Fire and Ice

I've recently been sucked into the world of The Hunger Games. I'm only on book two but I'm hooked. The books, the song for the movie, the trailer for the movie. Loving it all. Anyway, this sort of just came to me yesterday when I was reading it.


Fire and Ice

I'll get the matches and you get the guns,
We'll both fight our way through the land that we love.

We'll stand for the young and we'll stand for the old,
We'll stand for the people who are freezing in the cold.

We'll part down the middle, going left, going right,
They won't see us coming through the fire and ice.


I'll warn the children, to stay safe, to go home.
You get the men who've been worked to the bone.

I'll fight for vengeance, you'll fight for love,
We'll meet in the middle with an understood trust.

We'll rest in the morning, take watch through the night,
They wont see us coming through the fire and ice.


You keep your wits about you, I'll keep my might.
You risk your safety, I'll risk my life.

We'll stand with the fallen, we'll do what should be done,
We'll burn and we'll melt, then we'll vanish in the sun.

And when the smoke is clearing in the dawning of the light,
They won't have seen us coming through the fire and ice.

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To Write Love on Her Arms

I was playing around on Smith the other day when I saw something called To Write Love on Her Arms. The sentence itself was so beautiful that I had to see what it was all about.

To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) was started by a small group of people who were trying to help a friend who was suffering from an addiction. From there it took off and has become a huge non-profit group supporting those in need of assistance with addiction, depression, and suicidal tendencies.

Everyone knows someone who's suffered through one of these things. You might know more than one person, maybe a few even. Sometimes they need help and don't know where to turn. Sometimes they can't afford the help they need. Sometimes they just need some information. This site is dedicated to all of those times.

There is a multitude of ways for you to get involved, from donating money to buying one of their very cool shirts. Check out all of your options here.

The blog in itself is also pretty interesting. I enjoyed the most recent post, Welcome to Midnight.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, please go to this site. It could make all the difference in the world.

Here is an excerpt from their site on what their vision is:

MISSION STATEMENT:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

VISION:

The vision is that we actually believe these things…

You were created to love and be loved.  You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you're part of a bigger story.  You need to know that your life matters.

We live in a difficult world, a broken world.  My friend Byron is very smart - he says that life is hard for most people most of the time.  We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments.  You need to know that you're not alone in the places you feel stuck.

Want more info? Visit the FAQ section. 

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Monday Mantra: Anything Can Be

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation".

Every Monday I will post a new thought, idea, or focus for the week. When you need a breather from life, when you need a little inspiration, or when you're about to jump over the conference table and strangle your co-worker, remember the mantra.


Monday Mantra: Anything Can Be

Listen to the MUSTN'TS child, 

Listen to the DON'TS

Listen to the SHOULDN'TS

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me-

Anything can happen, child, 

ANYTHING can be.

 - Taken from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

I remember a very specific moment from high school that changed my life forever. I was with a group of friends studying in the library when we started to discuss the topic of our future selves. What we were going to be, what we were going to do with our lives, how we saw everything playing out.

When it was my turn to tell everyone what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had nothing. I had too many things, actually. I wanted to be an architect, a psychologist, a dog trainer. I had just seen Twister, so I was also very seriously considering being a tornado chaser. Mostly, I was unsure.

I was feeling pretty lame, not knowing what I was going to do with my life, when my friend, Tom, looked over at me and said, "Whatever you do, it will be great."

That moment - the way he said it to me, with such depth and truth in his voice, the way his eyes even said he believed it - made every difference in the world.

To this day I remember that long ago moment in the library every time I doubt myself. Every time I'm unsure of what I want to do or be or if I'm going to make it. And every time it makes me stop doubting.

I don't think Tom knew just how much of an impact he made on me that day, just by believing in me. How one little sentence has made me a stronger person through and through. He probably still doesn't even know, but I thank him, wherever he is, for that moment.

Everyone needs a moment like that, where they believe that anything they want, anything they want to become, can happen. Everyone needs someone to believe in them and in their dreams, their ideas, their hopes. I sincerely believe that believing in someone is one of the greatest things you can do.

I'm passing on the wise words of my friend...

Whatever you do, it will be great.

You risk absolutely nothing by believing in yourself. Take that risk.

Anything you want in life, anything can be.

