The Fierce Diva Guide to Life

Me and The Beebs

 

It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. 

I never forget my music.

I have it in my purse at all times.

Except this week, when I switched purses. 

Any yoga teacher knows that her playlist is everything.

And anyone who has ever taken yoga remembers the playlist.

They may not remember what was on that playlist but they remember how those songs made them feel.  

So when I arrived at the studio on Tuesday without my music, I felt empty handed, to say the least. 

I should mention that my music fail was preventable.

That “free” cell phone upgrade I took last month for $200.00 was to simplify the music end of things. I thought an iPhone would be “the answer” to my never leaving home without my music again.  I mean, when was the last time you left your house without your cell phone?

I’m more likely to forget a child at home than forget my phone!

Except one month into owning my first iPhone, I had still neglected to load my music on that thing.

I had an iTunes account.  I had music on it!

All I had to do was plug that silly phone into the computer and download.

Downloading music was on my list of things to do, along with figuring out why all of the sudden, I had to restart my washing machine mid cycle, clean the fish tank, import my blog to Word Press, and mow my lawn (although when one day, I couldn’t find my youngest, who was playing out front, because the  grass was taller than she was, I finally decided to give into that one and hire landscapers).  

My failure to download left me in the compromising position of being at the mercy of the yoga studio House CD’s.

I sorted through the CD rack by the stereo to review my options.

There were three yoga CD’s, all which featured different sounds in nature.

I’m not a fan of teaching yoga to the sound of a forest stream or birds chirping.  I like to teach to “real” music versus sounds in nature. I’m also not the biggest fan of “yoga music,” mind you – except for MC Yogi, who is kind of the like the Beastie Boys and Bob Marley and The Police, when they were a ska band, rolled into one, and who raps – yes! He raps, people!   About Hanuman the monkey god and the Hindu deities and the chakra system.  Yes, he’s that cool.

Except last night, while MC was lying, forgotten and alone on my messy desk in my office at home next to that really long, negleceted to-do list, I was thumbing through CD’s that featured the sound of rain falling for 48 consecutive minutes (yawn) and additional discs that were used for children’s dance classes, Disney, Folk music, Justin Bieber.

There are many reasons people go to yoga.  For a good stretch through the hips and hamstrings, for stress relief, and for those ambitious types, to pursue to the path to enlightenment.

Most people I know don’t come to yoga to listen to Justin Bieber.

But given my choices, Bieber was the best playlist option I had.  

And so we began. 

We down dogged to “Boyfriend” and did sun salutes to “To All Around the World,” and balanced in tree to “As Long as You Love Me.”

While I don’t think I’d intentionally bring the Beebs to class with me again and while he’d never replace that other Justin in my book (although no one could ever replace that other Justin in my book, not even MC..well, maybe MC...), I certainly appreciated him more than the sound of wind or trees falling or whatever else the nature CD featured.  

I left the studio Tuesday night with the young Beebs on my mind and the crazy ride he’s had these past 5 years.

Not to  be judgmental or anything, but when you’re a 19 year old millionaire pop star and you get pissy when the neighbors in your gated community ask you to stop driving all over their lawn in your Ferrari, I tend to think that you could benefit from yoga.  So, Beebs, if you ever happen to read this, take some motherly advice. Before you try to plow through another airport without going through security, or speed your car around a foreign country or cheat on another girlfriend, why not try exploring your inner nature and balancing out the fluctuations of the mind and harmonizing your mind, body, and spirit?   You may actually like it.

At the least, Never Say Never. 

 

 

What's the one surprising thing you did this week?

 What's on your playlist that would surprise me? 

My Week in Laundry

 

There were two piles in the middle of the floor, one dirty that needed to be washed, and one clean that needed to be folded and put away. I’m always behind on the laundry, this week no exception.

Early on Saturday, with coffee in hand, I began to sort through the piles, four clean loads lying on top of each other in one basket, and four days of dirty in the other.

I pulled out the shirt Miss F. wore when we had harsh words before school Tuesday morning, where I, in a terrible mood, said regrettable things, things that prompted me to send a text message to the aid in her class and ask her to apologize for me.  I couldn’t bear those words being the last she heard from me all day.

I pulled out Miss F.’s softball uniform and B.’s soccer jersey, worn for two games played in two different towns at the same time, my not being able to see more than 10 minutes of either one. 

I pulled out the shirt I wore my first day back at work, after an unexpected and chaotic week away, my boss’ petulance exacerbating the sulking jags I indulged in while hiding in my office.    

