The Detox Series: Part 2

This post essentially has two parts, so stick with me.

Every day we face opportunities to make choices, choices we make without much consideration.  Choosing to listen to public radio vs. commercial-run top 40s.  Deciding to make coffee vs. buy it.  Taking the scenic route vs. the busy highway.  Or in our case last night, choosing to have Chinese take-out for dinner vs. make a homemade meal.

My posts the past couple of weeks have been about cleansing, detoxing, and making healthier choices all around.  I truly believe in this, but I know it is a process. You cannot be perfect every hour, of everyday.   Yesterday I made the choice to eat a Quest Bar (protein packed, gluten/sugar-free) for "lunch" because after teaching 5 classes, my business partner and I were preoccupied with getting our errands done for the Grand Opening on Saturday, and didn't have time for a real lunch before our workout.  This choice meant that by the time I got home at 6pm (left at 4:30am) I was mentally exhausted, physically hungry, and made another poor choice: Chinese takeout.  I choose the healthier options there, but knew that I would still feel less-than-great the next morning.  And it's true, I do feel a little groggy today.  However, this morning is a brand new day and the choices I made yesterday do not dictate today.

I woke up and chugged a big glass of water.  I made a fresh cup of coffee, added cinnamon and coconut milk, and let the yumminess warm me up.  Topped my gluten-free toast with crunchy, organic peanut butter with chia & flax seeds, and ate a perfectly ripe banana.  I practiced a quick yoga sequence that focused on detoxifying poses (another post to come!) and an hour later, feeling much better!  All too often we allow one poor choice to define us, control us, and cause us to lose direction of who we are and what we believe in.  Know that you have the power to change that!

Now the original goal of this post, Detox Series Part Duex, was to pass on to you a simple, yet effective trick I learned from my mother.  In my last post, I discussed how we can choose to minimize the negative effects social media has on our time and our lives.  But before we had social media, we had print, in the form of magazines, catalogs, etc and television.  Even though magazines are not has popular as they once were, they still exist and I still read them every once in a while.  I already discussed my recent disappointment in YogaJournal, and my subsequent discontinuation of my subscription, but I still have a few issues coming my way.  In addition, I like to treat myself to the occasional Vogue or InStyle.  But what I don't want to treat myself to are the ridiculous amount of advertisements in each issue.

When I was younger, I remember by mom collecting Better Homes & Garden magazines and putting together binders of her "dream home."  (This was the original way people did Pinterest.)  She would get a magazine and rip out all the advertisements first.  Without even looking at the stories.  For those tricky pages with articles on one side, she'd fold the ad in half to hide it.  It wasn't just Better Homes & Garden, it was all magazines.  When I was in high school and started buying the horrendous Cosmopolitan magazines, I didn't rip out the ads.  Instead, they made impressions on me, whether I knew it at the time or not.  (Buy this, look like this, you need this, blah blah blah--this is old news, we all know this and it's been discussed at nauseam.)  It continued until this summer when I received yet another YogaJournal magazine and I noticed it was so full of ads, that it was hard to distinguish between the ads and the articles.  I started ripping out all the ads.  It was fantastic.  No more opportunities to looks at supplements that claim to make you look younger, yoga pants to make your butt look better, etc.  Duh, and photoshopped images.

I started following in my mother's footsteps and now each time I pick up a magazine, the first thing I do is rip out all the pointless ads.  It works for all kinds of magazines and it feels awesome to do it.  Cut out the garbage and keep the stuff you really bought the magazine for.

As for watching television, try muting the TV during commercials.  Use the time to talk to the people around you, switch out the laundry, do a couple of air squats/push-ups/sit-ups, light a few of candles, etc.  When you're favorite show comes back on, simply un-mute.

It's a subtle change, but all these small choices we make during our day will help to detoxify our life.  We receive so much involuntary stimulation throughout the day, why not choose not to when we can?

Have a happy Friday!!!!