Believe it.


Is there someone in your life that made a difference by believing in you? 
Twitter. Facebook.

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The Garden of Eating: Better BBQ Sauce

I love me some good BBQ sauce, but many of them out there in your grocery store aisles are full of junk and, well, more junk. That's where this wonderful little recipe comes in.

It's easy enough and makes plenty for leftovers. I use it with ribs, roasts, steak, everything pretty much. I love BBQ sauce. Just a little. Here's the way I make it using Rachel's recipe.

Better Barbecue Sauce
Taken from The Garden of Eating, by Rachel Albert-Matesz and Don Matesz.

1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1 cup minced fresh onion
1/2 TSP unrefined sea salt
3 cloves minced garlic
1 TSP ground cumin
1 TSP dry mustard
1/3 TSP ground chipotle
1 TSP dried, crumbled basil
1 TSP dried, crumbled oregano
1 (6 ounce) can of sugar free tomato paste
1 1/4 cups chicken broth
2 TBSP raw apple cider vinegar
1/4 TSP stevia extract powder (be careful not to use too much...powerful stuff, this stevia)
1 TBSP honey

I used this batch with a roast and some
yellow roasted zucchini for my veggie. 

1. Heat oil in a 1 quart saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and stir until tender, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. Bring to low boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer with lid ajar to reduce splattering, stirring periodically until mixture thickens, 20-30 minutes.
*Watch out for the splattering. Seriously. It looks like Dexter was in my kitchen. 

2. Pour into wide mouth glass jar; allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate. Use within two weeks or freeze.

It's good people, really good. I promise.


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Feel It Out

You know what feels good? Feeling, in general. It feels good to feel.

I was pretty ticked off earlier this week. Just kind of mad and disgruntled. Then, to top it all off, I was mad at myself for getting mad. Yep. I got angrier because I was angry.

Silly, I know.

Sometimes I try too hard to be nice and polite when I really should just be me. When I really should just feel whatever it is that I'm feeling. It doesn't help that I went to school and studied how to be a better person and more aware and more yogini like and all of that beautiful enlightening junk. Yeah, it's good. It is. But sometimes it makes me forget that it's OK just to feel however it is that I feel. That it's OK just to feel, period.

Once I remembered that, everything got better immediately. It's good to just be sometimes, even if being mad is where you need to be. It's better than pretending and once you let the emotions hit you, they often leave swiftly, having done whatever job it was they needed to do. For me, it meant I got a lot of things accomplished with my new found angry energy. It also meant that I learned how to swear in French.

In my getting-things-done state, I found a book I had bought a long time ago in an airport, after having had quite the strenuous flight. The book: FU - A journal to destroy, rant and vent without the police getting involved.

Brilliant, and at an excellent selling location, might I add!

I decided to flip through it and this is what I found...

Not suitable for children who can read French.

Since I don't actually swear very often, or at all for the most part, I decided to get creative and learn a new language because, in my mind, swearing in a different language isn't really swearing at all. Especially since it usually sounds so pretty.

I'm going to be taking a French class this spring so I thought I should start there. You never know, there could be a bonus section on the tests for words we learned outside of class and this could help my grade one day. Maybe.

Anyway, I felt much better after I attacked my book with some profanity. I actually felt a gazillion times better. Plus, I learned some fun new words, that may or may not be spelled correctly. I tried.

Next time you have a hard day, or a sad day, or a whatever day, just let yourself feel it. The longer you hold off on that feeling, the more intensely it's going to hit you when you do open up to it. Let the feeling  come and it will go just as fast. Let yourself feel.

I now feel like I overcame a bad day and made the best out of it. You can do the same.

When you're temper is burning hot it's up to you to decide: Will you go down in flames or rise up out of them?


What do you do that makes you feel better when you're having a rough day?

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Is Yoga Bad For You?

A friend posted an article, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, on Facebook the other day, causing me to want to read it immediately.

Yoga wrecking your body? What?! I was perplexed. I had to figure out what was going on.

The article is based off of Glenn Beck, a yoga teacher who has been teaching for almost 40 years and who has an impressive background, having studied yoga at the B.K.S. Iyengar institute in India. After his many years of teaching he believes that most people should give yoga up. Yep, just give it on up.

