Writing on my mat

My original mat was a Wal-Mart special, and after about six weeks of daily use and a good deal of time in my hot car, it was beginning to disintegrate. I went to a great shop in Nashville and invested a bit in a beautiful new mat. I hated it. It was too spongy and made my feet hurt. It was also a bit slippery, and that was the last thing this balance challenged yogi needed.

There are so many kinds of mats available. Many are like a life time investment. Some are clever, others are really cute. I didn't want to make another poor investment (luckily my daughter was thrilled to be gifted the expensive mat). Back to Wal-Mart. I bought a mat just like my first one, but I upgraded from gray to a rosy pink.

Often during yoga, I have wished I had written instructions, or diagrams to help me keep everything straight. I had thought about putting sticky notes all around my mat to help me remember to breathe, stretch, align...I could go on and on. There is so much to remember! So, I got out a Sharpie and wrote three things on the top of my mat:

"my mat, my time, my body, my practice" (this is helpful when I feel old and clutzy)

"no judgement" (I wrote this because I really hope it is true)

"breathe" (if I forget this I'm in big trouble!).

At my next yoga class, I realized that it had really helped me focus on these things to have them right in front of me.

I was also feeling proud of my accomplishment of approaching 100 days of continuous practice. I was getting close to the goal, so I added tally marks on the side of my mat. As of this writing there are 125. I like seeing this in ink.

I added the phrase from what I an now calling my yoga song "I get a little bit stronger". Then, things would just come to mind every now and then. I was having a dickens of a time with the balance pose the call Tree (I have another name for it that I won't mention). I wrote the scripture from Psalm 1, "you will be like a tree firmly planted" - so I was inspired to be planted and solid in more ways than on my mat.

There's a few more - some that show a bit of my struggle with yogi philosophy. Later......