Looking both ways

Tags

#IQS, 2013, creative juices, Happy New Year, Health, India, new year, Stress, two words project, unemployable, WWF wrestler

So…hi! And Happy 2013. I hope y’all had a FABULOUS seeing in of the new year, even if that fabulous thing was having a very mellow time. Or doing nothing. Just so long as you found enjoyment, any which way.

I did! I really did! For the first time in ages, I had a truly excellent time on new year’s eve. Hooray! Friends of mine had a private party at their place, with a fab view of the fireworks over the city. But importantly, with plenty of space between our little gathering and the drunken hoardes in the city. I talked with old friends and new ones, too. Drank a little champers, literally laughed til I was flat on the floor, ate, danced, and watched fireworks.

Over the Christmas break I had a few days off and some visitors from the US – some of my world-wide family of yogis. Their stay was all too brief, and I was heartbroken when they left but also glad that they came.

So here I am, three days in to 2013 and finally I’m getting around to an update for you all on where I’m at!

Looking back – where’ve I been?

You just *might’ve* noticed that most of 2012 I was pretty quiet here on the blog, on account of a whole bunch of reasons.

First up, I’ve gotta say, 2012 was one of the best years I’ve had in well…years.

Year of the Dragon worked very well for me – all of that expansive energy saw me taking up a bunch of challenges. So, its been lots of hard work but lots of excellent results, too.

Like… the Two Words Project.

Also (and related): tackling my health with the enthusiasm of a WWF wrestler. This has wrought changes on the physical, emotional and ummm metaphysical planes. Big. Stuff.

And finally being out of trauma. I cannot express how differently I feel today to the broken person who first started this blog. 2012 has been a year of resurfacing as a stronger-than-ever and happier person than I ever was. Ever.

Not to mention: hitting my 12 month anniversary of giving up sugar! I can tell you that I don’t miss it in the least.

And I know – I owe you guys more details on all the above!

Those are all normal-busy kind of things though, right? Then, there was the rest.

Mid-year my last living grandparent passed away, and that seemed to cause a subtle but significant gear-shift. Something about, I dunno… stepping in to the next generation of “elders” in my family. More Big Stuff.

Around the same time, my dad had his own health scares and diagnoses of chronic illnesses. Things are evening out for him a bit more now, but it hasn’t been much fun. And there’s more work to do.

On top of that, my 9-5 job has grown increasingly unpleasant. It’s not so much my team (who are great) as it is the next level up management. My usual pattern of finding myself being given more responsibilities and more and more work has arisen yet again, and this (so it seems) rather specifically, has been the main factor in dampening my creative juices.

I noticed the difference immediately when I went on my writing retreat – given a release from the day-to-day stresses, and enough space and time, all the words erupted like wildfire.

Then when I came back home…once again the words dried up. Damnit.

Which was an excellent indicator: it seems I’m approaching that point Nadine’s written about of being unemployable.

See, my future life is starting to converge with the here and now, which is a little disconcerting when you don’t think you’re quite ready for the future just yet!

On that note, I’ve also finished my second full year of teaching yoga. Which has kind of flown by and it’s taken me by surprise at how much I’ve learned in such a tiny amount of time.

Looking right in front of me

Here we are, at the tail end of the Dragon Year before the Snake emerges on February 4^th. Already there’s a LOT going on.

Right now, I’m working my way through Leonie Dawson’s colourful and charming Create Your Incredible Year workbook and planner. I highly recommend it for a positive start to the year!!

Next? I’m signed up for Nadine’s Light Up Your Life e-course. It’s an extended version of the Two Words project (which, heads up Melbourne peeps, is happening again in February!).

Between Leonie’s planner and Nadine’s e-course I’m thinking my year is gonna be super-charged!

Which is waaaayyy different to how I was feeling at the beginning of 2012 (hint: I was terrified!).

