Category: yoga

Day 5 – I’m alive!! (maybe)

I’m on day five. (It’s day five! I’m alive!!) Ha! Bad humor is mucha diversion!

So, moving on… This week–the week I decided to make this jump into life preservation, self discovery, truth, honesty, yoga, and writing–has been a royal pain in the ass.

I’m not kidding. Not even a little.

From insomnia, to sickness, to soreness, to the fact I bit my tongue SO HARD talking isn’t an option–it’s been a roller coaster ride. And by roller coaster ride, I mean I feel like I’ve been rolled up in a pile of snow and pushed down the side of a hill.

Have I mentioned it’s down right chilly in L.A.?! It’s hard for me to remember the days when I thought forty-degrees was warm. Evidently, back in the day, I was dealing with the side-effects of hypothermia. (Kidding. I lived in Cleveland. All you do in Cleveland when it’s cold is drink. I never would have noticed I had hypothermia.)

SO! Back to coming alive on day five.

I have no lessons for you, right now I’m still trying to hold on and not let myself quit. Maybe there’s a lesson in there… the whole, “quitters never win, winners never quit,” spiel. But… there has been an excellent battle of faith happening.

Not that I’m a religious person, because I’m not.  And I don’t care if you are–I’m not a fan of judging. I am, however, a fan of people following their heart and gut. For me, that has led me to a non-secular path.

Maybe you’re thinking, how can one question their faith, if they don’t worship in the traditional sense? Let me tell you, it’s simple. I just wake up and do it.

Lately I’ve been having this, “What if I’m wrong?!” argument dancing in my head. What if all this time and energy I’ve put into my personal (and maybe a little warped) belief system is a waste of time because it’s just a pile of nothingness?

Thoughts pop into my head that, two years ago, I wouldn’t have questions, but now… I can’t stop questioning them.

I question everything. Why this? Why that?

Then the doubt creeps in… what if I’m wrong?

Okay, here’s and example: What if I’m putting all this time and energy into writing, when–at the end of the day–I’m just not that good.

I don’t want to believe this, because I love writing so much–but how do you know?? [insert Whitney Houston song here]

And the most ridiculous part of this internal struggle/constant argument? The one thing I use as an example is one of the few things I won’t quit. I just can’t. Maybe I should have chosen my new desire to distance myself (physically) from humankind? That may have been a better example, but that ship sailed… and I’m left with my previous example.

As I’m sitting here writing this, now I’m thinking, “Is this a mid-life crisis? am I old enough to have a mid-life crisis? Don’t have to be in my 50s and 60s to have a mid-life crisis? WHEN IS MID-LIFE?!!”

It must be what it is, right? Because I don’t know where it’s all coming from. No, I may not always be the most over confident person, but I can hold my own when need be. And right now I can’t find the root of all this squabbling in my brain, and I fear that until I do it’s going to be months and months of me changing the lyrics of “Who Will I Know,” to fit my life…

BLURG!

I guess I’ll just keep “being alive” and also a little “confused” all the time.

This is what happens when you take time for yourself… you start to analyze things in order to make decisions to better yourself.

I just hope that, when I’m done, I am a better person, and not just the crazy woman on the internet who wishes there was a “jazz hands” icon on wordpress, so she can convey sarcasm with hand gestures other than the middle finger…

What will day six hold?!! What rhymes with six? (besides dicks.)

Now I have to go… ten pages left on this edit, so I’ll be back tomorrow!!! Hopefully with a better song to get stuck in your head…

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Counting down = a fun way to add stress!!

I slept terribly last night. This is another trend in my life–and another reason for the yoga/writing/change–whatever I’m calling this. (I really need a better name…)

So, this is how this how my life is, almost daily these days. My child wakes early, so I try to go to bed early and to wake even earlier than him. This way I can suck down a couple cups of coffee, and write, before he wakes.

Some days it works, others, I’m not so lucky.

Last night, for example– I couldn’t sleep, or I should say, I couldn’t stay asleep. It’s always the same story. I’ve tried valerian root and melatonin and they help me fall asleep, but I’m twice as jittery when I wake up. So I stopped taking it.

On the good nights, who cares! Life is good on the good night–am I right?

On the bad nights, like last night, I’m a mess the next day. (depressed, crying, angry, unfocused… all the good stuff.)

I fall asleep and wake up several times. When I wake up, my brain ignites with the power of the sun, and my calm is constructed like Icarus’ wings. It melts away and I’m stuck with a ‘to-do’ list longer than the Mississippi, and if that isn’t what keeps me from drifting off again–it’s some random song (last night was, This is Halloween, from Nightmare Before Christmas) that plays on a continual loop in my brain.

Then the boy wakes up early, and here I am.

Getting on the mat was a wrestling match. I spent a lot of the morning telling myself how I wasn’t going to do it. Or, I should say, Doris spent a lot of time this morning telling me it was a waste of time.

