New magic & lessons from my yoga mat

I like the saying variety is the spice of life.  Sometimes we need a little shake up - it is great to try something new.  

In the past few weeks I've been rolling my mat out with the intention of inviting some "new" stuff in.  I am using the spring energy and vibes of renewal and growth to spur me on as well at this time.  I like to invest some intention into the seasons and in fact I believe we all get effected by the seasons in some way or another. 

The other day I was really lucky to have a lot of time for my yoga practice. I switched my phone to flight mode, put spotify on and just without expectation moved my body with my breath. It was one of those practices where I could really take as much time as I wanted. There was no where else I needed to be, apart from there present on my yoga mat.

As I had a fair bit of time, I started to take my practice up a notch pace wise and started to move quite dynamically. Now my body was feeling warm and more open I decided to work through some deep back-bends and heart openers.  It just seemed that was what my body wanted in that moment.  To give you some background, I do practice quite a lot of back bends BUT generally speaking I wouldn't say they are overly comfortable for me.  Especially deep held heart openers - I am good for a breath or two, then I listen in to my body and retreat out.

I suppose I have some awareness of how far I can "push" (sorry hate that word when talking yoga) my back.  So I was diving a little deeper through my heart openers progressing carefully from cobra, to bow and then I worked into wild thing pose (great name for a yoga pose right?!) 

Well...wild thing pose (you make my heart sing!). Quite literally. It was a moment of pure body yoga bliss - I was a little shocked how amazing it felt for me. I can't remember exactly how long I was in the pose for but it definitely felt a lot longer than I had done it before. Everything felt good. My body, my breath and my mind.  I tried to not get to ego centred with it and I was like "OK, that felt good". 

Then I tried it on the other side. Again, it just felt so good and yummy for my body.  I kept checking in with my breath - yep...still feels good. 

I then progressed to bridge and then to full wheel pose with different leg variations (pictured above). I know! what???!!!....who am I?

Of course, after these stronger poses, I counter posed and took myself slowly down into some restorative spinal twists and then finally for a long savasana & relaxation ( * so important * counter pose the life out of your practice...your body will thank you).

When I finished my yoga. I sat in a haze of disbelief.   I had just worked through some poses, which I had thought I disliked and normally leave me feeling a little underwhelmed.  Wow! What is my body trying to tell me?

One thing I am drawing on from this experience is this.   There seems to be a notion for me - if I have tried something once, then I feel like I've done it a million times.  My ego thinks I know everything (apparently, this is a very aquarian mindset I've been told. So I'm blaming astrology for this personality trait haha!) so ego knows best! However, I feel my yoga practice is telling me to look at things differently now. 

Imagine if I never tried anything ever again because I had tried it once and didn't like it.

What if I am closing myself off to a lot of cool, amazing things because my ego goes "you won't like it Layna" or "you've done that before and it wasn't good".  

It has stirred up something in me which I'm excited to process now.  Maybe I need to take a leap of faith a bit more.  Maybe I need to TRUST my body even more, it knows what it's doing without my ego dialogue nonsense. Maybe this is intuition in action saying, "hey, see you already knew this..."

Whatever it is - it has been a lesson to me.  Step out of the comfort zone. Wear your heart on your sleeve and do something everyday which is different. Big or small.  Allow your life to flow and move in the way it most desires. 

Release old ideas and ideals and invite in NEW magic this spring.

Layna xx

#selfpractice #Selfdevelopment #Ego #Spring