Return of the Blog!! ;)

Hi friends & blog followers!! I am so excited to back, talking about food, yoga, self-love, and all kinds of good stuff. I hope you'll join me in conversation about how we can all live healthier, happier, and more peaceful lives.

I knew I needed to get back to writing last week during a particularly overwhelming and stressful couple of days. As many of you know, I am crazy busy this fall as I complete my last year of school and continue to teach yoga and study astrology. Last week I felt totally exhausted and like my body was running on empty; my muscles and bones felt like sludge during my yoga practice, and my mood was a little low. This is nothing new for me, especially during this time of year. As the seasons transition from summer into fall and fall into winter, I notice a palpable change in my mood and energy.  It's really helpful for me to have some extra support systems already in place, before it gets too cold and too dark outside. Last winter, my blog was one of those support systems, and since I know I'm not the only one who feels a change in bodymindspirit during winter, I thought we could all benefit from this open space to talk and share.

I have to say, I am not very proud of how I handled my low levels of energy last week. My first reaction was to get really angry at my body for not performing the way I wanted it to, and to then freak out that focusing more on school this year means that my yoga practice (read: flexibility) is going to slip away. It felt like yoga was being taken away from me, and I did not like that. More than a few times I caught myself beating myself up, saying really mean things like "you aren't good enough" and "if you can't be perfectly awake and open and flexible in class then you're an embarrassment as a teacher." WHOA!! Now that I write it out, seems a bit extreme, no?!

Then, it suddenly hit me: YOGA IS FOR HEALING. My time on my mat should be a place where I can just be, where I don't have to do or teach or behave in any kind of way that doesn't feel natural. If you took one of my yoga classes last week after I had this remembrance, I shared it with you and reminded you to be as gentle as possible with yourself as you moved through your flow. Well, I want to extend that further and invite everyone, myself included, to be as gentle as possible to ourselves as we move through our lives. We might not be able to do it at every moment, but we can try. Change doesn't happen, well-being and health don't happen, when we are berating ourselves. We can't beat ourselves into feeling good, yet we still try to do it all the time. Instead, let's try and be a little more compassionate with who we are.

The answer is always self-love. Every. Single. Time. There's no way around it, so we might as well just start there.

Have a wonderful day, everyone, and I look forward to blogging with you again!!!
Lots of love,
Nina

Days 14-21: Self Sabotage

Every morning for the past week I've woken up and started off on a really good foot with food.
And every night I completely sabotage what was a healthy day of eating.
It's like I get to the end of the evening and I'm afraid to be done eating, so instead I stand in my kitchen eating ice cream and cereal.
I am trying to figure out what it is that I am afraid of, and I think I know.

When I was fifteen, I started Weight Watchers. I weighed 133 pounds, so I was not overweight. Not even close. But I had a couple friends who were doing it so I though I'd give it a shot too. No expectations, just curiosity.

I lost almost twenty pounds in two months, and I didn't have to work very hard. I don't remember being hungry or feeling deprived, only excited that every time I went to a meeting I got on the scale and had lost weight. It felt great.

What was not great was that people began to notice that I lost weight and started complimenting me. It was very confusing and I started to question what I must look like. I thought things like, "If people are telling me how great I look now, does that mean I was fat before?" I was not able to see myself clearly, and that is something I still struggle with: having a totally warped self perception. A lot of times I look in the mirror and am shocked not to see a fat person staring back at me because I walk around feeling enormous. Other times I look in the mirror and am totally disgusted by certain parts of my body. It's really hard for me to know what is real and what is my imagination.

After losing the twenty pounds in only two months, I went to New York with my family for Thanksgiving. It was my first time not being in my routine or eating my normal diet foods (it was my first time not in control) and it lead to my first binge. I remember going to Trader Joe's with my mom's cousin,  buying a box of chocolate chip cookies, and eating almost the entire thing that night. I didn't have the self awareness then that I do now, and I remember not really understanding what was happening. Instead, it felt like the binge was just happening to me, rather than me actively doing it.

This was the beginning of about a year of dieting and bingeing, over and over and over. Then I gained a bunch of weight, and lost it, and gained it again, and lost it again....I've been doing this ever since. I've had highs and lows, and years where I felt more in control than others, but I am always struggling with food.

So, when I get to the end of the day, and I've been very healthy and mindful (not restrictive) all day, it often feels like I'm depriving myself even though I am not. The lines are blurry and I think I go back to that place of being fifteen and on a diet, so by the end of the night I eat out of fear. Fear that if I lose weight, it will all happen again: the compliments, the body confusion, the bingeing and dieting cycle.

But I am not fifteen anymore. And I really want to move past this. I want to be able to eat healthfully and not feel the need to sabotage my day of eating mindfully. So I'm just putting it out there, asking the universe to please help me to do this. It would be awesome if I could go to bed feeling content and satisfied, instead of either deprived or ashamed. Isn't there an in between?

I hope the next 80 days can lead me to that balance and I can stop living in old patterns from ten years ago. So here's to that!

Days 9-13: Mouth-Eating

I've been doing a lot of mouth-eating lately.

What is mouth-eating? It's what I call eating when you aren't hungry, but your mouth really wants to taste something.

Stomach-eating is eating when your body needs food.

I mouth-eat all the time and it's a tough habit to break!

Today after lunch, my stomach was full, but I convinced myself that I needed something else. My meal did not feel complete even though my hunger was satiated.

I'm just sharing this as an observation and wanted to put the intention out in the the universe, in writing, to the blogosphere, that I'd like to stop mouth-eating so much and stomach-eat more.

