It's All Part of the Process

So I might have mentioned that I signed up to run the Army Ten Miler this October in Washington, DC. Training has been going fairly well for the past two months or so, I've been pretty diligent at following my workout schedule and have gotten to a peak of 5 mile runs. Let me take a moment to point out here that I am not a "runner." My body type doesn't scream runner, you know, long and lean, willowy yet strong. (Someone told me recently that he thinks I have the body type to be a really excellent weight lifter...this does not sit well with me, admittedly.) I'm not particularly fast, I'm more like the tortoise than the hare. I plod along at my comfortable 10:00 minute miles, putting one foot in front of the other, soldiering bravely through what is sometimes great and sometimes just plain awful. Today was the latter, boy, was it the latter.

I ended up taking a week off from running due to travel plans for a friend's wedding so today was my first day back since last Tuesday. I knew it was going to be a bad day. First, I can be a creature of habit so the fact that I was off for a week means bad news for my sense of motivation, meaning I had none, so it took Herculean strength to get me off the couch. Second, it's been a while so I had no idea what my legs, lungs, and stamina were going to be like. As I type this, I realize that I may have psyched myself out a bit. Running is such a mental game! Anyway, I got on the treadmill (on what feels like the hottest day of the year!), pressed the button for random so that I'd get a few hills on my way, and set off on my run with the goal of 5.5 miles. At mile one I'm thinking, hey, this isn't so bad! I'm not in pain and 10 minutes have already gone by! By mile 1.2 I started to rethink my newfound positive attitude as I started to feel hives develop on my legs. Hives you ask? Well, I've self-diagnosed myself as having an allergy to cool temperatures on my skin when my heart-rate is elevated. I have an exercise-induced cold allergy. Some people are so allergic to cold that they'll break out in hives when they touch ice to their skin. Fortunately, I'm not like that, plus, usually after a few weeks of exercise my body starts to acclimate and I no longer get so uncomfortable. But in the beginning stages it can be so terrible that I have to take antihistamines. Weird, I know. Anyway, now I have hives and the hills are starting to tax my quads, heart, and lungs. Did I mention the side stitch? Sigh. Anyway, I decided to throw in the towel at mile three. Double sigh.

I walked home pretty discouraged feeling like a bit of a failure, but as I cooled off in the blessed air conditioning in my apartment I reflected on the fact that I did manage to get up off the couch today, I will get my legs back under me, and that perhaps I'm missing part of the point of all this training. I've become so focused on the end-goal that I'm forgetting to appreciate the process. There's certainly no such thing as a steady rise to the top. Everyone has to hit road bumps along the way at some point, whether in exercise, career, or relationships. And sometimes it's the hiccups in the pattern that give the finished product its value and its unique quality. So here's to celebrating the victories, be they large or small, and viewing setbacks with perspective, compassion, humor, and a renewed sense of vigor.

Hey Mom! I wanna do some down dogs today!

I read an article in the Post today about children and yoga and it got me reflecting on the evolution of yoga in the United States. Yoga has gotten increasingly popular in Western societies over the past couple of decades. I remember the first yoga class I ever attended in the spring of 2000 in New York City, it was an incredible experience (which left me more sore than I've ever or ever will be in my lifetime!). In the class with me were all different kinds of men and women - dancers and gymnasts, body-builders with necks the size of my waist, unathletic enthusiasts with perhaps a bit more round the middle than usual, as well as some average Joes/Jills. Though the class was so diverse, it was still more likely than not that most of the people I knew had never set foot in a yoga studio. Fast forward to today where yoga has become almost cliche, it's so ubiquitous. Take a walk through Dupont Circle on a weekend and chances are you'll see a few men and women toting around yoga mats wearing Lululemon gear and drinking chai.

Yoga has also done quite a bit of branching out since 2000. Some of it, like the new trend of incorporating your dog into your yoga practice, has me raising an eyebrow in bemusement (if I could raise one eyebrow that is!). Others, like pre-and post-natal yoga and kid's yoga has me excited to introduce yoga to my future children! How exciting that kids can learn about the simple use of breathwork to calm and soothe oneself through the fun medium of kid's yoga classes. And let me tell you, kid's yoga is fun! Kids are encouraged to activate their imagination and use their bodies in creative and healthy ways developing, almost incidentally, a greater awareness of the connection between the mind and body. In a way, kid's yoga seems almost more akin to the heart of yoga than adult classes. In many adult classes, it's the pose that becomes the focus along with a sense of one's flexibility or physical strength rather than connecting on a more simple level with the sensations in one's own body.

Since kid's yoga is such a new concept in the West, I wonder if anyone has thought to do a longitudinal study on the effects of yoga at a young age during childhood through adulthood. I'd guess that kids with a regular practice in yoga or mindfulness meditation might have a stronger self-soothing capabilities and an increased ability to focus, but I'm biased. Sadly, as the budget steadily shrinks regarding things that relate to well-being, I'm guessing federal funding for a project like this is unlikely. Maybe Lululemon or Gaiam will take up the standard? Hmmm, that's a thought...!

