Welcome to the True For You podcast. This is your host, Renee Cupples. Today is day 7 of 40 on a series that I'm doing on Sadhana. Sadhana is a traditional 40-day practice in yoga, and it helps you self realize , discovering your patterns, taking intentional time for yourself. And for week one, we were laying the foundations of Sadhana. So what is Sadhana? Why might you wanna do something like this? How to go about setting your intention and being specific about what types of practices you're committing to, what time of day, where you're gonna practice, setting up that physical space can help hold you accountable to it, and really leaning into the idea of getting to know yourself better. 

So for day seven, to wrap up our week one, our foundations, take a moment to reflect whether or not you've actually started a practice. What about a practice like this speaks to you? Is it the idea of carving a little bit of time for yourself? Is it maybe getting to know yourself better? Being able to check in every day can give you a lot of information about yourself. And if you have started something like this, how can you keep showing up? What is gonna help you show up? And sometimes, we set the intention, and it has to do with ourselves, but are you showing up so that you can show up for other people in your life a little bit better? Whether you're a parent or you're caring for loved ones, I think that sometimes it can feel easier to take care of other people as opposed to taking care of ourselves, but it is so important. We're only given this one vessel in this lifetime, right? So how do we take care of it? How do we lean into what movement we can do? 

If you've never tried meditation or you're a little bit resistant to it, I've kind of ebbed and flowed through my practice of meditation. There's something really powerful about being able to quiet your mind. And believe it or not, in meditation, your mind gets very loud. So part of the practice of meditation is to allow for those little spaces between thoughts, between breaths. That is where the magic lives, right? Because you might sit in meditation for five minutes, and your mind is racing the whole time, and going through your to-do list and all the things you have to do, and you're like, "Why can't I relax? I'm so bad at this.", right? A lot of times that's our inner dialogue. But it's like exercise. It's like flexing a muscle. It's the more that you practice it, the easier it gets. But it doesn't mean it's always gonna be easy. So even as a yoga teacher, I have a lot of resistance sometimes to personal practice and to meditation, and  always feeling guilty, right? That, "Oh, I should be doing more." And, as a teacher, the practice that I do by myself helps inspire my teaching. Sometimes I'm practicing on my own, and I'm like, "Oh, I haven't done this pose in a while. I should do it in a class," and it kinda helps me be in the creative process. And that's one part about personal practice that really surprised me. I didn't know that was something that I was gonna get out of it, was inspiration, and ideas, and creativity, and just being open to whatever it is that's coming through. 

So take a moment or a few moments to maybe journal, reflect, maybe share with a friend the idea of sadhana and what about it speaks to you. What excites you about it? What maybe do you have some resistance to? And just being able to identify those things can maybe give you some information about what type of practice you want to be leaning into. Maybe you're having trouble sleeping, and you want to do, a little bit of, meditation before you go to sleep. It can help quiet the mind and prepare it for rest. So let's take a moment to review week one and, reflect. We're gonna dive a little bit deeper as we move into week two. And I'll be back tomorrow with day eight. Take care.