Yes-vember!

It’s been far too long since I wrote. It’s because it’s been far too long since I practiced! Then a conversation with my best friend about yoga and a subsequent IT outage at work led me back to my mat again on Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t my usual time or location (our spare bedroom…I prefer the gym or at least the living room) but that was my opportunity, so I took it. I took up a little spot in front of my mirror, set up some music on my phone and simply went where my practice took me. I hadn’t planned anything as I wasn’t intending to do any yoga that day (read: this week) so I did whatever popped into my head.

I did have a time limit but I tried not to focus on that as I find if I do, it makes me rush, it makes the session feel stilted, uncomfortable and then I feel frustrated that it didn’t feel good. I must have only done 15 poses but I took my time with them and tried to focus on my technique. Although I did create heat, that wasn’t my primary goal, I favoured strength this time. I’m still having to work hard at looking after my tummy and my knees so getting the right muscles to fire to a) look after them and b) make them stronger was really important to me.

I’m exceptionally lucky too, I have lots of snowboarding coming up this winter so making sure I am as strong as I can be for that is a real concern. I’ll give you an example:

Here, my transverse abdominals are fully engaged in boat pose.

Here, my transvers abdominals are not engaged and you can clearly see doming. If I don’t take care, because the gap is a weak area, it could cause a hernia. Worst case scenario, but I really don’t fancy that.

My body isn’t the same as before I was pregnant.  I love it just the same, more even because of the gift it gave me with little girl, but it can’t quite handle things in the same ways as before.  I have to take extra care of it, but I’m OK with that, I apply that approach to the rest of my life too.  Or at least I try to.

What next?

This cheeky, unexpected session reminded me again how much I love yoga; from feeling the warm sun on me through the window to that lovely ‘post exercise ache’ that I felt the following day.  Another chat with my best friend (thanks lady) and I came up with a little idea, a way to motivate myself and possibly other to make yoga part of daily life.   I’m an eternal optimist, I love positivity.  It genuinely makes my life happier, and I hope it brings the odd ray of happiness to others.  I’ve been in sad places, and I don’t suggest that looking on the bright side during those times would have made them better, but now those times are over, being positive casts off those shadows, it helps remove fear and worry about things that have passed or that I can’t change.  I like being positive because it makes me a happy person, friend, wife and most importantly, a happy mummy.

Stop-tober has passed and No-vember doesn’t really fit my mind-set; instead I will be having Yes-vember.  Yes-vember is a month of daily practice.  It doesn’t matter if it’s for 10 mins or 90 minutes, but it will be at least 1 sun salutation long!  I decided that a little accountability would be motivating so have asked my friends to join me, if you would like to join me too please like my page on Facebook New Page Living found here https://www.facebook.com/newpageliving/

It’s free and just for fun, but on New Page Living I will post a range of videos, written plans, top tips, progress updates and lovely quotes that help keep me on track throughout the month.  It’s completely flexible too, everything is for you to do with as you wish.  Say…

Yes to 30 days
Yes to good health
Yes to a calm mind
Yes to yoga
Yes to happiness

Nameste x

Doing what you need

Having recently got in to the rhythm of doing 15 minutes of yoga as soon as I get up with little girl, I have suffered a bit of a setback. For a good month now I have been battling with a cough and cold. I’ve lost my voice, regained it, had headaches and just generally felt pretty run down. This week has been the worst though, and my yoga practice has fallen right off! After 2 nights with no sleep I was of to the doctors and prescribed with some antibiotics.

So I’ve been feeling like a bit of a yogi failure! I’m writing a blog about reconnecting with yoga after the arrival of little girl but I’m not doing any yoga – I didn’t even feel well enough to make my usual class when my husband was home last week! Then I started thinking a little more about it all: this is reality! I have a child, things will change, plans and routines will be disrupted and sometimes simply making it through the day unscathed (most likely still in our PJs with unbrushed hair!) will be our only goal. And actually, that is perfectly ok.

