Monday, January 13, 2014

40 Days to Personal Revolution: Week 1 Wrap Up

Tomorrow is my last day of week 1, so I thought it would be a good time to check back and see how week 1 of my 40-day Personal Revolution has been coming along.  
this is the wall outside my yoga studio, it says "you are beautiful"

Amazingly I have actually done everything I was supposed to do, including meditating twice a day for 5 minutes each. 

So far the meditating is going pretty well, it is not difficult at all for me to do it in the morning, a little more difficult to find time away to do it in the evening (I prefer to do it when no one else is in the apartment, so it's hard for me to motivate myself and to focus when Nick is home), but 5 minutes is really a cake-walk when it comes to meditating.  However, I can tell that this is really going to be the biggest challenge for me moving forward.  Next week is 10 minutes twice a day and the program builds to 30 minutes twice a day by the end... woof! That is a big time commitment - and I would be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated by it!

I think the thing that will help the most will be finding good guided meditation tracks because staying present, with a clear mind for 5 minutes is definitely doable - but I really don't know how I'll be able to handle 30... I guess that is why the program takes it's time building up from 5, so I am going to really try to stick with it and see if this meditation thing is all it's cracked up to be. 

As I mentioned in my last post, the theme of this week was presence, and I did work really hard to try and be more present in my daily life this week.  The biggest thing for me was to make a conscious decision to keep my phone tucked away instead of out in front of me all the time - because I think my phone and iPad are really the biggest hurdles I have to being present most of the time.  Another thing I focused on was trying to really be present during life's most mundane points, which is when I tend to check-out the most: running errands (for example, standing in line at the post office - try to be present AND not be annoyed... now that is a challenge for any zen master), sitting on my couch with Nick, trudging through emails at work... really trying not to let any moment slip by unnoticed.  It's definitely a challenge and I certainly didn't succeed in every moment in the last week, but I think even a small change in perspective and presence is a success.  I expect that being present all the time is a life-long challenge that I don't think anyone can accomplish in just 7 days. 

Whether it was just the excitement of the first 5 days, the meditation, the food diary we  are all supposed to keep, or simply the active practice of being present, I definitely notice that I am already making better food choices and being much more mindful of what I am putting into my body. I didn't make any big changes this week, but I am gearing up for the second week which focuses on incorporating more whole foods into my diet and avoiding processed foods. 
One of my "green monster" smoothies I've been drinking: spinach, an orange, and apple, pineapple, coconut milk, arbonne fiber boost, arbonne digestion plus w/ probiotics, flax seeds, and chia seeds.. YUM!

Of course, my favorite part of the whole thing is all the yoga I get to do. I took a day off on Saturday (since we are supposed to be giving ourselves one day off per week), but have still done 6 yoga classes in 5 days - I doubled up on Wednesday and Sunday.  I would pretty much spend all day doing Yoga if I could, I love it so much! Typically I ride my bike to Yoga, but it's been cold and snowy, so I've been using Denver's Car2Go to bop around the city and it is so fun and easy to use, I love it (PLUS look how freakin' cute the thing is!)

Anyway, I think week one was a success - I am still super excited about everything and am pretty proud of myself for sticking to it for 5 whole days! haha. Hopefully our weekly meetings and this blog will help me to stay committed for the next 35 - I have a feeling as time goes on it will become more and more challenging to stick to it. 

That's all for now, see you soon and Namaste! :-) 


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