Well, well, well the days are getting longer in Oregon & it was too hot to wear my sweatshirt in the car last Sat! I remember thinking adults were so weird when they obsessed about the weather as a kid, but here in Oregon everyone’s moods start to shift in March! People can’t wait to wear shorts & sandals in 60 degrees. Seems like all my friends & I talk about sometimes is the weather, “Wasn’t it SO pretty yesterday..?” Or, “Uhhh did you see the forecast for this weekend? Gonna rain again.”
So far the theme of my 2023 has been about finding balance. There is much in the media about diets & toxic food practices, but my goal is to let others ‘other,’ & to take the focus back to myself & works best for me. As someone who gets fluffy by just looking at a potato chip (since the 90’s when I went through puberty) I have always had weight fluctuations. Women have had historically complicated relationships with their weight & what they look like. It can be really damaging to obsess about weight & diet culture. I mostly refuse.
Balance has been hard for me to find. I have long committed my mental energy to being strong instead of looking a certain way & I achieved another level up so far this year with finally signing up for some local classes that focus on weight lifting. It’s hasn’t been easy to get up early for these classes, but my physical & mental leaps have been huge. I feel better, SO much better, & for me that is the ultimate goal.
I also recently committed to eating what I crave while loosely intermittent fasting. I have committed to not going to bed hungry so my fast might break for that reason. Life is too short for me to suffer to attain a certain ideal & feeling that in my bones feels really nourishing.
I’m excited to start Summer Outdoor Yoga again, perhaps in June! It will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PM in the same location as last year in the hills of Sherwood, OR (message me for location!) with suggested donation per person from $7-20 per class. I’m moving away from calling it, “Farm Yoga,” as there aren’t any farm animals at the new spot.
Life still feels like A LOT. When I just add one extra variable to my schedule I feel burned out. I go back to that picture I took of myself last summer right before farm yoga when I remember being SO tired, but unable to get off the hamster wheel. I had to compulsively DO IT ALL. Since then I’ve been working towards scheduling work time away from rest time. I get itchy on the weekends, sleeping 10 hour nights, wanting to be way more productive than I am but also not getting burnt out. We really just can’t do it all. But I can do some things well.
Hope to see some of you this Summer whether it’s at the climbing gym in Tigard at 7pm, or at Outdoor Yoga.
Peace & love to all 💮
shelteryoga.com 