Obstacles to your practice

Often we start the day with an intent to practice yoga.  We might set this intent at the end of one day, planning that the next day we will get up early and practice.   At other times we may resolve that before the day is out we will practice.  But often, despite good intentions, time for yoga can be hard to find.  Our lives are continuously busy.  We may wake up early only to feel that we are still too tired and need extra sleep. At the end of the day we may find that we get caught at work and don’t leave early enough to practice.  When we do get home the priority may be to eat a meal or attend to the needs of the family.   In both these situations, our yoga practice gets put off.

Often, an individual is more successful at making it to a yoga class than they are at putting aside their own time to practice.  This may be because it’s easier to get to class that has a specified start time, and the time gets carved out within the week and set aside for yoga.

Each individual will have different things in their lives that make it difficult for them to find time for yoga.  This may be a particularly busy period at work or family commitments.  The other activities in our lives, can easily become a reason not to practice.  The specifics of the obstacle will be different for individuals, but for each of us there will be reasons why we find it difficult to find the time to include a practice in our day.

The obstacles we face are also time-bound.  Things that stop us from practising at this point in our lives may not always be there.  For example, we may find that an injury is impacting on our ability to practice.  The injury may make it difficult or uncomfortable to practice certain Asana or it may simply make us nervous about which asana to practice.  In time however, we may find that way find ways to practice around the injury, or we find that the injury improves.  As the injury improves this obstacle may be less prevalent and may even diminish entirely.

In Part 2 you will have the opportunity to consider the things that are specific to you that you will need to address in order to commence a regular self-directed practice.  You will also consider how you may best find ways to overcome these obstacles.

Watch the following video for a reflection on obstacles that are sometimes faced when commencing a practice of Yoga.

Reading

The following extract from BKS Iyengar’s Yaugika Manas provides further discussion on the Antaryas and how they manifest.   

Once you have read the extract, you can go to the next section where you will start to consider the obstacles to your own practice. 

Question 1

In starting your practice over the last few weeks, consider some of the things that have made it difficult for you to fit your practice into your day.  Write a paragraph describing these obstacles and also describe some of the things that have helped you in overcoming these obstacles..