There are other ways to keep connected with yoga. Little things. The 8 limbs of yoga (explained here http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-6391/8-Limbs-of-Yoga-A-Brief-Overview.html) cover a variety of life elements. I clean my house. It isn’t immaculate but I make an effort to keep it feeling like a positive space. I do things for charity (I don’t want to say what as it’s quite personal and if I’m honest publicising it all would feel a bit wrong…that isn’t what it’s about) and I read about yoga. OK, so I’m not quite reading sacred scriptures but I like reading things that make me think about yoga. Often this can be blogs (thank you fellow blogging mummas) but at the moment I’m reading a book called Warrior Pose. A war correspondent’s memoir of how yoga (literally) saved his life. Again, it’s a different perspective of something that I love and is important to me…what will I learn and take from it?

In a nutshell mummas, I find I can beat myself up a bit about not always getting to class, about not feeling up to doing yoga first thing and a hundred other things that I think I should be doing. It’s silly. I’m cutting myself a break: I will do what I can when I can. My worlds of yoga and motherhood won’t stop blending together simply because I haven’t practiced any asanas this week. I’ll just chalk it up to a theory element of this course called life.

Morning mat time.

Firstly, happy new year everyone!  I’ve a brief hiatus from NPY over the Christmas period, simply for ease.  Our little family unit travels about quite a bit and this time of year was no exception.  We had the joy of sharing little girls first Christmas with all the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, which was a truly wonderful thing.  Now, however, I am back to blogging about my return to yoga now that I am a Mum, and little girl’s introduction to it.

So, on with the blog…

Once again, my husband is away again, for 4 of the first 5 weeks of this working year, which means that if I want to practice yoga it will be with baby.  Granted, I could have a session whilst little girl naps but frankly, when she’s sleeping, I just want to sit down for 30 minutes myself and relax.  This means little girl and I need to yoga it up together.  I find that my day is often busy, bouncing from a baby class, to a feed, to play time, to the laundry and back again.  I struggle to structure our day enough to put a yoga session in the middle of it.  As daft as it may sound, getting the mat out, getting changed (jeans aren’t always the best choice for yoga, let alone a dress…), creating space and then putting everything back again, all take time:  minutes are precious, and sometimes deal breakers.  How do I fit yoga in?  I need to do it, I know it will give me the lift I’m desperately after.  How did I do it before life got busy?  Well, in the morning, before I did anything.

A mat in place is a plan in place.

Last Tuesday night, after two particularly blue days, I decided enough was enough: change was required.  Just before I went to bed, I rolled out my yoga mat outside my bedroom door on the landing and placed my little music speaker at the top of it next to the wall so it was ready to go but out of the way.  Wednesday morning I woke up, fed little girl and before I could even get to the nursery with baby to get her clean and dressed for the day I was greeted by my yoga mat.  I started my music up and in my PJs, with little girl, I managed a rather lovely, rather fun 20 minute session to music.  This has subsequently worked every day for me since (except Sunday…Daddy took baby and I slept).  i know for me that simple preparation is key so this is my little set up routine:

– Roll out my mat just before I go to bed and put out my music speaker.  Go to sleep.
– Wake up, feed little girl, get up with little girl.
– Do 20 minutes of yoga to music with little girl on my yoga mat.
– Head in to the nursery, change nappy, dress little girl.
– Put little girl in her cot, roll up yoga mat and pick up speaker, put them in my bedroom.
– Get dressed, brush my hair and teeth.
– Pick up little girl and start our day.
– Repeat.

What poses are baby compatible?

The poses I am doing can be seen in some pictures below.  The way I have approached it is to see what naturally flows for me and modified them a little so I can either hold, touch or look at little girl.  Yes, this means my asanas aren’t perfect but little girl finds it all very entertaining this way and it gives me reassurance that she is happy.

