Old photo of me practicing full wheel

Over the course of the past year, yoga and I have had some really awesome times. There was the daily practice with carefully chosen intentions back in December; this spring saw the one month yoga vs. Sarah Palin challenge; in April I met up with my favorite Holistic Health Junkie for an amazing 90-minute Anusara sweat session. I made yoga friends, I joined a yoga sutras discussion group here in Seoul, and I finally treated myself to an amazing yoga mat and some new books. [Holy lot of links, Batman!]

So why have I been so reluctant to practice since I got back to Seoul two months ago?

I think there are a few reasons. First is that big steaming pile of depression I was dealing with. Might yoga have helped me through? Maybe, but when you’re in it that deep, sometimes you don’t believe that things like yoga will help. Another part is the pressure I put on myself during the one month challenge. I am so glad I did that–my body and mind thanked me–but it also transformed yoga from a gift into an obligation. And that’s not how I roll.

The last factor is something that I’ve been reluctant to post about, but feel I can do fairly now that I’ve had some considerable distance: the John Friend Anusara Yoga weekend retreat Michael gave me for my birthday was a total bust. I want to preface this by saying that for the weekend of that retreat, I was jetlagged from our trans-Pacific flight and sick as a dog (I got out of bed once in 4 days, and it was to attend that retreat). Because of this, I acknowledge that much of my disappointment in the weekend had more to do with me than with the retreat. That said, something about the experience felt inauthentic to me.

My biggest gripe is that there seemed to be so much emphasis on “the guru.” I’m all for celebrating a pioneer who has inspired thousands–I can only imagine how giggly I would be if I ever met my hero, Kris Carr–but this seemed to be bordering on hero-worship. My other complaint is that John Friend (as I took it) was all about pushing us past our limits. Yes, that can be an incredibly powerful experience, but I think it’s essential to remind those in their practice that modification of a pose does not mean failure, and yoga is not a competition.

Part of my frustration was likely due to the fact that I expected much more theory and discussion, not just a 3-hour masters class. I also disagree with the billing of the weekend as “all-levels”; it was clearly for intermediate to advanced students. While I would typically consider myself “intermediate”, given my physical state and unfamiliarity with Anusara Yoga, I was really a beginner for this workshop. Because of that, the weekend really didn’t feel like it was, well, mine. So, after I came home for lunch on the first day and literally crawled into Michael’s lap, crying that I was a failure, I decided not to go back.

Unfortunately, all of this left a pretty bad taste in my mouth for one of the most important things in my life: my yoga practice.

But here’s the good news: the joy of yoga has returned! After two months of neglecting my practice and letting myself sort through my feelings about the subject, I finally feel ready to recommit. This time, however, I’m going to do it in a way that feels organic and blissful, even if it’s physically and emotionally challenging. The truth is, I want yoga to have a bigger role in my life (something I’ll write more about soon), but if I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that I can’t force it and I can’t fast-forward. For now, it’s baby steps. Like as soon as I hit publish, I plan to unroll my luscious new mat and have fifteen minutes of Zen quality time before crawling into bed for the night.

Have you ever found yourself feeling disconnected from a practice important to you? How did you reconnect? Do you consider yourself a yogini? Are you curious? What’s your favorite school of practice?

A few months ago, I was talking to my sister and, not surprisingly, the conversation turned to yoga. According to my awful memory, the conversation went a little something like this:

Me: I found this great yoga podcast I can’t wait to try. I think you’d really like it.

Sis: That’s great. A new yoga studio opened up nearby that I can’t wait to get to.

Me: Nice! Have you been doing much yoga lately?

Sis: [pause] I unrolled my mat. Does that count?

Me: That counts if all the podcasts I’ve downloaded but not watched count too!

Sis: Deal!

The point is, we both love yoga. We both get excited about it. We think about it a lot, searching for the latest and greatest studio/video/podcast/mat/etc. And yet, as with so many things in life, my practice doesn’t quite stack up to my intention. (My sister, to her credit, is much better about maintaining a physically active lifestyle than I am.) Sometimes I don’t even want to pull out my mat, and other times I’ll start a practice, and find that after 20 or 25 minutes, I just want to stop.

