Angels and demons

As some of you may know, I am in the process of doing my yoga teacher training...  This process takes roughly 18 months. One of the requirements is to developp a personnal home practice. I know that traditionnaly in Ashtanga one is to practice Sunday to Friday: asanas, pranaymas and meditation.  Ideally, from what I understood, this should be done upon waking up and it cannot be done for a couple of hours after a meal... for obvious reasons!  ;)

So in my life right now, I have a few windows upon waking up in the morning.  The other time period where I can easily practice is when I get back from work, before supper...  I cannot practice later at night as I find myself not being able to go to bed for a couple of hours after an Ashtanga practice.  Unless, I do more of a revitalizing practice.

It may seem easy just like that but it requires a lot of discipline. Now, I consider myself as having discipline. 
However, I also know that I can be quite lazy (this is not easy for me to admit here).  So what is happening right now it the battle between knowing that I must practice and the good feeling that results from it and the laziness of changing my clothes and rolling out my mat! The good feeling seems to win more and more often!!! YÉ!

In the morning I have gotten into the habit of doing my pranayama and meditation for 20 minutes...  Monday to Friday... This is a start....  even thus I must say that meditation is not so easy for me...  I am getting there...  A couple of mornings, I even did a half hour Ashtanga practice which is not the whole practice but I can slowly integrate the sequence of moves that need be done. Another goal I gave myself is to master the sanskrit name of all the poses in the primary series...  along with the sequence in which they must be done!

Secretly, I would like to master this before my two weeks or morning practice by the lake during the summer (I guess the secret is out!).  This is exercise for my brain! But honestly there is only 2 months left and
it might be difficult to achive but I will do my best and we'll see.

So basically, what I am trying to tell you guys is that I am training physically (asanas and pranayamas), mentally (meditation and memorizing) and this whole process is changing me quite a lot!  I can feel changes happening in me! Physical changes and also changes in my attitude and my behavior.  Now physical changes, for beeing an athlete previously in my life I have no problem with... I understand quite well how my body works!  The changes in my attitude and behavior however are giving me a hard time!  They are difficult to explain... It is as thus I am getting in a place of being well.... not wanting to fight anymore...  just letting go of things and knowing that no matter what happens I will be fine...
And this is scary.... Why? one might say...
Because for those who have known me for a while, I like to be in control...  I like for things to happen the way I want them to... and when I decide to...  now letting go and being trusty is all the opposite! And there is a battle inside of me!  I feel like in a cartoon when you see the tiny devil and tiny angel of a character fighting over what should be done! And the amazing thing is in the pass, I would have seen letting go and trusting life as the "devil" side of me!  As being nonchalant and a quitter and a looser! As now, I see those thing as the "angel" side... but I cannot explain why... aside from the fact that it just makes me feel better!

The truth is, I have no desire to fight anymore!  I still believe in sharing my opinion... and trying to help others... and I do not consider this fighting...  but trying so hard to make people like me, or driving agressively or being hangry at someone or something, is not a place I wanna be in anymore...  I wanna be in peace with myself... and with others.... and peace does not come with control... I have no control over what people do or think or wether they like me or not!  But I have full control over what I think and do and wether or not I like who I am becoming!
Shanti!
nath
xxx