Summer...It's a Staycation For Me

This Memorial Day weekend Matthew and I packed up our family of five and our pop-up camper and drove to North Truro, Cape Cod for our annual camping trip. When we arrived at the campground it was unusually empty. This was surprising since last year during this same holiday weekend the campground was full with no vacancies. Another interesting observation was that the car trip there and back went unusually smooth. Last year it took us almost four hours just to get off of Cape Cod. This year it took us less than half of that time. We hit no traffic. Even our GPS was confused. Another sign of the times was that while visiting stores in P-Town we saw many of the usual tourists but noticed that no one was lined up at the cash registers.

OK, with the daily news of our country's economic woes, GM on the brink of bankrupcy, it's no surprise to see that people are scaling back. I am a perfect example. As a women who has done her share of retail therapy (especially on vacations) I have had to change my evil ways. These days everything, especially essentials, drain my bank account. For example, the day before we took off to Cape Cod it was necessary for us to get a hitch installed on our van to pull the camper. That set us back $360 bucks. Add two tanks of gas and four bags of groceries and I had to say “forget it” to any extra curricular shopping I might have done.

After experiencing the high cost of a simple camping vacation such as the one my family just took, I plan on staying home more this summer. Enjoy my family, friends, and that which is right in front of me- a back deck perfect for sharing a glass of wine, a newly mulched garden and a two year old who lives to run through sprinklers. I plan on exchanging any retail therapy for yoga therapy. Taking care of my mental and physical well-being is definitely one area of my life that I do not want to scale back.

It's promising, however, that so far this summer, people have not sacrificed their yoga. In fact, more people than ever are attending classes. In these challenging economic times-Why are so many of us doing yoga?

1. Because of tight finances, more and more of us are choosing to vacation at home. This gives us more time to keep up the routines that we need and love such as yoga. We keep up our yoga because we want to stay healthy, focused, relaxed and strong.

2. When difficult times fall upon us, it is more important than ever to take extra special care of ourselves. One of my students, who was recently let go from a computer job in Corporate America is at the studio practicing almost every day. She sees this as a positive coming out of a negative. She says that the yoga is boosting her ability to deal with uncertainty and is helping her to look and feel her best as she goes out on job interviews. In her own words, this is not the time to let herself go, sleep away the day, or gain twenty pounds.

3. Compare the cost of a yoga class (at approximately $10 to $16) to a day at the spa, a movie with popcorn, or happy hour with friends and yoga becomes a very affordable and healthy option.

4. Some of us practice yoga with a buddy. This way we’re more likely to stick to our wellness routines if we have a friend that is counting on us. In my yoga classes, I have several couples, mom and daughters and great friends who come to yoga and then grab dinner or tea afterwards to catch up. In our high tech and isolating world, face to face interaction beats hours on facebook or twitter any day.

5. We don't want to join a generation of everyday people who wear themselves out for a paycheck. We want to make living simple and spirituality a part of our daily lives instead of something we do only on Sunday. We don't want to live in perpetual exhaustion. If we realize that our modern lifestyle model that idealizes the modes of overstriving, forcing, rushing and making-life-happen aren't totally working for us, then yoga is a practice that can help us to reject society's craziness and give us other ways to survive and even thrive. A regular and balanced yoga practice (contains elements of both hard and soft, engagement and retreat) guides us to develop a more intuitive and grounded way to discern and sort out our life.

5. Yoga is perfect for difficult times since it is tough, tried, true, deep, modifiable, and life-transforming.

To me-no matter what the circumstances, yoga is so worth it! Even when my free time is precious. Even when my budget is tight. Through yoga we learn valuable lessons and techniques, especially how to be more alive, more self accepting and how to manage our stress. We learn how to manage our overall well-being. Above all, we learn how to be in the moment and how to cherish this life, even when its uncertain, stressful, or just plain frantic.