I'm BACK!!

Hello everyone!

I'm back after an unintended, yet much needed, writing hiatus, and am now feeling the creative writing juices flowing more than ever!

I came across the Sabbath Manifesto website this evening (www.sabbathmanifesto.org), and found their 10 core principles for unplugging and reconnecting interesting. I'd be interested to know your thoughts:

1) Avoid technology (oops).

2) Connect with loved ones (and I've been thinking lately how I have not done this and miss having people in my life).

3) Nurture your health (again, needing to carve out time for this and be mindful of how I do it).

4) Get outside (even when it's sticky humid out).

5) Avoid commerce (interesting - does buying stuff stress us out?)

6) Light candles (which I just did - candlelight is so calming and relaxing)

7) Drink wine (um...OK!!)

8) Eat bread (with whatever type of stinky cheese you want)

9) Find silence (yes)

10) Give back (also something I've been yearning to do, but for some reason have been holding back...I wonder why?)

How would incorporating even a few of these principles affect your day-to-day and your overall life?

I'm Having a Bit of Yogi's Block

It's true. I have not regularly practiced yoga in weeks.

You know how writers get Writer's Block? I'm beginning to think that yogis may experience "Yogi's Block" from time to time.

It's like anything: when you're in the groove, it's freaking awesome. You're practicing regularly, which leads you to magically "see" more practice time that somehow incorporates seamlessly into your day. You're eating well, drinking less, and have a ready smile on your face. You may even get around to calling that friend you've been thinking about for six months or feel unencumbered enough to give your husband a second look and suggest doing something in bed other than falling fast asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.

But then, there are those times when you just can't seem to get your practice off the ground. Maybe you tell yourself you'll get up early to practice, but end up sleeping until you hear your daughter chattering to herself in the other room (that was today). Or maybe you tell yourself that you'll get a class in that evening, but once the first, and more than likely, second, drinks go down, that's out the window.

Then you think, I'll wait until the weekend because I have more time then. But then you see the loads of laundry, the fact that you have no food in your cupboards, and your daughter that you've really missed that past week, and the mat stays rolled up in your closet, waiting for the "next time" that seems to never come.

The worst is I've had just enough yoga practice, and developed just that much of a heightened awareness, that I'm not ignorant to this "Yogi's Block." I see it, I get it, I want to change it. But I feel, frankly, paralyzed by and frustrated with my developing inertia.

Why do I feel so often lately like my life is one big "wait and see?" WTF is with that?

What's the stuff of your dreams?

What dreams are you pursuing right now? What dreams have you let go of, but still think about from time to time? What dreams have you let go of and are 100% glad that you did let them go, just in the nick of time?

I have dreams in each one of these categories: ones I'm pursuing right now, ones I let go of but still think about, and dreams that needed to go so I could grow and move into the next phase of my life.

The dreams that get me are the ones you let go of but still think about. Years after the fact. So I have to ask myself, is that me being overly nostalgic about something that really wasn't as good as I remember it being? Am I idealizing the past and, in the process, forgetting to live in the present? Do I have unfinished business to attend to?

I don't really have an answer to any of those questions, but let me share with you some of the dreams I still think about from time to time:

- Being a college professor and teaching at a small, liberal arts college (a la Concordia, my alma mater)
- Studying at the Sorbonne in Paris
- Living abroad again (ideally, Paris) for an extended period of time, but this time getting paid to do it
- Working for the U.N.

Pretty lofty, non? But see, that's how I looked at my life 15 years ago: big, lofty, and full of whatever the hell I felt like doing. Like I could do anything at all. Like there were no limitations except those I imposed on myself (which I really didn't make a practice of doing). At that time, all I had was college tuition, regular 2am coffee and cigarette-infused conversations about what it all meant, and some of the sassiest clothes you ever saw on a college sophomore.

Fast forward 15 years: I'm married, have a job, own a home, and am a parent. I'm still paying for my college tuition, but am in bed by 11pm at the latest, don't drink coffee much past noon, and quit smoking when I turned 30. I still, however, have sassy clothes, but lately, I'm not feeling good in my skin. Plus, I don't have as many occasions to get dressed up as I used to because there are more logistics to coordinate and, honestly, I'm just plain exhausted by my life.

