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Ayurveda, dance, decorate, fitness, gardening, Health, Inspiration, joy, kirtan, New Year's plans, New Year's resolutions, Retreat, Thailand, Yoga
I went a little nutty last night. In part, I blame the fluey cold I’m slowly recovering from. But also, I blame that song that is apparently still haunting me on occasion. Haven’t heard it in ages, but yesterday at lunch I wandered into a supermarket to buy some pistachios and what do I hear? Yup. That dang song again! I’ve been hearing it for two or three years now, whenever big change is happening or about to happen. *looks around suspiciously*
I got home and had a sudden fit of de-clutterisation. Okay, that’s probably not even a word. But I’ve been living in my apartment for just over a year now and truth be told, I hadn’t really finished unpacking. My second room which is currently my practice room (I know it sounds fancy to have a room just for yoga and meditation, but it’s not exactly a very big room, okay?), has had crap piled up on the eastern wall pretty much since I moved in.
So I sorted the things I needed to throw out from the stuff I needed to find a place for. I was ruthless! There’s a couple of pieces of pseudo furniture in there, too: a small filing cabinet and my little sewing machine bench/table thingy. Plus a box of books and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ve simply neglected to assign to a cupboard or other storage spot. And I do have plenty of that, at least!
After several hours (where did the time go?) I had much less stuff in my practice room. The filing cabinet has been re-homed and I think once the books are gone, I might just have to deal with my sewing machine living in there. I’m cool with that… I’d also managed to free up some space (as yet unused) in the wardrobe in my bedroom and I even found more clothes and daypacks I don’t need that I can donate to charity. Somewhere along the line, I ended up with a lot of daypacks!
All of this has to do with one of my plans for 2010, so it’s good. Very good. I’m not trying to like, distract you here. Or myself. In fact, last night I was very focused. Not bad for a recovering sickie.
Anyway… like I said a couple of posts back, I don’t really like the word “resolution”. It’s too loaded and generally speaking, when people make New Year’s resolutions they often don’t last.
So instead, I like the idea of New Year’s plans. I figure if I can work out what I want to do, I can make a plan. And plans are things I can put it into action. Also, a “plan” sounds more like something I intend to do than a resolution.
And really, it’s kind of exciting because like many things for me right now, it’s the first time in years that I’ve even thought about making real plans for myself! Ending up in yoga teacher training last year was a bit of a happy accident – it’s not like I thought it through.
But this year… I feel like I might just have possibilities.
And so without further ado, I present my current list of plans. Some things will change for certain. They always do. But for now, this is what I’d like to make happen in 2010:
- Daily practice – yoga, meditation & pranayama. It’s time to build and explore.
- Continue with group personal training sessions for cardio fitness and being social.
- Build my jogging up so I can once again do 5km easily.
- Start teaching yoga classes and continue throughout the year. Current plans are to approach HR at my work and see if I can run a class in our boardroom. For starters.
- Continue studying Shadow Yoga (which might be the next YTT I take on). Next week, I’m doing an immersion: 5 mornings in a row of 6am classes. I can’t wait!
- Retreat in Thailand in October/November – It’s the final retreat in a seven year program we’ve been doing. Yup, seven years of spending 2-6 weeks a year in retreat. Except for last year, when we had a bye.
Special note: this year is open to non-students. We just started doing that last year. If you’re interested, let me know and I can send you some information. - Investigate all different kinds of yoga – I want to experience as many different styles and teachers as I can! There’s always my Guru and everything learn with him. I love Hatha and Shadow Yoga, but I want more! So I’m going to visit a range of studios to see how other teachers do it, and what else might resonate for me. To kick things off, in February I’m going to the Mark Whitwall weekend that Nadine Fawell is organizing.
- Get an MRI for my shoulder – that dang bike accident is still bothering me and one of my friends in Sydney very sensibly suggested I get an MRI. I simply don’t think of those things…
- Find a local Ayurveda doctor – I’ve tried a couple down in Melbourne but haven’t found one that I really like. Yet.
- Lose weight – seriously all the yoga, cycling and personal training I’ve been doing has not helped me lose weight. I tend to think it’s a side effect of depression and I know if I keep up the consistency, it will happen. But for now, umm… still working on that.
- Learn to cook better – I don’t have a great attitude about cooking just for myself. And I don’t think of myself as a good cook. Those things have to change. I’m thinking of cooking courses, and simply inviting more people over for dinner. I have cookbooks and perhaps if I create situations where I need to cook for others, it’ll start flowing a little easier for me?
- Travel before or after retreat – maybe see more of Thailand or go to Laos or Cambodia?
- Date/find a boyfriend – doesn’t have to be the love of my life, though that’d be nice! Just y’know… some practice would be good!
- Get real with money – It’s not something I’ve been great at, but I’m on a saving/cost-cutting adventure where possible. Less eating out, less erroneous spending. More saving money so I don’t end up broke the other side of retreat.
- Get more joy in my life every day – finding more ways to invoke happiness for myself. The following points are all directly related to this! Not that some of the above mentioned aren’t. Especially yoga, of course.
- Stay involved with the kirtan group – I love what’s happening there.
- More involvement with the writing group – I haven’t been to another writing group meet up since the first one. Shyness is part of it. So was having almost every weekend taken up by yoga teacher training!
- Do a bike maintenance course – learn how to do more than just fix a flat tyre for myself!
- Course to learn to write a novel – I feel like I need some structure and support there.
- Do some dance classes and/or head out to some salsa nights – I love to dance but it’s been a long time since dance was a regular part of my life. That soooo has to change!
- Decorate my house MORE – including framing some prints that’ve been waiting for EVER, re-staining my bedroom furniture, making some curtains, and decorating my practice/yoga room (hence the de-clutterisation, folks).
- Experiment with gardening – I’ve only ever grown a few herbs and this year I’d like to try growing some veggies. Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, snow peas etc. Nommy things to eat. 🙂
Yeah, so that’s sorta it for now at least. There’ll be edits, new additions, deletions and I’m sure, things I haven’t even considered yet. But it does feel good to be starting the year with some idea of what I’d like to do with myself…
~Svasti