Just Practice

CK was coughing on and off much of the night, her second full day without antihistamines was really taking a toll. When my 6AM alarm went off I had a hard time turning it off and tried to sleep a little longer. My entire head, neck and hips hurt, I felt queasy and exhausted.

Worked on a field definition document for building new database tables and was able to focus on it fairly well. After lunch I was able to get more done but at around 2 I was just overcome with exhaustion and actually napped for little bit. I woke up feeling more focused, so I must have really needed that nap. Had some mango lemonade leftover from the party and worked hard until just past 5pm.

Went rushing over to Dishman only to have no students show up again. Curtis looked up and said two people have signed up. They're going to phone them and make sure they're still attending, so I'll come back next week. This class has been moved around so much and the August/September scheduling will be all over the place. The big breaks aren't good for consistent students, people quite often don't come back after a 4 week break! Sometimes this feels like another hint that I need to move my teaching practice on.

I've had a couple of inquiries now about private instruction. I'm honestly befuddled as to what to say I charge! I have one barter offer, which is pretty interesting. It is just this big step, change so it feels a little uncertain.

When I came home from Dishman I cleaned up the deck a bit more then kept myself focused on doing a short asana practice. I've felt this low-level mental fuzziness, resistance, depression that just has me wanting to stick close to home and avoid interacting with the world. I have an awareness of wanting to curl around it, sleep. It has been getting in the way of my practice, especially my yoga practice.

It was gorgeous on the deck and I tried to soak in the gratitude I felt for the summer evening, the clean deck, my effort to make it so. Even still my asana practice felt so boring and uninspired. I reminded myself as I exerted energy through three classical sun salutations that sometimes our practice is just Tapas and Virya Paramita. Just the burning effort that sustains the perfection of diligence.

CK reminded me last night that it has been a heck of a year so far. It isn't unreasonable that I'm still feeling some of the anger and grief around it. Yet here I am, frustrated that I am still feeling the ripples of these emotions. Why am I always so impatient with my grief?

Yep, there's my Inner Critic calling me a "Remedial Zen Student" again.