To explain his rational behind this he states, "Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people. You can't believe what's going on - teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling, saying, 'You should be able to do this by now.' It has to do with their egos."

The answer to this problem, he believes, is that most people should just stay away from yoga. That only those in need of healing or those in great condition should practice.

Interesting.

I've only got about a decade under my belt, but here's my take on it: Everyone should do yoga, but everyone needs to be careful with what they do, how, and who they study with.

Sure, yoga can hurt you. You can also blow out a knee cap if you run, pull a muscle weight lifting, and sprain your ankle in kickboxing. Those injuries all depend on how hard you push yourself. They depend on how well you know your body.

That is the key - Knowing your body. Knowing your limits. Knowing when enough is enough.

I've heard of yoga teachers giving adjustments and hurting students. I'm sure it happens. He's right when he says it's about ego for a lot of people, teachers and students alike. Those people, however, are wrong to act that way. The very core of yoga is about having no ego. Having no thoughts, really, just being. The actual practice of yoga is about preparing the body for meditation. For silence from your own thoughts. It's also incredibly therapeutic and healing, when done properly.

I studied with a brilliant woman, Mary Bruce. Not only did she encompass everything that yoga is meant to, she taught us the difference between giving an adjustment and pushing someone. Between the soft side of the edge, and the edge itself. In yoga, you don't want to be on the edge.

Yoga is about stretching, growing, shifting, shall we say, your perception of what your body can do and why and how. It's about flowing with your breath, paying attention to your thoughts, eventually freeing your mind from those thoughts.

Yoga is not a competition.

It is not about how low you can go, how high you can stretch, how cool your clothes are, or how far you push yourself. It is not about pain. It's just not.

I used to teach a class where I had students in various age ranges. Each person needed something different. Some could do the more advanced poses, some couldn't, and that was fine. I always wanted them to know that was perfectly fine, excellent even. Honoring yourself was the most important piece. Rarely would I give an actual physical adjustment. I mostly tried to adjust with my words. I tried to refrain what I had said in various ways so they would know how the alignment should look, should feel, for them. I did a lot of demonstrating so they could see it, the difference between too much and not enough. I did it this way because this is how I was taught. Alignment of the body, to ensure you didn't hurt the body, but strengthened it, was key.

I still can't get my heels to touch the ground in Adho Mukha Svanasana, or downward-facing dog. Nope.  I'm better, but me and my hamstrings disagree on where they want to go and where I want them to go. So I let them decide. One day it'll happen. That's good enough for me.

Let your body decide what's good enough for it. Don't force anything. By forcing you are actually doing more damage than you would be if you let your body relax naturally into the pose.

If something hurts, stop. Ask the teacher if you're doing it right. Ask them to show you various ways to do it, if the one they were showing in class doesn't work for you.

Be sure to find a yoga teacher you like...and trust. Make sure they're there for the right reasons and that they have your best intentions at heart. A really excellent yoga teacher will ask you if they can adjust you before they do anything. They'll give various options for each asana, or pose. They will help you challenge yourself, but they will make sure you don't hurt yourself. They will remind you that yoga is a practice, a process, and that the the only perfection you should be striving for is to realize that you're already perfect.

Namaste.


What are your thoughts on the practice of yoga?




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This Just In: Monday Mantras

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation".

When you're having a hard moment, day, or week, and need something to pick you up or to remind you of the good things in life, it helps to have something positive, enlightening, maybe even something funny, to focus on. This is why I'm starting Monday Mantras.

Every Monday I will post a new thought, idea, or focus for that week. When you need a breather from life or when you're about to jump over the conference table and strangle your co-worker, remember the mantra.

Mantra's are designed to be spoken out loud, therefore giving them more power, more oomph. You don't have to do that. You don't even have to chant it or meditate on it or anything, unless of course you want to. I see this simply as a weekly tool, a reminder, an idea to draw your attention to when it wants to go somewhere else, somewhere less helpful. It's something to keep us all tethered together during the more crazy moments in life.

For a very in-depth look into Mantras, click here.

To start the year out, here is your very first focus point for the week.


Monday Mantra: Be Human

It's never too late...

To be human.

Too often we seek perfection.

And despair when we don't find it.

There is glory in all facets of humanity.

In our struggles.

Our achievements.

Our failures.

