Ego issues

I am copy editing a book which is going to be published by the University of the Rockies Press called Brilliant Sanity: Buddhist Approaches to Psychotherapy. It is really quite interesting, and talks a lot about the intersection of Buddhism and psychotherapy. It also highlights differences, such as how Buddhism advocates embracing suffering as the way to ultimate freedom, while Western thought is more interested in escaping pain. But, say the Buddhists, without facing the pain, without realizing suffering, we cannot emerge onto the brilliant sanity that lies on other other side.

The Buddhists also talk about being ego-less, which seems to contrast with psychology's emphasis on a healty ego-identity. I am really not the best spokesperson for all of this-- if you want more info read the book in a few months or leave a comment and I'll get back to you when I've finished the book or am less tired.

I've been struck by a funny thing while reading this book. Although I identify fully and proudly as a Jew, I think I have some innate Buddhist tendencies. For example, I have never had any fixed goals or seen any reason to put forth a "five year plan." Better to just bump along, stay open, and see what opportunities arise. In all of those assessments or team-building exercises that divide people into leaders and followers I am never a leader. I'm not really a follower, it's just that I kind of want to wait and see how things will turn out. And reading this book I have felt proud of this naturally Buddhist way of being.

Aha. Pride. That is the ego. That is very un-Buddhist. I have been struck by this as well-- how entrenched I am in my ego, even as I pat myself on the back for being at least somewhat less ego-entrenched than your average westerner.

I took a Nia class today at the YMCA and was REALLY IRRITATED by a woman who raised her hand when the teacher asked if anyone was a first-timer, yet placed herself dead center in the front row. She actually wasn't bad, seemed to be enjoying herself, and was totally getting into it and not caring how she looked, which is the whole NIA vibe. I, on the other hand, was very distracted by her. The gall, standing in the front row as if she were a regular. What do I care? Why should I care? And yet for some reason I did, and had a kind of hard time getting out of that vaguely angry space.

All the while I was thinking about this book, and wondering what was going on with my ego. Maybe I need to bump my meditation practice up from 6 minutes a day to, like, 10. Perhaps that will give me the space for greater acceptance.

Just call me... what?

I decided to change the name of this blog so as not to conflict with the name of my dissertation homepage, www.FindingOm.net. But this new name is kind of lame. Hence I open the forum for reader suggestions. Any and all will be considered.

Vinyasa lust

My computer is still at the shop, so my girls and I are at the library. We made reservations to get on the public computers, ran a few errands and now we're back, three across, each doing our own computer thing. My older daughter is looking up Harry Potter recipes for her 10th birthday party this Saturday; my younger daughter is tending to her multitude of Webkinz.

As for me, I am feeling kind of sad because, despite having spent the last three days blanketing town with flyers advertising Finding Om (a FREE 10 week yoga class--You may qualify!), no one has emailed me. Fine, I only just put up the signs. But I guess I had a fantasy of being inundated with potential subjects. I'd be swamped! My FindingOm.net inbox would reach capacity! I'd be turning them away! Free Yoga--who can resist?! Nice fantasy. I'm not despairing, though. I'm still going to advertise in the free alternative weekly for at least 4 weeks, and run something in the local daily paper. The daily is more expensive, so I think I'm going to hold out for a week or two and see how my other avenues are fairing. And I still have more places I could hit-- like college dorms. Wish me luck.

Still loving the Kundalini class, but I had a funny longing for good ole vinyasa. You know, sun salutations, warriors, triangles, pigeon. Nothing is stopping me from going to a vinyasa class, but I haven't been and it was surprising to find myself missing it.

The young lady who just signed on to the computer next to me came bearing pages with the headline "Barack Obama on abortion." Gotta love Colorado Springs. I suppose I should take heart that someone in this republican stronghold is at least checking out Obama. But then again, maybe she's doing research so she can speak loudly against him at church. Maybe I should mind my own business. Think I'll go look up the vinyasa schedule for tomorrow.

