A friend asked today what the biggest challenge in yoga I've had so far. It got me thinking -- what WAS the biggest challenge? Laying in savasana gently reminding myself to return to my breath when I start making tomorrows grocery list? Getting through an entire flow when my triceps are on fire because of a million chaturanga's? Balancing in tree when holding my drishti seems as easy as scaling the Empire State building ? Balancing hit a cord with me, but it wasn't anything to do with tree. Or in crow, or in airplane, or any particular yoga pose for that matter. It was the balance that I lack in life right now. Or at least that I FEEL like I lack in life right now. As the mother of a very active four and a half year old that works an emotionally demanding job while trying to nurture a intimate relationship and still time find, energy and love for friends and family, I find fitting my yoga practice into my life nearly impossible. And that, quite frankly, scares me. Not only because my teacher training is quickly approaching (although, that does freak me right OUT!!!!), but because I know that yoga is one of the things that keeps me sane, keeps me happy, and keeps me balanced. Then why do I find it so difficult to "fit it in"? So that's what I told Eryn. That was my answer to what my biggest challenge in yoga has been. It wasn't that I couldn't balance on my tri's in crow. It wasn't that I couldn't still my mind or that I couldn't stop comparing how my leg wouldn't reach as high as my neighbours in standing splits. My biggest obstacle of yoga is figuring out how to incorporate it into my already hectic life. Eryns answer was perfect:
"Oh…. but that's where you are SO mixed up!!! That IS the yoga, girl!! Not Tree Pose. Not the perfect backbend. It is JUST what you describe…. how you life your life. And I'm so happy that you're deepening your journey! It's been written in stone for some time"
See...it's perfect! Please check out her website if you get a chance. It's amazing. And so is she. http://erynsyoga.com/
Tuesday 19 November 2013
Tuesday 12 November 2013
Con't
Ok, so I was way too exhausted every day to keep up with the juice reviews. Which is, I'm sad to say, part of the reason it ended after day three. It honestly didn't take too much convincing to get Nic to enjoy Subway with me either, so at least I didn't feel like a total failure on my own. (As an fyi, neither Nic nor myself felt like failures. We were proud of ourselves and each other for making it through three juice days actually!). I think a five day cleanse may have been a bit too much for he and I both. Overall we enjoyed quite a few of the juices, with the exception of the green ones. They were just SO.DAMN.GROSS. Please please please leave comments below with tasty recipes for green juices if you know of any. We introduced solid foods rather quickly and I have noticed that a few leave me feeling not so hot now. I did notice a difference in bloating, in my skin and in my nails after a few short days though, so that was pretty rad. Crazy to think that food affects us just that much. So, on to the next adventure I suppose....
I've been thinking a lot lately about authenticity and being okay with not being a mainstream kinda chick. I have an idea in my head how I want to be as a person (32 years old next week and I'm STRILL trying to figure myself out!), but I'm struggling with a few things.
First: I really just want to be Me, and I think Me is kind of a paradox -- I want to teach yoga as my primary job but enjoy the structure of a 9-5 Mon-Fri. I want to eat whole foods that nourish and feed my body and soul, but be able to get stupid drunk sometimes. I want to continue blogging (so far I have 59 views of this page -- 58 of which are me checking it) but am afraid to actually post this in any social media format I frequent (read: fb). I want to stop eating/drinking from plastic, but not really because I worry about the toxins and all that jazz, but because I think mason jars are super awesome and they make me look like I am cool. So as you can see, I'm clearly struggling with figuring out how to be Me.
Second: There are things I want to do with my life that I don't know if I will be supported to do by my family. That sounds awful. You should know that I have a fantastic family who love me and always join me for a ride through all of my crazy ideas (for instance: I tried being a vegetarian one time. Until I came home after not eating meat for months and polished off the entire ham my Mom left on the counter for everyone elses dinner). They always just stuck by me, maybe rolled their eyes a bit, but regardless, joined me for my rollercoaster ride nonetheless. I digress, I'm concerned my family won't support me leaving a 9-5 job to start teaching a few yoga classes a week. I get where they're coming from, but teaching is what would make me the happiest Me I could be. They would get that....right?
