I’ve been experimenting with the concept of a future self. I know we all have one, but thinking forward and considering who she might be, is a bit new to me. Asking myself, who would I like her to be? Would the choices I’m making today be choices I hope she’s making? What would her ideal week look like? Hmmm
This past week has been nice. Actually any week in California had idealic components. Spending time with my friends and family is a big part of my ideal. Purposeful, creative work is another. Walking, yoga class, delicious meals, painting. Working and making sizable progress on an engaging project. Fun outings that inspire me. Cozy outings that soothe me. Plenty of beauty, fun and movement.
Flow.
Flow is my favorite. When things are moving: new information, new interests, new, mixed in with the already lovely things that I have established.
I love to get into that feeling of flow. When things fall together in perfect harmony.
My ideal week is a week of artistic and situational flow. When I feel my purpose making sense both inwardly and outwardly, when a need is filled and falls easily into my life. When my creative juices are flowing, I love it. For me it would be a week of calmly, confidently and peacefully working on my book and completing it. It includes refreshing breaks and beautiful moments. It’s a brilliant balance of everything I’m already grateful for.
Ideal is where my future me resides. I’m sure of it.
It feels like I need to finally get serious. Vacation time has been lovely. It’s been a lot moving and traveling, and exploring.
I have a studio space to set up. My table is restored and put back together. My computer has WiFi, is up, running and all ready for me to get to work.
My book isn’t going to format or edit itself. I’m a little excited. It’s been hot and humid and very summery lately. We’ve been busy with summer fun, but work is calling to me today.
Rain is a refreshing reprieve and the perfect sort of weather for making a cozy space for myself. (we were caught in it yesterday and not only was the ocean as warm as bath water, the rain part was warm and kind of romantically fun!)
They say Fall is in the air (though I’ve yet to feel it), and Fall happens to be my favorite time of year. I’m a little worried about how my sun-loving-Californian-self will adjust to actual cold, but I’m very excited for the leaves to start changing.
Working in my yet to be set up space sounds a little exciting as well.
Here is a before pic or two, rain should arrive in a few hours…
Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.
Bobby Orr, Charles Barkley, and Thomas Saggese.
I was too young to fully appreciate Bobby Orr’s hockey career, or the contributions he made to the sport, but I knew there was something pretty special about him, even as a very small child, I felt his differentness. Years later I read his auto biography and was impressed by his humility and genuine down to earth way. Here was a very famous history changer, who never let fame go to his head.
Charles Barkley I only really know from his commentary position before and after basketball games. He seems genuinely nice. He’s funny and light and doesn’t appear star struck by his own fame. I feel like these two are at home in there own skin, they come across as regulated and easy going. Both were amazing at their sport, but neither seem big headed about it.
My best friend’s sweet son Thomas was just traded up to triple A. This is a big deal because (as I’m learning) baseball has a several tiered farm system where young hopeful athletes have to prove their skills and be scouted from B to A to double A etc before even being considered to play on a regular team.
Here’s our Thomas being called up twice in two months at the very end of the season and now he’s at the level that he is being looked at and considered for the MLB team. I’ve know him since the day he was born. (I was actually there). Never has he ever been big headed or taken with his talent or success. He is and always has been the nicest kid you’ll ever meet.
Thomas is one of the most regulated people I’ve ever known. He smiles easily, works hard, gives his all, gets discouraged when he’s not doing well, but always rights himself and presses on.
I’m biased for sure, but I really do appreciate when good calm confident regulated people are genuinely good at what they do.
Yoga can be relaxing, but I like to relax in a number of ways. A movie, a funny show, cooking, reading, a beach walk, a nice conversation with an easy to talk to friend or family member, painting, drawing. I love to relax in bed with a good book. I love to relax in a good hotel bed with a good movie. Driving, meditating, knitting….
Relaxing for me can be luxurious or it can be super simple. Lately, I’ve found sitting on the dock with my feet in the water after a day in this humid east coast heat a nice way to unwind.
Some kinds of yoga are meant to relax us.
The yoga studio I found here has something they call ‘blanket yoga’ Maybe you’ve heard of it. I love that yoga can take so many different forms. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, along comes something I’ve never heard of.
After four classes with two different instructors and a little online research, I’m getting that relaxing is an important part of ‘Blanket Yoga’. Blankets are folded into props and used to support the body in various postures. This is so no muscles or joints are involved. The idea is that your spine can realign if there is not even the slightest amount of stress on any joint or muscle.