Trigger Happy Part 2

#137.8

That was the number on the scale this morning. As I have mentioned before, I don't believe in measuring your worth, happiness, or beauty based on the number on the scale. In the past, I have fallen victim to this, daily checking my number, stark naked, to make sure it didn't go up.  And guess what?  It did!  Somedays I would wake up with it 5lbs heavier that the day before.  Then it would go back down, then up again, and then when it was getting closer to that time that makes you hate being a women, it would go up a whopping 10lbs.

I stepped on the scale this morning because a fellow yogini admitted that she still struggles with obsessing over the number on the scale.  This pretty little lady has been a regularly practicing yogini for years.  At first, she stuck to the Hatha yoga classes, which mean less movement between poses, longer holds, and overall less "athletic" of a practice.  Not any less hard, just different.   In the time period she has started practicing Vinyasa, or flow-style yoga, which can be really intimidating for a lot of us.  She has gotten stronger, both physically and mentally, and has even decided to start her own teacher training program.  She has a lot to be proud of!

But this conditioning to base our daily confidence on the scale is just setting you up for failure.  Unless you are significantly overweight and have weight-loss goals of 50+ lbs, I don't recommend weighing yourself often.  Even those with significant weight to lose, I wouldn't weigh yourself more than once a week, as there are so many variables during the week that effect your weight.

In general, the daily weighing of yourself can go one of a few ways.  First, your weight stays exactly the same and you've already decided you hate that weight.  How do you win?  You've already decided that weight is not desirable. Second, the weight (like mine) fluctuates daily, weekly +/-5lbs.  Now you've made yourself crazy trying to figure out what exactly is going on.  Third, the weight starts to slowly go down and you become obsessed with it.  You develop unhealthy relationships with food and exercise in order to keep that number going down.  Overtime, you may waste away into a person you don't recognize.  Or, it can go up slowly and you think, 'well this is it, I might as well give up.' You stop caring and start to detach yourself from your body.  

The last two are obviously extremes.  (And I should note, I am no dietitian, nutritionalist, doctor, or therapist.  But between my close friends and me, I have seen all of these instances occur.)  When I woke up this morning I thought to myself, 'I don't have to go on the scale to write this piece.' I tried to come up with excuses as to why it was silly, but then I realized that I was succumbing to the very thought-process I wish to eradicate. So, I ate my full cleanse-approved breakfast.  Two slices of gluten-free bread with almond butter, herbal chai tea, and my cleanse shake.  I read a little article on aging yogis.  Then I walked myself downstairs to dust off that old scale of mine.  I kept all my PJs, took a deep breath, already deciding that whatever number came up, I wouldn't care about it.

And you know what?  I didn't! It was weird, the last time I stepped on this scale I was getting ready for my wedding and each reading had such an emotional response from me.  But today, nothing.  I have been 137.8lbs multiple times before. I have felt "fat" at 137lbs, and I have felt thin at 137lbs.  Today I just feel normal.  And that's the thing, it about what you feel.  I felt great after having my yummy breakfast.  The sun is out and the humidity is gone.  I have a day filled with teaching yoga and writing.  I went to sleep last night at 9am, so I feel rested.  All of these things which make me feel like having a great day are NOT on the scale.  137.8 does not represent all that I feel today, all that I can do today, and does not weigh the smile I have on the inside.  It doesn't mean much to me.  

Could you imagine the emotional roller coaster that would be if you truly cared about those little ups and downs on the scale?  I can tell you that no one else seems to notice them.  What people DO notice is confidence.  When you feel good when you wake up, you can't help but look beautiful.  Smiling during interactions, laughing at the small stuff, enjoying the Fall breeze.  Taking a sip of a delicious Chai Tae Latte…THAT radiates beauty and happiness.