I did it anyway.

Forty-minutes. It felt like ten. It was worth it. Oh, and I’m sore. Going from periodically practicing and mostly running, to practicing daily and concentrating on strengthening poses–well, it hurts.

That is how the anxiety crumbles! (Totally not a saying and should probably never be one.)

Three down and fifty-eight to go. (Not sure why I’m counting down… what happens at one, besides 2016? What I hope is that I keep going, but for now I need to make it that fifty-eight… baby steps.. baby-baby steps.)

…maybe counting isn’t such a good idea…

Anyway! Let’s see how this goes, shall we? In the mean time… I have thirty-five pages left to edit (in this edit) so I should be getting back to that.

Until I write again… 😉

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Honesty. Life. Yoga. Writing.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s also one of the hardest things we ever do as humans. From being honest to the people in our lives, to keeping the truth flowing with ourselves–sometimes honesty takes the back seat.

Writing a blog post is hard for me, because of honesty. There is the fear that if I’m honest, no one will read my posts, and then there’s the fear that if I’m honest, people will actually read my post–and comment on it.

If I’m honest, and put it all out there, its like dangling from the edge of a cliff…

waiting…

Obviously, this feeling passes. The fear of rejection and acceptance is over the second you know that you have been accepted or rejected. Then you can move on with life.

You can decided what to do next. Try again, or maybe give up this time–the choice is yours, no matter what other people want you to believe.

I’ve given up on a lot of things in my life. Given up on books I’m reading, books I’m writing, people I once called “friend,” and even myself. Giving up is comfortable. It’s that sweet spot where you don’t really have to be scared all the time. Because, simply put, when you’re not putting anything out there, you’ll never have to worry about that second of “will they or won’t they?”

Sometime over the past few months I’ve realized I’m tired of giving up. [insert shrug] I really don’t have a game plan, other than I need to stop it. Living like this–in this sweet spot–turns out it’s not so sweet after all.

The sweetness has morphed into something much more debilitating. It’s become a weird cocktail of depression, I could have been’s, and this has got to stop. Now, the logical side of my brain knows I’m being over dramatic.

Part of being a writer (or any sort of artist) will lead you to being over dramatic from time to time. You may not agree, but I’m fine with this. There is a lot of emotion and energy put into your work–a lot of your own soul–and that will tip the best of us over the edge from time to time.

Now, the not so logical side of my brain–my stupid ego that I’ve named Doris, so I can yell, “Shut up, Doris!” whenever I feel like this–is a complainer. She likes to tell me to stay in the sweet spot.

So, making the decision that I’m done with feeling like this is the first step at getting Doris to shut up on a more permanent bases. The second step is to actively change. Without actively working to change what I dislike–what’s the point?

Once upon a time, I used to practice yoga and mediate daily. Over the past few years, between my new isolated life in L.A. to the boom of the industry, I’ve pulled away from it. (Not a fan of trendy. Won’t buy lululemon pants. I’m not sorry.) But recently I started getting back into it. (Yoga, not trying to be trendy.) So this morning, as I was balancing on my arm in a side plank, I started thinking. Maybe it’s all true, this idea that yoga = happiness?

I mean, I remember being happy when I practiced a lot. So could it be that my answer has always been there, but I’ve been avoiding it because I can’t be honest with myself?

There is really only one way to find out, and yesterday I started my “yoga till then end of 2015” challenge. (I’m not inviting you along, or maybe I am–you choose.) I’m also implementing my “write every day” policy again. That one won’t be hard, because I do write/edit nearly every day. The actual challenge will be to tackle the weekends. Weekends are hard when it comes to exercising and writing for me, because I feel an obligation to sit around with my husband and son, instead of working.

Now, hers is another moment of “honest.” The reason I’m coming on here and sharing is… I need to hold myself accountable. I could easily go journal about it. Keeping this journey to myself and not sharing it with anyone, which would be completely fine. But I feel that if I force myself to write about it on here, and to be as brutally honest about it as I can manage,  maybe I can actually make it to December 31st and practice every day.

Maybe then Doris will be so quiet I can concentrate on things that are more important?

Like I said, there is only one way to find out. So here I am.

Please prepare yourself from some swearing. Swearing is very stress revealing, and it won’t get me arrested like random punching will. Because that’s where I’m at in this life–wanting to randomly punch people because I find them frustrating. <- that’s me being honest.

 

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Changes coming SOON!

Namaste all! I just wanted to let you know there will be come changes coming soon to this blog. I’m in the process of getting settled in California, but thank you to all who are still stopping by to check things out.

If you haven’t, feel free to subscribe and then you won’t have to check as often, because the posts will be sent directly to your email (how convenient!!)

The light in me honors and respects the light in you!

Have a wonderful day.

-Aryn

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