So much... SO much...! Change, growth, healing, feelings, thoughts... yesterday was a rough one, if I’m honest. This whole year has been challenging with most of what I’ve known, my normal, changing. There are days, like yesterday, where I feel, what I call, swirly: it’s like my old self is trying to catch up to my new self & old thoughts & ways of behaving no longer serve me & it’s like I don’t know how to be, like a computer malfunctioning. I experienced it yesterday as depression. .
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I was severely depressed in middle school & it came & went through high school & college. Then I got cancer & after winning the battle, this similar thing happened: I began to process the trauma & surgeries & emergencies I had, & as a 24, 25, and 26 year-old, no longer able to have kids, not able to go out with friends, not even working, having faced & tasted death 3 times, I got depression again. .
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I was medicated for it post-cancer & went to therapy. I got off the meds because on them I felt only one emotion: numb, & I wanted to feel. Life. I wanted to live with any & all the emotions, otherwise, I asked myself if I was really living at all...
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Thinking about that now, I realize how yogic that is: no feelings are good or bad, they simply are, part of the human experience. It’s what we do with them, & how we respond to them that’s important. .
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I had an acupuncture treatment yesterday & it stirred up a lot. I told a friend last night that I think it caused me to feel & experience depression so that I can process through and heal & grow from it. I tell my yoga clients all the time: poses/asanas can stir up emotions & bring them to the surface. They were already there, buried in our body’s tissues, & we’re bringing them up & out into the open so we can let them them go, if we want to. And these are the keys: awareness, being grateful for the emotion & it’s teaching, & realizing that this is adulting: using emotions as feedback or signs. Emotions don’t define you or me anymore than a fingernail or kneecap does. It’s part of being a human & we’re unique in that way from many other animals because of it. .
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So, as challenging as some moments can be, here’s to them. #alive 💋
Reflection: it’s what the fall & winter season’s allow & ask from us. Tuned in to the natural rhythms & the earth’s cycles, this time of year is likened to the body’s parasympathetic nervous system: it’s time to rest & digest. .
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I used to despise fall & winter. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the midwest where negative temperatures are normal, along with snow & rain & ice & having to be cooped up indoors for months at a time. Or maybe it’s because I bought into the lie that activity/what-you-do is not only “beneficial all the time” it’s “productive” & defines a person, or maybe I was just addicted to the adrenaline, but now, although moments may be tough, I’m enjoying these slower seasons: they let me take stock of what went well in the past year, giving me opportunity to enjoy the fruits of my labor & recharge, while also giving me space & time to change course if I so desire for the upcoming year. .
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The moldy apartment debacle has me needing to throw most of my things away (mold spores burrow into fabrics & can spread in any new place) &/or deeply disinfect what I can, & during this season of reflection I’m pondering how I want to move forward since I will be starting, quite literally, with a clean slate. So far, I’m finding myself wanting to throw it all away & drop further into my anti-consumerism protests for personal reasons, but also collective: the less shit I own & buy, the less damage to the earth & thus you. .
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I don’t have any decisions made yet, there’s still a lot of reflection to do, which is perfect, winter isn’t even officially here yet. .
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Enjoy the slower life friends. It’s what I’ll be doing, along with the bears, squirrels, trees, flowers, mountains, fields, etc. etc. .
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👉🏼 if you’re in Redding & want to join me for some slower, more restorative yoga, I’ve got several on my group class schedule & I’m subbing a good amount at @balance.yogacenter Click the link in my bio for my schedule & hit me up if you want a personalized plan, it’s what most of my private clients see me for & I’ve heard it enough times to now believe it, I do it well. .
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#theartofslowliving #livinginthemoment #livingnow #minimalism #lovetheearth #reflection
This year... this past week... been awake since 1:00am, slept for 3 or so hours, left my journal at the other house I’ve been crashing at recently. Think I may have found my new home. Testing it out this weekend. It’s different. I’ve been used to living in my own place these past few years and now I may be renting a room from a long-time yoga client of mine, but it’s seeming to fit. You know those situations where it may not be exactly what you “want,” but it just feels right, and there are so many coincidences and signs from various things and people that you have to stop and take notice? Yeah, this may be one of those situations. No final decisions have been made just yet. Taking it all in stride... .