I pulled out the dress I wore to my father’s funeral.

The dress I tugged at while I overhead two women say, “Does anyone know if his daughters even showed up?”  

The dress I smoothed over my hips while a well-meaning guest, a person I had never met, took me aside to acknowledge that he knew this death was complicated for me and wished me peace.

The capris I wore running the morning of the funeral, where I may have run my fastest five miles ever, while letting the anger and grief and sadness and guilt pour out of me.  

Past, present and future mixed up and blended, baseball jerseys atop a dress worn to a funeral of a grandfather my children never knew, by my choice, for that matter, a painful yet well considered choice.  And while I pulled clothing out of that basket and folded it in piles, I sat there wishing I could sort out my feelings as easily as we sort out the lights from the darks and the casuals from the delicates.  

I’m not unique.  Every family has their laundry.

Part of my mission is to take the facts that belong to the story of me and my father, and learn to look at them as facts, not as burdens or hurts, or details that I allow to define me.

We don’t have to attach emotional energy to facts.  We can learn to become neutral observers of the facts, even the facts that seem troublesome. Even the facts that we have spent our entire lives personalizing.  Yoga teaches us that.  And while that’s easier in theory than in practice, we have the option to acknowledge our stories, validate our stories, and respect our stories yet be liberated from our stories at the same time.  

We can own our stories without them owning us, dirty laundry and all.

~Namsate 

I Am Me

 

“First time? For real?“

“First time,” he says cracking a tentative smile.

“Dude! Awesome,” I shout as I give him a high five.                                      

“What about you girls in the back?” I ask as I return to the front of the room. I look at a cluster of young women sitting in the back, who I guess to be in their 20’s.

“Second class,” the one in the corner says.

“Second class ever?”

She nods.

“This is the best night!” I say slamming the palm of my hand on the floor.  “I’m so happy you’re here!”   

I am sitting on my mat in front of my Thursday night New to Yoga class with a room full of beginners. 

I begin my “talk,” a two minute overview on the purpose of yoga, according to Pantanjali, the sage, who, some 3,000 years ago organized the system of yoga through his written work called The Sutras upon which most yoga lineages can be traced back to.

I explain to them that the aim of yoga is to enable us to learn to control the fluctuations of our minds.  And that we first do this by working with the body, working with the postures and our breath.  We do this by becoming completely aware of what our bodies are doing in each posture and aware of our thoughts in each posture.  Because once we are able to watch our thoughts we can begin to control  them.  

This is an eye opener for some people and stuff that not everyone’s ready to hear when they walk into their first yoga class.  Most people walk into their first class because they heard yoga will provide stress relief, flexibility, a shapelier butt, or more sculpted arms.  Controlling their thoughts never came into the equation. But at the least, I feel the need to explain Pantanjali’s theory to them.  I feel the need to explain to them the life changing potential of yoga.  

I know many, so many, who don’t want to be responsible for their thoughts.  They want to blame their thoughts and their feelings about themselves on others. 

At first I try to be gentle about these concepts, but after you’ve worked with me a while, I get pretty blunt. I tell you to buck up.  I tell you to get out of your own way. I remind you that you are the only person responsible for your own happiness, and I remind you often.   

I encourage my students to push themselves beyond their known physical limitations. 

It’s not unheard of for me to get the eye roll from one of my girls when I have the class stay in Warrior Two for a lengthy amount of time.  

“Iyengar said that pain is our guru,” I say to my eye roller.   “Stay there a little longer and try to see what you should learn.”  

When you push yourself on the mat, you’re more likely to push yourself off the mat.  That mat is your training ground for life.  And I use the postures to train you.  

I make you hold Chaturanga to test your strength.  

I put you in Crow to test your balance.

Every now and then I’ll take you through 12 entire rounds of Sun Salutations to test your endurance.

I encourage you to listen to yourself.

I support you in discovering what feels right.

I remind you to stop judging yourself.

I teach according to Iyengar’s interpretation of the Sutras and Swami Satyananda’s interpretation and Swami Satchidananda’s interpretation. But it’s an interpretation through my eyes, not theirs.  It’s no longer the interpretation that my favorite teachers gave me or the director of my teacher training.  Maybe that’s good and maybe that’s bad but it feels authentic. When I teach this way, my heart is in it because I want to give these students what’s been given to me.  It took me a while to find my voice in front of a yoga class, because at first I thought that teaching the “right way” was to teach a class like one of my favorite teachers did.  I tried to emulate them.  I tried to speak quietly.

