H & I had a really good set of holidays this past (past already, gasp) year.  Usually I want to go on big adventures to other states to see my family, which is always amazing too, but this time I really didn’t want to go anywhere.  I wanted to stay home.  My aunt and uncle live close in a nearby town and we had Thanksgiving at their house.  My maternal grandma lives close to us now, so it’s nice to have her in on all of the family get togethers.

My parents were traveling to VA Christmas Eve to NYE so I knew H & I would be on our own.  I asked my same aunt if we could spend the night at her house since my second cousin, aged 7 would be there too.  They could wake up and open presents together.  Everything was great, I even managed to cart my son and my grandma the 45 minutes to their house.  We had a good Christmas Eve meal.  Then H threw up all over, but he managed to sleep through the night.  We opened presents and had a really good time the next morning.  My aunt cooked breakfast, I felt really spoiled.

H threw up again & then I noticed my stomach started feeling a little funny.  It turned out that we had a bad stomach flu (later my grandma, uncle, and cousin got it too, sorry!) and I couldn’t get home fast enough.  I rarely throw up & it really brings back those old drinking days when too much booze would make me vomit.

Luckily I got all of my classes except one covered so H & I actually had a good time (despite the sickness) lounging around, making fires in the fireplace, sitting by the Christmas tree, & putting legos together.  There wasn’t much eating involved excepting saltine crackers.  Those little suckers really do the trick but I never eat them normally!

I felt a little isolated.  I had vowed before that I had to drag he & I to meetings when my parents left in the past, which I did do last Summer, but damn, by 6pm at night my brain & body were toasted.  I was sick & tired, literally & I just couldn’t do it.  It felt really good to get back to the womens meeting last Monday & I’m going to another tonight.  I did manage to muscle ourselves to a Blazers game last Thursday.  H had started (& then retreated from, lol) basketball at the YMCA I work at & they had an amazing deal on Blazers tickets.  I forced it & boy was I glad I did.  So much of it was worth it even though we were both so tired.  I always enjoy watching his reaction once we hit Portland, he loves looking at all of the big buildings, bridges, tall cranes, & other urban cityscape.  We didn’t stay through the game or even the first quarter (!) but we got early entry to watch the players warm up almost court side & then H got to go on the court during the national anthem!  He stood right in front of the players who totally made him look like the tiniest toddler in the whole world.  They were actually really nice to him, a couple of them knelt down & talked to him a little bit!  I’m sure this pleased me way more than anything he got out of it but hopefully he’ll enjoy the story and physical documentation of it someday.

I decided to teach an intentions based class on the 1st of the new year.  It was restorative, a really nice and mellow class to come to & especially if you BELIEVE.

Because it’s hard to believe in your dreams sometimes.  It’s easy to listen to the negative voices in your head.  I wrote some major intentions out.  I’m having a really hard time with just one of them, but am really asking my Higher Power to give me a breakthrough on it.

I decided also to go off of Netflix, social media, & candy for three days (today is day 3) so I could spend some extra time in meditation & also some extra time just listening to myself.  It has been a gratifying but rough experience.  I use food, sugar, social media, & t.v. to quiet the inner voice I have & it’s been startling to face that fear.

It takes a lot of guts to sit in discomfort.  There never seems to be a perfect time for it. It takes guts to dream, set intentions, & then take action towards them.  It was 3 years ago that I made a decision that drastically changed my life, 3 years ago I started this blog with this post where I was debating upon that decision.

So they are out there in the universe & I am here, trusting & relying on my Higher Power as much as I possibly can.  One statement that resonates, there’s always a reason for what I’ve gone through good & bad.

Wishing you the most auspicious of new year’s.

~Namaste.

This time two years ago I was showing up several times a week to a storefront out in Milwaukie (Oregon) filled with impressive looking Pilates equipment just hoping that someone would show up for yoga.  It was my first official gig as a yoga instructor, besides this I had offered some free outdoor yoga and was putting in apprenticeship hours at a local studio.

Some days one person would show, usually none, and I think one day I was lucky enough to get two actually breathing humans in the same class.

