Happy Birthday to me- the gift of freedom & Day 1: Dishes

Happy Birthday to me. I give myself the freedom from the restraints of my habits.

Whether habits, thought-patterns, negative feelings and behaviors.... over the first 29 days of my 29th year I commit to recognizing the patterns that are not serving me and reconfiguring a more positive, productive way of approaching daily life.

Habit #1: Dishes....

Current habit: I have developed a resistance to doing the dishes. I avoid them in the morning by convincing myself I should get a start on my work and do them later. When later comes, something else is higher on the to-do list. While I hate the look and the gross, smell sometimes, of this inaction, I cannot motivate myself to do dishes more than I don't feel like doing them. Hence, not doing the dishes frequently enough......

Result: A pile of dishes growing faster than they are washed.... an almost daily pile of dirty plates and cups. As the pile grows, my motivation to tackle the dishes as the pile grows reinforces the habit decreases. I walk into a house that is less inviting to me because it is not clean and organized. Reduces the likelihood that I will cook even lower.

Starting today (10/11): I will spend 15 minutes per day on dishes and kitchen cleaning. If this daily practice does not yield a dish free sink by the end of the day, once a week, on Sundays, I will do all dishes in the sink to start the new week.

Preview

Day 2: Forgiving myself

Day 3: In bed at 11pm.... (.) = period!

Day 4: Forgiving others

....notice the theme of addressing alternating smaller and larger areas of my life that I'd like to change because I believe that simply having awareness over the habits in my life is a start and that even small changes add up to a more positive, authentic, present-moment, joyous life - for me and in relation to those in my life. 

Quiet retreat

Bringing the yoga retreat to Carrboro while back home for 3 days, then beach bound again. While "away" from the retreat, turning inwards to maintain the feeling of presence and union cultivated.

Who says yoga (class, retreat, studio) "ends". The external circumstances always change - I may get off the mat when class ends or, in this case, need to leave a yoga gathering surrounded by lovely people, days of yoga in a peaceful place. But, there is a space in me where a quiet yoga retreat presides everyday. Easier to find at the yoga beach week but the challenge in holding onto the fusion of outer and inner.

Amidst the many to do's tomorrow and the next (..and the rest of days) maybe if I listen close and surrender, I will learn more about how to live yoga always. Outwards staying present with the hecticness and in the same moment on a quest inwards in search of my peaceful beach.....being

Site

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived to surf....now watching from the shore

Once upon a time,
there was a girl who lived to surf. Since birth, the beach has been an magical place. As an infant, her feet first felt the pull of the ocean. As a child, she made sand castles, running back and forth to the land's edge to collect sand and water and  build and imagine against the backdrop of the blue sky, her dreams the passing clouds. As a teenager, she walked and ran along the edge between land and sea again and again- a constant amidst the constant change.

The shifting sand and shifting sense of self,
an emerging identity emerging in relation to the firsts, the memories that define her,
haunt her,
those she longs to recreate and those she longs to forget.

The many people who came and went. The many people and many tales who came (and went) through the beach house her family has had for 40 years.

The experiences that, that leave a taste that lingers ---

the salty ocean water, the joys and the sorrow.

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Surfing is one way of telling the relationship I had with the sea and 

moments of joy and sorrow, of 

loving effort and passionate surrender together 

as well as the 

fear and feelings I ignored. 

Even today I can embody my most epic surf experience: Barra de la Cruz, a right break, discovered by few, on no map, where waves break like those I paddled into and rode down the line. 


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Seeking feedback - poll on attachment & relationships

Poll: How does attachment (or non-attachment) apply to relationships?