Slipping into your tiniest two-piece or showing off your perfect pecs (dudes) on the beach is usually the last thing on our minds during the holiday season. Why worry about flat tummies when everywhere there are festive holiday cookies, pies, dinners, and fancy cocktails? That's what fuzzy sweaters are for, right, to cover up our winter weight? Sweaters and shoes, they look good and always fit!
May is going to roll around and all the magazines are going to be flooding us with the latest "Beach Body" workout. Only problem is, it will be too late! These magazines could save all the trees they've sacrificed for these glossy pages by simmering it down to one inconvenient truth. You should have thought about it in December!
Now, I'm not a Yoga Nazi. I won't scold you if you have a few extra cookies or drinks, as long as you try your best to stay away from high fructose corn syrup, because that stuff will kill you! I'm simply proposing an added awareness to our behaviors, especially around the holidays when we have every excuse in the book ranging from happiness, sadness, family drama, depression, celebration, and more to treat our bodies like garbage disposals.
One of my favorite teachers is Osho, mainly because he liked to push people's buttons just to get them to think and live outside of their comfort zone. He has some interesting information to share on awareness.
"Meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation."
This idea of bringing awareness to our lives seems like a good idea, right? We'll gain a productive, enjoyable, reflective life, and be able to extend compassion, empathy, and joy to others. That seems like a pretty good deal. Plus with a little awareness maybe we won't stuff ourselves to the point of misery! We can enjoy the pleasures of food without killing ourselves.
But, we'll probably eat too much this month anyway, it's impossible to resist! Try out this yoga video aimed at getting things moving now so we can avoid the nervous breakdown in May.