Humbled on the Mat

I went to yoga class this morning for the first time in many years. My first time practicing at a gym, which I’ll always think is somewhat of an anathema.

I’m a bit of a yoga snob. But, don’t judge okay?

  

You see, I have a long personal relationship with yoga – back before it went mainstream. You didn’t take yoga at a gym and most of my friends had no clue what it was. My Ashtanga teacher studied with Pattabhi Jois. Class was held in a room smelling of incense, old office supplies and people who wore crystal deodorant. Everyone was there to do yoga. No one had a cell phone, much less forgot to turn theirs off.

But the practice of asana is only one of eight limbs of yoga. Yoga is a state of being and doing which can be practiced during every waking moment. Often times what happens during asana, the lessons and experiences, teach us a mindset that carries-over into the rest of our lives.
So I went.

Yoga is more than a class or a stretch. I have to admit, I did my own thing at my own pace and used my own alignments and binds. But mostly? I stayed still or adopted child pose.  Because my body is so weak. I was prepared to do this, I’m not in a position for rigorous exercise. But still.

It was difficult. Humbling.

 

The mat can be a very humbling place.

I lost my yoga as my eating disorder progressed in about 2002. My body weakened—I could no longer do it. Then my mind went and then…. I went.
Through the years of “betters” and “oks,” I avoided the mat (despite wanting to practice) for several reasons.

1. My body is still weak and less flexible than it was. I’m more a beginner now than I ever was. It’s beyond starting over, it’s starting fresh. It makes me that much more aware of the damage I’ve caused my health.

2. As I slowly lean into practicing again, I re-connect with my passion and my memories, becoming more aware of how much of myself I abandoned.

3. I get winded, dizzy. There are certain poses I simply can.not.do. I am too weak. Too bony. Rolling on my spine and most supine poses are impossible right now. Before I left for class today? I threw on this weird yoga-jacket- thingy in case I got cold because I caught glimpse of my back in the mirror. I was embarrassed. I rarely notice my body like that.

 
See? Humbling.

All these things are good to reckon with, things I MUST reckon with. But it’s sad. Hard. Humbling.
But ….ahhhh….yoga.

It’s so SO good for my soul and I have a feeling if I just keep pressing on — it may be crucial to any chance I have at life. It really does make me happy. 

• What are you humbled by? Do you avoid it or relish the experience? 

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evocative, provocative quote:

evocative provocative quote:

Let your head be more than a funnel to your stomach.
~German Proverb.

does this elicit any emotions, thoughts, memories, current struggles, or “aha” moments for you?

for me this quote resonates like, whoa– so often the few inches between my ears are entirely dedicated and consumed by food…especially when i am not nourishing myself properly. i feel that my life will always be somewhat food-centric; i can accept this to a certain degree. but sometimes it gets out of hand and the experience is very shameful.

except my mind is more like this: 

 
seriously!

the quote concisely sums up what it is like to have food&co be the constant muzak of your mind, and how wasteful and wrong that is.

another reason i emote to this quote (rhyme!) is in regards to mindless eating. i think we all know about that, huh? even though i am no longer prone to the complete numb-blank-time warp horror of a binge, for example, there are CERTAINLY times i look down and i’m like…"wait..what?"

this is me, oh….nine times out of ten nine when i eat popcorn.

 for the past year or so i have been studying the physiological benefits of eating with awareness using several techniques– such as macrobiotic-like chewing, BREATHING (<– that’s huge for me), and staying present on my physical sensations during a meal (which is scary at first sometimes still). 

i notice my digestion improves, as does my entire well-being (emotional, mental, physical…etc).  my body is more ready to receive and incorporate the nourishment from the food when i practice eating in an "enlightened" manner. (no, i haven’t been able to turn off the TV. i’m not superwoman..)

but maybe if i master the art of mindful eating i’ll fart stars?

the more i eat with a mindful, relaxed and ready spirit, the more i get really uncomfortable after realizing i’ve eaten without awareness. it really sucks.

where is her bowl? what is going on?

i aim for at least one meal a day when i choose to consciously practice healthy eating (or try to). i don’t want to obsess, and also it’s hard! but just the occasional choice to practice has had a residual effect on the rest of my meals.

i hope to write more about my forays into this practice – but please note if you are a recovered or current eating-disordered individual and excruciating meal rituals and prolonging meal times (taking two hours to eat and stuff)…this isn’t something to worry about right now.

(i am under the weather big time and just re-posting something i wrote in one of the Facebook Groups i belong to…hence the all-lowercase font which i have succumbed to in emails, comments and whatnot. i’m trying not to let it invade my blog, though. we’ll see.)

