Monday Morning Yoga

Monday is my yoga day.  I try to exercise most mornings a week and have quite the routine down with various workout videos.  Monday I practice yoga, Tuesday and Thursday I kill myself doing one of Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred workouts, Wednesday I sweat and quiver doing a Barre 3 Video, and then on the weekends I try to get outside and walk/run.

Yesterday I woke up in a rather foul mood, so yoga was more needed than ever to get me ready for the day – and for the week.  I love how yoga helps you to relax and focus, while strengthening your body and making it more flexible at the same time.  It’s spirit, mind, and body. I really needed the ‘spirit’ part yesterday, the relaxing, calming side of yoga.

Well, it all started out wonderful and relaxed.  Kate was still asleep, which is a rarity, and I set up my mat and video in the living room.  A quiet, peaceful morning with yoga.  Yesssss.

And then the weedwacker started up right outside the living room window. 

The yard guys were here to cut our grass.  Bright and early at 6:45 on Monday morning. 

Awesome.

Don’t get me wrong, I sure am glad we have ‘yard guys’ to take care of all these fast-growing tropical plants.  But I just wasn’t ready for the grating sound of the wacker this early in the morning – nor was I ready for the noxious fumes that quickly started to seep in through the window.  Especially while I was doing yoga.

So much for relaxing.

But I quickly remembered someone telling me that the best quality to have while living and working abroad is to be flexible.  So since yoga strengthens your flexibility too, maybe my focus needed to shift.  Yeah, I know, it works on physical flexibility, but I thought that perhaps I needed to let go of the intention to relax and embrace the practice of being mentally flexible instead.  And so I made up my mind right then on the yoga mat that I wasn’t going to get overly frustrated about the horrible timing and noise and fumes that the weedwacker was causing.  I would be flexible, darn it, and have a good attitude about this.

So I just moved my little yoga operation into the kitchen; farther away from the smells of gas and with a little insulation from the racket of noise.

Focus on the kitchen, not on the mid-motion, awkward yoga pose.

  Onward and upward, friends!