
On those days that presence shimmers during meditation or a physical yoga asana practice, a coming home to yourself is no longer illusive. It can feel so good to be in your own skin with the volume on the mental chit chat turned waaaay down. Alone or in a room full of people practising together in presence, there are some days you can almost hear the crackle of magic. It is so tangible, so beautifully real. It is inside ‘being-ness’ that all else drops away and ‘being at one with’ simply is.
What an extraordinary act of kindness for yourself and those around you to practice this. Awareness is a radical kindness that begins with you and ripples out into the world in all directions. Find the ways that help you become more aware. I hope this month you get some fresh ideas to bring into 2023.
