breathe, stretch, shake —let it go.

I'm a HUGE Mase fan - in fact, this song is playing in the background as I type (which is why the title of this post is aptly named). "Breathe, stretch, shake - let it go" is exactly what I do in yoga and coincidentally, what I do strive to do in life. But in life, it's not as easy to shake shit off and let it go. It's tough to adopt the "5 year rule" - where if it won't matter in 5 years, then we ought to just let it go. How will we know what will and what will not matter in 5 years? How do we decipher the significance of events in the present? How can we just "let shit go" in our lives as easily as we can "let shit go" in our yoga practice? 

I've thought long and hard about this and while I do think there's some value in the "5 year rule", I don't think that I'm laissez-faire enough to wholly embrace it. I'm a Type-A personality. I ask a lot of questions. I need to know where I'm going, when I'm going to get there, how I'm going to get there, and I hate not being in control of my life. I'm very ambitious, very self-critical, very much in a race against the clock, and before I started my yoga journey, I'd be the type to overreact at every little thing and had maaad anger issues (I was a treat to be around). While my yoga practice has calmed me down a lot and has taught me that I cannot always be in control of every single situation that I find myself in, I still struggle with my ability to let things go. 

Some things are easier to let go of than others, of course; whereas, other things (and/or people) tend to be a bit more difficult, especially when you have attachment issues to ideas and pictures of how things were supposed to be, etched in your brain. This is a story of how I knew that I completely let go of my first (and only) big relationship. Unsurprisingly, yoga played a big role in that letting go process.

It's a little ironic that I came to fall in love with yoga to fall out of love with him. See, he worked for Lululemon, which is the brand one automatically associates with yoga. I didn't regularly practice yoga when I was living in BC, though I'm sure everyone thought I did because I was always decked out in all lulu everything (which I still kinda am and am in desperate need of work clothes). I always had the latest and most exclusive lulu tights, bags, jackets - you name it. I think back now and like, what a waste that was - I lived in yoga clothes and I lived in BC - the biggest freaking yoga obsessed province in Canada and I hardly ever practiced. But whatever, shit happens for a reason and you just gotta trust the timing of your life - the irony of it all is just kind of ridiculous (as are most things that happen to me, tbqh).

Anyway, throughout my year of self-discovery, self-renewal, and I guess, self-awareness, I reset my priorities. In resetting my priorities, my Type-A personality ensured that I showed up on my mat very regularly, which again, allowed me to carve out the time to show up for myself. I did whatever made me happy (yoga) and whatever brought me joy (yoga). In learning to let go in uncomfortable poses in the Moksha sequence (hands down Warrior 2) after holding them for longer than I'd like (i.e. stop resisting and start softening), I was somehow subconsciously letting go of all the pain, heartache, and hurt caused by the severance of my relationship. I didn't know it at the time, but of course, hindsight is 20/20. Every single time I arrived on my mat, I quieted my thoughts and focused my attention with magnificent precision on stretching my body into positions that permitted and encouraged growth. Every deep breath I took was an opportunity to inhale the good I created and exhale the bad that had continued to linger. Every time I'd physically shake off a pose, I'd mentally shake off painful memories. And in time, I eventually came to let all that shit go.

There have been a couple of moments earlier this year when I knew that I had completely let that relationship go - being open to the idea of pursuing a new one was a big-time realization. But I think the biggest moment that confirmed those earlier realizations was last week. I had just come back from Ottawa and my summer plans went awry. I was on Instagram following positive vibe accounts (so lame and so basic, but I like reading the positive affirmations so leave me alone) and his girlfriend or whoever she is to him somehow popped up in "accounts you may know" or whatever tf it actually says (gotta love social media). So, I clicked on her profile and she had a private account (lame), but saw the words "Mommy to be💞" in her bio. And I immediately burst into a fit of giggles and screenshotted (another word I made up, haay Shakespeare) that shit and immediately sent it to my BFF extraordinaire, MB.

Lol. I could not believe my life. Honestly, if it wasn't such a freaking tragedy at that moment with everything else going wrong, I would have found that situation even funnier. Like here I am, just getting home from finishing my first year of law school, supposed to be in a happy and celebratory and triumphant mood, but am instead all upset and heartbroken because my summer wasn't going as planned - AND THEN finding out that my ex and the girl he left me for are having a freaking baby together, like whatttttt?! Are you fucking kidding me right now!? Like what else could possibly go wrong to further sour this moment of supposed bliss from finishing 1L? Lol anyway, upon receiving that screenshot, MB called me and verbalized my initial "wtf" reaction and quickly asked me if I was okay. I started laughing even more, which confused her, but then she started laughing because when one of us giggles, the other one automatically has to start giggling too (that's what real best friends do, btw) and asked why we were laughing. I told her that we're laughing because this entire freaking situation was just so fucking stupid! Literally, everything about the series of events of my life until that moment was just so ridiculous that it was straight up comical. Neither of us could believe how unfortunate my love life was at that time. And also, I'm sorry, but who tf puts "Mommy to be" in their IG bio? Like, whattt? Come on Eileen, that's insane and also, I hate private IG accounts. Like don't put that in your bio if I can't see your baby bump progress. Lol. Jk. Sort of/not really. 

