It started back in October when I banged my elbow and gave myself an injury. I had to lay off weight training but could still exercise via yoga, spinning, running and of course I could still sit on my cushion.

I did during all of November and December up until Christmas, and then everything began to slide

It started off missing a few meditations whilst on holiday and out of my ‘normal’ routine, and continued to decline throughout the whole of January. Yes I was out of my comfort zone and staying in hotels etc…but this does not normally sideswipe me.

I was aware of it happening and decided at some point along the line to see where it wanted to go, and conduct a kind of experiment….

I remember throughout the last 20 years of yoga and meditation practice that the motivation for it ebbs and flows (although this hasn’t been the case for me for the last four or five years, it’s been ongoing in its ease); some days / weeks / months it is effortless, whilst at other times there is great resistance to do that which we know will help us. Why is this though?

We all know that we need to exercise this body of ours
We all know that eating live nutritious foods is going to give us optimum health
We all know that drinking copious amounts of booze is only going to damage us on every level
We all know that calming the mind and living from a place of contentment is of greater value to our well-being than running around like headless chickens

SO WHY DO WE RESIST?

Why do we deny ourselves the best of everything?
I asked this question and decided to see what would happen for myself if I ceased some of the things that have become second nature to me

The Results….

It was very very interesting
What I realised is that actually I am meditating ALL OF THE TIME anyway
I think when you have rewired your brain to such an extent, it is permanent and you NEVER go back to the beginning (this is very good news)
So in that respect the experiment didn’t make much difference to me
HOWEVER
I felt like I had put the brakes on my evolution / expansion and I really don’t like that feeling
And this made me itch to get back on my cushion, for there is an innate desire that I have for full self-realisation

For me the motivation to sit on my cushion was there
BUT
Life began to get in the way of it
I began to do ‘other’ things at the time I usually meditate, which of course, became the new habit
SO
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meditate, more that I just kind of got out of the habit of doing it 😱

This really really really really shocked me
….how EASY it was to get out of the habit of doing something that I love (this is the bad news)

However, I reminded myself of times in the past when I’ve had great resistance to meditating
This is important:

WHEN YOU GO BACK TO IT, IT IS EVEN MORE FULFILLING THAN BEFORE

So please, if you are going through a meditation drought right now
Do not worry
It will pass
And my advice would be to journal about WHY you are resisting
Let the cycle happen
Set a clear date in the near future to begin again
And then let it all go
STOP stressing out about it!

⬇️ 

The physical results were much more alarming
My body from lack of exercise was not happy
I began to feel aches and pains that I hadn’t had in years

Yes my elbow was healing but the rest of me fell apart!
I felt sluggish
Slow
I wasn’t sleeping as well as usual
And I hated it

I realised that I was holding my breath a lot
What the frig was that all about?
Well, my friend, that is stored up energy with nowhere to go
I could literally feel myself clogging up
Shutting down
Closing

So
The experiment was a huge success
It has driven me back to my mat and cushion this weekend 😍
I’ll go running again this week too
It has felt SO GOOD to open up again
Like a flower to the sun
It has felt natural and vital for my sanity

And I wanted to tell you about what I’ve been up to
Because maybe you are also feeling the pull back from what you know you want to do
BUT
Get rid of the ‘shoulds’ right now
They don’t belong in your life

Exercise:
If yoga, or running, or the spinning that I so love are not for you then find what exercise is and do that
Don’t do something because you ‘should’
That will only buy you more stress and lead to more resistance
What exercise do you love?
What gets you motivated?
What can you fully commit to?

Meditate:
Maybe you mediate in silence
Perhaps you listen to one of my recordings
Or what about doing a search on YouTube for something different?
WORK OUT WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!
And do that

Get excited about it
And do some more
Get into a new healthy habit
And watch as the cycle ascends
I’ve used the image in this graphic before, and it demonstrates that YOU DO NOT GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING, rather you begin a new cycle; the origin at 1 and moving upwards, even though it sometimes feels that we are starting from scratch we are not, we are simply at the onset of a new cycle

So no beating yourself up
No self-flagellation
Acknowledge and move on
I hope this blog has helped YOU get unstuck….

Member Quote Of The Day.

Read here something that has been said by one of the Quantum Sobriety Online Programme members over in our lively private forum: