Finding balance...
A few times before I've mentioned here that I've been seeking balance between work, life, and yoga (yes, for me, the scale has more than 2 sides, so maybe it's more like juggling). It's a challenge that I've been facing, since I began to teach yoga. As a new teacher, and I've been told that even with more experience, it can be hard to find a balance between your yoga teaching practice and your personal practice. Before I embarked on my teacher training journey, I was in the studio 5 or 6 days a week. There were even some days that I would double-up and take two classes back-to-back. When I started my training and then began to teach, I found it harder and harder to come to my own mat and I'm continuing to work on coming back with more consistency.
This week I made a change to help me find balance. For the last 7 months, I had been a teaching assistant in one of my favorite yoga classes. I used to take the yoga 2 every Monday night, but when I started to assist it, my options changed: the earlier class – the 5:30 – which I'm not always able to make it to or the 8:45, which I tried for a few weeks and realized it was just too late for me. I also began teaching regularly at the studio (3 classes that I absolutely love teaching). Life has also picked up (hanging out with friends, visiting family, finding time for baking, knitting, art journaling, etc.), so even the few days that were completely open for my practice began to disappear.
So, this week, I made a change. I made the difficult decision to stop assisting the yoga 2 on Mondays to assist a class on Wednesday nights (which I'm thrilled about and is such a great opportunity). The change reduces my teaching and assisting commitment to 2 days a week and frees up my Mondays for my personal practice – at whatever time I would like. The change was an important step for me in a never-ending journey to balance all the important aspects of the bigger picture – work, life, and yoga. I'm excited to see how this change helps me on this journey and what other changes I might start to make as a result. How often will I practice? Will the time of my practice change (maybe I'll make a 6:45 AM class once a week)? And how will all the changes impact me overall? Will I feel different? I'm excited to see and over time write more about my journey to find balance.
What have you done in your life to find balance? What changes have you made in order to align work, life, and other things with your current priorities?