What is a practice anyways?

& why you might want one too 🙌

Ok, I’m coming at this post from the perspective of my professional life as a meditation & yoga teacher.

But also as a human who spent the better part of her 20s trying to figure out how to actually take care of herself in a sustainable and daily way.

It went a lot like this: evenings spent abandoning myself (the wrong guys! drinking too much! disordered eating! debilitating stress & burnout!) and mornings filled with the singular combination of shame mixed with hopefulness: “today is the day — I swear it! — where I turn this all around.”

And of course, it was never that day, nor do real shifts & lasting transformation take a day (or even … a year! Sorry, not sorry).

The truth is we do a thing until we don’t. And things take the time they take.

And also the truth: what we do on the day to day matters most. (Not what we do once in awhile).

It’s the opposite of a sexy promise, & I want to keep it real.

So I tell all my coaching clients as we begin our work together: “Look, you may have huge lightbulb moments, you may experience moments of grace & peace & rest & a deep exhale. But mostly, you’ll still be you. If you stick with this work, then one day a few years from now you’ll look back and be amazed at how much different things are. But it happens bit by bit (& the bits are so tiny & still worth it!). So just keep showing up & doing the work.”

Which is why no one escapes working with me without their own custom blueprint for a daily practice.

Here’s how I define practice —

Practice is sacred, solo, single-tasking time that you set aside everyday for yourself to come back to yourself.

The potential toolbox of practice is vast: yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, journaling, walking, dancing, drawing, painting, running, you name it.

And there’s a special combo that works for each of us.

Another important characteristic of this type of practice is that it’s self-led, self-directed, & self-managed. In practice, you learn to become your own best guide & teacher. (I effectively put myself out of a job with my clients 🤣)

Simple, not easy.

And since I’ve been conditioned to be an “all or nothing” good girl, my first few years at figuring out a daily practice for myself followed the same shame / hopefulness curve I laid out earlier: every night I’d go to bed vowing to get up at 4 or 5am (which I had never been doing previously with any regularity) & do an hourlong self-led yoga practice, 20 minutes of meditation, gratitude journaling, drink only lemon water & green juice, then dry brush etc etc etc

Needless to say, I’d be all in for a day or two, then all out after that.

This cycle went on for YEARS.

About 8 years ago, when I was pregnant with my first kid, I finallllly unlocked the secret to a daily practice (It’s not really a secret 😉 & I’m about to share it with you now!) —

• Keep the daily recipe the same (i.e., I use the exact same tools from my practice tool kit everyday. No dabbling in the trendy self-care thing of the day, just the same thing. Every damn day .. for 8+ years!)

• Include a component you love, enjoy & are drawn to

• & one that is challllllenging in a good way

• 30 min tops

• Find the right window that you will honestly make happen each day

I call this my “short-form” practice. It’s my daily bread & butter. What I need to get myself right & get on with the day.

I let the other tools I love come into the mix when I can make more time (“long-form practice,” I realize I have to work on these names 😭).

So a couple times a week, I take a walk if I can. Once or twice a week, I move through a yoga practice on my own if I’m lucky. Then these things become treats & not things I feel bad about not doing daily because I only have 24 hours!

Basically, I could leave you here & some of you would be able to start putting together a daily practice for yourself today.

But I’ve also found that deeper instruction, the bumpers of accountability & structure, & daily doses of inspiration actually help transform a nice idea into a good habit with staying power.

Which is why I created 40 Early Mornings, a seasonal program I run to help ground people in their own daily practice. Doors are closing on Friday for a fall start date. So I’m just gonna leave this here in case you’re interested.

Behind the paywall — my exact recipe for daily practice 🫶

Keeping it real & cheering you on,

Cath