Yoga Practice in Real Life

I've tried going to yoga studios, in an effort to reclaim my once-rich yoga practice.  That hasn't worked.  Scheduling, driving time, exhaustion..... there's always something that gets in the way.  I haven't really tried practicing at home, but I know what would happen.  The animals would be annoying and in the way, and there really isn't a place that I find restful enough.  I just tried setting up my mat in my office.  That might work, in limited circumstances.

But I have to find a way to get a meaningful, however basic, practice back in my life.  I want the body that yoga offers, particularly the flexibility.  But I also want the grounding and centering that yoga provides.  I feel sort of like I'm unraveling in the face of all that I have to do, and yet I have to do it.  How the heck do people manage?

I need to go through exactly the process that I went through when I solved any other problem. Baby steps are ok.   I had to choose to invest in me, but I also must admit that things don't have to be perfect.  I know how to make gourmet meals, and COULD do that every night.  But a grilled cheese sandwich works just fine, too. I don't need to start with a fully-realized version of an ideal yoga practice, whatever that even means.  My practice just has to start with showing up and doing something.  And even when one does have a fully-realized yoga practice, there are probably days of just showing up and doing something. 

But, I just realized, I'm solving the wrong problem here - or not wanting to admit publicly that there's a problem that precedes this problem. The room that would make the perfect yoga place has become a junk room - the room where you store things that you don't know what to do with.  It's scary in there.  Right now, and for a little while, my yoga practice needs to be meditatively, non-judgmentally,  clearing things out - literally making room in my life for a yoga practice.  When I started this year, I said that 'infrastructure" was my rather-unpoetic word for the year.  And here we are.  I have to do this infrastructure thing, in order to build the infrastructure for the body that I want.

Here's what I'm going for, in terms of space:

It's not super-fancy, but would work in the room that I have available. 

I also, though, need to think outside the box.  I need a yoga mat in my office.  I need a yoga mat in my car, in case I want to practice outdoors somewhere or I find myself in the town where yoga does exist.  I also need to consider re-activating my gym membership through the university Recreation Center.  They have yoga classes, and I could be taking advantage of those with comparatively little expense.

Now seriously though, what have I learned here?  Is there anything that someone could take away, and run with, in her own life?  Or am I just posting my organizational troubles?  Start small.  Even when it's humbling, start with baby steps.  Challenges are often linked to each other.  My lack of yoga is tied to being unclear as to how to use and organize and thrive in my home.  The more positive way of saying that is that I get to accomplish two goals here, and both are important.  And for heaven sakes, stop quitting things that you love.