Month: January 2016

I have always respected Jam. But recently I went through a period where I didn’t like or respect a certain Jam. I hated it.

The Jam didn’t seem like it respected it’s role, or me, or my life, or what I wanted to do. I learned nothing about the flavor from this jam. The Jam has a job, and it wasn’t doing it. It wasn’t doing it at all, it didn’t taste good it tasted bad and sour. I expected more, I expected a change. I wanted to get the most of the jam, the flavor, the texture. I wanted it to be better, to learn something from the jam. But never.

So one day I decided to not care about it, to not respect it, to not put any work into it. I went to my kitchen to make my sandwich, and went unprepared. I didn’t make sure it was the right temperature, or spread evenly. I plopped it on.

I tried to care as little for the jam as it did for me. I tried to care for the jam like it didn’t do it’s job. To fight not caring with not caring. I felt invigorated, good, like screw you jam! You’re going to taste sour, well I am not going to spread you well! Big insult right?

It didn’t work, I caved and spread it and tried my best with it at the last moment. Because that’s not the type of person I am. I can’t be.

I can’t be someone who doesn’t care, even when others and the majority don’t. That’s not who I am. I can’t not care.

While I wish I could put less effort into the jam, which might result in less stress and upsetness. I can’t change who I am. I have to care about the jam, maybe not as much (which is my current struggle), but I have to.

It was an important lesson I learned about myself, who I am, and what I was not willing to do.

While I dislike the jam, I choose to care about it.

 

Today’s mantra is I Create.

It was difficult for me to figure out how this related to me at first. But two things stood out to me. First was the mantra’s meaning of focusing on creation. I have been wanted to devote more time to creative things and producing acts of creativity, to wake up my creative soul. So this was the first thing that came to my mind. The idea that perhaps this yoga would help awaken my creative mind.

The second is that the practice was about creating space within the body. To stretch and practice in a creative way. To think differently about the stretching and practice and to challenge oneself to create a new way of doing it. It’s something I can struggle with, deviating from the path or the way you should do things. So I challenged myself during the practice to loosen up, to listen to my body and create space within my body. I created space by stretching and allowing my body to move. I created and found the freedom to move how my body needed to move.

While I had thought a lot about the first way it resonated with me, the realization of the second was profound.

Do I equate gifts and possessions with love? Tricky answer. I think we are taught to do that. That’s what everything around us says to us, if someone loves you they will get you what you want, and what you don’t need. You can show someone you care by giving them a present, buying them flowers, surprising them with dinner.

Have I placed too much emphasis on gifts? With some, not others. With my family? Not as much, I’m older now, I realize I don’t need lots of presents. In fact I like them better spread out. I have matured and I don’t place as much emphasis on them.

But in romantic relationships I think the tendency for gifts as an expression of love is even more pronounced and explicit. And I have struggled with it. I have never gotten a ton of gifts, and certainly not in my first relationship. But my first had tons of things wrong with it and was extremely unhealthy. That being said, I thought things might change in my second.

I thought surprise gifts, flowers, etc would occur sort of sporadically. And as symbols of their love to me. Love can be expressed in gifts is what my mind told me. But it’s not that simple and I don’t think it’s meant to be. While I still love gifts (I do, so why lie??) I place more emphasis on little things.

Like if I’m upset, bringing me back a donut, or writing me a note when they get up first. Little surprises. A cup of cocoa made for me. Little gestures of love by actions. They show me that they care. While they are a bit rare, I appreciate them (and a small influx in them would still be appreciated).

But I can’t deny the allure of material gifts too. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I still think in the right context it can be a wonderful treat. I am not saying gifts as a sign of love are bad, I am ONLY talking about a specific context!!

I need to fight against my gut reaction. So I’m trying.

A gift won’t revitalize my life, and it won’t symbolize love. But a hug will.

 

How has recent events changed my perspective of public travel? It has changed my perspective a lot I think.

I have never been one to go out a lot, or be very public in the sense as going to mass events. But one of the things that I have been thinking about is the transport system and being more aware around me, in a sad way. In a way that makes me feel a bit unsafe, a bit more aware of the danger around me.