In other words, relaxing in these postures will help my spine align, (straighten?)
We sat in a seated posture on a pile of blankets and meditated for probably fifteen minutes. I’m usually fidgety. Even when I’m trying to sit still, I want to shift around. In this blanketed supportive seat I felt zero need to move. I don’t think I’ve ever sat this comfortably still for this long, before in my life!
So yeah, Blanket yoga, it’s a thing. A relaxing thing. I’ll let you know if my spine changes.
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
I’m going to choose self-esteem. It’s has a hyphen but/so I’m calling it one word.
I spent too much time thinking about, worrying about, being told that I had bad or low self-esteem. I seriously came to despise this concept. Can I suggest that maybe this was the opposite of helpful?
Okay, I accept that my upbringing was less than supportive. I grew up with an inaccurate image of myself. I learned to behave as if I had less value than everyone else. I may have thought that I even believed it, but there was always an internal voice that wasn’t buying it.
At some point I decided to put more emphasis on that voice and less on the others. I had to work at it. I still do. It’s a practice, but a worthwhile one for sure.
Again it’s about the power to choose. I get to decide what image I want to have of myself. I used to think it was about truth, but as I learned to separate facts from opinions. I came to understand that opinions are not factual. Mine are every bit as valid as anyone else’s. I get to choose my own if I like.
It’s not a fact that I have low self esteem. I may have behaved in ways that might have caused others to think that. I have behaved in many different ways and caused plenty of speculation about who I am or what I’m about.
The term ‘self-esteem’ seems out dated. I am going to retire it from my vocabulary. I’ll be replacing it with calm confidence and a regulated state.
I digress. When I learned to affect my own breathing, when I learned to tune in and pay attention to breathing, things started to change for me.
I hadn’t heard of breath work or conscious breathing before I stumbled into yoga eight years ago. Breath to movement? Never heard of it. Then one day, I looked around and realized, I felt better. Not just on my mat or leaving a yoga class, but most of the time.
It took a while and a lot of cueing, but eventually, I learned to take a deep breath into my lungs, into my belly. I learned to feel my breath in my back and in my hips. I learned what a deep full breath felt like.
I mean, I was always breathing, being alive and all, I can’t help but breathe. I just wasn’t aware of it. I wasn’t aware of the power of slowing it down or it’s affect on my brain, body and nervous system.
I’m still amazed at how things have gradually shifted and improved because of this one awareness.
Breathing. Who would have thought?
In the beginning, I wished I had had this breathing magic much earlier in my life. I guess learning happens when it happens.. Better late than never, but what a difference this one tiny thing may have made when I was young.
That is why I wrote books about it, for the kid I used to be. For kids today. For teachers and parents because if we know kids, we easily see how stressful their lives can be.
As a child, I was a worrier. It seems like kids have even more on their plates then I ever did. Is there more to worry about? It seems like it. Between the news, media, pressures to do well in school and competitive sports, allergies, climate change a pandemic, yikes!..Parenting seems pretty intense as well.
Just trying to make friends in my new location is stressful. Life man, Thank goodness I have some simple, easy breathing methods to calm my mind. Of course I want everyone to have them too.
I’m not proud of the grudge I held onto for too many years. I’m sort of embarrassed, but I didn’t know, what I didn’t know.
That must be how grudges get started in the first place. Now, with more understanding, I let the past settle where it belongs, in the long ago past.
I used to wish things were different. I was often mad that I didn’t get what it felt like everyone else got. I hated being reminded that I didn’t. Life seemed completely unfair, like I was an innocent victim, I felt like I didn’t have any choice but to be mad and to rage against the shear unfairness and loss and all the implications that followed me.
When I realized that life doesn’t just seem unfair, it truly IS unfair, and accepted that, things began to change for me. I’m not the only one. Things happen to everybody in every stage of life. Trauma is part of what happens here on planet earth and we humans can only do our best to regulate. That’s what we did as children and it’s what we continue to do, but when understanding flows in, a light is turned on.
Understandable reactions to things. I tell myself this all the time. It was the only way I thought there was to react, so that’s why. Learning I have choices makes a huge difference for me.
Someone will say the wrong thing, I will say the wrong thing. I won’t mean to, but it happens. I don’t know why I thought I could prevent things from happening. I wasted many years trying or avoiding having to try. Yeah, hiding out wasn’t my best plan either.
