I've coined a phrase for the incredible feeling of blised out sleepiness that follows when I return to a vigorous yoga practice after being away for too long, or when I up the ante on my practice...yoga hangover. It's when you sleep like the dead and find you could sleep for 12 hours easily, not because of muscle fatigue, but because my body is then experiencing what I can only describe as a deep cosimic sigh...like she's exhaling and whispering "aaahhhhhhhhh", and wants time to decompress, unwind, heal. Yoga does such a wonderful job of releasing tension through breath, movement and deep stretching, I find that it's like going from manic to stoned, in terms of physical relaxation, looseness and that sweet, easy feeling. I even get the giggles more than usual, which is saying a lot.
And like the day after a good pot bender, yoga hangovers require lots of water...helps to flush out the toxins expelled from the muscles during practice.
I also noticed that after my practice last night, thanks to the beautiful twists, back bends and forward bends that my organs really felt lighter. It relieves any bloating going on almost instantly, like squeezing out a full, dirty kitchen sponge, and my metabolism sped up to where I eat the tuna I've been craving nonstop for WEEKS with my love and felt NO sluggishness, bloating or signs of the miscombined meal. Brilliant!
Sadly, yoga hangover disappears after a few day to a week of regular practice; my body adapts so quickly and easily, I love her so! Buuuuut, in place of the hangover I feel bouncy, energetic, bubbly and supple. Then the next time I take my practice up a notch, I get the yummy hangover again...the ONLY hangover that I welcome and enjoy.
I had a wonderful mini-epiphany during my practice as well. As I was doing what Bryan calls prayer twist, one of my favorites that gives you a deep twisting stretch while being a balancing pose and stretching the hip flexors and legs, I heard a little voice in my head say "you can go deeper in this, your body will follow your eyes." I've never thought that before! So where my gaze was usually straight ahead of me, my eyes floated upwards to the ceiling and suddenly, without my trying at all, I was twisting more deeply than I knew I could! It was incredible! It's magickal moments like these that made me fall in love with yoga in the first place. I really get to explore this body and see just how many amazing things she can do. :) So from now on, I shall let me gaze float and my body follow on its own, see what happens.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
nowhere to go but up
well, the bright spot in my current self made predicament is that one day while teaching yoga and/or helping to support others through lowfat raw food transitions I will absolutely know what it feels like to hit bottom and feel as though you have lost control.
recently, fueled by work stress and overall stress related to my leap of faith, I've found cravings for really unhealthy foods uncontrollable. I know the key elements for a happy, healthy life for me are water, yoga and fruit, in that order I'd say. seems I need daily yoga to inspire me to immerse myself in the fruitarian way and without it, I stray. And no I did not mean for that to rhyme.
But as I sit here, or lie here, with a mid-back spasm of my own making, feeling bloated, acidic and utterly awful, I know how I got here. I also know what I want, what it takes and how I feel in that place. in some ways it's a catch 22 because i need daily yoga to keep me on the nutritional path in which I thrive, but until I am on that path, i never feel energetic or well enough to do yoga, and I also never feel satiated, for obvious reasons. it's like being stoned, where you eat th crap you want but still keep coming up with new cravings, never feeling like you hit the spot. that's how I feel lately.
this is a valuable experience for me though, i see that clearly. it is also a turning point. and with the way I feel right now, in this moment and in general, i know what I must do; I must put my love for my body first, I must make eating a spiritual act requiring beauty and life force in all that I eat and drink, and I must embrace a daily practice to carry me from here to there, lovingly, joyfully.
the life i am creating now, through knowing this and finally honoring its importance, will bring happiness and bliss beyond measure. fleeting sensual pleasures cannot replace these truths; we are only meant to eat fresh, ripe, juicy fruits, daily yoga is tonic for the nervous system and an ancient form of self healing that always delivers what it promises and whatever you ask of it, and the time is always NOW to do your best for yourself, to love yourself.
water, yoga, fruit. this is how i will begin each and every day. i know i will bloom in this like a rose.:)
recently, fueled by work stress and overall stress related to my leap of faith, I've found cravings for really unhealthy foods uncontrollable. I know the key elements for a happy, healthy life for me are water, yoga and fruit, in that order I'd say. seems I need daily yoga to inspire me to immerse myself in the fruitarian way and without it, I stray. And no I did not mean for that to rhyme.
