Yoga Journaling Assignment II

The theme for this week (Week 5) in the Rodney Yi book is Facing the Unknown. It's interesting, because I am not often afraid of change, and, in fact, embrace it for the most part. I'm an adrenaline junkie in a different way than most, I suppose. While I enjoy things like rock climbing and roller coasters, and I would love to try sky diving or bungee jumping one day, the real adrenaline rush I get is with change. The unknown is something I embrace. I move a lot because I like to discover new things, meet new people, and make new friends.

I don't think my experience with yoga is any different. I love trying new asanas, and learning all of the layers upon layers of things to know about yoga. I'm excited to work on my inversions, but I've found that I do have a fear of handstand, sort of. Practicing on my own, or even at training where I am comfortable enough, I enjoy trying going upside down. However, in classes where I am new or where I don't feel comfortable yet, I get nervous about kicking up in to handstand or pushing up into headstand or anything really where I could mess up and fall or kick someone..... I tried a headstand in the middle of the room at a class I went to last week and fell over and almost kicked the person in front of me! Actually, it was the person off to my right in front of me....which isn't any better. Ha!

Yoga Journaling Assignment I

Being present was our theme this week (well, last weekend and the following two weeks, of which are almost ending already!). I've noticed it being a theme or sub-theme of the yoga classes I've been attending lately as well. It seems everyone is focusing more on being right where they are and accepting it.

I just moved to Austin, what will be almost 3 weeks ago now. It feels like both a longer and shorter time ago, depending on what kind of mood I am in. Although, for the sake of staying with the theme, at the present moment it feels like an eternity ago that I moved here. It already feels like my city. However, with more to do comes more distraction and I've found that staying present here is more difficult than it was in the small town that I moved from. Not just in my yoga practice, although I have noticed that as well.

I've got two jobs now, which is great after being unemployed for almost a month! I've been overlapping trainings some, and it gets a little confusing because it's easy for me to confuse the information I'm learning at the two places. This is a time when I have found it extremely important for me to stay present where I am in those moments. I give better customer service when I'm not thinking about all of the other things I have to do when I get off of work.

The same goes for my yoga practice. The classes are so much bigger than I am used to, and it's easy for me to get distracted by looking around at all the other students. I'm not judging them or myself really, just being curious. I had a great teacher named Jenn at Yoga Yoga North, and I am hoping she'll let me observe one of her classes soon! Out of all of the studios I have gone to so far in Austin, Yoga Yoga is one of my favorite AND closest to where I live.....although I still have a lot of places to check out!

All of these options, not just with yoga studios but with everything now that I am living in the city, is great practice at staying present for me. I get so easily distracted and overwhelmed by all that i COULD or feel like I SHOULD be doing, that it is important for me to be grateful and blessed by all that I've accomplished so far, and stay present in every moment that I am given.

it's a new day

i woke up this morning thinking, so.....off on day 3 of looking for jobs i guess, eh? i'm getting worn out and discouraged that i'm not going to find a job here. and then i read an article about the wonderful lady who is going to be teaching my yoga training beginning this weekend, and i got excited. but there was a little stanza in there about how austin has the largest teacher-to-student ratio in austin over any other city! great, is what i thought to myself. i'm never going to get a job teaching here, and i don't want to leave in december already, i just got here!

my days have been exhausting so far..... i moved in sunday evening and stayed up for a while with my new roommates and one of them's brother and dad who were staying over for a few days due to the fires....they had to evacuate. luckily their homes are both ok. but it was a full house for a little bit there!

on monday i got up early and did an 8am bikram yoga class in celebration of free day of yoga. it was wonderful, but bikram yoga really just isn't for me. i don't like being so hot! and it seems unnecessary when it's already 111 degrees outside!

i then went on the job hunt, and found a great little cafe where i think i would fit in perfectly! i had an interview with one of the managers and she liked me, so she scheduled me for another interview with another manager the following afternoon. i was excited, and figured that it was a sign that's the job i was going to get, so i pretty much quit my job search for the day, went to one more yoga class that afternoon, then went home to do some bonding with my new roomies.

