The other night over dinner and drinks, I discovered a whole lotta things about Piper from my friend Jane. One, I can multitask with it (yes, whapak me now….me didn’t know that). Two, you can organize apps in grpups (although the icons aren’t as cute na hehe) and three I CAN ACTUALLY BLOG WITH IT!!!! wooot! I so knew buying this was gonna pay off in the end….teeheeeeheee….now I need a wireless keyboard for it mwahahaha 
On a journey I once took, not borne out of choice but just because
I found myself lost in a deep, dark place where nothing made sense
No reason, no logic…just endless noise and confusion.
In the dark, without even the pale moon glow to guide me, I was lost…
Blindly I fought my way out, not knowing that by struggling, I only made things worse.
As I fought, I ended up battered and scarred.
Only when I stopped struggling and made room for calm in that fearful unknown did I finally find room to breathe and when I did, the sunshine returned.
And though I made it back to the light of day, I was never the same.
The sparkle and the shimmer returned, but it was a deeper shade, muted to some degree….
So that’s what dark beauty meant, I realized.
And only then did I finally understand what a wise sage once told me…
there are gifts from a dark night of the soul waiting to be claimed…
but only when you have made amends and welcomed that darkness can it be revealed…
And finally I learned that it is only in being still and listening,
Embracing light and dark
Will I see
love. faith. trust . hope. peace. joy. calm. balance
“Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort. This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.” - Deepak Chopra
I have fallen in love. Yes, I have fallen truly, madly, so deeply in ♥ with Yin Yoga.
I never would have imagined feeling this way, after all, I have loved other exercises and whatnot in the past, such as hula hooping, but this one feels so different. I think it’s more than the movement and process I have fallen for, but the meanings and metaphors that it conjures up for me. Although yes, the breathing, the emptying of thoughts and just being with the moment are equally wonderful, it is perhaps the timing of all this falling into place that means so much to me.
Let me backtrack a little bit before I continue. I have wanted to try out yoga for the longest time, perhaps since way back in 2007 during that dark night of my soul. However, when things started to clear and I felt no more need to be in the quiet to converse with my soul, and because I thought I had found the answers and defined happiness for me, I let it go. After all, I always said, I barely have enough time to juggle my many jobs, right? Why add on something else that will consume my time “unnecessarily”. Also, while people may still laugh at me when I say this, I still struggle with having to extend myself socially, so calling and inquiring about classes, going to these studios or shalas, was gonna be a stretch right? So….there. I didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
This past week I have discovered yoga. I’ve stretched and moved in ways I haven’t in a long time I tell ya! Yesterday, after a particularly uncomfortable pose (I won’t call it painful because it wasn’t, but it sure didn’t feel so good in the beginning!), I had to get out of position and gently massage my lower back because, yep, I felt like an old stiff woman! In the workshop I was in we all couldn’t help but laugh out loud a bit as our instructor cajoled us about feeling like old women before explaining that this is why we do Yin Yoga (which I’ll write about in the next few posts, promise ), to take care of the connective tissues in our bodies and not just creating muscles etcetera etcetera. By preparing our bodies with this practice, she said, you avoid injuries and typical problems older people experience. You know how they always say prevention is better than cure, right? I guess doing this on a regular basis will allow one to have a healthier body thus lessening the need for medical or social security disability insurance claims in the future. As for now, however, I am looking forward to my next session and hoping that next time I won’t feel so old anymore. Haha!
For once, I am actually looking forward to the weekend. Why, you might ask? Well, because I have a whole health and beauty weekend planned I am looking forward to my yoga workshop on Saturday not too far from my house (exciting!!!) and I plan to get my nails done and to hopefully get my hair treated. Treated, mind you, not cut. I happen to love my long hair. Last night, in fact, as I was walking Bubba, this girl came up to me and asked how much it cost to have my hair curled. I smiled and said it’s all natural and she was like…OH MY REALLY? It’s pretty!!! yeees
I also hope to be able to use the Flawless gift certificate a friend of mine gave me some time ago to get a facial. I’m not really a regular when it comes to skin treatments, and I have to admit, growing up, I was really lucky that I wasn’t one of those who had to keep trying out one new acne treatment after the other. However, now that I’m older, and because I’m such a sun lover, I think I have to do a little more to keep my skin the way it is. I do love my freckles, you know, even if they’re technically blemishes haha.
