Interesting homework assignment...

One of our homework assignments this time was to pick something for a one day fast. It didn't have to be food, but anything that could show clearing, clarity, or purity based on the ideas of one of the niyamas, Shauca. We were advised to consider what we need to fast on... where do we proliferate, clutter, or confuse our life unnecessarily. We were to choose one aspect of our life and create the intention to cleanse in that direction. Several examples were given... and yes I know the obvious one of the clutter in my house would immediately leap to mind but since I am already working on that I decided to choose a different focus.

I had two candidates.
The first was a one day fast from any added sugar to what I eat throughout the day. I came to that because of all the sweet things I have been eating and craving lately: peanut butter and jam sandwiches, British cream tea with sugar, pie... the list goes on and on.

The second was to not play any of the computer games that have been pulling me away from my life lately. Aside from some occasional Words with Friends games on Facebook I also play a lot of time wasting games on my Galaxy Tablet: the usual things like solitaire and mah jong and sudoku as well as a lot of matching games, and a strangely addictive little game called Pocket Trains. I have been spending way too much time with them lately, mostly to avoid doing other things.

I ended up choosing the computer games because they seemed more of a problem.

So I did that on Saturday, Oct. 17 for the whole day. Truth is it helped to be pretty busy that day (yoga class in the morning and yoga workshop -- Wise Women -- in the afternoon) but even so, being home at night and after dinner when I would normally want to go play a game I couldn't. I ended up reading and thankfully falling asleep early from all the activity that day.

Sunday morning I woke up and didn't have exactly the same urge to get into my game computer as usual, although I do usually enjoy going to Pocket Trains for their daily challenge. I did end up getting to it but it didn't have exactly the same urgency as before.

What I learned:  well for me I can do anything for one day so it wasn't much of a challenge. Not that I wanted to take it further, but I think I need to go without things longer for it to make an impact. Also since these last weeks of the teacher training have been so challenging, I think this "fast" turned out to be the easiest thing I have had to do. But if nothing else, it made me realize how much time I have been wasting playing computer games (a realization I get now and then, then it fades, and I play again, then the realization hits, the cycle repeats).

I still have a long way to go...

More questions than answers...

"When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change."     ~ Wayne Dyer

Some things are getting easier: thinking about how to put together a practice session starting with a theme (even if it is just working up to a peak pose), learning more and more about the preparatory poses that lead up to a peak pose, and learning more of the positive language of a class (you are invited to.... or start to... or notice how.... and so on).

And yet the more we learn, the more I realize I don't know...

"There are more questions than answers. 
And the more that I find out, the less I know." 
(from a reggae song by Johnny Nash)

Sometimes I feel like I am back at square one all over again (but with more yoga clothes).

Aparigraha and clutter...

As I look out into the cluttered room I had been saying I would clean up for months now, this week's homework assignment of looking at Aparigraha comes to mind. Aparigraha is the last of the five yamas of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga and deals with the concept of non-possessiveness, non-grasping or non-greediness. In this day and age it is also extended to clutter and hoarding, a common theme in modern lifestyles, or at least mine. 

This is the shelf near my bed that I have been planning to have as my yoga book center since teacher training started... (and we are already in week 6 so that was 12 weeks ago!).

So it seemed to me that should be the first place I decluttered in keeping with Aparigraha... A shelf that held all my yoga books, close to my bed so I could grab a book and read in bed easily... and not have everything buried by gardening books and other junk that could just as easily be in another room.

Most of these books are for the training. Some of them I had before and others I have gotten since as other people have suggested them. I also have a few on my Android Tablet where I have my Kindle reader. 

Ok so that was the 1% tip of my house nightmare... my goal has been a little every day and that keeps getting put aside. My intention now is to keep that promise to myself... A little each day, even 10 minutes... do something every day to make the clutter go away and bring back my happiness within this house.