I M Perfect lady

Category: Yoga

  • Eating and Moving.

    I wonder how can I be so neglectful to something I live so close to; my body.  

    My job has my body doing repetitive motions – daily for six out of seven days a week. My arms and shoulders catch the most strain.

    I had been doing yoga off and on for over 12 years and then when I got active outside, I stopped. 

    I am now trying to get my body in shape for a hip replacement, and doing yoga is part of my plan.

    I was shocked at how stiff I was.

    How painful my arms were as they tried to stretch or hold a pose. Their cramped up muscles scream as they are now stretched in new directions.

    And I am equally amazed how in three sessions, I am gaining ground.

    I am leaving the pain on the mat and during my working day, I am in less stress -pain.

    It was as if I had left my body and was out exploring nature – forgetting self- care.  And, even believing that riding my bike and a hike now and again, would be sufficient for me.

    I was taking care of my bad hips; but forgetting the rest of my body.

     

    I feel more fluid after yoga.

    My strength and balance has been good. I can still lock my knee and balance on one leg while posing in Standing Bow.

    The few poses that had been giving problems still do; but the ones I was fairly far into, are coming back.  I also know, not to push my hips in directions where there is pain.  Yet surprisingly, the hips only keep me from doing a few poses deeply, and the rest of my body so needs to be doing yoga!

    A friend of mine and I, are going to begin a 30 day challenge when I get back from a long weekend trip I have planned.  

    The other area that I am trying to work on is reducing my sweet treats and eating in ways again, that are helpful to my body.

    It is like my mouth eats without regard for the body.

    Doing both will bring me into surgery in a much better place for a better recovery.  I have about 5 months to train for this.

    What I have noticed about doing yoga, is I am much more aware of my body. It brings not only it condition in sight, but also how I engage with it.

    My intention is to feel better after eating and moving. 

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  • One Choice at a time.

    I have been watching myself with choices and how I my intentions and actions don't match and how I seem to be uninvolved or disinterested in long term goals for short time enjoyment or should I say the easy way out.  There appears to be a disconnect between me, myself and my body.

    When I was doing personal inventory and living from the inside out for my inner well being, I would have two distinct voices talking to me…both on opposite ends of the choices at hand.  

    I allowed myself to be led by a new inner voice that started out weak and unsure…but there seemed a infinite power source behind it.

    My new choices led to a new inner wellness.

    What is shocking to me, is that I have the same two voices or choices in my body's wellness.  

    And, I am also aware that in the very early stages where two choices appear, IT is the time to pick a new choice.  But, most often or almost always…I let myself succumb to the easy used road.  Like I don't want to 'fight' my way into a new lifestyle.

    Whereas the inner world, I had, what seemed an unlimited resource of fortitude to stand my ground.  It was like the very life of my soul depended upon it.

    And perhaps it did.

    But, with my physical body, I am lax.

    I will find a multiple of choices, some true and some not so true as to why NOT yoga today.

    And, it is easier to eat like I always have eaten, than to try and come up with new and resourceful ways to refine and redesign my eating habits.

    What is also very strange is how I am willing to feel less than my best by making poor choices.

    While re-doing my insides I would not accept feelings that insulted my truth.

    And yet I can't seem to find this same unwavering stance for my body's health.

    I wrote this last night….and this morning I did yoga.

    It was going against if you will my usual mind chatter of excuses and the 'feeling' of being 'too tired' after sleeping 8 hours.

    What came to me in yoga is that I don't have the same value on my body as I do on my soul.  I didn't see it as a magnificent vehicle that is fueled by breath and under the direction of the Universe.  

    It is the instrument that the soul uses to experience life.

    And yet, I have overlooked and been disinterested in it, unless I was judging it harshly for its size and weakness…while doing very little to help it.

    I would do yoga, but only after my body protested in pain.

    I failed to keep ahead of discomfort.

    Which is what my choices inward did.  I made the tough choices to grant me peace…to live a life of peace, love and joy.

    I can see I will have to use the same strategy for my body's wellness.

