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.