On my path to 2011 being THE YEAR I had what can only be described as the best morning ever. I learned what commitment truly is, delved deeper into what friendship truly is and had a transformative yoga practice... in Bali of all places!
It started with today being the 'cheat day' of my life via the 4 hour body. Last night I fell asleep thinking of all the delicious and total crap things I would eat today. Chips, ice cream and ALL the cheese I could get my hands on. The only thing is when your body acclimatizes to being fed organic veggies, lots of water and tea, some lean meat and legumes it isn't too stoked on the idea of flour and dairy. Eff. I started my day with a delicious breakfast of gluten-free, dairy free crepes with a little cheese and melted-from-frozen berries with a little agave nectar. They were delicious but after 1 I was toast, and not yummy carby toast but done with breakfast toast. Balls. Eating crap, or anything not incredibly healthy, was proving to be more challenging than I had thought. Later in the morning I tried again. Hoping that a 2% latte at my favourite coffee shop and a not-very-sweet muffin wouldn't be too hard on my tummy. Alas. Not even a chance. A last minute switch to a soy latte was my only saving grace. I ate about half the muffin and was down for the count. Curses amazing healthy body, thanks for your deep commitment to awesomeness. My sugar starved brain thanks you. Now why, you might ask, is this rad? Well, in a commitment to live the life I want, I am getting super healthy, super buff, super speedy at the whole running thing. At least I am showing up and getting into the space where this is at least possible. And my rad body that I am so grateful for is helping me in this commitment by not wanting crap. Body- I am really really grateful.
So I don't know about where you are sitting but Calgary is freaking cold right now. When I woke up, put on my layers and headed out the door it was -24 degrees and -32 with windchill. Pretty chilly. Now my heart of hearts wanted to stay in bed spooning my hot water bottle and stuffed pug dog, Bug, until noon but people who make 9am commitments on Saturday mornings don't have that choice. So I layered up for my first 'long run' in the coldest weather I had ever ran in... yes even colder than Wednesday. Now I am not saying I am at the point where I love running. To be honest if the friend I was meeting wasn't there I was tempted to peace out and head back to Bug and the water bottle BUT once I got out it gave me an hour of being outside with some one I love chatting to. At the end of an hour and about 8.5-9kms I had just ran for the longest (distance and time) I had ever ran without stopping. I felt (and still do) feel like a freaking rock star! It was completely inspiring and truly, each run gets a little bit easier. All it took was showing up.
So back track to the part where I tried to drink coffee and eat a muffin, or fast forward because this was a post run coffee muffin extravaganza with a truly dear friend. Now, she is one of very very few people who I would run for. Especially in this frigid weather but with her, integrity is the corner stone of our friendship. It is a completely mutual thing that if we share with the other that we will do something we WILL do it. Part of why I love her and our friendship is that she understands that if I say I can't do something she knows it is in no way a reflection on her and she respects that I am only going to commit to what I can follow through on. This is not the case in every area of my life and sometimes I slip in to guilt when someone pushes back on me to do something I know I will not be able to follow through on but know that they will see more into it that just an inability to have integrity to that commitment. Add mutual integrity, respect and love to my required attributes for friendship.
When I got home, frozen solid, my choices on how to spend the rest of the day were many. I had a bath to try to get back to a reasonable body temp and then sat down on my mat for my daily commitment to Blissology. The thing about yoga is that it doesn't always give you what you want but it always gives you what you need. This morning the moving meditation was exactly it. It gave me the opportunity to not only stretch out my cold running muscles but also my cold heart. Each step of the practice allowed me to express gratitude and kindness to those in my life, my self, my spiritual leader, my friends and family, those neutral people, some one who I felt in confrontation with and the whole world. The practice ended and I felt lighter, more supple, and maybe most importantly, my heart felt light. The cherry on top was that the practice ended with a puppy coming into the shot and loving Insyia and Eoin. I love puppies.
Now onwards. The rest of the day to be spent with friends and in the never ending quest to create space (today physical and non-physical) in my life.
Love.
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