    To overcome the nagging voice of lazy…or the easy way out…. and the road of least resistance.

    I had read, that we exercise NoT for how it feels while we are doing it, but for how we move and feel the rest of the day.  I know this is right.

    If I do yoga, I am giving my body what it needs to help me move all day…without pain or stress and struggle.

    The relationship I have with my body is similar in how I neglected my soul.

    I can change it one choice at a time.

     

     

     

  • Gracious yoga…

    I noticed a shift yesterday, a slight, but meaningful one…where the yoga was for me personally.  In the past, the voice getting me in and out of the poses was the one who wanted me to do this or that…was now second place, and in front of that voice was me.  I wanted to do each pose and hold it for the muscles it was working.

    Maybe I can't even clarify how it felt, but it resounded back to how much of my life had been lived and how my body was moved, not by an inner desire or need, but by an outer voice.

    This carryover from religion or parents, often leaves us detached from inside and on the end of someone else's string.

    So, my yoga felt personal, and mine.  The outside voice feels neutral and not that of a puppet master, but one who is helping me with my muscles and joints.  

    It is odd to try and describe the difference, between the voice being helpful or controlling.  How my unnatural insides rebelled outward help, for it confused help from control.  Even if I did the yoga, I resented subconsciously him telling me what to do, even if it felt good and it was helpful.

    It is almost like there was a subconscious rebelling of all voices, and in order to be 'free' I did nothing.

    I have had lots of distance between me and yoga; doing very little in the past months.

    The break has weakened muscles and stiffened joints, and yet the space has been helpful in seeing it differently.

    I want to be strong and in control, able to do gracious for my daughter's wedding. I thought doing as much yoga as possible would be helpful.

    Gracious yoga…

  • Dreamed too large!

    During my yoga date, I understood why it is important to do activities that make you aware of you…instead of doing activities to get away from you.  Meaning, when you are in a full length mirror breathing and holding a pose, it is really hard to be somewhere else…or at least it is making you aware how unaware you are of your self.

    I have a very good image of me amidst many, but my eye to eye view of myself was really not so concise. I didn't have a true habit or signature of my own.

    In the past 8 years, I could see how, as a mother, I had to redefine my actions so that they matched our family values and morals, but now, I believe the finer tuning is between me and me.

    Today was a good start…being aware of minding my gap.  I either have to change my aspirations and dreams or desires, or step up my actions.  Something is off…

    While most often we lament at our inactions, perhaps we have an unrealistic goal.

    In my world, I am going to act towards health, strength and flexibility.  I am not ready to reduce my aspirations, until I earn my way out of them.  

    Minding the gap to see what is untrue.  That I can't act or I dreamed too large!


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  • Walk for Me!

    After reading and blogging about minding the gap or the value gap, it came to me that I have a fairly large gap left in my life, a very personal one, my body; where my aspirations for my self and my actions are space fairly far apart.  The ideas in my head are disengaged from my actions.

    I was on the Stop Only Sugar Diet until I fell off, I did yoga daily, until I stopped…it is my personal care where I am valueless.  Meaning my aspirations are not being followed by actions.

    What is really interesting is that I have great care to be full of integrity for others, but will allow a wide gap between the me inside.  I either don't take seriously my aspiration or I feel it is okay to let slip actions that only I will be disappointed.

    I believe that I will have to act my way towards my aspirations…I will walk to close the gap so I am not so disengaged in self care.

    I have been toying with the idea of doing yoga again.  My legs, back and joints are in dire need.  My body has grown fluffy and soft and not so limber…and I miss the very personal one on one time with my self and the way it felt to be so caring.

    The sugar is my other self defeating culprit, that beckons me and pulls me away from my aspirations to be healthier.

    I know that I would never allow myself to fall down on my word with others as I do with myself.

    I need to start walking my way to my self, one meal, one yoga session at a time.

    I need to be with me inside….where my dreams for me and my actions for me match at least most of the time.  Now, I seem to think my actions will go unnoticed by my aspiring mind, that my dreams will wait forever…and that someday, like magic my actions will change.

