Thank You, Captain Obvious.

Image by Hello Turkey Toe, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

It takes quite a bit of work inside our cerebral powerhouses to actually produce a single thought. Yes, even those occasional impulsive outbursts, even those moments of vacuous nothingness eat up a lot of energy. In fact, our brains use more energy than any organ in the body, utilizing about 20% of our total (thanks, Scientific American). Most of this energy is devoted to just keeping our brain's cells functioning.

Feeling a bit like a dirty dog lately?

That's a lot of energy to wrangle. Indeed, as B.K.S. Iyengar says, "The brain is the hardest part of the body to adjust." Well, I most certainly could use a brain adjustment. It's been exceedingly difficult to get it going at full steam these days. I guess this thought train departed from Disappointment Station, wherein we turned our heads for just a second, and somebody stole our "Perfect Schedule/Routine/Organization/Motivation" luggage. You see, for some time we had a great routine established where we managed to get in yoga, surfing, swimming, running, hiking, gardening, waking early, working, cleaning, and general life organization on a regular basis. Then we went on a longish vacation and obliterated any trace of that routine (see here). We recovered from that fairly well while we were moving to a new house. Then we had some visitors for a week, and adopted a puppy, and somehow we reverted back to our caveman brains. We let our diet go to crap, we don't get up early anymore, we haven't been to the beach very much, our work:play ratio is completely out of balance, organization has become a four-letter word, getting up early is horrifically hard, and I don't even want to say how long it's been since we surfed. Sheesh.

The picture of our yoga practice: sleepy and strewn about. ;)

I started to succumb to dismay at how easily we're sidetracked from our "yoga-fied life" ideals. Like Mr. Iyengar says, "Change leads to disappointment if it is not sustained. Transformation is sustained change, and it is achieved through practice." So I guess this means we're still in that process of transforming our lives into the elevated ideals which we seek, lagging behind due to sluggish practice. Thank you, Captain Obvious. I'm cognizant of the fact that we will always be working to improve our quality of life. I already know what we want to be doing, and where we're headed. The disappointment comes when I feel we've backtracked, or when I start to become fixated on reaching some mythical finish line. In this particular instance, I'd say we're definitely in backtrack territory.

First family hike... baby steps.

So, when this happens we regroup and take baby steps to start moving forward on the path again. Take, for example, this past weekend. Despite feeling pretty low on the energy scale, we managed to get in some beach time, some hiking, some cooking and eating at home, some garden time, some budget work, and of course some yoga. Now, that's a pretty darn good weekend! So I was flying high, patting myself on the back. But wait, then I got a massive headache. What the...? I was totally taken down by one of those headaches that lasted all through the night and into the next morning. Hmmm. That doesn't seem right, we had a great weekend. I should be feeling great, right? After a few moments wallowing in my confusion, Scott made a sideways mention of going into the yoga room. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Why do I practice all this yoga if I'm not going to use it to help me when I feel like crap? Again, thank you, Captain Obvious. This is what I meant when I said my brain hasn't exactly been running on all cylinders lately.

I don't guess it'll spoil the ending for you if I tell you I felt quite a bit better after some yoga. It's a shame that it took a headache to get me moving forward again, but I guess it could've been a lot worse. It's so easy at times to become dismayed at not being perfect, not having the perfect pose, not eating the perfect foods, not having perfect finances, or not living our lives as perfectly as we'd like. I've been so anxious to be where I want to be now, rather than being where I am now. Mr. Iyengar again (it's an Iyengar-kind-of-day, I guess), puts it so well, "Let the goal be to reach Perfection, but be content with a little progress toward perfection every day." Actually, I'd like to amend that a bit. Perhaps I can delight that a little progress toward perfection every day is quite perfect in and of itself. Just keep practicing, yogis & yoginis!

NAMASTE!