Curiously, while this happens often in my home practice, when I went to studio classes, I (almost) never wanted to quit early. I think a big reason is that when I’m alone, my mind tends to run off and think decidedly un-yogini thoughts. Let’s take today, for example. In the course of 25 minutes (of a 50 minute podcast–whoops), my thoughts went a little something like this:

Woohoo! My downward dog is getting much better–I can almost drop my heels to the floor! Dammit, if I practiced as much as I thought about it, my downdog would be awesome by now.  Stop thinking like that. Focus on your breath. I can’t believe how much stronger I feel in dandasana. This is great. I can’t believe I can almost grab the bottoms of my feet doing this! Yeah, but it really is too bad that my thighs are still flabby. You’d think with how I’ve been eating lately…stop it! Good thoughts! You’re so much healthier! True, but… No ‘buts’! BREATHE!

So I stopped. I’ve been fighting a cold and have had a headache for three days, so I really didn’t want to push it. What I’m really having trouble with, though, is telling the difference between a “good push” beyond my comfort zone, and a “bad push” that could leave me run down or injured. If I’m honest with myself, more often than not, I wimp out long before the good push limits.

Which is why I’m grateful. My poetry mentor often talks about taking the thing that’s most problematic in a poem and finding a way to make it the core of the poem. Don’t know why the narrator of the poem is in the church? Make the not knowing what the poem is all about, and be willing to explore that truth through the writing. Isn’t that what yoga is? This difficulty I have balancing pushing myself and honoring myself is at the core not only of when and how much to practice, but in how I move in and out of each pose. Not quite sure how that will manifest itself yet, but now that that idea has clicked, I at least have something to work with.

How do you balance pushing yourself with honoring your limits? How do you keep going in your practice when you’re frustrated?

A friend is heading back to the States tomorrow, and brought in a slew of goodies from his kitchen. Including Riesens. You know Riesens–those yummy, chewy, chocolatey coffee-licious candies. They got the better of the fierce sugar cravings I’ve been having, so I had one. Then two…three…six. I’d skimmed the ingredients and eaten them before, maybe one or two. Saw “modified food starch” on there, and told myself it’s safe, it’s almost definitely corn. This has been a very convenient li(n)e I’ve told myself over the last few years. I may have been OK had I scoured the ingredients more closely, like I did this evening after I started to get those tell-tale pains in my joints: “Contains milk, wheat, and soy ingredients.” Dammit!

The good news is, I think the amount I consumed was small enough to make me extremely uncomfortable, but not writhing in pain, unable to stand, searching out that one half narcotic pain killer I keep as an absolute emergency. I am taking a cue from the inspiring Maria at Going Down Swinging: A RSD Blog, and refusing to give in to the pain. On my walk home from work, I practiced some deep breathing and visualization techniques (until it occurred to me that closing my eyes for visualizations wasn’t the smartest thing while walking home), and focused my attention on what I wanted to manifest. In other words, I kept telling myself how healthy I am, how smoothly my joints work, and how good I’m going to feel in the morning. To be honest, yeah, I’m still in pain, but I know it’s not going to last. And I just got even more motivation to stop eating packaged foods, and, when I do, to read the stinkin’ labels!

Finally, I recently came across this stellar CSL post by Stefanie Bryn Sacks entitled All About Wheat and Gluten! If you’re curious about the distinction between wheat allergies and gluten allergies, and which companies make the best eats, this blog is a must read.

As I mentioned in part i, Michael and I fell in love over bacon (among other things), so I count myself extra lucky that he’s been such an enthusiastic partner in all this. Our first step is to phase animal products out of our house. We no longer add chicken to our curry dishes, and we recently stocked up on soy milk (I have my own concerns about soy products, but we live in Korea, so our options are limited) in lieu of cow’s milk. Bacon is no longer added to everything, and I’ve been relying on popcorn and kale chips—which I will post about soon—instead of salami-wrapped-cheese when snack time rolls around. Again, I’m in transition, so I have consumed at least some small amount of animal product for most of the last fourteen days, but I’ve had some full-on vegan days, too.

