you can't judge my body

a boy recently dumped me because he didn't like my body (too skinny).  at least, that's the reason i interpreted from the one minute break up conversation. 

why does this reason piss me off more than any other reason i've ever heard in my life?  i'm so glad you asked.  BECAUSE I HAVE SPENT YEARS TRYING TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE MY BODY.  the last thing i need is someone else telling me they don't like something about it.

when i was thinking about this a little more today, i thought "i don't think anyone i've dated or been friends with has ever judged my body."  i mean i have, for sure.  but i had to scan each person in my life until i finally remembered one other:  a guy i was casually hooking up with about 4 years ago, who was 21 and very buff (and on steroids), told me after sex one day "you know, you could stand to do a few squats." 

i responded "i'm 32; this is the best it's gonna get, honey."

and then i proceeded to never again have sex with him.  but i did start doing a lot more squats.

why?  because i was still very intertwined with my bulimia.  i had just run a marathon; i was nearly the skinniest i've ever been.  i was teaching tons of fitness classes; i was well toned.  there was no reason i should have felt bad about my body, but of course i did.  and hearing it confirmed from someone i had just had sex with tore at my ego.

but this one last week--it hurt way more.  in a totally different way.  i have done a FUCK TON of work to love this body just as it is.  not because of its shape.  but because it houses a beautiful and brave soul.

no one gets to judge my body: no one gets to say i'm too fat.  no one gets to say i'm too thin.  no one gets to say i need to do a few more squats.

INCLUDING ME.

re: that one minute call last week: i don't think i'm maddest about the judgment received or the self-judgement inflicted afterwards; it was that i didn't stick up for the years of work i've done.

i respect each person's unique fetishes and attractions.  i respect each person's decision to date who they want. 

but i really respect myself, and my body.  and so, my gift to myself today, on my 8th wedding anniversary (if i still do that type of thing), is to come to my own defense.

putting the gold in golden

be nice; treat others how you want to be treated. don't say something you wouldn't want to hear yourself. don't TEXT something you wouldn't want to read yourself.

blah blah blah

where's the real gold in the golden rule?

i think it's recognizing how we should be treated; how we deserve to be treated; how we should treat ourselves.

i read this blog today about those messages we say to ourselves every day. my favorite part is where she says that we are never going to criticize ourselves into something. it's true: we know that if we want someone else to do something, we are nice to them; we compliment them and work to motivate them. but if we want to do something for ourselves, we often berate ourselves and minimize any steps we've taken toward our goal.

today a friend messaged me: "I'm in need of one of your blog postings to a) motivate me to make the changes I need to and b) tell me I am good enough the way I am." i was honored to receive that message. but she didn't really need me. she needed herself.

but, even in saying that, i know how she feels. when you aren't happy with something in your life, external motivation feels stronger than the internal voice that is often the opposite of motivating. my internal voice beats me up for not running one day out of the week... but it never compliments me for the other six days. it never tells me what a great job i'm doing at, well, most things in my life.

i have this new cat. cat stevens (cat for short) is a very sweet and loving one-year-old that likes cuddling and is fantastic at not jumping and scratching. when i brought him home on tuesday, i was shaking. i've cared for other people's pets. i've cared for other people's children. but i've never been solely responsible for a living thing. (well, other than plants. and those have all died rather quickly.) i called my sister (who has a six month old new baby) and commiserated. "MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE YOUR LIFE NOW!!!"

...or something like that.

i noticed this new side of me emerging: i was wanting to rush home to check on cat; i was looking forward to nesting and cuddling with him; i wanted all my friends to meet him and bond with him. in other words, i was treating him like gold. like i wanted to be treated. like i wanted to treat myself.

why don't i run home to pamper myself regularly? to spend time with myself? to spend quality time with my friends as a priority?

my advice to my friend that messaged me? look to the things you are grateful for. list them. acknowledge them. move forward from that place of acknowledgment.

i'm grateful for the run i completed today; the friends i get to spend time with tonight; the plane that i'm currently blogging from; and the motivation to treat myself well--the motivation that blooms both internally and externally.

keep moving forward; keep motivating yourself and those you care about, whether or not they're human. (enter halloween zombie/vampire references.)

love.

recovery is a long word

do you know what yik yak is? if you're not under 25, or one of my best friends, the answer is probably no. it's an anonymous twitter type app that i'm obsessed with--along with all 18-25 year olds. you can only see yaks that are posted in your immediate area, so if you're near a college campus, or in a big city, it will be super interesting. (if not, don't even attempt to download it!)

you can comment on people's yaks and up or down vote them. if a yak gets 5 down votes, it is automatically removed. which is kind of cool, because it is a little self-regulating. anyway, it can be a mean place (because it is anonymous), but it can also be a super supportive place (because it is anonymous).

point of the story: a young girl posted tonight about binging and purging. i replied, she replied, i replied, etc. she hadn't told anyone about her eating disorder; she kept it hidden; she didn't know what to do.