But as I sit here, or lie here, with a mid-back spasm of my own making, feeling bloated, acidic and utterly awful, I know how I got here. I also know what I want, what it takes and how I feel in that place. in some ways it's a catch 22 because i need daily yoga to keep me on the nutritional path in which I thrive, but until I am on that path, i never feel energetic or well enough to do yoga, and I also never feel satiated, for obvious reasons. it's like being stoned, where you eat th crap you want but still keep coming up with new cravings, never feeling like you hit the spot. that's how I feel lately.
this is a valuable experience for me though, i see that clearly. it is also a turning point. and with the way I feel right now, in this moment and in general, i know what I must do; I must put my love for my body first, I must make eating a spiritual act requiring beauty and life force in all that I eat and drink, and I must embrace a daily practice to carry me from here to there, lovingly, joyfully.
the life i am creating now, through knowing this and finally honoring its importance, will bring happiness and bliss beyond measure. fleeting sensual pleasures cannot replace these truths; we are only meant to eat fresh, ripe, juicy fruits, daily yoga is tonic for the nervous system and an ancient form of self healing that always delivers what it promises and whatever you ask of it, and the time is always NOW to do your best for yourself, to love yourself.
water, yoga, fruit. this is how i will begin each and every day. i know i will bloom in this like a rose.:)
Friday, April 23, 2010
kicked in the teeth
That's how I've been feeling at work for a while and I am so stressed and so over it right now, I sneak away to cry in the bathroom. Yep, I gave my notice without something lined up, and I do always land on my feet, but right now I am just one big ball of upset.
I have been doing my best to do the right thing on the way out, making it a smooth transition and being helpful, offering a 3 week notice and offering to extend that one more week if they want me here longer to train my replacement, which I know my current boss does.
I was just told that I would be supporting this other new VP as of May 1st with NO accompanying increase in pay, which was the bulls**t treatment that got me to snap and quit in the first place. We assistants are worth less than staplers to these jerks, and I promptly emailed HR, my boss and my temp agency to ask how my pay rate would be adjusted to reflect those new duties for my last week/s. I am NOT taking this bending over, period.
Bri and I also realized this morning our energy needs are greater than we realized, and I guess this is why Dr. Graham is big on calorie counting for at least the first month or so. I need about 2000 cals/energy units per day, Bri needs about 3000, and I know we've not been meeting those needs. But now we are, and shall continue to do to. It's not always easy, especially when eating mostly fruit, but well worth it.
Right now I just have to hang in there, ride out this depression at work and KNOW that it will all turn around in time. This is what one author I love calls "living the split", when you are literally straddling the two worlds; the one you are leaving behind and the one you are creating. I am so ready to step into the new one. Enough already.
I have been doing my best to do the right thing on the way out, making it a smooth transition and being helpful, offering a 3 week notice and offering to extend that one more week if they want me here longer to train my replacement, which I know my current boss does.
I was just told that I would be supporting this other new VP as of May 1st with NO accompanying increase in pay, which was the bulls**t treatment that got me to snap and quit in the first place. We assistants are worth less than staplers to these jerks, and I promptly emailed HR, my boss and my temp agency to ask how my pay rate would be adjusted to reflect those new duties for my last week/s. I am NOT taking this bending over, period.
Bri and I also realized this morning our energy needs are greater than we realized, and I guess this is why Dr. Graham is big on calorie counting for at least the first month or so. I need about 2000 cals/energy units per day, Bri needs about 3000, and I know we've not been meeting those needs. But now we are, and shall continue to do to. It's not always easy, especially when eating mostly fruit, but well worth it.
Right now I just have to hang in there, ride out this depression at work and KNOW that it will all turn around in time. This is what one author I love calls "living the split", when you are literally straddling the two worlds; the one you are leaving behind and the one you are creating. I am so ready to step into the new one. Enough already.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
freedom in this body!
My relationship to my body is a long and complex one, as I'm sure it is for so many.
I was a slim and healthy child while traveling the world with my mother, but once I returned to the states with her and started spending loads of time with my grandparents and around kids eating the standard american diet (pure crap like cheese balls and McDs!) I became a slightly pudgy kid. I was intensely aware of this at an alarmingly early age. I can recall a road trip with my grandparents and my uncle when I was only about 8 or 9, wherein the jeans that fit me when we left didn't within days and I began to cry in a feverish panick, dropping to the ground to exercise rather adamantly in the hopes I could reverse it immediately while my well meaning family laughed. They still tell that story and find it terribly amusing. To this day it makes me want to cry and scream. From there, I went through overeating, bulimia on and off for 10 years, obsessive dieting and calorie counting, obsessive exercising (though some was very joyful for me too) and alternated between being very fit and lean or about 30 pounds overweight for the rest of my life.
