Processing. Processing. Processing.

When my 5 pm appointment cancelled I developed an amazing case of skipping school-itis.  I'm outta here, outta work and off to home.  I had all these grand intentions of playing with my juicer and doing a home practice.  I walked home 2.5 miles in flip-flops.  I made another juice and then sat down to quick update my mp3 player so I could then do the class in my living room only to discover the internet wasn't working.  An hour later of trying this and trying that and finally I gave up.   I used it as an excuse not to practice and instead read about yoga.  I went to bed later than I planned but all in all I have the sense that I'm doing exactly what I need to do right now.

I wonder sometimes if this blogging thing is good for me and my practice.  I wonder if knowing I am going to write about my practice etc changes and effects my practice.  It causes me to take notice, to judge, to score, to compare, to pay more attention to sensations than is truly necessary for my practice.  It is one thing to notice and be mindful and another to form an opinion which then affects the outcome sometimes even unconsciously.  Reminds me of a report I saw once of how when a scientist works on an experiment he/she actually affects the experiment simply by conducting the experiment. Not sure where that's from - maybe a Dan Brown book???  Nonetheless, here I am writing.  There are pros and cons to everything.

I do like tallying up my practices but why?  It makes me feel like they have more meaning and that they are more of an "accomplishment".  That's interesting.  As if, just doing something just because I enjoy it isn't "worthwhile" and that if you aren't doing something in order to "accomplish" then there is no worth in it.  Funny how the brain twists things around and you don't even realize it.  Well, calling it like it is, is often the first step to making changes so there it is.

I might just spend my entire summer reading on a hammock.  I might not. :)

92/174 and 93/175: Daily duty

I had a fabulous class Thursday night after an amazing voice lesson.  Everything just felt good.  I'm liking enjoying my yoga again.  Friday...not so enjoyable.  Super hot, not my favorite teacher plus working on maybe 3 hours sleep.  I felt good going in, then what energy store I had was depleted by the balancing series.  I came back in the floor series to have a decent class there.  I was just all tunnel vision in the standing series.  Oh well, two classes in the bank.  I didn't practice all weekend.  I prepared for singing at church yesterday which went OK.   I sang so well at my voice lesson that it just pailed in comparison and my energy level was a little down.  Must get more rest.  Must get more rest.  I did some stretching and some work with my foam roller and I did my 20 minute morning chi routine so despite not doing yoga, I am feeling like adding these activities back into my life are very good for me.

I bought a juicer and I started using it this morning.  Some very healthy nutrients are going into my body and I started the day with 15 minutes of stretching too!.  Late class tonight with one of my favs but honestly feeling like I am going to just hit the pillow and be out like a light bulb the minute I get home. That can be a good thing.  It just means tomorrow I am going to feel great!

91/171: Sublime

I had a lovely class on Monday and yah I'm just getting around to writing about it.  That's ok.  I've been a busy little bird researching all sorts of healthy things and laying in my newly installed hammock in my living room. Life is good.  I'm taking it easy last week and this week limiting myself to only 3 classes a week.  This is honestly good for me.  I'm enjoying singing and reading, gardening and listening to music and the birds singing outside.  This type of yoga is good for me. ;)

It was a good class.  I pulled my heel in the first set of triangle and ended up sitting out the rest of it but then came back in and took it super duper slow in separate leg stretching head to knee pose.  It was a hot class without a doubt but surviveable.  It felt good but was sleepy after.  Nothing fabulous to report other than I am excited about purchasing a juicer and experimenting with juicing and making sorbets with yummy fruits...

90/169: Finally did a little quickie!

Shame on you for thinking that way.  This is a blog about yoga... but we'll talk about how that also increases ones appetite for -A-hem - well, you know.

I was tired after lots of work out in the sun earlier today and I was about to take a shower and take a nap when I decided - NOPE!  I'm going to do a half set of Bikram.  I was feeling crappy.  Body sore etc so I realized the best remedy would be some yoga.  I didn't need to be all formal.  Just my living room, a carpet, a towel, one set of each of the postures on my new sansa player, a bikini and I was good to go.  No need to get out of my bikini ;)! It was warm enough in the house and my body was warm from being outside.  I had no trouble with feeling stiff due to not being in a torture chamber at all.  I enjoyed EVERY second of this practice though not because it was easy.  I was really surprised how I was able to get into each of the postures to my "normal" maximum.  It felt good to give every part of the body a little attention and I felt AMAZING after.  So no more writing halves in my Title posts! Amen.

88.5 & 89.5/167: Doubly Delicious

I vascillated yesterday all day at work.  I can't wait to practice, I don't want to practice - should I do a double or should I just get a head start on cleaning the studio?  Showed up to the studio and discovered a treat - one of my favorite teachers returned to the studio recently was filling in.  I forgot how much I enjoy myself when he delivers the dialogue.  He's low-key but encouraging and always good at reminding us at key times why all this suffering is worthwhile.  Ah.  It was so nice to just enjoy my practice.  I even asked him to look at pada-hasthasana to see if there was anything I was missing as I've felt like it just feels weird lately.  I haven't asked in a long while for anyone to look at my postures so that was nice.  Sure enough he suggested something simple (from the dialogue) I was missing that changed the feel.   I love that he doesn't shout out that information and just told me off the mic.  He's really a good teacher and if I ever get to be a teacher someday, that's the kind of teacher I want to be.

