August Juice Cleanse Diaries

Day 1: Wednesday July 30, 2014

Day 2: Thursday July 31, 2014

Days 3 & 4: Friday August 1 & Saturday August 2, 2014

How NOT to Just Say F**k It: 5 Strategies for Getting Back on Track

Let's be real.

Those of us who have goals around health and wellness aren't perfect. (That's OK, by the way!) From time to time, we'll make decisions that are contrary to the promises we make to ourselves. Some examples of goals we might have include:

• Limiting sugar | caffeine | alcohol | chocolate intake
• Exercising | moving more
• Going to bed or getting up earlier
• Reducing time spent watching TV | playing on Facebook

You get the idea.

So what happens to the day or the week when, for example, you have more than the amount of <whatever> you said you'd have; you fail to exercise, to get to bed / wake earlier, or to limit your technology usage? I'm sure some of you can relate to the feeling of, "oh f**k it, since I did / didn't do X I might as well (either do more X or do Y too)...". It's almost like there's a rebel that comes up inside us, pointing out that we haven't been perfect so "why not just toss the whole stupid idea out the window!" It can be very tempting, especially when that part says, "you can just start over tomorrow / next week".

That voice prevents us from starting over in the present moment. In other words, right NOW.

Here are 5 strategies to help you get back on track, in the moment. Have others? Let me know!

1. Discover the teaching and use it to create a new strategy: Write down why you did / didn't do what you wanted, how it felt at the time and/or how it feels now. Coming from the perspective that you did exactly what you needed to do at the time, explore what you could learn from the experience. What might you do differently if that situation arises again? For example: "I ate the brownie because really I was dehydrated and needed more water. The next time I have a brownie craving, I'll have a glass of water first."
   
   
2. Stop making specific promises altogether: Instead, bring more mindfulness to your daily activities, pay closer attention to how you feel, and honor the higher goal of "progress"--getting a little healthier each day. Let go of "measuring" every detail and allow yourself to be more intuitive about what is good for you and what isn't. In other words, focus on the big picture rather than the details.
   
   
3. Put it in perspective: Someone passed along to me a great quote from Jillian Michaels, which was along the lines of "so you messed up and didn't stick to the plan -- so what? You didn't ruin anything. If you have one flat tire do you then slash the other three?" One or two or even five of anything doesn't mean the rest of your day or week is done for.
   
   
4. Move to a different environment: Just eat an entire bag of chips after sitting at your desk for hours? Go for a walk outside. Sometimes change happens from the inside out. Other times, it can happen from the outside in. Maybe next time you think about having chips, you'll realize you just need a break, and take the walk instead!
   
   
5. Create appointments with yourself (and set reminders): Schedule the time you'll spend online, the time you'll exercise, or even the time you'd like to go to bed. When your timer goes off, stop, and do what your reminder tells you! Have trouble stopping and taking a lunch break? Put it on your calendar with a note to yourself. Here's one of mine: "Lunch: GET UP & TAKE A BREAK!" Maybe at 9 pm, you set a reminder on your phone that says, "Charge me, shut me off and go read your book in bed!" If it's scheduled, honor your commitment as you would attending a doctor's appointment, or going to a beloved friend's wedding.

Defining Myself as a Teacher of Yoga

I mentioned in my previous blog post that life events seemed to be pulling me deeper into teaching yoga, despite my plans to develop other aspects of my health and wellness consultancy, such as Reiki and Eating Psychology Coaching. Since then, I've also noticed that I'm being asked to identify what I really value when I teach yoga to a group of students. Here's the example that's driving this reflection.

I currently teach a range of yoga classes. In a single week, I may teach (in order of advertised difficulty): restorative or chair yoga, gentle yoga, hatha yoga, vinyasa flow yoga, and hot power yoga. Currently the former classes occur mostly at a studio; the latter at various local gyms.

What I often hear from students at the gyms is that my teaching is "slow". Most quickly follow that description with smiles and gratitude, telling me how much they appreciate it. A few seemingly present it to me with some disdain, as if I'd somehow gotten in the way of their intense stretching workout. Yet even when I create and offer faster and more challenging sequences for the super fit gym yogis, I watch as they consistently:

• Don't align themselves in the postures correctly, regardless of my cues
• Can't keep up with the speed of the flow
• Take respite in child's pose (which is awesome, by the way!)
• Are dripping sweat
• Can't focus their attention 
• Can't coordinate their breath with their movements
• Scrunch up their faces and hold their breath
• And so on....

Now, I'm not saying this to rag on any of my students. What is puzzling to me as a teacher is this: when I see these things, I do not feel that it's in anyone's best interest for me to pick up the pace, or otherwise add intensity. At the most basic level, my top priority is to keep my students safe from injury, so they have the opportunity to practice again tomorrow. Regardless of my plans for any class, I always adjust to the feedback I'm getting as I look and walk around the room. So what are these yogi's who negatively comment about my slow teaching pace searching for?

A former dance instructor was able to relate to my confusion. He said, "you are trying to teach people to dance, and they just want patterns." Meaning, the point at which a dance move or a yoga posture can be executed correctly (physically) is not the END of the learning process; rather, it's just the beginning. Yet many people who have difficulty executing even the basic physical shape in yoga classes--e.g. those who would be aided greatly by the use of props but refuse to use them--keep wanting more, to "skip ahead" to...I don't know what. Maybe it's just cultural: everything in our lives is so quick these days; slowing down to really feel into our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our souls is the real challenge, and it's too much. We'd rather continuing to distract with speed. (Believe me, I can relate.) However, truly advanced yoga students understand that this is the real intensity of their practice: yoga as a "work-in" (as opposed to a "work-out")*.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that such paradox is making me think more clearly about what I value as a teacher of yoga (rather than a "yoga teacher"). My initial training in teahing yoga by two of the best yoginis at one of the most reputable yoga schools in the country started me on this journey, and I continue to develop and learn through my own experience what I feel is important to pass along to my students.

Regardless of where I teach, what my title or the official class title is, creating a safe space (through my languaging, my use of the environment, and my pacing) that allows students to explore themselves not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally is of utmost importance to me. That is how I define myself as a teacher of yoga, how I feel most authentic and true. It's how I maintain my integrity, and it's the kind of relationship I always want to cultivate with my students.

Teachers of yoga, have you experienced similar contradictions? Students, tell me your thoughts on "slow" classes.

An endless student of yoga,
Kali


*As stated by Judith Hanson Lasater

"6 Weeks to Relaxation" Coming in July!

Holy cow, it's going to be July soon! Need new relaxation techniques to sooth body, mind, and spirit? Join my "6 weeks to relaxation" series starting July 2. 

Series or drop-in possible; virtual attendance available too!

30 Days to a Happier & Healthier Me

A mocha latte

As some of you know, starting June 15th I'm facilitating a Facebook group called "30 Days to a Happier & Healthier You Practice". In it, each person decides one habit they'd like to practice encouraging, or one habit they'd like to practice softening. I'm specifically calling this a practice (rather than, for example, a "challenge") because although it may be challenging, it's not intended to be something we beat ourselves up over when we're not perfect at it. The idea is that we support each other, and just keep trying.

Of course as the facilitator of such a group, I have many ideas about what I could do for myself and post about. I have to set an example, right? So my first thought was that I could do anything EXCEPT giving up coffee (again). That would just be too challenging.

A little history of me and coffee: back in the day I was never really into it. I used to have one cup (read, 8 oz) in the morning with a powdered milk substitute. I preferred Dunkin over Starbucks. (Yes, really.) And then something happened--especially after I got a job in the city of Boston--I was surrounded with coffee shops. I got hooked on a morning Starbucks, joining in the morning ritual,  feeling all "Sex and the City". Soon I decided visiting the Boston Common Coffee Co was a better, more local alternative. I started drinking americanos and almond milk lattes. When I moved to Austin, the first thing I did was check out all of the coffee shops I could find. My favorite is Monkey Nest Coffee--where you'll often find me working.

When I'm doing a cleanse, I get off coffee pretty easily. I drink a lot of water, and don't have too many symptoms (e.g. headaches). But I miss it terribly. I miss the imagined comradery with other coffee drinkers. I miss greeting the people who make my drink, take my money, and stamp my frequent visitor card. I miss the ritual. Drinking coffee gives me pleasure; pleasure beyond what comes from the energy boost of the caffeine. (Anyone who's ever shared quarters with me knows I'm generally wide awake and perky somewhere between 5-6 am, even without it.)

So I could do anything but give up coffee as part of this practice. Right? Hmm....

Well truth be told, the group of people who have agreed to participate in this 30 day practice have inspired me. They've inspired me to set an example by being REALISTIC, to set myself up for something challenging enough to require practice but to still be ACHIEVABLE. So for the next 30 days, my practice will be to have one SMALL coffee drink no more than 3 times a week.

