Episode 30: PERSEVERANCE PRACTICE CHALLENGE

Talking truth about "self-improvement" as it relates to health, overall wellness, and expressing the truest version of you. This is Marta Mrotek with Something Honest…..

Creating a new habit can be difficult under the best circumstances, but it is especially difficult when you’re already in the middle of a challenging situation or if you’re just in the middle of a really busy life. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about how to make time for yourself and how to keep going when you just can’t seem to find the energy for anything, but the point for me and for you is that sometimes life gets messy. And sometimes you have to prioritize yourself.. your own health, your own needs and wants, and your own problems, and that’s not always an easy thing to do.

So in today’s episode, we’re going to start working on creating a practice for Perseverance to keep you on track, and because the last episode was so focused on the importance of making time for taking care of yourself, we never got around to the subject of daily inventory. So we’re gonna switch things up a little bit. I do have a short yoga story for you, and we will talk about the physical part of this practice briefly. And then, instead of the usual meditation ritual at the end, we’re gonna talk about the importance of rituals in creating new habits and how you can actually turn the process of taking inventory into a ritual that inspires every part of your ongoing practice.

Now, whether you’re into the yogic posturing or not, the pose for perseverance is Vrksasana, or tree pose. And most people can apply it mentally pretty easily because trees carry such deep and varied symbolism in so many different traditions. Their meaning for us can come with reminders to keep growing, or to stay strong or flexible. Or maybe to branch out in new directions, or even as a promise of shelter and protection when you need it. But for me, healing is always at the center of the message for tree. That’s the archetype for this principle. The healer. It’s the one that reminds us we were made to grow, even through difficulty and sometimes even through painful experiences, and that.. that kind of growth usually takes some time.

There are actually a few stories behind this pose, but my favorite is from the Ramanyana with a queen named Sita who was abducted by the devilish king, Ravana, and after somehow managing to refuse to spend a single night in his palace she went to live outside sheltered under a nearby Ashoka tree, which means the tree without sorrow, it’s the tree that that takes away the sorrow and heals.  And as Sita sits quietly, the trees speak to her, encouraging her to learn from their example and stay steady and patient with them. So she sits with her back against that tree, focused on her desire to survive and to be reunited with her true king, Rama. And while she waits there, tormented daily by the threats of Ravana’s servants, she stays calm and focused and refuses to give up her place of refuge under that great big tree, and in time her fear and grief were lifted, and by the time she was finally rescued, she had already been healed, and she was stronger.

Physical Practice

And when we start talking about how to perform the physical posture, it usually starts in mountain. Already standing strong and steady, challenging your balance by bringing 1 foot up to rest on the inside of the opposite ankle, shin, or thigh, there are variations for all different levels of experience and all different kinds of things that you can do with your arms or hands in this one. And when I'm teaching, and we get to tree pose, and I look out across a class full of people, like a forest, with everyone kind of doing their own thing at that point in the practice, expressing themselves in all different kinds of ways. I can't help but remind them and myself that, like those trees, we've all got our own things that we’re working on, we’re all at different stages in life and different phases of the process, but we’ve all got everything we need somewhere inside ourselves to weather any storm if we keep looking for it. We do know how to heal ourselves, and we were made to grow, and if we keep looking for even the smallest amount of good in our lives, and cultivate the healing habits, and stay focused on that as much as you can, concentrating that energy, you can make that grow too… And at some point, the storm will pass, and you will have learned something about yourself, and you’ll be even stronger than you were before.

The hand gesture for perseverance is Hakini mudra, the seal of concentration, and if you line all your fingers up, touching the tips of the fingers and thumbs of both hands together to form a triangular or even almost like a diamond shape, you’ll have a very common hand position that I think people often take naturally when they’re concentrating their attention and that really is it’s purpose here as you really are working to concentrate your focus with the concentration ritual.

