Yoga Habit
For the last two weeks, I have been doing yoga each day. It started in part due to reading Better Than Before and also in part because at the time I had excruciating pain in one hip that I think was likely pregnancy-induced sciatica. So I Googled for yoga poses for sciatica and started focusing my practice on those. The relief was not instant and there were a few days that I wondered if it was making it better or worse. Two weeks later I’m pain free and can walk across the house for a glass of water without wincing the whole way. Granted, I don’t really know if that’s due to the yoga or not, but I definitely give it some credit.
Beyond that, I find it interesting how much of a difference doing specific stretches every single day makes. For years, I’ve done yoga about 1-4 times a week. Doing it every day compared to a few times a week actually makes a really big difference in terms of how flexible I am. I’ve noticed this during past streaks of daily practice too.
Doing yoga always makes me feel better. It helps my mood leaving me calmer, more relaxed, and paradoxically often more energized afterward. It makes me feel better physically leaving my body less tense and more flexible. It helps to clear my mind a little and to make me less reactive and feel less of a compulsion to click on things on my phone or watch crap on my computer.
Despite all of that, I’ve always broken my daily streaks. This time around, I put my target streak in my habit app as 365 days. I really want to stick with this.
The Library
Another habit I’ve decided I want to develop is going to the library. This is a different sort of habit and definitely not something I plan to do daily. I decided that as long as every time I go to return books I check out at least one, I’ll be ensuring that I can’t break the habit. I’ll be obligated to go back and return the new books I’ve checked out and the cycle will continue.
I love books but want to try not to collect too many. I’ve gotten rid of a lot over the last couple of years, but still have a quite a few (and they’re a pain to move!). I find having a book shelf full of books if comforting to me on some level and I’m OK with the number of books I have. Truthfully, I’ll probably keep collecting a few more really good ones here and there and perhaps finding it in me to part with others.
On the whole, it’s pretty useless to collect them. I rarely read them more than once and then they just sit there. And when I give in to the all too easy urge to order them off of Amazon, it becomes an expensive habit.
Plus, I’m thinking about the sort of mom I want to be. While I know it will be a while before the little one will really be appreciating books, I want to get him started on the library as early as possible. What better way than cementing my own routine there now?
Progress Moving
I would say that I ‘officially’ moved to Albuquerque a few weeks ago. I think moving my cats was probably the thing that really defined the change. That said, I still have a lot to do to finish up the process. There’s still stuff at my house that needs sorted and then trashed, donated or moved. There’s a few repairs that need made. There’s a realtor to find and the whole process of selling the house. It can feel a little overwhelming if I think about the big picture of it.
That said, I made some really good progress this week with dealing with the stuff aspect and also doing some cleaning at my old house. When I look at the whole moving process, there’s a lot that I’ve already crossed off the list: house hunting, signing a lease, moving furniture and the majority of my stuff, moving the cats, settling in to the new place and starting to develop community connections. Looking at it that way, I see where I’ve made major progress.
I just need to keep focusing on the next thing that needs done for it.