What’s exciting is that I’m already feeling the benefits, which I have been promising LC, of Let Them Eat Lentils, I would blog about. Here are some highlights:

• My digestive system works better. I won’t go into details, but this is a very welcome change in my life.
• I have more energy. A big part of this is, I believe, due to my daily green smoothie, but it’s become more noticeable as I eat less animal product.
• My energy is more stable. This is largely due to the fact that I eat less sugar—to be honest, the vast majority of the sugar I consume comes in the form of wine—but eating a healthier diet is only reinforced by this latest shift.
• I’m cooking a wider variety of foods. When I found out I could no longer eat gluten, I was not inspired to create gluten-free versions of most foods, but I am really enjoying tweaking recipes to be vegan. We’ve been exploring new produce, like stonecrop (awesome!) and burdock (I wasn’t wowed, but it did serve as a nice base for vegan spring rolls).
• We’re saving money. Michael and I have shown a distinct talent for blowing wads of cash at Costco as we stock up on imported meats and cheeses (and wine). All these produce-based meals have helped pad the wallet.
• It feels good to know I’m doing something to help future generations. I still make a lot of selfish eco-choices, like buying new clothes and living an international life (which requires flights), but I absolutely believe consuming fewer animal products helps ensure my niece and future children will have a planet to enjoy.

All that said, there are some benefits I am still waiting on, but I suspect I will have to be much further along this path to experience them. Most notably, my hormones still feel a little whacky (which, I know, could be due to any number of factors) and I really struggle to stay in a weight range that feels healthy for me.

When I get frustrated by what’s not happening, or by not being full on free of animal products, I have to remind myself that this is a process. I’m not a saint, I screw up a lot, and will probably never meet my incredibly high standards for a healthy life. But at least I’m a trying. Yoga sometimes is better than yoga never, and a seafood risotto is better than bacon-wrapped-pork.

How do you stay motivated as you try to make healthy changes? What goals or standards have you set up for yourself?

So often, I just want to get through my practice, and don’t give it the full respect it deserves. Part of this stems, I think, from my living situation. The beau and I share a studio+, so while we have a general divider between the sleeping/kitchen (you read that combo correct) area and the living room area, there’s no door. Michael has been awesomely supportive of my undertaking, reading in bed or some such when I need to do my practice, but I can’t help but feel like I’m putting him out a bit. Also, we have a stinkin’ lot of fun together, so I’m often distracted by either some fun thing we could be doing instead, or the work I have to get through so we can have fun.

Brushing up on the technical elements of yoga, and reminding myself of better ways to transition between poses and how to use my breath as a tool, was at once inspiring and frustrating. It made me aware of so many things I could do to improve my practice, but I have trouble keeping them all in mind at once. (This is when I have to pause and tell myself that even though I’ve been practicing off and on for ten years, I haven’t had a truly consistent daily practice since…ever. And all things take time.) I will continue to try to improve, and slowly things will get easier. My body will learn and remember what to do.

I have to admit, though, I miss having an awesome studio to go to like back in Philly. There are places here that have English language classes, but they’re expensive and at inconvenient times. Perhaps I will just treat myself to classes to my heart’s content when I’m home to meet my nephew in March. In the meantime, do you have a favorite DVD that you’d recommend? I’m bored with mine.

We popped on Expedia, found some reasonably priced flights with just one connection, entered our boss’s credit card information, and hit book. A few seconds later I got a confirmation notice that I’m leaving JFK on Wednesday morning, connecting at LAX, and then flying into Incheon (Seoul airport) to arrive Thursday evening local time. MB got a notice saying that flight was no longer available.

Darnit! My first thought was: Does this mean I’m getting to Seoul first? Not ok!

Once again, though, MB to the rescue. He wound up getting a flight out Tuesday morning, arriving Wednesday evening, and will come meet me at Incheon when I arrive.

Huge bummer that we won’t be flying together, but at least we’ll finally be there so we can get settled and start the really fun process of working thirteen hours days. The party never stops around here.

Call MB (obviously the first line of defense when I start to panic about anything).  No answer.

Call travel agent. No answer.  And the voice mail was in Korean.

Call United.  The travel agent made a reservation, but no one ever bought a ticket. But there are seats on the plane for the 6am flight tomorrow! Holding out hope.

Call Singapore Airlines.  Again — agent made a reservation, but no one ever bought a ticket. MB doesn’t have a ticket on the flight either.  Next flight from SFO to Seoul with any space on it? June 8th. Fuuuuuuuudge.

So I did the only thing I could.  Poured a big glass of wine, shed one or two little tears, and proceeded to visit with one of my oldest and dearest.  Now I’m really curious to see when on earth we’ll finally get there and get settled.  I’ll keep you posted.