I’ve always been a bit of an extremist. I guess a better way to put it is- everything I do, I do passionately. I figure why waste my time if I’m not going to go all the way. This zealous ‘commitment’ unfortunately, many times becomes detrimental and down right compulsive.

Let us take running for example.

Laura starts to run, Laura finds she enjoys running.

Laura does a few races, Laura wins the races.

Now Laura decides that she is going to become a professional runner.

Laura runs more and more and more. 40, 50, 60, 70 miles/wk.

Now Laura has become obsessive. She rearranges her schedule, cancels dates with friends, just to make sure she gets in all of her miles. BAAMM! Laura gets injured.

Dieting is another good example (always for health, never for weight loss, which makes this even worse). Went on ‘bodybuilding diet’, got so obsessive about eating every two hours that I started measuring it by the second. Became vegetarian; decided being vegan would be even better. Went on Atkins, decided going as low carb as possible would be even better, started eating 10 grams/day……..and so on and so on and so on.

This seems to happen to me frequently, every time I do something that I see some benefit from, I over do it until that benefit is lost. The key is realizing that the benefit comes in the moderation, not in the extreme.

This is a difficult task and something I struggle with daily. It is important for us all to take a look at our habits/hobbies, diets, etc., and make sure we stay in control of them, instead of letting them take control of us.

Yoga Pose of the Day: Uttanasana