Luddite

I'm actually kind of liking this not-having-a-computer business. It's kind of embarassing how much time I waste sitting in front of the computer, and how much more I have been getting done lately without a computer at home. Like cleaning my house and folding my laundry. And yes, the other things I figured I'd do, like hanging around with my children more. It's also sort of embarrasing that, despite having really enjoyed covering high tech as a journalist for about 6 years, I think I could live pretty well without it.

As I anticipated, my children are in crisis. The older one, who can read, is better able to amuse herself sans-technology. But the younger... oy. I think I'll sign her up for those guitar lessons she's been begging for.

In other news... lets see... oh yeah

MY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL GOT APPROVED TODAY. Whoo hoo. Now I can officially start recruiting subjects and officially open up my personal web page, which has been plastered all over this site for about a week already. But in case you missed it, please visit . And if you happen to live in the Colorado Springs area and know of someone with binge eating disorder who is not currently in therapy and would like 10 weeks of FREE YOGA, refer them to the site as well.

Signing off from the public library, your happy luddite.

Stranded on a desert island

Or that's what it is going to feel like, because I need to take my computer into the shop for a scrubbing. I have been invaded by all sorts of malicious stuff, the removal of which is beyond my computer skill level. It is amazing to realize how much time I spend on the computer. Blogging, working on my dissertation website, working on my actual dissertation, doing email, reading blogs, shopping... It will be like the olden days. I will have to actually call people on the phone. Read books. Go to stores. Talk to my family. The horror!

Okay, I'll date myself (not that you couldn't look at my profile and see that I am 41.5 years old). I went to college proudly bearing my high school graduation present from my parents: a brand-new electric typewriter. So this shouldn't be too hard, right? At least not for me. My children, on the other hand, have no frame of reference for life before Webkinz.

Fare thee well, fair friends. I shall plunge into the dark ages of yore. Good tidings, until we meet again.

Drums of Freedom

Last night I went to a small dinner party at the home of a woman I met at the synagogue here in Colorado Springs. She graduated from Harvard three years before I did. Her very cool job is making candles, incense, essential oils and tinctures and selling them on the internet and at Rennaisance festivals. I have never been to the Rennaisance festival, which passes through Larkspur, about 45 minutes north of here, every summer. But I like to think of myself as the type of person who might go to the Rennaisance fest and eat vegan food and buy essential oils. I do two out of three, anyway. And I did follow the Grateful Dead on and off in college. That's gotta count for something.

My friend, who sells her stuff at Kamala's Own, has a drumming circle every third Saturday of the month, which happened to be yesterday. That meant that a bunch of the dinner party attendees had their drums, and were in that playin' kinda mood. At some point after dinner someone started tapping out a beat during conversation. Slowly, others joined in, until the room was throbbing with sound. I'm not a drummer. But, like the Rennaisance festival fantasy, I want to be the kind of person who goes to drum circles. Honestly, I'm not sure why I never have.... Until last night.

I swayed and grooved and finally picked up the drum sitting on the floor near me and joined in. Wow. It was wonderful. I felt free. I felt alive. I was vibrating with my own sound and the sound in the room and the heartbeats of everyone around me.

I felt so relaxed afterwards. And then everyone started calling me Yoga Girl. I'm not sure exactly what I was doing aside from sitting the way I always do, but I definitely took the moniker as a compliment. Especially because these days my hips are so tight from all the stair climbing that when I try to sit in full pigeon pose the knee that is on top is basically sticking up on a level with my shoulder. But hey. I'm Yoga Girl.

Kundalini report

Saturdays the Y has a 1 1/2 hour Kundalini class which, to my surprise, was packed. Sure, two people got up and left in the middle. This probably happens on a regular basis. Since this is my first time at that class, however, I can't vouch for that.

We held bridge pose for 6 1/2 minutes. That is hard. Try it. My ass was talking to me. And not very politely. YAhoo. I love Kundalini.

