Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans

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Adventure, be in the world., debt free, finances, goals, good health, Guru, Haiti, holidays, India, manifesto, Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans, Relax, Retreat, see things, service work, study, teaching, touchstone, Travel, Universe, wander about, Writing, Yoga

Been meaning to write this one up for a while now.

Have you noticed how darn freakin’ hard it can be to keep your eyes on your goals when they’re not immediately in front of you? When there are no set dates or schedules? Even worse, when you’re working like a demon to get to even the first marker and more obstacles appear? Yeah, me too. That’s pretty much been 2011 for me.

It can be handy to write up your plans and have them all in one place. So this post is exactly that – a manifesto of my Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans.

All in public and centralised, and a touchstone for me to revisit whenever I forget what I’m working towards. Also, it’s a bit like putting an advance order in to the Universe.

So here it is…*

Short term

• Get a well-paying permanent or longer-term contract job (6-12 months) to keep me financially afloat.
• Be employed before, during and after the end of my current contract (end-November ’11).
• Take my birthday holiday trip in December. Have a blast, meet new people and RELAX.
• Work on reducing my physical possessions – sell stuff or give it away. Hold a garage sale?

Medium term

• Successfully wean myself off thyroid medication, with the assistance of kinesiology, diet, de-stressing, yoga and other exercise.
• Get a clean bill of health for my thyroid once I’m off medication.
• Write a complete first draft of the children’s book that’s banging around my brain. (It currently sends me messages like: WRITE ME, BIATCH).
• Find someone to illustrate my children’s book and collaborate on the work.
• Reverse my thyroid-induced weight gain. – HAPPENING!
• Pay off all of my debts completely.
• Start saving a whole bunch of money for my Big Overseas Adventure!
• Gain my English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching certificate.
• Keep reducing amount of physical possessions to those things that are necessary for functional and/or emotional/spiritual/sanity purposes.
• Get travel shots.

Longer term

• Find a publisher who wants to publish my book and pay me money for it!
• Once I’ve saved up a whole bunch of money for my Big Overseas Adventure, buy an around the world plane ticket. Get necessary visas and insurance. UPDATE 17/3/2013: For now, I’m not taking a ’round the world trip, just a two month sabbatical to India (currently in progress!)
• Quit my job. WOOP! WOOP!
• This one is sad. 😦 Find an excellent new home for Miss Cleo the cat. My beautiful girl. UPDATE 17/3/2013: Since I’m not going overseas indefinitely, I just have a house/cat sitter instead!
• Sell all possessions I don’t want to keep. Box up what’s left to put in storage.
• Make all necessary plans and farewells. Then GET ON PLANE!!
• First stop: India, for panca karma, studying at KYM and Satyananda Ashram. Wander about. See things. Be in the world.
• Second stop: find wherever my Guru is in the world and spend some time with him, still studying yoga (referring to the complete idea of yoga here – philosophy, meditation, asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha).
• Third stop: spend some time in retreat.
• Other stops: maybe visit friends in the UK and US. Do some volunteer work in Haiti. Wander about. See things. Be in the world.
• Maintain and increase my good health, thyroid or otherwise.

Even longer term…

Now I’m getting into very speculative territory. But here’s a lifestyle that could make me happy:

• Settle down somewhere in Asia. Maybe Thailand or somewhere nearby. Somewhere beautiful.
• Get a job teaching yoga, perhaps at some swanky retreat centre.
• Perhaps get another job teaching ESL.
• Write more children’s books and/or other types of books.
• Maybe also do some freelance writing for various websites.
• Combine all of the above with doing service work of some kind, preferably working with children or women at risk. People who need love.
• Maybe other things. Probably LOTS of other things. But the point is to be doing work that I love and that makes me happy.
• Maintain and increase my good health, thyroid or otherwise.
• Live a life I can’t even imagine right now. A really, really GREAT one.

Somewhere in this process…

I dare to dream that this future also includes personal, romantic love. As in a partner. It’s been a long time, but I think I’m finally ready to open my heart again. For someone who gets me, and vice versa. Someone who has a good heart and thrives on the kind of life I’ve described above, just as much as I do. Someone who isn’t afraid of change, growth and learning new things. Someone who knows who they are and isn’t afraid to challenge themselves or me. Who is passionate and knows how to make me laugh. Side note: someone who is preferably taller than my 5’10½” because I dig a tall guy.

So there we have it. My Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans.

For a long time, I didn’t have any plans or dreams. I didn’t make any and couldn’t even imagine a time in my life where I’d be happy and doing what I wanted to be doing. Things are different now. I’m on my way, y’all!**

Of course, the Universe will have a say in how things pan out. But assuming the Universe agrees, this is what I’ll be doing.

~ Svasti

* This post will get updated as things change!

** Being on my way doesn’t mean I assume everything is gonna go off without a hitch or be problem-free. That’d be foolish-thinking. But I’m down with a somewhat bumpy journey, as long as I can still achieve my goals.

Soften. Relax. Surrender.

Tags

Anger, autoimmune disorder, completely heart-centred life, fire personality type, Hashimoto’s, Heart, hridaya, inflammation, Inspiration, letting go, Mark Whitwell, observations from the mat, Relax, relaxation, soften, Surrender, tension, vira, Yoga

King Crankypants needs to relax!

