How are your habits affecting you?

In Pantanjali's 8 Limbs of Yoga, the Yamas represent the 1st limb on one's way to attaining "Samadhi" -- experiencing the true Self as opposed to the self that you identify with, the one that you yell at and get angry and frustrated with. It's true--that person you hate sometimes isn't really you! And you can do some things to help that chatter cease. There are 5 Yamas, which, simply put, are healthy behaviors.

My daily yoga practice has helped me realize some of the things that I am just not happy with in my life. I am realizing the more and more yoga I do the more and more I respect my body and my mind, and the more I want to be able to listen to my breath rather than the chatter in my head. I never thought it was possible to turn off the chatter and have a silent moment, but there are ways to get there. One of the 5 Yamas is "Brahmacharya", or self-restraint. Self-restraint isn't just about saying no I won't ever do that again; replace that which should be restrained with something that will better serve you.

Of the 10 things I hate about me--sounds like a movie haha--I decided to attack caffeine. When I fall out of a yoga pose, I start thinking about the cup of coffee I had that morning and that maybe if I hadn't had the coffee I wouldn't have fallen out of the pose. Whether or not the coffee has any affect, I still used it as an excuse as to why I couldn't do something, when just 2 hours prior I was saying I couldn't leave the house without my cup of coffee. I just didn't want to deal with feeling like I had to have a cup, and I didn't want to deal with feeling like I shouldn't have had the cup. Damn coffee trapped me!

So no matter whether you think I'm crazy for over-thinking my coffee consumption, or you think coffee is your necessary morning jolt, or you don't care that you also have these feelings, I decided to do something about it.

This is where replacing a habit with another habit comes in--taking my morning routine that included coffee and changing it to not include coffee and get out of the door before I have a chance to change my mind. The hardest part of changing a habit is the part where you can decide that you can make an exception to the rule. It rarely works! Ask anyone who has struggled with addiction.

Ok, so here we are with coffee. Instead of coffee, my yoga teacher said to try hot water with lemon. It replaces the desire for something hot, moves the bowels, and you can add some honey, ginger, whatever to please the palate. After trying it the first time, I can honestly say also that it made my food taste better too! On day one, as I drank the water, I stared longingly at the french press that I love to use so much. Please just one cup. No big deal. Here I was again, talking to myself about something I felt like I had to have. So I said no to myself, packed up and got out the door, without coffee. At that point I had wasted so much time thinking about coffee that I didn't even have time to stop to get some on my way to yoga!

In yoga that morning, I sat and waited for the teacher. I was a little tired, but it's not like I collapsed on the ground on the way to the studio and the world collapsed around me and I couldn't possibly go on with life. When the yoga teacher did arrive, she greeted us, we chanted, we breathed, she took us through a warm-up, and then she told us to stand at the top of our mats in Tadasana (Mountain Pose--basically standing tall). Standing there, I realized I was just doing what she told us to do, and that's all I had to do, and I didn't need coffee to do it. An hour later we had our relaxation period, and I noticed that not even once did I blame falling out of a pose or feeling crappy on coffee. I didn't even blame it on myself. I just picked back up and tried again. I felt so liberated! Such an easy thing to do.

I have another 9 to work on. Think about the habits you have that mess with your mind. Change your routine, or replace it with something else and see how you feel. Reflecting on the positive change will help your change last.