Limit the input

Does this headline sound contradicting to you for a blog that is predominantly about personal growth? Definitely read on.

Over the past 4 years, I’ve been diving deeper into myself, also referred to as personal development. I reflected not only on myself, my fears and my limitations, but also on how this showed in my relationships, with friends, family and partners.

On this journey – which is an ongoing process – I have learned a lot about myself. I was able to dissolve certain behavioural patterns that were limiting me due to underlying fears. I tuned deeper into my body to let go of tensions that have been building up and manifesting in my body for way too long. I work with coaches both personally and professionally to become the best version of myself. I completed an NLP training to improve my communication skills, to dive deeper into self-reflection and to change patterns that didn’t serve me any more with the clear objective to build a life that I really want to live.

So far so good. I believe that this ongoing journey of self-reflection and self-development is awesome. I  really wouldn’t change a thing looking back. It all served its purpose; every single change, every heartbreak, every challenge that I encountered in my life so far, were signs of the universe to correct my course; by looking deeper, by understanding and by initiating change.

More sensitivity

What I am also observing whilst being on this journey is that I’ve become way more sensitive with all my senses. I hear more, I see more, I feel more. I’d even say I smell and taste more thanks to my work with dōTERRA essential oils.

To really break this down for you, I hear people talking, the bells of the church, sirens, cars, children, water flowing, my steps on the ground, my diffuser running. I hear podcasts, audios and music. I hear myself talking. I could keep going.

I see more. My vision has expanded. I perceive more people in the tube and also what they do. I see the trees moving in the wind, children playing in the streets, people drinking coffee, I see people looking at other people, I observe couples walking hand in hand, I see the sun, the moon and the sky being in movement.

I feel more. I’ve become way more kinaesthetic, I’ve improved my awareness of the position and movement of the parts of my body. I can feel tension way quicker and I do know how to release it faster. I perceive (more) vibes from other people, their feelings, their energies, their current state of being. Again, I could keep going.

More input – more output?

My point is that this increased awareness also means that I sometimes must limit the input, as otherwise it becomes too overwhelming. At a certain point in a certain phase, more input simply doesn’t mean more output. It is essential at this point to limit the input and to focus on processing and digesting all of it. I am only human, as are you, so I figured it’s okay to limit my input.

How?

By closing my eyes just like on the pic. By spending more time by myself. I have noticed that I need more me-time and less together-time when in a phase of limiting input. This means that I would have lunch breaks on my own instead of going with others. I’m not going out a lot at the moment and unfortunately I haven’t been dancing a lot lately. Yes, it is a process of withdrawing myself, and whilst I’ve had phases where I didn’t even understand why I was doing it, I am now fully embracing my need of being alone. Depending on the current life and business set up, the people surrounding me do not always understand my behaviour and my withdrawal, which in return isn’t always easy for me to accept. Yet, I’m learning and growing through this process and I accept that this is part of my personal journey, too and that I do not have to or want to justify for that. It is what I need.

And it’s okay!

I’ve for sure learned that it is okay for me to withdraw myself, if it all gets too much. I’m understanding that my increased awareness and self-reflection led me to being a more sensitive human being called Nina. Whilst in the past I was 90% outgoing, social and extroverted, I am now in need of downtime and quiet time, too. These two facets allow me a better balance in life, more time to process and digest situations, and very importantly, more self-love. I’m freeing myself as much as possible from the opinion of others when it comes to my health and my wellbeing. No, it’s not always easy, but you gotta do what is right, not what’s easy.

Go with what you need!

When I feel the need to socialise, I will. When I feel the need to be alone, I will. When I feel the need to be active, I will. When I feel the need not to talk about certain topics, I won’t. When I feel the need to set boundaries, I will. When I feel the need to speak up, I will. And no, this is never against someone or something, it just means I follow up on what I need and follow through with it.

You can do this, too. Limit your input when you feel like it and don’t feel bad for it.

Love,

yours Nina

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yoga Teacher Training-Episode 4

Wow, episode 4 already, which means I’m half way through the yoga teacher training. I have chosen the featured image of this blog post, as this was a very grounding training, with yoga practice, yoga philosophy and yoga anatomy. Yoga brings me closer to my real self each and every day, on and off the mat. And this picture shows me during a yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico, where I felt grounded, too. Inspired, like I do now. And especially this pic was taken, when I finally permitted myself to come back to the real me.

Have you read my article yoga love yet? If you haven’t, I’d recommend to do it now, so you really understand why I feel so connected to the yoga practice.

