The Circle of (my) life

Yesterday I ended my post saying life is good. And it is. So why does my day start on such a sour note when my scale reads 2 pounds higher than I'd like it to? And why are those 2 pounds hanging around, despite my newly cleaned up eating habits?

Finding Om will ride again

My new supervisor, JL, has asked me to come up with a proposal for a one-day Finding Om seminar, which could be expanded into a multiple-session class if there is sufficient interest. Yaay!

This week the weather is freakishly warm. Too bad I'm cooped up in this office instead of outside raking my leaves. I love my internship so far, but I like being outdoors more than almost anything. I did get out and run with Scoop yesterday and today before coming in to work, which was such an incredible pleasure.

Life is good, isn't it?

High on the Confusion. Low on Wisdom.

It is pretty basic knowledge that when every fiber of your being is screaming at you to take a break and not work out because you are exhausted and unmotivated, you should probably listen or your body will make itself heard in other ways. I forgot to listen.

Friday I was running with the kids-- just goofing around, racing to the supermarket door-- and I fell, ripping open my hand badly enough that my dermatologist friend said it could use stitches "if there were any skin left." That sounds more dramatic than it is, but it ain't pretty. Then Saturday I ran 6 miles that felt like 100 and my knees were killing me, which is unusual. Sunday I was dragging ass and really wanted to take the day off but went to hot yoga instead.
Monday I went to the gym and injured myself. I'm not quite sure what I did but I was moving the bar down on the squat rack and felt a teeny little pop in my right wrist. Now my wrist hurts and is all swollen and hard to move. No way I can do yoga-- I tried a down dog, which was okay but chatturanga-- fuggetaboudit.

Crap crap crap. Why didn't I just take a stupid day off? At least the weather is supposed to be nice this week so I can get out and run.

And on the plus side, I am really liking my internship so far. I just (clearly) am still working on finding that balance. Well, my mashed up hand and the pain in my wrist will help with that for a few days, anyway.

Running in the snow

I did it-- I went out for a run anyway this morning. Snow, ice, wind and mud made a 45 minute run into an hour run but I had a great time, despite falling twice.

Also had a great time in substance abuse relapse prevention group. No kidding. This has been an all-star day.

First snow

I moved to Colorado Springs in 1997 and every year it has snowed before Halloween. This year, as of last night, is no exception. I woke up to a lovely blanket of white-- on roofs and lawns, not yet sticking to roads and sidewalks. I don't have to be at internship until 10am today and was all excited to go for a nice mellow run in the snow. The howling wind kind of killed that buzz. I hate running in any wind, let alone a wet cold one.

Internship is going well. I led my first group on Monday, second group tonight and I see my first client today. As with anything it is starting slowly but that's a good thing right now. I have a feeling I'll be pretty overwhelmed. Which is why I built my beloved Kundalini class into my standing Wednesday schedule. Clever, no? Especially on a night I have to work until 8pm.

I did a Mitzvah

Today I guided a blind runner in the Denver half marathon. It is a great race and it was a lot of fun. We finished in 2:11, which was 11 minutes after Bruce's ideal goal but 19 before what he would have been satisfied with (2:30). Saw lots of runners I know and everyone was cheering for us and I was happy that people I know saw me guiding Bruce. I am struggling a little with the feeling of being happy that people I know saw me. This was supposed to be a selfless act, an act that was gratifying in and of itself. And it was. So why do I feel I need kudos?

After the run I drank way too much beer before 12 noon at the Lefthand Brewing company tent which was sponsored by the Colorado Chapter of the American Council for the Blind. Basically any amount of beer before noon is too much, but it was a special occasion. Or at least that was my justification. Now it is 8 pm and I can barely keep my eyes open.

Tomorrow starts my first full week of internship. I am nervous and worried that my current exhaustion is just a prelude of things to come. I am going to give myself this week to get adjusted-- don't have to freak out about workouts or having a clean house or perfect meas or anything, just start getting into a schedule and see how it goes. Or at least that's my idea.

10 hours down, 1,990 to go

This internship business is going to be a longer road than I thought. The state of Colorado requires a 1500 hour pre-doctoral internship. The one I have accepted and which I began yesterday requires 2000 hours. How I missed this rather important detail until today is something of a mystery, but suddenly I have to work 500 more hours than I thought. HARSH.

