I have 30 days until my 30th birthday. I’ve set out to reset during these next 30 days with my main intention of feeling the best I ever have as I blow out the candles and make a wish into my 30th year. 

My main idea was to do 30 minutes of yoga, for 30 days, until my 30th birthday. But I’ve added on a few other daily goals that I know from experience make me feel good. 

• Drink a full water bottle first thing in the morning (obsessed with this Owala water bottle!)
• No gluten/dairy
• Guasha everyday (you don’t need an expensive guasha but I do recommend a nice oil to help! I have been loving the Sunday Riley CEO Glow Oil)

I could have added quite a few more: walk everyday, journal everyday, read every night; but I don’t want to set myself up to be overwhelmed so I focused on just a couple of manageable goals, with yoga being the star of the show. 

With this, I revisited a blog I wrote in 2020 as I was doing my yoga teacher training to reflect on some of my learnings. A lot of them still apply today so I thought it would be inspiring to pull them out of the archives as I embark on the next 30 days of being a student again. 

Below are (almost) the exact words I wrote 3+ years ago:

⁃ Accept failure: You are going to fall out of posture, you might not be able to hold that three-legged plank for as long as you want to.  Chin-stand? More like face plant. Who cares! Get up and try again. The person next to you isn’t looking at you and they don’t care about what you are doing. Take this lesson into your everyday life. Treat your headspace like you do your mat and challenge yourself, fail, get up and try again, change up your position. Whatever it is, just learn and move on from it.

⁃ Don’t have expectations: I used to go into my practices and my intention would be to not take a break, to get into an inversion, to burn more calories than last class. Expectations lead to unnecessary failures, the ones you set yourself up for (I know I’m contradicting myself but there is a difference). Instead, go in open minded, accept the practice for what it is and with that, accept how you flow throughout- breaks and all. I’ve been bringing this into my daily life as well. If I go to work and expect it’s going to be a day without any bumps in the road, I get mad when something goes wrong. If I come home and expect that Sam has done the dishes but he didn’t have time because he had a busy day too, who cares? Why get upset about it? Don’t have expectations because you are filling your mind with possibilities of what the future might hold and guess what, you can’t control it.

⁃ Listen to your body: Yes push yourself, finish the ab series, try to flow through chaturanga instead of going right to down dog, take a break and then take a sip of water and get back into it quickly. Push yourself because that’s how you’ll overcome your mind and change your body. Where there is challenge, there is change. Now, don’t force a back bend when you know you already have a kinked back. Don’t try the shoulder stand because the girl next to you is doing it and you know you need supported blocks and *time* to get into it. I went into the new year with expectations of myself that I would practice daily but guess what that’s unrealistic because sometimes my body needs a break. Sometimes I am so exhausted or not feeling great and so I choose to rest. I listen to my body and instead I walk or I take a bath. It’s healthier for my mind and my body to do what feels right.

⁃ Respect the space around you: Okay this seems obvious in a hot yoga class with 60 other people, so this is more one that I’ve really taken away from class and practiced in my daily life. And more so than respecting space, just being aware of the space around me and acting kindly to those around me. When we say “namaste” at the end of class we are saying “the divine in me respectfully recognizes the divine in you”. How amazing is that? Not that I’m going to be walking around saying namaste to every person I see, but I’m going to recognize them and just respect them because….um well we’re human so why be anything but kind?

I’m excited to reflect at the end of my 30 day journey to see what other lessons my yoga practice brings me. More to come!

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