But speaking quietly has never worked for me.  Ever.  I’m loud. And I’m loud as a yoga teacher.

I love yoga so much, how can I not be loud about it?

When one of my guys did his first crow into a jump back chaturnaga, I gave him a high five.  The class applauded.

It’s not unheard of for you to find Pearl Jam on my class playlist. 

We laugh in my class.  A lot.

We are here to be happy, and that’s what yoga teaches us.   Part of its purpose is to help us get in touch with the inner bliss that is inherently ours.

Underneath your fears and biases and that filter through which you see the world and all of the ways that you have created the illusions of differences between you and other people, sits a piece of you that’s completely untarnished, by life and your baggage and your complexes and your perceived limitations and your childhood hurts and your neuroses.   

Sometimes we have to dig deep to get to that untarnished piece.  Sometimes, we have to look at things about ourselves that we never wanted to see. 

I believe in that untarnished piece in me and I believe in that untarnished piece in you.    

Sometimes, the journey requires us to be silent, and sometimes the journey tolerates some noise.

I’d like to think that Pantanjali would approve of the occasional fist bump I give out in class.  I mean, what’s so special about the path to enlightenment if we can’t have a little fun every now and then along the way?

This post is dedicated to my lovely friend Michelle Montero, professional photographer creator of the blog Callias Corner, and my special guest blogger this coming Thursday.  It was inspired by her post “Image Overload” that I featured as one of my “Favorites of the Year." Michelle, I have 100% certainty that so long as your style is your own when you are behind the camera, every photo you take will be as spectacular as you are.  xo

In what areas of your life can you be more yourself? 

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Miles to Go Before I Sleep - Fierce Diva Anniversary Edition

Bring on the Noise

Play for Her

 

“Today’s the day,” he said, as he stood next to my mat.

“Today?”

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, not giving me a chance to change my mind.  “Clasp your fingers behind your head.”

I placed the crown of my head on my mat and clasped my fingers together as he had instructed.   

“Kick your legs up.”

I kicked my legs up into his hands and he lifted them straight into the air.  He held my ankles, firmly at first, then lightly, and then he let go of his grip entirely.

My legs began to sway back and forth. 

“Don’t talk yourself out of it,” he said.  

My mind raced, the thoughts not particularly encouraging. 

The “I can’t.”

The, “How is this possible?” 

The, “I’m gonna fall!  I’m gonna fall!” 

Until my yoga instructor interrupted my shaky stream of consciousness.

“Don’t think about it. Just do it. Steady…steady…excellent!” 

After 10 years of trying, I was up in my first unassisted headstand.

For a second, anyway.

That “shaky stream of consciousness”  mouths off at me more than I probably realize.  It comes in many forms and is typically preceded by fear, but fear in a form so subtle, that I don’t always recognize it as that.

It’s caution.

Is this headstand safe?  You’ll fall!

It’s self-doubt.

This writing isn’t very good. Maybe I ought to cancel this blog post.  

It’s rationalization.

Is that really a practical decision?

We have these conversations with ourselves repeatedly and often, yet how many of them go unnoticed?

How many of these unnoticed conversations have we based life changing decisions upon? 

Have you ever watched your thoughts?   Have you ever really listened to how you talk to yourself?

Would you ever talk to anyone else the way you talk to yourself?

If you were on the sidelines, watching your best friend run her first 5K, would you tell her that she wouldn’t finish?  

If she were writing a book, would you tell her that her efforts were futile?   

If she were starting a business or going back to school, would you tell her she would fail?

My guess is you wouldn’t.

 My guess is that if you were to talk to someone else the way you talk to yourself, it would be considered rude. 

My guess is that you’d lose a friend. 

I was recently reminded of this quote from Mia Hamm:

“Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back.

Play for her.” 

All of us were once kids with dreams.  Maybe our dreams are the same now, or maybe they’ve changed. In a perfect world, we’d believe in those dreams the way we did when we were children.

Once upon a time, before the thought of failure entered our minds, we were invincible. We were in love with possibilities.  We were brave.

Some days, I lack faith in the person I am today, thanks to the clouded visions we often have of ourselves due to fears and past failures and misguided perceptions.  Yet, when I think back to myself as a fourth grade girl in coke bottle glasses, hashing out the details of her first novel in a Harriet the Spy marble notebook, I have no choice but to try.  She had a vision of what life would be like.  Who am I to rob her of that vision?  If someone talked to her the way I talk to myself, she would scoff.  There’s no way she would buy into their negativity.

