oh yeah, the ‘when’ is important too.

So today kind of got away from me – meaning I had to really push it to get in both of my meditations and my morning pages in. My mom was in town, came in to give me cuddles as a hacked a lung or two up with this cold I’ve had for the past week, and so I wasn’t so diligent about the ‘routine’ or rituals that I’ve newly embedded in my life. So tonight as I did my pages and did my meditation (and sadly ran out of time for reading, and I’m late for bed), I got that balance is easy if you do it properly and overwhelming if you don’t.

It’s sort of like waiting all day to have all of your meals. Eating three times a day at breakfast, lunch and dinner is easy but if you wait till 9pm to eat everything , it’s a little much and really not as enjoyable. Which is what I got out of today, that not only is it important that I do certain things, but also when I do them is equally important – which is a good thing to learn and live because I tend to disregard this fact and then the day slips away and things don’t get taken care of.

Anyway, I did make homemade granola today and clarified butter (which I used to make the granola). How fun! Here are the pics. First you heat up the butter, skim off the foam then cool! Oh yeah, I also switched around all the furniture in my bedroom and re-vamped my sultan’s den/meditation cove – and it’s actually getting used for meditation now, instead of just having sex in it! Woot Woot!

ahhhhhhh! I’m back!

I don’t know what happened. I broke I guess. Broke open and just started bawling as I was loading the dishwasher just now. But they were tears of utter joy. Joy that I found myself again.

I got it. I get it.  I can’t explain it other then a massive shift in feeling, perspective and weight. Everything is lighter, exciting and I actually felt what happiness truly feels like again. I can’t get over it. I want to ride a bike, bake cinomen buns, go for a walk, talk to a friend, have a living room dance party. I’m happy. Actually really truly happy right now and it’s so different then anything I’ve felt in such a long time. It’s not cloaked in dread or fear that it’s going to slip away again, or that it wasn’t really there in the first place. It’s here now and really, that’s all I care about.

Holy fuck. I’m utterly ecstatic to be alive again.

some pics

here are a few pics from the last two weeks. A few from NYC, some of Claire doing what she loves to do whenever I open the fridge and then a few from the retreat. The sunrise meditation set up is the best.

Today I’m re-doing some rooms in my house. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the last week cooped up in your place, you start to re-arrange it. Last night I fixed up the sultans’ den and today I’m rearranging my bedroom. we’ll see how she goes…

false alarm

no cold sore.

praise be.

online gc’s & I think I’m getting a cold sore…

I’m feeling better, at least in spirits if not in my throat. I even did a finger wag dance as I loaded the dishwasher. Finger wag dances are both my most hated form of dance and also my most favorite. I think I hate it so much that it’s jumped the gap over to love and I just have to pull it out sometimes when I’m alone and just let loose with a shit eating grin and a good double pointer finger wag dance. Nothing quite compares, unless of course you throw in a few one footed sideways hopes. yes, imagine it now.

So for the past few days – actaully months I’ve been trying to get online gift certificates going. I had huge issues, as everything was an issue back in November, I swear to god everything was 9 times harder then it had to be – Murphy’s Law in overdrive last fall – at any rate, the online merchant that was supposed to handle the transactions couldn’t and so I asked our software developer at Book4Time if they could process credit cards via Pay Pal – and they did it! Booya (love you Book4Time, big shout outs!) So during my retreat I had some set up back and fourth with them and just the other day we got it all settled and tonight I sent out an email to all our guests! I’m sooooo jazzed!!! I love technology and better yet I love the idea that – oh fuck me – I am getting a cold sore. Yes, yes I can feel it – that unmistakable sting. god damn it, please Lord, not another one, I just had one, why the punishments, why!!! – Anyway, as I was saying, I love that it’s so easy now for everyone – guest can buy online without really putting in any effort – I’m a huge online purchaser and so I would defiantly be jazzed about this and it’s great for us, or rather for our front line girls because we used to take gift certificates over the phone, then mail them out, which was a pain in the ass, as is mailing anything these days – like does mail even exist anymore besides from unpaid parking tickets. The City of Toronto is the only one that ever sends me postmail these days. Thank you Toronto, you make me feel loved.

Anyway, I am super pissed about this new budding cold sore, but here is the link to the online GC page – you can pick from a bunch of cards and send it to a loved one! Plus we have a Big Boy Special going on to – here is the new newsletter I just made.