As part of this practice I will explore:

• what it is about drinking coffee that gives me so much pleasure? 
• how does it "fill me up" emotionally? 
• what am I afraid will happen if I don't drink it? 
• what tools can I use to get through times when I'm really craving it? 
• what needs does drinking coffee fulfill for me? 
• how can I enjoy working in a coffee shop environment without over-drinking coffee? 
• what is it I really desire?

It's my belief that we have difficulty changing habits because we focus on the "giving up" part by trying to use willpower. However, the habit represents something that's important to us, so we need to explore the deeper meaning behind the habit first. What are its benefits (even if we do label it as "unhealthy" or "bad")? How does the habit make us feel better, how does it serve us?

Only when we answer these questions will habits soften and perhaps fall away.

I'm ready to explore. I'm ready to practice. And I promise you, I will not be perfect. :-)

I hope you'll join me. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/1430137057252728/.

2 More Tips for Deep Breathing

Third in a series of breathing videos. In this one, I offer two tips that can help you find more ease in the three-part, diaphragmatic breath. (2mins)

Transcript

So before we add sound to our long, deep, diaphragmatic breath, there's just a couple things I want to say.

The first is that if you find you have difficulty imagining the breath pouring in from the chest, and then moving down into the rib cage and down into the belly, you can try actually doing the opposite. The first way I learned was actually the opposite direction--so, sometimes it's easier to feel the belly rise and fall with the breath than it is to feel the chest--it might depend on how you breathe normally and naturally. So if you find that it's difficult to sort of imagine that top down, you can just reverse the direction and start feeling the breath from the belly then moving it up into the rib cage, up into the chest as you inhale, and then as you exhale you can imagine it flowing back down. So you can try both directions and see which one works for you. I'm all about experimenting so you can try them both and pick one that you think works better for you.

The second thing I want to say before we add sound to the breath is that you want to think about opening the chest and allowing room for the diaphragm to move. So one of the easier ways that you can play with posture is to just inhale and bring your arms up over your head, lift your chest, relax your shoulders down; imagine as though you're reaching up to the sky. You can look up if it's safe for your neck. And just open up as much as you can and really reach through your fingers. Make sure they're nice and active. And then round yourself forward, imagine as though you're hugging a beach ball. Just kind of rounding the shoulders down, drawing the belly in and up, and then inhale and lift and expand. And as you exhale, round. And do that a couple times and it will just help to open the chest and then you can try the deep breathing again and see if it improves.

Thank you so much!

Learning to Breathe More Deeply - Part 2

This is the second in a video series I'm releasing this week. Learn the three-part yogic breath, or complete diaphragmatic breath--helps not just in yoga class, but in life! (3mins)

Transcript

Now that you can sit comfortably and observe the breath in your body, it’s time to invite it to change. In yoga, this is called the three-part  breath.

First, bring your attention to your chest. Feel the chest rise on your inhale, and fall on your exhale. You can envision a balloon in the chest that’s filling up with air as you breathe in, and that’s deflating slightly as you breathe out.

Practice focusing on the breath in you r chest. If it’s helpful, you can even place a hand there, just to remind you. Feel the chest pressing up into the hand, and moving away from the hand slightly. Try not to force.

Next, see if you can expand the idea of the balloon from the breath into the solar plexus, or rib cage area. So as you inhale the breath fills the chest, and it flows down to the rib cage. As you exhale, the breath moves up, from the rib cage to the chest—that balloon deflating. Again, if it’s helpful to place the hands on the chest and the rib cage  you can do so, feeling the breath move in, and move out.
Just practicing these two parts together. That balloon inflating as the breath comes in, and deflating slightly as the breath goes out. Just visualize the balloon, and be careful not to force the breath.

Finally, inflate that balloon from the chest, down into the rib cage, and then into the belly, allowing the belly to really inflate with that breath. As you exhale, draw the navel toward the spine, squeezing the breath out up to the rib cage and up to the rib cage, adding the third of the three parts to the three part breath. Just imagine that balloon rising and falling, inflating and deflating.

If you feel comfortable you can start to imagine the balloon not just at the front of the body, but also at the sides of the waist, the ribs and the chest, and into the back body as well -- all 360 degrees.
Practice this for just a few moments every day, and you’ll find that you can breathe more deeply and fully any time you like.

Learn to Breathe More Deeply - Part I

This is the first in a video series I'll be releasing this week. (3mins)

Transcript

Hello, I’m Kali Patrick from A Journey into Health.

This video series is for anyone who wants to learn to breathe more deeply and fully.

Complete, diaphragmatic breathing has many health benefits;  in my opinion, reducing stress and tension is one of the most important. In this video, we’ll first learn how to arrange the body for optimal breathing, and then work on developing “witness consciousness”, which is just a fancy way of saying “paying attention”.

So let’s get started.

Find a comfortable seat, either cross legged on the floor with a little something like a folded blanket under your hips, or in a chair. If you’re in a chair, your feet are flat on the floor, and your back is nice and straight. Consider not using the back of the chair, or placing a pillow behind you.

Soften your face and your shoulders, allowing your arms to hang loose, with your hands resting in your lap. Either close your eyes, or bring your gaze down to the floor in front of you. 

Now just notice that you’re breathing. Without trying to change your breath in any way, simply pay attention. Connect with that part of you that is able to witness what’s happening in your body as you breathe. Be curious.

How is your breath showing up in this moment? How might you describe it to someone? Is it short, long, choppy, smooth, irregular, flowing  or halting? Imagine as though you had to describe what breathing in and out were like to someone who didn’t know.

Notice if you’re eager to “do something” about your breathing. See if you can surrender that desire and simply breathe. Observe.

The only thing for you to do right now is inhale, exhale, and cultivate this sense of awareness.

Juiceland Juice Cleanse: Day 3 Finally Brings Dedication?

Update: I'm doing another 3 day starting 6/26. I'm actually very excited about it. Since this cleanse I've gotten very into juices, and I've found that I missed them! I even ended up purchasing several in between. :-) So we'll see how round 2 goes!

---

OK, so on day 3 I'm acutely aware of the fact that I've "cheated" for 2 out of 3 of my juice cleanse days. But the honest the truth is, I'm OK with that. To remind us all, "cheating" entailed a handful of pistachios, some crystallized ginger, and a bag of frozen peas (defrosted and cooked, with a little salt, of course)!

Still, day 3 brought new dedication to stay just on juice and tea and water. How did it go? Well, I DEFINITELY felt the need to eat food, especially around lunchtime, which was always the time I ended up snacking on real food. I made it past that milestone, yay!

I also managed to do some Ashtanga yoga, though not the entire thing. I made it to asana #5 in the seated sequence, which isn't bad given my limited caloric intake. In fact, it felt really good. I felt like I was able to engage my lower bandhas in a way I hadn't before.

Other things I noticed today (also yesterday, though I'm not sure I mentioned them):

• My nose is occasionally runny, and I've been sneezing a bit. 
• I'm SO COLD! It's about 90 degrees here in Austin, and it feels hotter if you're in the sun or a car. Yet whenever I'm in the apartment, a store, or any place where there's any breeze or AC, I'm cold. (Great idea do to a hockey game last night, wasn't it? LOL.)
• The taking of an herbal laxative on day one has kept me loose for days 2 and 3, no more required!
• More water between juices helps with hunger (duh).
• My primary craving (every day!) was for a banana.

When I picked up my juices this morning, I wanted a pick-me-up, as I was missing my coffee and feeling sluggish. The girl at the counter was friendly, helping me decide how to make yerba matte less yucky. She was on her way to make me a lovely sounding version with pineapple and cayenne, when I changed my request to the yerba matte latte that grossed me out last week. My thought was I'd try it without the agave--no luck though, I drank 1/2 of it and was nauseous. I don't think yerba matte is for me, else the hemp milk is just too much. (I've never been a "drink milk in a significant quantity" type of person--of any milk, even the alternatives--although I use them often for smoothies and baking.)

Anyway, I ended up going to Whole Foods to have food on hand for tomorrow. It wasn't so bad, and I even found myself looking at what juices they have. I plan to do a smoothie in the morning, unless of course I'm craving the organic omega-3 eggs, the smoked salmon, the organic cauliflower, avocados, or bananas, blackberries, blueberries, apple, and pear that I bought! :-) I plan to have a salad with those ingredients for lunch, and a light halibut with bok choy for dinner.

Around 5 pm I felt really wiped, but I'd also gone to the chiropractor who put my body back in alignment after I'd done a great job knocking it out, sitting in front of my laptop with bad posture for too long, putting together my upcoming workshop content (see http://ajourneyintohealth.blogspot.com/2014/05/upcoming-workshop-announcement.html). I was so sluggish that at 6:30pm, before teaching a Hatha class, I caved and had a banana! Oh well.

I do like the idea of doing this once a month. My hypothesis is that it should be easier to break poor habits by cleansing more regularly. At least 3 days out of the month, my body would get a break from the toxins I love: coffee, chocolate, and alcohol! Speaking of which, I'm not sure when those will get re-introduced, but my guess is that a nice dark chocolate will be the first on the list--it was last time!