When we don’t have the drive to try for the people we are now, when we’re ready to sit out or quit or just plain give up, think about yourself as a fourth grader and what that fourth grader wanted from life.  She’s counting on you.  How could you possibility let her down?

Go on now, play for her.

 

*This post was inspired by Christine’s post, “Am I a Hypocrite,” which I had cited as one of my favorite posts of the year.  Please come back on Thursday when it will be my honor to have Christine as my first guest blogger. 

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Miles to Go Before I Sleep - Fierce Diva Anniversary Edition

Presence

Finding Infinity

The fall was a blur.  Suddenly, there was one of me, and one of me to get everything done that used to get done by two. 

There were the logistics of running a house, paying for a house, and being the 24/7 parent for my children, with little to no down time.  

In the back of my mind, I knew there were “big decisions” that needed to be made, yet, I promised myself in the heat of my finding my footing, that I would put off those decisions until January. 

The one crusade that I had decided upon was being able to keep our house.  I had convinced myself that keeping the house meant stability for my kids.  They needed consistency. I was against shaking up their lives in any way more than the divorce already had. 

January came, and my resolve to save my house led me to questions about where I was going next with my career.  My present job was a stop gap.  By fall, there would need to be a change, especially if I would be able to continue to pay my mortgage.  

When I need answers, I turn to yoga. I threw myself into my practice. I woke up at 4:30 every morning, reading, journaling, meditating, and performing postures as if my life depended on them.

Except the “answers” weren’t easy.   The thought of returning to Corporate America to hold onto the accoutrements of my once upper middle class life felt oppressive.  Yet, following my dreams felt irresponsible, especially as the primary caregiver to three young children who were depending on me  for shelter, stability, and three meals a day.

I didn’t know what to do. I indulged in my indecisiveness ad nauseum. I wore this as my badge.  I was a woman with “big decisions” to make, and became someone consumed with decision making while remaining totally indecisive.    

Then my youngest daughter got hit by a car.

On a beautiful day the end of January, she got knocked off her bicycle by a man pulling into his driveway who didn’t see her.

Her left leg was torn up pretty badly. She needed 17 stitches, physical therapy, visiting nurses, and was under the care of a wound specialist, yet, miraculously, she didn’t break one bone. She wasn’t paralyzed. She was alive.  And while I was grateful that the prognosis was good, I was stuck at the scene of the accident for weeks.

I felt nervous all the time.  I cried in the bathroom at work. I stopped returning phone calls.  At some point, I stopped listening to my voice mail all together.  I stopped sleeping.

The therapist I had been seeing since the onset of my divorce began asking me “probing questions.”  Was I sad?  How sad?  Was I anxious? How much so? I felt defensive in her presence.

Then sometime in mid-February, something shifted.  My emotions caught up with reality.  My daughter was going to be fine.  She was fine already.  She was walking.  She was healthy.  She was alive.

I was ready to stop feeling scared about something that never actually happened. 

I recently read an interview that Oprah had with Nate Berkus where he discussed the lessons he learned from surviving the Tsunami of 2004 which killed his life partner Fernando Bengoechea.  In it, he talks about “Finding Your Ultimate Question.” For Nate, the ultimate question goes back to survival, which helps him put the more challenging moments in perspective.

Yogic philosophy suggests that most of our fears can be linked back to the “ultimate fear,” the fear of death.  Recently, when I’ve revisited these decisions that have been overwhelming me, I look at them through a different lens. What’s the worst that could happen if I take Risk A or Risk B?  Will I die from taking these risks?  Will my kids die?

Because the reality is this: My child had a greater chance of dying at the hand of a car that day than she would have if I took some of the risks I had been contemplating.  

I started investigating opportunities that fell in the “follow your dreams” category versus the category of practical.  

I’ve surrendered to the reality that I might have to sell my house.   And that’s OK.  Because wherever I am together with my kids, as a family, will feel like home.

I’m not jumping into the unknown recklessly.  I’m doing my homework, but I’m moving forward. I am no longer using my children as my excuse to not go after the things I want or to set a different course than the one we’re on now.

Sometimes, it’s almost easier to live without possibilities, to stay complacent in our lives instead of exploring “what could be.”

Freedom is scary.  We all have choices – infinite choices actually, despite our expertly delivered inner monologues that tell us otherwise. 

As far as those inner monologues go, I’m hoping this is the year that I can revise that script, if not tear it up completely. 

Namaste 

Do you have an inner monologue that stops you from fully exploring your options?  What are your excuses?  

