#MummyMonday question:
Hi Rehana,
Your pregnancy yoga classes were a godsend when I felt anxious due to my past history of miscarriages. I got hooked on to that calm feeling after class. I also managed to get some home practice in when I finished work for maternity leave.
Now with an almost 7 week baby, I don’t feel I can get any time to do some yoga apart from your once weekly sessions. I love how yoga makes me feel calm and relaxed and more patient as a mum. Please can you give me any tips on how I can do a bit more in between your classes?
Xx
Dear Xx,
I often wonder what would people think if they saw my home yoga practice space? As a mum our priorities are so stretched that self care including yoga is hard to justify. The days when I have a million things tugging at me, is the day I need a bit of space the most. You are not the only one struggling to squeeze in a home practice, I do too!
When you aim for a home practice, the major hurdle I find is the contrast between what your available space can be and that imaginary ideal space. Despite a lot of #reallife images slowly emerging, our social media streams are still full of unattainable, unrealistic ideals that serve no one.
Here is the corrupted, narcissistic, egotistical instagram version we are pressured into believing is the only way to practice… that beautiful empty space where the outer space helps us reconnect with our inner peace.
How I wish this is what my own practice looked like too! Instead, I am going to dare to share with you #myrealyoga space.
Here is a photo of what my practice space can look like!!!! This is a typical day when I feel like the chores around me will slowly swallow me like a boa constrictor eating it’s prey. But at times like this, as my baby goes down for a nap, I make a choice…I let go… and sweep things to a side till I can just about squeeze a mat on the floor.
I try and find any physical space and convert it into a haven with my breath, a few drops of my favourite smell and my playlist and I am ready!
My mat becomes this wonderful physical boundary between my inner world and my outer world, that sacred space that no one can enter without permission. Some days I inhabit this space only for a couple of minutes before a sleeping baby wakes and some days I have the luxury of a good length of time. I tend not to count the minutes, just my breath.
Come to your practice without any expectation, see what it can give you without demanding from it.