Step 1, take care of your shit.....

I have most recently been exploring how much I procrastinate with my day to day needs.  Not the ones that I enjoy of course like drinking coffee, showering, yoga or eating but the little things that make us human and are unique in the mammal world.

I put off hair cuts, logging online to pay bills, grocery shopping, emails, phone calls, filling up my gas tank.......  

I know these are things that need accomplished for the life that I have created and the life I enjoy, but most days I just don't want to be bothered.  Instead I dread them, and wished I approached them with a bit more gratitude, and even enthusiasm.

....Poor little american girl has to fill up her gas tank, and go to a western grocery store to buy a luxurious bag of coffee....hahaha its time for me to get real!

So, because I am lazy like this I am starting to realize how many hours I anticipate the things that need accomplished and in the end I have wasted hours, maybe even days thinking about it again and again and delaying it again and again.

So, that's awesome and all, but I am kind of tired of wasting time in my life and I wonder how much I would have gotten accomplished if I quit delaying the very basic things.

As a yoga teacher I started to relate this to a yoga practice.  I see it all the time in class, where students do not take the extra step in the lunge, soften the knees, or become aware of the breath.  All things which are necessary for a proper practice that will protect you from injury... but we do not think about that.  Instead we think about those around us, catching up in class, aesthetics, the end result, the time, or the discomfort. By not setting ourselves up properly for the pose and taking the necessary time we need for proper function of a practice, we weaken our bodies.  \

I think this is human nature, and sometimes that nature leads us to put the attention on the wrong area.  But in a yoga practice, we want our bodies calm and relaxed, our breath uninhibited, our movements slow and specific.  There are many benefits to be had by making sure you set up correctly in both your yoga practice as well as your daily life.

It is important to be efficient in our lives so that we do not waste the energy that we do have, especially if our lives are chaotic and busy.

Let us quit being lazy and start accomplishing the small steps in our life that bring us to bigger picture, whether in your yoga practice or off of your mat.  Reducing our stresses, improving our frame of mind, and building our strength and confidence in ourselves as we accomplish even the little things in our life.

So please, for the love of your knees and your sanity, step that foot far enough forward that your knee is not passing it in a lunge.  Your knees will thank you in 5 years!  And who knows where else we will be with our accomplishments by then.