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Running Into A Burning Building

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Running Into A Burning Building

Photo Attributed to flickr user robpatrick

Have you ever noticed firefighters before they run into a burning building? Even though they know that there are people in the building who need to be rescued and every second counts, they do not rush blindly into a situation they know nothing about. They spend several minutes preparing for whatever might await them on the other side of the wall. They have a huddle, they discuss what kind of materials the building is made of, they talk about who might still be in the building, etc. They are making a plan for their entry into the building.

Someone who might be looking upon this might be a little flustered at all the time that is being wasted by them. You might be urging them to go into the building as soon as possible. You might call them names, because you are afraid they are going to cause the persons inside to be hurt. But this kind of planning is important not only for the safety of the people inside, but more importantly it is important for the safety of the firefighters. It ensures that they don’t lose any firefighters in the process of saving lives.

This kind of thinking can also be applied to everything we do in our lives that does or doesn’t require immediate assistance. If you are working on putting out a figurative fire in your life, or just working on your daily to-do list, you should think about the plan for your work before launching into it. Even if you just take two minutes to think through the different possibilities and how you are going to tackle the task before you, it will give you a head-start on whatever you are working on.

Way too often, while we are working on something, we go into it without really thinking about it. This results in having to think about the myriad possibilities while you are doing the work. Which doesn’t seem to be a very good use of time or energy. This ensures that you will work on the task without having to go back to it again, as you have taken care of every single detail that could have come up in the first instance of the work.

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Time Slips Away

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Puerto Madero, South America

Photo Attributed to Thenix

Have you found yourself using the words ‘I don’t have time‘ very often as you get older? You might find time slips by faster and faster when your silken hands. I find myself agreeing with those words until I decided to do a time audit on my own usage of time. I sat down one day and marked down the amount of time I spent doing whatever I was doing. At the end of the day when I looked through just one day of time usage, I was kind of ashamed.

Every person on this planet has 24 hours in their day. Just like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have 24 hours in a day, so do you and your neighbourhood dry-cleaner. I’m sure there are people in your circle who seem to accomplish a lot more with their set of 24 then do you. And vice versa. What do they do differently? In my case, I know where my time slips away to. It isn’t never-never land, but to the wasteful land of FaceBook, Pinterest, and dreaming about travelling.

I spend at least three hours a day in these useless pursuits. The first two are apparent in their uselessness, but you might say dreaming is useful. It prods you to do things to get those dreams going. Dreaming about travelling doesn’t cause me to get motivated, but causes me to get dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, and gets me demotivated to the point where I have to work really hard to get back on the motivation horse. That is wasted time that could have been used for something more useful like sleep, rest, reading, dancing, working, or whatever else rocks your boat.

Stop using the words ‘I don’t have time’ and start thinking about where your time is going. If you find that after a time audit, you are satisfied on how you spend your time, I commend you. Then, you will no longer be able to use the words ‘I don’t have time’, but you would say, ‘I’m choosing to spend my time doing something other than what you are recommending I do’. Choice in the way you use your time is much more pleasant then time slipping away unknowing to you.

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Yoga Practice Mirrors Life

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South American Sunset

Photo Attributed to Thenix

The way you move through your yoga practice is a bang-on reflection of the way you move through life. I realized that right at the beginning of my yoga journey. Some of my examples are below. Maybe you might see a reflection of those examples in your own life. The first step to any journey is realizing there needs to be a change. Once you become more aware of the issue that you are facing, the next time it comes up for you, you will be able to deal with it in a saner manner. In a manner that results in positive, fulfilling energy, rather than destitute misery.

In yoga practice, I run from challenging poses, choosing to do the modified versions, consoling myself with the fact that I am ensuring I do not get injured. In life, I run from challenges, by literally running away from confrontations, arguments, discussions, and I console myself by playing the victim card.

In yoga practice, I close my eyes when I am transitioning from one yoga pose to another. In life, I pretend change isn’t happening, by closing my eyes to it, and pretending everything is exactly the same, realizing too late that things have changed, and I haven’t changed with it, having to adjust painfully.