    This is an area of great neglect by me and one that I am the only one who notices or pays the price of this wide gap.

    It is time for me to close the gap, by walking towards my aspirations…strong, healthy, limber…showing respect and value towards my body.

    I am its only caretaker…each step I take will widen the gap or close it.

    There is a gap or void inside of me….a space full of talking/ wishing / dreaming…and no actions.

    Interesting how I feel disengaged with myself even and the more I talk and the less I walk the more disconnected I feel. Who knew that even our own words to our self, when broken, builds a gap where we become fractured.

    It is time I start minding the gap inside of me…and walk for me!


  • Know your path.

    I had wrote a post a long while back about being the bus driver instead of a passenger, and as I began doing yoga again to heal my legs…I know this to be true.

    I was raised a passenger….one who served the bus driver.  That in order for my life to change, I had to please the driver…hoping he/she would take me where I wanted to go.

    As I experiences the subtle changes once again in my body after three days of doing Bikram yoga for an hour and a half, I know our quality of life is directly related to what we do in our days.

    If you are sitting back waiting for someone to change in order to be happy, you will have a long scenic ride in their life, but not yours.

    At times the weakest part of me, wishes for the quick fix, for being allowed to be lazy and have fixes magically happen…but mostly I love that I am in the drivers seat.

    I go where I feel inspired and swerve around the places that feel unkind or untrustworthy…and make detours into fearful places that return my strength and sense of self.  

    Yoga has been a place where I connect with my body in a way that shows me I am the center of my life.  My life is steered by me and me alone.  My body and inner health is not being attacked from the outside, but rather from my thoughts and ideas inside.

    I am so grateful to know the healing affects that yoga brings…and to feel stronger today for taking the time to move my body in ways that will allow it to heal and be strong.

    When my mind fights this, the pain in my body wins.

    Pain is a great motivator…so don't try and cover it up. Listen and you will know your path.

  • Brings Up the Unease.

    While doing yoga today, I could clearly feel how yoga isn't for the body, but to the residual affects of not following your truth.  That all the times I did not feel and follow my feelings and emotions, left a trail of unease….and this unease lingers in the cells and muscle of the body, waiting to be seen/felt/expressed.

    I also wondered what is guilt.  Where is the guilt organ or muscle found….

    What came to me is that guilt is not doing that which you feel is your truth.

    It truly isn't about anyone else.

    What also came is that guilt is NOT about not helping others, but rather NOT following your self. 

    The guilt feelings are you not being able to be honest and authentic to you.  To follow what you know is true, regardless of how long you have been living a life of lies to yourself.

    So, yoga to me, is ridding your self of the places you are not true to you…and bringing up the feelings and emotions you shoved aside in order to please another.

    The reason I have no new guilt, is that I have now been living my life from the inside out, from what is true for me.  

    As Martha Beck said, "I repectfully don't care…" what others want or need me to do.

    My first and only person I have to be at peace with is my self.

    I am no longer willing or able to store up un-felt emotions or push aside what I feel in order to make your life comfortable or right.

    What came too, was that the church is based upon guilty feelings.  And I can see why a cult member would be ravaged with guilt.  For, they are not following their own North Star, but instead following what the leader wants. 

    And, in dysfunctional homes the parent, no matter who impaired is held in high esteem….and honored and respected. Typically demanding each.

    If you dare to speak what you feel and act accordingly, you will not store volumes of moments where you did the opposite of what your true self believed.

    Somehow we have screwed up serving others first….and serving them while discounting our self.  I believe, you are not truly giving if you are going against your inner self.

    If, in order to be 'giving and kind' you have squelch your feelings…you are hurting yourself to give.

    How can that be kind, if you are unkind to yourself.

    Guilt is when you neglect your own inner feelings in order to serve another.

    You are leaving yourself behind.  And, I believe, this dis ease, this contradiction is stored in your body….there are feelings that are not at peace.  At some point, the body's health will gain your attention. 

    The body is innocent…but stored in the tissues are all the years of neglecting your spirit…

    Yoga brings up the unease.

  • Only Way Through It.