And just when you think I couldn’t possibly fit more in to the start of 2013, I’ve got two HUGE things happening:

1. Nine days of yoga teacher training in mid-January.
2. Then, end-February I’ll FINALLY be meeting my long-term friend and Kali sister, Linda-Sama!! We’re meeting in India for her study group. But I’ll be there for six weeks in total: two before and two after the study group. I KNOW, RIGHT?

Looking forward – wassup 2013?

Well, a lot of that is still in the works, but there’s a few things I know already. Like…

• I’ve quit my job and will finish up just before I go to India (I’ll find work of some kind when I get back!).
• One very specific mission while in India (there are several) is to buy a harmonium, so I can learn to play kirtans myself!
• I gave up the class I’ve been teaching for the past two years! The end of the year seemed like a natural pause and my plan is to teach a lot more classes per week when I’m back from India, in my own ever-unfolding style.
• Mid-year, there’s the possibility of a heck-load more change (of the positive kind). But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself yet…

And: a new blog!

No. I’m not killing off this blog, or stopping writing here. But for a while now, I’ve wanted a place to write that’s a little less anonymous than this one. Yet… I’m not ready for everyone in my life to read the archives here.

So, I’ve started a separate blog under my own (first) name.

Many of you will be getting an email about it shortly. But feel free to let me know if you’d like to be in the loop – as it’s where I’ll be blogging about my adventures in India! 😉

More soon. Very soon. I promise!

~ Svasti xxx

Who am I becoming?

Tags

being of service, healer, Healing, Health, leap of faith, life lessons, step-change

This year has been pretty massive in terms of facing up to myself and finally expelling trauma from my life.

It’s also been huge in terms of new pathways opening up to me. Options I never expected to have, suddenly being mine for the taking.

Options that involve a massive step-change and leap of faith (that everything will work out just fine).

In other words: things that are both exciting and scary. But also? Things that are aligned with my heart and soul, and what I want to be doing with my life.

Interestingly, even though those changes are still at least half a year away, having a commitment to heading in that direction seems to already be causing a ripple in my own personal space-time continuum. One that suggests YES, I am doing the right things.

I find myself… turning into someone who can help others. Not however, with some sort of do-gooder-this-is-good-for-my-soul agenda.

It’s kind of hard to describe.

In one instance recently, I found myself reaching out to a friend on the other side of the world. I didn’t know if she’d tell me to eff-off or not! Just that I wanted to share some ideas with her. It turns out that the timing was right and she was open to what I had to say. I don’t feel comfortable sharing her story, but suffice to say things have turned around significantly with her physical and mental health. These are her victories however, not mine. But somehow, I managed to set the ball in motion for her at the right time.

Then, just last night I found myself listening to a yoga student who’s also become a friend. After class, she explained the existential crisis she’s going through right now. Fortunately, many of my own experiences have been similar enough that I could offer the right kind of support.

Later, this friend then wrote an incredibly moving comment on Facebook about our conversation:

…you are so much more than my yoga teacher, you are helping me to find a level of peace and connectedness that I didn’t think was possible.

WOW, was she really talking about me? Her words brought tears to my eyes. I don’t know how I’ve done what she’s claiming and… it seems like a big claim!

That said, finding ways to connect with people is starting to feel a bit like teaching yoga.

By which I mean the best teachings seem to flow through me. As if I’m channelling a much wiser person. The words I say aren’t mine exactly. But somehow they’re what’s needed.

I daren’t lay claim to any of this stuff, however.

It feels like a lesson from my teacher:

Don’t be distracted or get excited when such things happen. Keep going and don’t allow your ego to get involved.

Yet none of this would be possible if I hadn’t lived through the things I’ve survived.

Last weekend I spent fifteen hours in a yoga intensive, and the following insight came to me Sunday afternoon:

Not that I wish injuries (physical/mental/emotional) on myself or anyone else BUT all of the best things I’ve learned in life were learned while healing from those injuries.

I wouldn’t take any of it back now. I wouldn’t want to unlearn the things I’ve learned in order to develop strength, balance, health and happiness.

I like LOVE those learnings.