In yoga practice, I sometimes do not listen to what the teacher is telling me, because I am too busy making up stories in my head, spending time thinking over what I have to do, or bringing my ego into it, thinking I know better than the other person. In life, I do the same, not listening to the advice of colleagues, parents, or others. Going through the challenging situations I face thinking I can do it on my own, with the few tools I have, bringing my ego into it and thinking I am better than others.

In yoga practice, I do not take the time to rest even when I am sick, on my period, or need to take a slower practice. I plough through the poses, pushing myself further than I need to, aggravating injury that I know exists, by pushing my body into random patterns, ignoring the signals from my body that it needs to rest. In life, I push myself and feel guilty for sleeping or resting even when my body needs it really badly. I get sick, do not allow my body to get better, get to the worst point possible, before I realize I need to stop and rest.

Do you see similar patterns in your life? There are a hundred ways we lie to ourselves. But your yoga practice if observed impartially can help you figure out how you do things in life. Use the teachings of the yoga practice to moderate your life accordingly.

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Meditation Increases Dissatisfaction

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I am dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. With the current way I live my life. I have certain aspirations, certain ideas in my head, that I wish my life to look like. Right now, those aspirations are in my head, until I can figure out a way to make them a reality. It made me wonder if dissatisfaction is a general state that we can never get away from. Will we as humans knowing all that we do, having all of this knowledge and power, will we always have an issue being and remaining happy?

I read this post, about Progress in Meditation, that exemplified that. The more you meditate, the more clearly you see everything around you. The crystal clear matter around you cannot be hidden behind a shiny exterior anymore. You cannot gloss over items in your life any longer. You start facing your deficiencies, and the deficiencies in your life little by little. You realize that you are dissatisfied by the way your life looks, and you look in the mirror. You cannot wait another moment before you change.

That is a problem for a person like me, who’s fairly impatient. I have improved quite a bit in the past few years, but I still have moments where I just cannot control myself. I am hasty and make impulsive decisions. I see the ugliness in my life, and I want it to go away right now. Like a petulant child, I want everything now. The problem with getting everything now is that you lose appreciation for everything almost as instantly. You do not see the beauty that your life is. You have gotten everything too easily.

In real life, you never get everything instantly. You have to wait hours, days, months to achieve something that you have been working towards. You have to accept that fate, and let it happen as it happens. Trying to hurry things along might actually ruin them in the end.

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The Myth About Commuting

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Thenix said something really profound the other day. Something to the effect of, ‘If my commute was ever too long, I would always blame it on the fact that my house is too far from my work.’ I know it probably doesn’t seem very mind-shattering to you, but to me, I am sitting here and thinking, I wish everyone else thought the same way.

For most people on this planet, the thinking would go the other way. ‘If my commute is too long, my work is too far from my home.’ It is the way we’ve been taught to think from when we were very young. Our homes are static objects that are never to be moved. Everything else is questionable. The reason I bring this up is because I was complaining that it is cold outside and my commute is long. Not as long as others, not as short as others, but 1 hour long. I automatically assumed it was my work’s fault. My work isn’t close enough. I have to change my workplace.

It never even occurred to me that it could have anything to do with the fact that I live too far from my workplace. It isn’t that I recommend you change your home every single time you move. That wouldn’t make any sense. That seems abhorrent to me from my viewpoint. But I am just bringing this up to point out the preconceived notion in our heads about our commute and homes.

It might not seem like a very big deal, but every single time you break down another notion in your head, every single time you are able to look at something clearly, as if for the first time, it frees you up. You are released from the shackles of myth and culture. You are no longer bound to think a certain way, because you’ve always thought that way, or you would be chastised if you didn’t think that way.

Maybe you are reading this post, and you don’t see the big deal in this notion. But I would have to say that urbanization, suburbanization and the modern culture is totally dependent on that notion. We live in bigger homes far away from our workplace, because living close to our work is not financially possible. We commute hours every day in order to get to work, in order to get the paycheque, in order to pay the mortgages for our bigger homes. It is a cycle that just perpetuates itself. It is never-ending. Until, we awaken. We see things as they are. Not as we’ve been fed them.

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Feeling Guilty For Taking Care Of Myself

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I have been sleeping a lot for the past few days. My days are long and heavy, just like everyone else on this overworked, overrun planet. I wake up at 5am, do some yoga, some blogging, some bathroom duties, and some meditation before or after breakfast. I get to work at 8am, after an hour on the TTC, and I work almost straight through until 430pm, with nary a break for lunch or anything else. I get back home at 0530pm, cook, eat, and by the time 730-8pm rolls around, I’m dead.

