I M Perfect lady

Tag: goals

  • Keep Me Down

    As I did my yoga after work, a frivolous task I labeled it, since I opted to do this instead of a domestic chore or something of a higher priority, I just went ahead and took the liberties of time for my self without thinking too deeply…just quickly changed and started the CD, before a list of other things jostled this idea out of my head.

     

    Even calling it frivolous seemed odd, but yet right, that I was cheating responsibility and jumping into frivolous. 

    While in yoga I pondered this word and what it meant to me and how it was that I called doing something that was good for me frivolous. 

    The yoga that I do is very hard and requires my utmost attention, it is working very hard to restore my body to great health, and I called it frivolous. 

    It then came to me; it wasn’t the yoga that was frivolous, but the usage of time.  I was using time frivolously by taking care of myself. 

     I then felt deep sorrow at a girl who thought it frivolous to care for her self, to be with herself doing something that benefits her greatly, and she feels its frivolous.

     I looked up the meaning of frivolous to make sure that I had it right.

     

    1.                     not worth taking seriously: lacking in intellectual substance and not worth serious consideration.

     

    This is exactly the meaning I had in mind, I was not worth taking seriously or with serious consideration.

    I know that this has been my greatest negative pull that seems to be tied by a rope of great width, that keeps holding me down, a belief that is strung through each of my cells.

    I have claimed that my biggest hurdle is that I am too responsible, and yet what is more true, is that I am not worth taking seriously or using serious consideration.

    I take life and others needs very seriously, but my own are considered frivolous not serious.

    I felt pushed upon the mat by the sorrow of understanding, that it isn’t the things that are frivolous, but that I am not worth having them.

    My world is very short of frivolous, from the time I spend, to the items I pass by, for I can’t drum up a reason to bring them in.

    Flipping frivolous to serious has been a long six years struggle, to upend this belief and get me into serious consideration.

    Even though I have been serving me lots of time, big chunks in a day to be used for just me; from writing, to yoga, to art, and blogging, to unraveling my past.  I have been yanking and pulling on this ‘frivolous’ thread, kinda sorta believing it  was serious work, while not completely sold.

    The tables turned today, I can see that what I have been doing is putting my self on the list for serious consideration going against generations of voices that have been trying to keep me down.

    Smug mug pics 1549 

  • Letting go of Perfection

    Courage lies within us in a very deep place, buried behind the walls of fear of imperfection, coated in false ideals and fantasies that are impossible to attain, courage waits for us to uncover it.

    Peeling back the layers and layers of deceit we have of ourselves, piles of unrealistic desires and impossibilities, a mound of what I am not.

    Courage comes when we are able to stand alone in being who we are right now without improvements, without the completion of dreams, minus the goal, but instead standing right here right now, completed up to this point.

    With no excuses, no reasons, just as I am.

    The courage it takes to drop all the idealized versions of your self and just be okay with the raw deal, the real complete version of you, up to this point.

    For some reason we continue to not look at what we are, but instead of what we are trying to become.

    While we focus on where we are going we miss this step in the creative process, this step called today.

    I have no idea of what my final creation of me will be, but I do know who I am today.
    I know where I walked, how I walked and sometimes even why, I don’t know where I will step, but I know that each step will be me.

    It takes courage to be truthfully half done, authentically complete, and yet fully perfect as you are right now.

    Am I whole?
    Am I normal?
    Am I perfect?
    Am I sick, mental, imperfect?

    Whose measuring stick am I using?

    My intention is to be with myself as I walk forward in my life, not a fraction more perfect than I am right now, and not a snippet less.

    It takes courage to accept yourself as you are today, to toss aside the blueprints and be complete now, without a new version in mind, but to be a success thus far.

    Courage is letting go of perfection.

  • What you can reach!

    I love women who inspire me, who show me how to reach beyond your normal reach and succeed where you are unsure of succeeding.

     

    The same week my boss turned 50, she completed her first Copper Man Triathlon, swimming ½ mile, biking 23 miles and then running 5, and she completed it under 3 hours, her goal!