JuiceLand Juice Cleanse Day 2: Body Hate & Bad Hockey

Update: I'm doing another 3 day starting 6/26. I'm actually very excited about it. Since this cleanse I've gotten very into juices, and I've found that I missed them! I even ended up purchasing several in between. :-) So we'll see how round 2 goes!

---

Well with no celery and more variety of juices, there isn't much to say about Day 2.  The juices were fine; it was me who wasn't.

I cheated again with the crystallized ginger and handful of pistachios, and then had a bag of frozen peas (cooked of course). Sigh. Around lunch time I just really wanted to eat FOOD! I then ended up in a funk about how much weight I'd gained over the past few years, but decided that I was going to don a bathing suit and go to the pool to get some sun ANYWAY. That was all fine until a gang of kids came and started making comments about "the lady's bootie". Fortunately I was enthralled with Bruce H. Lipton's Biology of Belief and was able to ignore most of it before I left at my usual time.

I tried to do some exercise too--I decided to pull out my difficult Bar Method DVD because I didn't make it to a class, but then I found I really couldn't do much. I desperately need another chiropractic adjustment, so everything just feels off , and that has nothing to do with juice.

Overall I felt disappointed in myself, which led to old familiar feelings of hating my body. But as I rode to the Cedar Park Center to watch the Texas Stars get their butts whipped in game 6 of the AHL Western Conference Finals, I decided that I could spend those three hours beating myself up with automatic negative thoughts, or I could go and have fun. I decided on the latter.

It was somewhat more difficult than usual to smell things and not want all the nasty food stuffs there. One smell that stood out in particular for me was ketchup (which I never eat, weird!)

I slept mostly OK, but woke up to a nightmare about discovering that my juice was ground up body parts--likely due to a comment made yesterday by a yoga student's husband, who said that in the 60s or 70s there was a movie like that, though I can't find any reference to it.

More than yesterday, I am thinking this would be a good once-a-month "clean house" kind of thing. Although I will admit to getting excited about eating food. Honestly, what I really have been craving is a banana.

JuiceLand Juice Cleanse: The Celery Madness of Day 1

Update: I'm doing another 3 day starting 6/26. I'm actually very excited about it. Since this cleanse I've gotten very into juices, and I've found that I missed them! I even ended up purchasing several in between. :-) So we'll see how round 2 goes!

---

A few weeks ago I got a wild hair to try another juice cleanse. (In fact, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little mini-cleanse at the start of each month.) I played around on JuiceLand's web site and decided to go hard core, for the "Purify" package. Here's what happened on Day 1.

Because I was teaching Sunday morning it was best to pick up my juice Saturday night. That was totally convenient; I was excited, until I got home and realized how many of my juices were green. This turned out to be the correct instinct: I HATE celery. I don't tend to eat celery, and I should have known because I can always overtaste it in veggie stock. Of course celery was in EVERY green juice, as well as the one other juice that wasn't green (that was better). I was totally relieved it wasn't in my Green Hemp Milk, which I added on for more calories.

The other thing I learned is that I need variety. Having 2 of the same juices (2 Cold Pressed Green) two times (also 2 Cocolillys) just wasn't working for me. Fortunately, I sent email to every address they had for cleanses, and they agreed that they'd allow me to customize my order for an extra $8 (worth it!) and leave the celery out of the next day's batch. When I got to the store however, there was a mix up with the customization, and so we ended up taking some bottles out of the cooler to get the order right. (Apparently the cleanse juices aren't made at that particular site.) Whew!

I had a pounding headache pretty much all day long, but I hadn't slept well the prior two nights due to nightmares and general restlessness, so I attributed it to that. When I still had the headache after a nap though, I started wondering whether it was that + my love of coffee. (I had been better though--only drinking it before noon!)

I did cheat a little bit: I felt nauseous after drinking yet.another.green...I noticed this when flipping over onto my belly outside by the pool. I came inside and had a few pieces of crystallized ginger and a handful of pistachios because I was feeling desperate.

Another thing that I'm re-learning: I like to chew my food! It's just not as satisfying to me to be drinking everything. It must be that cephalic phase digestive response, and I'm wondering whether not deriving as much pleasure from my food offsets any nutrient absorption I'm getting from the fact that it's somewhat pre-digested for me. I ended up skimming through the online screening of "Super Juice Me"(it seemed relevant), and all I could think was "BUT I LIKE BROCCOLI!!!" (the narrator mentions that juicing has been beneficial for him because he hates vegetables like broccoli). I enjoy eating healthy fruits and vegetables--I could do it all day long!

I also found myself pretty hungry later in the evening, and wishing I hadn't used up my last lemon in my water, because I WANTED to make a Master Cleanse lemonade drink. (I had tried this cleanse--for experimental purposes of course--back in May, and lasted 8 out of the 10 days with little hunger.) I'm not sure why I could drink the same thing all day long, and not feel hungry, while on the Master Cleanse yet not feel this way drinking different flavors of vegetable and fruit juice. Hmmm....

And one really rare occurrence, before I pack this up for Day 2: I ended up sleeping through my 5am alarm this morning. I have a Zen alarm clock, one that chimes more frequently and intensely the longer you ignore it. It took me a LONG WHILE to figure out it was going off. I decided not to go to Barre class this morning, and to sleep in until 7:30. So yay, I slept well! On to Day 2.

Does the number on your bathroom scale wreak havoc on your mood?

Mine used to.

Isabelle Tierney's recent post, titled "God in Facebook Form" got me thinking about another way many of us end up seeking validation: seeing a particular number on the bathroom scale.

During a particularly difficult time in my life (when I was under a lot of stress and feeling pretty trapped), I developed a pretty serious obsession with my weight. My rationale was that in 8th grade I was 5 feet tall and 100 lbs. Going on birth control at 16 gained me 3 pounds, but I was OK with that. Fast forward 20+ years later, and you'd find me incredibly focused on getting back down to that specific number of 103 (since obviously I wasn't getting any taller). I think I was around 110 lbs when all that started. When I hit rock bottom, I'd gotten myself up to 120 lbs--all by trying ridiculously hard to get the long and lean body I envied, weighing myself every day (sometimes more than once). That extra weight wasn't muscle either: it was from the binging and overeating caused by how the number on the scale contributed to my already fragile mood.

When I started studying to become an Eating Psychology Coach, one of the first things that Marc David, the founder and primary teacher in the training said, was that we should get rid of the scale. In addition to the fact that there are normal fluctuations in body weight, he alluded to the psychological impact that seeing a particular number can have on us. In my case, if I weighed less than I had previously, or I was closer to my goal weight, stepping on the scale would have a positive effect on my mood. I'd find myself smiling, and being happy and confident in my body until my next weigh in. If I weighed more or hadn't made any progress, I'd feel terrible. I'd go through my day thinking I was "fat and disgusting" (and I can't count how many times I said that phrase aloud, further putting it "out there" into the Universe and making it seem more real)!

At first I found myself very reluctant to give up this mood-altering ritual. But eventually, the scale went into the closet. I pulled it out once a week instead of stepping on it every day, but I found that even the decreased frequency seemed to have the same effect on my mood. Weight down, mood up. Weight up, mood down. So back in the closet it went, and as I started to really internalize that I could love my body as it is (yet still exercise and eat well to be strong, flexible, and healthy),

I'm happy to report that it's been over a month since the difference between a number in my brain and the one on a little square device has had any power over my mood, my confidence, or my life. Do I still think about weighing myself sometimes? Of course. Do I do it? Nope. Instead I remind myself that I can give my gifts to the world because of what is inside of me; and if that doesn't work, I do something I know will make me feel good, like yoga. (And oftentimes, those self-care activities are exactly what I need to be as healthy as I can be! Funny how that works.)

Do you smile when you're practicing yoga?

As a yoga instructor at both a studio and a gym, I teach many students who are brand new to yoga. It's not uncommon for me to have one or more people in my class who have never done yoga before, and are feeling a little uncertain about their decision to try it.

One of the things I emphasize in my classes, beyond encouraging students to tune into the wisdom of their bodies, in addition to asking them to really pay attention to their breathing, and above asking them to (try to) stay out of their ego by only going as far as their body and their breath guide them, is to SMILE!

Most students love this, I believe because there are many things in life--family, work, school, etc.--that we all take so seriously. So when students come to my class and I encourage them to relax, strengthen, and stretch their bodies by being PLAYFUL and having some fun, the relief is almost palpable. (Balancing poses in particular are great opportunities for smiles and laughs!)

On the first yoga DVD I ever had, Baron Baptitse said (at a particularly challenging point in the class): "lift the inner corners of the lips". I often find myself using that sly phrase--among other techniques--to get people to smile during my classes. For example, when we begin to extend our legs for wide-angle forward fold, I'll joke "OK, now don't everyone get into that full split just yet!" My YTT peers might sneer when I admit to have saying, "blossom your buttocks to the sky" (which I do if I think my students will smile at the imagery). Sometimes I feel a bit like a stand-up comedian, and it's really an amazing class when the students get into it. 

