yoga Monday (is back...at least for the summer!)

Back from two weeks of service/construction work in NM with 8 students and 2 colleagues and a yoga class was definitely in order. Mind you, a yoga class after literally two days in the car is NOT a pretty sight...but it certainly felt good. Well, in that "hurts so good" sort of way. How I have lost all muscle strength in two weeks is beyond me! I swear, swinging that hammer, chipping away at tile that has been on a floor for 42 years, hanging siding takes some sort of strength. But evidently not the sort that it takes to stay in a low lunge! And then we moved on to the hip openers. Yeah. Lizard. Frog. I literally had to get out of frog because I thought that my left leg was going to snap right off. It didn't, of course, but it sure is sharing some words with me now. The funny thing though was that lizard was amazingly better than it usually is. Your hips being tight are a lot about hanging on to things from the past...so maybe I returned from this trip exhausted, empowered, curious, reflective, and a little more present - and less in the past. But then again there was frog that reminded me that there's still a lot to release and let go of! Still, for a "yoga Monday" after two weeks of no yoga (and really no exercise), it was good way to begin the re-entry...now to the work emails. Can I go back to the yoga studio?

friday quotation

A ship in the harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for.
~ John A. Shedd

"for the next 60 minutes...

...be present. Let go of whatever you need to in order to just be here."

This was how Vic started yoga class today. Amazing how very difficult that simple instruction can be. Have you ever really tried to let go of everything...for 60 minutes...or 5 minutes?! I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible! I'm sure it is for some. It's really tough for me. So I started yoga class with a little internal tug-of-war.

"I'm here. I'm breathing. I can feel the floor beneath me. Supporting me. I don't have to do a thing but just be."
"Well, as soon as you walk out of here you have things to do...dinner, laundry, emails, packing, phone calls, birthday cards..."
"Shhhh...that's in 60 minutes. That's not now."
"But you better get ready. You don't want to forget anything. You're already WAY behind on what you need to be getting done this week."

Welcome to the beginning of my yoga practice tonight. Which voice won? Well, it was a draw. That internal coaxing to be outside of the yoga room and on to my nightly routine was strong...but I resisted with every downward dog and crow (I did crow again!!) and lizard (ugh) and frog (double ugh). True to form, while I moving I was there...in the yoga studio...totally present. But when we stopped, the inner dialogue again. At least I won a few battles even if I didn't win the entire war, right?
Of course, the reflective me is wondering if this is in some way symbolic of my life. Probably. While I'm moving I'm so focused on whatever I'm doing that my mind doesn't drift much...it's when I stop that the inner dialogue begins. Maybe that's why I'm nearly always in motion. Maybe I need to stop more and listen to that inner voice...even if I really want to tell her to shush a lot of the time! I have a sense she has something to tell me...although she needs to find another place to express herself other than yoga class (especially when she's feeling so critical)!!