I have learned the value of hard-work from my parents, who worked their bums off to get us to where we are right now. We come from humble beginnings in India, but my parents did not settle for a life in the back of the line. They pushed themselves to the front, and now I am able to enjoy all the amenities of living in a developed country like Canada. But even though I love Toronto to death, it is a fast-paced city, getting faster every day. We have to keep up, or fall behind. Most of us will choose to keep up at the expense of our health, our relationships and our life.

Falling asleep at 8pm, I still have put in a solid 15 hour day, but guilt isn’t far from my bedside. I feel guilty for taking time for myself and falling asleep when my body asks me to. I feel guilty for taking care of my needs. I feel guilty for not pushing myself harder and staying up a few more hours, working, doing yoga, or other random things. But for the past few days, when I wake up in the morning after a full 9 hours of sleep, I feel rested and relaxed. My mind and body are calm and healthy. I feel better in general about myself and my life.

The calm of sleeping enough pervades the rest of my life, ensuring I do not have to caffeinate myself in order to stay awake through the day. This shows me the power of a full night’s rest in my own life, and implores me to continue with the practice. I shouldn’t feel guilty for taking care of myself, but it will be a while before I can truly say that I do not.

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Turn FOMO into motivation

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Over the holidays, I had quite a few friends who were roaming the jungles of Thailand or the streets of South America and that caused pangs of jealousy in me. I felt like I wasn’t good enough to be travelling, I wasn’t working hard enough to make enough money to go travel, I felt anxious about the next time I would even get to go travelling, and so on. It kind of put me into thinking mode for a couple of days, as jealousy, anxiety and fear aren’t a good way to start a new year.

I meditated a bit. After a while I went back to those FaceBook posts and saw other people commenting about how they were jealous and how we are living vicariously through them. The first statement was true for me, but the second one irked me. I didn’t want to ever live vicariously through someone else. Never, ever. It isn’t something that ever leads to a good feeling about oneself and their situation in life. I chose instead that day to be motivated by the stories on FaceBook, on the blogs that I follow and the Pinterest travel pictures.

Turning that Fear Of Missing Out into something that drives and motivates you is a better way to deal with the feelings of inadequacy that come up when you see everyone on FaceBook living a more glamorous and exciting life than you. Even if you know logically that you are only seeing their light side, as opposed to their dark side as well. It still spurs you to either depression or motivation. You can either let yourself get deflated by the FOMO or you can let it motivate you into greatness.

Promise yourself next year you will not be sitting on the sidelines watching, but you will be creating stories of your own, for yourself. Not because you wish to make others jealous, but you wish to motivate them into changing their financial habits, their lives, and moving into an alternative way of living, as opposed to the 9-5 rat race that consumes and destroys.

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Measuring Time By Accomplishments

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I cannot believe its the middle of January already and looking back at the beginning of the year 2013, over the first two weeks, I notice that I have made a few subtle changes in my life, but nothing major. I haven’t accomplished anything yet and in fact, I have been going with the theme of hibernation and laziness for the most part. Resting, taking care of myself, taking care of my relationships over goals, and accomplishments, and my health over money.

This is such a new way of doing things for me, that every time I think of it, I cringe. How can I live in this fast-paced world by being slow? By taking care of myself and my health over anything else. Taking care of relationships over making more money and spending more time at work. Choosing non-resistance and peace, over anything else. I feel like I am living in a dream world, moving away from the existence in this consumeristic culture where more is always better. In my case right now, more sleep is the only thing I care about. More time with family and friends. More time on myself, journaling, meditating, yoga, long baths, short routines. More time on happiness, less on accomplishments.

From time to time, I wake up and have this feeling of being behind. I am behind, I think to myself, I haven’t done anything yet, I should be working on this and this, etc. I panic, and get anxious. I get this nervous ball of energy in the pit of my stomach. I cannot eat, cannot sleep. I have to then stop myself. When I feel the most harried, and crazy, is when I have to really slow down. The moments where I feel I cannot afford to take a break, I have to take a break. Have a slow cup of tea, sit down with it, savor it, waste a little bit of time on FB, or whatever social network you use to de-stress. Just take the time. All of a sudden you will realize nothing is urgent that it can’t wait for a 1o minute tea break.

