What are your sentiments?

posted by Melissa


This week I have had two momentous points of finishing something I set out to accomplish.  And after tomorrow it will be three things, although the third is not quite as satisfying.

On Monday night, I finished All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.  I have been working on this book since the late Autumn.  And here it is Spring.  Reading books is something I wish I did more of, like eating fish or having patience with my kids.  I find it extremely hard to find books that capture my attention enough for me to get past the first few pages.  Short attention span maybe?  Or refined literary taste?  Sadly, I think I know the answer.

*            *          *

Today, I finished my 30 day challenge of Bikram yoga at the SweatBox here in Capitol Hill.  Amy and I went to the morning class, and my friend Kristy came along.  Our teacher, Laura, made the class special in so many ways (she often does).  Today she read an inspiring poem at the beginning of class and another at the end.  I swallowed back the urge to cry during the poem she read as we all rested in our final savasana.  The feeling of gratitude for being able to show up everyday, the depth of her appreciation for our dedication to ourselves and the words of the poem all came together and hit me right in the center of my chest.

The Good People

The Good People everywhere

will teach anyone who wants to know

how to fix all things breaking and broken in this world –

including hearts and dreams –

and along the way we will learn such things as

why we are here

and what we are supposed to be doing

with our hands and minds and souls and our time.

That way, we can hope to find out why

we were given a human heart,

and that way, we can hope to know

the hearts of other human beings

and the heart of the world.

Danny Siegel

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And tomorrow I will finish tai chi month.  Wishing I had done more.  But being OK with simply learning about the ancient practice, opening my horizons to kung-fu movies, and incorporating 5 minutes of walking meditation into my daily life.

I think it is through the yoga that I learn to expand my attention span so I could reach my goal of finishing the novel.  It is also through practicing simple things like slow walking or walking meditation for just 5 minutes a day, even if it is in the midst of children yelling and pushing to get to the bathroom.  Leads me to wonder what other books might I now be able to finish?  What other uncomfortable situations might I be able to bear without letting it shake my foundation?  

In All the Pretty Horses McCarthy writes, "In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments.  Those whom life does not cure death will.  The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not.  Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting."

The word sentiment can be defined as: A view of or attitude toward a situation or event; an opinion.

Yoga cures me of my sentiments.  

in gratitude,

Melissa

  

how do you slow down?

posted by Melissa


Take a deep breath.

That what I needed to do several, no hundreds of times, in the past few days.  And after all that getting worked up, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be in my head.  Looking back to when I sat here writing my last post, I feel like I was a little Tasmanian devil whirling around typing furiously.  I can't believe how much we can stress about things that haven't even happened yet.  It's no wonder I was having a bad yoga class that day.

Tallulah June, fashion show 3/25/11

Lily's party was so fun....we did hair and makeup and had a music filled fashion show with the runway right down the middle of our dining room.  Lily loved it all...and so did I.  I would post a picture of her, except her idea of high fashion involved some hot pants that I just do not want seen in a picture of her out on the Internet.  Seriously.  I can't believe how grown up 11 years old is.  Here is one of Tallulah though, way more appropriate.  Very 5 years old.

Tai chi.  I know this month is about tai chi, not birthday parties or yoga.  Even though that is what has been consuming me this week.  I really wish I could have gone to that class on Thursday, that is what I need to learn tai chi.  A teacher, a class, and clear step by step instruction.  Repeat.  Repeat again.  And again.  Then it begins to sink in.

Currently, tai chi looks like this for me: I get out my tai chi books and try to follow along as I have the book sitting on the table in front of me.  I get to the third step, just after the part where you step your feet apart and raise your arms up and down...and that is about it.  I am able to do the "slow walking" that Saul taught us, as painfully slow as that is.  It is amazing how much my thighs hurt and how wobbly my balance gets just shifting weight from one foot to another, and moving forward very slowly.  
And this is before I have a glass of wine, or have shotgunned a PBR!

Even if slow walking is all I learned from tai chi month, it can still be meaningful.  If, and I stress that word if...If I use it in my life.  I think that taking a deep breath could have helped me through this week when I reached my frazzled, whiny states.  Slow walking would have also helped.  Just realizing I have 5 minutes to be slow would have sent a message to my charged endocrine system to also slow down.  That everything is ok, and we don't need to be in flight or fright mode 24/7.

So, for the next 5 days, that is my commitment for the blog.  I will spend at least 5 minutes slow walking.  Anyone else up for the challenge?  It's just 5 days.  I can see it now, people across the US and Switzerland (I know where my audience is) slow walking in their homes, in the park, to the grocery store.  It will be a phenomenon, the new "it" thing to do.   This is a link to a walking meditation instruction, which is the closest thing I have found to what we learned that day in class.  Check it out and give it a try.

So much in life tells us to be faster, keep moving, onto the next thing.  I feel like it could be so useful to have more stimuli to the brain and body letting it know it is ok to slow down.  That is why savasana is so hard sometimes, it can be easier to sweat and work your muscles til they burn, than to lie still and rest.  At least when we are moving we are "doing" something...and that's the American way.

What ways do you slow down?  OR do you feel like going, going, going is it for you...that it works?  If so, why does it work?  Leave me a comment, let me know your thoughts on being slow....

peace,
Melissa