Mountain pose into forward fold.

Forward fold (chest should remain in contact with thighs so I need to bend my knees a bit to do this) into flat back.

Downward dog into dolphin pose.

Plank into cobra.

Warrior 1 and warrior 2.

Triangle into revolved triangle. I’m very lightly resting my hand on baby with these. She enjoyed a little tickle.

Fish pose. Little girl grabs on to my ankles during this quite often.

Garland into goddess…lots of eye contact and giggles.

Crow pose – do not do this unless you are very confident with it. You can always keep your toes on the ground if you are unsure.

Staff pose, practiced by mumma and bubba!

Seated forward bend, again with one hand on baby.

Boat pose holding little girl (she makes an excellent weight!) followed by kisses and cuddles.

Childs pose whilst blowing raspberries on little girls tummy, again followed by cuddles.

It goes without saying that this blog is simply an account of what I am doing with yoga and motherhood, please take my routine as that and only do what you are confident and comfortable with.

What did I notice?

The greatest difference I noticed was toy my mood. Since doing our early morning yoga, I have felt soooo much more positive during the day and have also been remarkably and unintentionally productive. I think this is down to a few things. Firstly, I reconnect with an activity I love so feel a little bit more like “the old me”. Secondly, the first thing I do when I get up is spend 20 minutes smiling and laughing with little girl, before we do anything else! It’s wonderful! A 20 minute session may not be a mega workout but it’s enough, it gives me some very valuable benefits.

Top tips.

– Preparation is key, as is positioning… Being greeted by my yoga mat as soon as I open my bedroom door means there is no escape or excuse.
– Be realistic. Little girl enjoys 20 mins but any longer and she’s going to get fed up.
– Do what works. I really enjoy pursing news asanas I haven’t tried before or working on ones that I find difficult but these early morning sessions just aren’t the time or place for that.
– Adapt how you need. Tweak poses as you need to accommodate your little person.
– Enjoy it.

So, we are ready to go again tomorrow morning. You don’t need much space or anything fancy, just a way to trigger a little practice.

The sling thing

This last week I have been on holiday in Portugal so unfortunately missed my usual yoga class and this Tuesday I decided not to go. As relaxing as our holiday was, adjusting back to normal life has caused a slight disruption to our feeding so instead, my husband went. Initially I felt a little sad at missing my usual class two weeks in a row but then realised that this is the life of a mummy, sometimes my routine will be disrupted and I will need to find other ways to do the things I enjoy. In fact, recently I’ve been thinking about this a lot. When the lovely structure of a class isn’t available – baby, work or home commitments – how do you incorporate yoga in to daily life?

Obligatory holiday beach yoga

This wouldn’t be a true yoga blog if it didn’t have some pictures of yoga on the beach now, would it!

I spent our entire holiday wearing my little girl in our sling as we chose not to take the pram (side note: this made life a lot easier. Stairs, hills and restaurant space were never a problem!) so if I wanted to do any yoga whilst away, it needed to be with baby or close by. There is obviously a limit on what asanas you can do with a baby strapped to you, but I found the following ones worked well.

Little girl slept throughout!

Do less when carrying more

Obviously I couldn’t do a whole range of asanas with little girl strapped to me, but I also found I couldn’t quite go as low or as deep into a pose as I would usually. I was after all carrying a 5kg weight on my chest! This was mostly because I found that my knees hurt or it put too much strain on my back. Again, I am brought back to balance: benefit (& desire) vs harm. My ligaments are still returning to normal after all the Relaxin floating around my body during pregnancy and I’m not used to doing a great deal of physical exertion so need to build up my ability with each asana slowly – without or without baby on me! Carrying a baby will naturally place extra stress on joints when under pressure.

