Practice Makes Perfect

Rome wasn’t built in a day. The Aqueducts in Segovia were though, but even the natives say it was the work of the Devil.

My point is nothing comes easy or without practice.

You may not remember, but you weren’t born walking. There were times you gave up on it, over and over, but with your persistence and your parents’ love, you did it!

It’s a lot easier to  practice something til perfection if you kind of have to and if its the only thing you’re doing all day. That isn’t the case if you’re no longer a baby.

Maybe you’re not even living with your parents now…maybe they have long gone.

You still have yourself and your faith in HIM and if you don’t have that faith, that’s ok because you still have HIS love.

With HIS love and your faith in yourself and this God forsaken world, you will be perfect at what you practice.

I’m practicing yoga and letting go right now. Both are currently hard to do with the stubborn mindset I’m clinging to, so I’m going to practice. A LOT.

I’m practicing focusing on what I do have, on WHO I have, how much is still in store for me and letting nature take its course.

I’m practicing speaking nicer.

I’m a flipping Scorpio, I yell, I fill with emotions of love and disdain and hope. I can’t help it. UNLESS, I PRACTICE.

It’s almost 8 am and I work today, so I need to get ready.

I hope in reading this you gain a little more hope and persistence in your practice, whatever it may be.

Until next time,

xoxo Brit

Beginning Your Yoga Regimen

 “When did you start yoga?”

The question above is one of the most common questions I get, and one of the hardest to answer. I always reply with, “Oh, a few years ago”.

Why? Because, although I did yoga poses from age 15, I didn’t begin a regimen until…well…a few years ago.

I can’t exactly remember when yoga transitioned from a hobby to a sort of way of life for me, but it is now a part of my daily regimen. You can visit my Instagram to check out some pictures of my practice. The definition of regimen according to the Merriam-Webster dicitonary is: a systematic plan (as of diet, therapy, or medication) especially when designed to improve and maintain the health of a patient.

When starting your yoga regimen, you must be ready to change your world. You must be trying to better yourself and also those around you.

Beginning your yoga regimen:

A regimen of yoga does not mean you must do Surya Namaskar A and B  (sun salutations) everyday until you get them perfect. It means you must practice everyday. You must love yourself everyday enough to get on that mat. Enough to meditate, to stretch, to think, and to sweat.

The hardest part about a regimen is finding time. Once you find that time the hardest part is then the repetition. In the following paragraphs I will explain how you can find time for your yoga regimen and how to get through the “bore” of repetition that comes with it.

This may not be for everyone, but I began waking up earlier and earlier each day so that I could get my yoga in. Waking up earlier gives you more time in your day to do WHATEVER you want. Morning yoga is a great way to start your day for your mind and body.

Now, I don’t do an hour of yoga every morning, and I don’t always do it 6 days of the week, but that would be practicing Ashtanga yoga, a specific type of yoga. I will get into the different types of yoga in a later post, how they differ, and what they offer. Finding your “type” will come much later in your practice, if it comes at all.

What is important now, is to focus on the act of yoga as a part of your daily routine and self-identity.

Yoga is for you and no one else.

Waking up early to downward dog, forward fold, and stretch your splits IS doing yoga. You don’t have to have a “flow” or know what pose your going to practice next, just do it!

You can do yoga at your desk at work, or everyday after you get home from work and have kicked your shoes off. There is no time limit. You don’t have to have an hour or even 30 minutes set aside just to do yoga, believe it or not.

Reality of repetition in your regimen:

When it comes to the repetition of things, instead of finding it a bore as you go throughout your week, remind yourself what a challenge it is just to get up and get moving to some people, and then meditate on fact that you can.

You can do whatever you want and know that the repetition in your regimen or practice only means that you will get better. Everyday. Not to say do the same poses or practice for the same amount of time each day, but find something to look forward to in each practice. Something new.

“Are your legs straighter today? Will you try to go further in your splits? Will the focus today be purely on your breath?” These are all questions I ask myself throughout the week.

The goal is to be a better person, to be more open, mentally and physically, to let go of  tension, and to rest in oneself with oneself, even if you are physically moving.

Motivating yourself:

I read other yoga blogs like Daily Cup of Yoga, and follow several yogis on Instagram for motivation. Kino Yoga beautifully demonstrates how to correctly do poses and explains the anatomy of them in many of her videos on Instagram and YouTube. Erin Motz has a 30-day yoga tutorial for those that find they need someone to “lead” their practice.

No matter who you choose to follow, what poses you choose to practice, or the time and place you do practice, just remember that love is all you need because when you love, all is coming. XOXO, Brit

The Cost of Education: It’s about a lot more than money

By Brittany Strickland

Circumstances surrounding education can play a major role in one’s socioeconomic development and standing.

In Rome, in one of the poorest geographic areas, the average household lives off of an income of approximately $11,000 per year. Let that soak in. While my family fortunately did not have to live off $11,000 a year, my parents struggled to support our family of five on about $40,000. I would ask myself in naïveté why my parents did not just make more money, or get better jobs.

What I did not know then, is that when mortgage requires almost 20 percent of your income and you have a family to support, you need a good job to provide, or pay, for insurance. If you only have a high school education or equivalent, there are not many jobs that do not require higher education that are not low-skill, low-paying or labor intensive that would offer any kind of benefits.

What I also did not know was that education can make all the difference in many situations.

In Montgomery, Alabama, all of the public schools are bad except for “magnet” schools, which are harder to get into now more than ever because so many kids apply. A magnet school is a public school that concentrates on a specific track–academic, technical, or the arts—that you must apply for and be accepted into. Thankfully, I had the chance to attend a magnet school for almost all of my education before college.

The magnet high school I graduated from in Montgomery, Alabama.

My older sister, on the other hand, never got the chance. With my family living in a low-income area of Montgomery, my sister was zoned for a school known for its problems more than its promises, and is now shut down. She dropped out of high school at 16 and is an unemployed 23-year-old. I firmly believe the quality of education she received is linked to her current quality of life.

Those who grew up in Montgomery’s private academies are, for the most part, simply born into it; theoretically, their place in education is reserved for them before they are born. Others, not as fortunate, have to rely on luck. Fortunately for me, my grandparents started an Alabama Pre-paid College Tuition, or PACT, program for my older sister, so that she would have money to help pay for her college. She never went, so the PACT transferred to me. If you do not get lucky like I did, then you just stay in Montgomery and go to work. Even though I do get the chance to go to a private college, I still work. Every break that I am home I work. After the scholarships, the PACT program and working my ass off, I am still going to graduate almost $30,000 in debt. So, I am back in the cycle. Where does it end?

“Get a good job,” they say. “Don’t work for tips.”

Well, when getting a “good” job involves a lot of a networking and you have never had the resources to show yourself to the world, to the work industry, or to the right people to get you there, it can be difficult to do. Since I had the opportunity to go to a private college and to learn and experience things I would not be able to otherwise, I have the potential to break the cycle. It is a different story for those without the opportunities I had.

So, the question is: How do we fix this? Well, we must understand that the problem is not just lack of money, it is not just race, it is not just missed opportunity or opportunity cost, but it is circumstantial, and we must work to change those circumstances, especially when it comes to education.