And What About Those Days When We Don't Feel Too... Yogic?

I practice meditation and yoga asanas regularly, I eat healthily, following the principles of Ayurveda, and I do my best to live by yoga’s ethical guidelines. Most of the time. But what about those days when I don't feel too... yogic?

What about skipping my wholesome morning routine because I'm travelling?

What about those late-night videogaming sessions accompanied by a glass of wine and some snacks?

What about a Sunday lie-in followed by lazy waffles and coffee for breakfast?

What about losing my temper and shouting at my son after a long, exhausting day?

What about not always having patience with the people around me?

Be Kind to Yourself

Practice kindness towards yourself and your progress. Your asana practice helps to view this as a journey – with detours and obstacles and tracing your steps back, and sometimes racing ahead in leaps and strides. There will be days when that headstand just does not come, and that's okay. You show up, try and even if you don't get into the pose fully, maybe there is a lesson to be learned there about why it did not work this time.

It is the same with leadership, and showing up at work with every intention to act with empathy, courage and integrity – yet in the moment, the right words don’t come. So you take a step back, analyse and learn from it.

Understand Your Comfort Zone

Acknowledge that progress takes time and it is anything but linear. Your mind loooooves the comfort zone. Even if it is a horrible place, it is familiar so it feels safe in a way. If you have spent years, maybe decades in your comfort zone, change can feel scary, even when you know it is for the better. This can lead to consciously or unconsciously self-sabotaging your own progress in life. Perhaps you keep being drawn to the same kind of relationships, even though you know they won’t end well. Or you find yourself choosing situations where failure feels inevitable – because not being good at something has become part of your identity.

Yoga offers a very tangible way of exploring this. We are so accustomed to walking upright, head over shoulders, shoulders over hips, hips over feet. It’s familiar. It’s safe. This is our comfort zone, which we can challenge by regularly practicing inversions and literally flip our perspective.

Every Relapse is a Lesson

Relapses aren’t failures – they’re teachers. They invite mindfulness. Compare and build the conviction that your new lifestyle feels better. Every so often, when I’m back in Hungary with my old school friends, I’ll still buy a pack of cigarettes “for old times’ sake”. Smoking used to be part of my comfort zone, and occasionally it still draws me back. But even when I give in, I now use the experience to observe how it affects me – my energy, my nervous system, my overall wellbeing. Each time, I’m reminded that my non-smoking life feels far better. That awareness keeps me moving forward.

Ultimately, just as yoga isn't about striking that perfect, beautiful dancer pose for Instagram, life is not about achieving perfection. It’s about showing up, practising, falling down, and getting back up.

We are all work-in-progress humans after all.

"Do your practice and all is coming" / Sri K. Patthabi Jois, father of ashtanga yoga

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week ahead.

Namaste