Back in the blog saddle

I’m not usually at a loss for words, but I’ve recently had a big, heavy writer’s block in the middle of my road. The longer it goes on the worse it gets. Sort of like if you keep skipping yoga and telling yourself you’ll practice tomorrow, then the next day, and so on. I believe it’s called getting stuck in a rut. I’ve always said that yoga will always be there when you’re ready to come back to it, so I guess the same holds true for my blog. Time to cowgirl up and get back in the blog saddle.

I recently said to a friend who was in a funk that you can’t be 100% motivated 100% of the time, and that’s ok. That should be ok, but we don’t really like it because we know how good it feels when we are motivated and rock it. Like in yoga, when mind and body move together in unison and a perfect pose results – like when you bust out an effortless bakasana. But some days, we might lose our balance in crow pose and fall on our face. Or, we might completely crash. Just before our winter wonderland and wellness yoga retreat started last week, I did just that. Long story short (and for the record, this did not involve yoga), I took an ambulance ride to the hospital. Things did not go as planned, at all. But somehow, they all worked out, in some wonderfully surprising ways.

One of the presenters on our retreat was a dr. who discussed strategies for staying inspired. One of the things she said has been my mantra the last few days: Embrace chaos as normal. Seems like an oxymoron, but it’s working for me. The scary part about this is that normal typically means being in control; chaos does not. It’s a bit tough to embrace having to go to the hospital when you had other things on the agenda. But I often seem to learn the hard way that the best lessons and opportunities for growth and reflection come from, well, chaos. It’s sort of like going upside down in yoga – chaos, as in not being right side up, becomes normal if we do it enough. And we end up liking it so much that we embrace it. Namaste.

Picture of me embracing chaos, with the support of Larry Stanley.