That gig ended and I got a job at a aquatic center.  Mine were brand new classes and no one showed up to these either.  My low came one night when the manager suggested that I walk around the pool telling people about my classes if no one showed.  Luckily that night a person came so I didn’t have to stoop over wet swimmers and try to explain to them how cool yoga was (although I probably would have done it!).  I still have that gig and now it’s my favorite one.  Two years later I have a steady stream of regulars, most of which I consider my friends.

I got more yoga gigs, I started teaching gentle/restorative yoga, and spent A LOT of time LEARNING how to teach soft instead of intense. I subbed for Hatha and learned how to teach without a bunch of flow.

I also learned to not care so much what other people think, but to follow my own intuition.  I learned that you can’t please everyone and that’s okay.  I learned that yoga is yoga, which sounds overly simple, but if I can manage to remember that while I teach, I’ll be okay.  Yoga is yoga is yoga.  Just teach yoga.

I scrambled to get jobs two years ago, now I have to turn some down. I have some corporate gigs where I go teach working professionals at their places of work after their shifts.  I teach a class at a bouldering gym.  I don’t have one actual ‘yoga studio’ job, but for me that feels like normal.

If I could say something to myself two years ago I would tell me not to give up.  That’s definitely a message I’d love to pass on to any new yoga teachers out there who are just starting out.  Yes, there will be criticism and countless jobs given to other more experienced teachers instead of you.  That’s okay, just keep going.  My experience hustling for yoga jobs has taught me the valuable lesson of working hard for something even though I though it was pointless at the time.  I remember telling my friend at the time I just wanted so badly to tell these people I was auditioning for, “I can do it.  Please let me just fly.”

I’m flying now in this whole yoga deal.  It won’t last forever, I long to get a ‘normal’ 9 to 5 again, but I’m enjoying it for right now.  I’m able to be with my son instead of sending him to day care and that means so much to me.

Wishing all of you out there to find wings and the space to try them out in.

~Peace & Namaste.

I appreciated how, on our last weekend of teacher training, our master teacher asked us what relationship with money was like.  I specifically liked how she worded it:

“Is your relationship with money adversarial?  Or is it a tool?”

This post isn’t about money, but about social media as it’s been useful for me to view it within the same framework.  Is it adversarial?  Or is it a tool?

Sometimes for me it’s one or the other or even both.  A couple years after getting sober in 2008 I ran with a crowd that rejected Facebook.  Everyone was deleting their accounts, they didn’t like how vapid it could get, they didn’t want to waste their time with it.  They wanted to focus more of their energy on being spiritual and living in the present.

I did it too.  I went ‘off’ Facebook for years. People would comment to me about it and I would tell them that I didn’t have one.  I would get weird looks.  Lots of people consider having a Facebook (& other social media accounts) as being normal although there are many people out there who don’t engage.

I later found Instagram & took to its simplicity.  Fast forward to the present:  I am a Facebooker again & I have both types of accounts, continuously posting & streaming pictures about yoga, my son, & my life.  Facebook became a sort of ‘necessity’ for all of my yoga stuff.

But sometimes it’s too much.  I waste too much time scrolling though useless stuff.  It makes me feel like a zombie.  And I do best when I’m not following an outline, I recently tried out my first yoga challenge on Instagram (post every day about yoga for a month) & it made me feel trapped.  Creativity & freedom always works best for me.  It’s not fun if it feels forced.

I always have to remember that no one places me in a box, except for myself!  And I have the power to step back or remove myself from it.  

So I’ve taken breaks from it.  My head got quiet.  I want a quiet head so I think it will be something that I will do more often.  Going back to that idea that group of AA’s in early sobriety taught me.  Not deleting, just abstaining for periods of time.

Balance.  It’s hard to find.

Wishing all you out there balance in what you need.

Peace, love, & namaste~

❤️

Since I’ve been back from the festival, all I’ve really wanted to do is slow down.  Just stay at home, & as cliche as it sounds, cook & clean.  All Summer long I’ve been going strong & have had some amazing opportunities.  In between those opportunities:  swim lessons, splash parks, & tons of time outside or at our local pool.

So much time in the sun & I’ve really  relished every golden moment of it.  