Acceptance. I did rage against that for sure. Who wants a terrible cup of coffee? No one. But if one is served to me I have some choices. I don’t have to drink it or take it with me. I don’t have to complain or whine or let it ruin my day. Oh, I can do any of those things, including never ordering coffee again. I could switch to tea! Or I could leave it or toss it and go find a better cup somewhere else. It might cause me to explore a new area or try my own version. I never know what one experience will hold. The one thing that I now know that needs to be accepted, is the one fact. I was served a cup of coffee. What comes of it is up to me.
I do better accepting everything and everyone for what is. It’s not always easy. I may not ever completely understand, I now know that its okay when I don’t prefer this or that. Someone else might find that coffee to their liking. It’s okay that I don’t. I can try to understand or I can just let it be and move on. Always, I know to take the best care of me. Not deciding that there’s anything wrong with me or them or the coffee, is a choice. Being offended is also a choice. Staying in any state is a choice I used to not know I was making. I like knowing I can change my state.
I like knowing that I have some choices. I like knowing that the most important thing is that I look after myself. I like knowing I can take a moment or several moments to feel how Im feeling and then decide how I want to proceed. I like knowing about choice and actually, Im glad to be lead in different directions.
I’m less afraid as I learn to trust myself. For so long, I wanted the world and everything around me to change for the better. Now I see that what is, is less important then my response to it.
It’s important that I pay attention to the moments I spend in regulation so that when I fall out, I have ideas.
Morning and evening walks have been amazing. The weather is beautiful, the beaches are charming. Pink skies. Little breezes to cool off balmy nights.
Walking, I find to be very regulating. Whether I’m alone or with friends or loved ones. Mornings, afternoons or at sunset, walking can always help me to get into a good state or stay in one.
Even thinking back on good moments is helpful. Cutting flowers, stopping at farm stands, flea market finds, discovering a coffee shop, a new yoga studio, I have enjoyed exploring the whole area. I’ve been enjoying setting up my new work space, refinishing my table, arranging things. I’ve enjoyed swimming and all the little east coast beach alcoves.
Eating tasty wholesome foods. Fresh tomatoes sun warmed from the garden. Green beans and corn from a farm stand. A ham and cheese croissant from our new favorite coffee place. Even just a walk down to the dock to put my feet in the water.
I never knew I had so much control over my own state.
True, I’ve been enjoying the head space a good yoga class puts me in. I go visit my kids when I need a boost in spirits. I’ve been known to make tea and toast for myself when I’m in a low mood.
But I guess it just occurred to me that I had the power of my own intention to actually guide myself into a more comfortable regulated state. I thought it was random and subject to time and happenings. I actually felt a little guilty for taking a moment to comfort myself into regulation.
I’ve decided to let that idea go and all the silly guilt I didn’t need to feel with it!
I can’t say, for all my natural curiosity, that I always like learning new things. In fact, I might even say that I DON’T like being new to something that I really want to do well. Today I found myself at a yoga class that was different then anything I’ve ever done before. I was corrected repeatedly. For two straight hours. I couldn’t even fold a blanket correctly. At one point the whole class was trying to help. I think I went through every emotion listed in my book about breathing through feelings, and then some. Oh man. Blogging, setting up a website, navigating a new location, figuring out how to do life somewhere not my home, whew! Humbling and humiliating are not my ususal go to’s but I have stumbled through, and expect to continue to experience more of the same. I don’t love that nobody knows me. I mean, I can do yoga. I can do a lot of stuff actually, but that doesnt matter in the face of all that I dont know and can’t do.
What I need, is to stay open, keep my sence of humor, and relax into that ‘beginners mind’ you always hear about. Plus, I know I need to be extra nice to myself, breathe some kindness, understanding and extra patience in. Have a cool beverage, a good meal, some fun experiences here and there.
I need to stay on top of my inner regulation. Be vigilant.
I cant help thinking of all the kids back at school, learning new things every day, some against their will. Its hard to learn. Its good to. In the end it feels better to learn than not to, but initially, there might be some dysregulation for some kids. I salute all the teachers out there making classrooms safe, happy places for kiddos to learn new things. Some of us students look a little hopeless (blanket folding and all), but with time, we will get it. I remember learning to read late. I really hadnt mastered it until probably third or fourth grade (I probably havent mentioned my stuborn side), but when I got it, when reading became a voice in my head, when it stopped feeling like disiphering code, I became a vorocious reader. I love reading to this day. I’m going to keep trying to be a patient learner. Cheers to all the patient teachers who have taught me and are teaching me and are out there teaching others!
Peace Kit 