slow and steady works for me

i was super excited to see a friend a hadn't seen in months this past weekend.  she's a killer hostest and always welcomes my pup (aka the 4-legged love of my life) over with me.  she's one of those people i can tell anything to and, like it or not, i'm gonna get back brutal honesty.  she's known about my struggles with anxiety since way back when and has always been a supportive structure in my life. so since we hadn't connected in awhile, we had much catching up to do and something she was very interested in was seeing how i was doing with my anxiety.

i lit up and told her i'd been panic attack free for almost 2 years, symptom free (pounding heart, shortness of breath, blurred vision, etc) and i was officially living it up in ways i was previously scared to (two amazing trips booked for the fall!).  she was impressed and proud and asked me "so you never even feel anxious anymore?"  -insert sound of screeching brakes-

i responded that i absolutely still get anxious, its an emotion. i can't turn it off any more than i could turn off happiness or sadness.  what i did turn off is the crippling fear from it. yeah, i get anxious, but it no longer holds me back or escalates into life altering fear.  and you guys know how i always share that i still sometimes get anxious in the mornings?  well, i've never quit my early classes or turned down early sessions with clients due to the chance i could feel anxious. i used to RUN from whatever caused me even a hint of anxiety. she looked at my quizzically and said "so you're pretty much in the same place you always were with this."

um NO

definitely not

it took me close to 10 years to develop that level of anxiety, the panic attacks, the loop of negative thoughts, the fear, the insecurity....

my healing journey is not one that happens at the flip of a switch!  no one's journey is.  we can't change overnight... at least, not a lasting change. it takes time to learn what works for us, what helps us alleviate our anxiety, for us to practice overcoming things that scare us, talking and sharing our experiences, learning to meditate or change negative thoughts to positive... oh my gosh!  there's no way this happens overnight.

and this got me thinking.. how many people doubt their journey if it doesn't happen in the blink of an eye? how many people give up because they feel they'll "never get it."  it took me almost a month before i could work through a panic attack and ward it off and many more months to stop being scared that one could "happen at any moment." we get used to thinking a certain way and dreading certain things, so we have to restructure our entire thought processes and perceptions.  and we're not used to doing it.  it shocked me that my friend interpreted slow and steady progress, for no progress.

so don't get frustrated if your journey is slower than you'd like it to be or different from someone else's.  you are working on making positive, powerful and lasting changes in your life! please stick with it!  find your outlets, track negative thoughts, practice positive ones and know that each step along the way is one to be celebrated!  and above all else, don't let someone else's perceptions of your journey alter your own perceptions. 

be YOU x 2

i heard this from chalene johnson.  i always love me some inspirational and fun quotes and felt this one was so perfect.  it just hits so close to home for me. 

throughout my years with anxiety i spent a lot of time hiding my true self - you know, the one that shows i make mistakes and am human - and constantly tried to live in a place of perfection.  i said yes to everyone, took on projects others didn't want so i could make my boss happy, i struggled with figuring things out sometimes because i refused to ask questions and seem incompetent... talk about hard work!  its tough trying to be perfect.  its frustrating living this way because you become like this actor/actress in your own life.  its as though you're living out a role and only when the cameras go off (or you're totally alone!) can you be yourself. 

it still takes a lot of confidence to be myself.  i've had people comment on my style of teaching classes... i tend to like them loud, fun and sweaty... and i practice yoga to zepplin and the doors and deep purple and i don't think there's anything wrong with that.  i've heard many people say "yoga is for everyone" but yet as soon as you venture off the path a little, all of a sudden its not for everyone anymore because you're doing it wrong.  and even though i can teach a packed out spin class or kickboxing class and have tons of people say nice things to me about the moves, the music or the energy.... there will always be someone that leaves seeming unhappy and that's who you focus on (again, that was mentioned by chalene johnson) and i just had to laugh because as a  fitness instructor its SO true.  and as someone so familiar with anxiety its even more true because its a hard habit to break to not focus on the negative. 

and i'll admit it - when i transitioned to a full time yoga teacher i gave up my beloved coffee for green tea, i left behind the fun clothes and make up for traditional yoga togs and switched out candles for incense.  i believed that to be taken seriously i was going to have to give up some of who i was in order to be accepted.  but you know what? after a few months, i shrugged that all off.  i can listen to tori amos when i do my sun salutations and i can guzzle coffee with the best of 'em, there's nothing wrong with me enjoying a glass of wine with dinner and its fun to get decked out to teach a class!  it doesn't make me any less of a person or teacher just because i like to get my sweat on just as much as i enjoy to get my yoga on and when i practice with a class i like to joke around and have fun... i'm not a serious person and i'm not going to force my practice or classes to be either.  the thing is, not everyone is going to like me.  not everyone is going to be digging my classes or music or sequences or interpretations and that's ok.  i'm confident enough to believe in myself to the point where i can still rock it out my way and know that some people will love it and some won't.  its not that there's anything wrong with me or them... it's just that there wasn't a connection and i wasn't what they are seeking out right now.  but that one person isn't going to make me morph into an entirely different teacher or person anymore. 

