after my oral surgery over a week ago i entered complete vicodin haze sloth mode.  it wasn’t horrendously painful.  i just like vicodin. so i took it because i had permission to.  i gave myself permission to sleep 12 hours a night with 2 2-hour naps a day.  i slept more in one three day weekend than i had the entire month of  december.  it was glorious.

and then i had to go to work.

this made me cranky.  i did what i needed to do but i was kicking and screaming the entire way.  i was just irritated.  i wanted more laziness.  i wanted more chocolate pudding.  i wanted more vicodin haze.  it all hit me wed night when i left sampson’s early because i just didn’t want to talk about it.  i didn’t want to talk to anyone.  i wanted to lay around the house bra-less watching old episodes of top chef while the boyfriend fed me soup.

it hit me that the time i spent lollying about after getting a tooth pulled i wasn’t required to do anything at all.

nothing.

i was expected to do absolutely nothing.

and this feeling was liberating.  i felt my brain get worked up thinking i could go to the gym or yoga but my body was wise enough to override it.

operating heavy machinery was on the no-no list from the dr.  eliptical trainers are heavy pieces of machinery.  and considering i tried to use my drivers license as a credit card at the grocery store on the way home from surgery was a sign that i wasn’t fit to be in public for a couple of days.

so i laid about and for the first time, did not feel bad or guilty about it at all.  it was a relief.  i could sleep as much as i wanted.  do whatever i wanted and for the first time that chiding condescending voice in my head that called me lazy the moment i think about getting 8 hours of sleep, sorta just shut itself up for a minute.

i think this is what real rest is and i think i finally got some.  it was better than a 3 week vacation.  i reveled in not leaving the house, not talking to people and not feeling guilty for any of it.

to have that change tuesday morning was awful.  thus, the crank.  ugh. work. people.  expectations.  THINGS TO DO.  nightmare.

needless to say i got over it.  friday night i got home from work after a short stint at the gym and thanked the beings that be for the rain.

i entertained the idea of going to bikram in the morning for about 20 minutes.  yeah.  didn’t happen.  i didn’t feel bad.

i did end up going sunday morning.  without complaint or hesitation i got up at 7:30 in the morning and made my way to bikram and struggled through a sweaty class and paid close attention to the parts that were the hardest.  i walked home and showered and ate a bowl of rice, avocado and chickpeas and felt the most normal i had in ages.  at 12:30 i made my way down valencia to yoga tree for a 3 hour restorative workshop and while i thought i’d be bored by 3 hours of restorative, it went by faster than i anticipated, i fell asleep once and walked out feeling even better than normal.

i felt fantastic.

it hit me that these are the little steps towards making decisions to do things you want to do not things you think you should do.

it’s not a big thing, there is no big revelation on how this works like i had thought it would be.  i was doing things i wanted to do and there was no trace of malice, anger or fear attached to any of these things.  i ate a peanut butter cup and didn’t internally berate myself on how i don’t know how to take care of myself.  i went to bikram without thinking ‘if i keep doing this i’ll go down a pant size.’ i lolled around in blankets, bolster pillows and sandbags with a whole room full of people and didn’t once think ‘ doing this makes me a better person’.

i had the best sunday in the world.  it made waking up to a torrential downpour this morning a lot easier.

it helps that my new rain boots came in friday as well.

i’m kicking ass at work.  this used to mean crossing things off my to do list at lightening speed.

now it means not crumbling when faced with issues and fuck ups.

now if i can only apply this to my life outside this space.

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.” Pema Chödrön

i’ve had no real pull to write.

i’ve been full of, “I should be writing.” but since a lot of my work these days is to weed out the shoulds from my life to really weed through the things i think i should do to find out what i actually want to do i’ve been tasked by sampson to not do the things i think i should do and see how i feel about it.

i took almost two months off from the shoulds of my life. i’ve only gone to the gym when i felt like i really wanted to which equaled 3x a month as opposed to my regular drive to go 3x a week. i’ve only been to bikram 2x a month. regular yoga 2x or so but i did manage to do lots of yoga on my own in both Yachats, OR and Kauai,HI. I tried to fight my should of going into work at 7AM and tried sleeping in (failed horribly, these things take practice I guess). i ate whatever i wanted with no guilt whatsoever. i haven’t cracked one anatomy text book. i’m now one of the throngs with an iphone and i’ve laid around watching tv shows and checking facebook on the thing while a stack of books have been laying around waiting to be read. while the sun shone outside and called me to come frolic ii unabashedly have laid in the poof chair for hours and let myself be taken away by mindless drivel.

