ch ch ch changes…

Good morning yogis!!! 

Change is afoot. Change is inevitable. Change is the one thing we can count on for sure….or can we? Yeah, totally we can.

Change comes. Sometimes we go to it, sometimes we run from it, sometimes we embrace it and sometimes we fear it. But change always comes.

Do you know the experience of your full life filling up your full days and not leaving time for much else? Do you also know the experience of getting INSPIRED, and SOMEHOW you seem to CREATE space in your life to ADD something that is IMPORTANT and you WANT to do…? Notice how you WORK REALLY HARD to put in all your time and effort, and you are run off your feet doing all the things you HAVE to do on a regular day to day basis, PLUS WHATEVER IT TAKES to accomplish the CHANGE your are NOW CREATING. Notice how inspired you are and how you don’t care about sleep, and how much you actually look forward to your lunch break spent working on the project, whatever it is…buying a new car, remodeling your house, getting your kids into college, building a business, preparing for a dinner party…you get the drift. We have all sorts of things in our lives that are obligatory, the things we HAVE to do like clean the toilet and get gas in the car…these things are not often inspiring or derivative of our passions, but we do them and make them happen and accept that they are part of daily living.

Change happens in our lives whether we are looking for it or not. Transition. Evolution. Doesn’t matter what you call it, there is no way you can keep everything the same in your life because that is not the nature of the world. 

I read an article the other day talking about mental attitude and how our thoughts dictate our emotions, physical sensations, etc. When you work out and your muscles are sore the next day, you feel excited that you did something, right? You take a “killer” yoga class and the next afternoon you are having trouble sitting down to pee or walking up and down stairs…but you love it!! Ha! You love it because you worked hard at it, you pushed yourself to create change and now you feel the results of your hard work. Reap the rewards. Now, imagine yourself waking up in the morning and rolling over and suddenly feeling a twang of muscle soreness in your back because you slipped and had to torque yourself suddenly so as not to crack your head on the ground…you slipped, not a big deal, you are fine…but the next day you feel it. You have to slowly sit up, slowly stand up, and it hurts to sit down and stand up too much. 

The emotional difference is that one is something that you created and one is something that was just handed to you. Same kind of physical sensations, right? Same kind of result in the physical body, but the emotional and mental difference is what makes all the difference…the sensations and results of doing full camel for the first time and slipping on the ice are almost identical, but one has you get out of bed, chuckle, bend, stretch, chuckle some more, grab your foam roller and tennis ball and get excited to go out and use your body!! The other, makes you not want to move, not want to get out of bed, feel sorry that it happened and reach for the Advil.

All change is the same, I think. Have you ever moved? Like a big move….how about a break-up? A big one. A new job? If you are the INSTIGATOR of change in your life, you move into it with excitement and forward energy, generally. If you are being “forced” to do something, like you got “dumped” or “fired” (such horrible meaning attached to these words!), then the resulting emotions, and physical sensations are laced with doubt, worry, anxiety, fear and overall blech energy…which is only forward moving because you can’t stay where you are anymore, they don’t want you!! Lol, we are such funny humans. If a relationship ends, it wasn’t the right fit anymore. If you lose your job, it’s not the right fit. If you choose that you want to lower your cost of living so as to have more money to raise your family, you choose to move to a different city where you can pay less rent and walk to work…it’s tough and difficult to make a move, to leave your home, to leave your friends and family and familiarity…but what is on the other side is so awesome too!! Thing is, with change, we never really know what is on the other side, so there isn’t that reward of knowing how the change is going to impact you…sometimes only an unknown, to which we can attach any kind of feeling or emotion. 

One of my mentors in my early adulthood used to say, “the only relationship you’ll ever have that ‘worked’ is the one that you’re in when you die”.

Be aware when you let your emotions dictate how you should feel…physically, mentally and spiritually…especially spiritually.

I love you, yogis!! I have been having a love affair with podcasts of a woman named Brene Brown…she has been studying shame (and other things), and is very inspiring!! More to come…

Have a great Saturday xox

 

 

 

 

What would you think if you stood alone…?

Hello everyone!! Ah, happy New Year!! What a great new start. I am pretty wishy washy about Christmas (Chanukah) and Thanks Giving, but the New Year???!!! I loooooove the New Year. Yeah!I love that it’s like tearing a page off and having a clean surface. We get to leave behind what isn’t working for us and create new and wonderful things and situations for what we desire. It’s an excuse to change the way we dress, drink, eat, think and behave. We don’t need a reason to make these changes, the reason is built in…it’s a New Year!!

Today in my yoga practice, I had the thought, “if we all always stood alone, what would we think of ourselves?”. If you only ever saw yourself single, as one entity, no one around…if you only ever had yourself to compare yourself to, if you only ever saw how you were rather than how you are in relation to anyone or everyone else, then what would you think about yourself? Think of it…so much of what we think about ourselves is based on a comparison of us to other people. We compare our looks, how we dress, what we have accomplished, job, money, hair, car, voice….I could go on…are you getting what I’m laying down? You see, if I take only what I am, only what I have done or said or have, then I am perfect! There is nothing else, there is no better or worse, there only IS. There only IS what IS. That’s all. Just IS.

Stand alone, my friends. Not alone, as in a “loner”. Surround yourself with people and love and joy…but stand without judgement or comparison. When you start to see yourself as whole and perfect then imagine what is possible.

