Living My Yoga

"It's not about how good you can do the pose, it's about what you discover about yourself in the pose."

     Yoga has been one of my greatest teachers, because it simply brings you inward, back to your true nature; below the mindless chatter, the emotional turmoil, & beyond your perceived physical limitations.  In one of my least favorite poses which has most often induced an IMMEDIATE emotional response of "I fucking HATE THIS POSE!" Followed by thoughts of, "This is good for me, it will help me grow, just breath into it." About 15 seconds before the teacher said to come out of it... I was DONE. I had decided it was too uncomforable, I didn't care how good it was for me, I was fucking DONE. I STILL hate this pose and *I* can come out of it anytime I want! ... and then, the flood gates of awareness opened up...

     In situations that I do not want, or are not ideal according to me, I will do them momentarily, then retreat in a childlike fashion when I realize it's not what I want and nothing I'm doing is bringing about what I want. I'll go into situations, especially with relationships, with a willingness and knowing that if it weren't what I needed, I wouldn't be experiencing it. Feelings of : It's a learning process, and I'm ready for whatever it brings. Intially...

     "What are you so afraid of?" - Not getting what I want, it not being what I want it to be. I've said for a long time there are only two things in life I've ever wanted and not gotten, an easy bake oven, and a treehouse. Funny how both of those are child toys right? How about this... I never got my canary yellow mustang, I never got first chair at honor band, I never got my own tuba, and I never got to be the pitcher. My eighth grade class didn't get to go to Washington D.C. and I never got to be Tyler Gillam's girlfriend. I didn't get to go to Vanderbilt university to study medicine, nor did I end up graduated, married, and having my first child by 25. But SOMETHING would be different, probably something HUGE, had I gotten some of those things. I wouldn't be who I am right now. It's that feeling of things being taken away that drives me nuts. Makes me almost neurotic trying to figure out what happened, and what I can do to get it back. Because GOD FORBID something happen beyond my control.

      "You can't always get what you want." - When Billie told me that around 6 months ago, I was appalled. But I knew there was truth in that. And now, it's finally hit where it needed to hit. I've felt the cycle in my relationships I kept repeating was always falling in love with someone who couldn't or didn't want to be with me for some reason or another. And although yes, there is some truth to that... THAT in and of itself was not the lesson. The deeper issue, the piece I've been missing, is that it's not always going to be what I want, it's not about what I want. It's about what both of us need. The cycle I've been repeating was retreating in a childlike fashion; allowing what needed to happen for as long as I could, because really, I valued my wants over my needs, which in turn made me value my wants over the wants & needs of others. Thus igniting my selfish tendencies... holy fuck that statement took my breathe away, here's the tears. What a disheartening & humbling realization. So when I absolutely cannot lie to myself anymore, that I have moments of feeling my wants are more important than the needs of myself or others, I retreat. I stop everything. That's why I always feel like I'm doing it to myself. That's why I blame myself, why I feel so fucked in the head, so confused, and why I try SO hard for others to see me as not selfish. Because that's a pretty selfish action.

     The lesson here, which I learned on my yoga mat today is this moment, may not be what I want, but it's exactly what I need and when it intricately involves another person, it's exactly what THEY need as well.   Retreating, childlike or not, will only bring me ANOTHER opportunity to experience a similar moment. Thus the cycle. I've retreated, without fail, every time, and really thought the issue was the entrance, "Why did I get into this AGAIN?!"... nope it was the exit I was getting wrong.  My exit. It's about letting it play itself out; about fully experiencing it, whatever it has to offer, until it offers no more. Then there is no need for any kind of exit, because there was never an entrance, there was never a beginning, so no ending is needed. It's like the wind, or falling asleep. The exact moment it begins or ends cannot be determined, it seems to come from nowhere and go back to nowhere.

     We don't want what we have, not for very long anyways. It gets boring, we want something different. But we don't want to want something different! We want to want what we have right? Isn't that what they say, want what you have? When the flow stops our deepest selves yearn for something different to get the flow going again. If the flow stops, we die, parts of us die. It is imperative to keep moving. And this can be as painful or as beautiful as decide it to be.

     As long as this blog already is, I'm hesitant to add anymore. Yet, I can't help but to think about the phrases I've heard in the last week or so, that have resonated with me. Those phrases that seem to all find there place this morning on my yoga mat. All from people very close to my heart. "It's always about what you are or aren't getting out of our connection." "Let it be what it is" (from 3 different sources), "You can't always get what you want." I knew there was truth in each of those, the moment they were said, I just didn't know what to do with them at the time. And the ironic thing is, last night I decided to not do anything.