My relationship to exercise wasn't completely unhealthy, I really enjoyed it and learned to love soreness and enjoy that lactic acid burn, and of course to relish the results when they came. But I was sometimes rather unbalanced in my physical endeavors; pushing myself too hard too suddenly when I felt I'd let myself slide for too long, inevitably leading to injury or disappointment, even exhaustion. Sometimes I'd punish myself for not being what I wanted physically, even hitting myself sometimes when I couldn't make changes fast enough and hated what I saw in the mirror. It's been a very strange journey for me and my body.
Now I feel a lot of love for her, though I feel I could easily lose 30 pounds again and be incredibly happy in that lightness...and I know it's coming...with fruitarianism and a new calling I feel from deep down inside. Where I was once a Jane Fonda addict, even starting and teaching an aerobics club in high school, and a sporadic runner, gym rat and all around home video workout fanatic...I feel a different compulsion now, a much more freeing one. Perhaps it's because of the fruity shift. Perhaps it's just divine timing that I crave both, but I now feel no call towards weight training, step aerobics, treadmills, running, or any of that sort of work I once loved and pushed onto myself alternately. No, now what I crave are things that feel like playtime to me; expressions of myself in this beautiful body like ecstatic freedance, yoga, even eventually taking trapeze so I can experience the feelings of flight and exploring my body playfully through acrobatics I have never attempted before. That always seemed to be for the skinny people, the dancers...even when I WAS slim and fit I never felt I could let go that way. Now, it's all I think of when it comes to exercise and breaking a good sweat; yoga, trance dance and trapeze. The feeling of exploring the body and healing from a cellular level via movement, vibration, breath and intention now seems to me like the only road my body wants to travel...and because she has endured so much, because she loves me unconditionally when I was unable to return in kind, because she is my hero...I will take this journey with her and let her lead me down the path that makes my body SMILE. I feel it when I'm in triangle pose, camel pose, Kundalini Lotus, downward facing dog. It's literally this full body smile that finally spreads across my face and I feel liberated and connected to her at the same time. And when I allow myself to move spontaneous and freely with music, eyes closed and really allowing the moves to guide me into a state of intoxicated bliss...it's beyond words.
Maybe someday I will feel called to return to some of the old "workouts" I loved so much...maybe not? This is like a 40 year marriage finally coming into a place of exploring tantra with a partner, seeing them as your beloved; worshipping at the altar of that love with honesty, purity and freedom.
I love this beautiful body of mine...and look forward to exploring this incredible world of ours through her with lightness of being and total trust. ;)
I was a slim and healthy child while traveling the world with my mother, but once I returned to the states with her and started spending loads of time with my grandparents and around kids eating the standard american diet (pure crap like cheese balls and McDs!) I became a slightly pudgy kid. I was intensely aware of this at an alarmingly early age. I can recall a road trip with my grandparents and my uncle when I was only about 8 or 9, wherein the jeans that fit me when we left didn't within days and I began to cry in a feverish panick, dropping to the ground to exercise rather adamantly in the hopes I could reverse it immediately while my well meaning family laughed. They still tell that story and find it terribly amusing. To this day it makes me want to cry and scream. From there, I went through overeating, bulimia on and off for 10 years, obsessive dieting and calorie counting, obsessive exercising (though some was very joyful for me too) and alternated between being very fit and lean or about 30 pounds overweight for the rest of my life.
My relationship to exercise wasn't completely unhealthy, I really enjoyed it and learned to love soreness and enjoy that lactic acid burn, and of course to relish the results when they came. But I was sometimes rather unbalanced in my physical endeavors; pushing myself too hard too suddenly when I felt I'd let myself slide for too long, inevitably leading to injury or disappointment, even exhaustion. Sometimes I'd punish myself for not being what I wanted physically, even hitting myself sometimes when I couldn't make changes fast enough and hated what I saw in the mirror. It's been a very strange journey for me and my body.