9 days ago my apartment flooded with several inches of water that set off a chain of revelatory events including the knowledge that my apartment was moldy the whole time I lived there and slowly poisoning me. Now the extreme fatigue, hair loss, massive mouth sores, ER visits and bacterial infections all make sense... (scroll through the pics to see how bad the flood was).
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I’m still processing that chaos and schlepping my stuff around from various places to learn that I’m going to need to throw most of it away due to mold spores, and/or massively disinfect what I can.🥴
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Last weekend, 2 days after the flood, I modeled for the @unitedagainstcancer fundraiser (what these first 2 pics are) and the combo of memories from my long battle of stage 3 ovarian cancer and treatments with the hospitalization, fatigue, weekly doctors appointments these last few months to get to the bottom of things, has me all over the place, in my mind and emotions, and literally as I’ve been homeless as of late. Me not sleeping right now seems glaringly appropriate.😤😳😩😴🤬😭😡☹️😏💩☠️🧜🏼♀️
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It’s an interesting time. Many, many good things have and are coming from it all, and it’s still hard and sucks. .
How are you doing?!! .
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#cancersurvivor #ovariancancersurvivor #ovariancancer #babesagainstcancer #theflood #thisisredding #musingsonthepath #nonduality #2018 #fuckingshit #ptsd #traumarecovery #reallife #justkeepgoing #cry #laugh #cryagain #40something #longroadofrecovery #healingisajourney
👆🏼”The Advanced Class” - after Yin Yoga last night some students & I talked about how I could “read their minds” & share & teach on the very things they had been pondering & contemplating, putting the pieces together for them. (Among many things, I talked about pain & perhaps we aren’t meant to get over it but instead remnants of it serve to remind us of how strong we are, how much we’ve grown, & how soft we’ve become because of it). What makes this physically “easy” class so advanced is the connection to Spirit, our soul’s, & to each other, not because of what we can do, quite the contrary, these slower more meditative classes allow us to see how connected we are through our weaknesses/through our humanity, we get to put aside our differences & egos & goals & be still, just breathing in the peace, calming down & letting stress melt away... together...
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This Thursday I’ve added a new weekly class: Yoga Nidra & Restore to continue this advance practice of calming the nervous system & connecting to what I call our Inner Sanctuary. Some call it dessert yoga. Either way, it’s Divine... see you at 6:45pm. Full details via the link in the bio, under Schedule. .
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#reddingyoga #balanceyogacenter #thisisredding #theadvancedclass 😉💞
“There aren’t many of us are there?”👈🏼 said a fellow ovarian cancer survivor after an article ran in the @breakingnews_rs newspaper about me a few years ago. We stood there for a few moments, looking into each other eyes with an understanding and knowing that can’t be put to words... .
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I’m reflecting and feeling as I prepare for a fundraiser in San Francisco next weekend for @unitedagainstcancer . I’ll be walking the runway in a bikini and some designer gowns for the 2019 calendar launch and party that I modeled for in June. The money goes to some profound and incredible technology that detects ovarian cancer (there is no such thing now) and reverses (any) cancer once found. (Correct me if I’m wrong @giagalicia !) .
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All this reflection comes after an entire morning spent on self care and a full day ahead of the same. If ovarian cancer doesn’t kill you, the chemo does. It’s a deadly cancer and one that I am every day impacted by, since 2001. As a friend told me recently “I know no one who does self care like you do.” Yup, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be typing this right now...
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#ovariancancersurvivor #stage3ovariancancersurvivor #since2001 #deathsentence #defyingtheodds #meditation #selfcare #healthcare #healthiswealth #chemokills #cancerrecovery #traumarecovery #chemorecovery #hysterectomy #musingsonthepath #scar