     

    During her training period she discovered that she loves to swim, that it isn’t that scary to run on the ski trails in the woods, alone and that if you do the work, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. 

     

    The sense of achievement, sense of self-pride and excitement still glows within her a week and a half later!  “I did it,” she said, “I really did it!”

     

    I love that she showed us how to stretch, reach and then grab on to something you think is out of your reach.

     

    Stretch and you will be surprised what you can reach!

  • Challenge called Daily Yoga.

    I went to the basement today with Carl and Karen’s words of praise and correction front and center, eager to reach the postures to either stand in pride or settle into the pose differently.

     

    The Balancing Stick does make a difference if you look ahead and down, instead of down, and to stretch with your arms and torso forward.

     

    When I came to cobra, I tried hard to do what Carl told me this morning is a reverse push-up. Keeping in mind the compression of the lower back, that that is what our goal is, I even tried to feel the nerves after the release, that Karen talked about.

     

    It way helps to have eyes in our studio, especially eyes of experience yogis.  It is amazing, just show them a picture and they can see where I needed help.

     

    Bikram says in his book, “Look up at the ceiling, raise your head, and, using the strength of your back, lift your torso off the floor. Arch the head and torso back as much as possible; at the same time, press the belly button into the floor.  The belly button and everything below it stays in contact with the floor.”

     

    It is exciting to bring new hints and corrections to the poses, to help you reach your ultimate goal.

     

    Speaking of ultimate goal, it came to me that I completed one goal, 60-day challenge, only to be still in a much larger challenge.

     

    The challenge to continue on, without a short term prize, without a real numbers game to be competing in, instead just doing this in the morning, as part of my day.

     

    Making it become as Carl said, “like taking a shower.”

     

    As I walked Finn outside along the frozen river, as the crystals coated the trees, it occurred to me, we are always looking for the next challenge, the next quick fix, the next thing to complete or compete in, instead of being in the midst of the river of life, we want it to freeze or finish up.

     

    What is wrong with playing in the flow of yoga, to watch your self change daily or sometimes from pose to pose. 

     

    Does there have to be an ending in sight?

    What happens if we are instead in an endless yoga challenge?

     

    An endless challenge called daily yoga.

  • Day One.

    I began the yoga tentatively eager to see just where my body was, or how far back it had fallen due to the lack of yoga in the past 6 months.

     

    In the first pose, Half Moon, my arms went numb quickly and it was all I could do to keep them above my head.  This is good news, for I kept saying that my shoulders were tensed up, the yoga echoed the truth.

     

    I surprised myself with being able to lock my knee and stay balanced for the length of the pose, but the limberness of completing the pose is not there.  It will be fun to see how this improves daily.

     

    Beginning the yoga this time I felt like an adult.  I was patient with my body, and didn’t expect it to do things it couldn’t do, and I was kind.

     

    My focus was on how it felt not how it looked.

     

    Maybe it is knowing I have 60 times to do this, that I don’t have to make all the improvements and changes in one session, I was more relaxed.

     

    I noticed that my forehead did not come close to touching my knee on the “Head to Knee” pose, but there was no dizziness at all in the Triangle.

     

    The Fixed Firm pose seemed to lose the most ground, for my bottom did not sit on my feet, close but a ways too go.  I just sat there, feeling the painful hip, knee and ankles in their stiffness, with no attempt to go backwards, I simply wasn’t ready yet.

     

    When I was asked to stretch in the separate leg, my finger tips touched my toes the first set, but were able to actually grab the toes the second. My back felt so good to be stretched and my legs now feel relaxed as I sit here.

     

    All in all I am very pleased with how the yoga felt to my body and how I kindly applied it.

     

    My focus was to keep my breath going first and foremost, and then to hold myself as deep as I could go in each pose. 

     

    I like the term applying yoga to my body, it is my intention to apply it each day for 60 days, and it felt soooo good.

     

    “The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal.  The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.”

               Benjamin Mays