asana & yoga nidra

So I could tell I was starting to feel well enough to go back to getting up early again. But whenever I set the alarm to get up at 4:30, I'd wake up, advance it an hour, and then go back to sleep.

I refuse to feel guilty about this. What makes early morning yoga, or any commitment like that work is that I won't feel guilty if I break the commitment. Or tweak it. I'm a pretty disciplined person. If my body or mind wants to change something I've previously decided on, I figure there is a reason. And I allow myself to go with it. If it's important enough, I'll go back to it. Or some form of it, anyway.

But I wanted to get up at 4:30 again. I wanted to wake refreshed, do some asana, some meditation, walk my dog and start my day clear-headed and content. So I just lay in my bed Tuesday night and said, "God, I'd really like to wake up refreshed at 4:30 in the morning. But I'd like to just wake up without an alarm. I'm going to let you and my body tell me when it's time to get up."


And so I did. 4:22 a.m. And the next day too. And the next day. And I've had some really nice, calming mornings.

I've been doing some Yoga Nidra in the morning to cap off the practice instead of meditation or svasana. I'm rotating through several practices I have on my ipod. And I'm getting ideas from Do Restorative Yoga, a blog by a yoga teacher in Duluth, Minnesota. She's on a 40-day Relaxation quest. Read about it. It's good.