THE 10 SPOT – ONLINE GIFT CERTIFICATES

sicky

Sweet Jesus. I don’t remember the last time I felt this shitty. I think it was 1993 and my family and I were in Miami and I got some sort of strep throat/cold/flu combo that had me bagging for one of my brothers to take my life. I didn’t even go to the alligator shaped outlet mall – I just slept in the car – I was that bad.

The way I feel now is a close second to that. Let’s just say that a combo of first day period cramps with a major throat infection and a body that aches as if I’ve been beaten to within an inch of my life is not my most fav way of feeling. I”ve been utterly useless the past few days. Yesterday and today I’ve had to be in bed most of the day. I ran out in the afternoon and bought a humidifier so that I might be able to sallow tonight without feeling like I was eating razor blades.

I hate being sick. Especially with no one to love you and be with you to watch movies or play Uno or bring you tea or snuggles. But being sick really does make you appreciate when you are healthy and so I’m excited for when I can talk again and have enough energy to make it up the stairs without needing a pit stop midway.

here’s to health.

And yes, I have meditated 2 times a day since I’ve been back and done my morning pages each day too! One week down baby! booya!

home time.

welp, I’m now excited to go home. I had an amazing week and I’m excited to come home and put into practice all that I’ve learned.

And what have I learned. Well, that I have to take really great care of myself. It’s not so much what I learned but rather what I experienced and what I was inspired by. Maybe it’s all the mediation, but I’m really getting that to be divinely sweet to myself – or at least just to cover my basic human needs – is essential for well being. I think I’ve mentioned before that if myself was a small child that I that I would have been taken away by Child and Family Services for neglect. I’ve been saying it all week, that I’ve got to meditate, that I’ve got to eat 3 times a day and at regular hours (ie: not 3 pm and 10pm) and I’ve also got to get into some fitness routine – but it was just tonight that I actually felt that I wanted to do all these things – and then some! Like, I bought the book Perfect Health and I’m excited to read about what’s best for me based on the type of person I am. I also bought a Neti pot, which is rather disgusting, but people swear by these. I also really got excited just about flossing. I rarely do it and that’s not good enough. If I’m not going to be amazing to me then who is. My teeth and gums deserve floss and I’m sorry I’ve let you down in the past mouth! I’ll make it up to you by cutting back on the sugar!

So that’s where I’m at this moment. Tomorrow and the days after are the true test. The days when I don’t have the support or kinship of 60 other people all trying to do the same thing. But I’ll do it. I’ll just make taking care of my health and wellbeing my new obsession!

ruff and stuff.

meow.

i’m kind of sad and whistful tonight.

It was our last day with the Deepster (he totally gave me a mini shout out today when I asked him another question about just trusting the universe that was beyond what we were talking about and he agreed with me and then sort of shook his finger at me and gave a smile of approval and said, “you are a subtle one”. yep, made my ego’s day! actually, in all honestly it made me feel good, like I was on the right track again…) But now I’m feeling a bit tepid. Like this great week of meditation, yoga, Ayurveda food and connecting with strangers is almost ending. tomorrow is the last half day , then I’m back home on monday. which I’m happy about I love my home, but I guess because I left there is such a torrid state, now I’m a bit nervous I’ll be going back to it. It’s easy to get up at 6:30am here, when everyone else is and you feel like your missing out if you miss a meditation, but back home, where sleeping in is more then an option, it’s a way of life and getting wrapped up in work and other distractions is so easy – I’m a bit nervous about keeping this up.

As I said, it is my mission and I’m really wanting to get back on my path, or back on track, and I know I will. But I really want to do a few things each and everyday and they are:

- wake up at 6:30am
- recapitulate (witness) my dreams
- meditate for 30mins
- do my other syncrodestiny exercises (arcytypes, sutra’s, intentions, etc.)
- morning pages
- at least 20 mins of physical fitness (or 3 to 4 classes per week)
- eat 3 meals a day
- do another 30 minute afternooner meditation
- recapitulate my day
- go to sleep early (like by 10)

then I have other items of course, but those are the new standards. at any rate. I’m really taking balance seriously. Seeing it as vital. I nver mess around with my hours of sleep, I know I get hyper emotional if I don”t get enough and I think this is just the same, I’ve just not realized it yet. So. Here we go I guess.

meeeeeeoooooooowwwwww.

syncro-city!