When students aren't into it, I'm OK with that. I either keep trying, or if the class is entirely serious, I might tone it down a bit. What I notice though, is that it's often the students who may have been practicing yoga for awhile who don't smile, or seem to really let go.  And, I'm writing this blog because I think they may be missing out. It's been my belief that making that small change in the face--moving the muscles of the mouth into a smile--helps relax the body and release tension. Sure enough, I've discovered that there's some science to back up my hunch. :-)

The Smithsonian and Medical News Today both reported on an interesting study done for Psychological Science back in 2012, where researchers "looked at how different types of smiling, and people being aware of smiling, affected their ability to recover from stressful episodes." What they found was that smiling (even when the smiling was "faked"), reduced participants' heart rates as they attempted to perform a stressful task. The Smithsonian article states: "Since heart rate is an indicator of the body’s stress response, it seems as though the act of smiling actually reduced the participants’ overall stress level." Although there are no available sources, they also suggested there were others who indicate "that smiling could reduce levels of cortisol, a stress-related hormone."

When we are in yoga class, we are taking various shapes with the body, some of which may feel different, unnatural, or challenging (depending on our typical posture throughout the day). When we're feeling sensation in various muscles in the poses, we are in fact "stressing" the body, although in a good way. We use the breath, specifically the out-breath, to try and send relaxation, love, and compassion to those areas in the body. And, I believe more than ever before that smiling is yet another, simple and easy way to help ease the body into greater strength and flexibility during yoga.

So the next time you're in a yoga class (mine or someone else's), and you feel yourself tensing your body, losing your long deep breath, or pursing your lips in great seriousness, try putting on a smile. Like anything else you do in yoga class, let the smile be an exploration: what do you notice in your body, breath, mind, and spirit as you do this? Observe, pay attention, and then decide for yourself whether to do it again and again and again!

P.S.: For those of you who are serious (pun intended!) about taking your yoga practice off the mat, here's a short article listing some of the other benefits of smiling: http://goodrelaxation.com/2012/01/health-benefits-of-smiling/.

Is fear driving your behavior? (and what you can do about it!)

I see more and more people these days--and I count myself among these folks--whose behaviors are being driven from deep-seated, underlying fears.

Here are some of the ways I think fear manifests itself in our behaviors:

• The "I know I shoulds": Do you ever know what you should or shouldn't do, but you still don't act in accordance with that logical thought? (Some examples: "I know I should exercise because it's good for me", "I know that if I want to eat healthy, I shouldn't eat processed foods.")
  
• Overreacting: Do you ever respond emotionally to something, in a somewhat dramatic way, and you can't rationally understand why? (For example, even though I'd done something like this before and was fine, I ended up in tears the other night at "Painting with a Twist" because my painting was terrible. I knew it didn't matter, that the point was to have fun, but I left sobbing anyhow.)
• Endless procrastinating: Are you unsure of which direction to head in your relationship, your business, or your life? Because you don't know with 100% certainty what the right path is, do you stay stuck where you are? Do you find yourself complaining to friends and family about the same-old-things, while doing nothing or starting things you don't ever finish?
• Pushing through: Do you keep pushing yourself to work harder, faster, more efficiently at all costs? Do you find your sleep, weight, or overall health suffering, but feel like you just absolutely cannot take time for yourself because everything will fall apart? (Often stated as: "I know I should slow down and take more time for myself." :-) )
• Refusing to set boundaries: Are you often silent around parents, siblings, children, or bosses, coworkers, friends and significant others when you're feeling resentful (e.g. about obligations), angry, intruded upon, taken advantage of, unappreciated, overworked, or just plain "done" with a relationship? Do you think that standing up for yourself will just create conflict or rock the boat, so you hold your feelings inside?
• Not taking time to experience pleasure: All work and no play? Not eating that piece of chocolate or having that glass of wine because it will "make me fat and undesirable?" Multi-tasking during your pedicure? (see also Pushing through.)

Recognize yourself or someone you know in any of these? ;-)

OK, so what can we do about it? Here are my ideas:

• Acknowledge that fear is driving your behavior. You may be inclined to skip this, but as they say, recognizing you have a problem is the first step to moving through it. It can feel vulnerable to admit you are afraid, even to yourself, so it's not always easy! (If you happen to be a man or a professional woman, culture makes it worse, telling you this isn't desirable.)
  
• Accept that fear may not be rational. A dear friend and I used to call some reactions / behaviors we'd have "IFs" (for "irrational fears"). You can logically and rationally think through something, but fear isn't likely to respond to those tactics, so accepting that can be freeing. (I can't tell you how many times I listed all the practical reasons why I shouldn't binge, as I was raiding the pantry and downing a box of cookies.)
• Dive deep into fear. Yeah, I mean it. What are you really afraid of? That you'll end up homeless? Alone? Die? That no one will love you? That you'll lose your mind? That you're unlovable? Defective? That you'll cry forever and ever and never stop? Identify the real fears, and then either:
  • Imagine that your worst fear is really true. Totally counterintuitive, but see if you can FEEL into the fear on an emotional level, rather than trying to push it away with logic (that we know doesn't work). Be scared! Cry. Break a plate somewhere safe. Allow the fears to feel heard, listened to, seen. Breathe, and try your best to relax and surrender into it. Give it your full attention. When you emerge (which you will!) you may find that it's not as scary as all that, realize you'd ultimately be OK even if things went that way, discover that some things are truly beyond your control so you can release them, or that there are other choices you do have. Be open to the possibilities that letting go can show you!
  • Use "the work" to challenge the fear. Ever since I read "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie, I'm loving her four questions: 1) "Is it true? 2) Can you absolutely know that it's true? 3) How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought? 4) Who would you be without the thought?" Katie goes on to show us how to "turn the thought around", so if you're interested, check out her site. I found that when I started doing this with my (vast amount of) automatic negative thoughts (many of which were IFs), I couldn't end up getting past questions 1 or 2 (because the answer is either absolutely, unequivocally "yes" or "no", and it was never realistically 100% "yes".
• Do it anyway. Do what? Whatever it is you're afraid of. Let yourself cry and throw a tantrum, even if you fear never stopping. Finish that report or presentation, even if it's scary to think you might actually be successful. Slow down and take time for you, even if it means someone else may temporarily get upset with you for being "selfish". Tell your significant other that you need him to step up and help with the housework, or with the kids, even if it means having a discussion. Savor that glass of wine, rolling it around in your mouth as if your job was as a taster or critic. Fake it until you make it. Smile. Live today as if you had no fear.

Other ideas? Please share your comments!

Copyright: zigf / 123RF Stock Photo

My Solemn Vow to Self-Care

This afternoon, I am having a much-needed pedicure. Over the past month my poor feet and toes have been through numerous walks, hikes, yoga, and dance classes. They need some pampering, and a fresh new color! If you're anything like me, just "making an appointment" for such an indulgence can take a few weeks, as other, more important things (likely not at all related to self-care!) take priority.

And, if you're anything like me, actually ENJOYING these precious moments of self-care is equally difficult. The last time I had a pedicure, I preemptively apologized to the nice lady working with my feet because I had my iPod on and headphones in--likely listening to a module in my training toward becoming a certified Eating Psychology Coach. Yet of course the entire time, I found my eyes glued to the subtitles of the "chick flick" (possibly Legally Blonde 2) that played on the wide-screen TV in the boutique-like nail salon. Now what was it he said again? Repeat that please! ;-)

So today, as I embark on this hour of self-care, I solemnly vow not to take an iPod/headphones, a phone, a book, or anything else that might distract me from completely spacing out and getting completely lost and engrossed in some absolutely ridiculous movie. Can I do it?

Feel free to check in with me about that and ask how it went! :-)

AND, can YOU set aside some time for REAL, non-multitasking, complete surrendering and letting go of obligations, worries, work, etc. self-care today? JOIN ME!

Copyright: domenicogelermo / 123RF Stock Photo

How Our Ways of Speaking & Listening Can Mess Up Our Relationships

This morning I was reading David Deida's "Blue Truth: A Spiritual Guide to Life & Death and Love & Sex", and a particular passage ruffled my feathers a bit.

Deida was explaining that people with masculine energies are more directive, while those with feminine energies offer "invitations to action". He says:

For instance, you are supposed to direct someone, even your lover, by telling him or her what to do rather than by inviting their action through expressing life's feeling. Your masculine statement, "Please turn on the heat," is considered more honest than your feminine invitation-through-feeling-expression, "I'm feeling really cold." People who are particularly proud of their masculine capacity consider this feminine style of invitation to be manipulative and covert. (p.118).

Arrgh!! Sigh!! Grrrr!!! And unfortunately, YES.

