Meet My Therapist…Dr. Seuss

“Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter, don’t mind.”

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know.”

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

 

Inside All Of Us Is A Wild Thing

I have been dying to see the new Spike Jonze movie “Where the Wild Things Are” for about 6 months now…I even had its release date highlighted as a holiday in my google calendar. So when I decided to go see it last night for my birthday I was pumped to say the least. Something about the trailer seemed to hit me every time I watched it. Arcade Fire in the background, bold proclamations that inside all of us is hope, fear, and playfulness. It was an anthem for making your own dreams a reality. It was perfect for what I had been experiencing the past couple of months and I couldn’t wait to compare Max’s new world to the one I had created for myself.

Needless to say it was a bad movie. I wish I could have walked out of the theater roaring like my own little wild thing…it had everything in its favor to win me over. Awesome soundtrack, beautiful and creative imagery, complex characters but I was bored.

All in all, I pulled some great quotes that I thought were relevant to me and this blog:

“Happiness isn’t always the best way to be happy.”

“It’s going to be a place where only the things you want to happen, would happen.”

“We were gonna make a whole world like this. Now, everyone used to come here, but you know… you know what it feels like when all your teeth are falling out really slowly and you don’t realize and then you notice that, well, they’re really far apart. And then one day… you don’t have any teeth anymore.”

“Inside all of us is a Wild Thing”

26 and Standing Tall

Today is my 26th birthday.

Looking back at last years events feels a little eerie and as my friend Rick might say “il pasticcio” or a massive helping of “happy chaos”. In a years time I have become certified to teach yoga and left advertising and marketing to follow my passion to teach. It was the scariest and the most rewarding choice I have ever made. My relationship with my live-in fiance came to a screeching halt after 9 months of planning the big day and I was forced to deal with some harsh realities that have made me nothing but stronger and happier. Then I chose to leave my “home” in NY for a life I was waiting to lead in Boulder, CO. In a mere 365 days my life has been flipped upside down. I have reconnected with old friends, made many new ones and seen so many things in that one year. In NY people like to say you are always looking for either an apartment, a job, or a boyfriend…and in my case they hit me all at once.

But today, at age 26, I’m still standing. Perhaps even a little taller (partly thanks to the yoga).I have realized so much about myself and others in the process and I can honestly say that 26 will be a damn good year…

Date Night

I can feel a yoga rut coming on and I’ve decided to be proactive about it. The thing is, my NY practice was constantly being stimulated with incredible teachers, workshops, new spiritual ideas, and practitioners to collaborate with. Now that I’m in Boulder, and pretty broke, I have to take my Manhattan-ized  (fast, aggressive and sometimes too pushy) practice down a notch and practice alone in my living room. Of course most of my friends often say “well since you’re a teacher you really don’t need to go to class…just do it at home…for free.” Sounds like a great idea but I am craving some new inspiration. Poses I never think to add to my own sequences, a visualization I could never come up with and even feeling the unity of the classroom. 

So lets call it what it is, maybe a little name-calling is in order, then I can leave my standard practice at the door and take a much-needed walk around the block to cool down. I am officially dating my yoga practice. We have a beautiful love/hate relationship that not everyone can understand but somehow I’m always excited to get back to my mat even after a few failed inversions. My practice can challenge me on a daily basis, handing me poses that I doubt I can do or that I fear doing. It can be incredibly scary trusting that my practice is leading me down the right road. Jealousy can creep up when you see someone else in “the perfect pose” but you try to tell yourself that “all is coming.”  But in all honesty if I had to take my yoga practice to couples counseling I think my biggest question would be “how do you keep such a long-lasting relationship interesting? Will it ultimately lose its steam? Can we break out of our routine  and make it something fun again?” 

The definition of a routine is “a set of customary and often mechanically performed procedures or activities.” Mechanically? I don’t ever want the word mechanically to describe me or what I do, especially my relationship. I’m tired of sun salutes always followed by externally rotated poses and then neutral…I need some spice in this relationship. No more Warrior 2 flowing into Reverse Warrior into Trikonasana. Enough is enough. 

So today is the day. I’m going to tell my yoga practice that “we need to talk” no more of this “it’s me, not you” lines. We need to get down to the nitty-gritty.

What am I looking for out of this relationship? Physical, spiritual, centering? But why can’t it be all 3, I don’t want to limit myself or my practice. I think I need to stop making excuses and take my practice on a spontaneous date. I might pull out some new poses that I never try on my own. My practice will undoubtedly be impressed with my extra effort and my willingness to try. No more yoga equivalents of a movie night, I will woo my practice back into what it was before I left the city. Because when it’s all said and done my yoga practice is worth it. And like the great American writer, Paul Auster said “Failure is measured by the number of routines you have” and I won’t let that happen to us.

Unfolding…

I recently received a newsletter from one of my favorite yoga teachers, Chrissy Carter. She’s always incredibly inspiring and she teaches yoga and philosophy in such an approachable way. Thought I would share some of her thoughts here: 

Yoga teaches us that our karma, our soul’s work, seeks out a fitting playground to investigate its own true nature.  We attract those guides that can reveal to us the root of our own patterning so that we may sink beneath the impermanent to find out who we really are….We can look back and acknowledge the brilliance of the master plan.  The hard part is trusting in the process as it unfolds – remembering that each teacher is there for a reason and that there’s something to learn from every experience. This is especially ambitious when faced with our own aversions and dislikes, but therein lies our most potent opportunity to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  The truth is, those particular gurus will continue to knock on our door until we begin to investigate the purpose of their arrival.