Yoga starts from the heart, spreads through your whole body, then to your loved ones, then to the whole world.
~Mark Whitwell

I don’t enjoy writing posts like my last one. Really. But sometimes I feel like they’re necessary.

I just read the above quote from the delightful Mark Whitwell and I realised that pretty much everything comes down to the heart – crappy Funny or Die videos don’t come from the heart. Those who actually think those crappy videos are funny? That sense of humour is not heart-centred. Being abusive towards someone who makes a stand and says what they think, is also not heart-centred behaviour. Getting stroppy with perpetrators of said abusive behaviour? Nope, not quite heart-centred either.

Increasingly, I know that what I want for myself is a completely from-the-heart life. Where everything I do, every action I take and every word that comes out of my mouth is coming from the heart. That DOES NOT mean that everything will always all sunshine and puppy dogs. I’ll still have healthy boundaries, be ferocious when required, and speak out about stuff I think of as wrong. But maybe not quite in the same way.

All of this is challenging for me as a vira/fire personality type. Like many people, anger has been the default response to things I don’t like for most of my life. I’ve done a fantastic job thus far at tempering that fire but there’s more to do. I mean heck, getting an autoimmune disorder is a clear sign there’s too much fire and inflammation in my system, right?

As such, I get the point of doing things like having a negative media fast. Still, I’ve got the heart of a protester and I aint afraid to call it like I see it when needed.

But reading quotes like Mark’s help me to remember to keep a balance. I reckon it’s okay to be angry about something when it’s needed. But letting go is important, too.

So as always, it’s back to practicing yoga for me

The best things I learn from my yoga practice aren’t about how to work my way into a more advanced version of some asana or other. Don’t get me wrong – that’s lots of fun but it’s not what keeps me coming back.

What I value most are the moments of inspiration in how I deal with myself, my body/mind and/or with other people.

Monday was day one of a new term – the second for me at this yoga school – and the bearer of new realisations, too.

Given that I spent most of the winter term rather unwell (with Hashimoto’s) and injured (torn right calf muscle), I was surprised last week to discover that despite all of this and despite doing a very basic kind of practice for the last couple of months, I’ve gained strength. It’s pretty amazing actually – every inversion I do feels stronger, more balanced and stable. Every balance is steadier.

In other words, a gentle and steady practice caused an increase in strength.

So I was excited to come back to day one of classes for the term, now that my energy levels have lifted a little and that after two long months, and I’m no longer limping.

One of the themes of Monday night’s class was the difference between tension and relaxation.

Without meaning to, I found myself sharing this:

What I learned from last term’s classes is that even when we think we’re relaxed, we can still be holding a lot of tension. It wasn’t until my teacher suggested a slightly different arm or leg position, that I noticed my previous one wasn’t exactly comfortable. We just sort of get used to holding our tension, to the point that we simply don’t feel it until someone shows us an easier way.

This is actually true for many things – yoga, our lives, or looking at our own behaviours and actions. We sometimes don’t see our own tensions, or limitations. We don’t get the easier way until someone else reflects it back for us.

Then we have a choice – we can keep doing what we were doing all along, and possibly do ourselves an injury in the process. Our rigidity might even hurt someone else. Or we can adapt to another way of being that flows better and requires less energy to maintain.

It’s up to us, isn’t it?

Like most westerners who spend too much time n front of a computer, I hold a lot of tension in my shoulders. So in my practice I have to constantly find ways to soften and release through my shoulders and upper back. I’ve also been learning the difference a 10 degree angle can make in the positioning of my arms over my head. If one position jams my neck, why do I persist in holding my arms up higher when I don’t have to?

Soften. Relax. Surrender.

Until we learn to treat ourselves this way, it’s impossible to show others kindness as a day-to-day 24/7 way of being. We need to let go of our anger and frustration (they’re actually the same thing) and soften the way we treat ourselves, first. Then, we can expand that out to others.

This is yoga, and this is life.

Here’s to keeping our hridaya (heart) centre in mind as we practice and move through our days.

It’s a process I’m in. What about you?

~ Svasti

A word to the world

Tags

Breathe, Freedom, Labels, No rules, Poem, Poetry, Relax, Truth

Take all your labels

Your ability to divide and decide

To make right and wrong

And feel so self-righteous

Try to put all that aside and see

I am not moved, not affected

I am not the things you say

Think what you will of me

But I just don’t see it that way

Breathe in and breathe out

Feel the spaces in between?

Yes, between your breaths

Is freedom if you pay close attention

Don’t you know all your issues mean nothing?

Don’t you get that being angry a thousand times a day

Takes you further from what you want most of all?

I am more than you can see

Eyes can’t be trusted with the truth

I’m playing a game that is no game

With rules that are no rules

Its a different playing field over there!

When you reach out in fear and anger

I’m saddened you think that’s all there is

This limited cartoon version of the world

With its extremes of light and shade

It never has to be one or the other, why not all?

Open, don’t close

Play it large, not small

Relax into accepting it all

~Svasti