I am finally beginning this process. I am pushing myself today to make my first post as I am feeling very motivated today and I am doing a challenge for myself for the next 21 days and I want to share my progress with my friends and family.

I have been living now for over a month at the beach. On day 1, I made a video about beginning my routine and over the past years I have been thinking about creating a blog to document my journey on becoming a healthier version of myself. It’s now been almost 2 years since I attracted Yoga and Reiki into my life. The transformation in my mind, body and soul have been very profound. And I thought I was healthy and happy before.
I am currently a student of Ayurveda at the Ayurveda College of California. One can study the ancient science of Ayurveda, but until you begin living Ayurveda, you won’t truly understand the true positive effects that you can have in your health and life.

So for the past 3 months I have been trying to incorporate 6 Ayurveda Practices into my daily routine, as well as some other healthy practices.
1) Tongue Clean (Jivha Dhauti)
2) Jala Neti (Nasal Cleansing)
3) Abhyanga (Self Oil Massage)
4) Chakshu Dhauti (Eye Cleansing)
5) Eating while being mindful. (Mindful of the place I choose to eat, taking time to give thanks before meal, chewing my food slowly, eating without distraction,eating only until 75% full, only drink a little with my food if it’s already moist, avoid ice and cold drinks, waiting at least 3 hours between meals and eating my biggest meal at noon.)
6) Yoga (8 Limbs of Yoga, mostly focusing daily on Pranayam and Asana)
7) Meditation/Reiki
8) Making space for 6-8 hours of sleep
10) Drinking warm lemon water after waking up

For the most part, some days were a success and some days I never made space for either Abhyanga, Asana practice or ate something heavy late at night or snacked throughout the day. I love cold drinks, so beginning to drink things warm is something I am working on making myself choose.
It was awhile to begin using my Jala Neti pot. Even though I knew the benefits, I made myself believe that it took to long to boil the water and everything and told myself that I was to lazy for this Kriya… but actually when you are making water for 1 Neti pot, heating it on the stove,takes less than a 1 minute. (Especially using purified water. If you need to boil your water first, you should allow it to boil for some minutes and then allow it to cool to body temperature before using it.) Now I am throughly enjoying my Jala Neti pot in the morning and am able to enjoy room temperature drinks.

I was working at 7 in the morning for the first 3 months of my Ayurveda practice so I never felt I had the time to do all my routine in the morning before I left for work. And actually it’s true. With the circumstances I had before I was usually working until at least 10pm and then waking up at 5:30am to shower to begin my day. I did however begin to make time for 8 out of the 10 things. I woke up and did 5 minutes of mindful meditation, drank a glass of lemon water, Jivha Dhauti, Jala Neti, once a week Chaksu Dhauti. After work or after my first job, I  normally ate some type of salad, vegetables, dumplings or quinoa on my balcony with my little garden. During the afternoons I was normally making time for an Asana practice or a Reiki Session, which lead me into a nice meditation. During the night, I made supper and prepared food for the next day, prepared my lessons for the next day, taught some more classes and prepared for my following days classes. Normally I was going to bed around 10:30-11:30pm

However, some days I waited to eat with my partner who came home at 10pm and went to bed around 12pm and sometimes I felt very hungry after work so I ate more than I should have and it took me longer to digest the food. Or I made food and quickly ate it while standing up and then rushed off to the next thing I needed to do, whether it was teach another class, begin to study or run an errand. Sometimes I needed to make supper and then eat and then I needed to wait before doing asana practice again, but didn’t have time if I wanted 5 hours of sleep. Sometimes I wasn’t able to go to sleep as early as I would like or was woken up a lot throughout the night due to living in a pretty busy street in Mexico City. Sometimes I got into a mind space that allowed me to start eating junk food. Sometimes I had social events that involved me choosing to drink alcohol and eat party food. To sum it up- sometimes I never made the space for all my practices.

Which is okay… I am not expecting to begin living a perfect Ayurvedic lifestyle over night. Changing your routine, your diet, your mind frame… are things that don’t happen over night. Or in one week. Or in 1 month.
The point of these routines is to benefit myself and to bring awareness and mindfulness to my day, to teach myself self love. To teach myself about me… and about the process of Ayurveda. No two people are the same. I can’t read on someone else’s blog, what will make my body balanced… I need to learn how to do this for myself.

I am the only person that I personally know that is choosing to live an Ayurvedic lifestyle. I have few friends that share in my passion for Yoga and meditation. I have few friends and family members that don’t eat meat and don’t drink. I can’t isolate myself from my partner, family, friends and co-workers, just because I am choosing not to eat meat or foods that don’t serve me, or I will be exposed to violent movies or stories. I can’t be afraid to stay up until 3:00am because I told myself I need to wake up at 6:00am for Yoga. Having these people and outside experiences in my life are also part of my balance and happiness.

However,my long term goal will be if I am going to miss some parts of my practice today due to life, I will try my best to do them when I can and continue on with my routine. If I am going to eat something unhealthy for myself today, the next day I will be a lot more mindful of what I eat and when. Or better yet- if I know I will be doing something that will lead me out of balance, I can prepare by eating and drinking especially for this the day before. Because I want to. Because it makes me feel healthy and happy. The more healthy and happy I am, the more I gravitate towards being healthy and happy. This can go the other way too. Which is why, it’s important for me to get back on track with these lifestyle choices, if I choose to regress into my old habits and lifestyle choice for for a few days.

ALSO: I have heard from a few teachers that guilt is the worst thing one can do for your body. So having goals is great, but being rigid with rules isn’t. Being hard on yourself for doing or not doing something and labelling it “right” or “wrong” isn’t helpful.

If you say your going to do something tomorrow- such as “wake up at 6:00am and go for a run” but you wake up and it’s pouring outside, then don’t worry about it. You could make yourself sick by running in the cold rain and by worrying about it, you are causing yourself stress and taking away from now.

This is something I need to work on the most. Living in the moment and not taking things so seriously. As light-hearted and free as I am, I am my own worst critic. Always have been. I was the kindergarten who said a bad word then took myself to the bathroom to wash my mouth out with soap. I took myself off the court in volleyball when I was 11… and I continuously “benched” myself in different aspects of my life.

I can be pretty hard on myself for not succeeding in what I wanted to do, especially if I feel I am letting someone else down.  And when I am hard on myself, I feel anxious…I feel heavy and then I am not as productive as I could be.  This is why Yoga and Reiki is great for me- it helps to calm my mind and release negativity and stress. It allows me to be grateful for the positive and to live in the present moment.

So even for this challenge- I want to try and be easy on myself if for some reason I do not succeed in my daily tasks… but just be mindful, that I never accomplished the tasks and try my best the next day.