When I ride the train I always wonder, well if this train crashes, how will I bounce around? It’s a bit sad, but it’s something I contemplate weekly, if not more frequently.

And yet now sometimes I begin to contemplate what if it crashed on purpose? It’s a scary thought, but also out of my control, just like an accident.

Yet it seems to scare me more than a crash, because that seems like an accident, not man controlled, where as an act of terrorism is fueled by people, but also hate.

Hate, which is so unpredictable and for that reason, terrifying. It is so unknown, definitely out of control. But so foreign in the sense of strange.

I think I definitely appreciate the little moments now and realize that life is more fragile than I even can comprehend. So it’s not necessarily just fear or terror or anxiety. But I would still say it’s a majority of those. Which has resulted in different feelings.

I don’t know how to end this post because I don’t know what to say. Do I wish this had never happened? Perhaps that would be unrealistic. But all I can say is that we move forward and try to make sure that hate is not spread in that destructive of a manner.

My relationship to Cheese is complicated. While eating cheese will not kill me, it will leave me with some killer stomach pain. I can eat some cheese, but not all.

I am, mostly, intolerant to Cheese. Cheese doesn’t do anything for me. Cheese does not understand the concept of reciprocity, of responsibility, of giving back. Cheese doesn’t feel guilt, so the actions never change, it never decides to change its actions and so the cycle is always the same. I don’t understand cheese. Sometimes it can be sweet, but most times it is on tenuous ground.

What’s the worst about it, is that I always expect better of it, I always expect it to change, to be better, because I know it can. I know cheese can be yummy and wonderful, and so when it’s not, it’s even more disappointing to me. Cheese never gives something back to me, even when I have bent myself backwards for it. I just wonder if cheese felt some responsibility it would change, because it wouldn’t want to feel guilt again or disappointment. Is that how responsibility works? It’s disappointing because it has not attained it’s potential, but also because here I am having believed in it, and having failed again. It teaches me not to count on it, to have tenuous belief to avoid feeling a constant sense of disappointment and loss for the relationship I will never have with cheese. And so to a degree I resent the cheese. I resent it for proving me wrong, but for also constantly disappointing me and making me feel like a fool. I resent it for being completely unable to mature but also just be a good relationship with me. That’s all I want, a good relationship with cheese, not one that’s always good (totally unrealistic), but one where we have more good days than bad. Where I can say that cheese is my friend.

Some say I should just accept my current status with cheese. It’ll be what it will be and not to expect anything more. I don’t know if that’s the type of person I am. I expect cheese to be better, to know they can change, evolve, and be better. But maybe that’s unrealistic, and maybe that’s a little bit of who I am.

I can’t change my life growing up with cheese, all the experiments, the disappointments, the hurt, and the anger. Because I am hurt by cheese. If the cheese cared how I felt, it would change, and it never does. It is cheese and always will be just cheese.

I will always have a tenuous relationship with cheese. The question is what do I do about it? Do I change it or accept it?

I love my parents, they mean the world to me and are so supportive to me. They have been there for me every step of the way and I know they will continue to be.

In times of trial, they have remained with me and supportive, even when I was doing things they didn’t agree with.

They let me. They let me make my own mistakes, learn from them, and still love me. They allowed me to grow and change and have loved me at every stage of my evolution.

They love me even when I annoy them, when I ask what if questions, and would you rather questions. They love me when I’m silly and serious. I know I could talk to them about whatever I thought of.

Their love provides a baseline, a foundation for me as a person and for my life. It is because I know I am loved and that I have a safe and loving base that I can go ahead with my life, do the things I want to do, need to do, hate to do. Knowing I can always return home, to where I am loved.

Their love is the wind beneath my wings, all allowing me to fly free and go forth and prosper.

They mean the world to me. So thank you for being you so I can be the best me.

Posture is my biggest goal, or habit I want to have this new years. I have been pretty good about drinking water last year and taking better care of myself, but I want this year to be the year of my best body (Thank you Oprah for telling me this on a commercial I saw about a hundred times).

But I want it to be more. I want it to be the year of my best body and mind. I want to cultivate a better sense of my body, my fitness, but also my mind. While I exercise my body I want to explore and train my mind. This will be affected by my yoga practice, but also my return to creativity and change in mentality.

