Alright, obviously this is pretty vague.  It is interesting though, that during yoga tonight (prior to reading this horoscope), I was thinking, “OMIGOD-I-CANNOT-WAIT-UNTIL-I-CAN-TEACH-FOR-REALSIES”.  Yes, I am actually really excited to have my “RYT” behind my name and teach at a reputable studio (as opposed to teaching my friends in my apartment).  However, I have to keep reminding myself that I do not want to miss my entire experience of teacher training while I am looking forward to getting a job teaching.  Teacher training is amazing.  There is much less practice (except for last night, when we did 18 Sun B‘s in a row… holy moly that is a LOT of Sun B’s) than a normal class.  However, we get such a broad depth of knowledge about every aspect of yoga, that it is really helping me out.  The workshop this past weekend was particularly helpful in showing some of the incredible benefits that yoga can have on certain populations.

I would not give up the experience of getting to this point in yoga for the world.  Every day practicing has been better than the one before.  I feel more powerful, flexible, and alive than I have in a long time.  I just need to keep that in mind while I am simultaneously looking forward to the next phase.

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
But I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

Gotye & Kimbra – Somebody That I Used to Know

Today was a continuance of my transformative weekend.  Had a normal (read: annoying) day at work, followed by another amazing yoga class.  It is incredible how the universe works.  I thought nothing of the timing of my turning-point weekend until yoga today.  Gwen never fails to make me see truth and beauty in the world and in myself.  We discussed the new moon and Shiva, and how it is a very auspicious time right at the cusp of rebirth (from destruction).  If you are curious, you can read more about it here.

All of the pieces fell into place.  It is not just chance that all of these things happened this weekend.  It was a fortuitous alignment of the stars with my current mental state.  It was no longer just about getting rid of one material item that represented a failed relationship.  When I saw this, all bad feelings about any old relationships – whether a long-term relationship from years ago or just an unfortunate recent date – melted away.  I am not so naive to think that all of my baggage is safely unpacked and that I can just move forward without any ill effects.  I would love it if that happened, and would certainly be thrilled if I never had another backward glance.  I think I am working towards getting myself to a place where I can do that.  But, for now I will be thankful for the glimpses I get into a baggage-free psyche.

As Kimbra sings in “Somebody that I Used to Know”, I just can’t live how I was living anymore.  It is exhausting to try to discern people’s hidden meanings and to constantly think, “things are not going well because I have done something wrong”.  I need to try to let go and just be.  The universe will take care of me, even if I do not understand it at the time.  And in stark contrast to my previous post where I said that I was not even close to it, I am finally starting to see the light on a more pervasive level.

Before you get all excited for me – no I did not meet Mr. Right.  Or Mr. Right Now, or Mr. Eff it I am Getting Old So I should Probably Just Settle for this Dude.  The life plan still includes a probable ending of hanging out with my (future) hoard of cats.

On Saturday, I bought a new car.  My old car was the last major thing I had in my life from my previous relationship.  Each little step forward I have taken has made me realize just how devastating the relationship (and breakup) was to my psyche.  I am finally (after a year and a half), really feeling like I am taking steps forward.  As soon as I left the dealership with my sweet new car, it was as if a weight had lifted off me.  In thinking about it a bit more, the car was not only a reminder of that relationship, since I bought it towards the end, but how I felt in the car echoed how I felt in the relationship – unsafe.  (Important: I never felt afraid of my ex or that he was going to hurt me… I mean I did not feel safe emotionally.)

We had a workshop about yoga for trauma today and I learned just how amazing yoga is for people who have experienced traumatic experiences.  I figured it was probably good, but I had no idea how amazingly well the studies that have been done on it came out.  Incredible.  The normal style of teaching is modified in some very logical ways to help out people who have survived terrible things. I had not realized that, in addition to my personal feelings about yoga and all of its benefits, that it could have a natural tie to my major course of study in college (psychology).  So… maybe I can figure out a way to use my degree (other than just for the liberal arts bit).

Then, in our second workshop of the day, the teacher was talking about how there is no real need for certification to teach yoga.  (Most studios will require it, since they can determine that you have learned everything you need to know to be a successful yoga teacher, and that you are not just some slob off the street.)  That means… I could start teaching my friends/family now and even potentially start looking for jobs. Yay!  Pretty exciting stuff… sooo if you want to hire me to teach…

Love and light.