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Love Revisited

Hey, guys,

The Fierce Diva is on re-runs for the next few weeks, dusting off some of my earliest posts, the ones I wrote before anyone was reading, and giving them a second life.  I thought this would be fun to do leading up to my one year anniversary of blogging, which falls the end of the month.

“Love” is one of my favorite posts, and was also where I introduced Miss F. to my readers. Raising Miss F. can be a challenge for me, which also makes her my greatest teacher.

Happy Valentine’s Day and love to you and yours! 

 xo 

 

LOVE 

 

 

"Mrs. Evans," the school nurse begins on the phone, "Miss F. has a piece of plastic notebook spiral caught in her finger.  No one is exactly sure how it got there."

My daughter is the Accident Queen.  She has fallen out of trees and down stairs, chipped teeth, jammed staples through her thumb, had her lip split with a baseball, and has given herself black eyes. I've learned that unless the fever is over 105 degrees or there is blood coming out of someone's ear, not to get too worked up over these things.

I arrive at the office of the school nurse.  Miss F. is sitting at a small table, reading a book.  "It's in pretty deep," the nurse says.  "I didn't want to fuss with it.  I think it's best you take her to the doctor to have it removed."

"Let me see, baby," I say to Miss F., who tentatively raises her finger, along with the attached small plastic spring, the kind you find on party favor notebooks.

Before anyone can say another word, I yank it out.

"Ah!!!!!!"  Miss F. yells.  "Why did you do that?"

"So you can go back to class,"  I say, grabbing an alcohol swab from the nurse.  I hug her and kiss her forehead as I bandage up the tiny cut.  Miss F. shoots me a wounded stare.  She takes my impromptu surgery as a betrayal.  Miss F. does not like surprises. 

Miss F. has been unpredictable this year.  Some days she wants to curl up next to me on the couch and other days, I feel like I've lost her, to her friends, her diary, and the chapter books she escapes to for hours at a time.  One of my most valuable informational takeaways from studying yoga is the knowledge that the onset of puberty begins at the age of 8 for most children, when the pineal gland, a tiny gland at the top of the spinal cord, which has a balancing influence on the activities of the brain, begins to degenerate.  When this happens, many children become emotional,  or easily disturbed.*  This would explain the changes that many  parents see in their children once they hit second grade,  the sassiness, the mood swings at a new level of intensity. 

Second grade has not been easy for Miss F.  It has marked the beginning of social disappointments, the year that the girls become more discriminating within their friendships, and the discovery that the girls who were your best friends a year ago may not be your best friends forever.  

Part of the problem is that Miss F. has impossibly high expectations of others, a trait she has inherited from me.  I have learned to temper this liability through maturity, but not before experiencing much suffering, at the realization that sometimes in life, others may not love me the same way I love them.  

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, MIss F. asked if I would take a walk with her. 

"A walk..." I stammer.  I rummage my brain to figure out if I can make the time.  There is the dog to take care of.  A stack of medical bills to decipher from my husband's surprise hospital stay a few weeks back.  I need to start dinner. 

"Ok, let's do it," I say.  I need to take her up on these moments, where she will still allow herself to be my little girl.

We walk through the neighborhood, chatting about school, softball, the summer, which is only weeks away.  We come to a bridge that goes over some marsh lands.  Miss F. wants to divert from the path and head down a small trail. 

A few yards into the trail she stops.  "Mommy! Look at that spider web! It's perfect!"  She points to some reeds that have become the stakes for a perfectly shaped orb, the fine silky threads shimmering from the reflection of the late day sun.  I kneel down next to her and inspect the web.  It's beautiful.  I never would have seen it, had she not pointed it out.  I bulldoze through life, barreling through laundry, emails,  homework, dirty dishes, teaching yoga, writing, and making school lunches for the kids.   I am always onto the next thing, never stopping except for sleep. 

"It looks like Charlotte's web, doesn't it?" Miss F. asks. 

"It does, baby, it's beautiful."

We head home.  It's dinner time.  The smell of barbecue wafts through the air. 

"I can't believe I'm eight already Mommy.  I just can't believe it!"

"Me, neither baby." 

"I wanted to tell you something else.  I forgive you."

"Forgive me for what?"

"For taking that spring out of my finger at school.  It would have been silly to go to the doctor.  Besides, it didn't even hurt when you pulled it out.  It hurt more in my mind than when you actually did it.  You know what I mean? 

"Yes, baby, I know exactly what you mean." 

Miss F. grabs by hand.  She holds it tightly as we walk. 

At least for this moment, she's still mine. 