And now? It seems as though my life lessons are becoming useful for other people in a tangible way.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about that, because it seems that the answer to “Who am I becoming?” is this:

I’m becoming a healer.

Whoah.

~ Svasti

Fifty shades of good times

Tags

cycles of transformation, Energy, falling in love, Happiness, Health, inky silver highway of the universe, joy, jumping beans, moon glow, self-love, vitality

Of course there’s that old saying – and it’s apparently true – that the Sami people (NOT the Inuit, mind) have a vast array of words to describe snow.

Recently a certain reader of this blog (who never actually comments here and yet somehow, over the interwebs we’ve managed to strike up a friendship); wondered via IM, if my life must be going pretty well right now since I’m not blogging that much.

So I’ve been thinking about that idea that we only tend to write when things are not going well, or that we write less when we’re happy and life is great… I mean, when life is crappy, there’s a lot of material to work with, right? And when we’re happy, we’re happy. We tend to stop looking so hard when we’re in the zone of blissfulness. Right? Hmmmm…

I guess so. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest this could be a real phenomena. But I don’t think that that’s what’s going on for me.

Don’t get me wrong. Life at the moment is stupendously good. So good I’ve started wondering if I’m a little bit crazy because who the hell feels THIS good on a regular basis? Ha!

Instead, it’s more that I’ve been going through endless cycles of transformation. My health. My yoga practice. My yoga teaching. My work. It’s this whole thing of coming back into my own power (as cheesy as it sounds, right?).

A whole new set of mantras for me: Power. Health. Vitality. Energy. Happiness. Joy.

I’ve got that feeling you get (yep, I still remember even though it’s been an aeon so it seems) when you first fall in love. That rush of hormones and the way the world looks extra-bright-and-shiny. Nothing’s too much trouble. Life is just rocking-ly good in every possible way.

It’s like I’m getting to know happiness, as you would someone you’re dating. My own happiness – generated by my experiences in the world instead of being brought on by the close proximity of someone I’m dating (because readers of this blog know that I’m still 100% date-free, sadly).

And like the aforementioned snow, I’m finding that there are many shades of happiness to be discovered.

Like… pleasure to be alive that closely resembles a hive of jumping beans living just under my skin, grooving to the rhythm of their own funky tunes.

Or the way the moon glows and sends special secret just-for-you winks as it glints in the inky silver highway of the universe.

And how things I already enjoy that usually make me happy in that run-of-the-mill contented puppy kind of way (yoga, kirtan, being in nature, hanging with niece-lings etc)? Yeah, well now those things bring on all kinds of crazy highs.

I walk a little straighter. More and more, people stop me in the street to ask for directions as though I’ve got an “Ask For Help Here” neon sign blinking over my head. Strangers compliment my smile and I can’t remember the last time that happened before now.

Or this: one of my regular yoga students (someone I’ve felt a little connected to for a while now) suggesting we have lunch together and then refusing to let me pay. She made my head spin with compliments on my yoga teaching (I’m still such a newbie teacher you see) and tells me I’ve helped her so very, very much. We agree to hang out again some time.

I find myself asking: who is this person with all of this good stuff going on? She doesn’t resemble the reflection I’ve seen in the mirror for the past few years very much. In fact, my current reflection doesn’t resemble that old image of me at all…

This. This much happiness.

It’s crazy. As if I’ve fallen in love.

And perhaps I have. Only this time, it’s got nothing to do with the glory of some tall, dark ‘n’ handsome hottie admiring my many fine qualities. Or endless make out sessions that make a girl flush with glee. Or all the rest. You know.

What’ve I got instead?

Well, there aint no one else around to fall in love with except my own self.

Seems that 2012 is the year for developing a bit of self-love, eh?

Just ask Kerry or Nadine who are all up in the self-love business, too.

It’s good stuff people, I tell ya!