Ommmmmmm

Days 5-8: Ego Love

I've been pondering the way that ego shows up in my life, particularly in my food/body/love life, and I'm here to say that I officially do not want to dissolve my ego.

I think I've been over-saturated with this philosophical notion that ego = bad. Ego = superficial.
But what if ego just equals our drive to achieve personal goals, values, hard work, dedication, overcoming fear, and moving into the life we want to create? This is my new definition of ego.

The past two weeks I've been really lazy. I think I was mostly just exhausted from the end of my semester (yay!), but I also thought it would be interesting to do a little experiment to see just how laid-back and un-perfectionist I could get. What I realized in the process is that ego has a purpose, and if we use it wisely rather than get carried away with it, our egos can serve us in a beautiful way.

The first few days of my little experiment felt really great and very necessary. I needed to not "do" for a while, and it was good for me to have down time to decompress from my semester. I watched a bunch of crap reality TV, ate a lot (sans sugar, of course!), napped, allowed myself to slack off from my asana practice a bit, and embodied the nature and life of a sloth.

But a few days ago, it started to feel like my chilled-out-ness was no longer serving my best interest. I missed working hard at something and feeling like I was actively pursuing my goals. One of my goals is to feel confident and comfortable in a bikini this summer. I noticed that during this period of down time, I started to feel really guilty about that goal. I felt like it was too superficial and was ashamed that something external, like feeling good about my body, was of importance to me. Aren't I only supposed to care about what's on the inside? Aren't I supposed to be this yoga teacher who doesn't care at all about what's on the surface, and only about what's underneath and on a deeper level?

No. I don't think so, anyway.

As I pondered some more, I thought about all the ways in which my goal-driven nature and go-for-my-dreams attitude has been a really amazing thing in my life. Without it, I would not be a yoga teacher. I would not be almost done with grad school. I would not have dared to start my first 100 Days, or be here now, in the beginning of this next round. I'm a make-shit-happen kind of gal, and it's something I like about myself.

It's ok that I want to feel good about my body in a bathing suit. It doesn't mean I'm shallow. It's not about what my body actually looks like, anyway, but how I feel about it. And I believe that feeling good is a marker that we are moving in the right direction. And I also believe that working towards and achieving a goal is a perfectly ok thing to feel proud of, especially if I can do it with awareness and curiosity.

So, here's to embracing my ego and yours. :) Tell me...how has your ego helped you??

Days 3 & 4: On NOT Dieting

It is a strange, strange thing to consciously choose each day not to diet, when it's what I've been used to for so long.

The past few months are really the first time in my life since I was 15 that I've been working on loving myself rather than changing myself.

Sometimes it's really hard. Yesterday I spent some time really thinking about joining Weight Watchers so that I could lose 10 pounds and feel skinny and happy for bikini season. But there is something in me now that knows that only leads to deprivation, highs and lows, and eventual weight gain.

So...what is there to do instead of diet?? Nothing, really. Meditate. Yoga. Spiritual practice. Mindful eating. Enjoying my life. No Drama.

But...I admit, sometimes I long for the drama!

I figured out the food stuff during the first 100 Days, which foods feel good to eat, which don't, etc., and I'm noticing that this round is more about me just being with myself and feeling content with what is. Just continuing to trudge along without sugar and feel happy in this moment because this moment is complete and beautiful on it's own.

Ahhhh....deep sigh.  

Day 2: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

I've been making chia seed pudding for a while now, and I finally found the perfect combo of ingredients for a sweet and sugar-free treat!

I wish I had a picture to share, but it was so delicious that I ate it all up before I thought to grab my camera.

Here's what you need:

1/2 cup almond milk - (or whatever kind of nut milk you prefer)
2 tablespoons raw chia seeds (you can get these at any health food store or Whole Foods; I buy Navitas)
1 tablespoon organic cocoa powder
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup (all natural, not Aunt Jemima's!!!)

Mix the almond milk, chia seeds, and cocoa powder in a container that has a lid. Stir it until most of the cocoa powder has been absorbed.
Cover it with the lid, and refrigerate overnight.
Before you eat it the next day, stir in the maple syrup (you could try agave or honey, too, but I like this the best).

Enjoy!!

Today feels great and I've been so moved by the intentions of all the other ladies who are doing this with me. We have a great group and who knows, maybe this will become something I lead, or write a book about...dreaming of possibilities.

Day One

I can't believe I just wrote "Day One" again.

But today felt like putting my hand into a worn glove that fit perfectly. There is so much relief in knowing that I'm doing this, because I know it leads to freedom.

My day was pretty boring food-wise, and since it was my day off, I spent most of my time sitting on my couch :)

I don't think I would have been able to do this a few months ago. No, a few months ago I would have been mentally beating myself up for not doing anything, for accomplishing nothing, for lacking in productivity. Part of learning to be more compassionate towards myself is allowing myself to have a "day of nothing" once in a while. I watched crap TV, I made some chocolate chia seed pudding, I drank coffee and green juice, and I started reading The Ramayana (one of my summer goals; it's almost 700 pages, ahhh!) So it's not exactly that nothing happened, it's that I didn't do anything with a goal in mind. I just did what I felt like doing in the moment.

This is so new for me. And, when half an hour before the yoga class I'd planned to go to this evening something else suddenly came up, I didn't sweat it. Shit happens. Life happens. This is where the real practice really is. So what if my back feels a little tight tomorrow and I can't do the splits every single time I practice. WHO CARES?!???

It's time for me to let go of my attachment to this idea that crazy poses = I'm good enough. I am already good enough, and so are you. And I got here by feeling my feelings, accepting everything as is, and being honest with myself about my issues.

I think Rumi says it best: "The wound is the place where the light enters you."

Welcome, light..... ;)