stories...

Hi all!

What an absolutely odd day it is outside! The sun is shining, it's oddly warm, and there is this amazingly intense wind blowing everything and everyone around. I love it!

So my last post was... well, a little inauthentic. Not inauthentic in the sense that I didn't mean it - I absolutely want to dedicate my life to meaningfully serving others - but the truth is, I'm not yet there. I'm still working on my messy story.

Or rather, I'm still working on letting go of my messy story.

This is a picture of me when I was 6 years old. It's right around the time I started to realize that I was different.

Most obviously, I didn't speak the language or know any of the customs of this strange, stupidly cold new country my parents insisted on. I didn't fit into my richy rich school (side note: what an interesting social experiment it is to bus poor, immigrant kids in from the wrong side of the tracks, over the tracks into the richy rich school). I also didn't fit in with the immigrant Polish community - my parents were spiritual hippies who wanted nothing to do with the rigid, conservative Poland they left behind. There I was, not entirely belonging anywhere.

What made it worse is that I quickly realized I didn't look like other kids. My spine is a work of art - it's curved in a few odd directions and my body has compensated. I don't look like everyone else. (Another side note: I am freaking out writing this so publicly, but there's a purpose). I have been teased and taunted, made to feel ugly and unworthy, and I've carried that for a very long time.

The magic of my recent immersion in yoga is that everything I thought I had long since buried, has reared it's ugly head once again. All of those insecurities, all of that weight, has started to come flushing out in my practice. It's been frustrating and hard, but absolutely necessary. I feel like I am finally moving on.

Today was another one of those days when things started to flush out, and luckily for me, I was surrounded by some of the most wise and amazing souls I've ever met. The concept of stories came up. We all have them; we have all written ourselves stories about who we are, what we can do, what we can't and what we're not capable of it. Unfortunately for us, most of these stories are fairly limited and weigh us down. Most of us aren't even aware that we're living these stories.

So for today, think about just that: what is your story and who would you be without it? If letting go of the entire narrative is frightening, how would you feel if you just removed one brick in the wall, just for now, just in this very moment?

Let that sit. Let it stew.

Happy Friday. Happy Family Day!

namaste!

mxo

focus my aim...

Holy moly, how did it get to be February 13th?! It's already my half birthday! Wow!

The skies may be grey, but the snow is melting quickly in Toronto. After a long cold spell, it's a balmy 3c ... amazing!

I've had quite the week! I took a few days off from yoga and focused on the various to-dos that were weighing very heavily on me. My practice got better and important things got done... and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I graduate in two weeks and get married in 98 days. Amazing.

But it wasn't all peachy.

Some days were hard.

On one especially hard day, I realized something overwhelmingly important. I have been in such a bizzy tizzy with no particular aim. It has been busyness for the sake of busyness, and though some of it has been amazingly amazing, busyness without aim always inevitably leads to exhaustion.

And I'm a type-A personality, so for me not to have goals, is extremely... well... out of character.

So I took some time, read some things, and redefined my own personal mission statement, my ikigai, my reason for getting up in the morning.

Here goes...

My mission: service. To dedicate my life to helping others become happy, healthy and whole.

My goal: ordination. Not in the religious sense, but in this sense:

"The beauty of the symbolic meaning of Ordination is that it honors the truth the each person is capable of making deeply significant contributions to the lives of others, not just through their profession, but more important, through the quality of person they become. The sacrament of Ordination symbolically seeks to recognize the contributions of our spirits to others' lives far more than the contribution of our tasks." Caroline Myss

I have some ideas of how I want to accomplish this, but for once, I'm going to leave it open to the universe. It seems when I relinquish control over every little detail, magic happens.

For now, service is my aim. Ordination is the reason I get up in the morning. This is what my days will be for.

Happy Sunday... winter is almost over!!!

mxo

P.S. Watch this:

It's amazing.

focus my schedule...

Let's recap yesterday, shall we? It was after all, my day off.

7:00 - Rise and shine, sunshine!

7:34 - Sunshine (that's me) finally drags herself out of bed after far too many snoooozes.

8:30 - Out the door, to the doctor we go.

9:30 - Pause at Birds & Beans in Mimico for a soy latte and delicious muffin. Brekkie!

10:00 - Doctor.

10:30 - Blood lab. Bah!

10:45 - Board 501 streetcar, heading west.

11:30ish - Get envelopes for wedding invites at the Paper Place. This takes far longer and costs far more than I expected! Who knew there was so much to an envelop!

12:15ish - Wander over to Urban Herbivore at College and Dovercourt for lunch, only to discover that they don't have any bread yet. Sadness. The lovely gentleman gave me a granola bar and cashew nut latte on the house for my troubles. That's just what I needed - more caffeine on an empty stomach! Oh well. Lunch gets skipped.

12:30ish - Wander over to get hubby-to-be a birthday present. Shhh....

1:15ish - Then over to Tula for the amazing 2pm 75min hot power flow. All binds, all twists, all amazing.

4:00ish - Off to Saving Gigi for a sandwich and tea. Yoga homework time.

5:30ish - Back to Tula. Assisting the 6pm hot hatha.

7:30 - Quick shower.

8:00 - Teacher training at Tula. Two oranges for dinner.

10:30 - Home. Wedding errands.

11:15 - Collapse in one exhausted heap.

Picture that day, now add 8 hours of work into the mix, and you get my usual week day. Long, busy, absolutely maxed out.

After about six or seven weeks of this routine, I found myself absolutely exhausted to the core...

...pulling out my hair

...wondering why I didn't hire a wedding planner

...stressing about the disaster that is my house

...and my empty fridge

... AND most annoyingly, I didn't feel very productive either. My to-do list was growing, and growing, and growing despite all of my endless running around. I felt (and probably looked) very much like a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth between all of my various activities and not really getting much done at all.

Not exactly an ideal situation.

So, keeping in theme with this month's FOCUS topic, I have set out to refine my schedule as much as possible. I have major obligations which cannot be abandoned right now (work, yoga course, wedding planning) - we all have them - but I suspect that even amidst all of these commitments, there is a lot of wiggle room. Maybe I'm wrong.

So here goes. I propose this:

For the next month, I'll attempt to...

... do only what I absolutely need to. Translation: I do not need to take 10 yoga classes per week; the requirement is three. I do not need to work late every day; the requirement is 7.25 hours. I do not need to plan a brunch date for every single weekend; lazy, sleepy mornings are glorious things. AND I do not need to plan social gatherings for all of my off time; my friends won't forget me that quickly (right?!!)

... say no to the rest. I'm petrified.

... schedule some downtime. Remember that whole thing I once wrote about Sunday sabbath awhile ago? I was really onto something with that... if only I had listened to my own advice! I really feel as though I've taken two steps forward and one step back recently.

... do not arrive anywhere more than 10 minutes early. If you know one thing about me, you probably know that I'm compulsively early for everything.... and recently, it's gotten much worse!! I show up 30 minutes early for everything and then sit there, waiting, wasting valuable time away. I need to refocus the transitions.

This is going to be a struggle... but most amazing changes tend to be. I may need your help with this one!

Hope everyone has survived the "storm".

mxo