To anyone practicing yoga or meditation at home:
Stop trying to create a perfectly aesthetic experience.
The doorbell might ring. The neighbors might start yelling. Work might call. Your dogs might decide they cannot live without you as soon as you unroll your mat. Your partner might need your help after you light that final candle. Or your kids might have an accident right after you close your eyes atop your meditation cushion.
And that is okay.
Meet these moments with compassion.
After all, yoga and meditation are great tools for teaching us how to move through the world with patience. Both with ourselves and with our environment.
Tend to what needs tending to, observe them as they are. Then come back to your practice. Pick up where you left off. There is no shame in doing so.
Remember that it is indeed a “practice” and not some blemish free performance.
And yes: sometimes everything will align and we’ll get to enjoy those quiet undisturbed perfectly serene moments. Savor those moments and be grateful when they occur, but do not expect them to be the norm. Having that expectation is unfair to your environment but also deeply unfair to yourself.
Expectations such as these are harmful, as they create narratives that keep you from your practice. You want your practice, you deserve your practice. So why not gift yourself it despite what’s happening around you?
Practice in the noise.
Practice with your dogs.
Practice when you come back from the interruption.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
Because every single meditation and yoga practice you have with yourself is one of value. It doesn’t matter if you practiced for 5 minutes or were interrupted 5 times. It is still supremely more valuable than not practicing at all.
So, stop trying to create a perfectly aesthetic experience.
It will inevitably hold you back from the practice itself.
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