“Lift your legs over your head into a handstand” instructed my yoga teacher from the front of the room.
I went to lift my legs as I had done hundreds of times and… they wouldn’t lift.
What had happened? Where was my strength? My flexibility?
A former gymnast who did backbends at the drop of a hat, I couldn’t understand how my body had let me down.
As I lay on the floor feeling flummoxed and, frankly, embarrassed, I realized it had been over 6 months since I’d done yoga. My life had gotten out of control. I’d gone from home to car to desk to home, non-stop. And all the while I’d been sitting at the computer navigating my life like a fighter pilot in training.
I hadn’t had a massage in months. I was eating crap, drinking too much and spending far too much time inside my own head. And on top of all that, I’d gained weight.
Somehow, without noticing, I had completely abandoned my body.
It was time to Occupy Myself.
I signed up for a Conscious Nutrition class and started drinking Kale green smoothies for breakfast and paying attention to where, what and how I ate.
I re-committed to walking the dog up the hill every morning, even if it was rainy and cold. Winter was no excuse. I started back to yoga, and got a massage.
And I began to notice all the places I was not in my body. That was scary.
Not in my body while driving. Not in my body while talking on the phone. Not in my body while busily hanging out on Facebook.
I was not there. No wonder things weren’t working like they used to.
I also had compassion for myself. Being here fully, showing up for ourselves and others is not always easy. There is stress to deal with, aging parents, managing the bills, making clients happy, the daily commute.
And we seem to be living in times of more chaos, more stress than ever before.
I notice my clients saying things like, “When life gets back to normal.”
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this is the new normal. And we are all going to have to learn to live our lives differently to accommodate it, rather than (as I had been doing) living the illusion that if I just work late one more night, work through one more lunch or give up one more weekend, I’ll get on top of my everything and be all caught up and then I can relax and we can go back to “normal.”
Not going to happen people.
So here is my Stand for the New Normal:
Chaos is a fact of life. Instead of running to catch up, find the places you can slow down. Connect with yourself and others. Listen to people. Go to bed early. Read a book. Take a bath. Close your eyes and sit still for ten minutes. Studies show that as little as ten minutes a day can have a huge impact. I found this little CD for ten-minute meditations…
Nature has time management down. Learn from it. Walk among the trees, sit on a bench and notice the birds, lie on the grass, feel the earth’s rhythm. It’s a lot slower than our chaotic running about. Learn to entrain with that rhythm.
Go out and play BEFORE you finish your chores. I don’t know about you, but my childhood mantra was “Do your chores before you go out to play. Do your homework before you can watch TV.” Basically it was all about getting the work done. Have you noticed that when you grow up there’s always work to be done and chores to be tackled? They will never be finished and you will never play. Decide now to make playfulness and fun a priority. Go dancing, bang on a drum, play scrabble.
We all know this, we have heard this, but I will say it here again, to remind you and me: When we are lying on our deathbed we will not regret the things we didn’t get done. We will regret having been too busy to play Monopoly with our 9-year old niece and screaming at our husband that he forgot to take out the garbage and telling the dog, who was woefully looking at us, “just one more email and then I’ll take you for a walk.” I know you know what I’m talking about.
LIVE life. Don’t DO life. ‘Nuff said.
Now go Occupy Yourself.
Yes! Thank you for the reminder. I will work on occupying myself right this second!
Nathalie! So nice to see you here!
You’re so right – this is the new normal. I wonder how much we still can accelerate our lives until we simply collapse.
Lovely reminders and nicely spoken!
What a refreshing post, Laura. I love your stand on the new normal. Too many of us do all the chores first without enjoying ourselves, wait for a special time to do something extra special, or wait until we’re sick to slow down. I am definitely in line with your philosophies of life!
Occupy yourself=genius.
Very inspiring ideas. Thank you.
Right on the money honey. Love the reminders!
Haha! Nufffff said FOsure! Love the fire in this piece, Laura! Zipzapzowwwwed right into meeeee! Tis amazing how since I began this online bizzzz bandwagon I too have forgotten my body, living instead through my mind, deep feelings, imagination… all grand things, yet without my body fully integrated in, it becomes a problem. And if it continues too long, I know its end result.
So.. .just began my program Unleash Your Wild Creative Daemon through the Embodied Arts. Embodiment. That IS the key. I need it as bad as my clients.
Great to have you writing again! I have missed you!
Laura, I love the photo at the beginning of your post! I don’t know how many folks click on a photo to “see” it, but I do and I’m glad I did. Talk about a personal dance party! Both the dancer and the drummer are ‘occupying themselves’ and that’s what I got out of your post — being absorbed in the moment, conscious of your own space, subconsciously interacting (if need be), and LIVING in the here and now. WOW! Great illustration for your words!
Your writing is so believable and understandable — not just in context, but also in the way you express yourself. I find myself nodding my head from the first paragraph to the last, thinking, “Yeah!” (and “I need to DO that!”) Thanks for the proverbial kick in the butt. 🙂 Great thoughts!
Of course I love everything about this post. Particularly the PLAY piece. I love my work. Lucky me. I love my life. It wasn’t always that way. But even with all that love comes this crazy “new normal” that you speak of and I am guilty of it, too. Thankfully I have to keep attending to this embodiment because if I am to teach it authentically, I must live it, yes?
Thank you for sharing your journey. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of it. xxxooo
Yes, we need to slow down in order to simply speed up again. I had a friend say to me in Dec. when I was in a very similar space “the way you’re working isn’t working” and when I stepped back to really understand what she meant, it was just that, that this “normal” way of life is so far from our innate way of being that we loose ourselves. Thank you for this very potent post, very powerful!
Me encanto! Especialmente la parte de que esta es la nueva ‘normalidad’
🙂 buenisimo tu blog.