    The most beautiful thing about awareness, is that it cannot be un-learned and makes it so much more difficult to repeat a behavior which as caused you suffering.

Love & Light
Dottie

Unrealistic Expectations Rambled

Good morning!

I intended to get up at 7:30 for my favorite yoga class and ended up hitting snooze so many times I could have cared less about going.  I was tired and cranky by this point.  Yet, when I DID wake up I was fairly angry at myself for missing it!  As I laid in my bed pouting and trying to NOT be angry at myself I heard the words "Unrealistic Expectations." 

I decided to really look at that phrase for a few moments today and feel what it meant to me.  My intial question to myself was do I have unrelalistic expectations of myself, and my intial response was "yes."  I just had this feeling of kicking myself in the ass because I didn't go to yoga this morning, ugh... moving along. I am not a morning person, I know this, yet I set my alarm to get up at 7:15am? After falling asleep a little after 1am? I knew I wasn't going to get up. Then my question becomes, did I know I wasn't going to get up? or did I create the situation of not getting up at 7:15am because I had made the decision the night before that I wasn't going to?

Unrealistic expectations also makes me think of the term "extremeist" which I very much am which is okay because it has it's good aspects too, I really believe even the qualities we deem as "terrible" have certain situations where they wold be useful. So what now? I seem to not have much to say about Unrealistic expectations, maybe it's something I need to give thought to throughout the day, as I go about my day.

My thoughts right now are about having a routine of some kind in the morning. 10:30 feels like an appropriate wake time which I would like to incorporate on the days don't do yoga. I've been trying the make a daily schedule thing, which isn't working out to great for me right now, seems to just be kind of there. Routine wise I've thought about praying, breakfast, blogging over tea, yoga and/or walking, then my day.... I'd like that to the start to my day EVERYDAY. Let's give myself a goal of doing it for 4 days. I almost said a week, but I heard "unrealistic expectations" in my head, lol. The Universe knows me well :) I need to figure out how long all of this takes roughly. It's 11:30 now and I've been up since about 10:40 I believe. So, maybe two hours before I need to start getting ready to go somewhere? So if I get ready for work at 1pm, getting up at 10:30 is perfect, actually gives me an extra 30 min. We'll see how this works for the next four days. I'm gonna go ahead and jot this down. I'd guess on the days I don't have to work I don't really need to be up at 10:30? Give myself a little leadway.  Tommorrow I have class so it appears two hours to get read and get there would put me at 11:30, so 2 hours to do my routine would put me at 9:30am. Doable? I think so :). There is a thought there, almost a fear of developing OCD tendencies. lol, wow, there's my extreme's again. I either think I have to have NO schedule or be OCD about my schedule, lol... it does make me laugh a bit.

I've made my schedule out for the next two days, but I don't even know where to start for Saturday and Sunday! lol I'm like should I just get up at 10:30 to keep things kosher or wake up whenever and THEN do my routine, it can be more relaxed because it's the weekend right? Sure. Oh look at that, there aren't even any times on my weekend calender. Good. SHIT. Yin Yoga is tomorrow... and I really want to go! Guess I have to put that in my schedule lol... OMG I'm gonna drive myself nuts. No I'm not. For whatever reason I'm getting excited, lol.

I think blogging everyday will help me sort through the shit within my head, and focus better. I need to explore how not going to yoga this morning REALLY makes me feel, becuase I keep thinking of it and thinkg UGH fuck. I feel dissppointment, anger, frustration. It reminds me of all those other times I wanted to get up earlier and didn't. Feel irresponsible, lazy... makes me think of my father yelling at me "what are you gonna sleep all day? Get up." But I'm an adult now, I make my own decisions. Sleeping all day IS a choice for me, however, doing so strikes guilt and fear, like I'm waiting on SOMEONE to yell at me.

Seems it's now time for me to get moving this morning.... ;)

Love & Light
Dottie

Meeting My Body

Good morning!

I'm so happy to be sitting here with my tea and preparing to blog.  A very beautiful thing happened during yoga today.  I found myself extremely angry when holding the poses, a few tears fell, and all I kept hearing in my head is I'm not feeling very flexible today. I was becoming angry at my body because I could go much farther into the pose just a week or so ago, angry because my mind wouldn't push me through it, and ready to just throw that fucking boppy support pillow acrooss the room. I was telling myself it's okay, sometimes things in yoga come up, but I kept getting more and more pissed. My teacher said to be the observer of any thoughts or emotions that arose... and so I did. I laid my head on the support pillow and asked myself what was really wrong. There was a shift within that moment. I felt a connection to my body open up like never before. I felt guilt because I had been ingesting poisen for 3 days. I thought of my relapse, the Sonic I ate the night before, the Thin Mints I ate and threw up before I drank.  I had been very hurtful to my body, and felt guilt. It was like I had hurt my best friend.  I apologized and I cried as I sat in my dragon pose.

