Gone To Yoga

Yoga, Yoga, Yoga.

How I missed you. How my heart ached without you.
Once again, you bring peace to my hectic life.

I resumed regular yoga practice last week. It has been amazing. I didn't realize how badly my body and mind missed it until that first day and I couldn't believe I survived without it. Marlene, my instructor, and I talked after class and she told me that even the most dedicated of yogis need a break sometimes...that it makes you realize how vital the practice is to your life.

Boy, was she right.

"To allow ourselves to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence." - Thomas Merton


Will Be Back Later,

Wild Geese

Today's yoga class kicked my butt. It was worth it in the end because my body was thankful for the stretching, flexing, and centering....and because my yoga instructor shared this poem with us.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


This was just what I needed today....this poem. I do not have to be good. I do not have to walk on my knees through the desert repenting. I can live my life and be the best I can be...whether or not it is the best to you...or good to you...is not something to be worried about. I will live my life as it fulfills me and fit into this world as I am meant to.

Learning and Growing can be hard on a girl.

Crap-a-dap-dap.

I'm done with my test. In fact, it was over before I knew it..and that is not sitting well with me. I only had answered 75 questions when the computer turned off...and let me tell you...those were 75 hard-ass questions. There were a few medication questions that I was like...What? Bippity-boppity-boo? I've never even HEARD of that medication..and you're telling me now that it treats Hepatitis C and you want me to tell YOU if the dose is correct for the patient based on their hieght and weight? WTF? SERIOUSLY!?

I really had a lot of questions that I had to make "educated guesses" on...so we shall see.
I know it's not the end of the world if I don't pass. But I am just ready for the next chapter in my life. I am ready to move on.
I honesltly felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin after finishing...but luckily I had enough time to schooch over to my yoga studio and catch a class. After Marlene rocked my world in downward dog for and hour and a half (I know this sounds sexy...but it wasn't, trust) my anxieties and fears were replaced by the feeling of...it is what it is and I'll just roll with it. I decided I needed to replace the awful & fearful emotions with peace and respect for myself and the effort I had made. However, it's so easy to feel that way while laying on a warm wood floor in the sunlight with Eternal Om bounding through the speakers willing you to give up your ego....it's a lot harder to carry that out into the world with you.

So that's where I am....in this place of limbo. One minute I feel peace and the next minute a pang of anxiety waves over me like a hot blanket and I feel sick. Trying. Trying. Trying.

Yoga quote of today:
"The jump is frightening between where I am and where I want to be...Because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap!"
-Mountain Dancer

Pizza & The Ego

Behold! My new favorite lunch treat!

 
 

Trader Joes Garlic Naan (indian flatbread), Trader Joes non-fat pizza sauce (did YOU know pizza sauce had fat? I didn't), a smidge of crumbled goat cheese, non-fat mozzerella, sauteed mushrooms, orange pepper, and onion. Place all of your desired toppings on the flatbread while still frozen, toss it into a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes and you have a crispy delicious personal sized pizza for under 300 calories!

AHHHHH!!! It's so good, I've had 3 this week and could seriously eat one a day for life. I love pizza and I L-O-V-E low calorie, gourmet pizza. I think you should drop what you are doing, go to Trader Joes and buy the goods, and then run home to experiance the joy. If you don't have a Trader Joes......I am sorry....so very sorry for torturing you.


And now on to a yoga quote.

"The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you." - Eckhart Tolle

I love this quote because it reminds me that, in life, we are really only our thoughts....who we are when we are alone. Are we happy with this person? In my job I have had the privelage to be with very special people at the end of their lives...they have taught me these and so many other things about the richness of a life filled with love for ourselves and for others.

Weekend Warriors , ACTIVATE!

Husband and I decided, last minute, that we're going to head up into Wisconsin to Devil's Head for the weekend! In the last 24 hours we've had around 6 inches of snow and while I don't think WI has been hit as hard..they are expecting some fresh snow fall over the weekend. So we're packing up our dusty gear, dropping the dog off at the "grandparents" and heading Up North. I tried to take my skis into our local ski shop this morning to get a tune up...but they don't do it in house! So the resident ski doctor gave me some wax to do it myself...but if I'm not precise in the application, I could end up with skis so sticky that I could WALK up the "mountain". Sooooo....we'll see how it all turns out. Worst case scenario I bust out the rental gear. Whatever.