So...what do I do? Do I chalk it up to life experience and focus solely on the here-and-now? Do I need to make some significant changes? If so, where? I'm not saying I need to have it all figured out, but I really don't want to be stupid about it. I want to be intentional, purposeful, content in my life decisions.

Maybe I do have some unfinished business to attend to...

Thoughts for the Day

I got a new book in the mail today, and already, I can tell it's going to be an impactful read. Here are some comments from just the introduction that I wanted to share with you today - enjoy, my friends!

"If God doesn't mind (what we call him/her/it), why should we? There are so many things that God would prefer us to do with our time and energy, such as love and care for each other as instructed in all the major religious texts...Friends, let us not quibble over what we name the unnamable; instead, let us concentrate instead on how we pronounce him/her/it with our very lives."

"But what is the Source of Life? It is the Providence beyond names and words, beyond what our intellect can grasp, but what our heart knows intimately."

"...what is desperately missing from our world is humility, for a humble person would never think of ridiculing another person's form of worship. A virtuous person sees the essence of religion and is tolerant of form...We may not always be of one mind, but we can be of one heart."

Taken from A Life Worth Breathing: A Yoga Master's Handbook of Strength, Grace, and Healing, Max Strom

Thank you, very deeply, Mr. Strom.

Getting Overcommitted...Again

So I've really made an effort these past few months to scale back my evening activity so I could be home more, and more present when I was home, rather than running around like a chicken with its head cut off. It's been great to have my evenings run at a more sustainable and pleasurable pace, and to actually fall into a little rhythm that's relaxing and pleasurable at the same time.

The big challenge I'm facing right now is my day-to-day.

I'm crazy busy at work - AGAIN. And the bottom line is I'm tired of being pushed, pulled, and prodded in directions my heart truly isn't into and about which I'm not really passionate. Work is just so...work. When I read accounts of people who feel like their work isn't work but something enjoyable, something that gives them energy and purpose, I tend to have two reactions: 1) Are you serious? Is that really how it is? and 2) Wow...what would it be like to have that be my situation?

How do you find a good balance between work and life? I don't like the apathetic, I'm-just-not-going-to-care route, but I also don't like the "I'm going to work super hard and eventually be rewarded," which often doesn't happen and now they just got 6 mo.-year of your prime time and energy for free. I want to work hard when I'm at work and feel energized, like it's fun, but not have it take over my life because my family and the friends I haven't seen in months are very important to me.

Time = Life

"What we spend our time on is where we invest our life force. Time = Life. Never kill time, or you will be, in essence, killing your life." Max Strom, Whole Daily Living blog

What does this quote offer to our modern Facebook/email/instant messaging culture, where many of us spend multiple minutes a day checking and re-checking these mediums, if only for a tiny nugget of updated information.

Many of us do some form of this throughout our days (guilty!) to kill time, and so I have to ask: are activities like this killing our lives? Are they keeping our focus from the things we truly need to be investing our life force in? Could that be a reason I feel so tired at the end of the day, because I spend so much of it distracted by people, conversations, tasks, and just things that kill my time, and perhaps zap my vitality, my life force?

It sure makes the word "no" and setting definitive limits seem a lot friendlier than they get credit for...

Experience First, Understand Later

"Have the experience first; understand it later."

The instructor from my last core session made this statement during our time together last Sunday, and I loved it for many reasons.

It's a reminder to not take too much time on the front end trying to anticipate, plan, or imagine every possible pro and con before you actually do something to move forward.

It's a reminder that not understanding everything is OK. What is important is to have the experience, and trust that learning and understanding will follow in due time.

It's a reminder that we need to get out of our heads and our intellect, and follow our instincts and yearnings, because they're trying to tell us something about ourselves.

Most of all, I think this statement reminds me to let go of self-imposed limitations and unrealistic expectations of what I think I should be doing, and to not be afraid of ambiguity. To jump in and have the experiences that make life the beautiful, crazy, and fulfilling thing it wants to be for all of us.