started back on my practice

Starting back at my practice of pranayama came as a surprise to me. A few months ago I quit my practice, as I just felt I needed to stop and feel what it would feel like without practising pranayama daily. I had got myself into a daily practice that felt like a must do, a pressure on me and I developed fears in stopping and feeling guilty if I'd stop my practice, but it felt like it all was too much and did not bring me the benefit I had expected.
During the time I had stopped my practice at first I felt the fears and guilt, but very quickly I felt relieved and enjoyed sleeping a bit longer and not having this pressure on me. The world continued, my life continued even without me practising pranayama. Then I developed the flu with a very bad eye infection in both eyes and I felt miserable. It had taken me about three weeks to really get over it and I remembered that over the past five years that I practised pranayama I did not get hit with the bad flu like this. But I did not think about pranayama during this lot of flu nor wanted to be told I should practice pranayama.
I still had a lot of awareness and it was as if I started to really observe myself., I am a vegetarian but one day had a huge craving for a chicken burger and I realised that I could make my own rule, I did not have to answer to anyone and I should just go ahead and eat a chicken burger. So I did and it was horrible. I am happy now with the choice to stay a vegetarian.  But a good experience it was, as I started to drop all my should and shouldn't and having too and so on. I started to feel free again and in control of myself knowing that I really was my own boss and living from moment to moment I could choose from moment to moment what I wanted to do, I could break my own rules and make my own rules. That started to feel really good.
A couple of weeks ago in the evening I suddenly felt the urge to practice some pranayama. So I sat myself down and started to practice pranayama. I felt myself smiling and I remembered how Ajay my teacher from Divine Yoga UK told me to smile while practising pranayama. The smile came naturally and I started to feel like I was getting an endorphin fix. I could not stop myself from smiling and feeling of deep joy and then I felt deep compassion for myself, this was very new to me to feel compassionate toward myself. It felt just so good. After finishing my practice I thought about it all and I realised that practising pranayama for me was a way of pampering myself, of doing something for me, for my health and wellbeing. But most of all it feels just like I am giving myself some tender loving care, some nurturing, some self-love. Since then I am back at practising some pranayama daily again, in the evening at the moment and it is just a wonderful way of giving myself some me time and some pampering.
I do not pressure myself to do it daily, or I do not look at how much time I spend on it and I do not do it at the same time each day, I just do it when it feels right and the whole experience is wonderful.
So the things that have already changed for me since practising pranayama again is that I feel so much more loving toward myself, the word compassion is in my mind and it feels very powerful. My energy level is up and I have been bubbling over with inspiration and creativity and ideas, feeling motivated to move forward again in my life.
So pamper yourself with pranayama!!

Compassion

A feeling of deep compassion for the world and myself. Compassion is deep within the heart and when it comes to the surface it creates and radiates a warm and fuzzy feeling touching anyone that comes into the space of this compassionate being. May there be compassion for all sentient beings.

when everything becomes too much

I have been holding off writing this post as I have been feeling like a failure, I have been feeling that I have let myself down and everybody who's been reading my blog! And why? When everything becomes too much; this is what has been happening to me. My daily practice all of a sudden out of the blue had become too much for me to keep up. About six months ago I could feel myself struggling with my practice, I did not want to get up in the morning, I was becoming more irritable with my practice, I felt I should have achieved so much more by now, I started to doubt if my daily practice really was doing me any good. At the same time, I did not want to give up my practice, I feared that all my ailments would return, I feared I would fall back into old bad habits. Also, I kept hearing the voice in the back of my head that if I did not do my practice daily I would have to start again from the beginning e.g. practice for 40 days, 90 days 1000 days to make it effective. I started to create new fears and my daily practice became a struggle, a having to, a should do and a huge pressure and a burden on my shoulder. The fear of stopping became quite big I kept thinking what will happen if I give my daily practice a break I was terrified to try and from knowing myself I knew I had to just quit and give it a break. I knew I had come to the end of a cycle in my life and as with all endings, it is so hard to let go and to keep the faith that it would all turn out fine.

So I had quit my daily practice, two months ago after having been so disciplined in getting up early in the morning to do my pranayama and meditation every day. I slept in to 6.30 am from my 4 am rising, and I felt somewhat sad and scared. Somehow I could not completely let go and through the day I did some breathing, some mantra chanting and did some chakra healing. But after a while I became more relaxed I did not push myself to do any practice at all but I just felt the need to listen in the background to some mantra music.
Guilt stayed with me for quite a while, I also did not want to tell anyone, I felt a failure! and I then realised, that automatically I started to sit with these feelings, with these emotions and I started to breathe. My focus turned to my breath whenever I felt down, negative or had an emotion that I could not get rid of, or when I felt a pain in my joints.
I just sit down and started to focus on my breath. When I think about something when I gather my thoughts when I walk whatever I do I now notice my breath. I notice my breathing if it is rapid if I am holding my breath if my breath is shallow. I am completely have become aware of my breath all the time all day long!! I did not have this deep awareness before as I had focused on my practice and then when I was finished I started my day and never gave my breath another thought....

Pranayama is not just daily practice. We do pranayama constantly. We never really stop breathing and I am filled with joy that through my daily practice over the past 5-6 years and now with this so out of the blue ending of my daily ritual of practising pranayama, I have become in tune with my breath. I feel happy about this and I feel it was worth all the struggle, all the fear to experience this. I follow my breath throughout the day, I notice my breath throughout the day and sometimes it is so nice to just stop myself in my tracks and breath slow and deep. I am aware if one nostril is weaker then the other, I am aware when my breath is out of rhythm and I can bring my breathing into balance, and I can slow my breath down to become calm. Becoming so focused and tuned into my breath also makes me feel safe, it makes me feel calm and it makes me feel centred and whenever I am out of balance I become aware of my breath and all I need to do is bring the focus back to my breath and it feels like I am home and safe.
Living my life in this deep awareness helps me to go deeper into myself, it helps me to connect with my soul my spirit the me. It also brings me deeper into getting to know myself and so it is bringing on new challenges and new awareness, it also brings the awareness to be able to focus on the breath and just sitting with the breath and the challenges, which then makes the challenges disappear without me having to put any effort into them.

So the journey never stops, pranayama never stops, but pranayama is the most beautiful thing we have and can experience.
For now, I realised I am not doing a daily sit down practice, but instead I am fully living pranayama all throughout the day in full awareness and this is such a blessing.