Recovering from the chaos of this last year will take some time and focus. With all of the changes and uncertainty, you may feel ungrounded, confused, and unbalanced. Fortunately, Ayurveda and yoga offer an endless number of practices to bring you into alignment and ease. Routine is one of the best ways to bring a more grounded and supported feeling into your life. The opposite of uncertainty. Even in these uncertain times, you can develop or add grounding practices to release the chaotic energy of uncertainty. One of the most important benefits of a basic daily health-supporting routine, is that when it gets interrupted you are more aware of what you need to do to stay balanced. If you have yoga in your life, then you are flexible enough to flow through inevitable disruptions in routine.
My daily routine has been years in the making, it’s a practice and therefore grows and changes depending on my health requirements, and of course the demands of my schedule. Throughout the last year, there have certainly been some revisions to my routine. COVID, of course, changed things for all of us, on top of that I broke my toe in May and, due to misdiagnosis, I ended up in a cast for three weeks in July. Over 4 months of not being able to do my regular yoga and my twice-daily walk with my dog (or walk at all for that matter) really threw off my routine. Walks were my time of that ever-important connection with nature, some days it was the only time I saw another human in person, and I also use my walks for inspiration for writing and clearing my head. This was a deeply challenging time for my health and well-being.
Underneath all of the uncertainty and chaos, I still had a foundation from which to maintain my health but I had to be creative with my routines and practices. I knew I needed to replace walking and more active yoga with what I could do. I did yoga standing on one foot with my knee on a chair, I could get onto my hands and knees and do some stretching, I rolled down the street on my knee roller, and I could dance sitting down. None of this was as nourishing as my daily walks, but the important thing is I kept moving and remained flexible.
I know the value of movement, and I kept looking for ways to move my body and keep myself as active as possible, even sitting down. If I didn’t have a good solid foundation of the love of movement and experience with helping clients find ways to keep strong and flexible while injured, maintaining my health would have been much more difficult. When I finally got my cast off I had to move slowly and carefully into walking again, and prioritize where to put my energy so I could heal as quickly as possible. Another change in routine.
Think of this coming shift out of quarantine as the time you’re getting your cast off. In an earlier blog, I asked some important questions about what is going on with you and how you are thinking about going forward into the new form our world is taking. What can you take with you that will improve your health and well-being?
And now that the world is opening back up, what health-supporting practices will you add to your life that you were missing? Are there some old habits you could leave behind, in support of your health and well being and new ones you could add?
Questions:
How much do you move in a day or a week?
Notice the amount of movement in a regular day without judgment.
If you aren’t getting a good 20 minutes per day, notice where you could add it.
The first step to change is knowing where you are and what you need/want to change.
If you want to add more movement to your life and you haven’t figured out how, connect with me and let’s see if the wellness coaching I offer can help.