You are able to go back to your work slowly but with the assurance that you are relaxed and you are already there. You have nowhere to reach, nowhere to go. Life will come to you, if you just wait for it. And you will be surprised you won’t even have to wait too long.

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Following Your Body’s Natural Rhythms

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Over the last few days, due to Christmas holidays and a generous boss, I have had a week off from work. It is interesting once you have some time off, how your body naturally falls into a gentle rhythm of its own.

You realize how much sleep you have been missing, because you fall asleep in the middle of the day, without any incentive, and you fall asleep at 11pm without a care. You realize how often your body needs to eat in order to ensure you stay healthy and at a stabilized body weight. The kinks in your body disappear, because you haven’t been sitting at a desk and computer for 9 hours a day. Your yoga classes go a little bit smoother, because you are not stressed out from the goals and sales you had to reach during the day. You are able to relax a bit more, and you do not have this feeling of something’s missing, that something needs to be done, that you need to keep on moving, in order to stay still.

It is hard to follow your body’s natural rhythms in a normal working life, because a normal working life doesn’t cater to everyone. It is a one-size-fits-all kind of design, where everyone gets up at the same time, eats their meals at the same time, and goes to sleep at the same time. It is meant to control and simplify, but it ends up hurting the health of many.

I know I am not meant to eat three meals a day, I eat six times a day, but in smaller portions. Thankfully, my work is flexible enough to allow that. I know I am not meant to stay up all night, I get up at 5am, I go to sleep at 9pm. It is the amount of sleep my body needs in order to stay flexible for the day and in order to get enough REM sleep for me to feel conscious and workable the next day.

I’m sure over the years my rhythms have changed, as have yours. Pay attention the next time, your body is telling you that it doesn’t like the way something’s been going on. Pay attention and try to modify if you can. It is important to your health and happiness.

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Itching to go back to work

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

After the joys of Christmas and New Year, I just feel that I’m happy to be going back to a normal set schedule at work. It is funny to me when I realized the sigh of internal relief that I felt once the crazy holidays were done, and I was back to the first normal week of January. I have been waiting for this. Why is that? After all, we wait for holidays when we are adults. We want to be done with work and we wait impatiently for Friday. We are waiting to be done with work, to retire and to be able to sit on the beach for the rest of our lives.

Over the past few weeks, with conversations and thoughts, I have realized I am the kind of person who needs to work. Who needs full-time useful work in order to feel sane. Who needs to be occupied. Who basically cannot play the role of a trophy wife, not that, I would have that opportunity in the near future. I need to work. Which is kind of a horrible thought when you first think about it. Sad and horrible.

If I take off for sabbatical, I will not be able to do it as a staycation. If I lose my job, it will be a certainty, I’ll find something to do in relation to work, maybe a server position or something else to fill time and space and bring in some cash. Unless I’m travelling. If I’m travelling, I will be able to do a year without work, because of the movement aspect of it. My anxious, busy mind is occupied by movement. I am enthralled by the different. Different culture, people, city, hotel room. All of it occupies me. It ensures I do not start dwelling or thinking.

An anxious mind is the place for the devil, not an idle mind. A mind like mine left too long without anything to do starts creating drama that always leads to disaster. Imagination is the key to the world, but left unchecked, it creates horror stories.

I wanted to share the horrible realization that I have had about work and my need for it. Let me know if you are the same.

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Vision for the new year

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High Park in the FallI have been thinking for the past month about the year coming up, and wanting to have a solid vision for what I would like to accomplish in this new year. A new year feels like a new start to me, a new beginning, a clean slate. You can start over, and not feel like you are doing a foolish thing. Everyone seems to have a new beginning in the new year.

But I do not want to begin anew without a clear vision about it. I want to have an idea where I wish to be at the end of the year. When I’m sitting down somewhere on December 17th, 2013, I wish to know that I accomplished something with the year past. There are certain parts of my life that will be a certainty no matter what I do or where I go, like yoga, meditation, blogging, writing in general.