H E A R T B R O K E N
is how i felt. and i wanted to help her: i wanted to do all the things for her. i told her about how hiding it amplifies the shame, and about how admitting it (even anonymously) was a good first step.

that admission can be SO. HARD.

i've had other people grace me with their admissions in the past, both about eating disorders and other mental health issues. and every time i feel this intense yearning to soothe and nurture; to offer support; to provide forgiveness.

i know those feelings arise from the needs i have so strongly felt in my life. the needs that i was afraid to express, and afraid to have met--both by myself and others.

this morning i did an online yoga class with elena, and she said this:

the amount of energy that it takes to resist the expressions of our heart and recoil from our divine nature is exactly the same amount of energy it takes to surrender. this energy cannot do both at the same time.

when she said that, i freaked out a tiny bit. like it struck a chord inside me pretty deeply. i couldn't say for sure exactly why this morning.

and now, i feel like, oh, yeah. it's because all i do is struggle with how vulnerable i can be. how vulnerable can i be with exposing my sensitivities, my true feelings, and my insecurities? how vulnerable can i be with admitting TO MYSELF my sensitivities, my true feelings, and my insecurities?

seeing my struggle reflected back through a younger version of myself hurt. i wanted to protect her; i wanted to speed up her healing process.

not that i'm recovered.

not that any of us are.

from whatever.

but, you know, we're all ok anyway.

we're all on this journey of recovery.

which is actually just life.

so keep recovering. keep remembering that true nature. keep forgiving those who can't yet. keep supporting them. and put all your energy into the surrendering: to the vulnerabilities, sensitivities, feelings, and insecurities. i swear it's fucking worth it.

now watch this. #love

healing ourselves

i taught one of the most fulfilling classes ever tonight. the class focus was on breathing through those hard times, those uncomfortable situations, those everyday frustrations: intentions of responding to these challenges with love.

after class a few people applauded... which happens occasionally, but still, it feels kinda weird. and then a student came up to me and asked to tell me something. something in her eyes made me divert all of my attention to her.

she told me about a heavy pain that's been her body, about her struggles with doctors to treat it, about the medications she's tried, and about her resulting depressed state at nothing succeeding in easing it. i cried as she talked, feeling her sadness and frustration through her words. she talked to me for half an hour.

and then came the kicker: she said that my class healed her; that the pain in her body had lifted, and that she felt happy.

it was a beautiful heartfelt sentiment. and it really touched me.

i'm still feeling the reverberations of her conversation, actually. partly because of her amazing sincerity. and partly because i know exactly how she feels.

if you know me even a little bit, you know that i love yoga and that i think everyone can benefit from it. it's almost like you're not a real friend of mine until you've been dragged to a yoga class or been forced to be a participant in a one-on-one with me. but there's good reason for that: i love you and want you to know what i love. and why.

i truly believe we can heal ourselves: the past hurts we carry with us, the emotions that are sometimes too hard to feel, the deep-seeded fears. we can learn to let go of these things and create brighter futures.

i'm sure there are other ways of doing these things, but, to me, it's yoga. it's breathing through all that shit that we try not to acknowledge that gives us courage to breathe through the next thing.

even my graffiti choices are yoga!

and that's why i teach. a couple of days ago a friend asked me about how i got into yoga and why i teach it. i went through the chronology of it. but for sure i would've quit it by now if it wasn't for the healing: both what i get and what i see in the lives of others. i've had a few friends tell me that they are thankful for the yoga i've brought into their lives.

i'm deeply humbled when i hear that. but really, like i told the woman in class tonight: you're doing the work. that work can be really hard. and the choice to continue to do it can be just as hard.

but the benefits?
yeah.
way more worth it.
so.
go heal yourself.
LOVE.

through your eyes

i was at a birthday party a couple of nights ago talking to a friend i don't see very often. he gave me a few compliments that were hard to hear--because they were so genuine and nice.

like SO nice. i kept saying "really?!" to things he was saying, and he kept saying "oh, come on, you know this; i'm sure your five best friends tell you this all the time!"

when i repeated these things back to kitty (still in disbelief), she said "umm, i tell you that ALL THE TIME!" oh. hmm.

three lessons here: 1) we don't tell our friends genuine things enough. 2) sometimes we may not hear or believe the things our very best friends tell us. 3) we often have no idea how others see us.

if you asked me how i see myself, this is what i would say: i'm just a girl.