I am so thrilled to have found this class-- especially in this most unlikely of venues, because that means I don't have to pay extra, as classes are included in the price of Y membership. As is daycare. As is the pool. As are lots of other things. I must admit, I am totally loving the Y and am almost glad that World Gym changed into Planet Shitness. I mean Fitness. The Y is considerably further from my house than the gym, which takes some getting used to. But I digress.

Right. Kundalini class for 1.5 hours. LOTS of holding, lots of doing asanas for extended periods. This class focused on heart opening and on the navel center. Doing things like scissoring legs 2 inches above the floor while scissoring arms above the chest for 4 minutes. It's so different than my usual vinyasa, which I also love. I especially love being able to do it in a live class, not in front of my TV. I shall return.

Brave new world

My husband has been out of town on business... forever. I thought he was going to be home tonight in time to watch the kids while I go to my monthly synagogue board meeting. I was wrong, but I didn't find that out until too late last night to call a babysitter. Too late for me, anyway. I'm sure all of my kids' babysitters stay up a lot later than I do.

High school starts at 6:35am, so I knew our favorite babysitter, E, would be up early. But I felt really dorky calling her at 6:15 in the morning. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit me. Or maybe that was samadhi from my 5 minutes of meditation, which I had just finished a few mintues before. Either way, I decided to (drumroll, please) TEXT MESSAGE her. I have never done that before. Lo and behold, I had a positive response in about 5 minutes. Wow.

I have entered a whole new level of techno-usage. As a bonus, I have a babysitter for tonight. Bad news: no excuse to leave the marathon meeting early. Oh well. Better to be a conscientious board member, anyway. That's what I was elected for, not to be a shirker. Too bad.

Web site designing will NOT be my next job

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh. I spent pretty much this entire day trying to configure my email server for my dissertation web site. I am burnt out and frustrated and I still haven't solved the problem. I feel like I should be able to do this. I covered high tech for 5 years. But I think this is a pretty classic case of "those who cannot do, teach." I was great at talking with techies and extracting real English from their technospeak and then translating that for my readers. I would sound like I really knew what I was talking about, too. Then I'd go to tech conferences and actually see this stuff and be just blown away.

My experiences today confirm: I never really had any idea what I was talking about.

Lucky for me, Uncle J is going to help me tomorrow.

I did manage to get a pretty decent page up and running. Check it out at www.findingom.net. I have two links on this blog directly to the site. Don't try to email me from there, though. I haven't finessed that part yet.

Good Old Fashioned Neighborliness

My plan for yesterday was to create a website for the Finding Om yoga class and post-asana discussion group. I think that a website helps give the project an extra air of legitimacy, and I figure that any way I can get people interested in, paying attention to and signing up for my study has got to be good. I want to make the site useful aside from just explaining what Finding Om is and who is eligible, so I am also planning on putting up a resources page which will include books, websites and resources about yoga and binge eating disorder and anything else that seems relevant to my target population. When the group gets up and running I may also put a password-protected particpant-only discussion group area. With me as the moderator, of course. I found a really cute picture of Ganesha, remover of obstacles, and got the artist's permission to use it as my pseudo-logo. So I was feeling all ready to go.

What do they say about the best laid plans? Yeah. I could have used a little Ganehsa-powered obstacle removal in my own life yesterday. This web page creating business is not quite as straightforward as I imagined. I know all the tools are available for me but it was definitely not the WYSYWG drag-and-drop experience I had hoped for. So, at about 12:30 I took a break to go see if the mail had come. It hadn't but my little 9 month old cat got outside and ran up a tree. Way, way, way up a tree. To make a long story short, my afternoon alternated between being frustrated about this dumb website business and trying to come up with creative solutions for getting a really frightened cat out of a tree. Got the mailman involved when he came by at 3:30but that didn't work either. Finally I left a message for my neighbor JG, since my husband is out of town and I definitely needed some more help.

Around 6:30 JG called, and he and his 3 kids all came over-- for some reason, bringing their own cat on a leash. We had no luck and it was getting increasinly cold, so we all tromped inside for a glass of wine (adults, anyway). Finally at about 8:30 we tried again to get the cat out of the tree... to no avail. I decided to call it a night and get my kids to bed, since today is a school day and it was already 9 PM. Well, unbeknownst to me, JG was on a mission. He went home and got a giant ladder and climbed right up there and got the little bugger. 9:30 the doorbell rings, and there was the G clan, holding my cat and their cat and lots of flashlights.