There are other parts that are uncertain, but I want more of, like ideas for financial independence, Travel, lots and lots of it, more connections with people who are living a different life, who believe they can make a difference, making a difference ourselves, through volunteer or donation. I don’t know if any one of you are sitting down like me, thinking over what you are going to be doing over the next year, planning it out on paper, tablet or any other device. Or maybe you are going to be keeping it all in your head, like I used to do, until the burden of carrying it around in my head became too much to bear. Whatever you are doing with your vision, I wish to share at least part of uncrystallized vision with you amazing people.

As most of you who’ve been reading my posts know, I am going to be Debt Free by April 2013. That is one of my goals that is set in stone. Nothing will disturb its path. Another is going travelling next year. That is another one set in stone. I wish to do yoga 3 times a week consistently, go to the yoga conference and grow in my yoga and meditation practice. I wish to meld my relationship with my parents. I wish to concrete my relationship with Thenix.

The part of this that I feel is missing is the part about service to others. I realize that’s something that people are going to berate me about. I think of it this way. You cannot help others, until you can help yourself. Until, I establish myself body, mind and soul into the kind of life that I would like to have, I cannot imagine I can help others in any major possible way. I do the things I can by volunteering here and there and giving cash whenever I can, but it isn’t what I can really do when I am settled and ready to go at it.

Let me know your ideas about the Vision for 2013.

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Guilty for receiving presents

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Desks by DQmountaingirlIt is Christmas time, and it is a jolly time indeed, when you can receive presents galore. Why wouldn’t everyone want to be part of this joyous occasion? I love Christmas, for the lights, the friends, the getting-together, the parties, the dancing and the food. All the reasons, I love the rest of the year, but I feel people are definitely nicer around Christmastime. Everyone suddenly realizes what the really important things in life are. People, Relationships, Happiness, and Peace.

You wouldn’t really think the above statement is true, from looking at the Black Friday footage, or the massive piles of gifts-to-be-sent at Amazon, but I do feel that in the people around me, that is definitely true. We have made a rule this year, not to exchange Christmas Presents, but to ensure that we spend the time that we save from Christmas Shopping with people who matter in our lives. I did still receive one present already from work, and for some odd reason, I felt extreme guilt over that present. I do not know why. This post is to analyze those feelings, of guilt, of feelings that I’m a traitor, even though I work my ass off for the company. I do what needs to be done, I’m a great employee. But I try to keep a balance in my life, I do leave right on time and arrive right on time. I do not spend too much time socializing at work as that is time I could be productive. I do a little bit of random browsing at work, but that is just when I feel like I need my brain to relax. I have brought much profitability and success to the company since I’ve been here, with the rest of the amazing team.

Then why do I feel like I do not deserve this gift? Why does it feel like a word that’s just stuck in my throat, causing me discomfort? I feel so guilty, that I feel like revoking my Christmas vacation and working through it, so that I can prove my loyalty and prove my deserving of the gift. Why is that? What is it inside of me that feels undeserving of a small token of appreciation at a workplace that I’ve given a lot of time, energy, work, and attention. I do not like feeling this way, and it might take more analysis, but while I analyze away, I wanted to share this post with my amazing readers.

Hope you receive the items for Christmas that you want, whatever they might be and hope you do not feel guilty at all for receiving them.

Standing Still

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Photo attributed to flickr user JRFoto

I was speaking to Thenix a few days ago and we were talking about the gargantuan pile of projects that both of us had on the go, his was more electronics based, mine was more writing/saving based. Whatever it was, we are busy. We are busy saving up, we are busy motivating each other to stay strong, we are busy doing things to progress forward, we are BUSY.

As is everyone else on this little planet. The important thing in all of the busy-ness is to remember the final goal in your life. Why are you here? What do you want to accomplish by the end of your life? What do you want your life-hours to represent? Why are you spending hours working at a job, or doing yoga, or playing with electronics? What is the vision here?

You have to remember not to let the little things on your to-do list take over your life. You have to especially remember to not let busy-ness seem like you are accomplishing your goals. Just because you spent 5 hours hunched over a computer screen today, doesn’t mean you were being productive towards your goals. Especially if those five hours were interspersed with Pinterest, FaceBook, FMLife, or whatever else, you like browsing when you are bored.