Concentration Ritual

And I want to go back to the idea of starting rituals and why we apply them. The purpose is to send a message to your brain that this is what we’re doing now. Because you can train your thinking just like you train your body, and since now we’re talking about the ongoing practice and creating habits that last, we are doubling down on the part where you’re setting that new way of thinking that leads to new behavior. You’ll still want a notebook and a comfortable place to sit, and you can still apply the hand gesture with a few slow, deep breaths before you begin. But there are all kinds of things that you can do to turn this time every day into a form of meditation.

In the last episode, we were writing about anything that still needs to heal, and the things that you need and want to do for yourself, and the real secret to turning any of those things into a habit that lasts is to make them special. We’re looking for a way to tell your brain that what you are about to do is important to you, and that it’s not just about something you want to eventually attain at some point in the future. This is something that you want to do for you right now and something that you want to keep doing, because you know it’s good for you. Doing it becomes the payoff. And that has to apply to hard things too, because sometimes the hard things are what’s best for you.

That’s where making some form of daily inventory an ongoing practice steps in to make looking at some of those daunting tasks on your list of things to do something special that you do for you. And you can make it meaningful and even enjoyable by making it a ritual. You could go back to the practice challenge for courage and see the steps that we took for taking a personal inventory, but that’s not really what we’re doing here. There is an aspect of looking back over your day and writing about anything that you did to harm someone else, and certainly to admit any feelings that you have about something that someone may have done to harm you, but you can also apply an inventory as a way to track your progress on any goal, reevaluate your task list and make plans for tomorrow.

And the reason why this is one of the most important habits to cultivate is because it will help fuel all of the other habits that you want to create and help you get motivated to go out there and do any of the things that you’ve been putting off, so that you can walk through life without carrying this great big list of mental baggage. And you wanna do it every day because that mental list is always changing. There might be some important things that you’ve been wanting or needing to do for a long time, and if they sit there in your mental list without any action for long enough, you might just forget about them. And there might be some of those things that immediately start ignoring or denying that almost automatically fly under the radar, so this really is the time to see what happened today clearly and start making a plan for taking action. And that doesn’t mean that this is a time to beat yourself up for anything that you didn’t do today or to stir the emotion of anything that went wrong. This is just the time to get it out of your head and onto a piece of paper that you can actually walk away from when you’re done with a little more clarity and maybe a plan for what you want to do and what needs to be done. Then you can come back to it tomorrow and see how it went.

At this point, you’re just looking for something to get you started when it feels hard to begin, and something to keep you going when it feels easy to quit. And that’s where the ritual steps in. And it doesn’t have to be something long and complicated. My favorite rituals take less than a minute, and some only take a few seconds. If you go back through all of the challenge episodes, there have already been so many ideas that you can apply in just a few slow deep breaths … maybe with an affirmation or a hand gesture that means something to you. But you could turn this into a complete daily practice with a ritual that gets you up to stretch, and breathe, and write, in the morning and at night before you go to sleep. I’ve worked with some people who really just prefer to have one starting ritual that they use for everything, and others have different rituals for different parts of their day, and I have to say I do that. I have some rituals that are somewhat elaborate and so many little ones that really are just in my head, for making everyday tasks special. You can make sweeping, or washing dishes, or bathing or showering, or pretty much anything that involves cleaning a ritual for clearing energy by just making a little mental shift in your head that says this is a special time. This is something that I’m doing for me to keep the energy around me fresh. Any form of exercise, or cooking, or eating, or even sleeping can be seen as a ritual for taking care of yourself and building the energy that makes you healthier and stronger.. And none of these have anything to do with sitting down for some big meditation session. They don’t have anything to do with Yoga, and they don’t have to have anything to do with a hand gesture, but at least for me, they usually do involve at least a couple of breaths to remind myself of my purpose for the task at hand. You can even just take a second to ask yourself: Why is this good for me? And get up and start doing it because you know that it is.. The great thing is you get to decide what works best for you and once you find something that gets you going and keeps you going, the habits start making themselves, because rituals inspire action. You're flipping the switch in your brain that goes on autopilot to initiate your plan. And that’s why this first habit for taking inventory is so important. This is the one that keeps you on target for taking care of yourself first, and in so many ways, it also can turn all of the other things that you need to do into a form of self-care. Carrying that great big list around with you in your head really isn’t helping you. And it can actually be part of what it hurts you. Putting it down on paper in a loving way on a regular basis is part of the healing..

