Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign hello and welcome back to another episode of Deepen your yoga practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, your host and the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And I'm excited today because I got a little creative hair in the past week and followed it and I have something brand new to share with you that manifested pretty quickly. So that's really exciting. I don't know about you, but I can be kind of an obsessive person. Not about everything, but if I get a creative idea and I just want to see this thing in the world, I get really hyper focused and create it. So that might mean my yoga studio, that might mean my book embody your inner goddess. And this brand new project was inspired by my yoga teacher trainees. So in yoga teacher training, my trainees are required to keep a yoga journal. And this was a requirement when I did my 200 hour yoga teacher training as well. And I've always left it really open ended because it really could be a lot of things. Things, it's tracking your yoga practice, how you felt that day, maybe your practice, teaching, stuff like that. But the trainees this year were getting pretty granular with me. They wanted to know how to track your yoga practice and what I recommend. And I don't always give straight up answers in yoga teacher training, but I let them know, you know, it can be what they want it to be. But when I got home that night, I had this feeling of, you know, what if I did create a yoga practice journal and it allowed them to very simply track their practices and progress in a way that isn't overwhelming, that is super clear, and that also adds this beautiful layer of intention and mindfulness to the practice. So I stayed up really late that night and the next, doing some design work and figuring out exactly how I would want this to look. And I created a yoga practice journal and now it's available to buy, it's printed out. So in regards to that, what I wanted to talk about today was journaling in general, but also why you might want to journal your yoga practice. So thanks for being here with me today. I hope that this inspires you to deepen your practice, to create another layer of mindfulness in your yoga practice, and to encourage you to integrate your practice into your everyday life.
[00:02:48] So why should we journal our yoga practice? I think it's important to know that yoga doesn't end when Shavasana ends, right? Of course that signals the end maybe of our asana practice, but do we just throw it all away after that? And Walk out the door. A friend of mine told me a story about a well known yoga teacher who taught this beautiful class. And then their students saw them on the highway afterward and they were driving like a maniac and cussing somebody out on the road, which is quite. It's kind of sad to think about, but it's funny as well. Like someone who comes across as very calm and who has it together, right. Who is into their practice just losing it. Right. As soon as they're done teaching. So it's important, I think, for this practice to have some meaning and to fuel our everyday lives and interactions and ultimately to improve our lives. Right? So how do we reflect on our yoga practice and then integrate that into our everyday lives? When I think about my ideal self, I think of someone who has kept a diary or journal every single day of her life and has this beautiful record of. I've always enjoyed journaling, but I'll be perfectly honest, I've had a really hard time staying consistent with it as a practice. I kept a diary as a kid and I have many, many notebooks from over the years, especially since I have been a yoga teacher, with notes in them here and there, with little journal entries, maybe with training information or little notes about what I'm reading, et cetera, but they're not really all that organized. In fact, I found them a couple of months ago and really felt inspired by them. I had a hard time kind of putting them all in order, but I got to revisit a lot of memories from trainings and retreats and all of these wonderful experiences that I've had. So that was really cool. It reminded me of, for instance, I kept a journal when I opened my studio the very first class. Nobody showed up and I didn't remember that actually. But I read it in the journal and how I felt around it and how I processed that. And it was really cool looking back 10 years later and feeling grateful for the person I was at that time and for how I handled hard things, because that's how it got me to where I am today. So that's one example of like a yoga teaching journal that I kept. But like I said, I've always kind of had a hard time staying consistent with journaling until a couple of months ago. And it might sound a little silly, but I started using the journaling app on my iPhone because I saw it was there and I decided to create four little prompts that I follow every single night. Because I think for me, as much as I love the idea of opening a Journal and free writing. One, I'm kind of exhausted at the end of the day, and two, it's triggers my decision fatigue, which can be really high at the end of the day. I've been making decisions all day long and okay, now I have to open this journal up and just start writing. So I created these four prompts for myself that are really easy. They are what happened today. So I just list all of the things that I did and what happened, what went well, what could improve, and then three