the lightness of being

It was one of those days yesterday.

Well I say that, but in fact it wasn't one of those days. It could have been.

Usually when I leave the house in the morning to walk the dog, I do the checklist: Wallet, dog bags, ball, treats, keys.

But for some reason I only got to treats... So I was there in my dog bag looking for the keys, no keys.. Maybe I left the backdoor open - no, I remember locking that. Maybe there's a window. No.

For some reason, instead of going into a fizzing panic (as I'd usually do) I felt like an ocean-swimming breaststroker. Long and steady strokes, gliding smoothly through the waves. I calmly picked up the phone to call hubby, but he didn't answer. So instead of leaving a flustered 'call me NOW!' message, I laughed on the phone, said 'oops' or something to that effect and continued walking the dog.

I mean what else could I do.

Though usually when people, faced with challenges, shrug, laugh and tell me 'well, there's nothing I could do' I'm usually skeptical. I tend to think 'who really believes that? Who really feels calm, positively resigned when forced to have their day sent into chaos'

I wonder if it's a control thing. Because I tend to get my knickers into reef knot over this kind of thing usually. So I called hubby and he (sensibly) suggested I call the real estate agent, which I did. And bless them (usually I'm spiking up like an angry hedgehog even thinking about speaking to the estate agent... samskaras, eh) but they were so nice. They laughed, they said 'ah, that must have been a good start to the day for you. Come along and pick them up.' And there we were, chuckling together over my misfortune.

I mean, it took a few hours to sort it (lashing rain, ordering a $17 cab etc) but I just kept on swimming my calm breaststroke

You see, when you try and see the lightness in life, it all falls into place.

Resisting something

It's been a really shitty few days to say the least and so what did I do to make myself feel better? In true SATC style, I went shopping. Oh yes chick lit lovers, I checked myself in for some retail therapy. It's actually been the first time since my new life started that I've done a proper good old, completely unnecessarily frivolous expenditure and it's quite exhilarating actually. I'm waiting for the guilt, the cavernous emptiness, the creeping dissatisfaction and the mental retribution to hit me. But all this self flagellation isn't healthy. So what if I just spent $385 on a dress for a wedding; after spending $900 on removalists, $520 on cleaning the house, $150 on getting a small portion of the carpet relayed (including chopping a sizeable chunk out of the cupboard in the spare bedroom - it was like an episode of ER man seriously, life saving decisions had to be taken) and countless other house expenses, maybe I deserved a little black number to make me feel sexy. My shoulders are hunched up to my ears, I can't relax or sleep in this new place yet and I've STILL got no goddam fridge or washing machine and I'm freezing cold and I'm worried that when/if we get a dog that I won't be able to look after it, discipline it and be kind towards it,  and how are we going to fence in the garden and.... blah blah blah the list goes on. Basically I'm a bag of worried little bones rattling around and I'm being honest with you here because I can be. I could tell you, I'm just loving my new house, best decision we've ever made. Oh it's so nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of Manly but so far it sucks.

Yoga helped this morning. Thank you yoga. Rather than teaching my private class I practiced up at Yoga Moves again. We got there a little late so were sardined into a corner at the edge of the studio but actually that was fine (somehow I managed to overcome the pattern of behaviour that I need to have a good spot in the room) and I got into the flow quite nicely in spite of my numerous injuries (so different from Friday's experience). So after savasana it was like I'd wiped my dark and smudgy windows clean, and all was shiny and new again. Ahhh, and breathe.

But then, back to reality again and I hurled myself into the city to teach a corporate class at 8am and then off to Circular Quay to catch the ferry back to Manly so I could go back to the old house to pick up any tell-tale residual bits of carpet before the real estate agent came round (he'd called on the ferry to let me know the new tenants were going in to measure the rooms). Naturally I got there whilst they were there so who knows what they saw of the carpet shards. Should I have told the truth? Who knows, I object to the real estate agent (most likely, although this is surely a samskara of sorts) wanting to take our full deposit to replace an entire already worn carpet, so I needed to take some action but it feels like things are escalating out of control.

In the North Sydney Yoga Studio's August newsletter Angelika wrote an interesting article on the concept of resistance which resonated with me. She explains how we put up barriers in the path of our development:

"When life appears to be running smoothly, and everything is in it’s place, one can easily feel threatened when suggestions are made to do something differently. Sometimes change or even just the suggestion of change can bring up resistance in us. What if this change will make our situation worse? Even minor changes may cause us to lose our hard earned equilibrium!"


I can't help but feel there's some resistance going on with me at the moment. Like everything in yoga, you can draw from your experiences on a gross (physical) level to appreciate what's happening on a more subtle level - my injuries are starting to read like an ever increasing menu at Hypochondria Cafe. But they're real. Or at least they feel real but maybe they're the 'rocks' I'm putting in the path of letting go of some control. Here she writes:


"As soon as someone’s Yoga practice comes along well, and I can sense that the student is just about to rise to the next level of their practice, for some inexplicable reason (some sort of resistance maybe?) they can’t make it to class, or they get sick or injure themselves. All sorts of obstacles mysteriously appear that prevent them from evolving and taking that next step forward, thus paradoxically preventing their own progress. The mind is fearful of losing its power, so throws a few rocks in the way!"


 I'm not sure. All i know is that something is happening here and I don't fully understand it. I'm out of balance and there doesn't appear to be a nice little gift wrapped box of pop yoga philosophy to help me out here. Maybe I just need to keep on going. Regular and consistent practice. 


Oh who knows.


This post feels kind of floaty and amorphous, in fact it's a mess, but that's kind of how I'm feeling. Sorry all you avid readers, that's just how I'm feeling.