To bring this back to those who are unhappy and uncomfortable in their bodies and want to start feel better, it does start with listening, not assessing.  I've said this before but I really mean it.  Start a little daily journal and use it as a "check-in."  Write how you feel upon waking, write how the different foods you eat throughout the day effect your belly.  If you have a Greek yogurt for breakfast and it was delicious, but 2 hours later your stomach is gurgling and acidy, note that.  Begin to find your own path to being food-happy, and belly-happy, and all around happy, by listening to exactly what works well with you.  When you eat the foods that love you, and you eat the amount that hugs you, your body will begin to feel like your own again.  That connection, between mind and body, will never be measured on a scale.

Trigger Happy: Part 1b

After my last post about my food-happy concept, I received a lot of feedback from friends, clients, and family. I am so glad that people have connected to, been inspired by, or found comfort in the post.  But I believe it was a start of a larger conversation, and today I was reminded of just that.  For that reason I am launching a little mini series of posts I'm calling "The Trigger Happy" series.  I'll consider last post as Part 1.

For the past couple of months, I have been disappointed with my yoga journal subscription.  Over the years, it has gone from a magazine filled with thought provoking articles on love, life, meditation, nourishment, and yoga asanas (poses) for all humans to a typical girly magazine littered with material advertising, yoga "quick fixes," tag lines like "yoga to tighten up that core!" and "clothes to highlight your yoga curves."  It was sad to see the change, as it seemed this would be the one magazine that could change the cultural conversation.  I decided not to renew my subscription, and today my final issue came in the mail.

As some of you know, my yoga girl-crush is Kathryn Budig, a fun-loving, beer-drinking, talented yogini, with curves to boot.  She happened to be the cover model this month, which makes my heart dance a little bit.  She has been a "celebrity" yogini for many years, training big names like Giada, creating a DVD for Gaiam, and being the naked girl in the ToeSox ads.  When she did those ads, she was 25 years old and in amazing shape.  Over the years she has found love, aged 7 years, and put on some weight.  Yoga Journal asked her what she thought about looking at her 25-year old self, and this was her response,

I don’t believe in changing anything, but it has been a challenge to watch my 25-year-old body turn into a 32-year-old body. It is not depressing; it is the evolution of a woman. This body, whether it is 10 pounds skinnier or 10 pounds heavier, can still do those postures because it is strong. I stay focused on what I feel, on the results. I have a lot of love in my life, and I didn’t have that when I was 25. If I get hung up on what my body looks like, I am losing track of my goal, of my aim.

The whole article was great, and I encourage you all to read it.  For me, it furthered the conversation about finding our happy, and specifically, making our relationship with our body a happy one.  As I said before, being in the fitness industry is tough, because there is a lot of emphasis on how you look, with the occasional "how do you feel?" thrown in as an afterthought.  I've known people who do not have an ounce of fat on their bodies be completely miserable and I know people who've put on weight and glow with happiness.  

I think the most important step is changing our perspective.  In the article, Kathryn alludes to the challenging yoga world, where the ideal aesthetic is long and lean.  As a curvy girl, she has been called "brave" for showing her curves.  Her response is simple, being curvy and rocking it is not brave, going to war is.  We aren't made to look the same, so it's not brave for those of us who have them to show our curves, its just how it should be.  Same thing if you have a naturally thin body, do you girl.  It's not brave to love how we are, it's just challenging.  Even then, it's a problem we created ourselves. We make it complicated when we are perfectly healthy and relatively happy, but we look at the cellulite on the back of our thighs and say, "I would be so much happier if that was gone."

I have a long history of bad-mouthing my assets, but over the years I have made a conscious decision to stop. I have been open in my classes, talking about my "CrossFit thighs" and my "yoga booty."  I have extra meat on me in different areas, but those are all signs of what I do, where I've been, and who I am.  Don't fight the natural you.  (Of course there are times when I am uncomfortable, like when I eat/drink too much of something or of the wrong thing.  But we must recognize the temporary discomforts and separate them from living in constant dissatisfaction.)  When you speak positively about yourself, it doesn't mean you are 100 percent OK with your body, but you are living with it and loving what you have today.  Then you empower and give permission to other people to do the same."

