I'm breaking my own rule and posting twice in one day on steemit.
I got on my mat today with not just my body but my mind kicking and screaming, begging me to stop. My body I understood easily why it wanted to give up. I am experiencing muscle fatigue from yesterday’s practice. I intentionally pushed myself yesterday. I did a harder practice than my normal practice. This is good. That will let me become stronger. I could not figure out why my mind was so anxious. It’s easy to blame anxiety on a chemical imbalance. It’s harder to pin point at any one moment in life why the mind is anxious. To be anticlimactic, I realized why I was anxious at the end of my practice while I was doing my drop backs. I am happy that I made myself sit with it and practice through it. I practiced completely alone in silence. At some point my brain remembered Kino MacGregor talking about the equanimous mind in her book. The book is shown a picture at the bottom of this post; I recommend this book not just to yogis but to humans all around the world. I suddenly realized that I was practicing the equanimity by trying to sift through my brain to find the root of my anxiety. I found the stimuli (yeah more than one thing going on in there), recognized it for what it is, and decided not to let anxiety control me or my desire to practice. Ironically towards the end of my practice my kiddo’s dad dropped him off. After lots of hugs I sent him off to shower while I finished my practice. As he was coming downstairs he asked if I was having fun. I’m honest with him as much as I can be (read: he still believes in Santa), so I told him no. He said, “Mom, I thought yoga was fun for you.” Kiddo, some days it is. Some days it isn’t, but every day it’s important work that I put into my body and even more importantly work I put into my brain. I think I’ve rambled enough. Here is the book: