Day Eighteen - Burnout

This morning I spilled searing hot coffee on bare legs and considered downloading Instagram.  I imagined curating my feed to reflect a clean and inspiring deluge of color and ideas and how I’d post on occasion when it really felt good. And then I exited the idea factory in my brain and settled into my stomach and felt dread and fear and doom and anxiety. It should bring joy or don’t do it.

Too soon. Social media detox continues.

I wrote the above sentiment before my yoga practice.  I was hot and inflamed and groggy and feeling terrible. None of my yoga clothes available. Coffee made for me but not according to my direction.  All things bad all things bad all things bad.  And somehow somewhere something happens and one foot goes in front of the other and I’m greeted with patience and kindness and I just stand on my mat and ok inhale hands up exhale fold. And I’m sweating and I’m moving and everything is ok.

This is just it.  The yoga works.  But you have to let it.  You have to get out of your own way.  You have to keep showing up.  And once you do sometimes the decluttering has already happened.  You have already done the work.  And you just climb into a river of energy and plug in and flow.  Other times you have to do the decluttering and you just sit in your space and cry or you hold each object but there’s too much for just one session.  And sometimes you’re really lucky.  You’re in the worst place and you feel awful and everything seems heavy and congested and impossible and somehow you’re persuaded to practice and you do and you come out the other side.

I think this is one thing that I enjoyed about Instagram.  I had started posting some practice photos and videos and people would tell me that it inspired them during tough times. That’s pretty powerful stuff and to me part of what this whole internet thing can do for us — help us truly connect.  It would be nice to find a way to have that kind of impact without feeling absolutely energetically sucked dry.  Just to put that out in the universe. I am sure it has something to do with balance and an internal homeostasis which has a lot to do with residing in an internal world of unshakeable integrity and clarity.  It starts with this:

My time is valuable
I am valuable
My education, knowledge, and experience are valuable
Please be aware that when it comes to yoga and me that you have entered a no bullshit area
I am allowed to say “no”
I am allowed to be available when I decide
I am allowed to change directions
I am allowed to make my own health and needs my number one priority

Also, you are entitled to all of the above as well.  I respect you, your time, and your process.

I went to an energy healer when the stagnation, the tamas, got really bad.  She said she used to work in a crystal store and the energy was just so intense she had to constantly clear herself out.  She walked me through her meditation that she would use.  Part of it involves creating a dome around you.  Everyone that looks in is greeted with something comforting and warm like glowing lavender love.  And when you look out you see something nourishing as well.  The ocean kept coming up for me.  Every time I ever sat staring out at the horizon.  The waves, the color, the push and pull that has always been and always will.  I think this was Cancun.  Maybe 2017.

Exit: “Fuck things up” Dope Lemon