Discipline and Commitment

I began working full-time last November and since that time the struggle has been to have the time to continue homeschooling my children, teaching yoga and practicing yoga. Needless to say, I needed to cultivate more discipline and commitment into my life in general and my practice in particular.

The culmination of this greater discipline and commitment has actually created more space in my life because I'm using every ounce of time intentionally rather than haphazardly.

During the week, I'm out of bed not later than 5:00 AM for my yoga and meditation, on the weekends, no later than 7:00 AM. This time has become imperative and sacred to me--the genesis of any good day.

Getting up that early means an early bedtime--usually 9:30 or 10:00, at the latest, to allow for a bit of personal reading, which winds me down for sleep. For the last several months, this personal reading has been my spiritual study time--not because I feel like I must but because I'm drawn to exploring my spiritual dimension and enjoy how it seeps into my daily life.

This 'bedtime' means that I must make the most of my waking time, especially when it comes to being there for my family. I involve the kids more in the preparation of dinner and we arrange for meaningful family time, whether we walk the dog together, play a game or watch a movie, we find someway of enjoying each other's company. We always have story time--usually a chapter book that we are reading together that can become an extension of our study as homeschoolers.

So now the truth?

This didn't just happen for me, nor was it easy.

Uh-uh, not even close.

Since I started working full-time I have struggled to have this time before work to practice, to have time to read to myself before bed and to have that time for family and homeschooling in between.  I know what's important to me and those elements shape the foundation of a happy Tina--they are the 'core'.

There were a lot of days where I didn't practice because I was too tired to get out of bed...but I'd feel it by day's end, which encouraged me to assure that 'those' days were fewer and fewer.

There were many days where the kids had little direction from me for their lessons and our studies were sporadic and fragmented. This created a real come-to-Jesus moment for me, where I had to ask myself what's really important here?

I knew the answer--I was passionate about continuing to homeschool the kids, therefore, something had to give or I would let them down on a monumental level.

These insights and my personal rehabilitation following surgery resulted in shuffles and re-shuffles until I settled into a schedule that mirrored what I held dear to me. A schedule with time for the most important elements of what I considered to be a 'good' day.

But most importantly...hell, paramount to all of this is the compassion I show myself when the pieces don't fall into their neat little cubbies because sometimes they don't and if I come unglued, I defeat everything that I work so hard to cultivate.

Namaste'