 

*Taken from Yoga Education for Children, published by the Bihar School of Yoga,

 

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Coming Home

Fierce Like Me

The early morning hours are my favorite.  The house is quiet.  The day is new.  I sip that first cup of coffee and check email with eager anticipation of what lies ahead.  Next, I practice yoga to MC Yogi Radio on Pandora in an incense filled room, followed by a meditation session to quiet my mind and prepare me for the rest of the day.

It has been said that meditation is like crack.                                                        

It must be, because I never want to get out of meditation, those quiet moments compiled with nothing but the sound of my breath and a calmness that I have created by reducing the fluctuations of my thoughts.

It is so much like crack, that I have allowed the kids to oversleep, and I am now fifteen minutes behind schedule.

 “Guys, wake up,” I yell from the bottom of the stairs, “It’s a school day!”

I quickly grab three backpacks from the front hallway and toss them onto the floor of the kitchen, while I try to figure out what I’ll pack for school lunches.  As I pull yogurts and cold cuts and fruit out of the refrigerator, my son comes down the stairs wearing shorts.

“Buddy, it’s cold outside.” 

“I know mama but I like shorts.”

“It’s winter, dude,” I say a firmly.  

He sighs and angrily walks back up the stairs.

The little one plops down on the couch. 

“What do you want for breakfast, baby?”

“What do you have?”

 “Toast, Cheerios, or eggs.”

“What else do you have?”

“Toast, Cheerios, or eggs.”

“No!!!!!!”  She wails, going into her first tailspin of the morning.

I listen to her meltdown from the kitchen as I walk over baskets of unfolded laundry (and try to remember if these baskets are the clean or the dirty???)  and the cat, who is looking for food, to get the waters and fruit into the backpacks.

 

“Fine!  Toast,” she says, as she huffs into the kitchen.

I put bread in the toaster and spinach in the blender, as I start to make the green smoothie that I bring to work every morning.

Except, when I press the start button on the blender, nothing happens. 

I unplug the blender and plug it into another outlet.   Still, nothing.  Which has me bummed, since green smoothies are like crack. 

I call up the stairs for my oldest daughter, who is still sleeping.  She doesn’t budge.

I run back to the kitchen to get the toast out of the toaster.

I plop breakfast onto the table for my little one and run up the stairs to wake up Miss F.

“Come on honey,” I nudge her lightly.  “You’re going to miss the bus.”  She groans and I run back down the stairs to finish making lunches.   

I search through the cabinets for something I can bring to work to eat and find nothing…except a bag of quinoa hidden in the corner of a shelf.

I glance at the clock.  It’s going on 7:30 and the cooking of the quinoa will have to be intricately timed with my getting into the shower, getting out of the shower, and getting the kids onto the bus. 

I decide to take my chances.

I throw the quinoa onto the stove and run back upstairs to Miss F., who is still fast asleep .

I gently shake her.   

“Baby, what do you want for breakfast?”

“What do you have?”

“Toast, Cheerios, or eggs.”

“Bagel?”

“I’m out.”

“French Toast?”

Honey there’s no time.

She sighs. “What else do you have?”

“Toast, Cheerios, or eggs.”

“Fine,” she sulks, “Cheerios.”

I run back down stairs.

It’s 7:40.  The kids get on the bus at 8:20 and I still have to get in the shower.  I put the boiling quinoa on simmer and throw Cheerios in a bowl for Miss F.

I race down the hall to the bathroom. As I get into the shower, I try to remember the last time I washed my hair.

My hair, which falls well below my shoulders, has become a part time job, between getting shampoo and conditioner through it and then trying to beat it into submission with a myriad of styling products.  

The bummer part is that no matter what I do, my hair rarely comes out the way I want it to.  It’s either too poofy or too straight, and there is this one spot in the back of my head that never gets any volume.  

I can’t remember the last time I washed it which means I’d better wash it. 

As I lather up my hair, I head the kids screaming from the other room.

Followed by a bang.

Someone is pounding on the bathroom door.

I quickly rinse out my hair, throw on a towel, and run out from the bathroom to break up the fight.

Over a crayon.

I resist the urge to yell, because now that it is almost 8:00, I don’t have time to yell.  I run upstairs to get ready for work.

As I turn on the blow dryer, I immediately I hear another “bang” and some yelling from downstairs but ignore it, with the hope that if it’s serious, someone will run up and get me.   

Ten minutes later, my hair is dry and miraculously, it looks great.  Really great.   Great, like first date hair.  Great like cute mom shampoo ad hair. It’s long and shiny with volume on top in that spot that is always as flat as a pancake.