Short but sweet sessions seem to work well too. I don’t often get a large expanse of time to do with as I wish any more. Even if little girl is sleeping, there are chores to be done or showers to be had. I found myself doing a couple of asanas for a couple of minutes as a time on a very ad hoc basis. On a rare occasion when I found myself darting off sans baby to fetch some laundry, I ended up doing half moon poses in the lift, simply because that’s what my body was asking for and I had the opportunity.

When the mood strikes

As I’ve already mentioned in this post, a plan doesn’t often survive first contact with baby. I have found that if I want to do yoga or a particular asana then to do a small bit (literally just 1 asana sometimes…) whenever I felt the desire. This included whilst playing on the beach and pottering in our apartment at the start or end of the day. It wasn’t always much but I did feel better for it. One thing I could always do whilst carrying little girl in the sling was remember my posture and engage my deep abs, and what a difference that has made. More on that later though….(in my next post).

In other news

Whilst on the beach, during a brief spell where little girl kicked back in her travel bouncer and enjoyed being entertained by Daddy, I took the chance to carry out a 10 minute “mini session”. Afterwards I looked down at the pattern I’d left on the sand and it made me smile, physically seeing the evidence that I was able to keep doing this! Long may it continue!

Posture makes perfect

So in addition to my weekly yoga session, I’m trying to help build my core strength back up and a simple way to do this is through good posture.

My big, pregnant belly pulled my tummy muscles out and my spine forwards. Now that baby is here, I still collapse my waist, pushing my tummy forwards, particularly when I’m carrying little girl. It wasn’t until I started reading about abdominal separation that I realised that my posture may be all wonky.

Long story short, I went and had a good look in the mirror and saw that my lower back was quite arched, my tummy stuck out in a little paunch and there was almost a fold in my skin/muscles on my side. I stood up tall, engaged my deep ab muscles, particularly low down between my hips and consciously unarched my back as I did so. I pulled my belly button towards my spine but didn’t use my front abs to pull everything. I can still breathe easily whilst doing this. It took a little time to figure out how to straighten myself out, but when I did, I was surprised at what a difference it made. Here are some before and after photos to show the difference in my profile from the side and front. Please excuse the black and white but I’m not quite sure I’m ready for my postpartum tum to seen in full technicolor!

I’m now trying to remember my posture regularly and it’s making it easier, which tells me it’s helping, my muscles must be getting stronger. My body aches a little less when I’m carrying little girl too. I’ll keep working on my posture and take some photos regularly to see my progress!

Think tall and strong!

Theory into Practice

Having read up a good deal on Diastasis Recti (DR) this week, learning what exercises to avoid and what to focus on to help repair my DR, I’ve added a few modifications to my yoga practice. My yoga practice is still only weekly as I am still figuring out how to combine it with motherhood so I want to get the most from my session, and the more positive an experience each one is, the more it encourages me to work my daily life out to include daily sessions once again.

What did I notice this week?

– My limitations have changed.
There are now several asanas I can’t do or find much harder. Not carrying out certain asanas is hard. My heart says “Yes! You can do that!” But then my brain would remind me why I couldn’t. It was also hard not to do the advanced versions of some asanas that I can do. Many asanas that I revelled in holding before I fell pregnant are now a lot more challenging for me. I shake and wobble and over compensate, which actually does more harm than good in the long run as I break form. The asanas I noticed this most with were Forward Fold and Side Plank. I used to be able to place my hands flat on the floor with straight legs in forward fold but now I can only do this with my knees bent. Luckily my lovely yoga teacher, Sue, repeatedly reminds us of the safest way to carry out this asana and why: keep your chest in contact with your thighs, bend your knees as you need so you can keep your hands flat on the floor and with each exhalation increase the stretch through the legs. By keeping my chest in touch with my thighs, my lower back is protected.

– My balance that is directly linked to my core isn’t as good as it used to be.
Again, I wobble and buckle, which throws me out the asana. The temptation is to over compensate through my core, but as I’ve explained above, that will only do more harm than good, especially with DR.

How did I work around this?