Who says there's no such thing as caring neighbors anymore? Seriously. How nice was that? I know my kids and I all slept better knowing that our cat was not out in 18 degree weather freezing her skilly little feline butt off in a squirrels nest.

Later I am going to bring over a bottle of wine for JG and a batch of cookies for the kids. Just to be, you know, neighborly.

Bla bla bla

I'm getting a little bored with my own blog. I enjoy blogging but I suppose part of the reason I do it is for some interaction and feedback. Is anyone reading? Anyone willing to comment?

Those Difficult Talks

I am usually the first person awake in my household. I woke up this morning and saw the light peeking out from beneath the closed door of my kids' bathroom. My first thought was that my daughter, who will be 10 next month, had gotten her period. This is very unlikely, since she is extremely tiny and the endocrinologist who is evaluating her for impaired hormone production said that she saw no signs of puberty 4 months ago. But still, that was the first thing I thought.

What a relief when I went in to check on her, heart in throat, and saw her sitting on the floor, drawing a picture. "Hi honey. Just checking whether you were okay. Love you."

I went down to the kitchen and began my usual routine, which includes drinking hot lemon juice and water, five minutes of meditation, two cups of coffee and making school lunches. When she came down I told her what my concern had been. We have kinda sorta talked about getting your period, but I got more specific this time, and actually talked about bleeding from your vagina. She only seemed to be half listening but I think she heard me. And I hope she heard me when I said that, when that happens to her, come to me and we will deal with it.

As Bruce Springsteen would say, "oooo, ooooo, growing up."

How do other moms handle the "pre-talk?"

What a great day!

I got my first (and hopefully not only) interview for an internship! I got an interview for an internship! Yahoo! Whoopee!

I had a killer workout this morning that almost killed me but felt great! I did lots of work on both my dissertation and my dissertation proposal! I filled out an application for a scholarship to an eating disorders conference! I realized that my pee has been red because I've been eating lots of beets and not because I am dying of some sort of intestinal failure! I changed my blog template (is it too busy?)! I am going to have some wine! I am going to make Miso soup with tofu for dinner! I am going to watch Knocked Up later, and I never watch movies at night!

I ended every sentence of this with an exclamation point!


CAVEAT, WRITTEN AT 1:00 AM: I should have known all that exuberance might lead to a dubious outcome. So I drank the wine-- like ,way, way, way too much of it. And then instead of just going to watch the movie I had to make a detour to the kitchen to make chocolate chip cookies, of which I ate about 1/2 the dough and then another half of the cookies I actually baked. Now I am awake, unable to sleep, feeling puffy and yucky and remorseful. But that doesn't take away from the fact that yesterday was, in fact, a really good day.

On the agenda for tomorrow: stair climbing at the Antlers Hotel and weight lifting in the morning, a stop by my school to pick up dissertation-related things, and then lunch with a friend. It's supposed to be almost 40 degrees and sunny. Maybe I'll take a walk in the park in the afternoon before making the quiche for family potluck Shabbat at my synagogue tomorrow evening. I have the incredible priviledge of living in a house that backs up to a gorgeous natural park. So a walk in the park is not along sidewalks or a road but up and down dirt trails through awesome mountain scenery. This is definitely one of my most favorite places to run. You don't gain or lose a lot of altitude but because the terrain is so up and down it's always a challenge. Kind of a wildlife extravaganza, too. On my excursions in the park I have seen plenty of deer and rabbits and other small critters, and a few times I've even seen coyotes. I saw a rattlesnake twice. I've heard people say they have seen bears and mountain lions, but I never have.