things I'm grateful for. And then I'm able to add in the pictures that I took that day. And it's been a really good, good, simple, quick habit for me. So I find this sort of life journaling to be a wonderful tool. It's sort of a brain dump at the end of the day and helps me develop more appreciation around my life. So when I had this idea for the yoga practice journal, I wanted to keep it really simple like that and easy to do. It doesn't take a lot of time, but the time you are taking is very potent and very powerful. Philosophically speaking, yoga is a practice of self reflection. One of the ethical principles on the yogic path, or what we call a niyama, is called swadhyaya. And swadhyaya simply means self study. And when we're talking about swadhyaya, it can mean a couple of different things. That might mean studying yogic texts, it might mean diving into philosophy, but it's also studying our own thoughts, patterns, behaviors, almost looking at ourselves scientifically in a way, but also with compassion. So reflection of our yoga practice and of ourselves is a way to follow this yogic principle of swadhyaya, or self study. It helps bridge the gap between our physical practice, maybe our energetic practice, and our everyday lives. When we reflect on our yoga practice, it helps us remember what concepts really landed with us. It helps us track different patterns that we have, whether mental or physical or emotional. And it also helps us honor these emotional and energetic shifts in our lives. When we show up to the mat, it's almost as though we're a different person sometimes than the day before or the previous practice. We have experienced different things since then. Our bodies have been through different things since then. And it's very interesting to note what's going on and how it feels and how the practice might have changed that day because of what you're carrying with you. I find that this practice of reflection really helps build this sense of clarity and consistency and an inner dialogue that's rooted in Compassion, and also somewhat of a sense of non attachment. So. So this journal has, I think, 156 pages in it, and your practice probably won't be the same from page to page. And I think looking at it in that way, as this extended practice, as this lifelong practice, helps us attach less to each individual practice. Not that it isn't important, but it's not the end all, be all. It's just an inhale or an exhale of this lifetime of breathing, if you will. So again, it helps build this sense of clarity, consistency, compassion, and a bit of non attachment or acceptance in our practice by creating this extra layer of reflection. So when I was designing this yoga practice journal, I wanted to be really thoughtful about the structure of it, for it to be easy, for it to make sense, and for it to pull a lot of important information from you about yourself and your practice in a really concise and somewhat quick way. So each page has a series of prompts, and each page is dedicated to one yoga practice. So they each have daily prompts that guide reflection with intention, with sensations, with insights, and with integration. So we start with just very simply the date and the day, the practice type, location, and teacher, just so you can keep that in your memory. But then we get into the meat of the journaling. Like I said, it's intention, sensations, insights, and integration. So the first prompt is today's intention. So if you've taken yoga classes, you know, often the teacher invites you to set an intention for the practice or maybe to dedicate it to someone or something. So this gives you the space to write your intention down. And this can be before or after class, either way. So it says, what is my intention for today's practice? On the mat and beyond. So I used the journal today, and my intention that I set before practice was simply to breathe deeply, because life can be really fast. I had a pretty stressful personal day yesterday, and I really wanted the hour to just really breathe deeply through the whole practice. And by setting that intention and then coming back to it, because I did forget a few times throughout the class to breathe deeply, it added that extra layer of support in my practice. The next prompt is what I noticed. So this is all about sensations. So what sensations, emotions, or thoughts arose during my practice? I'll give an example. The class I took today was with Jules, who I interviewed for this podcast. She teaches right before me at True Love, and she's doing a series on the chakras. And she invited us to tune into our sacral chakra or swadisthana and provided like a beautiful visual example of it. And it had been a while since I've connected in that way, and I felt some emotions arise just by taking the moment to visualize that chakra and connect with it. So that was something that I wrote down in my journal as for what arose that day. But it might also be, you know, my shoulder hurt. It might be I was in a crappy mood and then it got better through my practice, or I was kind of hard on myself. But then I took the opportunity to be a little bit more compassionate. Maybe the teacher reminded me to be more compassionate. So what you noticed in your practice, the next prompt is about insights. So what lessons did I learn today? What are the. The deeper lessons that I learned? And for me today in my practice, it was to slow down. It was a hatha class, so it was slower. Like I said, I had sort of a busy, big day yesterday