What You Can Discover From 30 Days of Yoga
Namaste, January. Every single day last month, I made time to get to my mat and find flow — for as little as 15 minutes and as much as 2 hours.
Actually, I take that back. There were two days during my 30-day yoga journey where I got no yoga in. Both were full days in all senses — I worked out, played with my kids in the snow, took the little one to a playdate, visited my parents, and snuck in an impromptu date night with my husband. I fell asleep in my 4-year-old’s bed and when I woke up, groggy and disoriented, my mat was the last thing on my mind.
But 15 minutes later, lying in my own bed and drifting off to sleep, I remembered.
CRAP. When I say I’m going to do things. I do them to a T.
I contemplated getting back out of bed, firing up YouTube, and getting it done.
And then I exhaled deeply, rolled over, closed my eyes and went to sleep.
This 30-day yoga journey wasn’t about getting it done. There’s no perfection to be found here, and no gold stars for completing daily practice. It’s about healing my body day by day. It’s about discovering that I can ask my body to do hard things … but I also have give my body kindness.
I have pushed my body this past month. I ran 1 mile outdoors every day. I’ve gotten back into twice-weekly hard HIIT workouts with Body Back. I can do these things because I have a foundation of strength that yoga is building. I can push myself harder because I’m also taking the time on my mat each day to stretch it back out and slow it back down.
There is balance in my body that I’ve never found before. I’m learning to bend so that I don’t break.
Here are 10 more things you can discover from 30 days of yoga:
You will get stronger.
Unquestionably, daily practice has built muscle tone in some of the areas where I’ve always felt weak — my shoulders, my hips, my glutes, and my core in particular. It’s apparent when I bend deeper into a lunge or squat. I feel it when a plank or a bear crawl hold doesn’t end in shaking as quickly as it once did.
It’s a subtle strength though. I don’t think my body has visually changed much during 30 days of yoga. My arms don’t have particularly more definition, and my stomach is light-years away from a six-pack. Instead, I think of “yoga strength” as that deep, layered strength that gives you the confidence to know: You’ve got this.
And you do.
You will get more flexible.
During an N2 power class last week, I came dangerously close to sliding into legitimate half splits. Not just hovering awkwardly on my hands, hoping desperately it would be over soon, but actually sliding my leg down to meet my mat. That’s flexibility I’ve never had before.
This increased flexibility surprised me because I had previously been practicing yoga once a week for about a year, and while I had always hoped to see a change in flexibility, it never really came. Now, my hips open up without cracking. At the beginning of the 30 days, I needed blocks on the highest setting to support my knees for Baddha Konasana. Slowly I was able to walk the blocks down to the medium setting, then the lowest setting, and now I don’t need props at all in this feet-together, knees-wide pose. That’s the power of daily practice.
Your ability to breathe will improve.
When I first started, my breath didn’t come naturally at all. I was practically gasping on my inhales in a quest to lengthen them, and my exhales were a mere fraction as long as the inhales. Sometimes I’d get dizzy. I was forcing the breath instead of connecting to it.
With daily practice, the rhythm becomes easier. My inhales and my exhales have lengthened significantly, so much so that sometimes I’m still inhaling even after the exhale has been cued. And I can find that peaceful rhythm within a few breaths, instead of needing minutes upon minutes to get there.
Your postures will come easier and you can go deeper.
When strength and flexibility unite, the postures that used to throw you off seem less challenging. There’s beauty in the surrender: you trust your body to hold you where you need to be.
Tree. Eagle. Crow. Half moon. Balancing stick. Anything where you need balance and/or quad strength. These are the postures where I can now find my edge and breathe into it. Do I still fall out of them? Absolutely. Is my Crow a 1-second hold? Yes. But for that one second — I fly.
None of these things will seem as important as they did when you started.
I started this journey hoping that I might be a few steps closer to holding a headstand when I finished. I wanted to build strength and flexibility in my hips and glutes so that I could resume running without pain. I had specific goals on a mental checklist, and I was ready to check them off on Day 30.
Now I know it’s not about the milestones or the physical accomplishments. Simply showing up for yourself on a daily basis is enough.
Some days you will find flow.
Some days on your mat, it just clicks. Your body feels strong, your spirit feels centered, and for a minute you understand exactly what it means to connect to your breath. You stop thinking about the precise movements. In fact, you pretty much stop thinking altogether, and just move where your body takes you.
That’s flow. It comes a little easier to me now, especially in the studio. But even in my living room, surrounded by total chaos, I found it too. One Sunday afternoon, I did my daily practice while both boys were hanging out watching their tablets. It wasn’t the most meaningful practice of my life, but even I was surprised at my newfound ability to block out their whining and questions and focus on my breath.
Some days will still feel hard.
But many times during the past four weeks, I’ve come to my mat tired … stressed … preoccupied. It shows in my practice. On those days, my balance is precarious at best, and I teeter through even the most basic one-legged postures.
It’s OK. It can feel hard, and you can do it anyway, and you can do it again the next day. That’s precisely why it’s called practice.
You will be more intentional with movement, on and off the mat.
Daily practice has made me more away of my body and how I move. When I do other workouts, I focus on my form and I intentionally use my breath to work the muscles harder but correctly. On my yoga mat, I’m conscious of the little tips I’ve picked up this month — spiraling my outer arms forward in down dog, for example, or visualizing peeling my hips back rather than just shooting my butt up into the air.
I’d like to think I’m a little more graceful as well but let’s be real — it’s 30 days of yoga, not a miracle.
You will think and feel deeper, on and off the mat.
I’ve drawn into myself a little more during the past 30 days as part of the journey. I’ve felt rawer and more emotional. I also feel more connected. I’m seeing synergy where I’ve never taken the time to notice it before.
The final day of practice with Adriene was a sound-off, no cues freestyle practice. It was this practice where I realized how visually beautiful yoga can be. When you embrace the grace and strength of your own body without rules or restrictions, it’s like a dance. As cliche as it sounds, I was moved to tears when the final quote came on the screen:
You will want more.
Thirty days is over and the Yoga With Adriene Home journey has come to an end, but I don’t want to stop.
The cycle of give-and-take within myself is the most important realization I’ve come to on my mat this month. And the lesson applies so much further beyond my own body. We need to give back what we take — to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the universe. We need to bend so we don’t break — giving ourselves the same grace that we give to others without even thinking about it.
I want to keep going on this yoga journey in 2020. I want to continue to cultivate the strength that yoga practice builds, and I want to continue to focus on self-love. That’s what this practice has ignited for me this month: I’ve come back “home” to myself and found that I can love my “now,” even while continuing to work toward goals for self-improvement.
In February and beyond, I plan to intentionally carve out time to come to my mat every day. And if I can’t get to my mat some days, I want to breathe deeply at the end of the day and know that I’ve done my best. That — the breath, the forgiveness, the love and grace — is yoga.
Have you tried yoga? What’s your favorite posture or pose? I love how strong and graceful I feel when I go deep in Dancer. Leave a comment below or connect with me on social to tell me yours!
While you’re on Insta, hop over to my blogger bestie Meg’s @nofomomma account and give her a follow too. Her #nofomommayogi group helped keep me focused and committed during the 30 days, and her empowering-but-also-totally-real feed keeps me inspired daily.
I hope you’ll keep following my journey of wellness, fitness, and creative motherhood on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook for more inspiration and ideas.