Day 1: Started at 4pm as every Friday. I must admit after 2 weekends in a row and the 3rd weekend to come I felt a bit tired and wouldn’t have minded to just stay on the sofa with a tea and a book, but as I said above, I know why I’m doing this. So I swung my body into my yoga clothes, onto my bike and off to the yoga studio. The day started with correcting our homework, the yoga sequence we had to prepare and also we revised the most important points about standing poses. I was happy to see that my sequence was very good, even if not perfect, and that I knew actually everything on the standing poses, yay. As our teacher Nella always says, everything you need to know and you are ready to know, will sink in… the rest will come.

Then we went into our yoga practice focusing on the low cobra (Bhujangasana) and (Ardha) Chaturanga Dandasana. Whilst I knew the poses in theory, it turned out that even though I thought I had a really strong core, I kept sinking in to compensate what my arms couldn’t deliver. We went into groups of 2 to practice these poses and also to give each other feedback. We also learned assists and how to correct the major weaknesses in these poses, like putting too much pressure in the lower back, or not placing the hands properly underneath the shoulders to achieve a vertical angle to the mat. Afterwards, we incorporated the learnings into the following yoga practice and Jesus, my arms were ‘hurting’. It felt like they’d be falling off any second. But the practice was so good and challenging. And I like a challenge 😉

The second part of the day continued with yoga philosophy. We majorly discussed Ishvarah and the devotion to the Creator as well as the famous sound OM. We went into groups of 5 and prepared a chart about what OM means to us knowing by then that OM is the sound of Ishvarah. We then had to present the chart and in our group Robert and myself took over. The following OM to close the yoga practice was the most beautiful OM I’ve ever sung. It really came from the bottom of my heart and I indeed felt connected to something superior than me. I’ve had this feeling before, but this time was different.

OM, the sound of Ishvarah.

I headed home at 9pm, had a shower, something to eat, read a bit and fell into a good relaxed sleep.

Day 2: Makes me smile. We knew that we would be working with Richard Hackenberg the entire Saturday and Sunday. We were told it is about yoga anatomy. And I guess it was, but it was live anatomy if you know what I mean, so 9am Saturday morning and we went straight into a yoga practice. It was ‘only’ a 50 min practice, but literally after 10 minutes I turned around to the last row and breathed heavily, as it was just tough. The sequence appeared easy, and we didn’t do more than 10 different asanas. But, and that’s the clue, we moved quite slowly and with such an intensity, that we were all pretty exhausted after 10 minutes, haha. What a great practice though. Richard taught us very accurately how the body works whilst practicing yoga, live anatomy! After this practice, I experienced my best Savasana ever. Honestly. My whole body let go into my mat. Absolutely fabulous.

In the afternoon we spoke specifically about certain body parts, such as hamstrings, hip flexors and our spine. Knowing now that our spine is the way to transport energy, it makes it even clearer to me that we need to take good care not only of our spine, but our entire body. And I take good care of my body, once I re-educate it by practicing yoga consciously, with great alignment, with mindfulness, with love to the movement and the knowledge that my body wants to compensate weaker and less flexible body parts. I love my body and I’m so grateful for it, although I do have my physical challenges too, such as a severe tightness in my hip flexors and groins. I do admit that I find it annoying at times, but then I always come back to self-love and acceptance, thinking it will go once my time is right.

Thank your body.

Day 3: Makes me smile again, however this time I knew better. I knew we would be starting with a yoga practice, slow and challenging, so this time I was mentally prepared. And yet again, the practice was sweaty, I felt all muscles, everything, but I simply enjoyed the physical challenge and I could feel my energy rising. The following Savasana after a 60 minute practice was wonderful and I liked the fact that Richard didn’t say anything during Savasana and there wasn’t any music playing. I didn’t miss it, as I felt so peaceful lying on my yoga mat. We finished the practice with singing 3 x 3 OMs. 3 loud OMs for the entire world, 3 OMs a bit quieter for our group and last but not least I sang 3 OMs just for myself. Beautiful, no more words needed.

The second part continued with yoga anatomy again. This time we focused on the different nervous systems and which role they play in our everyday life. Especially the autonomic nervous system took my interest, as this is the system that works without my consciousness. This means that practicing yoga is even more important in order to gain consciousness over our body and mind, as we can only change the things that we move from the unconscious to the conscious.

What I also found fascinating is how our breathing influences our nervous system and whilst all yogis probably know that breathing is good, it is even better to know which role oxygen and CO2 play in the breathing. Meaning the higher the CO2 level in our body, the more relaxed we feel, for example when practicing Kumbhaka, the art of not breathing. Or Kapalabhati, when breathing quickly, which makes us feel more nervous and energetic as the CO2 level in our body decreases.

Last but not least we looked at Richard’s anatomy app over a projector. This was great, as he showed us all the joints, tendons and muscles we discussed over the last couple of days.

I must say I’m completely impressed with my body, with yoga, with the philosophy, what it gives me and it just makes me so happy.

I just love what I’m doing right now and that’s all that counts.

Do what you love and enjoy the way.

Yours, Nina