~Svasti

Chronic Yogi – an interview series

Tags

chronic illness, Chronic Yogi, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Health, imperfect yogi, interview, oms, perfect yoga teacher myth, sutras

Don’t you just love Cora Wen’s Yogi Imperfect talk? It dovetails very nicely with this post…

Yoga teachers. We’re a funny breed. Many of us teach for love, not money. But when teaching for money (i.e. doing it full time), then the love usually still comes first.

However, just because we teach yoga does not mean that we’re perfect. We might (or might not) be bendy, we’ve probably done endless downward dogs, sounded off with more oms than you can count and possibly read dozens of sutras and other yoga books. But that doesn’t mean we’ll always have impeccable health.

In fact some of us are Chronic Yogis – yoga teachers who live with a chronic illness of some kind. We’re more common that you might imagine.

This interview series is inspired by my own recent diagnosis of an autoimmune condition called “Hashimoto’s thyroiditis”. Sometimes I feel like crap, but I still love teaching yoga.

I’m undergoing a process of learning to be cool with my health issues, all the while being clear that it mostly doesn’t affect my ability to teach yoga.

So I’m featuring Chronic Yogis from all over the world in an effort to kick those “perfect yoga teacher” pedestals down…

We might not be perfect or perfectly healthy, but we can still teach yoga and hopefully our imperfections will help our own students be more accepting of themselves, too.

As each interview is published, I’ll include a link here so they’re all indexed together.

Chronic Yogi interviews

• Rachel Hawes
• Christine Claire Reed
• (more to come soon!)

Are you a Chronic Yogi? Wanna be a part of this series?

I’ve sent out a bunch of emails to yoga teacher friends and fellow bloggers. But I’m sure there’s more of us out there than I know!

So if you’re a yoga teacher with a chronic health problem and you’d like to be involved, then I want to interview you, too!

Criteria

A chronic health problem is generally any disorder that persists over a long period and affects physical, emotional, intellectual, vocational, social, or spiritual functioning.

This can include all sorts of conditions such as depression, mental health imbalances, diabetes, epilepsy, ME/chronic fatigue, auto-immune disorders and many more.

If this is you, and you also work as a yoga teacher, I’d be honoured if you would consider participating in my interview series.

Just get in touch at: svasti108[at]gmail[dot]com

~Svasti

False walls and exit doors

Tags

Ayurveda, black thoughts, catch 22, Depression, eclipsed new moon, Health, injury, mayhem, PTSD, Sadness, sociopaths, surrendering, thyroid

This is a different post than the one I’d planned to share. But I’m having a hard time finding a point in a lot of my writing right now. I’m struggling. I know these feelings aren’t permanent but all of my darkest thoughts are out to play and I’ve gotta tell you folks, it’s mayhem in Svasti-land.

Tore a calf muscle earlier this week. As if my life doesn’t have enough crap in it, I was trying to run for the train and without obvious cause I could no longer walk properly. Just a twang inside my right leg and look Ma, I’m Hop-a-long Svasti In Considerably Unpleasant Pain.

Been working with an Ayurvedic practitioner in recent times to work on a more holistic approach to healing my thyroid. Ayurveda is Indian traditional medicine and it’s amazing and powerful. Apparently my due to the many imbalances in my body right now, it’s not surprising that there’s dryness in my soft tissues. Which means things like this can happen more easily.

Great. Frickin GREAT.

Friday brought the eclipsed new moon, which I felt very keenly. Its energy brought certain truths to light that I’ve been trying to ignore as best as I could: as much as I love working in the digital industry, the people I have to work with sometimes are just killing me.

People being assholes who are more interested in stroking their ego than they are in being professional, courteous, efficient and respectful. In corporate life, there are more people like this than not. I suspect half of them are sociopaths, while the others I think are just sad, lonely people who don’t know any better than to lash out at their work mates.

But it’s more than that. I’m in this catch 22 of needing the money I’m earning in order to reach my goal of being debt-free as quickly as I can. Not to mention that right now I have a lot of health-related expenses – doctors, meds, vitamins and herbs, alternative medicine consultations and now massages (for that cranky right calf of mine).

