Tools For Your Toolbox

Hello my friends,

I promised to post a blog a day until August 11th.  That's tomorrow.  I didn't accomplish the every day thing, but I tried.  Sometimes I had great intentions and great ideas but I stopped myself from doing the video or writing about a certain topic because-- well, I wanted the blog to be good.  So good that I would plan all day and then eventually there was no time left to do it.  I have been meditating and practicing asanas every morning though.  I even did headstand and scorpion pose this morning.  I remember last  summer, I was really practicing.  I felt like a Yoga video.  I was trying new poses and impressing myself.  This summer is different.  I'm just happy that I'm back to daily meditation, And my Hatha Yoga practice, I have to say, is mostly so I don't have back/hip pain.  It feels so much better when I do the asanas.  When I don't practice, my hip hurts so much I walk like my grandmother did, with one hand on my hip.  The good thing is that I get up happy to start the day, do my practices and then work on my writing, which is for some odd reason what I have chosen to focus on in this lifetime. 

I gave it up a few years ago when I realized that I wasn't good at selling my work or myself as a writer.  I thought maybe I wasn't cut out for the "bizz."  I focused on Yoga more.  Yet this nagging sense of jealousy would overcome me when others I knew were having some success as a writer.  In The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, she says that jealousy is a good way of finding out what you want to be doing.  It turns out that when you start working on your art (whatever that is) then the jealousy completely disappears.  It is a motivator.  So is guilt-- gets me walking the dog in the morning, and at night, which I am grateful for.  Otherwise I'd be tied to this computer and have worse back problems from sitting most of the time.  I also get to take in the stars, crickets, breeze and fresh smell of after rained-on-grass.

Finally, at 41, I think I've found my balance.  I love that I can do all the things I love to do.  I teach, I write, I practice Yoga and even find time to make a vegan cheesecake.  (Had to do something with the blackberries from our CSA.  They were going to spoil.)

So I don't have a huge Yoga tip for tonight.  It is not one straight from Sri Patanjali (The Yoga Sutras) but I do have a suggestion.  Find something that gets you excited about the day and also something else that grounds you.  I highly suggest Yoga, for it really is, as my mother puts it, a tool you can grab from your toolbox anytime you need it.

With so much love, light and laughter,
Yoga Girl

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For your extra blackberries:

http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Vegan-Cheesecake-Food_com-145962