wearing in vs. wearing out

i know, it's been a long time since i've blogged. things have been hectic - as life can be - but i'm back and hopefully better than ever.

since i've been sick, there have been good days and bad ones, but for the most part the last six to eight months have been a blur. i remember the big things, and there were some BIG, big things like getting engaged, my grandmother passing away, my father having a heart attack and my sister getting married....but the day-to-day is very blurry. it's sad, you know. there have been a few times on my mad dash to Penn station where i actually looked and and got caught up in the beauty of NYC at night -- but those times have been few and far between. life over the past few months was more about getting by than stopping to smell the roses. to be honest, i am more of a stop and smell the roses type of girl.

over the thanksgiving holiday, jared and i watched the tail end of this documentary called objectified which explores our relationship with objects, how we interact with them on a day-to-day basis and how that relationship has changed and will need to change again in order to sustain what we have here on earth. anyway, there was something that someone said as he looked at this old beat up chevy truck, he said, 'i would rather wear something in than wear something out'. it sort of stuck with me. it actually solidified to me that taking time to rest and recover was what i really needed in the long run, or i would wear out for good.

when i came back from our holiday, i used this as a theme in my yoga classes. there are many times that we just push through to get to the next thing -- making things into a blur. but as yoga teaches us there is so much to be gleaned from the getting to- and being in-, that should make every moment cherishable. i reflected on my life and found that there was more of me getting worn out while i should be just getting worn in.

that subtle shift is something that i needed to gain some perspective. i had been sick for months, just pushing along and it was time to stop getting worn out. so now, i am taking some time to rest and recover and to allow life to wear me in. over the next 90 days i am not working or teaching. it will be both a relief and a challenge, but something that i need (and maybe we all need) to do. i decided to blog over these next few weeks to keep myself accountable, but also to encourage others who want to stop getting worn out.

this morning i got to take class with a beloved teacher and friend. it's funny how as a yoga teacher and full time professional the luxury of taking a class is something i almost forgot about. there's a huge difference between doing some sun salutations and poses in your bedroom to that of taking class and being in the presence of a bunch of people who really want to be there and feel whatever may come up. it was sort of exhilarating to be there and as my aching body moved, feel in the moment.

there's a difference between just working yourself to tiredness and engaging your body, mind and spirit in something in essence it's the same difference as wearing something out is to wearing something in. because no matter how simple the movement was (and it was a basic class) it brought me back to why i love this practice of yoga - off the mat and on. it's the simple feeling of being alive in your body. i know, it sounds sort of cheesy, but it's like when you just feel ok with you pains and all. i think that as my pains got worse, i got more disconnected with my body -- and it was because of fear, fear of the pain itself.

so here's a good question to ask yourself each day: are you wearing out or just getting worn in?

polarized.

the past six months or so have been a jumble of craziness. some good -- most bad. my uncle paulie was diagnosed with cancer, my grandmother took a turn for the worse as she passed away, a friend was killed in a motorcycle accident and just this week my father suffered a heart attack. there's always a silver lining, or so they say. he was lucky enough to survive. but it begs the question -- when will all of this crap stop piling up on us? i guess it never really does. the thing with life is that it's never really static, there's always something changing.

when writing to a friend this week, i wrote about how i felt like i was the sand at the beach and the ocean was lapping over me again and again. somehow i am resilient, crumbling slightly and yet maintaining some form from the other sand around me.

back to that silver lining... somehow jared and i decided that nj would be a better place for us to live and with all this drama, i got to remain surrounded by friends and family for all the crap. things like my father's heart attack are also a wake up call not only to live life fully but also to be aware. aware of how you take care of yourself and all the little things that come along with living. the fact that my uncle is now in remission reminds me that no matter how glum the outlook, things can always turn around.

i read a really great article on huffpo yesterday about just these sorts of situations. in a way, it's like the world is falling down around us all. but at that same time good, albeit beautiful things are happening. for instance my sister and i are getting married. but we all experience these rough times. these times allow us to turn within and what the article calls 'incubate'. i teach this stuff every week in my yoga classes and i hope to exercise it in my own life. it's funny how you can so easily offer something out to someone when you barely can fully experience it yourself -- but that happens.

there's darkness and there's light. we have our assumptions about which is good and which is bad. but from a tantric perspective good and bad aren't as important. the importance comes from gathering fullness in both. incubation occurs in darkness and it is in that darkness that development and transformation happens so the individual can emerge into the light stronger and fuller. a better version of they already are (possibly).

i've felt this sort of anxiety over the last few months, like when will the other shoe drop...what else can go wrong?? i try not to get caught up with it but when so many tough things keep coming your way you start to almost expect more. we all wait for things in the darkness: answers, signs, disasters and even miracles. allowing the darkness to be a comfort changes things. try it.

in the meantime, i wait not for just the bad, but also the good changes. and i think tomorrow will be a mental health day to just chill out and enjoy the light. maybe someone can pray for the rain to cease for just a little bit.

just be.

When I try to recall the girl I was decades ago, at my high school graduation, I seem to have as much in common with her as I do with any stranger I might pass in the doorway of a Starbucks or in the aisle of an airplane. I cannot remember exactly what she wore, or how she felt, or what she said, or ate, or read. But I can tell you this about her without question: She was perfect....

Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and in its good opinion. But at one level it's too hard, and at another, it's too cheap and easy. Because all it really requires of you, mainly, is to read the zeitgeist of wherever and whenever you happen to be and to assume the masks necessary to be the best at whatever the zeitgeist dictates or requires. Those requirements shape-shift, sure, but when you're clever you can read them and come up with the imitation necessary.

But nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great, ever came out of imitations. What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the world of becoming yourself.

More difficult because there is no zeitgeist to read, no template to follow, no mask to wear. Terrifying, actually, because it requires you to set aside what your friends expect, what your family and your co-workers demand, what your acquaintances require, to set aside the messages this culture sends, through its advertising, its entertainment, its disdain, and its disapproval, about how you should behave....

Begin with that most frightening of all things, a clean slate. And then look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: Because they are what I want, or wish for. Because they reflect who and what I am.

This is the hard work of life in the world, to acknowledge within yourself the introvert, the clown, the artist, the homebody, the goofball, the thinker. Look inside. That way lies dancing to the melodies spun by your own heart....

Perfection is static, even boring. Imitations are redundant. Your true unvarnished self is what is wanted....

Give up the nonsensical and punishing quest for perfection that dogs too many of us through too much of our lives. It is a quest that causes us to doubt and denigrate ourselves, our true selves, our quirks and foibles and great heroic leaps into the unknown. Much of what we were at five or six is what we wind up wishing we could be at fifty or sixty. And that's bad enough.

But this worse: Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere. A berm overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed.

And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be.

I don't want anyone I know to take that terrible chance. And the only way to avoid it is to listen to that small voice inside you that tells you to make mischief, to have fun, to be contrarian, to go another way. George Eliot wrote, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." It is never too early, either.

"Being Perfect," Anna Quindlen

holy crap....this was so encouraging and true. i was never perfect, never even a bit close -- but inside i was beating myself up bc i thought i would never get anywhere near that said perfect. little did i know how much it really didn't matter. i emerged from my early 20's with poor self esteem and depression so deeply rooted that it actually affected the way i stood. like i was an old lady. it hurt to stand up straight and be me. there were a lot of nerves and insecure thought that pumped through my head and entire being like blood pumping through my veins.

life seemed to get a whole lot easier and fuller when i actually let myself just be.