In the past week, Hill and I have been seeing each other very frequently, almost two or three times a week, and apart from not spending as much time together doing yoga and meditation, we are still happy.
I am a quiet and focused person. I used to spend a lot of time studying, reading books and doing sports, which didn’t make me happy. I’m happy when I learn to meditate. I’m happy when I practice yoga. But these last few weeks, when I’m done meditating or practicing yoga, I can’t help thinking about other things!
In the process, I found myself slowly losing interest in what was going on around me. Although it lasted about a week, the week passed very quickly.
Why is that? Please follow me as I explore.
Stay focused
In recent weeks, I’ve found that my mind is often drawn to other thoughts, even the asanas I’ve been practicing, practicing meditation, or just doing a yoga pose. Whatever the reason for these thoughts, this state is making it impossible for me to stay focused. When I think of something else, it’s as if the thoughts burst into my mind and interrupt what I’m doing.
Lately, these thoughts have come up a lot more often than before. I found myself paying more and more attention to the details of yoga poses. For example, every time I do a shoulder stand or a standing forward bend, I think about how to adjust every detail of this pose. For example, after each pose, you think about how do you breathe?
These ideas are actually a great exercise. But they always come to you inadvertently, and they come to you more clearly at one time. When one thought comes to mind, another thought comes to mind.
Once the thought occurs, it will affect the practice very much. While there are guided methods in meditation and yoga that can help us focus on the present moment, it is important to note that these methods do not help us fully focus on the practice of the present moment.
Put yourself in the moment
So, Hill, I was wondering, how do you keep yourself in the moment?
“What do you need? What is your purpose?”
When we ask this question, we begin the search. Hill says that when she meets with clients, she asks herself “what do I do next?” There are three words in this sentence: goal, purpose and action. Think about it, is this the same goal as you mentioned earlier?
The goal is to keep what we want to do in front of us. When your goal is to “make yourself happier,” you focus all of the things you can do right now on being happy.
For example, I have a goal to become a yoga instructor, and right now I want to do more than anything else to get up faster. So now I need to practice to get there. But in the meantime, I might get distracted and think about other things, because there are other things to be done right now.