I've been running a lot less since I started training for this Run the Republic stairclimb (still time to donate-- proceeds to to lung cancer--http://www.mrsnv.com/evt/e01/part.jsp?rid=728420&id=1761&acct=0503206973). But that will have to change soon, since Scoop and I signed up today for the Mt. Evans Ascent on June 21st. 14.5 miles up Mt. Evans, starting at 10,600 feet, ending at the Peak of 14,264 foot Mt. Evans. Oy vey.

But in the meantime, the park is covered in ice and snow so I think I'll just go for a stroll to try and help burn off some extra cookie dough.

Kundalini update

We chanted ong namo guru dev namo three times! We ran in place and punched in all four directions! We did body drops! We stood up from a frog squat 54 times! We did spinal flexion while holding our inhale and exhale breaths! And we did lots and lots of breath of fire. Yahoo!

The class finished with a group chant of one of my favorite Kundalini meditations, which I first heard from Gurmukh at the Yoga Journal conference:

May the long time sun shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on.

I am sold.

Kundalini Rising

Well, we don't have any Ashtanga teachers here, but we do have Kundalini teachers! I have located two, each in the most unlikely place. One I found in the classified ad section of my childrens' elementary school directory. From what I can tell, she teachers a bunch of classes at her own studio here in the area.

Before I contact her I am going to check out the other Kundalini teacher who has twice weekly classes at... the Y! I wonder whether the activities director who hired her had an inkling that Kundalini ain't your garden variety yoga. I am going to take this class today from 12-1. I tried to go a few weeks ago but the teacher was away and there was a shivananda-style teacher there instead. He had us do a headstand for like, 5 minutes. Very interesting who turns up at the Y.

So my plan for today is to work on my dissertation for a few hours after my kids go to school, then go to the Y and use the stair climbing machine for 45 minutes, then stoke some more energy in the Kundalini class.

Last year I went to the Estes Park Yoga Journal conference and spent most of the weekend taking classes with the lovely Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa. By the end of the conference I was so sore I could barely move. Seriously, everything hurt, from my toes to my neck. I doubt this hour-long class will be as intense. But we'll see.

The ad in the back of the school roster has a quote by Yogi Bhajan: "You are the storehouse of your vitality." I like that. We are undeniably influenced by the people and things and energies around us, but the ultimate responsibility for our happiness, our health, our vitality, really does lie within.

Quite a heavy challenge.

Sorry I Can't Answer the Phone Right Now

...because I'm busy making myself puke.

Sometimes it just feels right.

Vinyasa is hard

Or maybe I'm just exhausted and need to back off for a day or two. Or probably some combination of the two.

I went to the Y this morning and did 20 minutes on the stair mill. Started at level 12 and decided immediately that it was too hard for today. Kept going down level by level until I forced myself to stay at level 9. Which was hard.

Then I did some core work and 2 sets of pullups, one set of ten, the next of 8 with two different hand grips, and three sets of shoulder presses. After that I went to a vinyasa class. I could barely stand up. After about 10 minutes I started wishing for shavasana, wondering how lame it would be if I just packed up my mat and left. I was very yogic, though, and honored my body by basically just flopping my way through the poses and taking strategically timed water breaks in order to miss some of the more challenging asanas.

Yes, Bikram is hot, which creates a unique challenge. But vinyasa is way, way harder. Especially when you're muscles are all pooped out. That's why I like it so much, I guess.

I think I'll take tomorrow off.

Yeah, right.

I feel sorry for Britney Spears

There. I said it. Now I can get on with my life.

Spent the weekend cross country skiing in Breckenridge, one of my very favorite things to do in the whole world. Went by myself on Saturday and spent an hour and fifteen minutes going all out. I was winded, I was tired, and I was on a massive endorphin high. Went with the family out to our favorite restaurant, a Japanese noodle house called Denzaimon. Very yummy and authentic. Probably would be a roadside stand if it were in Japan. But since it's in a semi-upscale Colorado ski town, it is a sit down place with an awesome sake menu. And there's nothing like a top shelf cold sake to top off a runners high.