But, then there are real life issues we encounter and must face.  So, if you are truly unhappy, or if you are truly uncomfortable in your skin, its time to touch base on exactly why.  I had a student come up to me to inquire about the cleanse.  She feels uncomfortable in her skin, knowing that something isn't right.  I've known her long even to know that she has suffered in the past couple of months (possibly the last year) through physical injuries, emotional traumas, big life changes, and more.  These kinds of stresses have taken a toll on her body and she doesn't feel like herself.  Her body isn't representing who she feels she is.  She, like many of us, lost connection to herself, her physical self.  I've been there and when you're there, you know the difference between being superficially unhappy with the way you look and knowing deep down that something else is going on.

This is an example of when you can look at where you are and make changes to get back to you.  It's not about losing weight here, its about attacking the stressors that have put on the weight.  Because the physical weight isn't the issue, its the emotional weight that lives inside.  Shew!  That can feel heavy, right?!  

If you are feeling this way, and are not sure you are ready to take on any major changes yet, I challenge you to simply start "checking in."  Start a daily journal and give yourself 5-10 minutes each day to express anything you want. Write down how you feel, what's up with you, or even a quote that spoke to you.  Once you start that conversation with yourself, you're on the path to trigger your happy.

The Case of the Yoga Selfie

So, I am launching my first Instagram Challenge, starting on the first day of August and I am a mix of excited, nervous, and apprehensive.  There are many reasons I decided to do this, which I will get into soon, but before I do I have to address the selfie.  First of all, I loathe the word selfie.  I think it embodies all the stupid, narcissistic, spoiled, self-centered characteristics of a first world nation concerned only about ourselves.  Namely, our image, thus the #selfie.
Then while coaching CrossFit, the song that puts it all out there, the #selfie song came on and a few of our members started groaning in agony.  (I know, I know, it's a terrible song, but it also happens to be catchy, so I kept it on.)  While it droned on in the background, we talked about how pathetic the song is, how I feel like my brain cells commit suicide while it plays, how the whole song is representative of a much bigger, more horrible trend in humanity, how we're all doomed.  Oh, the horror.

But then, a member said, "Yea, but Rachael you're like the queen of selfies."

#selfie

(Gasp!)

I was mortified.  I never considered myself a repeat selfie offender.  Primarily because I am hardly ever at clubs, I never remember to take pictures at parties (or maybe I forget to attend parties?) I don't take duck face pictures with my girlfriends, and I never take pictures in public bathrooms.  But then it hit me, he was talking about my yoga selfies.

Over the past couple of months as I made a shift in my life, my career, I started documenting my yoga practice.  In truth, I had originally been inspired by some of the amazingly beautiful photos I found on instagram of some wonderfully bendy, flexy, strong yogis.  (This trend sparked a great article denouncing the yoga selfie, a must read. )  Either way, it was fantastic to see these yogis doing inspiring things with their body, but it wast truly representative of my own practice.  My yoga practice has never been showy and still isn't.  I've worked hard to be flexible, to try the more challenging poses, but I pretty much do the same yoga poses when someone is watching, as I do when I am all alone.  This means lots of sun salutations, strong warrior series, lots of hip openers, some yin, some yang, etc.  So, knowing that my photos were never going to look "as cool" as some of these talented folks, it didn't occur to me to put my yoga photos or videos on there to share.

What really started my #yoga #selfie journey was my cat, Weezy (aka #weezus) Every time I whipped out my yoga mat, Weezy would come into the room and stay by my side the entire practice.  It was so adorable, I could barely stand it.  I started to send pictures to my husband, then to my friends.  Then I decided to just share it on Instagram, because everyone found them so entertaining.  The fact that I was doing yoga in there seemed like an afterthought.

Getting all zen-like with my maine man. (get it, he's a maine coon.)