Anyway, enough teacher worshipping.  The first class felt great so I stayed in and did the double.  It felt good.  I experienced some fatigue in the balancing series in the arches of my feet and the calves.  Oh plantar fasciitis your notice is due - you no longer need to plague me!

I'm a bit sore today but a good sore.  I am vascillating as to whether to take class after work today or not.  I've got my stuff in case.  My hubby is home tonight so it would be nice to just go home and finish up stringing the lights on our deck and installing the air conditioner since tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher.  It is a beautiful day today so since I did a double last night, I think I will forego the class and practice at home tomorrow since it will be hot as hell anyway!  But then again, I am a little sore and class would feel great!  Oh well, I'm going to just make that decision when the time comes.  Staying in the now moment.

Namaste peeps!

87.5/164: I'm tired.

I must admit that I am keeping up with this blog just to have a record of patterns in my practice and not necessarily because of amazing insights and this is definitely not an amazing insight blog today.  Last night's practice was a challenge for the heat but more for my fatigue.  I'm just feeling sleepy and tired.  I long for a day just sitting at the beach sipping whatever beverage other than water :) I wanted out of the room even before the class began and did my best to keep my breathe flowing and calm through out.  It was more important to me to work within the framework of what I had to offer that day from moment to moment.  I'm pleased with that for today.

I have the yoga hangover this morning despite drinking the water and electrolytes.  I guess I could drink more water especially now that it's summer and particularly since I have a love affair with coffee, iced caffe mochas to be exact.  How how can I let that go?

No practice today as I have acupuncture tonight and there is nothing more I am looking forward to than that.  To lay on the table, let the energy flow and meditate on taking care of myself - heaven!

86.5/162: Camel, oh spite, oh hell!

Camel why you go and do me this way???  I was loving you for so long.  I had a fairly strong class other than dizzies occasionally which I got over until da, da, da, da - CAMEL.  Uck. I stand up on my knees and my stomach says don't you dare bend backward.  Muscles reflexes pull in and there is no amount of mental fortitude I have at my disposal to convince them otherwise that they can at least just stand on their knees and stay there.  Poo.  I've been there before with this posture that I later learned to enjoy and as I laid in savasana at the end, I convinced myself that what this means is that soon I am going to go further in that posture than ever before. So there! Take that you fabulously wonderful posture that's so good for me!

I also had the tinglies in my hands in the cobra series which is kind of new for me.  OK whatever.  I got emotional after camel, wanted to hyperventilate and die.  I stayed in the room and kept going.

It's all good.  I was so tired after class that I took a nap and honestly wish I were still napping but duties call.  I'll sleep later. :)

85.5/162: Yoga truck

Have to say I tanked at class last night and the yoga truck rolled me over.  I was HUNGRY the entire class. I don't like the empty in the stomach feeling.  It makes me feel incredibly vulnerable in any posture which exposes my belly which would be at least half of them.  Oh well.  I drank more water in the afternoon than usual and wasn't hungry for my 3:30 snack so this is probably why - I'll have to fix that next time.  I had a hard time focusing this class as well.  I was excited to go out to dinner with some friends and just go out period.

Oh well, that was yesterday.  Today is a new day and another opportunity for something completely different - maybe.  I have no expectations.  We will just see where I go. :)  Off to the next class in a few.

84.5/161: Sublime

Simply sublime.  Lovely class.  I had an interesting moment in fixed firm where out of the blue I had a twinge of interesting loveliness but nothing to get too excited over.  Overall, it felt good.  Any class where I rock a good triangle is a good class.  I love that posture.  Toodles.

83.5/160: The safe room

It's always good to plan a safe room in your house in case of emergency and an intruder.  You know - a room where you can lock the doors and make yourself the safest you possibly can.  Being a survivor of a home invasion and a tornado that demolished our home while my family and I were in it at such a young age, this has been drilled into my consciousness.  Sometimes you have to make do and just whatever room is the safest you designate your safe room and that's that.

I designate my yoga studio a safe room.  A place where I can try something that is beyond me.  A place where I can safely fail on a daily basis and multiple times in 90 minutes.  A place where I can smile at that failure and inch closer with every class even when it doesn't seem like I've moved forward and in some cases it seems like I moved backward.  I am safe to love it, hate it, ignore it - and still it will always welcome me back with open arms and no judgement.  A place where I can let go of being hard on myself and safely navigate learning how to be human and have compassion for myself in addition to my strong sense of personal responsibility to others and my strong work ethic for myself.    Honestly, it's a place where I have the opportunity to be safe from myself.

