The festive season has passed, and for me and the other half this year it saw us entertaining both our families on Christmas and Boxing days.
In total we had over 30 people come through our door, so this past week we’ve been catching up, cleaning up and chilling out.
The latter ‘C’ is a hard one for me.
I often find myself super busy, juggling my differing worlds of Yoga teaching and training, event co-ordinating and nurturing and growing my home and family life.
I took an unusual move of taking a proper break from the first two worlds this year over the Christmas period.
Gifting myself some time off to focus on me (& the family) and I’ll be honest it felt a little foreign.
I struggle to sit down, to stop and allow others to care for me.
Yes, I might teach all these things to others but sometimes I struggle to follow my own advice.
Having troupes of people flowing through the door over Christmas gave me another excuse to stay active, to look after others and remain busy.
And when all the guests had left, and the house was tidied my attention turned to sorting out the studio.
Feeling full of beans to finish the space, we cracked on with the painting and priming until I almost cracked open my head on the ceiling lights.
I took a nasty bang to the top front of my head, unable to open my eyes for a few minutes.
I can’t say I was seeing stars, but I could feel the imprint of the impact on my head instantly.
What followed was a nasty headache that I couldn’t shake, possibly mild concussion (as I had to take to my bed early) and continuing pain on the right side of my head ever since.
Such a simple silly mistake has forced me to slow down.
This weekend I had intended to plan all the yoga classes for January, but I’ve had to accept that I’m not going to be capable of doing this thoroughly right now.
So rather than jump back into teaching this week I’m gifting myself a week of slow planning at home. A chance to glide gracefully into the start of the year, to honour my hurting head and care for myself.
To slow down.
With the winter season deeply set in, this is the perfect balancing act to reflect what’s going on around us.
Hibernating, reflecting, and renewing and restoring our energy ready for the start of spring.
The Chinese calendar indicates that energetically the year doesn’t get going until February, so I’ll be drawing on this when planning this month’s classes.
And I’ll be making a kind intention to myself too, to allow my body to rest and heal, and to learn from the lesson the universe sent me – the need to slow down.
New Year Blessings to you all.
May 2022 start gracefully and gradually for you and bring you and your families good health, joy, and abundance (without any head injuries!)