Stop making excuses and start doing yoga, says Meg Jackson
W
hat’s up there in your
‘Top 5 Reasons Why I
Can’t Do Yoga’? Get a
nasty rash from Lycra?
Incense makes you
cough? Ears bleed at the first hint of an out
of tune ‘om’? Maybe not.
I’m not going to go on a big rant about
how the most important thing anyone should
find the time for is keeping themselves
mentally, physically and emotionally healthy.
I’m also not going to remind you how if your
life is that busy, and if that many people are
relying on you to do stuff, then surely it’s
even more important that you take care of
yourself? I won’t do that because I know you
know that already.
But what I am going to do is make it harder
for you to find excuses as to why you can’t
get off you’re backside and into an asana.EXCUSE ANNIHILATOR #1:
Your bed does not control you.
Get up 10 minutes earlier and do it before
you do anything else in your day. (Apart
from putting on appropriate clothes. Trust
me – however much your partner loves
you no one wants to see you naked in aTHE EXCUSE ANNIHILATOR
NO
EXCUSES
downward dog). Leaving it ‘til later in the
day won’t work because something else will
always happen. Worse case scenario – you
do have that elusive 10 minutes later in the
day so you can do it all again. Bonus!EXCUSE ANNIHILATOR #2:
Some things in life are tough
when you start. Suck it up and
do it anyway.
Guess what? Doing new stuff for the first
time is hard. Shocker, eh? Trouble is, when
we’re grown-ups we forget what it’s like to be
so excited about something – we work and
work and work at it ‘til we can do it. Riding
a bike, learning to rollerskate, memorising
Bananarama’s whole routine to ‘Robert
DeNiro’s Waiting’ – whatever it was, we
worked for it. Nothing has changed, apart
from our attitude (and hopefully music taste).EXCUSE ANNIHILATOR #3:
Change isn’t comfortable.
For most of us, when we start out, yoga is
most definitely a predominantly physical
practice. You’re going to be using bits of
your body that probably haven’t been asked
to do very much for a fairly long time. Butthe more uncomfortable you are, the more
your body and mind fights back, and the
more you find yourself hating every moment,
the more you need this practice in your life.Excuse Annihilator #4:
It can cost you almost nothing.
Personally, I would recommend that you
get yourself a yoga mat because they’re
designed to try and stop you doing yourself
an injury a la Bambi on Ice. If you shop
around you can get really cheap ones, which
will definitely do the job when you’re starting
out. I’m talking under £15. Still can’t afford
it? Stop buying posh coffee every day on
your way to work and you’ll have it covered
in around a week. Then get on the internet.
There are so many totally free-of-charge
(and good) yoga videos out there. Yes,
learning with a teacher in the same room/
country/continent as you is ideal, but if
it’s doing this or doing nothing – you know
which one you should do.Meg Jackson is founder of Real Life Yoga, a
movement to help people bring a little (or a
lot) of yoga into their real lives (reallifeyoga.
net)om body