If worries were nickels....

Yeah, so Handsome has gone to Dubai. I'm not only jealous but its been over a day and I haven't heard a word from him. Okay, any girl who lives with a man knows... We worry. All I want is just to know he's okay. Ugh.

So, I need yoga.

I'm gonna be ALL OVER those back bends today to flush out the worries in my head. I could realllllllly use that. When he and I first got together I was full of worry and yoga was the only thing that kept my head clear so my heart could feel (because my mind lies to me all the time, convinces me of things that aren't).

Everyone Has Their Own Struggles

A yogini, whose blog that I absolutely love, posted this quote: "Be kinder than necessary, because everyone is fighting his own inner battle."

This really made me think. I have been dealing with issues for many months and many years of abandonment.

Problem with abandonment as opposed to other types of grief is that it eats away at your self-esteem. The closure becomes incomplete because the person did not simply die, he or she has simply... decided not to be with you anymore. And your rage tends to be directed towards self.

This plays out in a multitude of fashions. People who deal with this tend to have a rough time making friends. Which I do. They play into their own solitude. Which I do, I tend to tell myself that "I like my alone time." They cling to the relationships they do have. Which I do. They tend to self medicate with shopping, food, and alcohol. Mine is shopping and working out.

I was married to an abandoner. Strangely, he found a girl who had abandonment issues. My ex had left his previous wife. And their son. To move to Spokane. He had bounced back and forth between Spokane and Bend, Oregon numerous times. He had also left his ex that he had a daughter with. And then he left his wife. He was a serial abandoner.

If there was a profile of an abandoner, he would have fit the mold to a T. Seriously, I truly feel now that he got a sense of power from his abandonment. Even to exert his "anger" over my agonized desire for my husband.

And now? I feel awakened. Inside and out. And I feel like I am looking at myself on the other side of the glass through a window and for the very first time in my life, embracing myself. With real love. Not fake and not loving myself with only a half love. Not loving my potential. I am really seeing these problems and having compassion for myself. I can't tell you how many times I have said "And I hate that about myself sometimes." That can't be healthy! And it can't be good for my self-esteem. Because, it isn't.

I feel thankful and lucky that I discovered Bikram and it discovered me. Literally. I feel thankful to have friendships, regardless of age, sex, skin color, creed, origin, or political affiliation that there are people out there that love me and love the world and we do have things in common. I do have friends that understand that in that hot room, we discover things about ourselves. And Bikram did discover me. Within that hot room, the real Lacey has been found.

Life Changes

I'm really excited about the current changes in my life!

So Happy Togetherrrr!!!

My handsome man moved in with me this last weekend, his house is almost sold, and soon we will be moving into a house!

I have started a new Blog that will be more based on my personal life outside of yoga and lifting that will be all about our home and changes to it!

Feel free to follow along! :)

Onto The New (Studio)

Our studio has outgrown itself. And rightfully so. Our studio happens to be the only hot yoga and/or Bikram Yoga studio in Spokane, WA. Seriously. You'd think being a larger small city we'd have at least a couple hot yoga studios. But we don't.

At any rate, my studio's owner, Beth, started this thing in the basement of her home as she didn't have any other room or clientele. She had room for 12 students and 14 if we all squished in real tight like sardines.

And last night, myself, Mona and Ara took a bow to say goodbye to the hot room we all had experienced so much in.

Ara took care of an emotional time and a heavy burden of caring for a severe special needs child and a 15 year old with extreme ADHD. I dealt with the divorce and finding out who I am again. Many tearful hours spent in the back row. Mona handled body kinks and misalignments as well as it helped her kick her smoking habit. There is no limit to what this yoga can do for you.

So. Mona and I found it only fitting that we break in the new studio properly by both pulling doubles. We both are going to be doing teacher training at the same time and have been dubbed the Doublelicious Twins (Double your flavor, double your fun!). Kicking it off there with high energy and momentum!

