I would’ve been the first to tell you that yoga is boring and meditating is garbage. But, the last couple of years brought on such severe migraines I was willing to try anything – if you told me that buying a pig and rubbing its belly every day would cure me, I’d do it. So, I looked into some de-stressing methods and more ‘holistic’ things to do for migraines and I found meditation and yoga to be at the top. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for holistic medicine as a cure-all. I still take precautionary medicine to ward off migraines, but by using some of these tools in everyday life and making small changes, I could take the migraines from 15+ a month to 8 a month to 3 a month to ‘hey, I haven’t had one of those death days in a while’.
But, just like all good habits and good situations, they usually come to an end, or at least a pause. And, that’s what happened to me about a month ago. I was unemployed, I was practicing yoga every day, I was meditating before and after each practice (even if only for a few minutes) and I was getting things done. I was writing non-stop, I was cleaning the entire house, organizing and making it sparkle, I was taking on projects and crafting like an old lady. It was magical. And, then I felt lazy one day so I didn’t do my yoga. No biggie. But, then I felt lazy the next day and was busy so I skipped it, again. And, the next day was getting a bit crazy, so I said just some neck stretching. Then, I got a cold (for a day) and didn’t want to do anything. So, for over a week I barely did any yoga, zero meditation and started to eat junk food.
Now, eating at McDonald’s every once in a while isn’t going to cause your body to shut down, but eating tons of sweets and salt and all things terrible for you – even just for a week? It starts to do the body harm. You don’t need to be a doctor to know this; you can feel it. It was Christmas: the time to celebrate sweets! I shouldn’t feel guilty! So I indulged. Or, rather, overindulged. I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor, but I could feel my body rejecting my new lifestyle. I felt bloated and fat, I began to wonder why my make-up looked so terrible and if it was all the light’s fault in my bathroom …until I realized it was because I was puffy from the sodium I had been inhaling at top notch speeds.
I stopped writing, could barely get a word out, and all creativity felt like it had left me. I felt drained and exhausted and bored and restless all at once. And yet, I had no desire to do anything I once found so soothing and entertaining. I just wanted to sit and watch TV all day. Sure, there’s no harm in that every so often, it’s therapeutic after a long day, but an entire week where you do nothing all day but binge Hallmark Christmas movies and Korean shows? It doesn’t feel so good.
Finally, after over a week of nothingness, I decided to do some yoga. Because, I didn’t want to feel this gross and look puffy in every holiday picture out there. But, I could barely do anything. Happy Baby was basically just me rolling around on the ground grunting. But, the little movement my body did that night did me good. Because the next day I woke up earlier, I felt inspired. I got to writing and planning and goal setting and I even did a yoga session. Albeit the writing was small, the planning and goal setting was quick and not as creative as it could’ve been, and the yoga session lasted about 20 minutes. But, I did it and felt great afterwards. As I was ending my practice with a quick 30 second meditation (let’s not jump into this so hard right away), I could feel my mind wander and ideas come to me, words formed into sentences and into inspiration for stories to come. I wasn’t back to being content, I still felt restless and bored, but I could feel it bubbling up. This found-again excitement obviously didn’t just come from one and a half yoga practices and a minute of meditation. But, the calming of the mind helped quiet everything around me so I could hear that inner voice and listen to what it was trying to tell me.