it’s amazing how relieved you feel when you finally give yourself permission to do all the things you want to do. at first it’s difficult. it’s amazing how hard it was for me to let myself eat as many grilled cheeses in one day as i wanted. (i praise whomever invented daiya) i’ve come to realize that the voice in my head that is constantly mean to myself is the voice of a disapproving parent looking down on me and judging me harshly. it’s the voice that polices me. the voice that keeps me out of trouble. the one that tells me to eat my salad and shut up. do your cardio because you’re a fat fuck. work a 12 hour day because if you don’t you’ll lose your job. don’t do this. don’t do that. you can’t do it because you’re not good enough. you can’t wear that because you’re not skinny enough. you should go outside and not waste your time. these people don’t like you. you’re not like them. you need to listen to me if you want to ever become the better person you imagine in your head. the one you thought you’d be if you just lost more weight, read more books, went to more shows, traveled more, etc.

i’ve come to the obvious conclusion that i am constantly exhausted because i’m spending so much time trying to live up to an impossible standard i have set for myself.i’ve had great moments of enlightenment in the past couple of years and have slowly but surely gained more self-confidence and some ‘i don’t give a fuck’ attitude but things come together like that and then they fall apart again. these feelings are always in flux.

so as i let myself off the hook for a couple of months to do whatever i wanted to do and ignore any statement that started with ‘i should’ i wallowed in guilt for a bit. i worried. i was anxious. BUT IF I DON’T GO TO THE GYM I’M GOING TO GAIN WEIGHT.

god. the fear. all these things that i should do were fueled by fear.

and since a majority of my life is filled with shoulds it means that a majority of my life is filled with fear.

this was a big revelation to me.

i am scared of things. lots of things. i thought i had your basic fear of heights and falling down things, a normal fear of horror movies and wet condiments but it seems to go deeper than that. fear has been hardwired into my way of living. why i white knuckle it as i ride my bike on a street with cars. why my chest starts to tighten when i think about major life changes. why i have epic breakdowns when i evaluate anything in my life that will take away my current happiness.

i’ve spent my entire life believing that these feelings are my own and that somehow everyone else has their shit together. it’s just me trying to muddle my way through this. like i was born with this handicap that made my life harder than everyone else’s and i had to work harder to achieve what looks like normal.

all signs point to:

THIS IS CRAZY TALK.

none of it is true. we’re all doing the best we can and we are all struggling in our own way.

the stupid voice that wants me to believe i’m damaged wants me to believe that i need it because without it i’d be a fat, lazy, jobless, useless human being.

it’s never been just ok to be whoever it is i am. there’s always this feeling that if i don’t work hard to be this idea of myself i want to be then there is no point for me to be here. because boiling everything away, all the layers upon layers of things i’ve piled on top of me to define me, my work, the way i dress, the people i know, the things i own, the choices i make – take all of that away, the person underneath all of that isn’t worthy…of anything.

OMG THIS IS CRAZY TALK.

but it’s… it’s what i’ve been thinking about and what i’ve been realizing as i try to find ways to really be as authentic as i can be. i’ve burfied all this bad stuff, all this awful self-esteem stuff because i naturally thought that i could ignore it and work harder and it would naturally just go away.

it’s coming to light that i need to really touch upon the ugly things i’ve squirreled away and deal with them now if i want to move forward.

a lot of this has been hovering quietly in my brain as i move through the normalcy of everyday life and it speaks up loudly when i find myself saying:

“I should go to the gym tonight.”

“I should set my alarm earlier because i need to catch up on some stuff at work.”

“i should go to yoga.”

“i shouldn’t eat this.”

the counter voice i’m building is starting to ask “what’s the worst thing that will happen if you don’t do this?”

all of this is exhausting. trying to break down the person i think i am to figure out who’s really underneath all this crap is work.

so i’ve been especially quiet as i put my head down and work my way through this diligently, slowly letting go of all these bad thoughts i have about myself knowing that they can come back at any moment but i’ll be better prepared to handle them when they do make their way back into my brain.
it’s always been easy to make a laundry list of the things i think are wrong with me because i am my own worst enemy. it’s easy to identify what i don’t like about myself. it’s hard to identify why i feel this way about myself. the origins of these feelings are usually dark places we don’t like to go to and places we don’t want to acknowledge exist.