It was a tad hard to find but:

It may not say *Bikram* but it is the only kind of hot yoga we do


And the torture chamber is amazing!

One of our teachers painted this beautiful mural. I wish it was on the ceiling so I'd have time to gaze at it in Savasana.
And one of my favorite things:


Its such a girly thing to love a bathroom but seriously! She even put out bowls of Q-Tips and hair bands!

It is such a lovely studio. I feel so proud of Beth and Eric and had to congratulate them both so many times.

Follow Directions

As far as I am concerned, the most important skill a yogi can learn is to:

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS

No joke. And let me tell you why. And I will use myself as the silly example.

There is a point to staying with the teacher, things are in a specific order and specific timing. I don't know why but I get royally annoyed when yogis bring the hand up to the center of their chest too early during Tree Pose. I just say in my head "Yes, everyone can see that you know how the posture goes."

And I will admit that I have done that. You get excited that you know what's next and that you are starting to "get it."

This is a rabbit trail but let me finish it out... ;) And I am working hard on focusing on my own practice, but there are some habits you lose when you don't practice for even a small amount of time. Like staring at yourself in the mirror. I consider yoga my "me time" and somehow I look at everyone but myself. I hear teachers say all the time that Savasana is often the hardest thing to do in yoga because we feel the need to constantly be busy.

I disagree. I think the hardest thing to do for a yogi or yogini is to concentrate on yourself. It is your time to fix yourself and deal with all the issues in your life and body. It feels so uncomfortable to look at just yourself, to see yourself for what you really are. Most people feel such negative emotions when looking at themselves. And the challenge is to look in the mirror, see yourself in an honest light, and love yourself. A very difficult feat.

Back to my story. So, here I am. I've been practicing for over a year now and we were prepping for Awkward.  Arms up, arms parallel to the floor, fingers together, triceps tight... and.... Boom. I sit into the chair too early. And not only that, I brought 3 other people down with me.

Now, I felt silly. I stood back up and waited to sit until my hips touch the chair with the rest of the class.

I realized my mistake and corrected it. But there are the people who don't. And they are usually the ones who have been practicing for just a couple of months. They are starting to lock their knee more and learning to breathe only through the nose, and feel stoked that they can anticipate what comes next in the class.

Now that I think about it, my main topic and rabbit trail do tie in together!

As I am learning to pay attention only to my own practice, I am not as affected by the girl who starts kicking out too early in bow pose. Or the other girl who goes into Balancing Stick too early, and her earliness ALWAYS causes her to fall, which sometimes causes me to fall if I am not focusing on my own practice.

It is a realization that staying with the teacher causes the group momentum and energy to stay high. And it is not realized because they have never truly felt what the momentum feels like. To feel so many bodies moving at the same moment. Such power and it's tangible.

We are perfect

This is what I want to find.

Right now, Handsome and I are extremely busy. We got an offer on the house, it was accepted and now the whole home inspection thing is going to happen. And when Handsome gets busy, I never hear from him. Which is hard as I am a spending time person.

Since I can remember, I have dealt with a number of insecurities. Some got better with time, but pretty much any kind of self-esteem I had was torn down with the divorce. And anyone who really knows me, knows I am extremely emotional. And sometimes I hate that about myself, which I know I shouldn't hate anything about myself. But I cry all the damn time. Growing up, my dad would tell me all the time that I was too emotional (which would usually make me more emotional. But seriously, why would you tell your hormonal daughter who is sensitive that she is TOO sensitive?! It is likely to make her more so.) But I can't help it! It is the way I am. I don't know how to control it other than trying to be happy and stay happy and do yoga, which seems to regulate those feelings.

When the divorce happened, I spent many many days crying it out on the mat. Yoga really helped me sort through how I was feeling and how I felt about myself. And I got much happier and much more confident. I lost weight etc and started perfecting myself on the outside as I was working on the inside. I love being active and I love exercise. But have realized, just today, that I took it to an extreme.
It seems that one MORE thing that I love about yoga is how it is telling you that where you are today is perfect. A new teacher that I LOVE, Katie, is always saying that what you can do today is perfect.