that was hard. So being able to stop myself and slow down was such a huge insight that I feel I can carry into the rest of my day. And speaking of which, the last prompt is around integration. So like I said, yoga doesn't stop after Shavasana. It's something, in my opinion, that we should be taking off the mat with us. So this is about how can I apply today's practice off of the mat. So for me, slowing down felt so good, and that encourages me to slow down in everything else that I'm doing. Even if it's a really busy full day, I don't have to rush from thing to thing. And thank goodness I already practiced that on my yoga mat today. So my brain, my body, my breath, they know what to do. There's also a little box for any additional reflections that come up. I think I just drew a heart in mind today. But, you know, anything can come up during a yoga practice, or if you're a yoga teacher, something might have felt really inspiring to you in your practice. So that's extra space for you to use however you want. So, like I said, it's really simple. I think there's a lot of power in repetition and ritual. So every day is exactly the same or every practice prompt is the same. Like I said, I do that in my personal journaling as well. And it just keeps things really simple and consistent. And if I choose to look back on it, I'm able to really track. I don't know if progress is the word, but yeah, let's say progress, whether or not it's linear over a long period of time. And it's really fun to see these patterns, to see how I've grown, to maybe pull from insights that I previously had and maybe forgot about. So it's really nice how maybe writing one page after a practice can become this mindful anchor and viewpoint in your life. So a couple tips to start a journaling habit. One is to keep your journal close to your mat or your meditation space, or to carry it with you. If you're practicing at yoga studio or any kind of yoga space, just keep it in your bag. It's with your yoga mat, it's with your water bottle, it's with the things that you carry with you to class so that it's always there and you won't forget. Next would be commitment, even two to three minutes to the journal. So just enough to breathe and to jot down something, you can always fill in a little bit more later. But it really is meant to be kind of this immediate reflection of the class so that you can integrate it into the rest of your day. And for me, habits in general revolve around, like, ritual and time of day. So for my personal journaling, I do that every night after my daughter falls asleep and before I read my book before bed, I have like this very specific nighttime routine, I suppose. So it's very difficult to forget to do it. So if you can ritualize your yoga practice in that way, this is just adding one more layer onto that ritual. Whether or not you practice at the same time every day, you'll just get used to, okay, I roll out my mat, I put my journal next to it, and I'm ready to go. And speaking of keeping it simple, I designed this journal in this way. Again, the prompts are the same every day. It's meant to be really simple. You don't have to make a lot of decisions. And I recommend that if you're like a busy person for journaling in general, and some people are very poetic, some people love to free write, I love that. But I think for this type of journal, where you're wanting to create consistency, where you're wanting to track progress over time and maybe feel a sense of accountability to the integration of your practice into your self, study that keeping it simple with these simple props is such a wonderful way to stay consistent and to start and continue a journaling habit. One last thing about that is there's just no need to be perfect. All you need to do is be present to write whatever comes up. And don't worry about how it sounds, how it looks, just let it be exactly as it is. Let it be a part of your yoga practice. I want to close with an invitation. The invitation is to turn noticing into knowing. So yoga in the asana practice, the physical practice isn't just about doing.
[00:16:40] It's about doing and also being so present to ourselves, to our bodies, to our minds, to our spirits, to our breath. So this yoga practice journal helps you turn that noticing into this full sense of knowing, of knowing yourself, of knowing your practice, of knowing yoga in this really intimate way. So I invite you to explore this journal as a companion in your yoga journey. If you're looking for a way to slow down mo notice more, to feel more connected to your practice, I made this for you. This is your invitation to step a little bit more deeply into your yoga practice in a way that is really simple and hopefully really easy to build consistency with. So where can you find the yoga practice journal? Great question. You can find it if you're in Kansas City at my studio at True Love Yoga. It's available in our little retail section. You can also order it online. I will link to this in the show notes, but you can get a spiral bound version on Lulu.com which again, I'll link to that. But you can also order it on Amazon as a paperback, and again, I'll link to that in the show notes. So no matter where you are in the world, you should be able to access this journal. And I hope that it deepens your yoga practice. It creates more awareness, more inner knowing, and more of a sense of sacred ritual around this beautiful practice of yoga. Thank you so much for joining me today. Om Shanti, Om. Peace.
