It only takes minutes!

As I’ve been embracing a slightly more yin pace of life, I’ve been reading a lot about the benefits of chunking. If you have a task to do, say hoovering, and it would only take you 5-minutes to do it, then you don’t make excuses you just do it. Seems pretty obvious, but it has been quite liberating.

Instead of feeling like I need to spend hours cleaning every nook and cranny of my house, I chunk it. If the job will take 5-minutes then it gets done straight away. Most times I feel energised and uplifted from completing the task and want to do a bit more – but my expectation at the start was at a level I was completely comfortable with.

While we’re still living in the water element and winter season, here in Scotland, the notion of heading outside for a run or to the gym seems like a massive amount of effort right now. Some might label this as laziness and tell me how amazing I’ll feel after I’ve started my exercise of choice. And I know I will feel great, but the motivation isn’t there, at the moment. The idea of wrapping up to drag myself out for a run in the run, wind and cold doesn’t fill me with joy. But heading out for a short walk does work for me.

My yoga practice has taken the same path over the winter months, jumping around on my mat for a full 90-minute Ashtanga session is not in the cards for me right now. Would I enjoy it once I got started? Probably. Would I feel amazing afterwards? Definitely. But do I feel motivated to move in this way at the moment?

Embracing the water element and this lack of motivation is a key step on the journey to acceptance and is allowing me to take the rest I need while nature is supporting me. If I focus my efforts on moving slowly, taking things at my own pace and only doing what I feel works for me, then I’m setting myself up to be in a great position when those tiny buds of flowers appear signalling the start of spring.

It’s on the horizon, I can feel the shifting of the energy in the air about me as I notice the evenings are a little lighter, and my morning walk isn’t in total darkness anymore. Spring brings with it the wood element and an increase in yang energy. This is where our motivation will begin to lift and the idea of heading out for a run might be a little more appealing.

But for the time being I’m taking things slowly. This week that meant cancelling three of my classes to allow me to recover from a migraine. And guess what? The migraine came from pushing myself too much, too soon. To counter-balance I’ve spent the weekend enjoying a Yin Yoga Summit where I’ve been able to explore this practice a little deeper in the comfort of my living room, with all my blankets and props around me.

If you’re also feeling a little frazzled, fatigued and lacking in the motivation to jump-start things, then you could also adopt a little bit more yin into your life. This might be embracing the water element with a walk by a lake or stream, perhaps even heading for a bath could help to revive you. Meditation is another wonderful way to take things down a level or two, and I have a 5-minute Guided Meditation on my YouTube channel today that you can get started with. In this instance 5-minutes can make a massive amount of difference.

But if you feel like you need to move or you have a little bit longer than 5-minutes, there’s still time to join my Ten to Zen – Yin Edition challenge, which begins this afternoon. These bite-sized yin videos will be delivered directly to your in (y)inbox all you have to do is carve out 10-minutes to practice.