Start with Why  / Tips for Tapas

3 Steps for Success for this 21 day Home Practice Challenge

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Confucius

When it comes to making a promise to yourself, adopting a new habit, a big life change, or moving through transition, the process or the journey is as important as the destination – “The journey IS the destination”.  

Step 1 – Start with WHY?

Time to get clear and set your intentions.

When you are clear on the WHY of your promise to yourself, once you begin to show up for yourself and begin to track your follow-through progress, then the journey can begin to flow with more ease.  You tap more into the pure FLOW!  

So, What is the deeper FEELING behind what you want? Do you want to feel more

• Open
• Free
• Balanced
• Joyful
• At ease
• In peace
• Healthy and well
• Connected
• Relaxed
• Rejuvenated
• Recharged
• Present
• Empowered

If you want to commit to a daily yoga practice, perhaps it’s the feeling of presence or openness you want to invite into your life.  Or maybe you want to be fully free of suffering and think starting a Yoga practice could help with that. 🙂

Sankalpa – Resolve to Evolve

Set your timer, and take 5 minutes NOW with your journal – How do you want to feel?

Set your Intention – Get clear on what you really want.  Write point form or in sentences,  in as much details as possible, your Sankalapa, your resolution to evolve and integrate these qualities more into your life.  How do you want to feel?   

Be loving and compassionate with yourself.  if you’d like to set the intention to do a Home Practice every day, or 3 x a week, can you be flexible with that?  Maybe sometimes it’ll be in the morning before work, and sometimes it’ll be in the evening when you get home.  “Should” is could with shame in front . If we “should” ourselves,  this can inspire feelings of guilt and shame. Like if we were to resolve to wake up an hour early to practice before work, and then we don’t follow through,  

Ritualise it. This takes you and your commitment to the next level.. It can be simple – Light a candle, some incense, share some insightful words or prayer of gratitude. .Bring in the sacred.  Acknowledge the mystery..

Tip: Make sure your intentions and goals are “S.M.A.R.T” : Specific,  Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely

I love this TED TALK to help me remember my ‘WHY’:

Step 2 – Showing Up:

How to make a commitment to yourself 

In general, it’s easier to make promises to other people than it is for ourselves.  It tends to be easier to follow through with our word when we have a witness, to step up and follow through with our commitment when we feel responsible to others.  Making promises to ourselves is a different story.

From my experience, countless times I’ve promised myself to waken up yet an hour earlier to mediate more, and countless times i have pressed that snooze button, thinking I’ll start the next day instead.  Countless times I’ve promised to stop being so self-critical of my scatteredness and “inability” to follow through, and be more kind and compassionate towards myself.

Tapas, the fire of commitment, of self-discipline, of building fire and heat within,  is one of the 5 Niyamas, or ethical self-disciplines of Patanjali’s Classical Yoga System.  Tapas translates to heat, fire, purification, spiritual practice and transformation.  It is the practice of showing up, even when we really don’t want to, it is the practice of following through with the promises we make to ourselves about how we want to evolve, or simply how we want to BE in this world.

When we make a promise to ourselves and don’t keep it, then we send messages to ourselves that we are not so trustworthy, and we reinforce the idea that we can’t follow through, or achieve the transformation that we are looking for.

Why commit to yourself:

When we make a promise to ourselves to show up, and we do, it builds self-confidence, reminding us that we are capable and powerful. We remind ourselves of what we do want,  and that we are capable of achieving it!  Think of the last time you showed up and followed through with an intention.  How good did that feel?  Good!  Happy!  So here we are also developing the habit of showing up.

Choose your own Home Practice:

Define your “Big” (30 + mins) and your “Small” Practices (10 + mins) and write it in the Accountability Fun Sheet – (you can edit this later if you like!)  This can be Yoga asana practice, meditation, prananyam, or whatever else helps you find more FLOW in your life.

When you show up to your practice you mark it with a “Yay!”.  Other days you may mark a “Nay! and that’s okay.  We’re hear to encourage and support each other to do our best, and we simply celebrate the wins!

Step 3 –  Reflect & Connect

FOUNDATIONS OF FLOW

Journal the Journey & Gratitude – 5 minutes

Check in with yourself . Notice how you feel each day.    Are you feeling inspired? Are you making progress? How does it feel? How does it feel when you procrastinate? Can you be okay with that? 

Some days are easy and we stick to the plan, other days we feel downright challenged, restless and helpless to follow through.  Keeping track of our progress is a really helpful way to keep focused on the transformation.  Each day we’ll invite you to set your timer, write the date, and spend 5 minutes with your journal, just writing stream-of-conscious-how you feel,  or what is present for you

Share your Progress – Group Check-in 

Including others in our mission helps us to feel supported and motivated..  We are social animals.  We learn through and with each other.  It’s said that 20 % of our learning comes from social interactions.  Growing and learning together, sharing our intentions and action plans with others has the capacity  to increases the likelihood that we will actually follow-through with the positive life-changes we are intending.  Not only that, but your progress and willingness to keep showing up and sharing your journey, will inspire others to keep up with the challenge, especially in those moments when we lose interest, feel lazy, distracted or challenged.

Wishing you a beautiful and easeful start to this journey. 

If you have any questions or concerns – please feel to reach out to me on the FB Group  or francie@pureflow.yoga

Have a beautiful day and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow!

What’s NEXT?…

Tomorrow we look at the some classic obstacles on the path and how to work with them!

With Love & Support,

XOXO

Francie