Third: What if I make a mistake? What if I quit my full time job and can't cut it as a teacher? What if I sink money into a home studio and no one shows up? What if I get halfway through my teacher training and decide that teaching yoga isn't for me and that I want the freedom of picking it up and putting it down whenever is convenient for me? What if what if what if.
OK, session done. Replies and comments welcome.
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I've been thinking a lot lately about authenticity and being okay with not being a mainstream kinda chick. I have an idea in my head how I want to be as a person (32 years old next week and I'm STRILL trying to figure myself out!), but I'm struggling with a few things.
First: I really just want to be Me, and I think Me is kind of a paradox -- I want to teach yoga as my primary job but enjoy the structure of a 9-5 Mon-Fri. I want to eat whole foods that nourish and feed my body and soul, but be able to get stupid drunk sometimes. I want to continue blogging (so far I have 59 views of this page -- 58 of which are me checking it) but am afraid to actually post this in any social media format I frequent (read: fb). I want to stop eating/drinking from plastic, but not really because I worry about the toxins and all that jazz, but because I think mason jars are super awesome and they make me look like I am cool. So as you can see, I'm clearly struggling with figuring out how to be Me.
Second: There are things I want to do with my life that I don't know if I will be supported to do by my family. That sounds awful. You should know that I have a fantastic family who love me and always join me for a ride through all of my crazy ideas (for instance: I tried being a vegetarian one time. Until I came home after not eating meat for months and polished off the entire ham my Mom left on the counter for everyone elses dinner). They always just stuck by me, maybe rolled their eyes a bit, but regardless, joined me for my rollercoaster ride nonetheless. I digress, I'm concerned my family won't support me leaving a 9-5 job to start teaching a few yoga classes a week. I get where they're coming from, but teaching is what would make me the happiest Me I could be. They would get that....right?
Third: What if I make a mistake? What if I quit my full time job and can't cut it as a teacher? What if I sink money into a home studio and no one shows up? What if I get halfway through my teacher training and decide that teaching yoga isn't for me and that I want the freedom of picking it up and putting it down whenever is convenient for me? What if what if what if.
OK, session done. Replies and comments welcome.
Monday 4 November 2013
Juicey
Nic and I have officially (and successful!) completed Day 1 of the juice fast. We started planning after watching Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead on Netflix (check it out if you haven't already or at least check out the trailer here) and have been super pumped since to start the reboot. There are a ton of benefits to juicing and we are hoping to just scratch the surface by starting with the 5 day plan.
We started the process by researching juicers. We decided on Jack LaLanne's power juicer, as it is affordable and had decent reviews. So far, so good! Theres tons of juicers out there though, so check them all and decide what you think would work best for you.
Next, we went through a picked out the recipes we thought we would enjoy the most. They all came from online resources like Juicer Recipes , Cali Green Mama, Etto Design as well as the Reboot With Joe site. I must admit, I'm afraid to post the pictures of our juices after seeing some of the other blogs photo's. A photographer I definitely am not. (Which is why I'll review them here instead)
Our breakfast juice is red, followed by a green lunch, red or orange snack, another green dinner and a purple dessert. A ton of water should accompany these, as well as some herbal teas to spice things up if boredom sets in. (No milk or sugar added!)
Todays menu looked like this:
Pre a.m. (first thing after waking up): Hot water with lemon
No picture because it sucked. Seriously. Lesson learned - take the rinds of lemons before throwing them in hot water. Way too bitter.
Breakfast:
Watermelon Crush from the Reboot site. I surprisingly enjoyed this, considering it had basil in it. Nic, however, didn't like it at all. Ah well. You win some, you loose some (like dinner...we lost dinner. Literally. Keep reading).
Ingredients:
1/2 watermelon
handful of basil
1 lime
Lunch was another Reboot recipe called Green Lemonade. Just for the record, it tasted NOTHING like lemonade:
Ingredients:
6 kale leaves
3 handfuls spinach
1 green apple
1 cucumber
2 celery stalks
1 lemon
There's nothing you could have added to this to make it taste remotely like lemonade. It wasn't terrible though.