That said, I think this is going to be a really good experience. Tiring, no doubt stressful, but a good experience nonetheless. JL, my supervisor, was open to my ideas about yoga therapy. He even suggested the possibility of running some sort of Finding Om-like group on a Saturday. Cool! We are literally right next to a yoga studio and I know one of the instructors so this may not be too difficult to orchestrate. But I don't want to get ahead of myself...

Next week I begin to see clients, go to staff meetings, get supervision, sit in on a few assessments and possibly accompany someone to court. I will also begin leading groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6-8pm. I am a co-leader, so the first few times it's fine if I just hang out and get an idea of the way things work, which I think I will. Both. Hang out and get an idea.

I have a feeling that I'll be exhausted by the end of next week. But I'll have knocked out another 40 hours!

But before all that I guide Bruce the Blind Runner in the Denver Half Marathon, which is this Sunday.

Frost on the ground

Woke up this morning to frost on the ground. Winter is coming. So is my internship. Yes, yes. Today is the day. I am ready. It's time to move on to the next phase of my life.

I woke up in plenty of time to do a yoga video or run a few miles on the treadmill but decided that I'd rather drink coffee and bum around in my pajamas. There will be plenty of time for that typical working woman kind of morning. A whole year at least. Today I'll take a moon day.

My weight was not too heavy this morning, which is a nice start and I think I will interpret as a good sign of things to come. Sadly, it always makes me happier to weigh lighter, even as the weight I accept as okay (like this morning) is higher than what I would have been happier with 1-2 years ago. Diet, laziness or age? Probably all of the above.

What are my goals for internship? I suppose my main goal is to finish in time to graduate. Second internship-related goal I have would be learning lots and lots, including hopefully Motivational Interviewing and having a chance to implement some of my yoga therapy ideas with this non-eating disordered population.

Another goal--equally important to me-- is to get back towards the kind of physical shape I would like to be in. Part of the reason I let my fitness slip recently has been the mental effort I was putting into completing my dissertation. Now I want to get into a rhythm with work and get serious again about my working out. I'm not sure what that is going to look like right now but I think it can happen. It was not the time that the dissertation took, but rather that I only had energy in my brain for one main goal. Doing a good job at internship is not so big that it will crowd out anything else. The biggest challenge will be balancing all I want to do: run, lift weights and yoga, basically, as well as balance the fact that I'm not going to look like I did when I was training for a bodybuilding/figure competition. We'll see how it works out.

I also need time to do lots and lots (and lots) of homework with my younger daughter whom, I was informed at her parent-teacher conference yesterday, is being put on an ILP, or individualized literacy program. We have George W. Bush and his no child left behind program to thank for this. The literacy teacher informed me that 10 years ago my girl would have "fallen through the cracks" but that thanks to W. she can get the help she needs. And together we can do 40 minutes of homework a day, not counting what she gets from her regular 2nd grade class-- which, fortunately, takes about 10 minutes. When I mentioned to the literacy teacher how long the homework took, kind of questioning whether a 7 year old really needed that much work, she suggested I begin timing it and reward her for bringing it down to 39 minutes.

Sigh. Maybe with my whopping $12,000 internship salary I can pay the babysitter, a cleaning lady, my school tuition AND a tutor.

Enough complaining. Time to get psyched. Maybe I'll run around the house throwing air punches, Rocky-style.

My internship starts tomorrow

I hiked the Manitou incline this morning then did a Kundalini yoga class. After that I came home and made very healthy apple walnut quick bread but decided it was way too healthy so I covered it in chocolate chips and then ate half of it.

Now I feel full and kind of gross but also kind of good in a gross way. I think I craved an exercise/food binge before starting this new phase of life. And I may succumb to a bit of a drinking binge later. Will help make the presidential candidate debates go down easier anyway. Not so much of anything that I feel sick for the first day of work, though, which kinds of means the eating needs to be curtailed asap.

Four more days

Today is the last weekend day of my pre-internship life. Then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, SHAZAAM! Full-time job, here I come.

By this time next week I will have worked two whole days of my internship which, as I have previously mentioned, will be the first full-time job I have held since having children. Or since getting married, which I did in 1995. I have worked since then, both doing freelance journalism and as a therapist at my school's mental health clinic. However, I have not had to be somewhere 9 (!) hours a day 5 days a week in a long, long time.