– Belly button to spine.
We talk a lot about this in yoga to work our core muscles and maintain good posture, but now I’m finding it more important – and harder to do – than ever.  My ab muscles feel quite saggy so I have to really focus do this, reminding myself continuously to do it throughout the session.  Before I felt pregnant, I would do this subconsciously throughout the day.  In fact, at about 4 months pregnant I had to consciously ‘let go’ of the muscles around my bump as I was unconsciously holding it in (as much as you can at 4 months pregnant!) and it was becoming painful.  As soon as I relaxed my muscles, it felt better.

– Replace the poses.
As discussed in The Core Issue, Half Bridge pose is a good exercise for strengthening and toning the deep ab muscles without causing the “six pack abs” to contract.  This week, Half Bridge pose was incorporated into the session (which was ace!) setting me off to a good start.  When the rest of the class undertook Boat pose, I did leg slides and head raises instead.  I particularly enjoyed the head raises, I could feel it working the right muscles without stressing the weaker ones.  I felt this less with the leg slides.

What did I learn?

– Engaging the right muscles is key!
Regardless of the pose I was holding, I needed to engage my deep abdominals, the ones linked to my pelvic floor but without contracting the “six pack” abs.  The temptation with any abdominal exercise is to squeeze everything, as tight as you can, but with a postpartum tummy its important to be specific.  The best way I have found to do this is calmly, using my breath.  As I breathe in, I focus on relaxing certain muscles, then as I breathe out, I engage others.

– A better yogi in the long run?
I am limited on what asanas I can do and then again on what level I can take the ones I can do to.  Initially, this was really frustrating, upsetting even, but as I’ve thought about it and begun to practice, I’ve realised that going back to basics is actually going to be really good for me.  It is making me very disciplined in my posture, regardless of asana and that is letting me “rebuild” my body better and stronger than before (in good time, obviously).  In the end, I actually think I will be a better yogi as a result.  Any bad habits that I had before I became pregnant should be corrected.

In other news…

When I left dad and baby last week, it was a bit of a tense affair; dad felt nervous about being on his own with little girl and I felt nervous, guilty and a bit frustrated about leaving them for 2 hours.  This week we tried a different approach.  Again, I expressed milk for a “tide over” whilst I was out but also had 4 different bottles ready to go for said milk as little girl is being a bit fussy when food is direct from the boob.  As I went to leave, I said to my husband “I trust you completely and know you can handle anything”  – a mantra to both of us – and he replied “yes I can, now go, we’re fine.”  This lead to a much calmer practice and I felt a lot more connected to it as a result.

My lovely yoga teacher, Sue, suggested a new way to approach a yoga session: dedicating your practice to someone else.  Now this sounds quite out there, I know, but actually, as a new mum, my whole world is geared around doing things for someone else.  It has become second nature, and far easier than doing something for myself.  So, I chose my person to dedicate this weeks session to and then every time I felt myself a bit unfocused I reminded myself “this is for XXX” and that made me work a little harder, focus a little more.  The result?  A better practice and less worrying about getting home.

Speaking of getting home, on my return I walked in to find little girl snuggled up with dad on the sofa, which was delightful!

The first session.

My daughter arrived 9 weeks ago. It felt like I had been hit by a train immediately afterwards, which – foolish as it may be – surprised me. For weeks afterwards, I felt horribly tired and weak. Anaemia didn’t help much but after about 5 weeks it felt like I turned a corner and I began to feel much better. By the time I had my ‘6 week check’ (at 7 weeks) I felt strong enough to start planning my first session. I knew that I needed to have all eventualities covered to give me reassurance when I went to my class that baby girl’s needs would be met and daddy would feel confident doing so. If any of the basics were to go wrong, I know that I would struggle to leave next time round so this was going to be key for me! Basically, i just wanted everybody to feel happy and calm.

