Thankful, Part Deux

Yep, today we head to Terry's brother's house and do it all again...full on turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, gravy. Our car will be full with us, T's parents and his aunt, whom we will pick up on the way. Trooper will have to sit this one out.

The big difference this time is a marginally shorter drive and a need to save room for dessert -- I have never liked pumpkin pie so traditional turkey day desserts doesn't phase me. T's sis-in-law's infamous Caramel Apple Pie on the other hand (I'll try to get the recipe for you later!)... I'm sugar-shaking in my boots already just thinking about it!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday meal, so I don't mind doing it twice. Ha! Actually, this is our third -- the first was with our friend's we hadn't seen in a long time last weekend. It would be unfair to lose count with all the hard work everyone's putting in. Again, so very grateful that we're off the hook this year. For as much as we love to cook, not cooking a holiday spread is pretty nice sometimes, too.

And with all the indulging, comes an even greater need for the elliptical...which still isn't usable yet, but I promise pictures when it is! Not that you haven't seen one before, but I think this one is cool.

Now, you may remember my post last January about joining and then canceling at the gym. About how I had no interest in owning exercise equipment, about how I was happier doing nothing than that kind of contrived exercise. Yes, it's true. It may just be this time of year, staring down the barrel of winter and knowing that while we'll still get outside, having our physical activity weather and daylight dependent is a challenge. So it gets me thinking about what we can do instead.

I'll call it being resourceful.

Yoga, most definitely. AND it's become clear in the past year that unless I am able to commit to a daily yoga asana practice -- which again, my mind loves the thought of but maybe my body not so much -- I need to find more. Cross-training. I am keenly aware of the need to find multiple things I can do that engage me, that I won't get bored with. Maybe the elliptical at home will be different?  Maybe the kind we got will be an improvement over what I've used before at the club. It isn't insanity if we're trying something somewhat new, is it?

Maybe it will be, but who knows...it's worth a try.

I do still agree that contrived exercise is a pain in the tookus. I still agree that I don't want to make my house a full service gym. But, if I have such an aversion to going to the club and being a gerbil on a machine with everyone else, it's worth a different kind of spin on the same old story.

Gotta keep moving.

A moving body is a happy body. Past injuries and ailments aside, there must be something that fits. It's important to keep exploring what works.

To find what works and help it stick. Today, I am more than a little grateful to be in a position to give this angle a go.

What have you found that works best for you?//

What's For Dinner Tonight?
Nothing. I imagine our earlier turkey day feast will be just enough to last all evening long.

What are you having?

A joyful evening to you and yours!

Holding On

Ever since I started meditating daily, a little more than a year ago, I've started to notice where I'm holding tension in my body.  I always used to think it was exclusively in my neck, my shoulders, all those trouble spots I get a talking to from when I go to the chiropractor or for a massage.  I didn't realize it, but there's more.

Lots more.

Do I have that much tension?  It doesn't seem like it, especially since starting meditation and getting back into yoga (asana) practice...you'd think I'd be as relaxed as relaxed can be.  Or at least I think I should be!

So imagine my surprise when every single time I sit in meditation, the muscles in the back of my right knee and thigh tense up almost immediately.  When I first noticed this, just a few weeks after I started meditating regularly, I was intrigued by it.  I tried everything I could to relax it.

I thought maybe it was how I was sitting, that the muscles in that leg somehow thought they needed to fire differently to support me.  But I was sitting in simple cross-legged pose.  How much easier can it get?  So I tried sitting with my left leg crossed on top...didn't help, nor did my left leg respond the way my right one did to being on the outside.

So I tried just being aware of it. Being aware of it does help -- noticing it matters and gets me to consciously relax it every time I feel it. But it hasn't made it go away. Isn't that what they say, being aware of the problem is the first step to recovery?

Where's the recovery?

So I had to ask the hard question: What am I holding on to?  And why won't I let it go?

Part of the issue many of us have with our bodies is that we don't want to feel what's going on, because then we feel we're supposed to do something about it.  We feel a pain and our first instinct is to make it go away.  We think our bodies are supposed to be this perfectly healthy, perfectly relaxed vehicle that we get to cruise around in -- takes all the abuse, requires none of the upkeep.  We expect it to feel great all the time, perform great under pressure, and just show up when we need it.

But maybe our bodies are holding onto things for a reason.  Maybe they've got something to say.

Maybe, this mysterious, constant tension in the back of my leg stays for exactly this reason -- it's got me noticing and paying attention.  It's serving a purpose in the larger scheme of things.  Maybe if it trains me to pay attention to my body in times other than meditation, if it allows me to notice when I've stopped breathing or my shoulders are up in my ears, so I can consciously relax during other times of my day, maybe it's doing its job.

And if it wants to stay, who am I to say otherwise?

Maybe it doesn't have to go away.  Maybe I don't need to control it.  Maybe I just get to listen.  Maybe it gives me the opportunity to practice presence, acceptance, and patience.  And gratitude.

And maybe that's enough.

What are you holding onto?//

What's For Dinner Tonight?
I've got a staff meeting tonight at the bakery to prepare folks for the onslaught of the holidays fun and exciting weeks ahead. I've been saying all day that I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week.  Can you believe it?? Yikes!

So it's a pizza party for me around the production table.

How 'bout you?

Whatever it is, I wish you a great night!

Weeks 12 & 13 - Back in the Swing

"It seems the gift of being present is actually wanting to take care of myself on all levels..." ~excerpt from my journal


What a wild adventure these past two weeks have been! By the time my usual day to post last week had come and gone without so much as two seconds to rub together, I made the sanity-saving choice to take a break from a week of writing this blog. Another reminder that this isn't about perfection, after all. My meditations had still been done daily but not tended to with the single-minded focus they deserved. It was clear that what I needed was to rest, regroup, take time to dive deeply and with patience, wait for myself to resurface.

I often think that Life is a ride on a pendulum. At times we're required to move far outside of ourselves and at others, we're required to move inward. The holidays for many of us are one extreme of the ride where we find ourselves so far outside of our comfort zone that we can hardly wait for the moment to arrive so we can crawl back in. I had signs -- and hopes -- that I wouldn't get that frazzled this year, what with regular meditation and all. In hindsight, I do realize that it helped a lot -- but instead of not arriving in frazzle-ville at all, it just took me much longer than usual to get there. Rome was not built in a day.

What I noticed as well is that when the opportunity arrived for me to move inward, I didn't need to go so far in...or at least not for as long. Was continuing all the while with my meditations, regardless of how short they might have been, keeping me on an even enough keel that I rebounded faster than I would have normally? Perhaps even the smallest amount of effort allowed for the pendulum ride of my life to become a little more equalized, a little more balanced, a little less extreme. Or at least for the extremes to be a little less lengthy.

Developing this new kind of relationship with presence, one in which I recognize its impact and can see its value and its place, is just inviting me to go deeper. To realize that every moment matters -- even the chaotic, completely-out-of-my-comfort-zone moments. Knowing now that whatever I have to give is enough -- provided that I'm being honest with myself about what's available -- frees me up to want to give more. As I reflected in my journal, it does seem that the gift of presence is in the wanting to take care of myself as much as I can, in whatever ways I can. We can go through the motions -- which is what I kept fearing I was doing during the wildness -- but perhaps it is the wanting to keep on that sustains us on our ride until less turbulent times arrive.

And so I approach the new year with a renewed energy and passion for the project, fully trusting that through this journey of discovery I am venturing ever closer to a familiarity with my heart that already has affected my life beyond measure.

What passion do you bring to your 2011?//