On January 1st 2017 I started the 31 day Yoga Revolution with Yoga with Adriene.
I began with the same excitement that accompanied every Monday when the new diet begins, every New Year when the new life begins, in fact every plan I had every forced myself to do.
I rationalised that this would be the ONE, the one to shift my exhaustion, boost my energy, pull me out of the pit of despair I found myself in. I was trying to recover from burnout, still operating under the illusion that the same striving, pushing mentality that had got me into this mess, would somehow work to free me from the chronic fatigue that had ended my career. The trouble was I had no idea of how else to be.
My strategy “worked” for 17 days but far less than boost my energy, it had led me straight back to another relapse.
On day 18, unable to get out of bed, I felt a range of emotions. Mainly, what the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I get better? Will I ever be fully well again? Is the life I took so much for granted now over?
I felt like a failure, I had burned out before, recovered and gone to university and worked for 7 years as a teacher. But somehow, I had managed to recreate all the conditions that had led me to becoming ill in 2000. I had worked hard, taken on more and more responsibility, given my whole heart and soul to the school.
The realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. I was applying the same Type A mindset I had always shown at work to my recovery and even my yoga practice.
I had never stopped to consider what my body wants.
The truth was I had no idea. Literally not a clue.
I didn’t know whether it was best to rest or try some yoga. In 54 years of being on the planet I had NEVER asked my body what it wanted. My body was an appendage located south of my over-active mind and my mind called all the shots, like a warped sergeant-major, barking orders to get out of the bed and get things done!
As I had not managed to sustain the daily practice of Revolution, my mind, of course, I wrote it off as a failure.
My next step was to look around for the next plan, you know, the one that would be the ONE!
But, some deeper, wiser part of me would not let go of Revolution, even as I lay in bed unable to muster the energy to roll out my mat.
Then one morning, several weeks later, as I sipped my morning tea in bed, a voice inside me said “Mmmm, I fancy doing yoga today”.
So I got out of bed, rolled out my mat in my study and did day 18. This went on all through February, March and April. I waited for that still, small voice that WANTED to do yoga and I did the next day’s practice. I realised when I don’t push myself, the impulse to do yoga naturally arose.
117 days after I began, I completed day 31.
The theme for day 31 was “Follow your intuition” and Adriene encouraged me to listen to my body and allow the practice to flow, tapping into what my body actually needed in the moment. I cried my way through that practice as I realised that my body did, indeed, know what I need. It was such a fitting end to my journey, which ,paradoxically,was only beginning.
I learned to listen to my body and gave myself permission to be myself. I broke free of all the shoulds that had governed my life and did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. I recovered quickly when I gave up trying and I have stayed well. My body had always known what it wanted and all I had to do was listen.
We all have such wisdom inside us, waiting to be discovered. I know now when we don’t push ourselves to be anything other than who we are, the impulse to do ANYTHING naturally arises.
So whether you roll out your mat today, or decide that what you really need is a nap, it seems to me that following your inner wisdom, trusting yourself to make the right choices FOR YOU is the best yoga of all.
(Originally published in Medium)