Find Your Spot

A lot of my Instagram pictures are taken in the same room with a TV and green exercise balls in the background: That’s my gym at work. While getting my website underway, I had visions of having an amazing yoga blog with pictures of me on the beach and in the streets of New York City doing handstands in the midafternoon.

Then I started to think about the reality of that: I commute over an hour each way to a corporate office where I work all day, and feel super lucky if I make it to one yoga class a week. And I haven’t been to the beach since … well, what seems like a very long time.

The place where I end up doing my yoga is at the work gym during my lunch break. It’s not a romantic studio setting with dim lights and an inspiring teacher, but I do some Sun Salutations and play around with whatever moves me—inversions, quad stretches, pranayama. Afterward, I feel better. My work gym has become my go-to re-energize spot.

Finding this spot has been such a boon for my life. I sometimes feel as though I'm drowning in life’s daily demands, despite the fact that I work a full-time job, teach yoga on the side, pay my rent, have amazing friends, and even get my laundry done on a regular basis. What I have realized is that many of the awesome, strong, beautiful women that I know in the workforce struggle with similar issues. How do you have family time/date night/hair salon time and maintain some form of physical exercise, or practice? 

There are lots of resources for how we can stay healthy and sane in the workplace but, if you don’t ever have the space to actually put a Shape magazine routine or a guided meditation exercise into action, it is tough to feel like you are caring for yourself. 

So, first things first: Find a spot. Maybe you have a large space where you can exercise at work, or maybe it’s a small spot for meditation and mindfulness practice—an empty desk, a conference room, a bench. Then put the most time you can spare at work on your calendar: five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour. Commit to getting up from your desk the moment your time has started and go do your practice. I put something on my calendar twice a week, and I remind myself that getting to do anything during the middle of the day is a huge win.

Find out about upcoming programs with Kirsten Adelia Collins.

This essay originally appeared on Kirsten’s blog.