i slept in and just hung out the next morning because i was so sure i was going to get that cafe job. however, even though i left almost 30 minutes earlier than i needed to, i got lost and was late. the manager was already gone and i was so discouraged. =( luckily, they rescheduled the interview for thursday afternoon, but now that means i've got another full day of job searching ahead of me..... i feel lucky for my options, but honestly i hate having so many choices. i pride myself on following my gut instinct on things, and it's starting to get foggy because i'm such a desperate state for a job.....

after missing out on that opportunity i figured it was time to put in a few more applications places..... then came home to relax after what felt like another long and exhausting day. i wouldn't call myself a person who gets homesick very much any more, although i used to BAD when i was little. but i have a friend who lives in austin who i keep trying to meet up with and it just doesn't work out. more than anything i just want to see the face of someone that i know in this city full of strangers.

i did get to talk to some friends from back home (which now includes fredericksburg, apparently) and it was absolutely lovely to hear her voice, and hear about what they're all up to. it makes me smile to know that they're thinking of me too.

but like i said, i woke up this morning feeling exhausted just thinking about the day ahead of me. i have no plans.....just a job to find. i was already starting to get discouraged thinking of driving all over this city again.....but two of my lovely sisters wrote on my fb wall this morning, and without knowing how discouraged and tired and missing my friends i have been up and down on this roller coaster of emotions (jeez) it was so wonderful to hear from them, and that for just that minute, or maybe many minutes during the day, they were thinking of me.

it's those little things that are going to help me get through this rough transition period.....i have faith that i'm making the right decisions, so now i just gotta get my ass out there and go make them...

antsy pants

i think maybe the reason i haven't hung anything up on my walls yet is because i'm not ready to stay. i have one piece of street art i've purchased since i moved here, and a collage of some pictures from a magazine i adore, because i couldn't sleep one night and i like projects. i'm not ready to stay, and i don't know if that means this apartment or this town or texas.....

will i know when it's time to stay and settle down? i sure feckinggg hope so.

tell the truth.

let's all be honest with ourselves for a minute.

just try.

how do you feel right now? what are you thinking about? or should i ask......who? why is it that you're thinking about that person in particular? or event? or thing that you have to get done tomorrow morning before work.......

i'm going to try to be more honest. with myself. i have no problem telling people what i think. but i am a fucking liar to myself about how i feel sometimes.

example.

people fuck around with me a lot because i'm a very trusting person once i decide that you are worthy. the problem is, i have yet to meet one person who hasn't proved me wrong. but i refuse to give up hope that those people are out there. i'd rather be hurt a million times (and counting....) than live the rest of my life bitter and never trusting anyone.

i just want everyone else to hold themselves to the same standard that i hold them to.

i'm as guilty as the rest of you fucks.

you know the saying

"truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -bob marley

well, i think that's bullshit.

why do people hurt each other? disappoint, with no regard for others? certainly they know what they are doing, by some point in their lives. perhaps we can forgive the young. they're still learning as, arguably, we all are. i should be the last one to preach about responsibility and commitment, but honestly, the more good people i meet who do shitty things to each other (and by each other, i mean me) the less i believe that it's just part of a free-spirited existence, and more about people always and only seeking to fulfill their own selfish needs.

i can't lie and say that i don't do it too......i'm as guilty as the rest of you fucks. the difference is that i recognize it. you can't hurt people who you care about. i mean, you can. but fuck you for doing such a horrible thing. why would you put people you care about through so much disappointment and pain? i admittedly need to work on this, and i wish everyone else would do the same.

so like i was saying....... bob marley said some wise things in his short life, if you care to believe them. but i think he got this one wrong. i truly honestly believe and hopehopehope and pray that there are people out there who will not hurt and destroy me. and i won't stop until i find them.

i won't. ok??

what kind of fuckery is this?

the truth is an interesting thing. it's sets you free, some say. it holds you down. it keeps you back. i'm on the fence, which is not much of a place to be when it comes to truth.

i got a tattoo when i was 19 that says "belief". people were confused by this. they questioned me, asked didn't i mean "believe"? did the artist spell it wrong? and what the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway? while the only learning experience i gained from this bullshit is not that people will tell you you're wrong when you're not, and people will not understand when, in your mind, it makes perfect sense. people will be confused by you, and rather than understand, rather than ask a question that actually merits an answer, they will tell you that you've got it wrong. getting a tattoo is a great way to find out the kind of stupid shit people will say, as if a tattoo is a like a pregnant belly, on display for the world and open for questions comments and concerns. people think that their opinion matters to you, but let me tell you; it doesn't. anyway, this is not the only lesson that i have learned since i started getting tattoos. it's an important one, but i digress........