But now it’s time to slow down & listen softly for the season to turn.  I spent so many years in Southern California before moving to Oregon almost 4 years ago, if you can imagine I was sick of the sun.  Exactly 3 Oregon Winters cured that insanity & I really embraced the summer this year which felt really good.

Going slow & being still feels good too because I have been a bit sick this past week.  Also, yesterday I was minding my own business walking down the stairs when my right heel missed the step.  I overcompensated & somehow my left toes came crashing down ballerina style, which I don’t even know why I would be pointing my toes, lol.  I felt a ghastly snapping & doubled over backwards in horrible pain.

A bruising, taping, & iced 24 hours later I’m still hobbling around.  I teach power Vinyasa at 7!  Another opportunity to stretch & strengthen my yoga wings, eh?

Looking forward to cold air, sweaters, & fires in the fireplace.  Wishing all of you out there to receive what you most need & maybe some of what you want too.

Namaste~

Pictures!

Xoxo ❤️

My girl pinched my hips to see if I still exist.

~The Fugees, Ready or Not

We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.  Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable?  Can He now take them all, every one?  If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.

~Big Book, p. 76

I noticed that my face was hurting yesterday.  Not from any accident or dental pain, although I did recently get some cavities filled.

No, I realized that my face hurt because I was smiling so much.

Several times in the recent weeks I have thought, I am so grateful for what my life is right now.  Not living in the future or rehashing the past, I have had real moments of living in the present gratitude which is always a miracle for someone like me.  I feel like asking someone to pinch me, because I still remember all too vividly what it used to be like.

Before I got sober a little over 9 years ago I was suicidal, my only friends were my cats, & I could only exist at all if I had alcohol in my system for most of the time.

Then I miraculously found myself in an AA meeting, a big book was given to me, I got a sponsor, & I started to deal with all of the emotional baggage I had been running away from for so long.  If you’ve been to meetings you may have heard the line in one form or another:  If you were like me you would have drank too.

When I lost that both great & horrible numbing agent, alcohol, I was overwhelmed by all of the resentments & emotions I had.  Lately I’ve been going through all of this old stuff again, its been really hard to dig up past relationships, those warped ones, when I thought that I had already gotten to a good place about them around working the steps.

You hear in the rooms that as you keep reworking the steps, things get deeper, & more layers are pulled off.  Ouch, right?  Layers under layers under layers.  Too be rigorously honest, I don’t really feel like getting to deep, once the layers start getting pulled up, all sorts of weird emotions pop up.  Tears rush to my eyes while I’m doing dishes, & I don’t know why I’m sad at first.

My favorite AA saying, one of the first ones I heard when I got sober was, it takes what it takes.  It’s taken what it’s taken to get me where I am now.  It’ll probably take a little more to keep me both sober & change my emotional & spiritual state.  The question I have to ask myself is, am I ready?  Am I ready to change?

It’s a hard question as I can probably skate by for a good while in my sobriety without being so open hearted.  I will feel much safer if I keep these scary emotions locked down below all those layers.  I can isolate, not do the step work, be alone.  I can be safe or I can change.

I’m currently choosing to do the work & to feel all the feelings.  I don’t know if it will be the same tomorrow, I only can account for today.  My sponsorship group is working steps 6, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, & the work I did on my 4th & 5th this go around has seeped into this particular step.  Old pain I thought I had dealt with just keeps coming up.  Its interwoven into my defects.  I created survival mechanisms which just aren’t attractive to me as they used to be, although I still sometimes find them pretty attractive.

It’s kind of like the end of my drinking.  I’m not ready to let go of the bottle, but I really hate it at the same time.

My only hope is that quote at the top of this post, if I’m still not willing, I just keep asking my HP for the willingness.  And of course I can’t minimize the results.  I’m very sure the only reason I feel like I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life directly correlates to how I’m working my program right now.  That’s pretty strong incentive to keep at it.  I want those sore smile muscles!

In yoga news, I’ve reached the end of a six week theme of working through the chakras for my classes.  It’s been uncomfortable.  Subtle body stuff has never been my strong suit when I teach, I feel much more comfortable teaching to alignment or theming classes around a body part.  Experiencing chakra work can bring up a lot of stuff too, I think that focusing on these during so much intense step work has really helped facilitate the whole onion peeling deal.

