Climbing Dharma Peak

I was sitting for meditation today, trying to make sure I'm paying attention to my daily practice leading up to assisting on Samarya Yoga Teaching training, and afterwards I had an interesting thought. Having just returned from a two week work/play trip and gearing up to leave for another, I'm pretty busy. I have yoga classes to plan and teach, wedding photos to edit, other photography projects to finish, and packing/unpacking among other chores. My mind was all over the place and I was having a hard time keeping my attention on my focus point. I kept drifting off to e-mails I needed to write and other to-do list items. It was hard, but also awesome to try to clear my mind for 20 minutes.

Now, I've always said I do better and am happier when I'm busy. I feel like today I learned a little bit more about why. First of all, knowing I had a lot to do I made sure to have a schedule. I woke up early, went to our favorite coffee shop for a business planning meeting with Marc, got some e-mails and editing done, worked out at the gym, ate lunch and read my current book, got more work done, and finally got in meditation right before Marc gets home for us to work together. Whew. And I still have to teach a yoga class tonight. So I'm busy and slightly stressed. Meditation is challenging. AND at the same time my thoughts are at least all positive or at least progressive. I don't have time to be sad or worried or feel sorry for myself because I have too much to get done. Stress probably doesn't have the same effect on everyone but for me, when I'm accomplishing things I feel better about life. It's easier to wake up excited for the day when I have "important" things to do. It's almost like it's easier to take care of myself when I am forced to because getting sick would derail my week.

A few weeks ago I wrote about ways that I try to live sutra 2.33. I talked about taking action towards this idea of positive thinking. I'd like to add this to this list: Action towards dreams, goals, and getting stuff done. Keeping busy, keeping moving, keeping active towards goals and dreams. If you're busy chasing your dreams and climbing your mountains there is no time for negative thinking. I love a good lazy day too, don't get me wrong. In general though I am a huge fans of work hard/play hard. Living life, sucking it dry, heading out there to see what it has to offer sure makes me a lot happier. And then I continue to attempt to clear and focus the mind, to take back control of my thoughts and reactions.

When I'm not as busy I can feel like there is no point to wake up early, no problem if I watch tv, and no reason to work hard. I fall from extremely productive to extremely lazy really easily and when I don't feel like I've accomplished anything is when I start to have negative thoughts. Which makes it harder to motivate to do anything. Setting personal and professional goals and making to-do lists to get all the things done means that I'm moving forward toward more of what I love. Sometimes being really busy sparks momentum, that's where I am right now. I'm trying to to embrace the busy, harness the momentum, and get stuff done.

Side-note: While I was traveling, I taught a class to some family the day before my mom's wedding. My mom's probably my biggest fan and was excited about having yoga as part of her wedding celebration. I threw in some partner poses for some family yoga fun.