That is my biggest goal of the year. It’s not a new years resolution. For some reason that sounds too…concrete to me. While it doesn’t sound concrete and attainable. There are a ton of little steps that are accountable and concrete that will get me there.

So as a quick rephrasing before I head out for today, having the year of my best body and mind is my 2016 plan. That sounds a bit better.

Today is my birthday. A day I look forward to all year. And I thought it would be the perfect occasion to write this post of the 30 day writing challenge: a short biography, real or imagined, or your mother.

I have my mother who has raised me, and I thought I could write about her, but it seems very factual. Another post soon will deal with my parents, but I thought the bigger, and more challenging post would be about my birth mother.

When I was younger, I had a more pessimistic idea of my birth mother. I felt betrayed and left alone. I felt unwanted and wondered if anything I ever did would ever make me feel enough or wanted. More than that I had questions and wondered why. Why I was ever abandoned?

So today I’ll write about a more optimistic, perhaps idealistic, version. More sophisticated, more understanding, more mature, but also equally as fictional.

Whatever story I write will always be a story, never more than that and I shouldn’t delude myself into believing my own tapestry of a story.

So I’ll start my story with this:

Perhaps one day my birth mother found out she was pregnant. Perhaps she had other children. So she decided to give birth to the baby, not to terminate it. Perhaps she was worried and scared, afraid of being caught, but also having to give up her child. Perhaps she told the father and they decided together to keep it. Perhaps the father was not in the picture and keeping the baby was not an option. But she gave birth to a baby girl. She took care of this baby girl until she couldn’t conceal the baby anymore and then dropped it in a way that the baby would be found, taken, and cared for. Perhaps she cried. Perhaps she waited and watched to make sure the baby was found. Perhaps she even thinks about the baby now.

If she does, did, will, then I would hope to send this message out to her: I am doing well, and giving me up was a strong decision that resulted in a better future for me. And if you wanted or felt you needed my forgiveness, you have it.

I am older, wiser, and more mature now, more understanding of people’s limitations and faults. Realizing that decisions are gray, never black and white, that people have to make horrible decisions. That sometimes you have to do something that hurts.

What truly marks this birthday is that I have changed. Each year I become more and more who I think I was meant to be.

I have grown up, one more year older, and more understanding and forgiving of her than I ever was before.

 

Day one’s mantra was: I Accept.

One word, accept, but such a challenging word. Two things stuck out to me today. One was her stressing of trusting the video. It is a process, but one has to trust the process, accept the journey we are on. And there is the concept of acceptance again.

Today was about accepting where we are now, our bodies, our mentality and realizing that while we may be focused on our future bodies or mind, it is important to accept where we are first. We should be present and patient. Accepting of who we are, our shortcomings, our past.

What matters is our decision to practice, to continue and to choose to spend the time on our bodies and mental health.

We should be more accepting, and in general I think. I know I could use a lot more of that from myself (my harshest critic).

So what will I take from this? Acceptance of course, but how?

This is not a promise I make, I love the idea of a mantra (which you say throughout the practice).

I accept where I am now. I accept that I don’t have many things sorted, a definite plan for the future, or a feeling of knowing I am on the right path.

But I also accept that I am a strong person, and will find it. I will find what I am looking for and grow as a human. I accept this process will have bumps, be hard, and test my limits.

I accept that I have limits, am impatient, driven by lists, and anxiety prone. I accept that where I am is only the starting point and by repeating this mantra every day I can move forward.

I want to accept me where I am now. Not just a vision of who I want to be in the future. Acceptance doesn’t start then, it starts now. Acceptance starts today and every day. It’s a continuous choice to accept oneself and both accept and appreciate the journey.

Music makes me feel like liquid. I feel fluid and I feel flexible. I feel brave and I feel untouchable. I feel powerful and I feel elegant.

I can move however I like and I use that power, the power I get just from being me in my most essential form. I feel like I could move anyway I want. I am brave enough to dance the moves that haunt my dreams. I am brave enough to try anything. I feel untouchable. I feel like I can dodge, I feel like I can move. I feel powerful. I feel elegant, in touch with my body, feeling its own beauty.

I feel free.