i got the belief tattoo for one/two reasons: there are two songs that i know of with this title....one is by john mayer, the other, gavin degraw. both of these artists have essentially had every ounce of their talent raped and pillaged by the media since they started getting regular play back in the early part of the century..........shit. not the point. the song by gavin degraw is about a female, i'm assuming (whoops) who he loves in some way; his best friend, his girlfriend....whatever, it doesn't really matter. this girl came to his rescue.....she believed in him when no one else would. it is a painful realization when you find yourself in that situation, who believes in you. WHO IS THERE? sometimes no one......sometimes only yourself, and that must do. but he had some chick telling him that she believed in him; even more, she stood up for him in the face of whatever asshole was telling gavin degraw he wasn't worth shit.

whoever this woman is, gavin degraw recognized that she loved him so deeply she would put aside her bullshit....whatever it is....whatever your bullshit is........ and put her belief in him. and he wanted to shout from the rooftops how grateful he was, how supported he felt, how he now knew he could do ANYTHING....anything. because of the belief this one person put in him. it's a beautiful idea and it's a beautiful song....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duE9Di-_z30

on this other side is the john mayer song. john mayer is kind of an arrogant, liberal asshole but i can put my feelings for him aside to recognize that he's kind of a musical genius.......anyway the john mayer song about belief is the dark side. everything has a dark side. there's some truth for you. the dark side of belief is how ugly people can be to one and other in the name of their belief. has an athiest ever suddenly changed his mind about the existence of a god because he saw a billboard that said you're going to hell if you're not giving the church 10% of your annual income? fuckkkkk nooooo. did a 15 year old girl ever change her mind about getting an abortion because there was a mob of angry virgins screaming in her face about how evil she was while she walked up the steps of the clinic? she probably cried for weeks and was probably emotionally scarred by the entire experience for the rest of her life. did those people change her mind about the choice she felt like she had to make? if anything, they shamed her and guilted her and made her feel so awful about her own existence that she fled.

people destroy one another with their beliefs because everyone knows their right. right? i mean, you can't hold a belief, preach it, live it, whatever the fuck you do when you say that you believe in something........you have to believe that it's true or it isn't yours to claim. the problem is that no one else can see through their whatever walls they've built up around them with their own life experiences, to recognize that there are sooooo manyyyy people in the world who believe their own beliefs just as strongly as you do yours.

so who's right? everyone? no one? christians? i, personally, don't have a fucking clue. there is factual evidence; there are things that you can point to as being true. "that bitch just left me a two dollar tip after she made me cut up her food and feed it to her my fucking self" can be witnessed and experienced by enough people that it is accepted as truth. but everything else......and there's so much more of that.....everything else.....is sooooo the opposite of black and white.

"my boyfriend wants to have a threesome or he's going to break up with me" could be looked at as truth in the appropriate situation. however, maybe if you think about it, the truth is that your boyfriend really looooooved the sex yesterday, but it's not enough for him today. or this afternoon. or tonight. so maybe the truth is that you're just not quite good enough. the truth could be that he really loves your best friend and your sister, too. the truth just might be that your boyfriend is a piece of shit. but who's to say?

i had a friend who i loved for a little while.......beyond the physical and the sex and drugs and sneaking around........i just cared about him so much that it ached sometimes to be near him. when i care about someone like this, i don't know how it happens but it's such an intense experience. i just want to be filled with them. to be near them and breathe the same air. to feel the heat rise off of their bodies. i have a bad habit of finding these people and loving them too intensely from too far of a distance. some revelation will suddenly reveal it's malicious face and my entire world will crumble......and when all is said and done the same EXACT THING is said to me each time.

i didn't even know you liked me that much.

i get angry and i cry and i move across the country, and he didn't even know that i "liked him that much?" how can this be? to me, i feel like my entire soul is oozing out of my eyeballs. that every time i speak, every time i breathe, every person within a 30 mile radius of us can feel how much i love someone when i love them. except for them? wait......nobody knows? is what i feel......that intense emotional ache of just caring about someone way tooo much......is it even true if i'm the only one who knows that it exists?

