day two: meditation

Day two of Yoga Girl's challenge is meditation. She encourages all participants to do yesterday's theme as well as todays (for all 21 days), so I did a mini-flow before going into meditation. I tend to do a variation of this sun salutation. I don't usually do the lunge, but I do the rest. I actually have an injured nerve in my back which makes it hard to stretch my left leg (I know, sounds weird), so a lot of this I have to just change so that I don't injure myself more. Why do I call it a mini-flow? Because I only do it once, and it takes me about five minutes at the most. I tend to just pick poses I like and work on them after I do a mini-flow, usually headstands, handstands, or poses like crow (one of my absolute favourites!)

Also, a mini lesson for you. I have severe anxiety. I've had it since I can remember, but it was officially diagnosed when I was eleven. It's lead to a number of problems but the biggest is the inability to breathe. That's right, my brain and my body don't know how to breathe correctly. Basically, I'm hyperventilating all the time. I take deep breaths which sound like sighs, and it's almost like I hit a brick wall that won't allow me to get any more oxygen. It's awful, and so doing my mini-flow actually allows me to concentrate on my breathing without it being the main thing I'm concentrating on.

The reason I bring this up is because it makes meditation very difficult for me. With meditation, you are literally concentrating on your breathing the entire time. If I concentrate on my breathing, I become too aware, making it even harder to breathe, but this morning I did it anyway. I think I only made it two or three minutes before I was gasping for air, but I did it. 

In case you were wondering, taking photos of yourself is super difficult, especially as I'm incredibly judgmental of my own photos. Oh, and I had just showered, so my hair looked awful, but whatever. 

I think I'm going to try again tomorrow, but with an actual yoga pose. Maybe lotus, or maybe I'll just lay in child's pose. :)