my challenge

I know I said I'd blog more about the Hindu festivals we just celebrated and I will but I am so pumped about embarking upon a challenge I couldn't wait another day to share my news with you.

I haven't been feeling good for sometime now, if you've been following my blog you know I attempted a year long Happiness Project at the start of the new year but since returning to India it has fallen to the way side. Its been a harder adjustment this time around, but that is a whole other blog! I do look over my notes and past posts as a reminder regularly and attempt to keep up with the things that make my heart smile but still there is a restlessness with me,beyond that there is actually an anger and longing inside of me. I've tried to figure out what I'm angry about but it has no logical reason that I can find, it just stirs and is volatile and I don't like who I become when it rears its ugly head.

I've learned to accept emotions but I do not choose to ride them, I refuse to sit around feeling sorry for myself but some days I just want to crawl into a hole so my only option is to get to the source, the truth. Fighting feelings has not worked in defusing them so in an attempt to ground myself and ride out the storm of negative thoughts directed both inwards and outwards I am embarking on this challenge.

More importantly I don't want my children to grow up with a stressed out Mom, especially when I can't think of one reason to be stressed in my life. My life is pretty laid back on so many levels as far as "nothing to do" goes. I live in a culture that places little to no stress on time, I'm married to a wonderful man who's motto is "tension is for giving not taking" in other words don't stress about anything leave it for others. My life is pretty relaxed, each day brings what it will without much effort or planning, yet for some reason I am resistant to it all.

I get cranky daily around the same time and have tried everything from taking naps, changing food habits to playing soothing music yet I find myself yelling and pulling my hair out by late afternoon/early evening. I keep telling myself somethings gotta give, if only someone would take the kids for an hour, if only there was more to do in my small town, if only someone could help me figure this out...if only..if only. Today that all changes!

No one can save me but me, I've always known this and taught it to my clients but lately I've lost touch with being my own hero and I've been blaming others and my circumstances for my uneasiness. The first time I ever traveled to India I left after three months a deeper more peaceful version of myself. Shanti is the Hindi word for peaceful and I want that shanti me back! My life has changed dramatically since that first trip seven years ago and I've also slipped away from the very things that helped to bring that inner peace, with two small children I don't have the ability to live the way I once did but there are a few simple things I can do.

So today my friends I am committing back to me. For the sake of all those I love.



I'm starting with two initiatives the first is a thirty day "Repose" challenge, It is a book written by dear friends of mine that offers a simple technique of laying outstretched as shown in this photo three times a day for seven minutes each in what is referred to as a Potent Pause. It is a receptive opening of the body that is said to relieve stress, aches and pains and increase energy, its free and easy so totally worth a try!

My second challenge to get back to yoga, this will be a much larger challenge then a mere Thirty days in fact it will last the better part of a year since I will explore the entire eight limbs of yoga as per the original teachings of Pantanjali the grandfather and first teacher of yoga. Asana, Hatha or what we know in the west as getting on our mat is the physical practice but what most don't realize is it's but a small fraction of Yoga.



I will blog as often as possible about the experience I hope you tune in regularly I'd love to have you along for this adventure...