When I first started Bikram yoga, it immediately became a safe room.  I was so bad at it that the perfectionist in me wasn't even given a chance to survive the hot room and I had no ego left at that point with regard to my body.  I think as I got better and time went on, Little Ms. Perfectionist crept back in to my safe room   I must have left the door open one day.  Lord knows every now and then you have to air out that hot yoga room!  My ego began having a hard time believing I'm not further along in this or that posture - "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH" and my goodness if I am now going to have goals in this then I need to work harder and beyond compassion for myself.  Screwball loose in brain (as Bikram would say) says if I don't reach perfect, don't work hard, don't prove I'm worthy or at least distract them with a song and dance - no one will love me.  No one but more specifically me.

That's what's called a negative self-belief.  You know one of those things you grow up believing in when you are kid that gets you through and serves you as a child but no longer is the truth as an adult.  Honestly, not sure how true it was as a kid but it was safe at the time.  It was safer believing that I had to somehow prove myself to get love than to believe that a parent (because of their own inabilities) didn't really love me. In addition to this negative self-belief is it's lovely counter-part  - that I wasn't good enough to save my loved ones from themselves.  I figured this one out a few months ago but didn't realize they were so linked.

I am working on new beliefs.  1) There is no proof in love.  I mean really - how do prove something so amazingly complex and beautiful and equally terrifying as love?  Sometimes we love beyond all reason and there is no proof, no action, no words to even come close to explaining. It's really not fair to expect myself to constantly do a song and dance either and I'm sure that's a two way street and part of me "expects" proof from others.  That's really not nice.  It's also not about being in the moment either.  I mean I can't love fully in the moment if I am keeping score of the past and constantly expecting of the future? 2) Be in the moment whatever that is and let the rest go 3) Only I can save myself and the same goes for everyone else.  We are the captains of our own ships.  However, it is helpful to have shipmates as well as trust and faith in the stars/God/Universe that it all just works out for the best. :)

Yes, all this from a 90 minute yoga class.  Oh yah, I had a great class last night.  I remembered that it's my choice - it can be heaven or it can be hell.  All of it, every class whether difficult, painful, whatever - it's my choice to make it heaven or hell.  I smiled in camel and did two sets. :)  I love my perfect suffering whatever it is for the day.  I choose to simply be interested in what I fear, love and hate rather than form an opinion.  This is after all, my safe room.

82.5/159: Good to be back

I went back to class Monday night and it was good to be back.  I can't say it "felt" good but there was something to that first time back after a break.  The form of the posture always seems more real or defined as opposed to when I practice daily.  I was better than I though I would be and didn't mind looking at myself in the mirror as much as I thought I would.  I'm having a really hard time with camel.  My heart goes a millions miles a minute the minute I relax my head back.  What's up - I was loving this posture for the longest time???  Oh well, I enjoyed a nice long savasana.

I was non-stop busy at work that yesterday I don't think I even drank 1 glass of water so there was no yoga for me in the evening.  Still busy today but at least I've had half of my normal intake so feel like I'm hydrated enough.  Even if I weren't, I think I'd still go.  I need to decompress.

Anticipation...

"Anticipation. Anticipa -a- tion."

I find it interesting that the opening to that song by Carly Simon opens with these words...
"We can never know about the days to come, But we think about them anyway, And I wonder if I'm really with you now, Or just chasing after some finer day."  Point taken... be in the moment.  Your perfect day is the one you decide is perfect for the moment. The finer day is now.

It's been a week without yoga.  I will be honest and say that I did not miss the yoga practice or the hot room.  I can say that maybe, just maybe today I'm beginning to consider that it might feel good to take a class today.  I had an impromptu last minute approved week off from work last week.  I promptly spent every second of said vacation playing construction worker slash CLEAN HOUSE organizing lady working on my home.  Literally non-stop days working on my deck - pressure-washing, staining, using a reciprocating saw to get rid of old boards, installing new ones, staining, hanging plants and gardening, cleaning out the cabinets throwing stuff out, etc, etc, etc.  The list kept growing and now I'm back at work and there's still more to do but the deck looks great and will be a lovely oasis for the summer. 

I like working with my hands and actually really enjoyed the outdoors stuff I did.  I love that I know what a reciprocating saw is and how to use it. Watch out peoples!  I found out a few things about myself during the week :
1) I prefer erasing things from my list rather than crossing them off.  I like the blank slate and always starting fresh with more room to add to the list. Life application begins here.  There is no joy in seeing what I've DONE.
2) There's not much joy in seeing what I WILL DO either.
3) The joy is in the doing.

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." (Shawshank redemption).

Anyway, my vacation from yoga wasn't much of a rest physically for me but today I'm feeling like a hot class with some stretching might feel good.  More than anything though, it is the community of people whom I miss most. I must recognize that it is not just the yoga I fell in love with but the people.

Anyways, I'm living my joy today and I'm sticking with that.