Essentially, I need to get out of this line of work but I can’t afford to just yet.

So add all of these things up – my health, a mystery injury and admitting the truth of my career situation to myself… and I’ve been feeling a little crappy this weekend.

Not that I haven’t tried to buck myself up.

Yesterday I got another massage ostensibly for my calf, but in truth my entire body aches. Not just from the strain of limping and hobbling my way through the week, but because I still carry my old shoulder injury and untold amounts of tension from PTSD.

As a yogi, I’m pretty darn bendy but regardless of that and no matter how much yoga I do, my body retains some powerful clenching abilities. So it hurts – something that should feel good and nourishing to my body, it bloody hurts.

Post-massage and before my haircut appointment (my first since the Great Hair Debacle which I haven’t written about here) I had a meal at a fabulous new cafe, only three weeks old. It has this eclectic menu including the Asian-style jook I ordered. It was great, but what really won me over was the super-large tea pot (above) that my lemongrass and ginger tea arrived in.

So I was doing what I could to make the weekend enjoyable despite my limp and those truthful truths yammering away. My new haircut made me feel so much better about looking in the mirror for the first time in ages. Which is good.

But it wasn’t enough. Black thoughts have been welling up. They smell suspiciously like depression and I’ve noticed too, how everything is a little less bright. Colours aren’t as vivid and even though I know the way out, I can’t stop myself from wandering in a little deeper. Not just yet.

Because these thoughts, they want to be heard. Even if they are the voice of depression and loss and therefore, rather unbalanced. They go a little something like this:

Life isn’t like a fairy tale. There are no prescribed, audience approved happily ever afters. Some people get lucky and others don’t. That’s just the way it is and it seems like I’m one of those people who isn’t gonna get lucky. My sister has three children now, three! My three best girlfriends are all happily married. One of them is pregnant with her second child, the other with her first and the third is in the process of trying to get pregnant. One of these women I’ve always thought of as a little sister and yet here she is, surpassing me while my own life STILL stands still. I desperately want to let other people in, to date, to have a boyfriend, but at the same time I aint letting anyone in anytime soon. I try and try and try to get past it all, to heal, to move on. But just when I think I’m getting somewhere… SURPRISE. Here, have a chronic health problem. Here, lose the ability to walk properly. And for good measure, let’s throw in a couple of egotistical assholes at my workplace, too.

Still, I can’t find a permanent job and what’s worse, I don’t even want one. Not anymore. Not this line of work and having to deal with people who are less than honest and truthful with themselves and other people. This isn’t who I am but right now I don’t have a choice, do I? EVERY TIME I think I’m closer to my goals, the goalposts move. There is no end. No hope for me. No magical shift where suddenly my health is sorted and my metabolism starts working again, I drop that extra weight and finish paying off my debts. That’s an ending from one of those stupid chick flicks I hate so much and it’s just not real.

What’s real is what’s here. I try my best. I do service work. I do what I can for others and I take pleasure in the little things whenever I can. I do. But I don’t know what it’d feel like to be free anymore. As much as I love my nieces, I really wish I’d never moved back to Melbourne. But here I am, and I’m doing what I can to leave although sometimes it feels like I never will. Not ever.

Even though the saying goes you’re never given more than you can handle, I’m utterly sick to death of being given more to handle again and again while nothing seems to change.

I truthfully don’t know what to do next. If this was a war, I’d be surrendering to the other side right about now…

~Svasti

PTSD can cause real physical health problems

Tags

adrenal exhaustion, Anxiety, auto-immune, Ayurveda, Chronic stress, Depression, dis-ease, exhaustion, game on, gluten free, gluten intolerance, Healing, Health, himoto’s thyroiditis, hypothyroidism, leaky gut, PTSD, self-nurture, Spleen, thyroid, yang energy

It’s a little challenging sometimes to get the facts of life through this thick noggin of mine. For some reason, I’ve a tendency to not believe things are real.