sure, i know i am talented and have a lot of good qualities. but everyone has their own talents. and everyone has some great qualities. so i guess i just don't really feel that special most of the time. but it's really a strange thing to hear yourself described by someone else. luckily for me, it was also positive.

there's this old episode of "this american life" that i love so much i've listened to it a few times, and i never listen or watch things more than once. this episode is haunting, but amazing: it's called see no evil. the episode is all about pretending that things are ok and ignoring things that are uncomfortable--on personal, business, and national levels. in the first segment, there is a family struggling to see the bad in one of their loved ones. even when that something is really bad.

why is it that we can only see the most amazing things about our loved ones but we struggle to see those things in ourselves?

there's this exercise in gabby's 40 days book that has you look into the mirror and say things to yourself as if you were saying them to a best friend or lover. the exercise is quite confronting, and hard to get through. i've gone back to this a few times to try to get it "right." but it's always hard. (i dare you to try it.)

telling yourself those nice things, and believing them, is something that takes practice. we can do it on the mat or off. we can practice cultivating inner strength and power by breathing through a challenging yoga pose or by breathing through a difficult conversation.

after seeing kanye friday night, i taught a theme in yoga about stepping up to a stronger more powerful version of yourself: like believing SO MUCH in your inner strength and power. but not for ego reasons (yeah, i'm calling you on that one kanye). when we truly believe in ourselves, we can do more; we can give more; we can become more; we can inspire more.

we can manifest miracles.

and it's important to do. hard work... but super important.

practicing believing what i hear. love to you N for your words saturday night. i actually heard what you said. and it means a lot to me.

sharing the love back. words to KK you may need right now: you're smart, intelligent, genuine, kind, caring, loving, and loveable. to A going for a job interview later today: you're going to rock it. #nodoubts and to all y'all: you have it inside you too. xx

being nice

i went for a run with my friend early last evening. we were both a bit tired, but we decided to run anyway. about halfway through the run, when i could feel my energy dropping and my friend beginning to slow, a woman passed us walking in the opposite direction. she smiled at us and said, "you girls look great!"

umm, did you catch that? those four little words that just slid out of her mouth so easily? those words instantly energized and urged us on. my friend laughed and said, "that's just what i needed!" i smiled and said, "how nice was she?!" we finished our run, and we both went about the rest of our evenings with feelings of lightness.

as i walked in to teach my yoga class last night, i thought about how a simple four word sentence had already buoyed my mood for an hour of my night. is it possible that something so small could have such an impact? (if you're unsure, i'll tell you the answer; it's yes.)

in the yoga class i taught last night, i paused a few times to stop and suggest that the class silently tell themselves something nice about themselves. something as simple as "i'm amazing!" or "i am doing this perfectly!" or "i am happy i took this time for myself." when we did a difficult pose, we'd stop and compliment ourselves. when i felt frustration in the room, we stopped to compliment ourselves. in our meditation at the end of practice, we focused on a positive self-talk statement. during class closing, i encouraged the participants to offer genuine compliments to themselves over the course of the next week, as well as to those in their lives.

so. try it. it's easy:
1. give a compliment to yourself.
2. give one to someone else.
3. smile.
4. feel better.

it works. promise. (you're amazing!) xx

Loving

Why is it so hard to remember how awesome we are? I saw a post today that I loved, because it was in-your-face awesomeness! (CLICK HERE!)

As I was pondering my own and my friends' forgetfulness as to our awesomeness levels, I was thinking about how easy it is to get sucked into all the things going on around us: the media messages, the emails, the jobs we take on, etc. If I lived in a small, transient community, 2000 years ago, would I get sucked into those dynamics and forget myself? Somehow, I doubt it. 

So far I've had a beautiful, though not typical Valentine's Day. I connected to my sister living abroad via a Skype yoga session this morning, I chatted with a few friends that I've been missing on Skype and gchat this afternoon, and I saw a friend tonight before my yoga class, who gave me a lovely flower. where's my husband in all of this? Stuck in bed, sick. We celebrate our love often, so I'm not too upset about missing a dinner this one day of the year. But I do plan on pampering him whenever he is awake enough for it. 

In my yoga class tonight, I focused on loving ourselves. And I think there could not have been a more perfect audience. Most of the people who attended class tonight were single, and most of them came to yoga to be kind to themselves. The response I got from the self-love focus was amazing; I could see people brightening and warming throughout the practice.

It's on a day where we celebrate love where we should reflect on our own self-love (and, before you ask, no, I don't mean that self-love... this time). We don't have a specific day dedicated to expressing our own awesomeness, but it should be part if our daily to-do list. So go ahead, give yourself a hug, and a smile, and maybe even a little treat. You deserve it! xo