why I go to church

One of my all-time favorite authors is Anne Lamott (I actually quoted her in one of my very first blog posts reflecting on why I was going to have a blog...and I can't believe I haven't quoted her in my blog since then. Maybe I have and I've forgotten!). I love her voice. I love her candor. I love her stories. I love that I feel like I know her even though I've never met her. And I love her thoughts on spirituality.
Today as I left church I thought, "Why have you started going to church again on Sundays?" The history behind this question is sort of emotionally charged. I used to be very involved in my church - youth group leader, small group participant...heck, I even dated someone there for a while. I had a core group of friends there - older women, women my age, men. And it was good. It was another community in Austin outside of St. Andrew's that I felt connected to.
But then faculty meetings got in the way of Wednesday night Bible studies and training got in the way of Sunday morning services. And our beloved pastor moved away (well, so did the guy that I dated). And things just felt different. Or maybe I was different.
At any rate, I found myself going to the evening services at St. Andrew's - which was both comfortable and convenient. I'd often be up at school anyway getting ready for the upcoming week and it was easy to take a break or finish up and go to the service before I headed home. I can't say that I ever felt disconnected from my faith or spirituality. In some ways it's tough to do that when you go to chapel every day. But that is not necessarily where or when I felt most connected. That was/is often a time of making sure that my students are not talking and are paying attention and are not sleeping. But it did remind me to revisit my faith each day. To ask the tough questions. To trust a little more. And I did that.
So why this fall did I feel the urge to start going to church again? I'm really not sure.
I wish I had some amazing story that led me back to church, but really it was quite uneventful. I might give Fisher (and Kimberly and John) some credit for letting me tag along with them to an Episcopal church in town. And I do give them credit for that. But why I thought to ask in the first place is a bit of a mystery. And I have to give the Rookie triathlon a little credit for me returning to Covenant - the church where I had invested so much in my early years in Austin. Volunteering at the Rookie put me back in Austin with too much time on my hands to go to church with Kimberly, John, and Fisher...and just the right amount of time to make the 9:30 service at Covenant. So without even thinking I got ready and drove up MoPac to the church that had once been a second home to me.
And in the parking lot I began to get really nervous.
It had been a long time since I'd been in that sanctuary. What if someone asked me where I'd been for two (or was it three?) years? What would be an acceptable answer? What if I was overcome by some emotion that I couldn't handle and had to leave? Clearly, there was more to my having stayed away than triathlon training and a crazy year at work! But for a reason that is as mysterious as why I started going back to church in the first place, I decided that day that I needed to face whatever those invisible fears were and walk into the sanctuary and sing and pray and sit and reacquaint myself with a place that had at one time been so special to me.
Thankfully, I was getting there very close to the start of the service so I slipped into a seat on the back row. Easy in. Easy out. Hopefully unnoticed. As the choir started to sing (the music there really is wonderful), my heart started to beat in a less frantic way. My mind stopped racing, my ears started listening, and my soul quieted down. And I found myself really enjoying myself. There were still a million things going on internally, but I was able to tune them out for that one hour and pray and worship with a vibrant community. And as quietly as I'd slipped in, I slipped out. And that was sort of perfect, too.
And the next weekend I went back.
And I've been going ever since...unless there's a special event like graduation or a friend's baptism at another church or something like that.
And I get nervous every week. That I'm going to see someone or be asked some difficult question. And so far I've only seen older friends there (the folks who are a few years older than my mom and dad's peer group) and they are just happy to see me...or anyone for that matter!
But I haven't really been able to answer the question of why I decided to start going back to church at someplace other than St. Andrew's. Maybe I don't have to have the answer. Maybe I'm just supposed to show up.
I do know that it's led me back to Anne Lamott and her chapter in Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. It's the chapter called "Why I Make Sam Go to Church" and I've been thinking that it's part of the answer to why I go to church. "...and if you were to ask, this is what I would say. I make him because I can. I outweigh him by nearly seventy-five pounds. But that is only part of it. The main reason is that I want to give him what I found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want - which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy - are people with a deep sense of spirituality. they are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith; they are Buddhists, Jews, Christians - people banding together to work on themselves and for human rights. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful."
In reality, I'm part of lots of beautiful things even without church. But I do think Anne Lamott is on to something when she talks about what a sense of spirituality can bring to your life. I often talk about it as the acknowledgement, belief, faith that there is something bigger than you at work in this world and that your life is probably going to be a lot better and more peaceful and more rewarding if you can just accept that and let go.
And, yes, mostly I say this to myself. Because I need to hear it as much as the next person. And while I like to think that I'm in charge of my life because I'm a planner at heart, it really is comforting to know that in the biggest project of my life...my life...I'm really not in charge. So maybe that's why I go to church. Yes, for the community and the music and the guided worship. But also to be reminded that I'm ever so small in this world and that figuring it out isn't my responsibility. Living life to the fullest is. And I do that when I'm mindful of my spiritual center.

