Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Yoga and the Writing Life

Yoga and writing.  They keep me sane and make me tick.
 
While one is about the unity of mind and body and the other is purely cerebral, they have a lot in common.

Procrastination:
My two favourite past times are the hardest to prioritise.  There’s work to do, children to feed, people to see, places to go.  Sometimes, even loading the dishwasher seems more important.  Yet once I’m on that mat, or deep in to a storyline, its bliss.

Transportation:
Both writing and yoga carry me beyond the everyday, to another place.  Have you ever been so intent on a yoga class that you can’t believe it’s time for relaxation already?  The same thing happens with writing.  One minute it’s morning, the next it’s evening and you’ve visited a whole new world in between.

Determination:
Persistence is definitely the key to both these practices.  You simply have to put in the hours, glue your butt to the seat or your mind on the asana.  You have to keep at it every day.

Misunderstanding:
A lot of people just don’t get it.  And that’s fine. Most folk think anyone can write and don’t understand the sweat behind the perfect first sentence, let alone a whole novel.  Yogis are given a hard time too.  Yoga’s still thought of as weird, pseudo-religious bibble babble by a lot of people I know.   But guess what, diversity makes the world go around.

Passion:
Once you’re hooked, whether it’s yoga or writing, they become addictive.  The hard slog pays off when you complete your yoga class feeling uplifted and centred and carry that through in to your daily life.  The thrill of having others appreciate your published work is a buzz the writer never forgets and fights hard to replicate.

Interested in yoga or meditation? Read a review I wrote recently about a guided meditation download by Peter Fernando on yogalunchbox.co.nz

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