As I shared in my last post, it's been an interesting journey lately, one that took me away from my mat for some time.  Now that I am starting over, when I see the photos I took in the beginning with Weezy, I see how hesitant and vulnerable I really was.  As the days, weeks, and months have passed, I am beginning to see some changes in the way I approach my practice and it shows in the photos.  I'm trying new things, I'm having more fun with it, etc.  However, more than just that, I am happy to hear from people who have been inspired by my photo story in some way.  I love knowing that someone saw my photo and chuckled, smiled, maybe rolled out their mat, or went to a yoga class.  While I am not perfect, I too am working towards being less critical and more accepting of each practice, each photo.  Being content with getting on my mat each day and not being worried about how I look is a daily reminder, because that's the essence of yoga anyway.

#fatcat #longhairdontcare

Even though I had no direction when I started taking them, I now see my #yoga #selfies as a photo journal. I want it to be a testament to my dedication, my journey, and my commitment to living my life open, free, and full of love. Do I need to take pictures to prove this?  No.  But I love photos, and always have.  And this is nothing new, not for me and not for human kind throughout time.  The Egyptians made #selfie coffins to sleep in for all eternity.  In the early centuries, people sat and posed for hours for a single #selfie.  Then, when Kodak created film, people didn't take pictures of beautiful mountains and lakes, they took pictures of themselves.  #RevolutionaryWarSelfie.  When we invented the handheld video camera, we used it to document our own lives, our families, our memories.  Call it a memorial, call it a portrait, call it a selfie.  Whatever it is, we've always wanted to document and record our lives.

Just like in yoga, when it comes to selfies, the most important thing is our intention.  If our intention is kind, both to ourselves and others, then I see no harm in the selfie.  If it's used to inspire, to share, to connect, then go for it.  If we find its about approval, about comparison, about showing off, then we know we're on the wrong track.  When the Instagram yoga challenge launches, I want people to recognize their own intention. Perhaps you want to challenge yourself to try something new, maybe you want to hold yourself accountable to practice everyday.  Maybe you want something fun to look forward to each day.  Perhaps you want to share your lifestyle with friends and family. Perhaps it's just for you.

In the end, its about putting love out there and not worrying about what comes back.  More smiles, the better.  So, selfie on.

Feed the Wolf

Often I hear people saying that they want to recreate themselves.  They are coming to yoga to recreate their mind-body connection or getting healthy to recreate their sexy and more youthful self, or the oh-so-cliché post-relationship total image overhaul—recreate, recreate, recreate.  I am guilty of very much the same; feeling an urge to recreate myself into the woman I thought I should be by now.  There is an image of the me that I am and the image I want to be.  I can get stuck believing that because I sit at a desk answering phones, opening doors, and directing people to offices that I am somehow morphing into a one-dimensional secretary from a 1950s sitcom.   It’s easy to latch onto anything that I’ve done in my past and use it to define who I am—label myself a blah.  Then in sheer fear of the person I created, I search to strip down and recreate.

But, the idea of recreating me suggests that I somehow created myself wrong.  And I don’t like that—not one bit. 

In yoga, the belief is that we are all already whole and complete beings.  We have all that be need to be great within ourselves, in the same place where we keep our struggles and our fears.  Everything is inside.  A Native American proverb says it simply,

A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf will win?

The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed.

I posted before about how there are no “wrong steps,” for without what we perceive as mistakes, we would never be where we are today.  In the same way, some of the things we’ve done do not define who we are, but rather help shape who we are becoming.  When I practice yoga, I need to remember that I am connecting to my true self, not getting rid of a version I don’t like.  In the same way, when I push really hard in a CrossFit workout or challenge myself to try something new and scary, I am not recreating myself.  Instead, I am finding a part of me that was left unattended and unfed.  Over time, in the moments that we allow, we can see ourselves as whole and complete human beings.  This reminder comes at a perfect time, as I am faced with some tough choices.  One is daunting, fresh, yet exciting; while the other is safe, boring and tiresome.  

We have the choice of which wolf to feed.