Our imperfections.

Perfection can be an aim.

But it's not a pleasant state for a human.

 - Taken from It's Never Too Late by Patrick Lindsay

When I was a senior in high school I had 3.5 jobs. One was at Subway, one was at Safeway, one was at a golf club, and one was at a bank. I was crazy determined to grow up and get on with life, what can I say? During this time I was also much, much more shy than I am now and I had a tenacity for blushing the color of a vine ripened tomato at pretty much anything. People knew this. People loved this. It was no bueno for me.

At Safeway I was the deli girl. The best part of the job, aside from the amazing hair net? Having to get up at 4:30 in the morning for the opening shift. At this point in my life I didn't even know that time of day existed. 

One morning I was ridiculously sleepy. Normally the front door is open just enough for those of us with the early shift. I see the open door ahead of me, walk up to it and...WHAM! I do an entire body slam into it because on this particular day, it was not open. I was apparently hallucinating. Then, I stumble a few steps back, point at the door, and yell at it like it's the doors fault for not being open. I'm so mad/embarrassed that I refuse to go through that door and pick another one instead. Clearly it was the door's fault.

I didn't tell anyone at work that day, but I did mention it to my friend at the bank, whose husband just so happened to be the manager of Safeway. Word to the wise: Small town, talk travels fast normally, but when you work with the husband at one place and the wife at another, it's bound to get around even faster. Dummy. I know.

The next time I'm headed into work I get called in to the managers office. I freak out silently on the inside. Did I slice the turkey wrong? Is my hair net on backwards? Oh no, oh no, oh no.

My manager sits me down. He proceeds to tell me that he has something to show me and that he needs an explanation. I have no idea what it going on at this point. He turns on the TV in his office and there I am, staring at myself walking into the glass doors. I had totally forgotten about the security cameras catching our every move. He goes through the whole thing, rewinds it, pauses it, replays it, and laughs his head off. His favorite part? When I yelled at the door. To see myself point and flail my hands at it while cursing it out was a little overboard. Just a tad.

As I'm slowly dying of embarrassment, thinking it couldn't get worse, he tells me everyone else saw it.

Every single Safeway employee. At the meeting that I didn't attend. And that it's going to make a reappearance at the Christmas party.

To this day, when I go back home, I avoid Safeway as much as I possibly can. I just know that glass door remembers me and is waiting for round two.

Have you ever had a moment that was less than perfect, that brought you back to just being human?
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A Resolution Revelation

Photo Credit: www.cyberfeeder.com

I was Googling the definition of "resolution" when I came upon this:

Resolution is the image created as a result of the number of pixels or dots used.

It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it was perfect in it's own way.

I've never been a New Year's Day resolution-making kind of a girl. I tried, twice, and gave up by the end of the same day that I made each one.

I never saw the point.

Just because the calendar flips over a day, and suddenly it's a new year, I see no purpose in going crazy and drastically changing my life. What I do see is a lot of perfectly sane people going insane just at the thought of what they're going to resolve to do or not to do. I see people worry over another year that has passed them by, a year where they didn't accomplish that which they intended to.

Instead, I suggest a change in our thought process.

To achieve the perfect photo resolution you need the right amount of pixels and dots. Too much and it will overpower your image. Too little and it will be blurry. This is true with your resolutions as well. Too  much stress over achieving your goal and you'll burn out. Too little and you'll never see the clear path to what you want.

Instead of taking one day to make a plan that will last you a year, slow it down. Take a breath. Take it one step at a time.

Every day is a new day that you haven't yet experienced. Every single day, minute, second - that you, and I, and everyone else lives in - is a brand new undiscovered day, minute, and second.

Live like that. Live for that. Just live.

I know people that make daily resolutions. They find them more manageable. They are often simple things that, in the long run, lead to more complex situations being worked out, just by taking it one day at a time. How nice it is, at the end of the day, to say you accomplished exactly what you set out for. And if you didn't, no worries. You have another 24 hours coming up to try again.

If having to come up with something daily is too much to have to even consider, how about weekly then? A weekly plan. And if it doesn't go exactly as you had hoped, adjust it. Make it fit for you.

Give it time to grow into that which you want it to be.

Give yourself time to grow with it.

I believe in you. Believe in yourself. It will happen.


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