it's a problem that i have, not telling people how i feel until it is far. too. late. it's interesting because you would think that because i can pinpoint the exact location of where i go wrong everysingletime, that i would be able to fix it. the problem, however, is that i must be insane. you know......insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? that kind of insane. i don't know how to fix it because i don't even realize that i'm doing it. i am convinced, it is the TRUTH in my mind that how i feel must be so blatantly obvious to everyone that i shouldn't have to tell anyone how i feel. the problem is that people cannot read my mind. i used to be such a disaster of a human being (even more than i am now! i'm serious. it's scary but it happened...) that at some point i looked at myself in the mirror (maybe, or maybe i'm exaggerating) and told myself to get with the fucking program.

the last time i threw myself at someone, i remember it so clearly it still makes me nauseous thinking about it. i was so distraught that this boy new that i loveddddd him, and he was telling all his friends and when things started to go bad EVERYONE KNEW. everyone. i hate that feeling that anyone knows, but every one knows. everyone knew. so i decided in that moment that i was going to have to be a different person. i could no longer care about anyone, i could no longer give a fuck about anyone or anything because being that attached just makes it hurt so much more when it's gone.

so i went back to school for my senior year of college with that i don't give a fuck attitude and......it worked. it sort of worked. people knew who i was. people i didn't know talked about me like they had any business in mahhh business. i felt like a celebrity. the mind is a powerful thing, and if your mind is telling people to fuck off and leave you the hell alone, most people are going to do it. except the exact opposite. people didn't approach me. i had a small group of friends that i actually considered friends. that i trusted (mistakes). everyone else was just a party. the less information you give people, the more they want to know.

i learned these things, i took them to heart i studied them and practiced them and watched the other people who i looked at and wondered about......what made these people so different from everyone else? maybe it's the tattoos or the piercings or weird hairstyles.....but maybe not. because there's plenty of people who do those things and nobody really gives a fuck. i'm talking about the people who get stared at as they walk down the street of their neighborhood. who get run into at grocery stores because people are literally STARING at them. what is it about these people? i am convinced it's all a mind game......it's an ATTITUDE. ok?

if your belief is, not that you're better or smarter or prettier than everyone else in the whole entire world......that's not it at all. but just that you're better than their petty bullshit. and you know better than to just believe anyone who tries to tell you anything. if you know that being beautiful is a trick......that's the people i'm talking about. they don't give a FUCK what you think, and yet you still try to tell them. sheep want to make those people a part of their world. they want to make sense of those people because they are senseless.

anyway, that was my truth. that i didn't give a fuck about nothing or nobody, i was just going to do my shit and fuck everything and everyone. and for a while, it was so awesome. but the problem was that as much as i didn't care what anyone thought of anything that i did. ever. there was always someone who i cared about. i would find people to love because i just needed to love. my heart literally feels like it will burst completely out of my chest cavity and make a huge fucking mess because there are just some people i can't help but love. and those were the people i couldn't not give a fuck about. but i tried to anyway. i pretended i didn't.

and the fucked up thing is, that seemed to work. guys love a girl who doesn't care. it's a fun game, and i get it. i am excellent at that game for a while, but the problem is that eventually i always lose. i lose interest, fast, in most people. usually before i even really gain interest in the first place. in which case i just drop all contact with said parties until i just don't have to deal with the situation anymore. sometimes i worry that i hurt people's feelings but the problem is that most of the time i don't really worry much at all.

i have one friend who i would like not to matter anymore. usually i'm pretty good at this part; just cutting them out of my life until i can get over how much i care about them and just be a regular friend. i'm good at that too. getting over shit. but if it's so easy to just let those feelings go.......were they even real? if he cared, maybe, but met someone else who helped him get over those feelings so easily, where THEY even real? what the fuck are we even talking about when we say that we have feelings for someone? is it only truth in context or is there really something to be said when a person finds "the one"? is it truth, or just another distraction? another excuse for..........whatever the fuck we're doing around here.

so call it karma, but the people who actually matter to me, matter. a lot. and when i don't matter as much to them as they do to me.......it absolutely fucking crushes me.

so what's the truth, then? do i, in fact, give a fuck? have i been pretending to be this hard person for so long that i've forgotten what's even real? or am i going to have to go through the rest of the my life being wary of every person i befriend, for fear that they will crush my soul?