21 day Sadhana and its take away

Whenever I find myself going out of sorts with my practice, I start a 21 day sadhana. I clearly define what are the practices that I will be doing without fail for 21 days and try to stick to it. However, this is the first such challenge that I did since my daughter came into our lives 2.3 years back. Yesterday, I finished one such 21 day challenge and it has been very very insightful.

Starting 6th June, 2022, I set myself a 20 minute japa and pranayam practice. I also endeavored to be mindful of what I am eating and how I am sleeping (no hard and fast rules, just to be mindful of it). I already know that the more rules I impose on myself, the greater the chances of me breaking them. Keeping it simple works best for me. These are some of the things that I observed

1. 1. Finding 20 minutes in a day is not so hard. But finding 20 minutes when the stomach is not too full and when it is not close to sleep time involves some planning.
2. 2. Some days are hard, some days are easy, some days are packed and some days I was too tired. But having the challenge kept me going without complaining or giving any excuse. I was very particular about not breaking the word to myself.
3. 3. by 10th day, the eating patterns shifted quite a bit. Appetite was down and my cravings were less.
4. 4. I was trying to not use mobile after 9 pm and go to bed without staring at the screen till my eyes drooped. I was able to do it some days, not do it some days. But the days that I did it, my quality of sleep was phenomenal and I felt truly refreshed and recharged the next day
5. 5. The past week has been crazy busy with me using my voice quite a bit -3 classes a day, YOUGA voice overs, interviewing 6 people per day to get insights and make YOUGA better. In one of those days, I missed the practice. Completely forgot about it till I hit the bed. Felt bad but didn’t beat myself up. Resumed it the next day without any guilt or remorse or negative self talk
6. 6. The more tired I was, the more erratic were my sleeping and eating patters. Extra screen time, mindless scrolling, eating junk were all seen as “rewards”
7. 7. But in reality they turned out to be punishments. After a particularly long night of screen time ( I get to do this only once a week because I have to wake up early to teach), I clearly felt that my sleep pattern was affected for 2 full days! And as the sleep pattern goes for a toss, so does my eating habits.

As I reflect on it, I feel personally, for me, regularly finding the time to just be, without any demands on my time – be it from my family or work or practice or any social commitments – is important so that I don’t compromise on my sleep. That one or two nights a week when I don’t have to wake up before 5 am the next morning becomes my “revenge bed time procrastination” as I just completely let go and stay up for so long vegetating in front of a screen with choicest of junk food keeping me company. The body is not able to take this anymore. This has been my biggest take away from this sadhana. Now, I am curious as to see how I will implement this learning.