bye, bye extreme ETG

So I had a very funny conversation yesterday with a dear friend and mentor. Well, it was a wonderful conversation because she is wise and thoughtful and rational and passionate and all of those good things I would like to be someday. As we were nearing the end of it she said, "So are you sad not to be racing in Idaho in a few weeks?" Without a moment of hesitation I said, "NO! And it's funny, I thought I might miss it. Have 'race envy'. But I don't. I've been loving living my life this way." And then, poor soul on the other end of the line, had to listen to my semi-recent epiphany.
I went from a year of extreme work (when I was interim Head of Upper School)...the serious, non-stop, 24-7, every night, every weekend, very unhealthy kind of work. And it was inspiring and energizing and defeating and exhausting at the same time. But it was pretty boring. Not the work itself but aside from my daily workouts and a few moments of getting together with friends, it was pretty mundane. And it definitely didn't make me happy.
My antidote: do an Ironman! Because you can't really work all the time and train for an Ironman. And I don't think I trusted myself to be able to all of the sudden back off of the work without a tangible thing to go to. (Yes, I realize, this is not normal thinking!) Unlike working all of the time, I didn't train all of the time; but my time not spent working was spent mostly on my bike, on the trails, in the pool/BSP, or resting/recovering. Again, not a lot of time for friends or other things that I like to do. This routine, this training was also energizing and exhausting but it was always more inspiring than defeating. And I was with a whole new group of friends and that was priceless to me. But after two years of it, I started to think "there's still something missing." I didn't know exactly what it was so I didn't try to fill my calendar. I couldn't. Not in any authentic way. Because I didn't know what I wanted to fill my life with. So I sort of left my calendar empty.
And I only said "yes" when my heart told me to. And I started saying "no" more than I used to. And I settled into just living. You know, trying to achieve that healthy, balanced, meaningful life that (I think) most of us want to live. The life that includes things that we love which makes us better humans overall...allowing us to give more to the people around us, take in life more fully, see the simple things in the world as gifts and give thanks, laugh more deeply, live more authentically, and love more freely.
This all sounds lovely. And maybe it sounds easy. And maybe for some folks it is. And while the idea of it resonates so loudly with me I can feel it to my core, I'm really not always very good at living it. And that's what I was explaining to my dear friend this year had been about and she literally took the words out of my mouth, "Wow. That's pretty ambitious of you, Elizabeth. You're sort of an extremist. Whatever you do you do it to the best of your ability and with all of your heart and soul. You don't cut yourself any slack. I think this new attitude is healthy. And I'm proud of you." I quickly said, "Thanks. Don't get me wrong...I'm definitely not there yet - wherever there is. But I'm trying. Some days I'm better than others. But it's a good journey to be on. I can feel that - even when I'm uncertain of exactly what I'm doing."
Does it mean I'll never race again or take on another consuming job again? Probably not. I think it does mean that I won't do either to the detriment of living this life that I'm trying to live. That I won't use either as an escape from something else or as a remedy for the other.
Does it mean that I haven't had moments of regression to my extreme self recently? Absolutely not...this last stretch of school was not pretty where that was concerned. But I am more aware of when I go back to my comfort mode of extremism. And my body reminds me more profoundly these days that it doesn't like it either!
So there you have it. I'm trying to let go of living life in extreme mode. I'm still trying to figure it out. I wrestle with questions like "can I still be extremely anything?" like extremely loving, compassionate, thoughtful, passionate, grateful, etc... The list goes on. And I'm not sure.
But I have a whole like ahead of me as a non-extreme version of ETG to figure it out. Or to try to figure it out. And maybe that's part of the answer, too...that there really is no figuring it out. After all, that would be an extreme in and of itself because then I'd be there, I would have "arrived", and then I'd be asking "what next?" instead of just being, just living, just feeling the world around me and letting it direct me to whatever is next. It's a little unnerving, I tell you. But I think we have to be pushed out of our comfort zone to really start living, right? Let's hope so!