somedays are great. somedays are just ok and somedays it really really sucks.

just like real life.

i walked out of jada’s space sunday morning and the air was crisp, biting and cold. the sun was bright and shining as well. i took a walk around cole valley remembering that i used to spend a good chunk of time wandering these parts. haight street is the same with the exception of some new random stores that look like the old random stores and then there’s the whole foods that took over the decrepit cala foods last year.

i wandered into the whole foods. i needed to be somewhere safe. walking out of jada’s felt a bit like exiting the womb. i often feel safe and comforted by grocery stores. i love being surrounded by food. i don’t need to eat it. i just need to know that it’s there. you would think i had grown up poor and hungry but that’s totally not the case. there was always an abundance of food around. i guess there’s a huge feeling of security i feel with a full cupboard.

i’ve mixed feelings about whole foods but i wandered and bought some things anyway. dr. praegers veggie burgers, a coworker raves about them and i had never seen them anywhere so i put a box in my basket. amande almond milk yogurt which i also never see anywhere. protein bread. tulsi lemon tea. i managed to negotiate with myself and walk away from 3 different amazing looking flavors of scream sorbet (LEMON SHISO, PEOPLE!).

i checked out and put my groceries in my Bike to Work Day tote back from last year and felt very… hippie.

or i don’t even know the word for it anyone. you know. i’m one of those people. i’m vegan. i do yoga. i’m a massage practitioner. i buy and eat organic whenever possible. on occassion i have tofurkey guilt because i know how processed it is. i have a therapist. i just had a chi nei tsang appointment with a woman i would describe as an amazing healer. i’m reiki level 1 attuned.

this is the same girl who used to write, “hi internet, shhhh, don’t tell anyone but i’m eating popeye’s in front of the television watching america’s next top model and my shirt smells like whiskey and my pants smell like beer. i blame the lesbian grill closing at the mixx for my situation. if they didn’t close the grill i’d still be at the bar eating corndogs and drinking amstel light instead of shamefully eating fried chicken watching skinny girls try to climb elephants for photo shoots.”

i remember working hard, drinking lots and making lots of mistakes.

i don’t how or when it happened. i don’t remember if any one single event triggered it but all of a sudden i just stopped. i just got older. or wiser. or tired. truth be told, i’m really digging this being old thing.

growing up i always had this idea that i couldn’t wait to be a teenager because that’s when you figure out who you are and it’ll be awesome. then when i was a teenager i couldn’t wait to be in college because that’s when you become an adult and your life is all cool and great because you’ll know who you are and what you’re doing. then i hit my 30s and realized that i still don’t quite know who i am because it feels like it keeps changing.

and it currently still is changing.

i’ve wanted to try and find a way to put into words my experience at jada’s but i also sorta don’t. it’s rare, but there are times when something profound happens and for once i don’t want to tell the internet. even having dinner with friends later on that evening, close people i would normally tell this kind of stuff to, i didn’t want to talk about it. somethings you just need to keep and hold on to for yourself.

i find that i often don’t know what i need or even what i want. it was evident in my dentist appointment this past monday that i have problems. i had just gotten a crown placed and my dentist kept trying to do bite tests to see where the teeth were connecting and if it matched up. it’s already difficult for me because i have a slight overbite but when she kept asking me to bite down and bite normally i would bite down and then question if i had done it ‘normally’ or not or ‘normal enough’. she asked me to bite again and again and at a certain point she stopped.

“You’re biting down different every time,” she said.

it didn’t hit me until later that the moment someone asks me to do something ‘normally’ i panic because i don’t know how to gauge what the person asking thinks is ‘normal’ instead of asking myself to do what is normal for me. i’m instantly doing or trying to perceive what the person wants me to do and doing that instead of what feels normal to me.

i take a back seat to things because i don’t know and i don’t feel secure enough to know that what i’m doing is right. ugh.

it’s work. it’s a practice. being aware is not easy. it’s hard to move forward sometimes even if you know the direction is the right direction to go in. i want to be as authentic as i can be. i want to be able to bite down normally and know that it’s normal for me and not care what’s normal to anyone else. i want to know and be secure that the me in the right here and now is a good me to be and then i won’t have to think about what the me of the future will be like or what the me of last 35 years lacked and berate myself for it.

i feel like i’m running a marathon and as i reach the 1/2 way point someone keeps extending the race.

