Just Another Manic Monday...

One of my "to-do" lists for this week...

Although in my "new" yoga life I no longer dread and detest Mondays (yay!), I still find them to be busy, stressful days simply due to the fact that I always have--Monday's always hold a long to-do list for the week, and therefore I put extra pressure on myself to get lots of things done in order to ease up my time and ensure that the entire week doesn't stay so stressful. Doesn't make much sense, does it? I often wonder why we let Monday get us down so much (or stress us out), and I think that much of it is just the result of the cumulative cultural energy surrounding this day...we've let Mondays become these days that we dread, when often they could be seen as a fresh start to a brand new and exciting week, or as a day that holds many possibilities. I know that I'm trying to start looking at them in this way!

Often, it helps me to read a passage that puts things into perspective on Mondays, to remind myself that we're all just living and trying to do our best at it each and every day. This week, I wanted to share a quote from Living Your Yoga by Judith Lasater:

Many of us have a negative reaction to the word practice, probably because it reminds us of being coerced into piano lessons or some other detested activity in childhood. For me, practice has a different meaning. It is the consistent willingness to open to life in all of its joy and pain. This definition certainly includes what you have always thought of as your yoga practice, such as poses, breathing exercises, and meditation. But is also casts a wider net to encompass frustration with your temperamental car, the argument you had with your friend, washing your dinner dishes, and your apprehension about an important meeting. In order words, to practice is to pay attention to your whole life: your thoughts, your bodily sensations, and your speech and other actions. As you do, you will discover that nothing is separate from anything else. Thoughts are the sensations of the mind just as sensations are the thoughts of the body. Each moment of your life is a moment of potential practice.

How can you apply this message to your overall outlook on Mondays? To your outlook on today? How about paying attention to your thoughts, your body, your speech, your emotional state today, and try to discover what and why you're feeling or acting the way that you are. How can you make small changes to tweak your overall state of mind, or the way that you approach the most dreaded day of the week? These are all questions I'm asking myself, and that I hope to answer in my own life in order to ease the pressure and learn to embrace Mondays.

Remember, "each moment of your life is a moment of potential practice." So here's to a happy and healthy Monday--one full of possibilities and hope :)

Namaste,
Mary Catherine

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