Today is Veteran’s Day. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Halloween is a distant memory (unless you still have candy hanging around the house).
Today’s national holiday is a time when some of us stop to give thanks to those who fought for the freedoms we take for granted in the United States. Others of us just take pause because the mail box is empty or the bank is closed. In a couple of weeks, there will be millions of people gathering around dining room tables to celebrate Thanksgiving. Slowing down and taking a day to give thanks for each other, to prepare a special meal, and maybe even sneak some of those bit sized candy bars left over from trick or treating.
Pausing. Stopping. Slowing down. It’s a good thing. I’m not sure when life got so fast. Last week I picked up one of those free wellness magazines while at Coffee House Creamery. One of the articles was entitled “Fast Track to Personal Growth”. Fast personal growth. It seems like an oxymoron to me. In our need for speed we often don’t take time to reflect, connect, or take good care of ourselves, much less find personal growth. Growing takes time. And personal growth takes time and reflection.
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Friday night I led a restorative yoga focus class at The Yoga Space. For the last couple of years I have put this class on the schedule once every couple of months. It’s always on a Friday. It’s usually well attended. The entire 90 minutes is focused on self care. And it’s all about stopping all the doing and allowing ourselves to be. It’s about pausing in the perpetual motion of life and staying in a pose for five or more minutes. It’s about slowing down the chatter in the mind, allowing both the body and the mind to be quiet. We stop. Pause. Reset. Participants slow down and take good care of their bodies and minds.
There have been times in my work life where I have been so busy I haven’t been able to take a bathroom break. In those times, there wasn’t any time for stopping, pausing, or slowing down. It was all doing, no being. Ultimately, it wasn’t a healthy way for me to live and I made some changes in my life. When there is a good balance of doing and having time think and ponder, to allow for both doing AND reflecting … those are the times where good ideas grow and where personal growth happens. And sometimes it takes a holiday or a special yoga focus class for some of us to slow down. Part of what yoga helps us find is balance. Balance on our feet, balance in life, balance in our thoughts. Finding balance between doing and being allows time for activity, time to think, and personal growth. I hope you find time during this holiday season to stop, pause, slow down. To find time in the busy-ness to be.
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Each week one of the teachers at the Yoga Space shares her thoughts and experiences in this blog. Pam Lindberg is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher balancing doing and being in her teaching on Tuesday and Thursday nights in her 5:45 PM classes. The Yoga Space is a studio just east of Dexter serving Dexter, Saline, Chelsea, Manchester and Ann Arbor. We have been helping people with their flexibility, strength, focus and stress management for over 14 years. Fund raising classes open to the public are scheduled on November 25 and 26. We offer a free class the last Friday of each month from 6-7 pm. 180 Little Lake Dr #1 Ann Arbor, MI, 48103. www.yogaspaceannarbor.com 734-622-9600
