House of mirrors

Just got back from a trip to Stockholm where we had had an awesome time at a great amusement park: Gröna Lund. It was a roller-coaster bonanza, and luckily I didn't have to deal with my distorted reflection in the house of mirrors.

It's enough that my mirror vision has already gone freaking haywire, and we haven't even hit bathing suit season yet! May was to be my month for "displaying some character", and while I don't feel the need to go all out on a diet, I did vow to take extra care of myself for a period of 31 days and see what, if anything, happened. I skipped temptuous snacks, made a greater effort to eat more healthily, and increased my number of workouts as well as meditation sessions.

The results can be summed up with one word: eh? On the surface nothing has changed. However, I notice I'm becoming more and more selfconscious about my appearance and its supposed deterioration, which I know is crap, but still I'm feeling really mental about it. This is why I neither diet nor do I weigh myself because it takes almost nothing for me to start obsessing about my figure.

I realize I'm heading towards my next phase in life (to put it diplomatically), I just wish there were a handbook that could show me which changes are inevitable, and which ones I can only blame myself for. I remember from an episode of Oprah years ago that Dr. Christiane Northrup (pre-Botox, yikes!) presented her book, "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom", and I thought, "I'll have to remember that for when I get old!"

Well I guess it's time for a visit to Amazon.com.

Picture from Google.

How about a warm cup of "Shut the hell up"?!

If we're going to allow all of our feelings to come forth on the mat, well at least I won't have to worry about whining frustration not showing up...

Even though tonight's session felt good from the second I got onto the map, and the therapeutic effect was just what I needed after a tough day at work, that nagging voice in the back of my head was truly begging me to open up a soulful can of whoop-ass (to put it mildly).

Here's an excerpt, and might I commend myself for not giving in to my mind's aggravating, passive-agressive comments and "suggestions" (save one):

God, you're just so tired today. Are you sure you want to do this?

I just don't think you're up for getting sweaty.

Maybe you just should write that e-mail reply now (Note that it's 6:45 P.M. and NO ONE is working at this hour!)

Maybe you should just go eat dinner first instead, and maybe you can do this later.

Or you could just do this tomorrow instead. No, wait, you can't, well maybe you can just skip it altogether this week.

Aren't you going to call your family, just so you can check in on them?

I wonder if anyone's written anything interesting on FB within the last 20 minutes?

Oh! A text-message!! Aren't you just going to make sure it's not important? (I did; it wasn't.)

Try as you may, I was onto you tonight. I let you babble on aimlessly while I focused on breathing and how I was feeling on the inside. There I could feel that lump of frustration after a long and tiring day.

Luckily, the pros totally outweighed the cons. Before I knew it, a 75-minute session had passed.

And I felt so incredibly much better for it. Now I'm going to tune in to BBC's "Property Ladder"!

Picture from Google and title shamelessly stolen from Ben Stiller's sadistic orderlie in "Happy Gilmore"!

Being Confusedcius

A Facebook group titled "Åttaveckors meditation" (8 weeks of meditation) has inspired me to start meditating on a (nearly) daily basis. For that, I'm grateful.

I'm also in the midst of reading Sally Kempton's Meditation for the Love of It in an effort to take my meditation to a deeper level. It all sounds so nice in the beginning, things like: There's no such thing as a bad meditation along with other incitements meant to ease the nervous novice.

Then certain ground rules are laid: Meditation requires discipline, and in order to go beyond the first pleasures of relaxation and move closer towards the Self, one must have a clear ambition to journey inward. "OK," I think to myself, "That makes sense..." I try some of the exercises and realize that this kind of meditation isn't as easy (at least for now) as the mindfullness exercises I've tested.

In the following chapter (that I'm in the process of reading) the suggestions start: create a sacred place (perhaps with a raised altar), meditate at the same time each day, cleanse yourself first, wear the same (washed) clothes, and so on. I know this is what Patanjali had written in his Yoga Sutras, but that was another era to say the least. This is when I start to wonder, "Whatever happened to 'meditating is as easy and accessible as breathing itself'?"

While meditation isn't about religion, the element of faith is unavoidable since one has to believe in the Self in order to bring some meaning to this practice. Yet my Western mind reminds me that if I'm not critical to my readings, I'm basically a sitting duck begging to be brainwashed.

So with furrowed brow I try to figure out what leg to stand on: Go back and stick with simpler feel-good exercises and see what happens? Or raise the bar, follow the suggestions, and hope I'm not making a fool out of myself?

But, wait! I live in Sweden - the mecca of the middleground!!

I come to realize that I can try deepening my practice with Kempton's techniques whether I follow the suggested routines or not. I've decided to interpret the suggested routines not as mandatory, but rather as well-intended advice that may pave a more focused way towards seeing my Self.

Wants and needs

Angry patients may use their frustration as a way of not letting their disability get the best of them, but the price they sometimes pay...

Ask yourself, if given the choice between having a wheelchair you can lift into your car without any help (but that you sit like crap in) compared to sitting comfortably, with support as well as good pressure distribution (while you get a subsidized wheelchair lift for your car), what would you choose? All too often I meet people WHO ARE COMPLETELY HUNG UP ON THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT DO that it overshadows everything else and consumes all this energy the way a leech sucks blood. Paradoxically they are limiting their freedom more by prioritizing their damn cars because the chairs they subsequently choose restrain their level of function in all other areas.

I, too, need to be reminded about what I really need as opposed to what I want. My motivation to doing yoga still has a lot to do with vanity and my idea that keeping my figure will keep me happy. My past two sessions I have concentrated first on acceptance while tonight I needed to cool down, soften up, and de-stress. Almost immediately I could feel a mental shift and realized that when I'm stuck in a fixed idea of demanding that things either stay the same or are adapted to suit to my tastes, I am not the most fun person to be with.