there's a big difference between trying your best and constantly having to be the best and it's ok to not have everyone love you.  don't waste time trying to be everything to everyone because thats a never-ending quest.  and the only person to lose out is you.  know what you love, know what makes you smile and keep at it! 

forget about what it's not, take it for what it is

this phrase is like my new MO. kind of like that whole "he's just not that into you" craze. we spend lots of time making things into something they're not. we over analyze what it means if a guy hugs us rather than kiss us, we ponder endlessly about why our co-worker was called into our boss' office instead of us after a huge presentation, we try desperately to make diet food taste just like the chips and cookies we're used to... we tend to resist accepting things for what they are.

this concept came to me (read: hit me so hard it almost knocked me unconscious) when, for the 100th time, i found myself explaining that i haven't lost my mind just because i find myself wandering over into the raw food lifestyle.

over the past couple of years i've spent my life experimenting with food. at first it was weight related... diet this and diet that, non-fat everything. then it was because i became committed to animal rights activism and quit eating meat. then i ventured into a soy-craze. finally i finished off my experimentation by reading about metabolic typing, ayurveda and raw foodism. i tried it all and what left me feeling the absolute best was raw food. so it seemed to be completely logical to continue to learn about this new food lifestyle and how to best incorporate it into my life.

on thanksgiving i became so bold as to bring a raw pecan pie to my aunt's house. my family conveniently looked away from it, grabbing at the usual dessert staples - apple pie and cheesecake - but a few brave souls braced themselves and tried it. it was met with pretty positive reviews, although directly followed with "but i still prefer regular pecan pie." ugh.

so as i sat there talking about raw food and my health i was met with a familiar question - "but does it taste like regular food?"

this is when i found myself hit in the face with my realization. yes. raw food does taste like regular food. regular for raw. just as french fries taste regular and normal for fried food and milk tastes normal and regular for dairy. everyone gets so hung up on whether or not this raw food i'm eating tastes exactly like its cooked counterpart that they lose the entire concept of the diet. its not about whether jicama mimics the exact taste of a cooked french fry, its how the jicama makes me feel compared to the cooked french fry.

i began to scour over my raw recipe books and realized that all of the food had names like "unfried french fries" or "rawvioli." now these names help me understand what food i'm making and the cooked food it resembles, but i'm sure to find that the raw food doesn't ever taste exactly like the cooked food. and if i really just forgo that concept, i often find that some of the raw stuff i make actually tastes better! i happen to totally prefer my raw pies to any cooked.

and i started to see that its not just food we do this to. we expect people to look a certain way, act a certain way and behave in a certain way. if we see someone picking up garbage along the street the first word that may come to mind is "gross" because its out of the ordinary and "not normal" but maybe that person is deeply committed to the earth and environmentalism. Maybe a friend tells us something less than stellar about ourselves and we get offended because its not the regular niceties this person usually exchanges with us. forget about the fake kindness and take the words as those of advice and caring. i have caught a lot of flack for enjoying practicing my yoga to rock music and encouraging students to have fun on the mat. but that's not me disrespecting yoga, its my interpretation of a practice that has transformed my life.

so today i whipped up a raw spinach quiche, flax crackers (currently dehydrating) and cacao sunflower balls... and i'm not going to cut into that quiche expecting it to taste like a cooked quiche and i'm not going to bite into those cacao sunflower balls and expect them to taste like sweet chocolate fudge... i'm going to look forward to enjoying them for what they are and decide if i like them based on nothing more than their individual taste. forget what they're "supposed" to be or "supposed" to taste like. and tomorrow AM i'm hoping to take my first hot yoga class. i am not going to lie, i've formed some preconceived notions about this style of yoga, but i've based it on my own personal thoughts and opinions. i've never tried it. so i'm going to take a class and experience it for what it is, not constantly judge it or anticipate how i'll feel after compared to a "regular" yoga class. that word regular is dangerous. its a slippery slope for me and leads me into endless amounts of dissatisfaction and comparisons of nearly everything.

so i'm going to try to encounter things and appreciate them all for what they are. stop the comparisons. stop trying to replicate what already is. stop making something into what it's not.

i love you, you're perfect, now change.

i love you, you're not perfect, forget change.