    I am back doing yoga on a fairly regular basis…and in the last few weeks, my left hip seemed to straighten out, allowing me to walk straighter.  However, with this adjustment, it seems that my left lower back now is feeling the pressure.  It reminds me how connected we are.

    The lower left back seems to be out of alignment and in many postures it is very uncomfortable.  Yet, if I relax with my breath in them, it seems to release the tight muscles.  It almost feels like these muscles have been clenched and balled tight, and now I am asking them to release and strengthen.

    Instinctively, I want to either back out of the pose or grip even tighter, when what really works is to relax, breath and go deeper.

    I am sure this is how we are in all of life's tight spots. It seems un-natural to be with, and to find comfort in pain…to push in further, to breathe and to engage with the pain.  

    In yoga, my tender back and jolting nerves are a bit skittish going into poses, but if I take my time, go steady and slow, and enter into the painful spots, I loosen them up and my flexibility expands and my muscles grow stronger.

    If I were to follow my fear, I would turn away from my pain.  Doing so would leave me with a body that isn't in alignment and would even deteriorate further.  

    Going into the pain is the only way through it…

  • The Body Awaits our Attention.

    "A Spiritual Life is about becoming more at home in your own skin."  Parker J. Palmer

    While doing yoga this morning, well it was actually after yoga, that it occurred to me, that by doing yoga I am taking care of the living breathing body that my awareness lives in.  I could see it as one would a plant…how it is alive.

    That tending to my body is to nurture and care for a living thing.

    In the past, the reasons were more removed from the actual living breathing body, they were about getting rid of a pain, or slimming down, but I truly don't believe I could see that I was caring for a magnificent living organism.

    Being a good caretaker of the body, for me, means doing yoga.  I move better or the body does…it is more limber and stands taller with more muscle to support it.  The body awaits our attention.  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • A broken Heart can open you up to you.

    I made it to the yoga mat today, the third time in a week.  I was surprised that my yoga was waiting for me, that my poses were pretty much where I left them.  

    I was a little stiff, and a bit wobbly in locking my knee, and my middle had bulked out some, which didn't make that much of a difference.

    Today, when I went into the first floor exercise, and lifted my left leg, the pain in my hip or joint area was very intense.  As in the past, I began asking it what was its source…and when I said the word guilty, immediately I began to sob.

    It felt like I was left feeling guilty for being abused, that I was carrying the guilt and it constricted me, made me curl into myself.  I began doing what David Hawkins suggested, to cancel the guilt beliefs about myself, and breathed in the knowing of innocence.

    As I do the floor exercises my belly button hernia sometimes bothers me, so I was rubbing that and wondering what belief or what message the body was delivering with this bulging of my guts. How did this develop… I asked was it that I was "spilling my guts" and nothing happened.  I then pondered if I hated my guts, if I as disgusted with myself, and again immediately an emotional response.  I acknowledge this wrong belief, feeling the innocent me getting this wrong…and then did the cancelling breathing and adding that I recieved the message from my body, that my belly no longer has to gain my attention.  I will continue to do this in yoga now and see how things improve and change.  

    It is so telling that as children in our innocence we believe things due to the lack of adult supervision and correcting our distorted beliefs, and it becomes something we re-inforce as we unconsciously don't fully embrace ourselves.

    We have to see where our innocence left and then make a correction in order to make changes in our minds.  Our Spirit can recognize the place where we veered off the path of innocence and it too can bring us back.

    What a very healing yoga session…working my body and correcting my mind.

    Then, I went to do a Valentine Quilt, but what came to me was to work on the one Lady Quilt that was a work in progress.

    My Valentine Lady is much more pensive than what I had pictured…perhaps I had to get this one out of the way, and then do one that represents a very much in love with herself Lady.

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    The Hearts say, "Broken – Open" and  "Self – No one" and the bottom one says, "Self Love". 

    I see her as trying to protect herself from heartbreak, and yet her hearts break.  

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    By feeling the loss you can become whole.  Very interesting to me how this lady turned out.  A broken heart can open you up to you.