PS- true factoid—i really don’t use the word fart, i call it fluffing. i was raised that way.

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tickled pink

I’ve never been much of a “Tickled Pink” girl.

 

I’m more of a “Rainbow Brite” type.

But today? Pink has been a re-occuring theme. And I’m not complaining.

In fact, I’m tickled. By what?

This heavenly sight on my desk today.

My Mom has been gifting me with nectars of love for the past couple weeks. (Heaven knows I can’t afford them.)

Finding this little gem on Facebook. Sometimes you just have no words….and then suddenly you do. (thank you ecards)

By hot-pink construction equipment. Genius on so many levels. They’ll really catch your eye, huh? Not the best pic, but you get it.

And that is why I’m tickled pink.

And that was 0:45 seconds of your life you probably want back. LOL.

My point is….wait. I got nothing. How about this, find ONE thing (or person) today to be tickled by. (If you want).

Don’t I make it look fun??

     

What’s lighting your spirit up today?

PS – Though I am an ardent fan of pickles, idioms, phrases and messing around with words. I absolutely cannot say “whatever tickles your pickle” because…..*blush* i guess i have a dirty mind and it makes me feel funny.

PPS- Like my screen saver? I put a bird on it. (0;

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pssst….wanna read something good?

You should already glean from the title of this post that I’m about to share something I didn’t write. It fell into my path today and moved so many things inside my heart.

It resonates deeply with me, though the echoes it makes inside are uncomfortable to hear. (Somebody give me some glitter or pickles or something, quick!)

The piece is related to recovery, something I believe is part of all our life-journeys. Whether it be from food, alcohol, a damaging relationship, a shopping habit, control, people pleasing, etc; we all have obstacles to overcome.

It’s long. Read it (if you want).

I’ll be writing a bit more now that work has slowed down. I have WAY too much time on my hands and I’m not doing anything productive with it like getting my MBA or a second job, so I might as well blog. (and if you read what i write, the fact that i have far too much time on my hands will be evident.) Plus I miss my wacky hobby. And the wacksters that read along.

The Necessary Temper Tantrum
by Shannon Cutts

Recovery offers us the chance to grow up.
Even if we may think we are already grown up.

We may be of an age, have a bank account that would suggest, or work in a profession that indicates we are most definitely grown up. But until we wholeheartedly commit to navigating the often choppy waters of recovery for as long as it takes to get to shore safely, we are not truly grown.

This is because, as long as we are mired in uncertainty when it comes to pursuing recovery, we are still holding on to our childhood dream and hope that we can have everything we want.

That is, we are clinging to the inaccurate belief, however alluring, that we can have our addiction or issue, and we can also have a happy, healthy life too.
Regardless of the origin of our disease (ie. some diseases are more body-focused and some are more brain-focused) or behavior (ie. some behaviors are truly biologically-based while others are incidences of deliberate abuse for a specific reason), the continuation of it indicates at some level a permission.

This permission is born of an inability to perceive accurately that the disease or behavior is a threat to our very life – no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
For instance, if you received a diagnosis of cancer, you would initially choose one of two directions. Either you would lapse into denial (stage one of the Five Stages of Grief) and pretend like your cancer would just “work itself out,” or you would gird your loins for a full-on battle and lunge in, determined to claim victory over your diagnosis.

But when it comes to issues such as substance use, alcohol use, eating disorders, depression, and other disorders of mood and emotion, we often waffle. We are not clearly convinced that our diagnosis is its own brand of “cancer,” with the same ultimate result if we do not wholeheartedly fight it off.

Because we are not convinced of its danger to our health and life, we allow ourselves to remain in a state where we are not sure we can live without the repetitive, temporary sanctuary our use and abuse of food, substances, or mood provides to check out of life when life feels hard enough to be unacceptable.

We are not sure we can live without whatever it is, because we are not yet convinced we have to in order to survive.

In these cases, we are not yet grown up. We are still having a very understandable temper tantrum. We want to have our thinness and our life too. We want to have our substances and our life too. We want to have our emotional instability and our life too.

We are not sure we can live without what we must learn to live without, if we are to survive.

I threw this temper tantrum for years – eight years to be exact.
No one had ever told me I couldn’t have my eating disorder and my dreams of a happy life too. Since no one had ever told me I couldn’t have both, I had been busy telling myself I could.

When my own failing health woke me up to the lie I had been repeating to myself, I threw a mega temper tantrum until finally I exhausted myself and accepted the truth.

I would have to choose.
And I did.
In that moment, I grew up.

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