Mindfulness. I'm up for a 40 Day Challenge!

January 10th, and we are inundated with New Year’s resolution suggestions, questions of failure or success, questions asked to engage us to answer with our own New Year’s Resolutions. Wow, talk about pressure. What about a challenge? I like that idea, because I like to privately challenge myself all the time, throughout the year.

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My yoga instructor has come up with yet another great idea. A 40 Day Challenge. We have the option to participate or not, and if we do, we receive daily e mails of inspiration. I don't know about you, but the daily e mail of inspiration will help. I enjoy opening my Facebook and seeing the inspirational messages, ones I can forward, ones I can "like", and others I can just read, keep privately in my mind and let the words resonate with me.
Our challenge could be anything we choose. At the end of my class the other night when she proposed it to us, I knew I wanted to participate, but what would be my challenge? Give up wine for 40 days? I don't think so! If I practice a less than desirable yoga pose, like sleeping pigeon, every day for 40 days, at the end of that time, maybe I will learn to love the pose? That is doubtful! Give up sugar for 40 days? I think that's nearly impossible. Should I go 40 days without buying a magazine or book? I could I suppose, but I don’t want to!

Then I thought of the reasons I would choose a particular challenge. Would I choose something to help me change a bad habit, because I know that after 40 days, I am well on my way to being successful! Would I choose something I want to be better at, or something that would align itself with the yoga philosophy and benefit my mind, body and soul? All I know, is I don't want to pick something that I am going to fail at. I don't like to fail.
I went from having nothing to pick, to having too many to choose from. Here is what I decided. I want to challenge myself for 40 days, three things that will enrich my mind, body, and my soul!
For my Mind

I want to give myself a time limit to get off the computer at night! I am not a good sleeper to begin with. I had been on sleeping medication for the last 2 years, and just in the past few weeks, I made the decision to go off. I had tried cutting back, taking it only every other day, allowing myself to choose days that I thought I could get less sleep. How do you choose that? I thought that was a stupid suggestion from my doctor! I tried it though, and I was failing. So I just made up my mind that I would go off my medication and just do it. I put the fear of spiraling back into the land of insomnia out of my mind, and I did it! Now it may seem like I am digressing, but the computer likely has a great deal to do with my over active mind, especially at night. So my first challenge is to shut the computer down at 10pm, no research, no Pinterst, no Facebook, nothing! So if you see after 10pm that I have "liked" your status, commented on your page, or "pinned" something, please call me on it! Point it out and tell me I may be failing my challenge! I need that help!
For my Body
I am going to practice mindfulness in the kitchen. There usually comes a time for many of us this time of year, when we have eaten too much over the holidays, we are sick of winter food, we want summer to hurry up and arrive. Here where it is so cold, January is the time when we want to BBQ, eat fresh fruit, shop at the market, and eat lighter, because we are sick of food. I feel it every year, and I sometimes disconnect with the food I am preparing. The whole saying of we are what we eat, our bodies are our temples, we feed out soul, there has got to be some truth to that. So I am going to practice for 40 days, being mindful in my kitchen. I am going to use the rainbow of colors to cook my food, I am going to only buy what is good for us to eat, and I am going to cook good, healthy food! I cook good, healthy food now, but I need to be mindful of being better. Being mindful, being fully aware, present, and wearing that cute apron I got just before Christmas!
For my Soul
I am part of a group of people who come together at a writing forum. One of the things that they have practiced is mindful writing. The challenge is to notice something every day, and write a sentence or two, or a small poem about what it is. It is about finding beauty in something every day. This idea, I like allot. Something that frustrates me every day is how our faces are focused on our phones, we walk by people and don't notice them, we don't look into people’s eyes and we don't really listen! We are all guilty of this and some of us are worse than others. So my challenge for my soul is to take notice of something or someone every single day and write a little bit about it. Maybe I will stop for a moment and look out my window and actually watch the squirrel that runs on my fence and jumps from tree to tree several times a day. Maybe it will be someone I pass by one day, maybe it will be a snowflake on the window, a snow covered branch.
I am really looking forward to this 40 day challenge. It starts for me on Jan 14th, so please feel free to check in on my and see how it's going. Please feel free to join me, and make your own 40 day challenge. Let me know if you want to join me and we can support each other!
As always, thanks for stopping by!
Tannis