In truth, I'm excited to begin. I mean, I have to start it to finish it, and they won't let me graduate without completing internship. Plus, I have heard that HCH is a great place to work and I look forward to getting some really good experience, as well as putting my nascent Phoenix Rising Yoga therapy skills to work.

But I am also getting really, really nervous. This is going to be a big change for my entire family. I don't think any of us realizes how big. But I also know that it will all be fine. A rough month or two, perhaps, but mostly just fine.

I miss shwag

Okay, so this is painfully shallow and especially embarassing given not even a full 24 hours have passed since Yom Kippur. But here goes:

I miss shwag. I used to work in the magazine industry and we would get lots of free stuff. I worked at Folio: (the colon is part of the name), the trade journal for the magazine business so a lot of our shwag was other magazines, which is fine with me because I am a magazine whore. I will read almost anything and, unlike Ms. Wannabe VP, I can and will name names.

Some of the shwag was invites to parties at incredibly hip places that I probably never would have heard of otherwise with great free drinks and awesome musical acts like onetime I saw and even got to meet the Neville Brothers, which was also of course great.

And then there was the... you know... stuff. I like stuff. I get rid of lots of stuff all the time because I don't like stuff hanging around for very long. "Keep it light enough to travel" resonates strongly with me, despite the size of my suburban abode. I still have the illusion that everything I need can be carried on my back-- which is actually probably true.

But what can I say. I am an American. I grew up in and am a product of our consumer culture. And speaking of products, I like them, especially when they are free things I kind of covet but ordinarily would not pay money for. Sparkly makeup comes to mind. So do kitchen gadgets, especially those relating to alchoholic beverages. Yoga gear. Warm running headbands....

Now I am a psychology graduate student and get reverse shwag. Like, could you volunteer to do free depression screenings on Monday at the local health clinic because it is depression awareness day. Noble, yes. Worthy, yes. Shwag, no.

Sigh. I hate to admit this about myself but there it is. I need something new and free. Maybe the expo at the Denver half marathon will help cure this. There is always lots of free athletica there.

Orienteering Maven

I volunteered at my daughter's school this morning as a chaperone on an orienteering trip through a local park. The kids were divided into groups with a few kids and a parent, given a map, a punch card and a time limit.

We had to punch our cards at 10 stations. The kids read the map and we jog/walked most of the time. Lo and behold, our group (which included my daughter) set the record for fastest all-girl group ever. I think I went up a notch or two on the maternal coolness scale. Nice.

Running really is meditative

I always thought running was moving meditation. I didn't really need proof, but now I have it in the form of a quote from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, "a renowned teacher of Buddhist meditation and 3:05 marathoner" (Runner's World). In the November issue of that magazine, Sakyong that "peace is really a living, active experience, which is embodied in running."

On his own web site, the monk says that "With a body made joyous through movement, the mind is able to relax. With mind/body balance, we can take the power of feeling good and generate compassion... As runners we connect to the earth and reach for sky. By challenging and extending ourselves we become more than who we thought we were. With a relaxed and vast mind we can then extend this sense of peace to the rest of the world."

Yes, yes, yes. This is seconded not only by me but by a recent article in Monitor on Psychology which talked about how repetitive athletic activities, notably running, can induce a relaxation response in the brain. I knew that. Every runner knows that.

Of the 15K Peace Run, which was held at the Shambhala monastery in northern Colorado last July, about which I read in Runner's World and in which I plan to participate next year, Sakyong says that “Running is always such a personal thing, and to be able to run for something greater than oneself was wonderful.”

On that note, in 2 weeks I will be guiding a blind runner in the Denver Half marathon. Because I agree. To be able to run for something greater than oneself is wonderful.

I'm, like, almost famous

A whole bunch of years ago I spent about 6 months living with my aunt and uncle in Anchorage, Alaska. Got a few jobs, made a few friends, had lots of fun.

So today a friend forwards me a New York Times article dated Sept 13th that says: "Ms. Palin appointed ... another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc."

Okay, so here's the thing. I KNEW THAT GUY!! He lived next door to the friend who sent me the article. And I know it's really him because at the time he managed the local Mailboxes Etc. And guess what? I MADE OUT WITH HIM AT A NEW YEARS EVE PARTY!!!

So perhaps the only good news that could come out of a McCain/Palin victory is that I will be able to tell everyone that I made out with the new Secretary of Commerce.

See? There's always a bright side to everything if you look hard enough.