And where I have been has been perfect and there is nothing to do but let go of control and just smile. Although I tend to go through periods where I freak out and really try to control things by controlling my body. When I feel that I can't control anything, my body is the one thing I feel in control of, which I can see is almost a disorder. But yoga makes me feel perfect the way I am, that I don't have to strive to be better. That if I want fries, there is nothing wrong with that. And what I can do in yoga, is perfect for what I need mentally and emotionally.

However today, I think I made actual progress emotionally and with my practice.
In Yoga, I noticed more and more that my legs are really stretching out. Seriously. In all of the postures where the goal is truly to LOCK THE KNEE I do it. In all postures, the standing leg is able to stay seriously "locked, solid, concrete, lamp post, unbroken, I have no knee" (btw, that was totally from memory... I haven't even gotten to studying dialogue... It was probably wrong though! ;) haha). However, when you go through the postures I have found my goals are increasingly not worrying about those parts so much which is an absolute relief!
-Hands to Feet: Legs are truly almost locked and is becoming a back stretch down... My head is literally only a couple inches from the tops of my feet!
-Standing Head to Knee: Legs are both kicking out and elbows are almost below the calf (damn muscular calves lol)
-Standing Separate Leg Stretching: This has become more of a back stretch now, head is almost between the feet on the floor!
-Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee: I can now focus more on the compression of the throat as opposed to locking both legs.
-Sit Ups: Both knees are locked and it is EASIER to really perform the sit up correctly to focus on the abs.
-Head to Knee with Stretching: Legs are seriously locked and the chest is truly reaching the shins... My toes are only about 2 inches from my forehead.

Seeing all the progress and realizing that where I am at today is perfect. When I can surrender myself to the yoga and let go of all my negative emotions, look at myself in the mirror, and like what I see- That is perfect.

Yoga Brain

Yoga Brain. [yoh-guh  breyn]
-adjective. A term used to describe the state the brain after yoga which is usually indicated by a number of astounding symptoms like, but not limited to: lacking in the ordinary ability to function properly in simple tasks like walking or using a yo-yo, the desire to drown ones stomach in coconut water, and the incapacity to articulate simple words or really remember anything at all.
-noun. A term used when one has Yoga Brain and explaining ones intellectual incapacitation. (i.e. "Forgive me, I can't really remember what my last name is right now... I have Yoga Brain.")


Btw, I still have Yoga Brain from last night. And feel a little like this:

A child dancing on the beach. No wonder I can't think! :)

Last night was my first practice in about a month. And it was lovely. Sometimes we all need a break from the thing we love in order to regain our perspective as well as our deep love for the thing. My issue is that I love too many things... Like weight lifting, which I had been out of practice of that for months.

It is amazing how my weight lifting has really affected my practice in a positive way. I didn't expect that. I honestly expected to come back and have my muscles be tight, my back stiff and struggle a ton. But I felt very strong during my practice. The first back bend during Half Moon I was able to go to my deepest point immediately and my sit ups were 10 times stronger. Apparently, taking a month off and lift weights has a different affect than just taking a month off period. And, surprisingly enough, I felt like I could handle any amount of difficulty associated with my practice. Like I really could give 110%.
So, in regards to Yoga Brain, I thought of a beautiful moment during my practice last night that I really wanted to blog about... but it's gone now. :)

Side information you probably didn't want to know:
I geeked out last night when I had a self-realization moment. I was eating dinner in the kitchen as I was cooking my lunch for today and checking out my muscles in the window (I was kind of practicing some postures as well as practicing some figure competition moves) and wondered if anyone ever caught me...? Also wondering what they would see... Would they see a blonde in her underwear snacking on chocolate pudding sticking out her ass? Or would they see an athletic chick in no makeup in her underwear snacking on protein pudding and practicing a yoga posture? Funny stuff. Especially with Yoga Brain.