Here’s to the weekend What are your plans???
“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” - Deepak Chopra
There’s a saying that goes, shallow brooks are noisy. I never really appreciated that saying until lately. For the most part, I have never been one to be comfortable in silence. What’s funny, however, is that while I may appear highly extroverted and exuberant all the time, deep down inside I am a very quiet and shy person who actually likes to be in the silence and quiet.
However, in as much as I love the quiet, I fear it just as much, maybe because in the silence there’s so much more said and that there are no distractions to keep you away from introspection. When I’m with others, I feel this urge to fill the space with noise because I fear what they might be thinking about me if there was no interaction between us.
Yes, that is one of the many polar opposites about me.
Lately, however, I have been discovering the joy and beauty of silence and solitude. I used to think that it was very lonely and painful being in silence, but now I find that it is actually a pleasurable thing. Before, in times that needed silence, I always made it a point to be extra busy or to go out of my way to avoid it, but now, I may resist a bit in the beginning, but the struggle is not so great anymore. I was just telling my friends from work the other day over lunch that lately, I really just want to be in the quiet bubble of my room…no TV, no music, just me in my bed and the silence.
Of course at times it can get very uncomfortable, especially when things are not going too well, but for the most part…bliss
When I was first told by my wise sage to welcome sadness (or periods of difficulty for that matter) and sit in silence with it, I couldn’t get it. I struggled quite a bit with her and with it, but now that I have grown leaps and bounds, when I find myself in moments of pain and sadness, I have learned to sit with it and listen to what it is telling me. And because of that, I have learned so much.
In the same manner, when I am with friends, I can now just sit and be quiet. My friend, who I go out with quite a lot lately, called this comfortable silence. I chalked up our comfortable silence to the fact that we had been friends for almost 14 years now, but I realized just lately, it is not just with her I have started appreciating comfortable silence with. I guess it’s part of growing up and growing together in relationships that allow this, right? For whatever it’s worth, not talking about too many things, but just focusing on what is important, has been such a great blessing to me.
And so tonight I have finally appreciated what the cliché shallow brooks are noisy means….its when you take in too much from the outside so as to distract you from what is important, it’s flailing around too much acting like you know things, and it’s filling up space with the non-essentials, and when you do, you miss out on so much. And more so, the “noisier” I am, be it externally or internally, the more I stay on shallow waters, trying to ignore the deeper meaning and value of the moments I am living. Like they say, still waters run deep right? So being still, listening, and just breathing, like I’ve been writing about since October, lets me go to the innermost core of myself and just be where I am suppose to be and in that silent solitude, the answers to the questions that weigh me down and the burdens that threaten to swallow me whole all of a sudden become so miniscule and insignificant, and in return, I become a better me
Nope, I’m not an alcoholic who fell of the wagon, but I am a dieter who fell off the diet wagon because of the holidays. Well, to be fair, I’m sure many of us did this but I am determined to get back on track to becoming a Fat Girl No More. No, this does not include getting a bunch of the best diet pills for women, but I am determined to get back to the positive lifestyle changes I had started in 2010. This included being more active and mindful about things I do or put in my body. So…in my attempt to get back on the wagon, tomorrow I start yoga. Wish me luck
About two weeks ago, I went to see my doctor and um…she says I have to start taking calcium supplements. Egaaad. I’m getting old. Haha. I have always associated taking vitamin supplements with aging, mainly because when we’re young, we don’t really notice we need it, right? However, in the past few months I have been slowly feeling my age creep in. Yes…I am admitting I am getting old!!! Haha. Even my skin is not as supple and smooth as a few months ago, although I admit, I haven’t been kind to my system these past few months. I’ve eaten too much fatty food, I have taken in too much um, beverages I know better to have taken in haha, and I don’t sleep well. I know that eliminating these will make a big difference and that I wouldn’t need to keep trying out all these acne products just to clear up my skin.
Besides the physical signs of aging, my friend and I keep joking about my new love for being in the quiet nowadays. The other day over lunch she couldn’t help but ask “but what do you do??” and all I could say was that when you get old, too much noise is simply just too tiring. Hehe.
Egaaad……I’m getting old.
