Baby Steps

For those of you new to me, I’ve been studying Ayurveda for a number of years now. It is the most wonderful science of life and living, and is often referred to as Yoga’s ‘sister-science’. Both of these philosophies aim to support a life free from suffering. (That’s a nutshell statement and I’ll most certainly expand on that in a later post.)

Anyhow, one of my current teachers at Hale Pule, a wonderful organization and school of Ayurveda based out of New Zealand, shared this to our community the other day:

“Extreme restrictions and deprivation do not help you to heal naturally. Instead, small changes, baby steps, and nourishing yourself from head to toe will have you on a gentle, healing path.”

Baby steps - that’s exactly what these last couple of weeks have been for me. Baby steps, albeit messy ones, shifting me away from unhealthy actions towards one’s that help me feel aligned, happy and satiated.

Yes I have cut back on the booze and its partnership with Netflix. Yes I have reduced the number of times I hit the snooze button in the morning. But no, I am not getting my ass from my mattress to my mat in the early moments of dawn, and I don’t know when, or if, I’ll ever get there.

And you know what? I’m feeling rather content and proud of what I’ve been able to stick to these last few weeks. My life, as I’m sure is yours, is busy.

I go from being mom, to wife, back to mom, to dog mom, to employee, to wife, to dog mom, to employee, to mom, to entrepreneur, to mom, to dog mom, to wife, to entrepreneur, to mom again, to hamster mom, to finally a few moments for me before closing my eyes at the end of each day.

Some days the order changes, but most days that little ‘me’ section is 30 minutes or less.

Today, that time is now. And I get a whole hour and fifteen minutes to myself as I sit in my car and write down my thoughts as I wait for my child to emerge from choir practice.

(For the record, Wednesday’s are my favourite day of the week exactly for this reason - a whole 75 minutes to, my, Self).

Baby steps. One gentle, timid and messy, but assured baby step after the other.

Regardless of how many I take, the truth is I’m feeling much better today than I did three weeks ago. And that makes me feel like these baby steps have taken me across a milestone.

Ta-ta for now,

M.