I have been quite lax in blogging lately. I finished my month of daily yoga and reading over a month ago and am just now evaluating it. I did not start a new challenge this past new moon day (Sunday), and am not planning on doing anything official for the rest of this month. However, I am continuing to taper my TV show viewing time with the goal of starting abstinence in this area on my birthday, February 8th.

Without further ado, let’s talk about my challenge at the end of last year. I started it Thanksgiving day and the goal was to get me back into some mentally and physically restorative routines. Unfortunately, I contracted both an upper respiratory infection and a stomach bug in the first few days of the challenge, which got me off to a bad start, and which I let throw me out of conscious alignment.

For this reason, I ended up neglecting the challenge quite a bit up until the last week and a half. In the spirit of the challenge, I attempted to make up for the time I had missed and went above and beyond, completing my goal with Bikram yoga and getting pretty close with the reading intention.

With that recap, here are some observations I have about the challenge and myself:

• Make general and specific contingency plans for ailments – Coming off of my highly successful ‘Month of 30,000 push-ups,’ I had high hopes both for the challenge and for the ending of the year in general. These got derailed due to my double sickness and especially the worst raging headache I’ve had in my life. Sickness, just like depression, is a challenging situation that must be handled with tenderness and skill in order to remain in conscious alignment. I want to learn to give myself the freedom to achieve less during these times while still operating in a conscientious and productive mindset.
• Allow each new day to be a reset regardless of what happened previously in the month – I default to a strong all-or-nothing mentality quite frequently if I’m not careful. Prior to my major depression, this was a source of extreme motivation which I enjoyed. However, recently, it has only caused more depression and procrastination. Especially in the area of challenges, I want each day to be a new opportunity for engagement. I want to leave my self-judgment at the door when I start each new day and instead embrace the power of now.
• Attempt making up for neglected time, but don’t require it – If I am back on track with the daily specifications of the challenge, then it is appropriate to make plans for recouping whatever missed opportunities occurred earlier in the month. This is admirable and in alignment with the spirit of the challenge. However, this should never be the first priority. Every challenge is more about showing up on a daily basis than about completing a certain number of minutes or reps of something.
• Consider finding zoom partners for exercise – By the end of the challenge, I was completing a full hot Bikram yoga session every day, and I LOVED it! However, once the challenge came to an end, so too did the yoga eventually, even for a shorter window of time each day. I intellectually and viscerally KNOW the benefits of Bikram yoga and exercise in general, but still struggle (immensely at times) to consistently incorporate this without the incentive of a challenge. The other option, therefore, is to find more zoom partners to exercise with, like I currently do with my sister on Friday nights.
• Look into book exchanges and discussion partners – I absolutely loved getting back into some more physical book reading. There is just something magical about holding a real paper book in your hand as opposed to reading online. I completed an online philosophy book skimming challenge a year ago, which I enjoyed, but I still miss physically holding a book, even if I do have to get somewhat creative to avoid generating back pain or tendinitis from the activity. I think what would motivate me to continue this practice would be to find some family or friends to exchange books with and have regular informal discussions about them.

While not on an official monthly challenge right now, I am planning on getting back to posting a blog post once a week for the rest of this month. This shouldn’t be too difficult as I already have topics for the next 3 posts planned out (evaluation of purposeful spiritual connection, TV abstinence, and productivity challenge).

Namaste.