So this whole: yes, my body is sicker than I was aware of thing is taking some getting used to. Of course I knew I was having bouts of exhaustion, but I hadn’t associated that with anything in particular. And thyroid issues it seems, are known to be difficult to diagnose because their symptoms often appear as other things – like depression and anxiety, for starters.

I’ve no way of knowing how long this has been going on, but based on my sketchy knowledge of Ayurveda I’d say it’s been a while. The organs and glands are not the first parts of the body to break down during dis-ease, but they’re also not the last.

What’s been really impressive has been the vast amount of information I’ve gathered from Twitter, including several excellent pieces of advice.

Three of the most important things I’ve learned in the last week are:

• Chronic stress can cause adrenal exhaustion, which in turn can trigger hypothyroidism and/or the auto-immune version of hypothyroidism, called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
• Generally associated with thyroidism is some level of gluten intolerance and/or leaky gut.
• There is PLENTY that a person can do other than take synthetic hormones to sort out this imbalance in the body.
  Here’s one woman’s story of what she did.

Bottom line #1: If you ever had any doubt about the body and mind being one and the same, seeing PTSD translate into a very real physical illness should be all the proof you require.

Bottom line #2: Never, ever, accept the standard western medical treatment without researching other options.

So far it’s been a wild learning curve and I know there’s plenty more to come.

Right now, I’m temporarily taking synthetic hormone medication for one month because it’s part of the protocol my current doctor wants me to follow. I’m not terribly happy about this! After that, I’ll have more blood tests to work out if I’ve got plain old hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s.

In the meanwhile, I’m also taking a small army of supplements including:

• Olive leaf extract (which I’ve been taking for ages to support my immune system)
• Fish oil (another one I’ve been taking for ages – good for joints and cholesterol)
• L-Tyrosine – this made me feel SO. MUCH. BETTER. The almost ever-constant anxiety I was experiencing, that’d flare up without much cause is now gone. Yep, GONE. This is an amino acid and it’s referred to as “neuro-transmitter support”. It is incredible!
• Liquid iron (better for absorption, and doesn’t cause constipation like the tablet form. Also includes vitamin C in the blend) – related to adrenal exhaustion
• Magnesium – to support iron absorption
• Huge doses of B12 and vitamin D – which I am deficient in right now and this is also related to adrenal exhaustion

But that’s not all. I’m working with my acupuncture guy on my spleen/yang energy – which is also connected to the thyroid. He’s gonna give me some herbs and needles to see what can be done to support my body.

AND I’ve started – somewhat fitfully – eating gluten free. I can report that the first few days my body was having a little celebration at the change in my eating habits. I felt like it was literally singing to me!

But I’ve had to work out what’s okay and not okay to eat. Obviously things like bread are totally out (unless it’s gluten-free chia bread!), but other things I’d eat occasionally like dumplings, fries (cross-contamination issues), and even most potato chips are OUT. So is blue cheese (*cries*). My breakfast cereal, which I thought was okay as it was wheat-free, just isn’t. Barley and rye also have to go, you see.

The weird thing is that after even just a few days without gluten, then slipping up with stuff I wasn’t aware of… WOW, my belly hurts! That’d also be me just double checking to see if this thing is really REAL (thick noggin, remember?).

Interestingly, I noticed that I’d been having this sort of tight, bloated pain for a while. Only I hadn’t realised before now that this was a symptom of gluten intolerance. Amazing what we put up with, isn’t it?

So mostly I’m sticking to very simple meals – fish, organic chicken, rice, steamed veggies (drizzled with tahini – YUM!) and salads. Stuff like that. I’ve found a wonderful gluten free breakfast cereal and the previously mentioned chia bread. The other thing I’m meant to do is eat smaller meals more frequently.

Basically, I’m not taking any of this lying down (see bottom line #2). I’ve already got some leads on doctors that work more holistically when it comes to thyroid issues. So once I get my test results, I’ll probably switch doctors because I want someone who knows this stuff inside out and is prepared to go further than just giving me replacement hormones!

