Funny Little Habits....

We all have funny little habits.  Some are interesting and quirky, and make us more interesting, and some are downright annoying and distructive!  You may have developed a habit from childhood, like chewing on the end of your hair, or twiddling a pencil through your fingers when concentrating.  Harmless, and not likely to have any ill effects one way or the other.  In the overall scheme of things, singing Build Me Up, Buttercup while taking a shower is not going to damage you, though it might defintely annoy the other people in the house!

Unfrotunately, we also develop funny little physical habits.  Some, again, make us unique and identify us.  You can usually spot someone off in the distance and recognise them by the way they move.  You can spot them on the dance floor, for good or for bad, or how they run, walk or stand.  We can personally have developed ways of sitting, standing, walking etc, that have been laid deeply down into our neuropathways, and we have no real awareness of it.  It settled into the unconscious when the pattern has been repeated and used enough.  Some of these are good.  Some support us and all are there to propel us around and get done what needs to be done.  Some..on the other hand, may be very detrimental to the framework we occupy, i.e. the skeletal sturcture. 

We may have had an ankle injury back when, and held our foot and ankle at a distorted angle.  If it is held there long enough, repeated enough, that distortion will settle into a pattern of movement that can be permanent, even after the ankle has healed.  We could just have developed a "hitch" in the way we walk, which ultimately will pull the structure out of alignment. We could be rolling our weight into the balls of our feet, instead of spreading it over the breath of the foot, and develop bunions, and bony build up outside the ball of the foot.

The body is built for symmetry. (unless there are bone length anomolies or distortions) and Yoga, and especially SAY Yoga, helps to bring they symmetry back to the structure.  It will correct these "funny little habits" that form over time.  Once the body start to be aware of these habitual ways of moving and holding, the mechanism in your awareness, your consciousness, will expand the ability and start to NOTICE in the broader sense.  You will notice that you "notice"! The ability to examine and evaluate things that we often take for granted or never gave any attention to start to seep into our awareness.  The internal world becomes more interesting, and the external world becomes more astonishing.

A life lived unexamined is not worth living, as Socrates said.  Yoga will certainly teach us how to examine, and evaluate the life we are living!!  Enjoy your funny little habits that make you you, and be happy to address the ones that may be ready to be released.