Putting it All Together
At this point in your journey, you have the tools to design a full spectrum, sacred practice, aka Sadhana, suited to your personal needs: physical, emotional, and spiritual. But to narrow it down to a practice you can actually manage to do every day, (or at least most days!) might seem daunting! There are so many poses, so many pranayamas, so many meditations and mantras…. you could spend hours practicing every day! But who has time for that, right?
To culminate this yoga immersion, I want you to feel confident about creating a home practice that works for you, and that you can realistically fit into your day, AND feel excited about!
So I’d like you to get out your journal, and jot down your responses to these questions:
How much time can you commit on a daily basis to be on your mat?
What time of day is most appropriate for your personal practice?
What are your long term imbalances based on your body, old or current injuries, habits, repetitive movements, or tendencies you know you have (sitting, walking, standing)? Based on your answers to that question, what are some movements/asanas that will help you to stretch tight areas, strengthen weak spots, and bring awareness to body parts that you know you lack awareness of most of the time?
What do you most struggle with energetically and emotionally? Do you tend to feel anxious, depressed, nervous, distracted, lethargic, bitter, etc? Do you have trouble sleeping, or rising in the morning? When do you tend to experience these things the most? Based on your answers, what 2-3 movement meditations, pranayamas, seated meditations, or mantras have felt MOST beneficial to you?
Based on our module about Ayurveda, what did you learn about your dosha that informs how you should structure your sadhana?
What poses bring you the most joy? What poses calm you the most? What poses feel challenging but necessary at the same time?
Based on your reflections, begin to design your personal practice using this Personal Practice Outline. Print a few copies, use a pencil, PRACTICE while you are doing it, and realize that this is just a first draft! You will continue to work on it in the next 2 modules.
The Personal Practice Outline is based on the structure I have been sharing throughout this immersion. There are a number of ways you can modify it as I have mentioned, such as skipping the yang section, moving the core work to after the yang, incorporating the backbends throughout practice, changing where you place an inversion or skipping inversions. But I strongly recommend keeping the Opening Meditation, Warm Up, Cool Down and Closing Segment as shown. Don’t feel intimidated, this is a work in progress, and this is just ONE personal practice outline of many that you can create, practice, modify, release, and move on from!