so i slowed things down a bit so i could reserve some energy to make sure i make it to the end but my basic nature really did not like that.

it took more energy to slow myself down than it would have to just keep going for broke.

but it’s practice. i need to practice. you can’t always be on top of everything all the time. no one is that good no matter how often you think that there are people out there doing more and being more and all around beating you at the game of life…

it’s simply not true. and it’s all about perspective.

i’ve been working long days. the moment school ended and i got a breather, work exploded all over my life and it’s been non-stop. i didn’t mind a whole lot since i didn’t necessarily want to slow down even though i know i need to. i did ok for a bit.

and like most things.

you’re okay until you’re not. and when you’re not, it’s pretty bad.

after day 5 of getting up at 6AM to open the office and try to catch up with work i sorta had a meltdown.

i was pretty happy that it wasn’t massive. it lasted all of 2 minutes. sniffle sniffle, hiccup, tissue.

and then i was pretty much ok despite feeling overwhelmed. i let myself be overwhelmed and went for a walk to disperse some of that energy.

and like someone who never learns her lesson i opened the office again at 6:45AM because i have this need to be on top of things no matter how detrimental it may be to my health.

it’s all this push pull when it comes to practicing taking care of myself. it often feels like i’m fighting myself. maybe because i am. trying to change the person you’ve been for 35 years is ridiculously hard.

last week sampson pointed out something i’ve known my entire life but refused to recognize or admit.

i judge myself based on how much i’m doing, how helpful i am to others and how useful i feel. if i’m not being useful or working towards something or working for someone i don’t feel like i hold any worth.

simply existing isn’t enough for me.

at some point early on in my life someone or something told me that if i’m not working or striving or struggling or doing then there is no point for me to be around.

it’s been hanging heavy on me the past couple of days because i know its true and because it makes me sad. recognizing change needs to happen is one thing, actively changing is another. my work is in the not-working, my job is to not-do. my homework is to do nothing one evening a week and see how that makes me feel and if it makes me feel uncomfortable then i need to sit with that and work my way through it.

i lost the energy last night to go to yoga and ended up pulling up Jonathan’s old mp3 I have of his meditation vinyasa cd he put out years ago and i was reminded of why i fell in love with his teaching style.

holding yourself in uncomfortable physical positions for long periods of time make you think about how you handle the discomfort. do you check out? do you leave your brain? do you struggle? do you fight? or do you sit in the middle of that pain and think:

“hmmm. this is interesting.”

i’ve been struggling with slowing down. people don’t seem to understand how torturous it was for me to get my 2012 planner and not start putting things in it now. i’m always wanting to be 5 steps ahead of myself.

and when i’m doing that i’m completely missing where i am now and how it feels to be me, today, in these clothes, in this chair, in this space doing whatever it is i am doing.

this is why time is going by so fast. this is why i don’t remember what happened in October or how it came to be November 1st today.

while it feels all sorts of wrong to take a lunch break and go to the gym for an hour today when i’m knee deep in paperwork, i need to.

in other news, i forgot my mom was going to be in the Philippines and i sent her flowers via Fedex and they’re probably sitting on the front porch of the house in new jersey withering away unless the cold and snow preserve them until she returns.

i guess i’ve always encountered people who use that phrase to be people who really have no idea what their roots really are.

i didn’t find myself going back to my roots this weekend but going back to 2008.  the year i took baking to the next level and spent hours waiting for dough to rise and watching the sun come up with a loaf in the oven making the house smell like something out of a television show about a family that lived in the woods and made their own food and wrapped up their problems in 45 minutes because love and understanding is all you need… or something like that.

i relapsed into sickness by waking up saturday morning with that crusty, achy, sore throaty kinda feeling.  i got out of bed, put on yoga clothes and found myself sitting on the edge of the tub brushing my teeth because i was too achy to stand up.  this was when it hit me that it might not be a good idea to go to yoga feeling this way.

but i also didn’t think i could crawl back into bed. while i felt ill i felt like lying down was not something my body wanted at that moment so i packed up the books and went to the summit to draw and read about fascia. that was followed by a trip to the store for soup making things and i made a vat of soup for the dr. and i.

i had an appointment with maria for a massage since she wasn’t feeling so great and her neck had been jacked up which also included some peripheral arm pain which, of course, made me think TOS!, TOS!