Anyway, milk expressed, nappies stocked, baby asleep and handed over to dad, I was out the door and off to my local class with the lovely Sue, who also taught me whilst I was pregnant. This helped for two reasons. Firstly, Sue understood that I had a very new daughter so if my phone (on silent of course) rang, I’d be dashing out and secondly, she understood the physical state my body was in after having a baby. This is important. Yoga teachers naturally want to encourage their students, and if the postpartum body isn’t carefully considered, more harm can be done than good. Sue was going to look after me.

I was a bit nervous as the practice began. My mind was racing and racing, worrying about how dad and daughter were coping in my absence. It did feel great to be back but I had to keep reminding myself to take it slowly, that I wasn’t going to be as strong or flexible as before. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t but my balance wasn’t half bad! It takes about 4 months for abdominals to fully knit back together so all direct ab work was off the cards. This means plank, low plank, boat pose all needed to be modified. As tempting as it was to plank, I recalled looking at my pregnant belly when I did this a five months ago and seeing that my abs had pretty much shrink-wrapped my growing baby. I knew that I would only cause my abs to separate if I rushed into this so carried this out on my knees, I didn’t even try to hold it in full. When it came to boat pose, I reclined slightly and kept my knees quite bent, again allowing my back muscles to do the work and my thighs. Instead, I focused on engaging all the other muscles around my core, in my legs and in my arms instead. It felt good. My pelvic floor was naturally still a little weak, and although I didn’t have any ‘new mummy accidents’, I did find that I had to focus on these muscles a little more than normal too.

Following my first session, my top tips are as follows:

• Preparation
  – Give your partner reassurance that you can be contacted. This will keep both of you calm and settled.
  – Make sure your phone is actually charged and has signal!
• Practice
  – Don’t be tempted to work your abs – they aren’t ready yet!
  – Use the other parts of your core and legs to hold certain poses instead of your abs. This will be harder when it comes to balancing.
  – Focus on you and you alone. It is totally irrelevant what the person next to you is doing, remember you’ve just had a baby!!

After an hour and fifteen minutes, I packed up my stuff, said good-bye and headed home. The house was still standing and both dad and baby were fine. It was straight into feeding and sleeping on mummy, but everyone was happy enough and I really felt like I had taken the first, healthy step to getting myself strong and fit once again.  It felt good.

Why am I writing this blog?

I have practiced yoga since 2006.  I’ve loved every minute of it, from seeing my body physically achieve new things beyond what I thought it could to the quiet peace it gives me when the rest of my world seems like chaos.  In November 2013 I fell pregnant with my first baby and my yoga practiced changed.  In fact, for the first 3 months I’d say it ceased to exist.  This isn’t the first break from yoga I’ve had but this time I couldn’t just pick up where I left off, my practice had to modify to accommodate – and care for – my growing baby.  I started pregnancy yoga classes and eventually even returned to regular yoga class, for a short while until I couldn’t move around my bump any more.  It’s been something that gave me relief throughout my pregnancy, physically and emotionally.

Now my daughter is here and once again I’ve had to take a little break from yoga, 8 weeks this time to give my body sufficient time to recover after a slightly complicated birth and also allow little girl and daddy enough time to adjust.  I know I want to restart my practice but how do I do that with a new born?  There are a whole host of issues that I need to consider before I go back.  For a start, who will look after little girl?  How will my body cope with the physicality of yoga?  How will my brain cope with leaving little girl for something selfish (on the surface) and with not being able to do what I could do a year ago?

I decided to write this blog to document my experience of returning to my ‘usual’ yoga practice now that I am a mum.  It’s a personal endeavour that I hope may be useful to other yogi parents but principally I thought this would be a good way to motivate myself to continue with something I’ve passionately enjoyed for years during the biggest change of my life.  I know it’s a fundamental part of my life, my identity but have no idea it fits in with motherhood!

I am a frank person who whose aim is to give an real account of combining yoga with parenting, it won’t always be pretty but it will always be honest.