This is possibly the best hair day I’ve ever had.

I am loving my hair in the mirror, tossing it over my shoulder and shaking it out, and momentarily getting caught up in my cute mom shampoo ad fantasy.  

When I hear the sound of my daughter’s voice.

“Ma, I think the quinoa’s burning.”  

I run to the kitchen and there is indeed, smoke coming out of the pot that was cooking the quinoa.

As I scrape burnt quinoa out of the pot and into the garbage, I wonder what made this morning go so awry.  And then I realize I didn’t perform a headstand with my yoga practice.

Could not have inverting myself caused all of this mishap?

Because anyone who practices yoga knows that headstands are like crack. 

Five minutes later, I’m waving at the kids as the school bus pulls away from the curb, and smile.

Because no matter what goes on behind the scenes, any morning that they actually make the bus is a good morning.

I’m not sure what the moral to this story is.  Clearly, I treat a lot of things in my life like crack, and maybe I need to look at that.

How was your morning????

 

One Word

My word came to me pretty easily.  I blogged about it before, actually –but it was before the word and I were officially going steady.

A number of bloggers talked about picking a word to focus on for the year.  For Christine, it was “Intention.”  For Alison, it was “Do.”  

Their posts encouraged me to take a word and make it mine.

 

(Of course, the word is now Sharpie tattooed on my belly).

In lieu of a new year’s resolution, I like the idea of using a word to guide us.  In yoga, we use mantras, sounds that we repeat to help with concentration in meditation.  They are also words that are considered capable of creating transformation.

I wanted a mantra.  Something I could repeat to myself daily – to stay focused on the important things.

And that’s another reason why I like the “one word” approach over the resolution.

Losing those ten pounds may help us feel more comfortable in our own skin, but it won’t help us feel more comfortable in our own soul.

Sustainable change   - change for the sake of those “important things,” comes slowly.

There’ a lot of talk in yoga about fire.  Known as “Agni” (which also refers to the Hindu god of fire), Agni/fire have a broad spectrum of meaning, but is known for its creative energy and its transformational powers.  Sometimes, fire is discussed in relation to our passions, our in particular, our passion for the practice of life.

The “Fierce” in Fierce Diva is really about fire.  It’s about finding passion in the things we do. 

If you can’t find passion in those things, then maybe it’s time to find something else to do.

What do you need to change this year?  What word will you choose to help guide you?

 

The Pause

I went seeking truth, the meaning of life, a higher spiritual plane.

I wasn’t all that concerned with “chaturanga arms,” or “warrior thighs” or any of the other accoutrements promised by westernized yoga practitioners.  I needed to get down to brass tacks.

Why are we here?  Why am I here? And what is the purpose of all of this?

I was at a midlife crossroads.  On a treadmill for years of getting by, doing OK, at certain times, being highly successful doing things that I did not love to do.  Things that fed my family but did not feed my soul. I knew myself well enough to understand that I had lived a life that had been propelled mostly by fear but still could not figure out how to live any differently.

I knew that yoga teacher training would change my life – and it did.

Did I find, “the truth?”  Not quite. Am I living on a “higher spiritual plane?” Not really.  Yet, it rattled me –and it made me question every single thing that until that point, I had easily accepted as “reality.”

More importantly, studying yoga taught me how to pause.

Yes, pause. 

It has taught me how to pause those erratic fluctuations that take over our thinking.  And in that pause, I have found space to create new belief systems and identify new ways to look at old problems.  It has taught me how to physically pause, to stay in a yoga posture long enough to gain awareness of my own body, from my left jaw to my little toe.  It has taught me how to pause before starting an argument or raising a voice to my children. It has taught me how to pause before allowing words to come out of my mouth that could be hurtful.

It has taught me to be the observer.  To watch events, or relationships as they happen, and take in information without personalizing it.

It has taught me that sometimes, we need to pause physically and recuperate, especially after a period of intense activity.  I took a running pause for almost twelve months after finishing my first marathon last year.

There are times when I have needed to take pauses with friendships.

And now, it is time for me to take a pause from my blog.

Not a long pause. Just long enough to review the past nine months and decide where to go next.

I have some ideas for the new year that I’d like to iron out.  There will most definitely be a regular highlight on local non-profits (thank you Jennifer Barbour for your constant inspiration).  Perhaps a regular guest post spot?  Most of all, it’s time to circle back to the blog’s original mission –  one of love, strength, empowerment, and hope, and see how I can fortify and expand upon that message.

