I always have a hard time this first week in January. I feel like I'm supposed to be back at it in full tilt and yet it seems impossible to be back at it in full tilt.
This year I have finally accepted that it is a transitional ramp up week in the same way that the week before the holidays is a winding down week. And accepting that it is a transitional time has made it go more smoothly.
Transitions are tricky. And if you aren't conscious while you're moving through one they can be trecherous. My chiropractor says that 80% of his clients are in major life transitions. Of course this might mean that either back pain comes from transition or causes you to transition. I know for me it was both.) Most yoga injuries happen during transitions.( Although some, like my radical hamstring tear, happen when a teacher does a bad adjustment which is why I am devoted to anusura now and City Yoga in particular.) But in yoga, as in life, it's a mastery of transitions that creates a truly artful practice.
And here's the thing, right now, in the big now, we are in a GIANT TRANSITION. A transition of celestial proportions! We are in thge transition between the Piscean Age and The Age of Aquarius. Paradagms are shifting, consciousness is raising, assumptions are being challenged. So of course, if we are making this planet-wide change things are going to be a little bumpy.
But what you can do, what we can all do, is move consciously through it, being aware of shifts in energy and believing that we are not on a rollercaoster but in an interactive game, that we effect the quality of the shift even as the transition effects us.
On top of this, yesterday's full of moon, illuminating this transitional January patch. In the "old days", tribes named their full moons. A great tradition that it seems kind of tragic to lose. Of course the old names of the moons are completely inappropriate for us. For instance this moon was variously known as: time of flying ants moon, the greetings maker moon and the frost in the tepee moon. I'm thinking we could call it the "getting back to work even though you are not ready and neither is anyone else" moon. Or maybe the Or the "everything new is old again" moon. Or the "I can't believe I already broke my resolutions" moon.
But whatever we call it, and wherever you are to look up at it, breathe and notice that between the in breath and the out breathe there are two little other parts of breathe. The top and the bottom of the breathe. The transitions. If you pause in these moments and let the prana/energy of the breath move through you, you will get a hit of how these transition moments can empower you.