Belly Tight-Belly Slack- it's a choice

Lower back problems are the worst. Chores are the worst.

You won't catch me ironing more than three times a year. I wear wrinkled clothes and I wear them three days in a row. Seriously, I do. It's very French, I hear.

It's sad that we often do chores (using our bodies actively, getting exercise), whilst throwing our bodies around, lifting and bending all wrong.

Should we make it worth our while and make those chores pack a punch? Okay, how about if I promise a calmer mind and a tighter belly?

Here's how. When you bend down to get something out of that bottom drawer in your kitchen, instead of rounding your back, belly slack, all the weight of your torso hanging off your lower spine...

...instead, let's firmly plant our feet, engaging all  the muscles in our legs, hug our belly buttons to our spines, lifting, then imagine we have a string attached to the top of our heads pulling it away from our pelvis.

The pressure now dissipates as the weight is displaced along your spine, in your diaphragm, and along your strong legs. A strong, stable core.

 Cleaning the toilet, putting laundry in the dryer, tucking the sheets in the bed, picking up unidentifiable nuggets? No fun? Choose to make it a practice. I know I know. It makes harder. Well growth isn't easy. Strength isn't easy. But our bodies feel so good when we give them a little love.

We can see it as an opportunity to live our yoga, feel our bodies, and choose for it to be in a different position. We're choosing a different way.

If you want to give it a real yoga (Sanskrit) name, you'd be practicing Tapas, the fiery determination that keeps you doing the things you know are good for you when you don't really want to do them. Tapas is one of the Niaymas (observances) written about in the Yoga Sutras.

Let's choose to make our lives a little better, get a little bit stronger, and switch our thinking. Chores are now a chance for us to practice yoga and by doing so, be mindful, in the moment, connected to our bodies, see ourselves and for those of us concerned with beach season, tighten our bellies.

None of this will slow us down either. We'll still get that casserole in the oven or pick up that dropped pen off the floor in the same amount of time. We just chose a DIFFERENT WAY. 

Reply and share where else in life can you choose a different way? 

Embrace your edge and do something that scares you a little today.