The rest of afternoon will include packing, Trader Joe's snack food run, more packing, a frolic in the snow with the Huskie and some mellow time on the couch. I will be back on Sunday night with the results of my weigh in for the week...and maybe some pics of our Weekend Warrior adventure. Hope you all have a great weekend....skiing, ice fishing, sun-bathing (you could be in FL reading this), or hibernating!

I leave you with a yoga quote (that, to be honest, I don't completely understand. So maybe you could give me your interpritation of it. Please, enlighten me).....

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." - Khalil Gibran

The Best Life

Okay, I know it seems like I'm an obsessed yoga maniac after all of these posts about yoga. And maybe I am. I just L-O-V-E YOGA!! Yoga & I are in the first phase of our relationship....we want to be together everyday...we call each other on the phone each night...and we never get tired of each other! I promise the yoga talk will subside...at some point...please bare with me. On another note....

In my first post I wrote about starting the Best Life Diet in addition to doing 3 days/week of cardio and 4-6 days/ week of yoga. The Best Life Diet isn't REALLY a diet...at least, that's not the way I look at it. It's a gradual lifestyle change. I have tried a few diets before...mostly Weight Watchers..and while they work for awhile, they don't stick with me because they teach you to become hyper-focused on your food consumption from day 1. This gets to be a real pain-in-the-ass, un-natural process for me. In fact, sometimes I feel brainwashed by Weight Watchers because even to this day I think of how many points something is! Not that I'm dogging on WW....because it truly is a great program that works for MANY people....my Mom lost 45lbs on WW. It's just not for me.

The BL Diet has three phases. Currently I am in week two of Phase One which lasts one month (or longer if you are still seeing results by the end of the month), you're only supposed to weigh yourself at the beginning and at the end...but since I am brainwashed by WW (see above) I will weigh in every Saturday.

The focus is to increase your activity level and change your meal PATTERNS, not what you eat. You do this by stopping eating two hours before bedtime, eating three meals with one snack, drinking six 8oz glasses of water per day, eliminate alcohol (for the month) and take a multi-vitamin and omega-3 supplement. The supplements change depending on the person. As far as the activity goes, you establish your activity using the "activity scale" of six levels. 0 is sedentary, 5 is aerobic activity 6x/week and full body strength training 3x/week. When you establish your activity level then you just increase to the next level by doing more cardio or strength training.

This is where you stay for a month and then you move on to Phase Two, when you really amp it up by modifying your diet thru eliminating 6 foods that inhibit weight loss. You begin to explore reasons WHY you get hungry (physical & emotional) and use the hunger scale. Also, increase your activity to the next level (optional). This is the BIG RESULTS phase and you may want to stay until you are at or close to goal weight.

Phase Three helps you transition into a lifestyle that will truly stick and help you maintain your weight loss.

These three phases seem natural. You are slowly integrating your new healthy lifestyle in with your old habits. I love that I'm not asked to change everything dramatically right off the bat. Actually, I think this program requires you to practice some restraint when it comes to that "new diet" rush. I think we get caught up in the excitinment and possibility of change...not really knowing what is required of us. With this diet you're asked to NOT jump in feet first, but rather ease yourself in and get used to what you are asking YOURSELF to do.

I leave you with the Yoga quote of the day:

"Life always gives up exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every Breath." -Charlotte Joko Beck

If you think you're stupid, love yourself for it!

Each week my yoga instructor gives the class a new quote to mull over.

This week it was, "No matter what you're feeling, the only way to get a difficult feeling to go away is to simply love yourself for it. If you think you're stupid, then love yourself for feeling that way. It's a paradoax, but it works. To heal, you must be the first one to shine the light of compassion on any area within you that feel are unacceptable." - Christiane Northrup

I enjoy this quote because it's nurturing but also, kind of funny....sometimes quotes are so over the top and make me feel like grumbling "oh, brother" & roll my eyes.

This speaks to the everyday me...the me that yells at a hanger for getting tangled with other hangers in the closet.