So, since I got back from my teacher training...my month long Yoga Extravagaaaaanzah, the question I keep getting asked the most is about discipline. Namely how, now that yoga camp is over (tee hee), am I maintaining my home practice/mantra practice/sutra study/total crazy devotion here at home.
And it is a really really good question.
And it's a really really good question, because when I got back to LA, the thing happened that always happens, which is--I went right back to doing all the same stuff I always do but hadn't been doing during my month atop Mt. Yoga. I went back to watching too much crappy television, to incessantly checking my blackberry, to stressing out about ridiculous stuff, to sleeping in and eating a little too much (just a little) and drinking wine and generally losing and regaining focus over and over throughout the day.
I also added some new stuff--like being engaged. Which means promising not to make any solid plans for another month but spending time on wedding blogs anyhow, and talking to family, and gushing to friends, and dreaming and talking about the future. And worrying about the future. And gazing obsessively at my shiny new ring.
BUT!
(That's right...don't write me off yet...)
I have also...in the midst of all of that...managed to do the following:
Practice. Every. Single. Day. Most days on my own mat, at home. Because goddamnit I want to be a good teacher, and that is where I am going to teach from, so I am not letting that slide, alright?!
Meditate. (Almost.) Every. Single. Day. Thank god for my mantra practice which has successfully fooled my brain into thinking we're not meditating, even when we are. Sri Ram Jai Ram, yo.
Keep Teaching. A lot. I am giving it away for free all over town, and people are taking me up on it, and I am teaching and teaching and teaching. And a few times it's been really great, and a few times it's been really sucky, and most of the other times it just feels...new.
Keep reading and writing and thinking about my practice, about the kind of teacher I might like to be...about philosophy and asana and Lady Gaga. Wait, oh.... Oops. Does Vanity Fair not count as yoga reading material? No...it counts. I think it totally counts. Lady Gaga is totally yoga. I even have a future post planned which will be titled "Gaga for Yoga" or "The Yoga of Gaga". Something. Anyhow, she rocks. She is, without question, so much cooler than I will ever even hope to be that I can't even feel inadequate next to her. Because we're not even...we're not even the same species. She's a neon pink giraffe with amazing eyelashes and I'm a...I'm like some kid's pet hamster. So, you know, I can't really compare.
Anyhow, I'm saving that for my Goga Yaga post. Oooh! Maybe if I end up having a "yoga name" it could be Lady Goga!
Wow. I am so off topic.
What was this supposed to be about, again? Yes, right. Discipline.
Focus.
One-pointed-ness.
My POINT with all of this is to say that as much as I had fantasized, upon coming home, that I would still be spending 8-10 hours a day totally immersed in practice and study and and and (because that's how disciplined and enlightened I am)...the truth is that there is this other thing in my life, called life, and it needs its own room. So I am discovering that discipline and devotion, in order to be successful, have to be flexible (pun intended).
Yoga is really the first thing in my life that I've ever had a real discipline about. I've been an actress forever, but I never woke up mornings and felt like "oh my god I have to make sure I'm acting everyday" in the way that I have always felt about yoga. And so yoga is also the first thing in my life that has taught me what real discipline is...
And what I've discovered is that all it really is, is...doing the thing. Just...doing the thing, over and over and over again. Just returning, in this case to the mat, over and over. No matter what. And it doesn't mean that if you miss a day you have to start back at the beginning. What it actually means is that if you miss a day, or a week, or a month...you come back. You always just...come back. And you don't freak out about it.
What actually makes discipline so elusive is that it's NOT summer camp...it's not an enforced structured 8-hours a day homework due at a certain time type situation...it's way more fluid than that, and it has to exist in your ACTUAL life.
So...how am I doing?
I'm waking up. I'm practicing. I'm doing a mantra. I'm doing that nearly every day. I'm trying to get to class. I'm trying to read more, as much as I can. And then I'm eating and I'm hanging out and I'm adoring and then complaining and then just saying screw it and having a glass of wine. And I'm coming back. And coming back. And coming back.
