I never thought I'd like yoga

I have liked sport for my whole life, watching, playing, running about like a loony. Rugby, football, netball, speed, power and agility. Competition, got to be the best, have to win all the time, never stop!

As a scientist, I'm very logical. I've never really been a spiritual person so yoga was something that seemed pointless. Breathing and stretching in a crowded sweaty room? Meditation? Oooohm? Nah, no thank you. You get fit by pushing and running and moving and going and going and going.

Except that if you go and go and go, then so does the rest of your life. Always pushing through, keep going, if you want something doing do it yourself. You don't delegate, you take things from others, overwork and overstress yourself.

Last January, my mum and sisters told me they were doing a "30 day yoga journey" via a YouTube channel called Yoga With Adrienne. Basically, a month of yoga in January with a new YouTube video to follow each day. As they were all doing it, I saw it as a competition so I joined in. We all did it as a group so that we could hold each other accountable and keep each other motivated.

The first thing I discovered was that doing yoga at home is very easy! You can do it any time you like and don't need any special equipment, you can use a towel if you don't have a yoga mat or yoga strap (I also learned there was such a thing as a yoga strap!), or a book if you don't have yoga blocks.

The second thing I learned was to slow down. Because one video was released each day, I couldn't rush off ahead like I usually do. I could only do one at a time, which meant focusing on each day, and staying in the moment. I managed to do the full 30 days and even "won" if you can call it that because I did each video each day and finished the yoga journey in the 30 days. I then even managed to continue it for a bit longer, I'd got used to doing the yoga each day and had made it a habit.

After a while, knowing that I wasn't doing a challenge with other people anymore, things started to slip. One day here, two days there, until I'd fallen completely out of the habit and wasn't doing yoga anymore. I had no one to hold me accountable, so I didn't hold myself accountable either.

This coincided with the start of a big project at work, I was in charge of two workstreams and in my two teams, the majority if not all of the people I was leading were higher up the company hierarchy. This meant they were very used to delegating, and they delegated to me.

Over the course of the year, I felt more and more pressurised and stressed. I didn't feel like I was being listened to and my health started to suffer. I wasn't sleeping well, I was drinking more alcohol than usual, I was spending a lot of time after the working day had ended continuing to work unpaid because I didn't want to let anyone down and I didn't feel able to give the work to the people who should have been doing it. I wasn't taking my annual leave because there was more work to be done and I thought I needed to cover for other people during school holidays because they were off and I wasn't. No one asked me to do these things, but I told myself I had to. It was all in my head.

Things came to a head in October, I was not well. My anxiety was in overdrive, I was having severe trouble communicating that things weren't going well and I didn't feel able to ask for help because my chatty brain had convinced me that if I told someone I couldn't do something, then everything would be taken away and the whole project would fail because of me. All the built up resentment and frustration from seven months of pushing myself far too hard and never allowing time for rest or recovery or asking for help boiled over and exploded into the worst argument I have ever had with my line manager.  We screamed, we shouted, we cried and I finally admitted that I was not OK and I needed help.

My manager, fortunately, is brilliant.  Over the next few months I got help and started to recover. By the time this January came around, I wanted to do the 30 day yoga journey again. Not as a competition, but to get back to that calm state of focus and control I'd had the year before.

As it happened, the big work project I'd been sacrificing everything for in 2022 was paused when we came back from the break at Christmas.  All the effort I'd put in was taken away and I was angry at my company.

By moving focus to the 30 day yoga journey in January, I was able to process the anger and reassess the relationship I had with work. Slowly but surely the anger dissipated, the stress and the anxiety dropped, chatty brain quietened down and I realised that life isn't all about work.

This year, I completed the 30 yoga journey and kept going and I'm still going! I have now done at least one yoga video everyday this year and I love it! I try to do the yoga every morning and miss it if I've not managed to complete it before the evening. This has grown into running regularly and keeping fit. I am now much happier and healthier both physically and mentally. I no longer need anyone to hold me accountable because my mindset has changed and I want to do this for my own peace and wellbeing.

I didn't think I'd ever like yoga, but now I wouldn't want to live without it!

Endnote: If you want to check out stay at home yoga, try Yoga With Adrienne on YouTube, she is brilliant :)