Just because your days are occupied with random activities, doesn’t mean you are doing something useful. Make sure that you are spending your time on stuff that will move you forward, so that a year later, you are not still at the same spot, you are at right now.

You can look back at the week previous, the year previous, the decade previous and see visible movement forward, be it internally or externally.

The days I don’t Blog

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Photo attributed to flickr user mikebaird

Why do I blog? This question has come up again and again in my head. The minute I start thinking that I am doing this bloggin’ thang for my readers, I start feeling the pressure to get more readers, more likes, more subscriptions, more of everything.

That is why I have decided and I have to keep on realizing this again and again, that I am doing this for myself. Myself and myself alone. The readers are lovely and welcome, but the real reason I keep on going, the real reason, I keep on writing, the real reason, I haven’t missed a day of writing in 3 months, is because I need it, like I need water. I feel incomplete without it.

It is not the same feeling as when I miss yoga or meditation, or if I miss food or water. It’s definitely not the same feeling as when I miss Thenix or my siblings, my parents or my friends.

But it is the kind of thing, that festers deep in your subconscious, and after a while, you start noticing the void, as the void starts getting bigger and bigger. And then a day comes, where you cannot avoid it anymore. You have to write, just so you can get that outpouring of words and emotions out of paper, before it threatens to overwhelm and drown you. A lot of blog readers are themselves writers. And I feel that they would appreciate the words above, because they themselves probably have felt the utmost pressure to write, write anything, when they haven’t written a word in a few days.

During this ‘need to write’ time, I usually end up writing at least a 1000-2000 words without very much effort. It is as if the words are just sitting inside of me, waiting to come out, and like a pressure cooker, they just need the release, to be poured out on any surface, a piece of paper, or a computer screen.

Sometimes I wonder if it is just the universe writing out through me, I’m just an instrument, but then, I tell myself to start being practical and think like the others do. But that thought never really disappears.

Coming out of the closet

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Photo attributed to flickr user Ethan Hein

I am a private person. I think everyone is. No one likes to be open. To be out in the open with everything they feel, think and do. Everything they want to do with their time and life. Everything that they feel, sexually, emotionally, physically. What they think about in their deepest, darkest moments. You wish to be a closed book, so that people cannot ridicule you. You are safe from the probes of others, because you only let them know what you want them to know. You pretend to be easy-going and open. I do as well, but who really is?

Being private is actually a good thing. You are protecting yourself, your vulnerabilities from the thorns of the world. The world is ready to prick you the minute it feels your weakness. It isn’t a cruelty thing, it is a survival of the fittest thing. It is an evolution thing. It is a real world thing.

Everyone has techniques in order to remain closed, only give out the information that makes them seem cool, a little bit vulnerable, and still keeps them safe. I use the technique of questions. I ask questions, lots and lots of them. I try to always put the spotlight on the other person. They are more interesting. They have more to say than me. It isn’t that I don’t care about them. I do care about what they have to say. But also, I care about not divulging much. I want to be safe.

The more I blog though, and the more I share my blog with people I know, in an attempt to be open, I find that this safety net is tearing slowly. The holes are getting bigger and more of my safety catches are slipping out. The first time someone talked to me about one of my posts, I was embarrassed. I blushed at the thought of them reading my private thoughts. But then they made a comment about something they read. I listened and I learned. It was insightful. I was getting someone else’s perspective on my issues, my life, my demons. I felt the safety net break completely, but I learnt that I didn’t need it anymore. The insights that I would receive from the people who know me, would be far more valuable than being closed off.

Thus, I look forward to more and more content being pulled to pieces by the ones that know me and love me.

Being vulnerable

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Photo attributed to flickr user marfis75

For the past few days, I have been doing a lot of yoga, a lot of detoxing with lots of veggies in my diet, and lean meats, very little dark meat, lots of water, lemon in my diet, and meditation. It has been a period of cleanse, as I felt the indulgences of the summer get to me. I had gained a bit of weight, I felt my digestive system stagnant, I felt energy trapped inside of me, that was unable to move, and I felt I needed a lot of rest during the day in order to feel alive.

