I’ve been very absent from blogging recently.  Life has gotten pretty hectic, it always does coming up to Christmas, but especially if you work in either the retail or hospitality industry.  The past two years I’ve worked in both simultaneously!  And it seems likely to be the case again this year.  But though it may interfere with my writing (novel and blogging are both suffering!), my energy levels and hence my social life too, the one thing it most definitely isn’t going to interfere with is my yoga!

When I came home from six months in India last July, broke and missing my husband, I decided to get a job that entailed day-shifts only.  My yoga could survive early mornings no problem.  But I worried that late-night shifts would spell the end of it.

Luckily for me, my wish came true as I found the ideal day-time waitressing job that enabled me to still do markets on Fridays/Saturdays.  With only one day off a week, my writing fell way behind.  But my yoga thrived.  If I had to get up at 6 am to fit it in – easy-peasy, considering bed-time was often at 10 pm.

Then I unexpectedly returned to India for a month and when I came back to Ireland, again broke and missing Alex, suddenly finding work became incredibly difficult.  Nowhere would consider me with my day-time, mid-week odd-shift requirements.  Money was running very low, the car-tax was nearly due and I was beginning to get very stressed.

So when I popped into a local pub and inquired about work there, I decided to give it a go when they offered me a few night-shifts.  Saturday was always a day off yoga so I could stay up late Friday nights with no risk to missing my practice.  It wouldn’t be so bad, right?  Surely I could handle a couple late nights here and there and still manage everything.

Well, long-story-short, yes it was that bad and no I couldn’t handle a couple late nights.  The first night I experienced waves of heavy tiredness from about 11 pm on and cried the whole way home in the car, anxious and distraught that I was spoiling my precious yoga life-style which I had been carefully tending for the previous six months.  Not to mention, I was like a raging anti-christ all next morning during the Wednesday market – I had gone to bed at 1.30 am and had to get up at 6.30 am to fit in my yoga.  And, unused as I was to such a sleeping-pattern, I was utterly exhausted.

A few days later, I did the Friday night shift, already feeling it in my bones that pub-work and late nights belonged to a previous era whose time had long-since passed.

So I quit.  No matter what – even if I had to live off my credit card for a while and end up paying off bills for years, I couldn’t handle the exhaustion or the crankiness that resulted from my body-clock being thrown off balance by such late nights.

Somehow, the tables have since turned and my desired job has landed in my lap.  Not only can I continue my restful early nights and rise at the dawn to do yoga, I can now also afford a few sweet luxuries… a hair-cut, fancy new clothes for the first time in about a year and maybe, just maybe, I can even start to save a little.

I have never felt more sure of something being good for me than I am of my early to bed/early to rise yoga practice.  And yes, I believe my life-style of sleeping earlier is a part of the yoga that I do.  My whole life-style is influenced and affected by my yoga.  One of the important aspects of yoga is a healthy body, which of course the asanas each morning are helping to create.  But proper rest, adequate diet and so on, are a vital part of that too.

So it seems my yoga is slowly but surely seeping into other aspects of my life.  Six months into this journey, despite many challenges and obstacles along the way, it strengthens and nourishes me each time I step onto my mat.

Keep practicing, my yoga-friends, and do everything in your power to protect and care for your practice.  It will only make your life better!

Om Shanti Shanti.

Love,

Ellie