& even though I’ve been uncomfortable, there are so many facets to yoga that I feel like I do need to explore & push myself.  I go through stages where I feel like the best yoga teacher ever (!), & then others when I feel like the absolute worst & am really hard on myself.  I have a steady schedule too, the free Summer classes are 2 weeks in.

All that to say, I think I need a little break, & serendipitously I leave for Spain next Monday.  I was sharing at a meeting last night that all of the downtime, getting out of my normal schedule, is really terrifying to me.  I think it is also just what I need right now.  Next post or couple posts will probably be filled with pictures of Spain.

As I experience deeper contentment, my heart prays for all those out there still struggling.  Asking today what I can do for the (wo)man who is still sick.

& wishing so much inner contentment for you all.

~Namaste.

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.”

~Linda Wooten

I feel like the older I get & the more days I accumulate as a sober person, the less I feel I know.  The more vulnerable I feel, & also the more forgiving.  More able to forgive others because I can forgive myself.  Also, the little bit less I realize that what others think about me is really none of my business.

I was so excited for our pools to open last weekend.  H was doing really well with swim lessons, the week before he even jumped into the water for his teacher, getting his head mostly submerged.

My expectations were way too high, he behaved like he did last Summer, more comfortable sitting on the edge, splashing his toes in the water.  I picked him up once and he screamed & thrashed so I didn’t push it.

Then, surprisingly he asked to go on the paddle board shaped floatie.  We went around the pool, he on his belly, me pulling him around while holding onto his arms to make sure he didn’t topple.  He asked for his orange pool noodle, way on the other side past the 9 foot deep end.  I was very relaxed.  The sun was warm & the water was cool.  I mentally debated between getting out and walking over to get the noodle or just swimming over.  I’m a pretty strong swimmer, I can tread water for a fair amount of time.  I have decent lung capacity.

So the unwise decision of swimming over was made, he not even wearing any floaties attached to his body.  I somehow negotiated us going under a pool rope mid pool (those used to section off pools) without my feet touching.  We made it all the way to the other side & I was just reaching for the edge of the pool when he slid off the floatie.

Down I went, the only thought I had in my mind was to keep his head above water.  And I also thought about how full of people the pool was.  Someone will see us struggling, I remember thinking.  I kept kicking, fully submerged under water except for my hands which were keeping him up.  It seemed like forever.  I finally struggled up & my head reached breathable air once more.

Another mom was standing right next to the edge in front of me.  What do you need?  She said which still brings tears to my eyes.   I asked her to pick him up out of the pool & of course she did.  I saw that she had already fished my hat out of the water & had placed it on the side.

I noticed as I was lifting myself up over the edge that water was flowing out of my nose so I must have inhaled a good amount of the stuff.  It was the first time I believed that whole deal about mothers getting a rush of adrenaline in order to save their children.  It was also the first time when I was given a choice:  him or me?  It was very clearly him, I would have drowned to save him, this I know.

I thanked this lady over & over.  We made our way to the shallow end.  I still haven’t stopped processing it.  Luckily H seemed unfazed by the whole ordeal.

Because we all make mistakes.  But there’s such a difference when the mistake only effects you as opposed to when the mistake you make effects your child.

Your sweet, innocent, & beautiful child.

Another mistake:  Back to the potty training grind.  It brought me to my knees & tears again & I don’t know why I was so surprised.  It took an hour long google session of, why won’t my three year old poop in the potty to let it all go.  Again.  Followed by days spent praying that I can change & be a better mother.

That I can let him decide for himself when he wants to poop.

That I can stop pushing.  That I can forgive myself.  That I can start over.

That I can let other people’s expectations of him (& me) go.

So all of the goddamn feels lately.  Yes, I have felt like a shitty mother a lot lately.  I have also felt like a pretty damn good one too.

Because even though I push & make the wrong decisions I will always show back up & try to be better.

This has been a pretty vulnerable post to write.  I tried two different subjects but just couldn’t shake this one.

Wishing/hoping/dreaming that all of you out there enjoy the sunshine out there wherever you are.  Wear your floaties!  Spiritual or otherwise.

~Namaste