We do a lot in the summer, because it is a time for rejoicing, and celebration. The sun is out, the days are long, everyone is cheery and life is good. You drink a lot, eat a lot, and stay up long hours, just because you can. Wintertime is a time for hibernation, self-reflection, contemplation, planning and cleansing. I find that I’m spending a lot being cleansed out physically and mentally, emotionally and chakra-wise.

And all of this cleansing is causing a lot of ‘stuff’ to be released. I feel more vulnerable than usual. I feel open, raw, out in this world. I feel like I’m extra sensitive, and everything and anything bothers me, upsets me, makes me want to curl up in a ball in the corner and cry.

This is normal and I realized this last night when I couldn’t sleep. I have been feeling guilty for feeling this way. I was feeling weak, and stupid, for being so emotional and needy. How could I get over the emotions of being needy and insecure, if I do not let myself feel those emotions? If I just ignore them, and pretend they will go away, they are going to come up again and again, because they just didn’t have a chance to be expressed. They are trying to help me realize my goals, of moving onward and upward in my consciousness. But until I deal with the demons of the past, the present cannot make an appearance. I realized I am not going to feel bad for feeling bad. I’m going to indulge myself in the dark emotions of my psyche, the deep, dark undercurrents where everything horrible seems to lie. I will let myself feel it all and then it will all be released and I can move forward.

Let’s see how this works out in the real world and if the people around me, my loved ones, are able to handle the stress of dealing with me.

Success can be quickly forgotten

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Photo attributed to Paruula

I was reading a blog post by Becoming Minimalist, one of my favourite blog authors, on keeping a journal. One of the points on why you should keep a journal that really leapt out at me, was ‘Success can be quickly forgotten’.

Wow! I was blown away. Because I have been doing exactly that. The reason I was blown away is the miracle of the universe. The universe sends you exactly what you need, when you need it, especially if you are open to it, and looking for an answer. I’m definitely looking for an answer in general, but I was wondering why I was in such stinky mood. I was bringing everyone around me down. Normally, I’m the positive one in my group and around my peers in any situation. But something was bringing me down.

I realized the minute I read that one sentence in that blog, I needed to read nothing else. I had gotten the answer I was looking for.

I have made a lot of progress in the past 10 months. Ever since I came back from Thailand in January, I have been hell-bound and hell-bent. I have been doing a lot, meditating, yogaing, and reading. I have been socializing and learning. I have been growing at an exponential rate. I have been doing and doing and doing some more.

The main thing that I have not been doing is congratulating myself and giving myself a pat on the back. Instead, every single time, I do some little thing wrong, I berate myself to hell and back. I’m the worst person on the planet. I’m wrong. I’m bad. I’m just horrible. I can’t do anything right. And so it goes, the tape inside my head.

Perfectionism is an ideal, but it is not ideal. You cannot be perfect no matter how hard you try. You have to let certain things go. You have to let certain things slide. You have to do certain things badly in order to be able to relax. Whatever it might be, you have to let go of the ideal of perfectionism.

But also, you have to recognize when you are doing well, and let yourself feel the sentiment of gratitude and happiness even if just for a few seconds. Just sit there and bathe yourself in it. Be happy that you have reached 10% of a goal, or that you have managed to lose the summer weight, or you went to yoga 5 times this week, or you didn’t eat the last piece of cake in the fridge. Whatever it might be, it is different for different people, you have to congratulate yourself for it. Otherwise you will forget, and you will berate yourself for not doing enough. That is human nature.

The Art of Finishing

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Photo attributed to Thenix

I have been guilty of this several times. I start something and never finish. I have great hopes when I begin, I want to finish what I start. I make plans in my head and sometimes on paper. I draw elaborate fish-bone diagrams to illustrate the project, I draw elaborate dreams in my head of how it will look when I finish.

Of course, 90% of plans never come to fruition. Maybe even more. I used to have a lot of regret about the plans that I never finished. I used to think to myself, if I had just stuck with one of those plans 10 years ago, I would be an expert in that field or I would have made it by now. It is that part of my thinking that I focused on and I realized, the problem isn’t that I am not finishing, the problem is that I am not even starting.

