One-Liners, not One-Miles

posted by Melissa Baumgart
Well, would you look at that!  It's a quote taken from a silly you tube video, that I didn't even like at first.  In fact, I never watched it again.  But what I have done is repeat that phrase time and time again for comedic effect in my own life.  I have lots of things I share with those around me that we get from pop culture (or even real life culture), little one-liners that make us laugh til we snort.

9+hrs & $8.52/jar: You what that is?  That's Bullshit!

Here are some others you might be able to place:

"Rude!"
"What's up with that?"
"You know what that is?  That's Bullshit!"
"Girl, yes I did."
"Nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all."
"Calmer than you."


So, have a distracted you enough to perhaps think this month isn't about running?  Did you forget you came here to see how the running was going?  Seems like I have.  After we went running in the dark this past Saturday night, I haven't run at all.  I know, What's up with that?

I did start back to yoga though.  I feel like how when I was a kid and I would recite whole portions of a funny show, like the Simpsons, and now I am reduced to simple one-liners that other people might not even get.  In class, I can barely stand there the whole time, and I feel accomplished just by getting through pranayama breathing.  I think the people in class are glancing over to my mat thinking, "Wow, look at the new chubby girl, poor thing doesn't know what hit her."  Rude!  In the past I could go through the entire series day after day.

And that's how it goes.  Sometimes, we pick a winner.  It is inspiring and motivating, and maybe we even love it so much that we fall down in joyful exhaustion from it all (Urban Homesteading anyone?)
And sometimes we pick a dud.

You never know which choice is going to be a winner or a dud.  I sure wasn't looking forward to Memorizing a Classic Poem, when Amy picked that one.  But I loved it.  I totally got into poetry and memorizing.  And I thought I would love running every day, a small, but attainable goal.  Forget about it.  How is it that twice I have done a 30-day Challenge with Bikram yoga (1 hour and 30 minute class every day) and yet, I couldn't squeeze in 15 minutes a day.  As much as I preached we all could back at the beginning of the month!  

Just look at that!  Life brings so many possibilities and opportunities; we make of them what we will.  Therein lies the choice: do you choose to feel guilty about what you made of it, or do you move on peacefully, with a little more insight into yourself and humanity.  I do feel good about what I spent my energy working on for the past week or so.  I say focus on the positive, look at what you have done and say to the world, "Girl, yes I did!"

So, next time you feel like you've been doing nothing at all, choose your perspective wisely.  Look at what you have done.  Even if it is simply resting, cultivating your inner self, wading through your own darkness.  Even if it is going for it, head-on, with reckless abandon through light and inspiration.

Are there no true duds?  Is there always a silver lining?  Are we always in control of our perspective?  Sometimes that doesn't even seem possible.

As maddening as it all seems sometimes, I believe we can always look to someone else choosing to be in some crazy state of mind and say... "Calmer than you, dude."  And walk away.

-Melissa

Savasana Forever!

The other day in yoga class, our teacher Gary said, "Savasana forever." ironically,  it was during one of the shorter 20 second savasanas between the postures in the floor series.  at the time, i remember thinking...."yes, please, right now....give us a savasana forever.    please.  now."  Which is odd...usually i am more dying for a taste of corpse pose during the standing series, the first part of class.  

So, really what this brings up for me is the sometimes subtle, but mostly glaring mind games i play during yoga class.  and to be honest, all day long before class...and after.  I think around day 8, when i was feeling strong and capable, I was powering through class with gusto and confidence.  Everything about class energized me and each pose I did gave me more energy to go into the next pose.  But mostly when I do in class and before class is have this mental chatter with myself, my silent schizophrenic nature truly comes out during yoga.  Some days I spend the hours before class reassuring my apprehensions about my physical abilities by reiterating in my head how I can just lay in...yes, savasana forever, or at least during the whole class if I wanted.  (So far, I have never done this...but I do feel soothed by the option. Which reminds me of the quote I posted from Pema Chodron the other day)  Then when I get to class, I fidget on my towel and mat until the teacher comes in, too afraid to actually lie in savasana before class, lest I fall asleep and snore and sleep through pranayama breathing.  Then when class starts, I fidget more than ever, trying to get my flipping feet straight on my towel.  i never achieve this simple status, straight feet, all through class.  Once we hit the 6th pose, Balancing Stick, Tuladandasana, my mind chatter softens and I am using every ounce of my energy to simply be in the poses and breathe slowly, in and out through my nose.  And then...that sweet, yet taunting, savasana.  I love it.  But along with it comes that mind chatter again, loud and clear.  I remind myself of what poses I can sit out of in the rest of the series.  And so it continues through the remainder of class.  Even on the days when I do every posture, I still toy with the idea of when and where I will take it easy...busily planning the last 30 minutes of class.

Needless to say, this is not the ideal way to be through a Bikram Yoga class.  And neither is it advised to push yourself to do all the poses because you spot some really skinny mom from your kid's school right behind you and you think you have something to prove.  yea, I know your youngest kid is under one and you are in better shape than most teenagers, but this chunky mama is totally kicking your ass at yoga. so there!  um, yea...NOT ADVISED.

what I am advising myself to do today at class, day 20, is to work more on making this truly a moving meditation and less of a mental mind fuck.  Cause really...that is not getting me anywhere.  and maybe therein lies the question...where i am so busy trying to get to anyway?  Today I will use as much effort during savasana as I do during triangle pose...using my tools from meditating with Pema...reminding myself that I am thinking and bringing myself back to my breath.  Keeping it simple.  If I can master my mind in 105 degrees, slippery with sweat, my muscles trembling...then imagine what I can bring to my life off the yoga mat.

xoxomelissa

The 2 breathing exercises and 26 postures of Bikram Yoga.