Spiral up

 

We human organisms adapt.  This allows us both to build habits and to change those habits to accommodate different circumstances.  So far, facts.

 

Now for the interpretation part:  there is good news and other news in this.  The good news is that we can ride the upward spiral of our habits.  An example?  My body now pretty much demands yoga every morning.  I don’t have to think about it or force myself to schedule it—I just start.

 

The first part of the other news is that even our good habits need to adapt.  We need to recognize that our bodies are getting stronger and increase the load on our muscles, or that our lungs and heart are working more efficiently and give them more challenge in our cardio workouts, or that our growing flexibility has made other poses more accessible to us.  We may not have to expend brain energy to get ourselves to show up anymore, but we do have to use our brains to sort out how to challenge ourselves enough.

 

The other part of the other news involves the direction of our spiral.  As much as we can build good habits, we can also build bad ones.  We need to remember that we don’t really WANT to spend the rest of our lives eating M&Ms on the couch watching cooking shows (well, maybe some of us do, but I find that stuff is better in small doses.).

 

The take-away here is that starting is the hard part.  One of the yoga mantras that speaks to me sums this up:  to begin is the victory.  Once we start, we can build fabulous things.

 

Let’s do this.