Food, exercise, proper rest, yoga and meditation – along with the appropriate supplements etc – all appear to be the way to go.

I’m also doing some work on my self-nurture abilities: today I had an awesome “me” day! Post-yoga class, I had myself a lovely time – getting my eyebrows waxed, a massage, going to a movie, buying some lovely fruit tea, a new light for my push bike, and wandering at a leisurely pace back towards my part of the world.

Game on, people. It’s game-freakin’-on.

~Svasti

Plans not resolutions

Tags

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

Fake tan & coffee anxiety

Tags

Adrenaline, Anxiety, Caffeine, Chinese Horoscope, Coffee, Commuting, Fake tan, Health, Morning coffee, Self-pampering, Sensualist, Stilettos, Sydney

I’m not an overly girly girl. I mean, I can be, if I feel like it! Look, I really enjoy getting all dressed up on occasion but you’ll never catch me at the races in a “fascinator” and stilettos just aren’t for me. I’m too tall for one thing – I detest towering over men – my poor old bone grafted toe isn’t quite up to bearing my body weight for hours on end. Also, I like to be able to walk and not hobble. Run if needs be.

And I’d rather not be completely crippled with a shocking back and knees by the time I’m ninety. There’s plenty of stuff I’d still like to be able to do at that age.

I’ve been feeling a tad strung out of late. Partly it’s the commute from deepest darkest Suburbia-Urbia to work (gotta find a new pad soon!), which requires me to be in the shower at 6am in order to take a bus and two trains to get to work at 9am. Yeah.

And then there’s the coffee. I gave up my one cup a day habit (okay, perhaps it sneaked up to two more often than I’d care to admit) around six years ago. It’s the fault of this gag-worthy doco that pointed out in graphic detail just what coffee does to the body. In short – it leaches calcium from the bones to deal with the onset of adrenaline caffeine creates upon ingestion. Kinda gross.

Not exactly conducive to a long life either.

With the extended commute each side of my day right now, I confess I’ve stooped to drinking coffee again. Every weekday morning. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and let’s face it – Australian coffee does have an utterly glorious aroma. Not like the shite they pass off as coffee over the pond in the US! 😉

As a Metal Boar (Chinese Horoscope) I definitely and utterly fall into the category of the die-hard sensualist. And I’m liking that morning coffee far too much. More than that, I’m suffering the climb-the-wall anxiety that apparently goes hand in hand with imbibing an adrenaline pumping drug for the first time in ages.

The caffeine hit lasts all day long – I get that tense feeling pretty much all over and my scalp itches.

Anyway, this afternoon I found myself sitting in a pink decóred “Hair & Nails” salon directly underneath my offices: Hannah’s. It’s convenient and cheap, with Asian love songs blaring and a lucky golden waving cat at the front door. The girl/women workers barely speak English – not that it matters – and laugh at almost anything I say.

Usually my attempts at self-pampering include a pedicure, or a massage. At a stretch, I might indulge in a facial once in a blue moon. But not today. I’m there, almost inconceivably, to subject myself to a fake spray tan.

Never had one before. Not sure I’ll be doing it again in a hurry. I mean the result was good, but it just seems rather vain to me. Not to mention spraying chemical crap all over my body. And usually, I just don’t care so much how I look.

Geez, if I was still living in Sydney I wouldn’t even need to fake it. Up north I could effortlessly maintain a natural looking perma-tan from just wandering around. But in the deep south we just don’t get enough sun for that. Coming out of my first Winter here I was horrified to realise my skin was several shades of blindingly pasty white.

Right now I’m a pleasant faux light tan colour. That’s after twenty minutes standing in a room the size of a wardrobe stark naked ‘cept for the paper knickers they supply, begging the tiny Asian lady to not turn me orange and hoping she understood something of what I was saying.

The aroma of my skin isn’t anywhere near as nice as coffee though… but apparently it evaporates pretty quickly.

And I guess there’s a laté in my near future, just over seven hours away…

~ Svasti