My 30 days of consecutive yoga experience

I always tell people I struggle with New Years Eve but the truth is I struggle with new year in general. It is when I find my depression is most likely to become an insurmountable cliff face. Whatever anyone tells me about it being just another day, to me it is the time when I confront my failings and my mortality. The first time I felt this annual soul crush was ‘97 into ‘98 I remember it so vividly. I was 11 years old and as the clock stuck and all  my family kissed,  hugged and sang old langsyne I stared out of the window and thought “what if all my happiness is behind me”. 18 years later and I still face that same sentiment. In short January scares the hell out of me.

The only thing I have found that goes someway to combatting this terror is to give myself a focus- something new to throw myself into- and over the past few years this has really worked! 2013 I declared would be my healthiest year ever and that worked, 2014 I decided to make the year of writing and that really REALLY worked too. Last year I decided I was going to make my year of acting and I ended up earning more money and working more consistently than ever before so once again my new years magic trick did- well, it did the trick!

But this year I felt flat out of inspiration. All the main things I want in life (a brilliant career (acting) a fulfilling sideline (writing) and great health are still things I’m working towards every day and improving butI’ve already used them to inspire the years and  if I start cycling through them again It won’t feel fresh and exciting-it will feel like treading over old ground. But if I randomly decide on something else, I won’t care enough about it to really cease it as inspiration! I started to feel really lost.

Throughout December all these worries began to build up. I threw myself into the Christmas spirit in a state of near mania, whilst all my fears for an aimless me flailing about in 2016 began to grow and grow. My empty January loomed large and I began to feel a spell of crippling depression inevitable.

This is where Yoga came in. The mission was simple, the focus was small. 30 days back to back Yoga throughout January. No other plans: just me, January and yoga. That was all I had.

And here I am, the end of the final day and it seems to me a mini miracle has taken place.  Yoga picked me up floated me gently across January and landed me ever so softly on February’s doorstep.

I didn’t do this on my own. I was following an online Yoga programme. Last year I discovered Yoga with Adriene on Youtube. It’s completely free and utterly wonderful. I have been dabbling with yoga- sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly- for many yeard and in that time I’ve had lots of teachers; some terrible, some very good but I’ve never found anyone as totally right for me as Adriene. I discovered her last year and did her 30 days of yoga 2015 videos over a 6 month period. I really enjoyed them but  this year she has really taken it up a notch and created “Yoga camp”, which has been all about deepening the emotional aspect of the practice. I know that might sound intimidating, or cringeworthy to some, and she talks about that a lot through all of the videos and the daily news letters, but the way she does it never feels like that for a moment. She has this perfect balance between feeling very human and very real (and a little silly) whilst at the same time being connected and in touch with something deeper; her own power, her own inner grace. She doesn’t so much teach yoga as she allows you to teach yourself. Revealing in you the knowledge you already have about what your body needs, what your soul needs.

Over the past 30 days I have noticed profound changes. In terms of my body. I can do things I’ve never been able to do before – or at least not for a very long time. My posture is much improved and I catch myself sitting beautifully straight without even trying. My arms, which are normally frighteningly weak and wobbly, look firmer and support me more than I can ever remember them doing. I have gained in core strength and my less flexible side is practically as flexible as the other side. Most excitingly I am noticing that my fallen arches are rising again and therefore my balance is the best it has been in years.

But the real magic has definitely happened to me on the inside. Each day of the course begins with a mantra. It will begin something like “I accept…” and you complete it with what ever resonates with you. I accept the unkown. That was my first mantra on the first day. Something I struggle with but something I need to learn. Here were some of my others I embrace this period of stillness, I create my own happiness, I chose joy (for you mum), I trust the lessons of the past, I am learning to go with the flow. Each mantra seemed to speak so directly to me, either reflecting something I already knew or telling me something I really need to hear. Of course they were apt I made them up, you might think, and I did but I never consciously tried to, I didn’t sit down and think “ooo how should I finish my mantra today”. I would start my practice and it would come to me fully formed. Obviously I don’t equate this to a divine messenger but I think yoga allows you to be quiet and engage in a conversation with yourself. To stop ignoring the things you are trying to tell yourself. We all spend so much time ignoring our bodies and acting as if they are an imperfect burden we need to run away from- making time for yoga every single day has allowed me to feel connected to myself and somehow that has lead to a most unusual state of affairs: contentment.

I, like most of us, wait for external things to make me happy, getting a good job, going on holiday, food- the usual suspects. Over the last 30 days I’ve begun to feel happy even with none of those things in place. I’m jobless, holidayless and as it happens, kind of hungry, and yet, I feel great, joyful, alive, bursting with creative energy and I feel myself becoming a magnet for opportunities!

30 days of Yoga sounded like quite a commitment. Some days, because life gets in the way, I ended up doing it at 2 in the morning, one day I even did it drunk (I’m sure that’s not advisable) but I did it every single day and it never felt difficult because it always made me happier afterwards than I was before. – My final mantra for today was I am proud of myself, and I said it loudly with tears of joy streaming down my face. We so rarely get to say we’re proud of ourselves when really we should say feel it every day.

The most wonderful thing about yoga is, no matter how far away from fitness, or how amazing your body is, everyone can do yoga and everyone can benefit. If I could be granted one wish for mankind it would be that everyone practice yoga, just a little, every day. I know we would all be happier, we would all make better decisions and if it saved me from January depression, it might just save the world!