Next was Apple Crisp. It was, honestly, sooooooo delicious!!!! It came from the Juice Recipe website and was freaking tasty. Or at least I thought. Nic wasn't a big fan.
And then, came dinner. OH. MY. GAWD. When I say I "lost it", I literally mean I barfed. In the sink. My 4 year old thought it was hilarious but I, on the other hand, not so much. Now, in the reboots defence (that's where we found the recipe), maybe this was because Nic and I were basically shot gunning it from the mason jars. But in our defense, if it weren't so bad we wouldn't have had to!! (by the way, if you can convince someone to try out a detox or cleanse or reboot with you, the partner method is always best! If it weren't for Nic, I would have been into our kiddo's Halloween treats for SURE!). Back to dinner. Here it is:
Its called Joe's Mean Green, and now I know why. Because it's mean to feed it to someone. Ok fine, Joe claims it's awesome. It probably is in terms of all the nutrients you'd get from it. But it tastes like hell in a jar.
Ingredients:
6 kale leaves
1 cucumber
2 celery stalks
1 green apple
half a lemon 1" ginger root.
Lastly, we had our dessert juice. Wait....to clarify, we made it but we were too full from the other juices to even drink it!! We couldn't believe it! Its called Purple Passion and sounds delicious. I think we may keep it for tomorrows dessert (juices should be consumed as soon after making them as possible, however leaving them up to 72 hours is fine. No longer though). Reviews to come!
So altogether, I would say Day 1 was a success. I mean, if you forget about puking in the sink. A ton of water was consumed, juices were, overall, kinda tasty, and both Nic and I noticed a huge surge in energy and a feeling of lightness. I find that after I eat I tend to feel a bit sleepy, or just lethargic at best I suppose, although today I was able to remain energetic the entire day. Awesome!!
Which was good, because look what we spent the night making for tomorrow!!
We started the process by researching juicers. We decided on Jack LaLanne's power juicer, as it is affordable and had decent reviews. So far, so good! Theres tons of juicers out there though, so check them all and decide what you think would work best for you.
Next, we went through a picked out the recipes we thought we would enjoy the most. They all came from online resources like Juicer Recipes , Cali Green Mama, Etto Design as well as the Reboot With Joe site. I must admit, I'm afraid to post the pictures of our juices after seeing some of the other blogs photo's. A photographer I definitely am not. (Which is why I'll review them here instead)
Our breakfast juice is red, followed by a green lunch, red or orange snack, another green dinner and a purple dessert. A ton of water should accompany these, as well as some herbal teas to spice things up if boredom sets in. (No milk or sugar added!)
Todays menu looked like this:
Pre a.m. (first thing after waking up): Hot water with lemon
No picture because it sucked. Seriously. Lesson learned - take the rinds of lemons before throwing them in hot water. Way too bitter.
Breakfast:
Watermelon Crush from the Reboot site. I surprisingly enjoyed this, considering it had basil in it. Nic, however, didn't like it at all. Ah well. You win some, you loose some (like dinner...we lost dinner. Literally. Keep reading).
Ingredients:
1/2 watermelon
handful of basil
1 lime
Lunch was another Reboot recipe called Green Lemonade. Just for the record, it tasted NOTHING like lemonade:
Ingredients:
6 kale leaves
3 handfuls spinach
1 green apple
1 cucumber
2 celery stalks
1 lemon
There's nothing you could have added to this to make it taste remotely like lemonade. It wasn't terrible though.
Next was Apple Crisp. It was, honestly, sooooooo delicious!!!! It came from the Juice Recipe website and was freaking tasty. Or at least I thought. Nic wasn't a big fan.