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome will now be showing up everywhere, i’m sure.

despite feeling sickly and because i am my mother’s daughter (read: stubborn) i kept the appointment and did the massage.  surprisingly enough i felt better afterwards.  miss maria hung out for a bit and i ended up crawling into the poof chair to read and by read i mean take a nap.

i am realizing i can no longer read while reclined in any manner.  it’s a one way ticket to snoozetown with no promise of return.

i woke up and the dr. had made dinner.  god i love him.

the 2 hour nap though had me awake until 2AM studying and drawing boney structures.

i find most of my free time is spent thinking about soft tissue and boney structures.  it’s like some sort of sickness, really.

despite such a late bedtime i was awake early sunday and made the same trek to the summit for study and drawing.  i’m realizing how much i love this routine.

i had fed my sourdough starter the night before and poured some out into a bowl to ferment on the counter knowing i wanted to do some sort of baking sunday.

after study time at the summit i found myself elbow deep in doughy goop.

god i love it.  i kneaded for what seemed like hours and there was something so completely theraputic about the whole experience.

i had forgotten what it was like to manipulate dough and work it until it was the right consistency where there was enough gluten strands formed to ensure the right kind of texture you want for your bread.

as i kneaded my brain made the obvious connection to massage and i was  surprised i had never thought about it before.  manipulating soft tissues until the right consistency is reached…i wanted to slap my own self.   ’duh.

friends came over for art day and i fed them carbs which, of course, made all of us happy.   later on in the evening i tested out some myofascial release stuff i learned wanting to get his opinion on how it felt (result:  it hurts in the good kinda way).  i also tried some pectoral stretches and hip openers i knew but hadn’t had the balls to try yet in clinic (i need to get over that).  i also did the psoas trigger point stretch that brought me to tears but he didn’t feel much of a stretch but then again the dr.’s back bends are phenomenal and his front body is very open, the opposite of mine.

he is pliable.  i am mostly not.  except for my hyper extended knees and elbows.

par of the course i was up later than i wanted to be reading about the blood vessels that travel to the brain.  it’s a wonder how i function.  i keep expecting to go to bed one night and not wake up until 7 days later to make up for all the sleep i’ve lost these past couple of months (even though i know you can’t quite catch up in that manner).   it’s my last week of the advanced program which makes me feel like ‘WHEEE, YES!!! SOMEONE HAND ME A DRINK!’ but it also makes me feel like i’m now supposed to do something real with this schooling.  i need to redefine what is real for me though and learn how to be gentle with myself.  i don’t need to dive in face first.  i need to finish my clinic hours, i need to finish that one pesky fundamentals class i need to take.  i need to apply for my license.

and i need to rest.

it’s hard to really see how you feel when you’re in the middle of all this business.  i’ve been trying to make decisions and plan out 2012 while i’ve been drowning in work, school and this ubiquitous pressure to do something great that no one but myself is putting on myself.

i’m looking forward to going back to 2008, the year of the layoff and reliving some of its finer aspects.  lots of bad things happened in the beginning of that year.  i was dumped by my boyfriend.  i lost my job. i spent most of january trying really hard to gain an unhealthy nyquil addiction so i wouldn’t have to deal with the things i didn’t want to deal with.  things were bad but the moment i stepped outside of those bad feelings, put them aside to try and be happy again, to try and feel good, i found so many good things that were worth living life for. free time to spend on whatever i wanted to do, park days with friends, yoga,  baking, reading books, writing books and being in love.

workin’ it.

called in sick today. it was the only thing i could do. i made a magical vat of soup that ended up being my most favorite vat of soup i’ve ever made. started with a basic mirepoix in olive oil, garlic, cayenne pepper w/ seeds left in, mushrooms, broccoli, cheddar cauliflower, cannellini beans, farfalle pasta, peas. i ate 2 bowls, worked on my referral list, reviewed lower body anatomy in relation to yoga poses (ray long is my hero) and fell asleep while it rained outside. the dr. was sweet enough to do my laundry for me. i am forever grateful for every little (and large) thing he does for me.

“i don’t know why you like me,” i said in the kitchen after inviting myself to sit on his lap while he solved his rubix cube for the upteenth time today.
“i don’t know why you like me,” he responded.
“because you’re nice and because you’re good looking,” i answered.
“that’s why i like you too,” he said and continued to spin the cube’s sections faster than i could imagine.

i failed to mention that i also like him because even though i’m a good 20 lbs heavier than him he lets me sit on his lap anyway.