Thinking through my most recent romantic relationships, I can completely relate to this. In talking with men, I have become very specific about what I want them to do, and sometimes even when and how I want them to do it. I have even coached female clients to do this to help them improve their relationships.

What Deida goes on to say, however, is that when females fully embrace this masculine way of being and talking, it leaves little room for the men in relationship with us to step up and take charge with a solution. In other words, we don't "open a space in the moment for your lover to fill with masculine direction." (p. 120). And since the masculine desires freedom from obligation above all else, this tell-him-what-to-do approach will (at minimum) suck the fire out of your relationship (as there is little feminine energy to play with the masculine), and (at worst), result in his wanting out.

Deida's not the only one I've heard saying that passion is sparked from clear masculine and feminine energies playing off each other (called having "polarity"), just the most recent. And after reading his "Way of the Superior Man," in which he very clearly articulated everything I've always wanted from a romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex, I respect his advice. Here's my trouble and frustration: my experience has been that when I say something like "I'm feeling really cold" (which apparently is my natural, feminine tendency), men either:

• don't hear me speak (i.e. they're not listening at all)
• can't translate the invitation into the direct request "Please turn on the heat"
• don't act on that request

Deida goes on to encourage women to revisit this "invitation-through-feeling-expression" way of speaking, and what I like about this book is that he also caveats that with:

...if your masculine direction is more evolved than your lover's is, then you shouldn't surrender to your lover's masculine." (p. 133).

The "Way of the Superior Man" was all about how men need to create a deep sense of trust in their relationships, with Deida illustrating through thought-provoking prose how men do and do not "show up", thereby creating an inconsistency that does not lend itself to deep trust and opening by the feminine. In "Blue Truth", he speaks to men about how to re-engage with their masculine energy by "deepening their attention", which I agree is necessary for re-creating some masculine/feminine polarity, as well as trust and ways of speaking and listening that restore some of the passion in relationships!

Note: Before anyone gets riled up, please know that I'm not saying ALL men or ALL women have this issue, and know that I am very masculine in many ways (though as of late I'm exploring and trying to embrace more of my femininity). It's just something I've noticed in my personal experience.

What's been your experience? Are you a woman who has become more masculine in your way of speaking? Are you a man who frequently tunes out your partner because she's always "hinting" rather than saying what she really wants? How can we, as women, get a little more comfortable with our feminine voice? How can we, as men, get more attentive so our women trust us more?

4 Ways to Not Lose Your S**t While in Traffic

When I moved to Austin a few months ago, a local friend warned me about the traffic here. Being from Boston--where over the course of the past 13 years I honed my wicked Massholian driving skills--I casually brushed off his warnings much like I'd flick away a buzzing insect. Now, 5 months into adjusting to life in Texas, I will say that I'm still quite puzzled by how people drive here. I honestly don't get it, and I'm pretty confident that it's a large contributor to the traffic issue. But, I digress.

There have been times when I have felt stressed while in traffic; several local clients of mine have also expressed that driving is a source of lots of stress and tension for them (especially if they're Yankees like me). So, here is some advice about how not to lose your s**t while in traffic, regardless of where you're commuting to or from!

1. Find ways to experience pleasure / fun: this is actually my favorite strategy, which is why I list it first. An example of a safe way to do this while driving (or rather sitting in a parking lot that should be a highway) is to put on some awesome music. I prefer the up-beat, old-school, belt-it-out variety, but you may prefer more relaxing, new-age, meditative tunes, or listening to that book you'd never have time to sit down and really read.
    
   
2. Generate compassion for other drivers: this may be the most difficult, and also the most rewarding technique. Instead of thinking of what "that guy/gal" isn't doing right, try to imagine all the ways they are just like you. Maybe they're tired, hungry, or just had a fight with their partner. Maybe their minds are on their jobs, or thinking about doing something more fun. Another way of doing this is recognizing that it's not THEY who are traffic; to them, YOU are traffic!
    
   
3. Practice breathing: so many of us breathe shallowly throughout the day, and we are more prone to it when feeling stressed out. Breathing deeply engages the parasympathetic nervous system, increasing our oxygen intake and helping us feel calm and centered. Yet, we don't often have time to sit down and focus on our breath in meditation. As part of your daily self-care, use the fact that you're sitting (especially when you're not moving) to try a simple breathing exercise like counting your breath: e.g. "one" on your inhale, "two" on your exhale, "three" on your inhale, and so on. Don't force your breath, just notice how it is naturally. And when you lose count, notice that, and begin at one again. (Check out Andrew Weil's site for some other useful breathing exercises--though be careful of which ones you choose to engage in while driving! You never want to feel lightheaded or overly distracted.)
    
   
4. Create a mental gratitude list: we often read that listing things we're grateful for can help improve our mood and improve our relationships, among other benefits. But taking time to do this in a journal (at least for me) rarely happens. So, why not use the time in traffic to start listing off all the things you're grateful for? You can start with your current day, or look to your past, or even run through your intended future plans. Or you can think about people, places, or things. For more ideas, check out 60 Things to Be Grateful For in Life.

We tend to think of being "stuck" in traffic as negative, but each of the above strategies ask for a shift in our perspective. More specifically, traffic gives us time to enjoy and engage in practices for stress reduction. Since most of us find it difficult to include time for self-care as part of our typical day, traffic offers this to us. (Think of it this way: it's like when you're run down because you're doing too much, and then you get sick. Your body actually forces you to rest and slow down.) So, if we re-frame the time we spend behind the wheel, traffic is actually a gift!

How can YOU make your experience of being in traffic a gift today? If you have another idea to share, please let me know. We can use all the help we can get. :-)

Meditating Your Way to Healthy Digestion

In my previous post, I described 4 ways that yoga can support your nutrition and weight loss goals. Here, I'll offer some advice about how a mindful meal meditation might move you along in these endeavors as well.

About Meditation & Mindfulness

Meditation is essentially a practice in training one's mind, so it can be done anywhere, using anything as a point of focus. Applying meditative techniques when moving throughout one's day can be thought of as mindfulness. Since we eat at least 2-3 times a day, meal times are a natural opportunity for meditation, using food as our focus.

A Mindful Mealtime Meditation to Try

Light some candles, dim the lights, maybe put on some relaxing background music. Ensure there are no potential distractions, nothing within reach to multitask with. Then, sit down at a table in front of your plate, and take a moment to connect with your meal. Look down at your food, noticing the different colors and textures, as well as the arrangement of the food. You might like to use a simple statement, like, "I eat this food to be healthy and happy, to care for and nourish my body." This prepares your body for a relaxed eating experience.

Take only enough food as will comfortably fit on your utensil. Notice the first contact of the food with your tongue. See if you can identify the flavors: sour, salty, sweet, bitter, and so on. Notice how the food changes form as you chew it slowly. To help you focus on this, it may be helpful for you to place your utensils (or food, if it's hand-held) back down on your plate between bites. If you get distracted or find yourself hurrying, simply notice, take a deep breath and start again.

When your plate is empty, observe that. Bring your attention to your belly, and notice that you are nourished and satisfied.

Note: A nice book for bringing meditation into your daily life is Making Space by Thich Nhat Hanh, from which some of these concepts were adapted.

Why This Matters

In Inside Tract, Mullen et al. state that “mindful eating is one of the most important techniques you can use [to improve your frame of mind and prepare yourself for excellent digestion].” In Digestive Wellness, Lipski posits that "focus[ing]...awareness of the favors in each bite...can dramatically enhance [people's] total digestive function more completely than can enzymes, bitters, or other digestive supplements."

Why? Because eating mindfully and with presence not only activates the relaxation response, but also initiates the first phase in the digestive process, called the cephalic phase. Cephalic means "of the head", and it's how the brain registers that the body is about to receive a meal. It's how the brain knows to "turn on" digestion by doing things like releasing enzymes and activating stomach acids, as two examples. When we don't pay attention to our food as we eat it, we bypass this phase, meaning:

• our digestive capacity (i.e. ability to break down, process, and assimilate nutrients from the food) is hampered by 40-60%
• we are more likely to overeat because we are not aware that we are full
• our digestive system has to work harder overall, which can result in issues like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and over time, more serious ones like gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Note: Why Being Mindful Matters is a nice, readable article on this topic.

4 Simple Ways Yoga Can Support Your Nutrition & Weight Loss Goals

Here are 4 ways that taking up even a basic yoga practice can support your nutrition and weight loss goals:

1. Deeper breathing. One of the fundamental concepts in any practice of yoga is its focus on coordinating breath with movement.
   
   Try this: sit or stand with your spine tall and long. Close your eyes and observe how you feel physically and mentally. When you feel ready, inhale as you reach your arms out to your sides with your palms up, through shoulder height and then up to the sky, where the palms turn to face each other. Then flip your palms out and exhale as you reverse the movement, bringing the arms and hands back down to your sides. How was it to coordinate your breath with the movement of your arms? Just notice. Repeat this a few times, seeing if you can slow the movements of your arms, thereby lengthening your breath.
   