I have the idea in my head and I begin with the idea, and I polish up the idea, I work on the idea, I work and work and work on it. But at the end of the day, I do not actually begin any actual work on it. I have kept it an idea, and I haven’t moved it forward into the development stage. What I need to do, of course, is choose to begin. The idea seems daunting. You look at all the steps you have to take. All the millions of steps you have to take to get to the finish line, and you falter, you panic, you back-track. Maybe you do not have time or maybe you do not have the money or maybe you have another excuse on the plate.

I planned for years to take Spanish, I wanted to become fluent in the language. It was my dream. I never actually did anything about it. It seemed like too much to do. But this year, I decided enough is enough. I took the beginner course, and then the next one, and the next one, and now I am in the intermediate stage. I’m nowhere near fluent, but now that I’m closer to the finish line, I can smell victory and it feels good. I know I’m going to continue with it, because I have already spent a lot of time and energy on it. If I had done this years ago, I would be fluent by now.

What have you kept on the back-burner? What is one thing you would like to accomplish this year?

Zero commute

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Photo attributed to Thenix

After spending yet another 2 hours in traffic coming back home, I have realized I am over the whole commuting thing. I absolutely despise it. I do not like the idea of sitting in a box for 3 hours a day, moving from one place to another, when most of the time, the reason I am sitting in that box is not because of volume of people sitting in boxes next to me, but because some person couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the road. He or she was distracted and plowed through someone else, in their state of distraction.

It upsets me to wait in a line 10 kilometres long, because of one person’s inconsiderate behaviour. Why couldn’t that person have been safe and careful? It would have really helped my situation. I would have come at a reasonable time. My yoga high wouldn’t have been ruined. I wouldn’t have been absolutely famished by the time I came home. I wouldn’t have binge-eaten through a bag of buttery popcorn goodness to fill that gaping hole that I call a stomach. I wouldn’t have been exhausted from the trip. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep like a loser at 830pm drooling all over the pillowcase.

I also lament the hours that I waste sitting in the box, that I could be spending on something else. What would I spend those glorious hours on, I daydream as I sit in the car, breathing in the fumes of the person in front, and being blinded by the high-beams of the person behind? Hmm. I would do more yoga. I would dance more. I would flit over the clouds on a magic carpet being wooed by a skinny, long haired thief. The fantasy of course persists. But the real thing that I want is my time back. Even if I am going to sit on my ass at home on the couch in that time, I still want to be able to spend that time my way.

Which brings me to the point. My goal in life is to have a 10 minute commute or less. Hopefully that commute is a walking commute, but even if it is by car, it has to be miniscule, tiny, and short. Let’s see how I seek that out.

What does freedom mean to me?

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Photo attributed to flickr user cuellar

If someone spoke to me today and asked me where I see my life going in the next 5-10 years, I definitely do not list a promotion or leading a  team of 10-15 people as one of the major tenets.

I see a few things in my dreams. The freedom to do what I want with my time and energy. The idea of doing things because they are fun, not because I HAVE to do them. Removing all the unnecessary items from my life. Having only the stuff I absolutely need. Minimalism is key. Spending time with family and friends. Being content in the moment. Including lots of yoga, reading and writing in my life.

The question I ask myself quite often is why can I not start this life right now? What am I waiting for? What are these freedoms waiting for? Why cannot I begin today?

I have a lot of excuses in my head. My blog isn’t making money for me. My yoga teaching isn’t making enough money for me yet. I still have student loan debt. I still have a mortgage (which doesn’t count as it is rented out). The excuses go on, but the truth of the matter is, I am afraid. Fear is holding me back.

I do not know what awaits me on the other side of unemployment, of quitting the 9-5 rat race. What would I do with my time? What would I do with the removal of a steady income? What would I tell my parents? My friends? I wouldn’t be able to go out as often with them. I wouldn’t be able to own a car, as that is freaking expensive.

How will I live? The truth of the matter is, that I have no idea how I will pay for minimal expenses if I do not have a job. I do not have a way of supporting myself without a job yet. And, I haven’t looked into it very much, because I haven’t really needed to yet.

The big reason I want to go on this trip is because Thenix and I are going to look into becoming self-sufficient and digital nomads. Working on our own time and energy, doing what we like with our time and energy, making enough money to pay for travel and life.

Maybe my thoughts seem a little scrambled, that is because in reality, I haven’t figured myself out yet.