How refreshing it was to suddenly feel myself open as a vision of my family and me on vacation in the sun materialized. We're leaving for Teneriffe in two days. Instead of worrying about what I want to do, I am going to try to appreciate not having anything to do.

Woe is not me.

Here's the thing. I have money. I have more money than I need. I have the privilege of being able to buy stuff I don't need. So why do I get stressed out by spending money? At the same time I stress out for being unable to satisfy my spending urges?

This month we spent more money than usual buying bikes for me and the kids. Despite the expense, that purchase in particular felt like a no-brainer because it's something we'll use for years to come. It's the smaller purchases that trigger my bouts of anxiety - things like styling products, summer shoes, anti-wrinkle creams, books. All those things that cost anywhere between $20-$50. As soon as I've bought one of those things, I am suddenly struck by visions of just a few more small, inexpensive items that I don't necessarily need, but that in my fantasy world would make life just a little bit easier and/or more comfortable... If only I had them, too, then I'd be satisfied...or so I think.

I totally get those who make a decision to cease with all unecessary consumption as a way of taming their desire-beast. I've done that myself for shorter periods of time when I've felt I needed a time-out from a sense of shopping frenzy.

Still, I don't want to just tame the beast; I want the beast to disappear or at least transform itself into a nicer creature that I can live with without feeling nervous about it taking over. I remember reading years ago that money is like energy; the only way to gain more is by sharing (i.e. spending) it. I get that.

Desire in of itself isn't the problem; it's the the fear of losing objects of affection that causes my pain. I remember my mother-in-law with a storage area literally stuffed to the brim with old things she dare not let go of because they were worth a lot of money. And I remember thinking, "They're not worth a dime if they're just lying here in heaps collecting dust."

My husband has a lot easier time when it comes to consumption by using his "Screw-it!" philosophy. And at times, he's clever enough to do it without confronting -ahem- I mean consulting me. Case in point: Next Friday we leave for a week-long vacation to Tenerife. We've been looking forward to this for months. We've been so busy that we're lucky if we see each other in passing as we go from one appointment to another. I realize, however, that since we have the kids with us (as always), there's not going to be any real opportunity for doing things on our own.

So P took matters into his own hands, and he booked us for a morning brunch and spa tomorrow, even though we'll being flying in less than a week. Had he asked me what I thought, I would have answered that we'd be better off saving our money for our vacation.

On the other hand, I realize that this is our chance to have some real quality time together.

And truth be told, we can afford it.

Sometimes, my husband is a genius. (Just don't let him know I said so, Ok?)

Picture borrowed from Google (at least it didn't cost anything).

Maturity aches (the senior version of growing pains)

I feel the older I get the more I learn. That may, of course, be more do to necessity, seeing as I forget so much nowadays, rather than progressive development. Still, not a day goes without me either being introduced to some new trinket of previously unknown information or else I am struck dumbfounded by a true epiphany.

Sometimes it's enlightening.

Sometimes it's disheartening.

Last week while driving, I nearly wanted to cheer upon witnessing the return of cranes to the brown, Scandinavian landscape. When I first moved here more than two decades ago, one of my first outings with my then-boyfriend's parents was to a shallow lake where each spring literally hundreds of these lovely, gangly creatures engage in a mating dance for all to see. Back then I could hardly care less. Looking over a sea of spectators with campers, picnic baskets, binoculars, and camera objectives, it was apalling for me to see so many people with nothing better to do.

Today, me spotting just two birds in the middle of a muddy field fills my heart with joy. I've learned to appreciate the beauty and goodness of nature. The return of spring means more to me with each passing year. So that's a good example of learning.

I've mentioned in previous entries that I have a gift when it comes to bearing grudges. I jokingly say that it's part of my Catholic heritage, and keeping with tradition, much of my animosity is at times targeted towards my parents. What's so hard to get?! Why didn't they know better?! Wasn't it obvious?! Over and over I've played these tapes in my head.

Then all of the sudden it hit me. There was no way for them to know any better. Or at least it was a lot harder back then. Many of the truths I have been able to access have very much to do with the modern society I am able to raise my family in. My teachers have been among others Dr. Phil, Oprah, and Google. I won't even go into all that I learn from reading and just listening to the radio. Quite often they've been the voices of reason that have pointed out my own patterns of destruction and graciously offered an alternative.

I asked myself yesterday after this thought had struck me like a bolt of lightening, "How much of what you know, that which you do differently from your parents, would you have figured out on your own, without any input from your teachers?" Alas...zero is probably a safe guess.

Ouch.

I have shamelessly taken the crane photo from my girlfriend Jeanette's blog Handmade. I just love her photographs!

Changed my mind

This morning I made my regular three hour drive to a client, using the time as I often do to write blog entries in my head. I was planning on taking a dare and writing about a seemingly provocative subject (although anything I write usually only has to do with me, and when I write I only speak for myself). Still, there was a pretty good chance that certain people, friends even, would be taken aback.

Then as my day progressed, I felt that I was just receiving one complaint after another. Complaints that were somewhat justified, yet petty enough that I felt compelled to offer a different point of view. Even though I've improved greatly throughout the years when it comes to expressing my opinions, especially when they're not shared by the recipient, it still takes a lot out of me.

So when I finally made it to my hotel, the merciful sanctuary that my yoga mat offered was greatly welcomed. And when I was done, I didn't feel like being self-righteous anymore.