So, let’s talk about how to start making it happen. You will still want a notebook in a comfortable place to sit. Part of your ritual is gathering anything that you need to make this an enjoyable experience, so if you want a cup of tea, make a cup of tea. One of the reasons why we made all of the cards and the smaller size guidebooks is because a lot of people like to sit down with something to read that brings a little inspiration or motivation into the mix. Once you’ve got everything together, make yourself comfortable and without assuming any seated posture, take a couple of breaths and remind yourself that your inventory is good for you, and if you want to apply the hand gesture, you’ll just be affirming that you’re concentrating your energy on making time for yourself and making good things happen.. And when you’re ready to start writing. You might start with free writing about your day, and if it’s in the morning, maybe you’re writing about what you want for your day; if it’s at night, maybe you’re writing about what happened during your day. From that writing, you will probably find something in there that points to any progress that you made, and that includes even the small things that you did today or want to do today that line up with the intentions that you’ve been setting. And that’s when you make a short list of what needs to be done. Prioritizing anything that still needs to be healed. Making sure that there’s something there that applies to your list from the end of the last episode study Journal episode. One of the big things that we are working on here is finding balance in your life, so making sure that you have enough time for you, enough time for the things that you just flat out need to do, and enough time for some of those things that lead to reaching your goals for the future. And none of them have to take all that long. We’re just looking to make any amount of steady progress. When you’re done, you just come back to sitting and breathing and picturing yourself doing what you need to do with the right kind of energy. I really do believe that you already know where to start, but you’re making the list anyway with some simple actionable items and maybe adding a few things that would make each experience more mindful and more meaningful to you. What could you do to make it special? What could you do today to make it easier to do what you need to do tomorrow? And are there any other new habits that relate to this?

Again, it doesn’t have to be long or complicated. If you are in the middle of one of those times where your energy levels are low, be nice to yourself. Start with simple things that help you get up and moving. And if you’re one of those people who’s already doing all of the things that you know are good for you, but you’ve got plans for the future and not enough time for those bigger goals. This is a great time to work on that too.. This is a wake-up call to go do them, even if it’s just in little bit-size pieces every day. Perseverance is the principle that leads to mastery. It is the principle of practice.. and the principle of success, you get good at the things that you do every day and I always tell myself if you aren’t willing to do things that you already know need to be done, that’s probably what you need to work on first. That’s almost always what’s standing in the way of noticeable progress and blocking whatever it is that you really wanna make. So make your practice special. Make it meaningful. That’s how you get the energy for what you want, moving in the right direction. Taking action in those more challenging areas of life and addressing anything that obviously needs to change will start to clear the path for the bigger things, and any amount of progress leads to a higher level of proficiency and higher levels of awareness. That’s what we’re all really looking for, and that’s what we’ll start talking about next time.

Challenge Question

 “Where is my energy going?” is still the big question. And hopefully, this simple ritual added to your daily inventory helps you stay honest with yourself about what you’re doing with your time and energy and what still needs to be done.

Thanks so much for being here. Make sure you’re all set up to get notifications and go to wellnessmeetings.com for all of our books and decks…. if you click on meetings at the top of any page, that will take you to our events calendar with links to more free content each month. Something Honest is a Wellness Meetings production with original music composed and produced by James Mrotek at Mrotek Media.

This is Marta Mrotek sending out all kinds of love and gratitude. Until next time, let’s all keep working on being well!