   Why this matters: Slowing down the breath helps to calm the body, reducing the effects of chronic stress and inducing a relaxation response. When the body is in relaxation response, digestion improves, nutrients are better assimilated, and toxins are more easily released. Bringing this deep breathing off the yoga mat and into our daily lives helps us become more present to what is happening now, so we learn to pay closer attention to our food as we're eating. In other words, we become aware of the colors, textures, tastes and sensations that naturally encourage our bodies to metabolize food as part of the cephalic phase, leading to natural appetite regulation (not to mention, actual enjoyment of our food!).
   
   
2. Increased body awareness. How were you able to "notice your breath" in point one? Well, there's a part of you called the "wisdom body" or "witness consciousness" in yoga, which has the ability to observe what you're doing, thinking and feeling. In the practice of yoga postures (asanas), instructors encourage their students to "listen" to their bodies--for example, to notice areas of tightness, where there may be more space to move, how to improve their alignment by feeling the body, etc.
   
   Try this: For one day, set an alarm to alert you every 30 or 60 minutes. (Here's a chime I like, if you happen to work at a computer.) When you hear the alarm, pause what you are doing, close your eyes and pick a word to describe how you're feeling emotionally (e.g.: happy, sad, overwhelmed, frustrated, confused, etc.) Don't think too hard about it, just go with your first, best guess. Then, scan your body for sensations, starting at the crown of your head. Move your focused attention all around your face. Notice the areas around the eyes, the jaw. Feel your neck and shoulders. Scan down your arms to your wrists and hands. Observe the body all around the torso, front and back, along the spine, up and down. Connect your mind to your hips, moving your attention down your legs to your toes, first one side and then the other. Where are you tightening your muscles? Are there any places that feel "uneven" between the right and left sides? Is anything pinchy? Repeat the scan, this time making small adjustments--see if you can relax the tight areas, balance the uneven ones, or tweak your posture to feel better. When you're finished, call to mind a word describe your emotional state. Maybe it's the same one as before, or perhaps a new one. Whatever comes up is perfectly OK. Now continue with what you were doing until the next alarm, when you will repeat this process. See if you can discover places in the body you favor, or whether new areas of your body grab your attention.
   
   Why this matters: Increasing body awareness has many benefits for nutrition and weight loss. Much like the breath, our body does a lot for us without our needing to attend to it. But in today's busy world, we often "dis-embody"--meaning we tune out important signals, such as when we're hungry, when we're tired, when we're feeling full, when we're holding a shape that's causing muscular stress (e.g. sitting with poor posture), and when we're feeling upset. Dis-embodiment often lead us to overeat and binge eat, since both are "unconscious" activities that are really serving as distractions from difficult emotions and inducing relaxation (which we might find in other methods more supportive of our weight loss goals). By receiving our bodies' signals about when we're naturally hungry, we improve our eating rhythm (i.e. have more regular times of day when we nourish ourselves with food). This reduces the likelihood of us getting ravenous, eating too fast and too much. We also benefit from better regulation of blood sugar and energy throughout the day.
   
   
3. Yoga postures help improve digestion. Arranging the physical body in different shapes offers your internal organs a gentle massage, including the ones involved in digestion and metabolism regulation.
   
   Try these: Seated forward fold, wide-legged standing forward fold with twist, half lord of the fishes pose, cobra pose, bridge pose (or supported bridge). See also Best Yoga Poses for Digestion.
   
   Why it matters: Yoga postures (asanas) help improve blood and oxygen flow to the digestive organs, are stimulating to the digestive tract, and help to regulate the thyroid gland² "which is important for not only digestive function, but also the nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory system and metabolism regulation.³"Yoga has also been known to help with chronic digestive issues like constipation and diarrhea, bloating and gas⁴. A healthy, optimally working digestive tract is critical to meeting any nutritional and weight loss goals. If your system isn't working properly, your efforts will be in vain.
   
   
4. More compassion and self acceptance. Yoga isn't just about physical postures and breathing. It's "a progressive process of replacing our unconscious thought patterns and behavior with new, more beneficial patterns that are helpful towards a better life¹." Yoga provides a way for students to experiment with different class styles and instructors until we find some that suit us. It invites us into a safe space where we can explore letting go of our egos, going only as far in a posture as we can in that moment, regardless of what we may have done before or what we hoped we could do. Yoga encourages us to surrender competition with self and others, and to accept that this body is what we have to work with right now.
   
   Try this: Wearing something form fitting that allows you to really see your body, strike a simple yoga pose in front of a mirror. (Mountain pose is the easiest one to start.) With your eyes open, notice what comes up for you as you sustain the pose for a comfortable time. Are you holding your breath? What are you thinking? Are you worried about doing it perfectly? Are you involved in an internal dialog about a part of your body that you wish looked different? Are you comparing yourself to a photo of someone else in the posture? Do you want to look away? See if you can simply notice these thoughts as they pop up in your mind. Practice accepting whatever comes up for you. If it's helpful, you can imagine putting the thought into a "thought bubble" (like you see in cartoons) and allowing it to float away.
   
   Why this matters: Finding a style of yoga that you enjoy can replace the punishing exercise that you may do solely for the sake of calorie burning. (Note that over-exercise and exercise one doesn't like can contribute to the stress response, therefore defeating our best intentions at improved metabolism and weight loss.) Yoga's focus on acceptance and self-love can also help improve body image issues for those of us who struggle here. As Marc David says, "acceptance moves energy". Meaning, when we become more aware of our self-criticisms, self-judgements, and ways we habitually cause "self-induced hate stress", we can figuratively and then literally "lighten up". If you're someone who constantly beats yourself up over losing that last 5-10 pounds, or feel impatient at your progress if you have a lot of weight to lose, this refined view of the situation may be just what you need to not just let go of body weight or fat, but also toxic beliefs about yourself and the importance of these things in the grander context of your life.

Notice that I've said nothing about what food you actually eat. ;-)

Space Expectations (Chapter 7)

Here's chapter 7 of the book I started posting chapters of a few weeks ago.

“The best things in life are unexpected—because there were no expectations.”

- Eli Khamarov -

Whether we realize it or not, many of us are affected by expectations we have for our physical spaces. For example, we might expect a vacation resort to induce a state of deep relaxation in our overworked mental space. Prior experiences with a physical space might cause us to try and recreate a feeling we've previously experienced there (with varying degrees of success). Or, not understanding what is expected of us in a space might cause some discomfort. Understanding why we have certain expectations of physical spaces, and adjusting the thoughts in our internal spaces can help, and set us up for new adventures we may not otherwise have the opportunity to experience.

Navigating Spaces

My friend Vianne and I are planners. Whether it’s for dinner, dancing, or other activities, we mutually agree on when and where we get together—very much in advance. My husband is a planner too, so Vianne has also gotten used to receiving invitations to our gatherings, along with a list of suggestions about what would be helpful for her to bring. So during Independence Day weekend, when Vianne and I received a text message from our friend Craig about an impromptu cookout at his place, it caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Text messages between the three of us flew by: between he and I and she and he, trying to ascertain when the event would start and what we should bring; and between she and I, expressing frustration over Craig's confusing or nonexistent responses to our questions. We wondered: did he think we would bring food and contribute to its preparation? Or, was he wanting us to just show up at his house and allow him to host? I don’t think Craig had any expectations for us, yet we were troubled by all this uncertainty. At dinner one night after Craig's gathering, I asked Vianne whether we would have minded if he told us he expected help. Her response was, “No, not at all.” Then I asked, “And if he wanted us to sit back and relax so he could pamper us, would that have been OK too?” Her response, “Of course.” This got me thinking—if either outcome was fine (and in actuality, we did a little bit of both), why did it cause us so much angst beforehand? Why did we feel so strongly like we needed to know what to expect when we were visiting Craig’s house?

When I told this story to my friend Paige, she put her finger on it: Vianne and I needed to know what to expect in Craig’s space because we didn’t want to “get it wrong.” See, Vianne, Paige, and I have all experienced significant uncertainties growing up, which means that as adults, we try to avoid it at all costs. When we aren’t clearly told what to expect, the children in us still believe we might do something inappropriate, or won’t be prepared for or live up to what is expected of us—and we’ll suffer the consequences. Whether this means people will cease liking us and wanting spend time with us, we’ll get in trouble, or be humiliated, these concerns are not at all rooted in the present day.

When Vianne and I chatted more about this, we decided we needed a way to regain some balance in such situations—in other words, one of us needed to cue the other so we could recognize when we were truly curious and wanting to be helpful, versus when we were being neurotic! This would require moving the amount of consciousness we had of ourselves after the fact to when we first found ourselves getting into such a state, which is easier said than done. In retrospect, calling her and talking it through to see how we really felt about each alternative could have helped us both discover that either option was fine, and that our worry wasn’t really about what it appeared to be about.