Can I just say that I am alive with New Port Pleasure right now! Tonight something ever so synchronictic happened tonight – actually I’ve been having synchronicities all day long and I’m just so happy and grateful to be aware of them again. It’s been such a while since I’ve felt the magic of the universe (yes, I’m aware of how lame that sounds, but I just can’t help it! I am lame and eccentric and full of piss and vinegar – not sure what that exactly means but I like the sounds of it!)

Anyway, today after sunrise meditation (at 6:30am!) I asked the universe in my morning pages to bring me a friend, someone I could connect with as I was feeling that I was missing that this trip. Sure enough, by afternoon break (after another round of meditation, yoga and general sessions with the Deepster MD) I found her! A lovely woman that we just started talking in the middle of the courtyard! We just clicked and she had mentioned that she felt she hadn’t connected with anyone yet, and then that caused me to slap her arm and excitedly tell her that I too felt that and that I had asked for a new friend to show up today! and she did!

Then tonight at another workshop thing I sat at a table with about 8 other people and at the end of the night one of the women asked me if I knew of The Ten Spot! Yeppers, miles and miles away from home, this woman, whom I happened to be seated with, out of 15 other tables, knew me and was from Toronto originally, used to go to the ten spot, AND recognized me! Now she lives here and is one of the program directors (or is the program director) at the Chopra Center and happened to join in for this one session! Riddle me that batman for coincidence! THEN, I grabbed my mantra teacher who was walking by and said “oh my god, she knows me!” and then she asked how and I told her the name of my company and she says “oh yeah, I’ve heared of the ten spot too!” I was like, WTF! That’s nutty and delicious! So fun really to think about! I love the idea that I had a thought one day about started a nail bar and then three years later I’m chatting with people in an entirely different country and they heard of something I made up. Anyway, talking with her was just so much fun and I’m sure that there is something exciting coming from these syncronicities! booya!

day 2

Day two – or rather officially day one with Master D started today extra early – at 6:15am – which I loved!!! I got out of bed totally effortlessly which is a miracle of the universe in itself.

Did a morning meditation followed by a granola breakfast – and no I don’t mean in the slang term for kensignton market people, I mean actual granola and yogurt. it was delightful. I think I might do yogurt and granola from here on out. I tried it once but my palette wasn’t quite ready for it. now i think it might be.

Then we did an am session with David Simon and the Chopster MD. Which was all about quantum physics and just a touch over my head. but then we had lunch outside and it was just utterly gorgeous out. I really must get some pics. Followed up by some chair yoga, another session on meditation, more DC and another group meditation (does that sounds dirty to another else – I think when you put the word ‘group’ in front on anything it takes you to one place first. then dinner.

Dinner I had some issues. Actually it was during meditation. It wasn’t a ‘good one’ so to speak which I know I’m not supposed to judge them. It was what it was, I guess. But none the less I felt a little overwhelmed, a little desperate, a little needy and the feeling like I was going mental or that I could be on the cusp of going mental is always a latent fear that creeps up for me. This is a hang up of mine and one that gets blown up at times – not good times I might ad. A touch of genetics plus the first hand knowledge of what panic attacks feel like leads me often to the thought that I could be one step away from crossing over – and I don’t mean into a dream land where john edwards is in a leopard print thong -  no I mean like brain fried, no turning back. Which is obviously not a fun thought to have racing through my mind during times of anxiety. I’m just scared and this fear always attacks me when I’m at places all on my own – see previous freakout posts from Thailand and Paris – but I must say that despite my ting of anxiety and my above mentioned inklings of despair and suffering, I did not have a panic attack this trip ( ok, i had a baby one the night before I left, but that hardly counts…). So hurray for me!

So, after a good 90 second cry in my room I went down to dinner. What I felt was alone and what I wanted to feel was connected. So I struck up as many convo’s as I could and that helped me take my mind off of things for a bit. Then of course, when you’re dancing in a drum circle (what spiritual retreat is complete without a drum circle – really…) I felt better. And as David Ji – my meditation instructor says, the benefits of meditation are felt in the other 23 hours of the day. So here here to that. I’m in a low spot and it’s not going to be overnight that I’m feeling on a peak again, but it will happen – I’ve been both here and there before – only thing is I’m now ok with trying to find a place more in the middle and try to balance there.