I thought this was the best bit from the article from the Post entitled, "Raising a Generation of Children on Yoga:"

D.C. resident Stephanie Donne, 45, introduced both her sons to yoga as babies, but she was still amazed to hear from her 6-year-old’s schoolteacher that he’d been offering up yogic wisdom to classmates. “One day a kid was upset, and Eli said, ‘You can om. I’ll show you how,’ ” she says.

Ummm, how awesome is that?!?!

Spring Awakening

Just about three weeks ago, the steadily longer days and balmier temperatures inspired me to refill my window boxes with some lovely fresh herbs. It was a long, barren winter without something green around the house and I was excited to watch my babies grow. So, I went out and bought a few seedlings of rosemary, thyme, oregano, and basil. I planted them, watered, fertilized, and talked to them frequently and watched them grow and grow and grow! Here's a picture of them right after planting:

Not really sure why the thyme and oregano are pretty much just laying down, maybe wind or they're just tired? (hehe) Oh, and you can just barely see the rosemary peeking out from behind the basil. I'm thinking rosemary and garlic mashed potatoes, lots of fresh tomato sauces with plenty of basil and oregano, thyme-scented roasted chicken...yum! Using fresh ingredients that I've grown and cared for in my "garden" lends so much more flavor and romance to my cooking. So, the point of this post is because I couldn't help but show off my lovely herbs in all their glorious abundance even just three short weeks later! So, here they are!

By now, the basil has completely covered up the rosemary, so...

                  Here it is! Aren't they all so beautiful?!

Cultivating Patience, kind of

"Patience and fortitude conquer all things." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tcha! What does Ralph know? Okay, maybe he might be right, at least some of the time, but the simplicity of his statement makes it seem like a no-brainer. I consider myself to be on the greater side of patience, I can sit with a six year old and teach him to tie his shoelaces over and over and over again with humor and calm. But there are some times when it feels like having patience is to be superhuman, a feat reserved for the likes of comic book heroes, of whom, I am most certainly not. I'm a go-getter, generally speaking I make goals and I take the steps to accomplish those goals. But it's the times when it feels I have almost no control over either the process or the outcome that I'm most desperately impatient. I know, I know, it's called letting go. Tcha, again!

So Ralph isn't my cup of tea in this, what about:

"Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes but, above all, with blazing, serene hope." - Corazon Aquino

I think I can kind of get with Corazon on this one. He acknowledges that patience can sometimes hurt but he counters that hurt with hope. Hope fuels the will to keep the faith despite any bumps or bruises along the way. But hope can feel pretty dim as well every once in a while. How do you rebuild your hope? For me, sometimes, it can be as simple as cooking a meal. This might sound weird, but I really like chopping stuff. So today, I made a hand-chopped basil pesto. You might think this is time consuming and arduous. You would be right. But there's something about the total sanity in chopping the garlic, basil, and pine-nuts that brings a sense of peace and calm to my soul. There's a realness to making a meal - putting the ingredients together, timing things just right, cleaning as I go, tasting for seasoning, and realizing a final beautiful and scrumptious product to nourish my body and my senses. And all of a sudden I realize the anxiety I was holding seemed to melt away in my focus on the task at hand. Maybe now I'm in a better place to be able to see some hope and grasp at it with hesitation at first and tenacity in the end. At least, until next time.

Cultivating patience seems to be a never-ending pursuit. As soon as you feel you've achieved it, life throws another curve-ball at you that pokes, prods, and tests it. Either you choose to give in and give up or you pick yourself up off the floor, dust yourself off, tell the worries to shush, and do your darnedest to re-capture that elusive hope. Good luck friends, I'm right there with you.

Defining Your Own Life

I was reading the Post this weekend and came across a letter awash with sadness, tears, and loneliness from a woman seeking advice from Carolyn Hax, the Post's relationship guru. In the letter, a self-reported stable and active woman tells a tale of woe in which she is almost asking Hax for permission to settle with a "just-okay" partner in order to alleviate feelings of loneliness that are wracking her very soul. The full letter and Carolyn's response can be found here.

I liked Hax's response to the letter. She writes, "You’ve evolved, your life has evolved, your desires have evolved, and your family has dissolved. Please don’t apologize to anyone — yourself least of all — for rewriting your definition of attractiveness to reflect a basic and duly recognized desire for steady companionship."  How true it is that we can allow ourselves to hate peas when we were young and develop a newfound love for them as an adult. But when it comes to what we look for in a partner, it's harder to give up the same criteria we used from when we were still dreaming about Prince Charming. But this is a somewhat loaded topic, there are plenty of people who have very polarizing views on the concept of "settling" and may have statements to make about lack of self-love, confidence, self-esteem, and insecurity, and many of those responses might be true for a horde of other people dealing with similar issues. The take-away message from this post is that it's okay to feel the way you feel, to be who you are, and to behave in the way that makes you most happy. You shouldn't have to apologize for valuing security over passion or vice versa. Accept your own definitions, your own meanings, for your life!