A more significant issue for me about Craig's impromptu invite was whether to go at all. See, when I received his text mid-morning that I could head over any time that afternoon to enjoy food, drink, and the lake behind his house on what really was a gorgeous day, it actually stressed me out. I knew Craig wanted to entertain in his new home, but my husband and I had already made a slew of other plans. I went into a tailspin about what to do with my “time space”, for which I already had some pretty high expectations. In addition to my normal morning routine of journaling, working out and meditating, I had plans to work on this book, and we had a whole chicken in the fridge, on which we planned to try out a rotisserie attachment for the grill, since I had given it to my husband as a birthday present. It was supposed to rain on Monday, so Sunday (the day of Craig’s cookout) was the only day we had the time required to actually rotisserie a chicken! I spent what felt like hours going back and forth, evaluating pros and cons, trying to figure out the best thing do to: act spontaneously and change my plans, or deny Craig’s request because it was too last minute, and potentially miss out on a fun time?

Looking back the whole situation sounds quite ridiculous, but at the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable. As I said, I am a planner, and there’s something oddly rewarding to me about making a list of “to do’s” and crossing things off throughout the day. This was instilled in me early in life—even as a young child, I had a long list of chores to complete, after which completing I would get some recognition from my parents. Logically I recognize that I don't need their approval now, and that I could stand to be more flexible, but old habits die hard! Thanks to my husband’s extreme flexibility with our plans and Vianne’s encouragement to go with her, we did all end up going to Craig’s party. We had a great time, and Monday turned out to be sunny enough for us to rotisserie the chicken after all!

Thought Experiments

Consider finding or writing an affirmation that you can repeat to help you be open to new experiences in a physical space, without having to know exactly what’s going to happen. These can be as simple as: “I am safe and open to new experiences.” or “Everything is OK.” If you find yourself getting caught up in overly regimented ideas about how your day should go, ask yourself: “If I don't get this task done, what is the worst that will happen?” Or, “What will I miss out on if I don’t adjust my plans?” Question your assumptions about what you have to get done, and who are really doing these things for. If you're not doing them for yourself or someone currently in your life, consider whether following your plans to the letter will give you the satisfaction or approval you're really seeking. Limit yourself to doing between one and three tasks on your “to do” list per day. You may find you accomplish more than that anyway, but you will also feel freedom—more mental and emotional space to help you focus, and less resentment about how busy you are!

Transferring Expectations across Spaces

Every year, my company treats its employees to a weekend outing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This outing includes accommodations for our families, live music, and plenty of food and drink. The first year I went to the outing, I brought my boyfriend, Jason. The series of events that unfolded are still, almost five years later, not comical. We underestimated traffic, turning the three hour trip into something like seven. Our first hotel room smelled strongly of mold, and when we went to open the slider door to postpone dealing with the issue until morning, we discovered a whole army of spiders congregating around the handle! After driving back to the front desk securing a new key, and driving to a new building, we stared in amazement at a row of rooms numbered seven, eight, and ten, feeling like we were in some bizarro world with our key labeled “#9”. Back at the front desk we were told our room was tucked back in a corner we’d missed. The next day we tried to do several activities, all of which were thwarted for various reasons. I did end up having a lovely lunch of lobster roll and chips, and we shared a milkshake for dessert. Unfortunately, this was before I realized that my body was starting to become intolerant to lobster—violently intolerant. My stomach twisted and pulsed for the rest of the day, which I spent almost entirely in room #9’s bathroom. Saturday night I tried to be a trooper and get ready for the big feast (so Jason could get something to eat). This required us to drive a half an hour to the main hotel, during which my insides felt like they were going to burst, and I was deep breathing as if in labor. We had to park the car about a mile away, and walk up a steep hill or take the shuttle. Since I couldn’t wait for the shuttle, we raced up the hill (me with a sprained ankle that wasn’t healing well to begin with). At the top, I made a bee line for the restroom and told Jason to get some food. I was able to make a quick appearance in the dining room to tell him we had to leave, and then a similar drive back to our room ensued. Obviously, neither of us had very much fun!

The following year I didn’t go to the outing, and felt completely comfortable with my decision. The year after that, I found myself in a quandary. I was dating a co-worker who had been with the company for almost fifteen years. He really enjoyed the outing and wanted me to go with him. He had seniority and would get a room in the main hotel, so there would be no driving back and forth. But even after two years, I still had all the horrible memories to overcome—my default expectation was that if I went, I’d be absolutely miserable. But because it was important to him, I decided to see what I could do to take my experience of this space from horrible to truly fun and relaxing. After all, this was a free weekend vacation at a beautiful resort in the mountains—something most people would pay a lot of money for. I found a restaurant with an interesting martini menu to visit the Friday evening we arrived, and arranged for a colleague and her husband to meet us there for dinner. Since it had been a long day of working and passenger-ing (my husband did the driving), I decided that when we got back I would take some of the chill out of the mountain air by making use of our room’s lavish fireplace. Thoughts of curling up on the sofa with a blanket and a good book made me smile with anticipation. In fact, this reminded me of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox Massachusetts, where I try to go every year for some rest and relaxation. I figured that if I could do some Kripalu-like relaxing at this resort, I could definitely make the outing into something I would enjoy!

Since we were in the main hotel, our room was “near the action”—right over the action, actually. The music was loud, but I simply adjusted the volume of the Chinese bamboo flute music streaming from my iPod dock, and continued to read just fine. When my eyes started to get heavy around eleven o’clock, I decided I would turn in. Unfortunately, no amount of effort on my part (and there were several different attempts to be resourceful!) would stop the bass from reverberating through every cell in my body, mercilessly chasing sleep away. My husband came in around one in the morning (when the party ended), and I was finally able to sleep. What I realized the next morning was that with best intentions, I tried to use the space in a way that conflicted with its clearly designated weekend purpose, which was to party with fellow co-workers. I’m happy to say that I learned from my experience—the next night I had drinks and danced badly to bad music with my colleagues, and I had a great time! My understanding (and acceptance) of how this physical space would be used allowed me to flow with the current, rather than against it. And sometimes, you just need to do that!

Transferring expectations across spaces apparently is a very difficult thing to do, even when a whole group of people is trying to make it happen. Every Tuesday night for as long as I can remember, a West Coast Swing dance is held at the Elks Lodge in Arlington, Massachusetts. This is a small space, but usually gets a good crowd. On the left side of the room there are three rows of chairs lined up, on which dancers put their jackets and under which they leave their street shoes. It’s a single file in, single file out kind of thing, and you’re inevitably in someone’s way. Toward the front of the room, where you enter, is the table where you are greeted and where you pay, and slightly behind that, the table with the DJ’s equipment. On the right is a small bar. There’s nowhere to stand and have a conversation without being in the way or being relegated to the dark alley of chairs. The floor can get sticky, wreaking havoc on one’s knees. Most of the year it feels like you’re dancing in a sauna, regardless of attempts to get the air conditioning working.

To their credit the Elks started updating and renovating the space, and at one point we needed to find a temporary place to dance. For a few weeks, the Arlington dance was held at a nearby Elks Lodge in Lexington, which for all intents and purposes, was a superior space. It was much larger, the ceilings were higher, with round tables and chairs spread out on one side so people could hang out. Although the quality of the floor was still variable, it wasn’t as hot and sweaty as Arlington. The dances were held on the same night, at the same time, and with the same DJs—yet, it lacked the same energy as the Arlington space! As I sat in the back of the hall at a table with my friend Jason, we got to talking about it, and theorized that having too much space actually killed the vibe. Because it’s small and there’s nowhere really to congregate, its very nature pushes people to get on the floor and just dance. Plus, while gross, the whole concept of being in a sweaty, lackluster space together is a mild form of mutual suffering that bonds dancers. Just the “ugh, I’m so gross!” comments one hears and makes to others creates a feeling of being in this “terrible” situation together. By the nature of the space, Arlington forces intimacy, and that intimacy alone makes for a great night!

Thought Experiments

What physical spaces do you have negative associations with, or bring up strong feelings for you? Can you identify the circumstances that lead to your discomfort? If it’s not possible to recall any event that would explain how you feel about a space (I have a fear of high spaces that’s like this), give yourself the emotional to accept and embrace your fears or concerns. See how it feels to be OK with that! Experiment with making small changes when you’re in difficult spaces to make them more manageable for you, like the dinner I organized on the way to my company’s outing. Or, try acknowledging what happened there (and how you felt about it)—then, as if taking an eraser to a chalkboard, visualize wiping the slate clean so you can be more open to new experiences there. List some major characteristics of your favorite spaces. Consider whether it’s realistic or possible to bring some of them into spaces you like less. If it isn’t, think about what work you can do to your other (i.e. mental and emotional) spaces to increase your enjoyment. Is there a physical space you’re trying to use in a way that’s in conflict with its intent? Is this dissonance negatively impacting you in any way? How would it feel to let go of the expectations in your internal spaces, and flow within the physical space instead?

