Why do you practice?
Why do you practice physically? Why do you practice mentally? Why do you practice spiritually?
What keeps bringing you back? How has it affected you?
I practice, yoga, meditation, and tai chi for the overall well-being and dexterity balance of my body. It’s mobility. Bodily functions. It’s resilience.
The physical aspects of my practice are my caretaking practice. I discover what my body can do, what it can learn and what it cannot. Sometimes I call it learning my limitations or boundaries. Often I call it learning self-respect.
I practice yoga and tai chi and meditation for my mind to help it focus and help it find solace.
Usually practice – physical and meditation – help me not be distracted or to actually notice where I am stuck. It also helps me change my perspective and open myself to different viewpoints. Doing things differently helps me shift my mind to seeing things differently. Doing things I never thought I could opens me to possibilities in my whole life – in relationships with others, in my emotional governance, in my work and home.
My practice for my spirit, allows me to feel my spirit. It lets spirit be felt. Tai chi allows me to turn the steering wheel over to the essence within me and feel how it wants to flow rather than what I want. I can then get out of the way.
Meditation helps me recognize my true essence versus the negative chatter that dominate my inner world. That inner chatter would have me believe I’m not good enough, or be stuck in people pleasing, or be afraid of the next catastrophe and be frozen in my tracks.
All practice helps me recognize how important it is in the journey of my life and how tending to it, and caretaking of it is as essential as my nutrition and my intellectual health and dexterity and my mental well-being. It has helped me recognize the difference between my mind and my body and that my mind isn’t in charge. I get to experience being integrated and whole.
This is why I practice moving with mindful intention, tending to the physical vessel. It teaches me how to treat myself with kindness and diligence.
This is why I practice breathing with deliberate effort and focus. It teaches me to value this gift of life and recognize it’s essential, as well as subtle power.
This is why I practice observing my mind – guided and in peaceful silence – to notice when it’s sending me in zig zags and giving it time to settle and find peace. It teaches me things are not always as they appear, that humility and patience are attainable, and silence is a blessing.