Went skiing today with my 9 year old daughter. She rocks! We did about 4 miles on blue trails and we had so much fun. It was snowing and peaceful and so, so beautiful. After we'd been out for about 1:45 she was clearly pumped. We'd gone up to see an old mining structure and skiied past a house with a way rockin snowman and my little trooper said she wanted to keep going. I kind of sensed we were a few minutes away from a bonk. As we were a few minutes away from the lodge as well, I chose that option. I will never know for sure, but since she scarfed down 4 free granola bars in about 5 minutes, I think my instinct was a good one.

I love having something that she and I do together. So often we butt heads, but on the nordic trails we just mesh. She loves it the way I do. She gets it the way I do--the calm, the silence, the beauty, the personal challenge, the endorphin rush.

And the vibe. Seriously. It is so different from the downhill scene. I mean, can you imagine free granola bars at a downhill ski lodge? People who remember you from year to year? People who honor your pass even though you left it at home and tell you to "just remind me to do two punches next time"? True, you can't do shots or eat hamburgers in the lodge. And sometimes that does seem like a lot of fun. But you can always meet your friends at the bar later. Gimme cross country any day.

Yoga traitor

I pretty much consider myself a vinyasa kind of yogi. I began my yoga journey with Kundalini in 1992, because (oddly enough) that is what was being taught at my local gym, in what I have come to recognize was a very pure form with chanting and a variety of pranayama and arm waving and all the wonderful Kundalini kookiness which I still love.

Then I discovered vinyasa aka power yoga and was hooked. It has movement, it has strength-building, it has spirituality. I also discovered ashtanga and became a wannabe ashtangi, but with no teachers in the area I gave that up. Instead, I found vinyasa teachers I loved, both locally and on video, like Baron Baptiste and Bryan Kest. I went to Bootcamp with Baron to celebrate my 40th birthday and wished I could live there forever.

Somewhere along the way I also started doing Bikram. I think it's because a studio opened up here in Colorado Springs and I was curious. I kind of hated it, but kept going because I was training for a summer marathon and thought it would be good to get used to the heat. As if you can ever get used to that kind of heat. I've been doing a lot of hot yoga lately, which is my local studio's bastardization of Bikram. Same poses but you can drink more water. And, depending on the teacher, they might play music.

Yesterday I did a bastardization of a bastardization, Hot Power Fusion. This hour-long class is heated slightly less than hot yoga but is still very hot and follows much of the hot yoga sequence minus the horrible icky breathing exercise in the beginning (yaay!) and including a few vinyasa poses such as down dogs, some core work and kapotanasana (pigeon). It was pretty cool. Well, very hot, but I've always hated the breathing (did I make that clear already?) and felt that my arms and hips weren't getting enough of a workout in hot/Bikram, which this addressed. And core is always a bonus, although I've been doing some pretty awesome core exercises I found in Runners World's most recent issue.

The funny thing is, I will go to hot yoga again today, even with the horrible breathing, even with the feeling that I am being a traitor and I should be going to a vinyasa class, or doing a Kundalini or Baron or Bryan DVD at home. There is a lot I don't like about hot yoga. Sometimes it's too hot, although I think the heat is what has been drawing me lately. I felt really smelly a week or two ago, and I don't feel anywhere near as smelly anymore. Not sweat smelly, toxin smelly. So that would be a like, actually, not a dislike.

Dislikes about hot yoga:

Opening pranayama sequence
Lack of any arm strengthening
no inversions
Bizarre names for asanas. Like, why is tree pose tadasana, when in every other school of yoga it is vrikshasana?
Lack of any "yoga talk" or spirituality, even though the instructors showily announce every pose in really long, really strange sanskrit. Like dancers pose, or natarajasana, which they call dandayamana danyurasaha. Okay, I know that translates to standing bow pose. But it just seems so... arrogant to go against the tide of everyone else's names of asanas.
And that's another thing I don't like about Bikram. Him. Bikram. The man. Not that I've ever met him or attended a workshop with him or anything But he seems so arrogant and anti-yoga. Trying to patent the poses?

