Wellbeing Lifelong

This one makes post number 50, and it might be a special one. Mainly because I haven’t written for more than six months now, since February this year.

The reasons behind the silence are varied but kind of connected.

I guess the main one is that I felt I said most of what I wanted to say in regards to yoga and well-being. My main inspiration originally was expressing the whole be-like-yoga mind and body series, which I happily did. Then, the blog reached a point where I actually had to think and work on new posts and ideas (like any other blog for that matter).

I did, and in fact there are 15 article drafts ideas waiting for me to do something with them, and two full posts written that never saw the light because I was not convinced about them, or I found them a bit too personal and a bit too irrelevant for the general public.

I also thought about focusing on interviewing big yogis, or big on Instayoga nevertheless, and posting the interviews here. I liked the plan because I love reading and doing interviews (I studied Journalism for years, remember). I did that, and was very happy with my interviews to Julia from Yogineando and Rosa aka Irya Devi. I chased a few others with little or no results, so after a while, again I wondered – to which lengths was I ready to go to keep this going? What was my end goal?

Suddenly, keeping this project alive was not so easy. At that stage, I asked myself… How much effort am I willing to put into it? What do I want to get from the blog? And most importantly… Why?

Around the same time, we had already moved flats and my space and angles to actually capture my yoga practise with a camera got drastically reduced. My Instayoga persona got stuck too. I tried a few times, getting ridiculous results and stopping every couple of minutes to check if the frame was any good… then catching myself in the process and wondering, why am I doing this? This is not really focusing on yoga, this is focusing on getting good yoga footage, which is very different.

Yes, I could go outside and do yoga in the park, or my flat gardens… and I did actually, a couple of times. But again, to me, that is more embarrassing than relaxing, so it was not a long-term option. I cannot relax and flow if I feel people might be watching or thinking, what is this girl doing? Or worse, why is she filming herself?? I imagined that because that is probably what I would think. Again, I asked myself, why am I doing this?

So… Why was I doing this?

All these new and sudden “obstacles” in my yoga project made me reconsider what I wanted from it and analyse why I was actually doing it.

Did I want to become some sort of yoga teaching expert? Did I want to be another of the so-called “Insta influencers“? (Just the idea makes me cringe…) The answers deep down were no and no.

I didn’t know enough about yoga (and still don’t) and I respect the real teachers highly enough, to go and pretend I can actually give many “lessons”. I felt I cannot really take that path when I cannot even remember the names of the yoga positions in Sanskrit (neither I want to, to be honest). Who was I trying to be? I guess the Impostor’s syndrome kicked in.

On top of that, I realised I wanted yoga to be something I enjoy. Not a duty or a second job, where I have to worry about chasing interviewees or researching into asanas just for the sake of a post, not even for myself.

On the Insta-influencer subject, there is a lot to say, and most of it is negative. In fact, one of the posts that never saw the light of day was all about this. I might still tweak and post it, but long story short – I didn’t want to worry and obsess about my number of “followers”, or posting pictures for what gets more Likes, rather than for what I actually wanted to post.

Yes, the decision was 100% on me. I don’t have to do any of that, but the truth is that when you spend some time in the network and the social community, you quickly realise what gets more Likes, followers and positive feedback, and what does not. A couple of times I caught myself going the extra mile to make pictures more “likeable”, and it was at that stage when I stopped myself and judged my priorities.

I looked inside and I decided I in fact did not want to go any extra miles just to gain acceptance from strangers. I guess I re-structured my priorities. Yes, it is okay to post if it comes natural and spontaneous (I do like the sharing) but it was not okay to me if it was forced, fake, and done aiming for any kind of “recognition”, rather than a real expression. Reading the book Affluenza influenced me more than expected!

Chasing goals for any other reason that your own happiness and life values is not what I aspire to. So I ended my rat race in the Instayoga wheel. Yes, I might still go back into it, but only if it is natural and easy (and if I move houses!). Not for the sake of keeping an “audience”. I guess I thought I have better thinks to do and worry about.

The blog experience allowed me to confirm how much I enjoy writing though (and I hope you guys do enjoy reading too); and in that sense, I want to keep pursuing certain goals.

So all in all, I feel happy to be where I am now. Re-defining myself and my priorities, while I work out how I want to pursue my love for writing about mind and well-being, as well as my love for yoga.

Although I might keep the second one to myself and my yoga studio moving forward 😉