- Survive.
Just kidding, kind of.
Since 2016, I’ve done year-end review and goal-setting sessions between November and December to plan for the coming year. In the past, I used the Best Year Yet method, and eventually I settled into a yearly process of coming up with 10 goals. Sometimes I’d work through certain themes (family goals, financial goals, educational goals. etc.), and sometimes it was just whatever I wanted to do that year.
That worked fine when life was stable. Right now, I write this in my sister’s basement in the middle of a trial separation from my husband that I don’t think will end up being just a trial. Miracles can happen (I guess?), but I’m a “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” kind of gal, possibly to my detriment.
Because I don’t know where I’ll be living, what my marital status will be, etc., I have decided to keep it simple and focus on one thing.
Yoga has been something I’ve delved into this year more heavily because I got a part time job at a studio during my summer career break (wow, the optimism back then). Stress and heartache make me shut down to where I barely eat, sleep, or move. The other day, though, I unrolled my mat here next to my work desk setup and did about 20 minutes of asana. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel like a complete piece-of-shit human. I’m just a woman on a yoga mat, working through asana, and focusing on breath.
It got me thinking– maybe the discipline is something that will help me through the chaos of life right now. What’s more, what if I really looked into yoga philosophy?
The yoga most of us think of when we hear the word is actually “asana,” which is one of 8 “limbs.” Asana is really there to prepare you for long periods of meditation because a bunched-up, tight body doesn’t do well sitting in one position on the ground for an hour or more.
What if, in 2023, I made that my primary focus? Sure, I’ll still need to work through probably some of the most difficult times of my life and may even need to figure out how to truly live on my own for the first time ever… but what if I really focused on creating a dedicated practice?
I don’t know what that looks like yet, but that would be part of the exploration anyway. I think I could prioritize time and focus on a more fully-rounded deep dive into yoga.
Around 2005, I took a semester of yoga at my community college. The instructor did a beautiful job of teaching a room full of newbies how to build a strong asana practice, but she also got into a lot of history and philosophy. At the time, I was still living at home and was butting heads with my mother, who had recently converted to the Pentecostal vein of Christianity. I’ve had questions for religion since I was a kid, and by this time, I was even doubting my beliefs and was critical of a lot of what I was seeing in organized religion at large. I loved the discipline and ethics of yoga, and I told my mom that if I were to follow any religion (not that yoga is, but there are philosophical guidelines by which to live like many religions), it would be something like that… Evangelical Christians don’t like that, by the way.
But that conversation stuck with me, and revisiting the idea today made me remember how it resonated with me back then and how it does now.
I’m viewing this as a guideline to live a better life and be a better human. I don’t believe in deities, the afterlife, or anything like that, but I do respect some of the wisdom that has come through religion and philosophy.
So I think that’s what I’ll do– create some sort of structured practice that includes asana, but also incorporates other equally-important aspects of yoga each day, like concentration, meditation, contentment, minimalism, and doing no harm.
Next, I’ll figure out what that looks like and start writing up a plan and hoping for the best.
What is your top goal for 2023, and how to you plan to reach it?
-K