I can definitely see the truth in this. Since my summer started unfolding, a lot has changed and I have met some incredible people along the way that have shaped and reflected back to me some very important aspects of my daily experience or habits. I am thankful to have them in my life and I know there are so many more to come.

Thought Starters…

My friend Jess recommended I read The Shack and some of it is terribly relevant and inspiring. 

Thought I’d share a few of them…

“Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.”

“Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly…And if it’s left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever [meant] to fly in the first place.” 

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.” — Paul Tournier

Sweat It Out

Last week I took a class at Yoga Pod. The studio was really refreshing, clean, clutter free, allowing enough space for students to drop all of their mental and emotional baggage at the door. As I collected my mat and props I opened the studio door and was engulfed by thick, overwhelming hot air.

How did I just buy a 2 week pass for a studio that practices hot yoga?

I was lethargic about the idea to say the least. 

I decided to get rid of my judgement, roll out my mat and sweat it out. The next 75 minutes were intense.  Everything was covered in sweat…even my kneecaps.

The teacher, Andrew Gowans, was great. His instructions were incredibly clear, he rarely used Sanskrit, consistently reminding his student that’s it’s about the journey…not the destination. He was the most accessible teacher I have ever practiced with. The studio itself was lined with mirrors allowing students to get caught up in their physical practice but he was always there to reflect back to us that’s it more about feeling the movements from the inside out. He truly had created a space, practice, and demeanor that let us flow pose to pose without judgement. 

Finally, in Savasana(corpse pose) I laid there feeling my body buzzing. I could feel the blood pumping through my body, desperately trying to bring me back to homeostasis. I was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. I laid on my sweaty mat, thankful that I could get up and leave all of my doubts, fears and misconceptions in a puddle of sweat on the floor. I tried something new, my body had been fully restored and rung out to dry and it felt good.

The Road Less Traveled

I’m officially in Boulder! It has been a crazy couple of weeks but everything has somehow come together. I am in a great apartment, just big enough for me and my mat, I can see the mountains from my front porch, I have friends and friends of friends coming out of the woodwork to make me feel more comfortable in my new “home.” I am completely excited about the potential for change.

Part of me wonders if I just like the thrill of the unknown since I’ve moved 2 times in the past 3 years to NY and now Boulder without knowing hardly anyone and without a job. Maybe I’m destined for a life as a nomad. But somehow this move feels different then the first. There was a weird feeling of impermanence while I lived in New York…don’t buy a dog til I move out of the city, not worth working on home improvement projects because I probably won’t be in that apartment much longer, exhausted just thinking about making new friends because we’ll all work way too much and see each other too little to really have any meaningful long lasting friendship, etc. I was living my life on pause…

Maybe it was hard to look at the moment for what it was and like they say hindsight is always 20/20, but I am excited to look at my day-to-day life in a whole new way. I am here now and it feels good. I may get a dog, I might venture to Home Depot for my next “self/home improvement” and I’m ready to meet new people and see where they take me. Because as Robert Frost put it…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Power of Playing

Last night I made it to a class at Southtown Yoga in St. Louis and left feeling inspired and refreshed. They call this class “The Practice” on their schedule because teachers can unroll their mats and practice alongside you as opposed to teaching a typical, structured class.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got there, especially since there were only 4 other people (2 of which were the owners and another was a teacher on their schedule). The beginning of our practice started with watching the breath as we flowed through sun salutes in unison but soon enough we broke away from calling poses, trying to make them perfect in alignment and aesthetic and we played. It was a great lesson in non-attachment. Pose by pose we let go of the shape and without judgement experimented with our limitations, recognizing where we were in our own practice and playfully making peace with it. Southtown Yoga was a great break from my typical practice, it reminded me that the learning never ends and the beauty of simplicity. Their safe community made it ok to be open, vulnerable, and challenged. After class I felt more physically and emotionally open than I had in a long time and found that a playful practice had changed me.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Lately I have had the good fortune of traveling all over the US.

Within 23 days I have traveled 1,000’s of miles and been to St.Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Yachats, Mount Hood and Portland, Oregon, Washington state, Boulder, Denver, Grand Junction, and Moab, Utah. I can’t believe the beautiful things I have witnessed over the last month and I am incredibly thankful for the friends and family that have supported me on my journey. Everyday I spent was somehow good for the soul and made me positive about what lies ahead.

This trip also reminded me of the yoga practice of Pratipaksha Bhavanam or the act of  cultivating thoughts of the opposite nature when a destructive thought arises. Simply put, watching how your mind wonders towards the negative and repositioning the thought to be a positive one. And honestly, this trip has been exactly that. In the middle of tragedy I somehow found my way by immersing myself with great people, deep conversation, inspiring scenery and by challenging myself with new and in some cases terrifying things (whitewater rafting, rock climbing, hiking, last minute trips without any plan or money,  etc.)  I am a true believer in surrounding yourself with good people and this past month has been a testament to that. I am so lucky to be exactly where I am, with the people I love and as Frou Frou said, there is “beauty in the breakdown.”