Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Why saying "no" is good for your yoga

So I disappeared. Again. And why you ask? Those who know me will not be in any way surprised by this- I over committed myself. Shocking, I know.

You may remember me blogging about how I love when a yoga teacher teaches a theme in class that seems to come right from my life and speaks to my soul. I have become my own teacher. I seem to stumble on these quotes, then create a class around a theme. When I look back I can't help but think I should be taking my own advice a little more. A lot more.

I talked about priorities in my classes last week. About how each thing you choose to you means you choose not to do another. Thats an OK thing to do, to choose one thing over another. But I've never lived that lifestyle. I've always chosen option E: all of the above. I, for some reason think I'm sort of superhero who doesn't need to eat or sleep and can just go go go all the time. I, unsurprisingly, am not actually a superhero.

So why do I keep doing this is the first question? Quickly followed by how do I stop doing this.

Last week I taught 11 yoga classes. Yes, its actually possible to do that and go to school full time. However, it isn't possible to sleep or eat or breathe or have friends while you do that. So I was a little miserable.

I've always kind of been of the mindset if you love something you can't have too much of it. I love teaching yoga, so teaching 11 times last week seemed like a good idea when I agreed to it. I totally overdosed on teaching though. You know the phrase if you love something let it go? I need a little leash space from my yoga teaching.

I actually managed to prioritize teaching over myself. Yikes, I'm upset just writing that out. So, I'm scaling it back a touch. Or I should say I'm going to try to scale back.

On to the next question- how do I stop saying yes so much? Because for me that is really the issue. I want the people around me to be happy, I love taking care of them, so I always say yes when they ask for anything.  You need a sub, a ride to the airport, a meal brought to your house? Sure I'll do it.

So, I'm going to have to start saying no. Much easier said than done. But don't worry I have a game plan.  From  now on when someone asks me to do something I'm going to wait at least 30 minutes before I respond. Because my tendency is to say yes immidiately, maybe taking some time to make the decision about whether I should say yes will induce me to say no more frequently.

That's the idea for now anyway.

Namaste,
Rachel











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