I need time away to iron out some personal issues as well. There are many things on my to-do list. There is the possibility of pursuing a business on my own. There’s “the book” that I have talked about before on these pages.  And now suddenly, a whisper rumbling up from my heart to try my hand at fiction …again.  

Last week, Galit Breen wrote a stunning article about the sweetness there is in the passions we pursue but at the same time, there is the pain of letting go. When we choose one road, we need to mourn the possibilities of what could have been had we chosen the other.  Galit’s words resonated with me so. It is time for me to review the possibilities, and undoubtedly, feel the ache of having to say goodbye to that “something” that does not make my list.

I will be back the week of December 17^th for a guest post that I was thrilled and honored to accept – and I will be back again on a regular basis shortly after that.

Because a pause is just that.  It’s nothing more than a pause.

Love to all ~ Light to all

xo  Ilene 

Rock My Root Chakra

“Call me. It’s important,” she specified in her voice mail.

R. hated to talk on the phone, so I knew it had to be important.

When she picked up on the first ring, I got scared, as R. didn’t race to the phone for anyone, not her husband, her friends, or even her clients. R.’s phone aversion mirrored my aversion to processed foods.  If I were starving on an island and had no choice but to eat dinner rolls from Perkins to stay alive, I would relent.  If R. were stranded on an island and needed to make a phone call to get off the island, she would possibly relent.  Yet there is no guarantee. But I digress. 

“I know what’s holding you back from moving forward in life and having everything you want,” R. said excitedly.

“Tell me,” I say.  “Please! Tell me!”

“It’s your root chakra,” R. says, matter- of-factly. “You‘re too rooted.  You have worked so hard to build roots to compensate for the roots you didn’t have when you were younger that you can’t get off the ground.  You’re stuck.”

I quickly do a mental scan of my life, including my well-publicized hang-ups, my hyper frugality, my decision to stay with jobs and relationships  well past their reasonable end points. My intense rigidity with food.  When I trace these behaviors, they all lead back to my need to feel grounded and secure, which is what the root chakra, located at the base of the spine, is all about. 

“You need to let go a little,” she says.  “Once you let go, you’ll see a big shift in your life.  Treat yourself to a night out to dinner or at the least, a glass of wine.”

“So, if I have a glass of wine, I’ll get a book deal?”

“Absolutely,” R. says.  

“I took the kids to Perkins last night for dinner,” I offer. I suddenly feel very proud of that decision.

“Oh my God, you ate at Perkins?”

“Of course not.  But I let my kids eat Perkins.”

“OK, well I guess that counts.”

All I needed to do to get that book deal is booze it up on occasion and let my kids eat at Perkins? Who knew?   

“You need to do things to unroot yourself.   Like wear a color other than black, for crying out loud!”

“Oh my gosh! It’s like we have been communicating telepathically, because I wore my new red pashima wrap to work today.  Wait, and there’s double points in that because not only was it color, but it was an impulse buy!”

“You made an impulse buy?” R. gasps.  “Like something you didn’t need for absolute survival?  Now that’s real progress!”

“So, between the Perkins dinner, the red scarf, and the impulse buy, I’m like well on my way to a book deal, right?”

“Well, yeah!”  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the chakra system, the yogis believed that there are energy centers that reside in specific areas of our physical/mental/spiritual bodies that are responsible for the reception and transmission of certain life energies.  There are tens of thousands of these receptors all over our bodies and seven major ones that run up the spinal column. They are responsible for such energies as survival, pleasure, personal power, compassion, communication, and intuition.  

For me personally, I have spent a lifetime creating the illusion of security in different areas of my life – yet ultimately, no amount of security can make me feel secure and no amount of “security” can provide security, because as we all know, life can change on a dime.  My hyper healthy diet is no guarantee that I won’t get sick, and as far as my extreme frugality goes, who’s to say that the stock market and the banking system won’t topple tomorrow.  We just don’t know.

We have so very little control that we scurry to find things that give us the illusion of control.  Being smart with finances is one thing, but stopping all of my disposable spending is not necessary. The same with food. Will the one Perkins dinner roll kill me?

This brings me to the phrase on my belly this week, as prescribed by my transformative coach E. It’s quite fitting after my girlfriend's deconstruction of my root chakra:

 

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, or a thousand chakras, I should say!

Namaste, Divas!  

Are you rigid in certain areas of your life?

What would happen if you let go of this rigidity?

What does having a balanced life mean to you?

Have you said hello to your root chakra lately?