Now I feel a lot of love for her, though I feel I could easily lose 30 pounds again and be incredibly happy in that lightness...and I know it's coming...with fruitarianism and a new calling I feel from deep down inside. Where I was once a Jane Fonda addict, even starting and teaching an aerobics club in high school, and a sporadic runner, gym rat and all around home video workout fanatic...I feel a different compulsion now, a much more freeing one. Perhaps it's because of the fruity shift. Perhaps it's just divine timing that I crave both, but I now feel no call towards weight training, step aerobics, treadmills, running, or any of that sort of work I once loved and pushed onto myself alternately. No, now what I crave are things that feel like playtime to me; expressions of myself in this beautiful body like ecstatic freedance, yoga, even eventually taking trapeze so I can experience the feelings of flight and exploring my body playfully through acrobatics I have never attempted before. That always seemed to be for the skinny people, the dancers...even when I WAS slim and fit I never felt I could let go that way. Now, it's all I think of when it comes to exercise and breaking a good sweat; yoga, trance dance and trapeze. The feeling of exploring the body and healing from a cellular level via movement, vibration, breath and intention now seems to me like the only road my body wants to travel...and because she has endured so much, because she loves me unconditionally when I was unable to return in kind, because she is my hero...I will take this journey with her and let her lead me down the path that makes my body SMILE. I feel it when I'm in triangle pose, camel pose, Kundalini Lotus, downward facing dog. It's literally this full body smile that finally spreads across my face and I feel liberated and connected to her at the same time. And when I allow myself to move spontaneous and freely with music, eyes closed and really allowing the moves to guide me into a state of intoxicated bliss...it's beyond words.
Maybe someday I will feel called to return to some of the old "workouts" I loved so much...maybe not? This is like a 40 year marriage finally coming into a place of exploring tantra with a partner, seeing them as your beloved; worshipping at the altar of that love with honesty, purity and freedom.
I love this beautiful body of mine...and look forward to exploring this incredible world of ours through her with lightness of being and total trust. ;)
Monday, April 19, 2010
worth a shot?
Maybe it's Mercury in retrograde, maybe it's just bad technology, but I had a hell of a time trying to post my first blog here the other day. I'll give it one more shot, hoping that was a fluke!
I'm sitting at work, a job I am thrilled to say I will be leaving in a few weeks, sipping a fabulous green smoothie my love made for me this morning. I love this man so much; he's bright, beautiful, sweet as could be, talented and makes a mean green smoothie! lol It's spinach, banana and dates I believe. It's also the thickest and most dense smoothie I've ever had! It's like pudding, so yummy. But I am mixing it with water to make it a bit lighter and more drinkable. Energy feast though, no doubt. ;)
This morning I had a gorgeous and very sweet/juicy Tuscan melon. I do love those and for some odd reason, even on an empty stomach I find it tough to have more than one at a sitting. I followed that with some fresh raw oj, about 32 ounces over the morning along with water, though I'm sure I could use more of the latter. My mouth gets so dry at the corners when I'm even the slightest bit dehydrated, that's how I know I need to be more on top of it.
Tonight my love and I will do some yummy yoga together, and I'm aiming for getting us to do at least a 20 minute practice of Hatha in the mornings. That's the dream and I know once the fruity power kicks in to the fullest for us we will LEAP out of bed for our practice!
Definitely some cravings to contend with, even when I do get enough calories and water in. When it comes down to it, I either grab an all veg sandwhich or one of those Amy's California veg burgers, which are vegan, and have it on a piece of sprouted grain bread or lettuce. I figure as non-raw, non-fruity foods go, they're not too horrible and eventually those will fall by the wayside too. But they keep me from snapping on those days where the cravings rear their ugly heads. I look forward to the days when that will be but a memory as well...and I can see it, ever so slightly down the road, just up ahead!
I'm sitting at work, a job I am thrilled to say I will be leaving in a few weeks, sipping a fabulous green smoothie my love made for me this morning. I love this man so much; he's bright, beautiful, sweet as could be, talented and makes a mean green smoothie! lol It's spinach, banana and dates I believe. It's also the thickest and most dense smoothie I've ever had! It's like pudding, so yummy. But I am mixing it with water to make it a bit lighter and more drinkable. Energy feast though, no doubt. ;)
This morning I had a gorgeous and very sweet/juicy Tuscan melon. I do love those and for some odd reason, even on an empty stomach I find it tough to have more than one at a sitting. I followed that with some fresh raw oj, about 32 ounces over the morning along with water, though I'm sure I could use more of the latter. My mouth gets so dry at the corners when I'm even the slightest bit dehydrated, that's how I know I need to be more on top of it.
