3 reasons why I’m doing a 365 days of yoga challenge
Starting this Wednesday 22nd March 2023 (on the New Moon in Aries which is the astrological new year), I am starting a challenge - practicing yoga for 365 days in a row.
If you’ve been following me recently here on my blog or on social media, you might think this is a bad choice since I am regularly in pain from endometriosis. But, I have found yoga to be a huge comfort to me over the past few months and years. Teaching yoga, studying yoga, reading yoga books, and planning yoga workshops & retreats. Yoga, Yoga, Yoga. Sometimes the practice helps with the pain, and sometimes it helps me feel grounded and more relaxed and sometimes it's just a distraction.
But the distraction is only one of the reasons why I’ve set this challenge for myself - there are 2 more. And in this blog post, I also want to be clear about what this challenge is not.
The 3 reasons I’ve decided to practice yoga every day for a year
The distraction from endo.
I still have so much to learn about yoga.
To create at least a small disruption in the dominant yoga culture of thin, young, bendy, white bodies and show someone who is larger, older, and not particularly flexible.
The distraction from endo
Unfortunately, I am stuck in the public health system and I know from my past experiences that it could take months, if not years, for this bout of endometriosis to be treated. That is the really worst-case scenario, but it’s not unheard of. I need a distraction.
In the past, my distraction was booze. I believe one of the reasons I became a heavy drinker was to distract me from the pain and worry that endo causes me. Now I’ve been sober for over 800 days I am feeling the pain and worry A LOT. I think it’s good in a way because it propels me to advocate for myself in the public health system and encourages me to look after myself to the best of my ability. But I need a distraction, a project, something in my life that isn’t endo. And that’s going to be yoga.
I still have so much to learn about yoga
I started practicing yoga in 1998 shortly after my father’s death. My best friend and I lived across the road from a yoga centre. It was nothing like the fancy studios out there these days. We’d practice in a crowded room with a bunch of people wearing daggy trackies and t-shirts (this was long before the rise of athleisure wear). We liked the savasana pose the best (the one at the end when you are lying still). And as soon as class was over we’d run to the bottle shop before it closed to buy wine so we could have a glass or two while watching Dawson’s Creek. It was a good time and probably a really nice way to deal with my grief.
I practiced on and off after that. Sometimes at my local gym and sometimes at home. I’ve always been really intimidated by yoga studios which is probably why I teach in community settings now. I practiced back then to try and get the perfect yoga body (see the next point) but I really loved the relaxation benefits too.
I knew when I became a personal trainer that I’d want to offer yoga too but I had never really been taught any of the philosophy of yoga as a student and it was never the driver of my interest in the practice. I have since done over 300 hours of yoga teacher training but it’s really been only in the past 12 months that I have become interested in where yoga comes from and how to practice yoga off the mat. There is so much to learn and I probably never will know it all. But I think a year dedicated to learning will be a good start. So far this year I have found 2 new teachers online, Jivana Heyman from Accessible Yoga and Susanna Barkataki from Yoga Class Curator. I am already learning so much from them and feel called to deepen my knowledge and my practice.
To create at least a small disruption of the dominant yoga culture of thin, young, bendy, white bodies and show someone who is larger, older, and not particularly flexible.
When you google “Yoga” and click on the images tab you will be inundated with pictures of mostly white, almost exclusively thin, mostly women practicing poses that are perfectly aligned. As a yoga teacher with about 8 years of experience, this is not what you see in a class. You see people of all shapes and sizes and abilities. I get frustrated by the lack of diversity online and I also think it’s unfair to represent such a narrow body type in the media. Fat, inflexible, and or disabled people can do yoga too. I have a larger body (especially my tummy which often gets in the way), I am almost 50, I am not particularly flexible, and I live with multiple chronic illnesses and pain. I want to show that it’s possible to do yoga even if you are like me!
I also want to dismantle the idea that doing yoga will give you a “yoga body”. I once got asked if yoga will help someone lose weight. The general answer is “no”, but that depends on a lot of things. I want to show that instead of yoga transforming your body, it can do one better. It can transform YOU.
What this yoga challenge isn’t
I won’t be posting practices that you can follow along with every day. I might do it a few times throughout the year, but if you want to practice yoga with me you can book one of my classes in Albany, join my online exercise group, or join the free Kindness Space community.
I won’t be trying to get “better” at yoga. I’m not aiming to achieve a handstand or wheel pose. I just want to practice yoga every day without any expectations.
I won’t necessarily practice asana (the poses) every day. As I’ve already mentioned, I have a lot of pain so sometimes movement isn’t appropriate. Plus, there is so much more to yoga than just the physical practice and I’m excited to delve into this side.
How you can follow my 356 days of yoga journey
I’ll post (mostly) daily on Facebook and Instagram. I’ll send out regular summaries via my email newsletter and I’ll write blog posts along the way. I hope you’ll follow along and maybe start your own yoga journey. If you haven’t already, you can join my newsletter list by filling out the form below.
Other posts about yoga that you’ll love
A beginner’s guide to yoga props