Body Image

Let’s talk :: B O D Y I M A G E ::

This photo was taken at a magnificent waterfall in Costa Rica, which was my ideal image of Costa Rica, and what drew me there in the first place. But something was off. I felt kinda bleh all day. Something wasn’t living up to my expectations. I felt separate even though I was in a group. But I hadn’t been able to put words to it yet, just a bleghh feeling. A guttural sound. I didn’t realize what I was feeling or why was until dinner time: I had been self conscious about my body all day!! I was in PARADISE and my mind was still in a loop of comparing and judging.

I was surrounded by beautiful women and I was comparing my body to theirs.

I brought this up during our dinner when I realized it. Our retreat leader, Camille, asked the group who has ever felt self conscious about their body. And it looked like that scene from Mean Girls when they were asked to “raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by Regina George.” Every. single. hand went up. One of them shared with me, “it’s all internal. Even though I know I look good, I usually don’t feel it.”

This is all coming up for me today and being tied together with the body shame that’s rampant in the Chinese culture (and many other cultures too). From my earliest memories to around 13 years old, I was told, what seemed like on a daily basis, that I was too skinny. Then one day, it was like a switch flipped and I was told I was fat. I was also criticized for things about my body that were outside of my control such as the color of my skin, the size of my eyes, the length of my eyelashes, and the size of the hands and feet.

It’s taken me years to feel good about myself and my body on most days, but all it takes is one comment to send me back into that negative spiral.

So here’s to you, my fellow human, who has probably also experienced body shame:

You are beautiful. You are loved. You are perfectly imperfect. You are enough.

Say it again and again, make it a mantra, until you believe it.

I am beautiful. I am loved. I am perfectly imperfect. I am enough. ✨

What Makes You Come Alive?

How does inspiration feel? 

It fills me with life and energy. I feel propelled forward, ready to make magic. It lights me up, sparks a fire within me.

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
-Howard Thurman

What makes me come alive?

Songs whose sounds surround me and lift me up.

Being able to get into a challenging yoga pose that I’ve been working on- the sense of accomplishment.

Getting into a familiar yoga pose like Warrior 2, and letting the feeling of openness and power course through my body, heart, and mind.

Talking to people that are doing awe-inspiring things in this world.

People who are so passionate and in love with what they do that I can feel the fullness of their hearts. I can see the sparkle in their eyes. It inspires me to do something that incites the same energy.

The warm sun, breath of the tide, and glittering water.

The rustle of a breeze passing through trees.

Silhouettes, patterned and overlapping shadows created by golden light filtering through leaves.

Mountains rising up so high, a landscape that reminds me of the power and history of Mother Earth. 

It’s easy to feel alive and inspired in the summer when the city is electric, but summer’s gone again and I’m feeling the city retreat into itself. The cold forces us inside. The persistent gray clouds press down, heavy with the winds of winter. So I guess this post is really a note to self, a reminder of where to find inspiration, of what lights me up, what makes me come alive. 

This picture was taken on one of the best days. I felt alive, free, and utterly amazed to be surrounded by such beauty.

What makes you come alive? Who or what inspires you?

The Only Constant is Change

Confession: I have not been practicing yoga asana every day.

Not even close.

There’s been no routine in my life for a good 8 months now. Or chaos my new normal? I have been trying to hold on to the 5am wake up time I developed over the years and I’ve failed miserably. I’ve gone through spurts of practice. Meditating twice a day and sleeping twice as much as I usually did for a few months while healing from the most heart wrenching grief I’ve ever experienced. There was a month when I practiced Ashtanga for several hours a day at the studio when I learned my teachers were moving to Boulder. 

Reflecting on the past year, I realized in the past 6 months, I have been out of state 11 times. Three trips to NY for a wedding, a bridal shower, and a family reunion, a wedding in Italy, a bachelorette party in the Bahamas, taught yoga at workshop in Seattle, a funeral in Florida, and 4 trips to Michigan for a yoga retreat, a camping trip, a wedding, and once just for the hell of it. 
I know how fortunate I am to have these opportunities but thinking about all of that is exhausting!

Every time I travel, I get thrown off my routine and it takes me an entire week to readjust. Then a week or two later I go somewhere else and get thrown off again. I keep waiting for life to calm down but it seems that’s like waiting to be happy when ______ (fill in the blank). It doesn’t work that way. So I need to find it within myself. I need to be okay with the idea that sometimes what I need more than anything is rest. Ironically, resting is a challenge for me. I’ve had to learn how to do it. There have been times when I rest only because I’ve run myself so ragged that I am physically ill. 

I have no more travel planned until February so maybe I’ll be able to get back to my 5am wake up time and practice every day. But in the mean time, if my routine gets shaken up, which it inevitably will because that’s life, I’ll recognize that it’s a new phase of life and I’ll be able to more easily go with the flow and learn how to live with the new normal. The only constant is change.