Forty Days to Personal Transformation by Baron BaptisteBaron Baptiste is a yoga teacher and has been practicing for a long time - both his parents were yoga instructors and had the first yoga school in San Francisco. His book gives insightful quotes and an ethos about personal transformation as he reflects on his own grabbing hold of his life and making change. A colleague from work lent me this book when I was telling her how I wanted to grab hold of my own life after the turbulence attending the move from Australia to Hong Kong, finishing my MA and getting a new job. Plus all the other things you can imagine shifting to a megatropolis from a big country town (Brisbane). The book is divided into weeks and helps build up a yoga practice from 20 minutes to 90 minutes over the 40 days.
Today I began. And looking quite pleased with myself here, I felt like I was in action, rather than being acted upon.
The image below is from yesterday, when I was contemplating what it was going to be like starting the yoga transformation. I felt pretty happy, like order may be restored in my chaotic life and strength, hope and courage would follow.
Baron has a list of questions to ask oneself each day or so during each new week transformation plan. Today's question was: How much responsibility am I taking to learn and grow from the experiences, both easy and difficult, that I have in my life? The image above in blues, greens, purples, tinges of black, yellow, orange and red, is an image that came from contemplating that question. It represented the voices speaking to me that I need to ignore (negative self talk and other negative voices), my lack of grounding, a need to connect and feel solid, acceptance of the situation I find myself in and not worrying about the expectations of others. Values that emerged were; self acceptance, vulnerability, strength, hope, courage, determination and fun.
The challenges I faced were being tired from a late night and needing resolve to start the 40 days, being tired and trying to practice a new yoga sequence, lack of physical flexibility and the trepidation that I might not make it. But it doesn't matter if I do or don't, I am doing my best each day to get insight and flexibility inside and out. Day one can be considered a success.
No comments:
Post a Comment