Go ahead, try it…I bet you’ll like it 😉

Love and clog dancing rainbow coloured unicorn kisses,
Ida

Have you ever noticed how different everyone is…?

Hello!!! It’s a Saturday evening and I am at home. I am supposedly packing for my road trip which begins on Monday…but, shhhhh, I am clearly not doing that. I was doing that, but now I am happily not. I’m a much better packer under pressure anyhow!

Today I taught a fabulous extra long Q and A class at the wonderful BYSaanich. It was a quickie throw together class…we decided about a week and a half ago that we would do the class. We took into consideration that it is summer and it was short notice and it ended up being a fab perfect class. 25 yogis hung out with me for 3 hours in the yoga room…and I have to say we all had a bunch of breakthroughs! (FYI, as I note, it wasn’t ME that made the class fabulous-I was referring to the ensemble…).

So…the real reason for this post is this: Have you ever noticed how there are not two people alike? Now, I don’t want you getting all identical twins on me, that’s not what I’m talking about. Do you ever compare yourself to someone, anyone else? Do you ever look at someone and then wish you looked like her/him and think you aren’t as good/fit/thin/funny/cute/fun/awesome in whatever way as this other person who you have decided is better in some way than you are? What IS “better”?? Seriously, think about it for a moment. There is so much pressure from society (but is there?) to look/be/act a certain way, so it directs us to think we need to all look the same…can you believe it? I have something to tell you….

WE ARE ALL SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAT IT IS SO TOTALLY RIDICULOUS TO COMPARE YOURSELF TO ANYONE ELSE THAT IT MAKES ME ALMOST FALL OFF MY CHAIR!

Did you get it?

L.McB and I always think maybe we will compare ourselves to other people and think maybe we aren’t good enough in some way…and then after about 20 minutes we get bored because, seriously, what IS better? I mean, how can something be better than something else when there is nothing that is right? Seriously, seems a bit silly, doesn’t it?

Ah, yes, that is right. I almost forgot…we’re already perfect in this moment already…so there.

Ok Ok…back to packing…maybe.

Love you Puppies,
-Ida xx

Acceptable Behaviour….?

Hi hi hi!! Gosh, have I been slacking or what…? Nope, just busy, here and there, in the yoga room, out of the yoga room, in the sun, out of the sun…you get the drift.

This morning I was driving down to Cook St village to meet a friend for a walk along Dallas Rd (which, as an aside, is streaming with people walking their dogs…so, if anyone needs a dog walked, I noticed there are many handsome men along this route, I would be willing to take your dog for a walk…I think you are again getting my drift 😉 ) and have a tea before I had to head to to the yoga studio for advanced class. So, on my drive down, I noticed a woman walking down the street…well, she wasn’t walking, she was kind of waving her arms and doing what I deemed to be dancing. My first initial thought was “huh, inappropriate?”…and then I very quickly caught myself and thought “self expression”…which then got me to thinking…what is self expression and is revered for being care free and self expressed no matter where we are, and what is deemed inappropriate in the eyes of society? Where is the line drawn?

I started to think about things we call “inappropriate”…things like wearing something, ahem, ill-fitting or perhaps unflattering…not vulgar, just maybe not flattering. Then I imagined a person using a great deal of profane language in public, a mixed group of people all in ear shot. Or, how about a child who is picking his nose in public or a person dancing (as this woman was) to the beat of her own drum…

What is the factor of “inappropriate” in society and who decided this? Through conversation and discussion, we came to the conclusion of two things:
1) Do no harm. Meaning, if someone wants to wear very short shorts which may or may not be flattering on me and perhaps they show off a little cellulite or something then really what’s the harm? It’s not affecting anyone negatively. If she was to wear something which was clearly showing her “private parts” as in something very see through or low/high cut, then by the confines of the society we live in, this is inappropriate because this could cause “harm” to the people around (some people may be “wounded” not just offended by this…traumatized even?). If someone is yelling profanity, this can be harming to the people around, perhaps children in ear shot…perhaps it’s not physically damaging, but certainly can be emotionally damaging to some people.
2) We as a society have deemed what is appropriate in public by what we can and cannot handle. Example…in India there are many people who live in slums right along side of the road. These people live in a small area of ground and do everything they need to do in this one small space. They eat, they sleep, they cook, they poop…you see where I’m headed with this…? To them, and greatly in that society, that is acceptable behaviour. If someone dropped trow here in downtown Victoria and decided to relieve himself right there and then, he would be scorned and ostracized and probably arrested (I’m pretty sure that is illegal). This kind of behaviour is inappropriate in our society because we have built our communities to behave a certain way and nudity or other such similar things are seen as wrong here…that makes me think of all the other places in the world where the human body is celebrated and flaunted, not hidden like it is so often here in North America…but that is for another day 😉

So…what’s the point…? Not sure…just that I value people and their individuality, and while not wanting to squash anyone’s self expression, I also have been raised in a society where we have made up all sorts of rules of being based on what we can handle and what we think is a societal right or wrong. I, for one, encourage everyone to dance a little in the streets, laugh out-loud in the movies and sing to the musak we hear at the elevator…why not? If for nothing else, it will keep you, and the people who stare at you on the street, entertained!

OK, my loves, time to get out into the sunshine and soak up my vitamin D for the day.
Ciao puppies. Remember to never let yourself be squashed by someone else’s idea of what is right and wrong…these ideas are just ideas make up by someone who thought they were the boss…
Love,
Ida