Tonight my love and I will do some yummy yoga together, and I'm aiming for getting us to do at least a 20 minute practice of Hatha in the mornings. That's the dream and I know once the fruity power kicks in to the fullest for us we will LEAP out of bed for our practice!
Definitely some cravings to contend with, even when I do get enough calories and water in. When it comes down to it, I either grab an all veg sandwhich or one of those Amy's California veg burgers, which are vegan, and have it on a piece of sprouted grain bread or lettuce. I figure as non-raw, non-fruity foods go, they're not too horrible and eventually those will fall by the wayside too. But they keep me from snapping on those days where the cravings rear their ugly heads. I look forward to the days when that will be but a memory as well...and I can see it, ever so slightly down the road, just up ahead!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
what a couple of weeks!
Bri and I were coasting along with our daily yoga and all fruitarian lifestyle for about 8 days when a couple of things happened that derailed us; he way overdid his cycling one day and was so fatigued I let him have a veg sandwich, and of course I joined him (lol) and then my bday weekend came up and we agreed to a couple of splurges as goodbyes to places and meals we held dear.
Well, with that behind us, we are both so ready to get back to that fabulously energetic lifestyle; daily yoga that we will alternate between Kest Power Yoga and Kundalini, and since we both know now what meditations are especially trans-formative for us according to Kundalini soul numerology we will add those in as well. Not surprisingly, we each found that the very meditation or kriya we are each supposed to do are the ones we each HATE, lol. For him, Sat Kriya, for me, So Darshan Chakra Kriya. Blech! lol Buuut, I also understand how that works and when he told me how much he hated Sat Kriya I had a feeling it was his resistance, and I was right! I also knew instinctively that SDCK was the one I needed the most ages ago...it's the ONE Kundalini meditation that gives me such a hard time and frustrates me tremendously...funny how that works, lol.
I loved reading a few of Dr. Graham's words of wisdom earlier while I was waiting for my cell phone software to be upgraded (oh how I miss the old days sometimes); he talked about continuing to move forward with positivity no matter how slowly you make the shift, and always encourages from a place of total non-judgment. Amazing man really, and that book is literally life changing. I'd wanted to go raw and vegan for so long but always felt like shit when I tried it because of the high fat levels of the usual gourmet raw fare. And now I understand, thanks to Dr. Graham and his book and seminar videos, that the whole candida issue and much of the dis-ease we create via food has to do with fat, and specifically the presence of fats and sugar in the bloodstream at the same time, wreaking havoc. But a lowfat fruity raw life is the healing elixir OF life, period. There is NO other food humans are biologically designed and meant to eat. Fruit is pure energy, cleansing and our one true source of nutritional healing and perfect sustenance for us.
I'm loading up on good clean water, fresh squeezed oj, Tuscan melons, greens for smoothies, etc and embracing this lifestyle with all of my heart and soul.
On another note, the signs pointing us to Portland are incredible and undeniable. I now have quite a handful of new friends up there thanks to all of the people I keep talking to here in LA who are so excited about our move and have such great friends in Portland that they feel compelled to connect me...how marvelous is that?! It just happened now when I was chatting with this adorable family I have known here for years, and found that they too will eventually move up there and have family in Portland and Vancouver, Washington (where they have no state tax, hmm). This kind of thing has been happening every day! I mean seriously, our new comedy VP at work knew me for all of 5 minutes and when I said I was moving up there in a few months, she had introduced me to two incredible sounding people up there (a writer who is a Guggenheim fellow and an actress) immediately. I love it! When we land, with my trusty Honda (thanks mama!) and our Uhaul trailer, cats in the back seat kennel, we will have a good handful of new friends to meet and greet us.
11 years ago when me and my ex decided to move to LA sight unseen, no money saved, no connections here, no clue, we manifested the path within 48 hours and were living here within a month. When it's meant to be, the Universe shows you the way, all you have to do is trust and flow. Bruce Lee said to be like water. He was right. ;)
It's AAAALLLL coming together...we knew it would. ;) Bye bye LA. Bye bye industry douchebags. Bye bye toxic job environment. We created this beautiful new picture together and we feel it happening already.
Be your own hero every single day. Know your worth, and honor it. Trust. Lead with your heart, always.
And as the great yoga teacher, Pattabhi Jois used to say, "Practice...and all is coming."
Namaste
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