I will echo my cousin's sentiments that all of this just proves that the yoga does its job, because even with all of those complaints, I still primarily feel good after a hot yoga class and continue to attend. Quite a bit lately. And that is my dilemma. Why? Boredom? The need to switch things up? And yet I didn't feel sick of vinyasa. And in all my yoga research for my dissertation, Bikram is NEVER mentioned as having any western-scientifically authenticated health benefits.
Partly it's because the timing of the classes works for me. I wonder whether there are other reasons to continue to subject myself to something I find vaguely unpleasant.

Well, time to go make school lunches and hang out with my kids before the school bus comes.

Reality Check

I came to my computer yesterday and saw this page open on the screen. I know I did not leave it open, which means that one of my daughters found it in the pulldown history and opened it up.
I was just thinking the other day about how I would feel if a psychotherapy client read this blog. That would be a hypothetical client at this point, since I don't have any clients at the moment, having finished my practicum 3 days ago. Would I want them to see this? I am a fairly self-disclosing kind of therapist, but there are limits of what I want them to know. And even if I do disclose my history of eating disorders, for example, I do it when I feel appropriate, not because I am an exhibitionist.

Is keeping a blog exhibitionist by nature?

But anyway, I never even considered my children reading this. Yes, of course they know lots about me. But there are things they don't know, and I'm not sure I want them to know at this point. Like the ED. Maybe someday if appropriate. Not now.

So do I change what I write? Do I put in less? Do I use code words? Or do I leave it all out there, allowing anyone who may stumble upon this access to parts of my psyche? Something to ponder.

I'm feeling sad and a little bit teary right now. I just read in the paper about a book called Body Drama about real girls and real bodies-- published by a Miss America swimsuit winner who also happens to be a Harvard grad with a concentration in women's studies, which I am as well. Not the swimsuit part. She is very beautiful but has compiled a book of "real women" who are not all perfect or airbrushed. I think I will get this book for myself and my daughters.Despite getting up and writing the blog entry about granting myself grace, and despite having left the house at 7:30 am to go climb the 13 flights of the Antlers Hotel 11 times in training for  Run the Republic, I still feel really fat and blobby ad out of shape and crappy about myself. I want so badly to love myself, or at least feel good about myself, to have confidence. But it is so hard. And so I work for grace.

Space for grace

Happy 2008. I am very excited about the new year, with no real sense of why, exactly.

Last night we were sitting around the dinner table, sipping gorgeous wine, when our host had us all go around and state our resolutions. I don't usually make resolutions, since they seem so ripe for disappointment. I do have goals I would like to accomplish this year. One is, of course, finishing my dissertation. That is something I would very much like to see happen in 2008, and will work hard to make that a reality. Another thing I will try for this year is grace. Grace towards myself. Yes, I would like to get in better shape, which I think I have been moving towards over the past month. I am also going to get together sometime this week with my running partner, whom I'll call Scoop, and talk about races we want to sign up for over the coming year. Always good to have goals to work towards. And I want to keep up my asana practice and keep lifting weights, both of which make me feel really good. But I also want to work on developing grace.

I am 41.5 years old. I am not going to look like I did when I was 20. I am also not going to look like I did when I was 35 and nursing my second child and at the same time running 40 miles a week and lifting and dieting to train for a figure competition (never got there-- the strict dieting was making me so crabby my husband begged me to stop. Since he is usually so supportive, I took this pretty seriously. There were other reasons to stop... but that's not the topic here). I will never look like that again. Yes, I want to eat better and work out more, but I have a much broader focus in  my life right now, and I don't think that my fitness will ever again be the prime focus of my life the way it used to be. And that needs to be okay. I am getting a doctorate. My kids are getting older. I need to go on internship in August, then develop a practice, etc. I've got a lot going on. And so I need grace. I need to work on loving myself.

I tell all my clients that if you don't like yourself and take care of yourself, it is awfully hard to like and take care of other people. It's time to start walking that walk. That does not mean making excuses. In fact, the opposite. Loving myself should be about taking good care of myself, both mentally and physically. And there is no better time to start that the present moment.