Since it is Valentine’s Day and some people reading this may not have that “special someone”, I thought I would spread a little piece of Valentine’s love from one of my yoga teachers. Let me preface this by saying that I know a few of my friends (and not many other people) read this, and the vats majority of them are dating someone or are married.  For those lucky duckies, this still applies, but it is even more applicable for those of us (cough, me) who do not have significant others.

This Valentine’s Day, and always, be thankful for anyone who has inspired you.  Make them your valentines.  Thank them for always being there for you and for inspiring you to be better, or more yourself, or whatever.  Better yet – screw Valentine’s Day.  Why should anyone (significant other or otherwise) have only one day a year that they get appreciated?  To all my friends and family (especially those who read this and make the number of views go up) – you inspire me and I love you so much.  Each and every one of you inspires me in at least one very specific way.  I would not be where I am today without you.

Peace, love, light. Namaste.

• Didn’t have a car for half a week, then I
• Got sick, then I
• Went to St Louis to see my best friend

Fail on the blog.  Sorry about that.

Quick recap of the recent yoga-ing… not surprisingly I am still loving it. Every day brings new challenges and inspirations.  I won’t go into which postures specifically, but I get such a thrill when I can finally do something that I have been working on for a while.  And apparently, all this yoga is doing good things to my body.  I see myself everyday, so I only feel myself getting stronger with every class, but apparently it shows in how I look as well.  Yay.  Getting back to how I was in the dancing days… but better.

Anyway, that isn’t the point of my post today.  It is really to put a question out there to the universe and see what happens.  The yoga studio at which I am taking my teacher training is offering a short short on teaching yoga to kids.  I definitely need to speak with the woman running the course first, but I am kind of intrigued by it.  Since I love lists (obviously)… here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

• I used to love assisting for kids’ dance classes
• The course is in March, which potentially means I could start looking for a job teaching kids in April
• I think I have the idea that having the knowledge of teaching multiple types of yoga would be good, mostly because that is how my dance teachers were back in the day.  The vast majority taught both older kids and little kids.
• Offer (what I believe to be) a safer and less mentally damaging way to get kids active… dance was great, but let’s be honest here – the culture is in no way nurturing

Cons:

• Fear that I cannot control a class of little kids
• The type of yoga that I want to teach most is for adults – challenging and inspiring a group of people who think that “new dogs cannot learn new tricks”.  I know I do not want to get myself into a niche of only teaching kids

Hmm decisions decisions. I am really hoping that speaking with the teacher helps a bit.  Like all of the other decisions that have ended up being good for me (even if they seemed terrible for a time), I will do my research and leave it up to the universe to guide me.  My trust in the universe / women’s intuition / whatever, has been good to me so far, so I will place my fate in it again.

First, my car had issues and I was afraid that it would blow up on the highway.  I figured, better to be sad without yoga, than to go to yoga and then be blown up.  Side note – I tend to be a worst case scenario kind of gal. Case in point: one of my friends kept feeling dizzy.  When he did not show up to a meeting on time one day, I got a little nervous.  There had recently been an incident when the pipe coming from the bathroom broke in a storage room at work.  (Yeah – totally gross and unacceptable.  One of my clients was in the building as well.  Yikes.)  Anyway, OBVIOUSLY, when my friend did not show up on time, I had visions of him dead (from fainting) in a puddle of urine.

I brought my car to my uncle (who has an awesome auto shop in Worcester MA) and they had to keep it for a few days.  No car to drive to yoga.  Sigh.  So, I find out after two days that I am getting my car back (yay!) but I promptly got sick (boo!).

I went to teacher training on Tuesday .  Sadly, it was the first time since loving yoga that I was miserable.  What’s worse is that I knew that if I did not feel so sick, I would be loving every second of it.  When I left my apartment, I looked longingly at my bed and thought, “Gosh I wish I could stay right here”.  No amount of awesome yoga-ing (or eating delicious treats, fun excursions, anything) was going to change my mind.  I was in a state that I wanted to wallow in my unpleasantness and just lie down.

I just wanted to write a post about my bad yoga day to highlight the fact that it is not always going to be easy.  Yoga, in general, makes you feel great.  However, there are certainly days when it will be hard.  Don’t get down if your practice is difficult one day – there is always tomorrow.  The important part is that you got to your mat at all.  With yoga, as with life, the hardest part is taking that first little step.  On the days that you are truly miserable, be proud of yourself that you took that first step.

Love and light.

No time for a legit post, but thought that this article about the different schools of thought surrounding yoga teacher qualification was pretty interesting. 