Upon deeper reflection I discovered a few more things.  I had begun to not trust my body. I allowed the impatience of my ego to talk me into taking an amphetemine appetite suppressant (although I had lost almost 50 lbs on my own over the last year simply through diet changes, excercise, yoga, hypnotherapy, and acupuncture) I took the pills knowing all to well what it would do to my body... speed up my heartrate, decrease my sleep, potentially (and likely) to increase my anxiety, deplete my body of potassium because of the potent diuretic that goes along with taking the amphetemine to counter-act the tendencies to raise the HR and BP. Coming from someone who DESPISES taking any kind of pill, this was more than counter-productive. It was a direct blow at my integrity and core beliefs that I have embraced over several years. I justified my actions by telling a couple people I KNEW would tell me it was okay, and keep myself working out and making good food choices. If I continued to do all THAT, then I was only using it as a tool right?! (Please note the sarcasm) Three days before my relapse, I got out of bed and passed out smashing my head on the metal clothes hamper and causing me to go to the hospital... what was the culprit? Severe dehydration.... the cause of the dehydration? The pills I was taking to suppress my appetite. FUCK. I was ashamed, embarrased. I felt hypocritical and unworthy of the love and concern of those who cared about me. Especially when both of them sitting next to me in the ER were shocked and angry.

Since deciding to no longer take the pills, I've spent the last several days sleeping. My body needed rest to re-balance itself out.  It was artifical energized for about 5 weeks, and now it was tired. More fully realizing the distress I caused on my body, and energy filled I was filled with anger and sadness. I spent all day Sunday (2 days post collapse) crying and sleeping, by midnight Sun/Mon I was drinking. AFTER I spent a couple hours yelling at the man I'm in love with about how much it hurts that he doesn't love me back (which is TOTAL BS, lol PLEASE see previous blog about Falling in Love With What Is for further clarification on that one!) :)

Love is the only thing that is real and what heals. Love is all there is. God is Love. (With all the being said, and not to go into my whole schpeel on Love) ... I realized on the way home how many of my actions, leading up to this very moment where based upon fear (the OPPOSITE of Love) and not Love. (Fear and Love cannot co-exist, they are opposits of each other, like how in the presence of light, darkness doesn't exist.) ANYWAYS... The decision to get the diet pills in the first place was a fear based decision because I was afraid of the plateau I had hit, and the potential of it causing me to gain a few pounds. My decision to express feelings of pain, longing, and hurt to this man were also out of fear. Fear of me seeing what was REALLY the issue. Along with, my choosing to withold Love from him and myself. Because at this point I was not allowing myself to be my truest nature, which is Love. I was denying myself the allowance to be what I was, thus causing pain and me projecting it onto someone else. I had denied Love the access to healing me on all levels... thus creating a vaccum effect and allowing fear and self-destruction to run rampat and me to drink myself into a stupor. Multiplying the guilt I had already felt for binging and purging on food and putting my body through the amphetemine high and detox. I was spent.

Today is 6 days post collapse. Finally, today I feel balanced and peaceful. So here I sit knowing in my being that there are no mistakes, every event was a stepping stone in bringing me to this moment. Because of what I've put myself through over the last few months, I've develped a closer and keener relationship with my body. I'm excited. Being this in-tune with my body will allow me to instinctively know what my body needs.  I can then eat accordingly, and decipher caloric needs from emotional feeding. I'm drinking my Yogi tea (which I've not done because I was to AFRAID of putting anything more energizing into my body) Today, I chose Love. I gave myself permission to feel that which I truly am.  I didn't deny myself the Love that will allow me to heal on all levels because of any feelings of guilt, unworthiness, or anger. Those feelings aren't real anyway. They are only an absence of Love, as darkness is an absence of Light. Therefore, just allowing myself to feel Love, all those other feelings dissipate. I forgave myself for hurting myself... for disrupting my energetic balance, for ingesting toxins into my physical body, and for being fallible, being human, because sometimes I like to deny that too.

I laid there in that dragon pose today and was introduced to my body. It was like FINALLY introducing yourself to that new face around the office for almost 6 months, knowing their name, what they do... but never actually MEETING them, never actually introducing yourself. There's like a timid awkwardness to that. Although it IS possible to communicate with that person, it's not through a direct means, and uses more time and energy than necessary. Today, we established a direct connection. Myself and my body. We met, and it was beautiful <3

Namaste'
Dottie