rose-colored life

i live in new york city, so i've heard a few car horns. ok, i've heard a lot of car horns. this morning i was walking with a friend and he screamed back at a car stuck in traffic "why are you honking? what do you think is going to happen?" i laughed and said that the people honking in the cars were likely very upset about a lot of things, and that they didn't know how to express those emotions in their lives. so? they honk.

"honk" is my new shorthand for "wah wah wah, i don't know how to properly process this!"

we're all guilty of this occasionally, of course.

what's funny about my response to the above story is that i immediately replied with compassion to the people polluting my environment with noise. but when i fail to process something well, i rarely reply with compassion toward myself.

last night a friend told me that they were dealing with some depression/anxiety issues. i replied with compassion. but when i think about my own issues? i reply with the opposite. "why do i feel this way today? what's wrong with me? why can't i feel this way? why can't i act this way?"

mid-blog writing, i paused for dinner. i ran home while listening to a podcast and then over to a friend's to watch a tv show while eating pizza. in those two instances of media mid-writing, i heard two instances referring to the saying "rose-colored glasses." i've never particularly liked that phrase, because i thought that it kind of makes fun of optimists, and i consider myself to be one most of the time.

in the latest freakanomics podcast, they interview dan gilbert (a harvard psychology professor) about some ads he helped prudential with. when he discusses happiness, and people planning for their hopeful futures, he stated the following:

I love the metaphor of rose-colored glasses. That’s the way to view the world. They’re rose-colored, meaning there is a tint. You are seeing a rosier future than we will really experience. But they’re glasses. They’re not opaque, right? They’re not blinders. You actually are seeing the world. And if there’s a train coming, it’s a little bit rose-tinted, but it’s a train.

i really really liked his interpretation of the glasses. it made me feel hopeful.

and then, mid-pizza, i heard another reference to rose-colored glasses on bojack horseman. a character on the show said "when you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags." ...and then i felt compassion for that character. it was a potent line, but it didn't dissuade me from wanting to be optimistic about the world. perhaps cautiously optimistic, but still optimistic.

and all of this rose-colored talk reminded me of the compassion i was trying to cultivate toward myself. what if i just slightly altered my perception of myself instead of something more drastic? practicing on others has given me the tools; i just have to reflect the rose-colored tint back inwards.

a rose-colored mirror, if you will.

self-compassion. self-love. hands on heart.

chrysalis

yesterday i listened to a podcast about black boxes. you know: when something goes in and something else comes out, but we don't really know how or why. both the scientist and the yoga instructor in me were fascinated by the three stories. the last part of the podcast, "goo and you," was about caterpillars, butterflies, and that mysterious black box in the middle: the chrysalis.

so, i didn't know this, but apparently we don't know a whole lot about how caterpillars shed one body and become a whole new being. but, we do know some things. first of all, we know that if you condition caterpillars to be fearful of a certain smell, they will retain that conditioning once the become a butterfly. which means: they aren't a whole new being; they carry with them memories (painful memories) from their past life. also: if you cut open a caterpillar, you can find the beginning of wings held inside their bodies. which means: their future self, their next evolution of themselves, is already growing in their current self. ummm. woah. that's pretty crazy, right?!

and that begs the question: what of my future self is in me right now? ...and how can i nurture it? how can i foster its development and growth so that it truly blossoms?

and, how can i guarantee that i've learned the lessons from my past life? how can i make sure that i keep those past life experiences close to my heart without letting them fully define me?

well, yoga. meditation. reflection. and a heaping sprinkling of love and hope.

i guess i don't really know what's next for me. but i'm excited to find out.

i'll be in my chrysalis. i'll let you know on the other side. x

Balancing Truths

Balancing on the mat is difficult. There's swaying, adjusting, twitching, and, sometimes, falling. And when I fall, I tell myself, "it's ok... get back up and try again!"

I've learned to do the same thing in my life, which is usually a good thing. But sometimes, my "there's always tomorrow!" optimism can be a downfall. Like when I use it to rationalize my way into doing something destructive.

Have you ever been optimistically destructive? It can be as simple as having a piece of cake instead of some fruit by telling yourself that you'll go back to eating healthy tomorrow. Or it can be a little more destructive.

I'm really good at sabotaging my good intentions by optimism (it sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?). The really hard part is being honest enough with yourself to recognize the difference between optimism and optimistic destruction. Being honest with myself is harder than the balancing, and no one can really help me do it. Like everything else, I just need to practice.

One way I practice being honest with myself, though I didn't realize it until I really thought about it, is through yoga. Noticing feelings, whether they are physical or emotional, and deciding what I need to do with the feelings on a moment-to-moment basis, as part of being present during my yoga practice, is teaching me to recognize what I'm feeling and notice how I'm responding off the mat.

Now here's the really scary part... where I bare my experience. Tonight I really wanted to engage in my own special destructive tendencies--binging and purging. It's been a while since I've done it, and my partner was out having dinner with a friend tonight--which meant a few hours to myself this evening. First I wavered in the balancing: walking through the grocery store I picked up and then put down three different items that I thought about buying to take home to eat and throw up. Next, I played games: if I call Billy and he knows I'm thinking about it, then I won't do it because he'll be looking for the signs when he gets home. I also played the optimistically destructive card: "what's one more time; I won't do it for another few months afterward." Then still wavering, I took a long shower to delay my choice.

In the shower I thought about what I was doing, and I practiced being present and identifying what was really going on. I recognized the urge I was feeling as well as the optimistic destruction tendencies I was engaging in. I felt really uncomfortable with the urge, uncomfortable with the responses, and uncomfortable with being forced to make a decision. I felt like I'd lose if I binged and purged, but I'd also lose if I didn't fulfill the urge.

Then I realized that what I really wanted to do was get rid of all of the discomfort.

And, so, finally, I sat myself down in front of the computer to purge some emotions and balance the scales. And here we are. Do I feel comfortable now? Yes and no. I'm certainly standing back on two feet... but I've also exposed more than I typically like to. ...What I feel best about is the moment where I allowed myself to be fully present and honestly assess where I was and what I was feeling. Hey, it's practice.