2 more weeks of school, no more saturday classes just sunday clinics, one anatomy test, one fundamentals class of my choice and i’ll be done.

until next year.

finding out saturday that the organization of the bodywork therapist program (which is basically level 3) is changing next year to be Mon & Wed nights along with one weekend a month for 6 months changes what i may do next year. level 3 would include 40 hours of deep tissue, the cranial sacral workshop i’m missing because malcolm will be in town, the ortho bionomy workshop i want to take early november as well as all the anatomy classes and stretching and joint mobilization.

this would put me at 500 hours by April next year.

the idea that some of my classmates from level 2 will be taking it as well is incentive to do this now and not wait because i like having classes with these people and i’ll miss them when this is over in 2 weeks.

but i should stick to the plan and not make any plans until the end of level 2.

me and my stupid plans.

fyi, i caved and bought my 2012 planner online already. i couldn’t hold back any longer.

it’ll be a late night but i doubt it will take me forever to do.

which makes me a bit sad because i remember all nighters well and i miss them.

sorta.

no, i do miss them.

there was something exciting about pushing through the different stages of delirium you go through to get things done.  i thrived off of it in college.  this is why i, a highly responsible and organized person, waited to the last minute to do some things.

because it was more fun.

because i am crazy. 

i won’t lie, even though i broke out into stress hives when i pledged zeta in college (it’s a co-ed fraternity people and i did it because it was uncool to be a greek in my uber artistic college, don’t judge me), i sorta loved it.  working full time, going to school full time and pledging full time was like being being in the amazing race without all that traveling.  it basically felt like you needed to go go go until certain renal failure.   it was adrenaline and delirium and pure sugar rush.  it was excitement and action.

it was… awful on my body.

i have a feeling that i used to live off of this kind of crap because it made me feel alive.

the lame equivalent of why people ride rollercoasters or go sky diving or eat shellfish in landlocked states.

what i remember hating about all nighters is that you’re still expected to function the next day.  i remember the sun coming up and after the initial WOO HOO I’M ALMOST DONE BITCHES the descent would begin.  my skin would start to feel unreal.  the nausea would come in waves as i had consumed enough coffee to eat the lining of not only my stomach but my entire intestinal tract.  motor skills became a thing of the past.  it would take an hour to dress myself.

recovery was not fun.

it’s funny how i still look back on this with longing though.

someone needs to beat me with day old baguettes because i’m disappointed that i’m no longer insane.

i’m loving it.

it’s also a time when i sorta slow down.  after last night i decided to put the yoga teacher training idea on the back burner until i’m finished with the advanced program and really think things out then.  i have time.  of course i made this decision and then this morning decided to start making a comparison chart of the 4 different programs/schools i’m looking at.

we are a meticulous type of person, us chart making people.

this is why i love graph paper.

after putting down as much info as i could find on all the programs one ruled themselves out almost instantly and one unexpected one popped out as the current front runner when i thought they were at the back of the pack.

excuse me people, this will be boring as i go through this exercise to put my brain at ease.

yoga garden – ruled out – it’s the only program with classes both tuesdays and fridays AND weekends.

yoga mayu – still thinking about it – mid session break, january – april, friday nights and weekends (1/2 days on sundays), payment plan, mentorship, required reading and class observations.

yoga tree – still thinking about it – 6 months – february- july, friday nights and weekends, payment plan, mentorship, 6 hours of class practice a week.

yoga loft – sudden front runner – 6 months – no date  yet set for 2012 training   (2011 training started  in sept) – sat and sudays every OTHER weekend with specialty modules added  (prenatal, business, bhagavad gita study, corporate & private teaching, chanting) as well as weekend retreat with the class and instructors outside of the city.   outside studio study, practice and homework.  payment plan (more expensive and challenging).

now that i’ve got that out of my system -

the loft jumped out as a front runner because of my connection to the studio (first yoga class, love of the space and the teachers) AND the schedule.  while there are no dates set yet for next years program, they have an open house and if it’s starts later in the year…

i think i’ll have time to breathe.

of course my brain translated that last line to “THEN YOU’LL HAVE TIME TO TAKE THE SHIATSU PROGRAM AND GET YOUR 500 CMT HOURS!”

sigh.  my brain will never learn.

thank god i’m learning to listen to my body more these days because my brain is a bizzatch.

wasn’t i not supposed to think about this until the end of October?

i need to step outside, put my hood up and take a mini walk in the rain to grab a seasonal coffee beverage of my choosing.