I started out  with very low hopes for my yoga practice this week.  As I have mentioned, I am a little Type A and get kind of annoyed at myself when I cannot do things I normally can (aka chaturanga).  I was expecting a week of struggling because my arms and shoulders were absolutely killing me.  My friend and I took a pole dance fitness class on Saturday.  Yes. Pole dance fitness.  Laugh it up.  It is freaking hard.  To all the strippers out there – well done.  Holy crap you must have muscles of steel.  I could not even lift my arms on Sunday.  Yes, I will be going back, as I am a glutton for punishment.

ANYWAY… It is really incredible that a few classes of really paying attention to your alignment can make you feel like you can do anything. It sets you up fantastically to get so much deeper into postures than you thought you ever could.  For real – even when I was dancing 12+ hours a week, I couldn’t so some of these things.  I don’t really have anything else to say.    Still feeling the blissful serenity of a great practice, even after coming home and working for a few hours.  Since I quoted a song the other day in my hopeful state, I will leave you with “Daylight” by Matt and Kim, a song that goes along with my joyful state.  Enjoy!

I was just driving around earlier this evening, feeling like a victim of the ineffectual little woman syndrome.  You know – the feeling that people don’t hear you because you are fairly small, look like you are a teenager, and are female. There is such pressure for women to be thin and pretty, but it is the very thing that really spirals out of control if you let it. Right in the trough of my ruminations, Lady Gaga’s “Scheiße” came on.

I wish I got to dance on a single prayer
I wish I could be strong without somebody there
I wish I got to dance on a single prayer
I wish I could be strong without the scheiße, yeah

Yesterday I watched the documentary “Ballerina” by Bertrand Normand (picture below is of Ulyana Lopatkina – prima ballerina in the Kirov Ballet).  It really reinforced my lifelong desire to look and dance the same way as Russian ballerinas.  Okay – clearly this is never happening.  I just want to throw that out there.  The thing is, though, that I was conditioned from a young age to want to look like them even if I was not as talented as them.  One line in this documentary that really hit me was something like, “Ballerinas aren’t meant to be desired. They are meant to be ethereal.” Why would anyone want this?  I do.

I have always struggled with this. It doesn’t help that I have trouble standing strong against men. My guy friends (from every phase of my life) have been known to just pick me up and move me if I am blocking their way. Unfair! This has an attractiveness to it, because I know I am at least somewhat close to my warped feminine ideal of being very light.  However, the part of the interaction that stays with me is that nothing I could have done would have really stopped that from happening.  When you have kind of crazy mental pathways, it doesn’t take a lot to translate “there is no way I could have stood my ground” to “I am never going to be able to stand my ground about anything in the face of someone stronger.”  Since the previous thought was regarding my own frailty, it makes me think that nothing I do is ever going to mean anything real.  How could it?  If you meet the ideal, I am not strong enough to ever affect anything.  But, if I don’t meet the ideal, I am failing.

When I used to dance, as much as I loved many aspects of it, it only added to my feeling of never mattering.  I could never do anything well enough for the high standards set for me. As a result, I was constantly terrified of humiliation in the form of criticism, publicly read measurements or being taken in the closet and told I was too fat.  I was out with my best friend tonight at TJ Maxx (yeah – you SHOULD be jealous) and she picked up a sauna suit and laughed about it.  I, on the other hand, jumped away from it as if it was a weapon.  Because it was a weapon.

I could go on for hours about my own neuroses, but that isn’t really the point of this blog.  I know I am always going on and on and on about how yoga has changed my life. It is on this damaging set of mental spirals that it has the most effect. When I practice, I feel powerful. I feel beautiful. I feel like I matter. I finally feel like I could get over all of the scheiße and just be.

I have never been able to bend my back the way I wanted to.  Sure, I can put my foot behind my head, kick myself in the face, and put my full palm on the floor while standing.  Don’t get me wrong – I love that flexibility most of the time.  I just find it exceedingly annoying that it is only certain parts of me that are weirdly flexible.  If my back was that flexible, I could do ALL sorts of intense-looking postures… (ah daydreaming).

This year I want to see the glass as half full.    The good thing about my problems with hyper-extension and lack of back flexibility is that it is really teaching me how to teach.  Hyper-extension is very common, as well as having a tight back/shoulders.  Having this crutch myself, and learning the ways to get around it, is giving me great experience in how to help others work on their backs, etc as well.  It is much easier how to instruct someone how to fix a problem if you have experienced it yourself and gotten through it.  In the end, I am almost thankful for my issues… if I didn’t have any, there would be nothing to strive for!

Peace, love and sunshine (wishful thinking….).  Namaste!