And then, came dinner. OH. MY. GAWD. When I say I "lost it", I literally mean I barfed. In the sink. My 4 year old thought it was hilarious but I, on the other hand, not so much. Now, in the reboots defence (that's where we found the recipe), maybe this was because Nic and I were basically shot gunning it from the mason jars. But in our defense, if it weren't so bad we wouldn't have had to!! (by the way, if you can convince someone to try out a detox or cleanse or reboot with you, the partner method is always best! If it weren't for Nic, I would have been into our kiddo's Halloween treats for SURE!). Back to dinner. Here it is:
Its called Joe's Mean Green, and now I know why. Because it's mean to feed it to someone. Ok fine, Joe claims it's awesome. It probably is in terms of all the nutrients you'd get from it. But it tastes like hell in a jar.
Ingredients:
6 kale leaves
1 cucumber
2 celery stalks
1 green apple
half a lemon 1" ginger root.
Lastly, we had our dessert juice. Wait....to clarify, we made it but we were too full from the other juices to even drink it!! We couldn't believe it! Its called Purple Passion and sounds delicious. I think we may keep it for tomorrows dessert (juices should be consumed as soon after making them as possible, however leaving them up to 72 hours is fine. No longer though). Reviews to come!
So altogether, I would say Day 1 was a success. I mean, if you forget about puking in the sink. A ton of water was consumed, juices were, overall, kinda tasty, and both Nic and I noticed a huge surge in energy and a feeling of lightness. I find that after I eat I tend to feel a bit sleepy, or just lethargic at best I suppose, although today I was able to remain energetic the entire day. Awesome!!
Which was good, because look what we spent the night making for tomorrow!!
Sunday 3 November 2013
Speak Your Dream
I have taken the first step to changing my life. I have officially applied for the Yoga Teacher Training that I have been lusting after for the last year of my life.
HOLY. FUCKING. HELL.
I was inspired at the last (well, the only) yoga retreat I was at. A friend of mine who was teaching encouraged me to speak my dream, to say OUT FREAKING LOUD that I want to teach yoga. I said it. Out loud. And she will hold me to my word. She will gently encourage me to move towards my dreams. And it all started, just by speaking it.
What is it with actually saying it out loud to someone else that makes things so much more real? Why do I feel more pressure now -- oddly enough a really good, positive, healthy pressure -- to follow through on my plans? Now that she knows my dirty little secret and has heard it from my lips, I feel indebted to her to make it happen. After all, I can't tell my yoga teacher something like that and then NOT follow through. That's not very yoga-like of me! But it's so true. When you say it out loud, when you open your dreams up to the universe, things become real.
So here I am...awaiting news of whether or not my application has been accepted. I am not obsessing over checking my email (totally am...like every five minutes). I am again putting my dreams out to the universe, knowing that however it is meant to work out will happen. While I sit and wait, I encourage you to speak your dreams. Involve a friend in this process, a friend who will support you and nurture those dreams alongside of you. Speak your aspirations, your thoughts, your ideas, your secrets. And know that someone, somewhere, is listening. Speak your dreams.
HOLY. FUCKING. HELL.
I was inspired at the last (well, the only) yoga retreat I was at. A friend of mine who was teaching encouraged me to speak my dream, to say OUT FREAKING LOUD that I want to teach yoga. I said it. Out loud. And she will hold me to my word. She will gently encourage me to move towards my dreams. And it all started, just by speaking it.
What is it with actually saying it out loud to someone else that makes things so much more real? Why do I feel more pressure now -- oddly enough a really good, positive, healthy pressure -- to follow through on my plans? Now that she knows my dirty little secret and has heard it from my lips, I feel indebted to her to make it happen. After all, I can't tell my yoga teacher something like that and then NOT follow through. That's not very yoga-like of me! But it's so true. When you say it out loud, when you open your dreams up to the universe, things become real.
So here I am...awaiting news of whether or not my application has been accepted. I am not obsessing over checking my email (totally am...like every five minutes). I am again putting my dreams out to the universe, knowing that however it is meant to work out will happen. While I sit and wait, I encourage you to speak your dreams. Involve a friend in this process, a friend who will support you and nurture those dreams alongside of you. Speak your aspirations, your thoughts, your ideas, your secrets. And know that someone, somewhere, is listening. Speak your dreams.
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