Working through Discomfort in Spaces

After watching too many episodes of L.A. Ink and seeing too many women in yoga class with beautiful artwork on their bodies, I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo. This meant I also had to decide what to get and where to put it, find someone who could translate the concept in my mind to something tangible, and locate a reputable tattoo parlor and artist to do the work. A year or so after I had the idea, things fell into place and I met with a woman name Julia, who did both custom artwork and tattooing. Since she had her own shop close by, I decided I would get the tattoo as a present for my thirty-sixth birthday. The artwork would be ready on my appointment day, and I was assured that Julia and I would work together to make any needed changes. Then she’d do the tattooing. Although my husband was supportive, I asked my close friend Paige to accompany me because I felt like I could talk with her about anything and everything, and I might need some distraction during the procedure.

A week or so before my appointment, I shared some nervousness I had about getting the tattoo with Paige. What if the artwork wasn’t right and Julia didn’t understand what I wanted? How much did getting a tattoo really hurt? Paige responded in stern, motherly tones that I needed to really think about whether this was something I wanted to do. I was initially puzzled by her response, because I didn’t think I was feeling that anxious about it, but given how well she knew me I thought it was worth considering. Was I ignoring some a “gut feeling” that was telling me I was about to make a big mistake? Although I asked myself these questions, and chatted with my husband about it, I was never able to identify what Paige seemed to see. I searched and searched, but didn’t feel seriously anxious about it—it was more like a curious excitement, with some fear of not knowing what to expect. I kept the appointment, telling Paige I thought I really was fine about it.

The morning of the appointment, Paige drove me to Julia’s tattoo shop but seemed a bit distracted. Since she was in the middle of preparations for a cross country move at the time, I chocked this up to the fact that she had a lot on her mind. But as soon as we arrived and I started filling out paperwork in the waiting area, I could see her taking in the décor, which was as you might expect—lots of strange pictures and trinkets attached to the walls, including some skeletons with wings. Everyone working there was covered head to toe with art. It was difficult to ignore the fact that Paige felt uncomfortable in this space, so I tried to acknowledge her unstated feelings. I told her how nice Julia had been during my consultation, and about a dear, sweet friend I’d had whose style totally aligned with the look of this shop. Paige nodded but remained pretty quiet.

A few minutes later, I got to see the artwork and to my dismay, it wasn’t what I wanted at all. Yet, as Julia and I started collaborating, the piece started to take shape. After ten minutes or so passed, I felt badly about Paige sitting by herself in the waiting area, and asked if she wanted to join us. She declined, and then said she couldn’t stay. She was very uncomfortable being there and wanted to leave. I called my husband and asked if he could trade places with Paige.

Paige moved away, and I never found out what it was about the tattoo shop that caused her so much anxiety. But as she always used to say, “it’s never really about what it’s about.” Although she really wanted to be a good friend and support me through my experience, the concept, physical décor, or other people in the shop triggered some troublesome feelings that she just wasn’t able to bear or work through at the time.

Actually getting the tattoo—on my closest physical space—was a prime opportunity for me to work through discomfort. When I asked people who had tattoos about their experience, I received answers ranging from “it’s as painful as childbirth.” to “the vibration feels good.” After hearing so many different opinions, I decided it must depend on where one is getting the tattoo done, and one’s own tolerance for pain.

My tattoo took two and a half hours to complete. Julia started the process slowly, and at the beginning I was surprised because it didn’t hurt much at all. But as time passed and Julia started wiping the tattoo between inking sessions, I found I had to leverage some techniques to keep my mind in check. I closed my eyes, went inside, and tried to focus on taking long, deep breaths, noticing where in my body I was holding tension and intentionally trying to relax that area. When we were halfway through, the physical pain and intensity of my mind whining, “Are we done yet?” started to increase. Yet, I calmly responded to myself with, “We’ll be done when we’re done, just accept where you are right now and continue to breathe.” I believe these approaches to calm my mental spaces helped me tremendously in dealing with what was a voluntary, yet uncomfortable experience in the physical space of my own body.

Thought Experiments

When you strongly want to leave a space, whether it’s an emotionally charged room, an unfamiliar setting, or uncomfortable decor, try sitting with your discomfort or fear for just a moment and simply observe what you’re feeling. (I like to do this in glass elevators in tall buildings, to try and address my fear of heights.) Take a few deep breaths and remind yourself that like everything else in life, the feelings will pass. Observe how you feel when you notice that what you feared most didn’t actually happen. Do you find that breathing in the closest physical space of your body opens up some room in your emotional or mental spaces? Does it offer any clues to help you understand where the discomfort really comes from, or what specifically triggers your anxiety? If you regularly have discomfort in your body or your mind, temporarily suspend any preconceived notions or assumptions you have about yoga and meditation, and give them a try. There is a lot of variety in both of these practices, and if you can think of your trials as just that—investigations or experiments—I expect you will find a style that makes you feel more content in all your spaces!

Using Spaces to Feel Accepted

When I was twelve years old, my family moved from a house that was about an hour away from the nearest grocery store to one in a more populated area. Although there were many children on my street, I was the oldest—but by number only. In comparison to my new cohorts, my previously isolated environment had kept me young. I was still riding a Strawberry Shortcake bike that had originally come with training wheels when everyone else had dirt bikes and fancy ten-speeds. It didn’t take long for me or my family to realize that I had some catching up to do. Before I knew it, I had a twelve-speed that was too big for me to ride comfortably, new clothes, and a large in-ground swimming pool complete with diving board and slide. While several other kids on the street had pools, mine was the biggest, and all the kids knew it. Everyone—including the very same kids who made fun of me when I first moved in—all wanted to be my friend so they could be invited to swim. And as one might expect, there were some kids on the street who didn’t like each other, so if you invited some friends you were automatically excluding others. Looking back, it’s interesting to me how these material possessions and alterations to our home gave me a sense of power and control that I’d been missing when I first arrived. In retrospect I also recognize that most of the children I thought had wanted to be my friends because they liked me were mostly just using me for something I had.

As an adult, I often still feel like that backwards little twelve-year-old in unfamiliar social circles. I have a great husband, a good job, and a nice house. We have lots of friends, and we frequently have parties because we enjoy making new drinks, food, and entertaining. But it’s always interesting to see who offers us money for alcohol, who shows up with munchies, who asks what we need when we’re planning a larger get-together—and for those without much financial wherewithal, who offers time to help set up or clean up. At first glance, everyone appears to be a friend, but it’s sometimes difficult not to wonder how things would be if we weren’t fortunate to have all that we do. This is especially true for me I think, because I do have a certain level of insecurity about myself and am frequently concerned with how others perceive me. Growing up, I never really had anyone love me just for being me, and so I’m not sure how to recognize when people actually do it.

While it might be easy to leverage one’s physical environments to meet an unmet emotional need, there are also ways one might consciously or unconsciously pull directly at other people’s emotions to get something they’re lacking. When I was around thirteen years old, I remember having my first real boyfriend, who was then fifteen. We met at a music camp one summer, and I was smitten. Between home and school, my life was miserable, and Damian was the first person who made me feel truly loved. For a short time this made me feel really good about myself, but pretty quickly, so many years of love deprivation meant I needed more, more, and more from him. Although the affection and attention he gave me should have been enough, it wasn’t. I was an endless well, an unsoakable sponge. To make sure Damian really loved me, I made up stories I thought would upset him. And when he did get upset, such displays clearly illustrated just how important I was to him. Over the course of our nine month relationship, I was going to have to move away, I couldn’t see him anymore because my parents were against it, and even worse, there were days when I was potentially dying of some awful disease. I’m obviously not pleased with the things I said and did in that relationship, but with a lot of introspection and passing time, I realize I was using Damian and all the capacity for love to make myself feel as though I mattered. And although I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, I really, desperately needed that.

Thought Experiments

In social situations, practice developing self-awareness by paying attention to your body. Is it tense anywhere? Is your breathing shallow, is your heart pounding, are your palms sweaty? If so, ask yourself what you might be feeling—insecure, unaccepted, unloved? Don’t judge the feelings that come up, just observe them. Do you have a wonderful home or other fantastic possessions to share with others? If so, consider whether you have ever used them to exert control over people in your life, to gain acceptance, or some advantage. What underlying emotional needs are you hoping these physical objects will fill? Are there other ways you can find to fill the gaps? Do any of your friends have living spaces or emotional depth you have taken advantage of in some way? If so, try not to berate yourself—it doesn’t mean you’re an awful person, or that you behave badly all the time. Identifying your underlying fears or unmet needs, however, can help you be a more genuine friend. Do you have friends you think might be using you? If so, don’t automatically assume they’re being malicious or write them off. Try talking with them about their fears and needs to understand their behaviors. If they are open and can gain an awareness of what they really desire, they will appreciate your interest. And just maybe, showing you care may be all the reassurance they need.