Be YOU

Somehow in being a mother,wife,girlscout leader,friend,sister,daughter,cook,housekeeper,chauffeur..I lost myself. Everything else that I WAS took over who I REALLY WAS.... I sacrificed ME, in order to please everyone else and got caught up in being overly busy yet never really focusing 100% on any one thing. I also stopped doing the things that made me happy, the things that brought me joy. How did taking care of others trump taking care of myself?

I am not alone. Women tend to get caught up in "doing"... The act of "mothering" takes over our daily lives. We mother one another, we mother our kids sports teams and after school groups, we take on other people's problems as our own ( bad , BAD idea... As this is draining and just continuous negative energy), we mother our significant others. Nurturing is in our genes, it manifest itself in many different ways but as women we are the ONES that take care of things .. It's just how we are programmed. It is fine to mother others but we must remember to take care of ourselves . Taking care of YOU is so important and needed, after all if you don't take care of you, who will?

Some call it selfish, I call it self FULL. Being full of love for yourself, and taking the time to carve out some time daily to feed and nourish your mind, body and soul. What is it that you love to do? How would you spend 30 min to take care of your body? Or that same 30 min to nurture your soul? Think about it and BE about it.

Self love is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves , after all we must love our selves completely before we can completely love another.

namaste

Yoga Heals

Little by little, Yoga has become more prominent in my life. What started out 10 years ago as me going to a pre-natal yoga class slowly became me attending classes weekly, teaching my kids and girl scouts yoga and finally me taking teacher training and sharing my joy of yoga with others.  Each of these steps over the years has re-connected me with myself..guiding me on my journey of self discovery and transition. 

It's funny, I never expected yoga to completely change my life, to turn my world upside down and to open my eyes to all around me. For the first time in years I can see things clearly, no longer looking at things from the outside in, feeling like a stranger in my own life. No longer feeling that I had to go with the flow...or just blend in. Instead making choices of which way to turn and which path to take. 

Let's face it, most of my life, I was the one that stuck out in the family. The earthy one, the hippie, the one who wouldn't eat meat,(nor touch it)the one that wanted to have babies and nurse them, the one that loved laying in the grass and enjoyed taking care of animals.This was in a family that said "eat what you are given and do as you are told", and "nursing is for animals" and gave no value to my difference of opinion,  so I became the shy, introverted child.  I grew up in a matriarchal family...my grandmother was the head of the family..with my mom and aunt right behind her..strong willed and stubborn. Hard working women, single mothers....no time to enjoy life nor all that it had to offer. Simply going thru each day without living life at its fullest. Maybe they didn't know how to live differently? How to slow down and LIVE, how to give and receive love openly, how to be Present in the moment. I chose a different path from them, because I wanted a different outcome. Not that their way was "wrong" but it wasn't "right" for me. We each have the ability to change old patterns and to move forward with our own lives, to enjoy our own journey. 

I don't want to live up to someone else's expectation of what I'm supposed to be. I AM ME.I'm Imperfectly Perfect at its best.  Confident, strong, silly, free spirited, random, passionate, loving, giving and am usually pretty extreme. I experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and sometimes all in the same day. It's just who I am, and I love me AS IS.

Yoga heals us from hurt and pain, helps us to open our hearts to all that is waiting for us. 

Namaste