K, after that, we had a real discussion about how I felt about this news. And truthfully, I really didn't care. She told me to call her if I decided that I did care later on that night or tomorrow because she (and everyone else I later sent that screenshot to) had thought that the news hadn't really hit me. Everyone assumed that I'd be super upset about learning that my ex and his whatever person was having a baby and all told me, "you're so much better off" ..............

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Well, like, duhh!!! No shit I'm better off!!!! That could have been/would have been me if things hadn't ended when they did. I would have been 26 (or younger) and pregnant and what the hell would I even do with a baby? I sure as hell wouldn't have pursued my dream of law school and even if I had, wtf am I going to do with a baby in law school?! I can barely look after my tiny ass succulent (which I'm sure is dead by now) and my own affairs in law school, let alone an infant - that's just insane. I mean, one of my best friends is my age and has a beautiful baby girl named Harper (all of you should check our her dope mommy blog here) and is the absolute best mother, ever. So, obviously, you can be a young mom and still kill it at life. I just know that I would never be able to balance a baby and my dream of becoming a lawyer at the same time. Like what would I even do with the baby - not just while I'm in class, but also at home? Like could I use it as a book-end? Or like, a paper weight? What does it do when I'm reading or doing work or having a scotch at the end of a long day? So many questions that need not be answered and also clearly demonstrate that I am not at all prepared to have a child in the near future. Or honestly, even in the distant future, who knows.

So yeah, seeing "Mommy to be" solidified and confirmed my earlier realizations that I had hundo p, without any uncertainty, let go of that relationship. As surprised as I was to see that, I was (and am) actually extremely happy for the two them. Good for them for finding each other (though at a questionable, overlapping time involving me), for figuring out their shit together, and for having a baby together. That's huge and that's something that should absolutely be celebrated!!! I feel like me being able to be this genuinely happy for them is my sign of clarity that I had been able to forgive them and let them go, which is unquestionably something that would not have happened, had it not been for yoga.

Yoga taught me how to let shit go and showed me all of the good that can happen when I let shit go. I became content, lighter, less type-A and that allowed me to literally transform my hurt into happiness. By breathing, stretching, and shaking, I was able to let all of it go and that's the story of how yoga (and Mase) facilitated my personal triumph of "getting over" that big relationship. 

P.S. If either of you are reading this blog, congratulations on your baby!! I'm thankful it's not me!!

resistance in discomfort v. comfort in softening.

Some days I find myself in need of more clarity and peace than others. Today was one of those days. I forewarned one of my favourite teachers (the QUEEN of MYM) that I was in need of her wisdom and that there was a 10/10 chance that I'd cry in her class this afternoon. She told me to come anyway and flow it out/cry if I needed to because it'd be as good as a release as sweating it out. So I did. And I stayed for a beautiful Yin class afterwards.

The second I lay in savasana, I just became overwhelmed with so many emotions. I was angry, sad, relieved, uncertain, confused...pretty much every emotion under the sun - minus joy; that was missing. I didn't know what to feel, which emotion to pay attention to, where my head was at, where my heart was at - I just felt flustered. As class went on, I began to flow the fluster away. I began concentrating on my movements and paid particular attention to how my body was responding to my emotions. I found myself involuntarily shaking in poses I normally have significant stability in and found myself just...off-balance throughout the class. I've spoken a bit about the anthropological concept of 'embodiment' in Field Notes, but this was quite literally the first time I paid personal attention to the phenomenon of how my body literally embodied my emotions. In listening to my body throughout my practice, I figured out which emotion was the driving force behind my instability: uncertainty. The feeling of uncertainty overwhelmed the majority of my flow class, but instead of trying to shake it off, I leaned into it. Particularly in pigeon.

I have a love/hate relationship with pigeon pose. It's one of those poses that can feel fantastic one day and then feel completely painful the next; or, it can feel amazing on one side (usually my right side) and then hurt like hell on the other side. More than that, it's a pose that brings up all the emotions for me, especially when I transition to sleeping pigeon. All of my thoughts rush to my head and honestly, overwhelm me - so much so, that I have to keep my arms open and rest my head on my mat because if I try to rest my head on my closed arms, I feel trapped with my anxiety. That aside, in pigeon today the beautiful instructor came to give me some hands on adjustment (something I love because it always feels so damn good). She deepened my sleeping pigeon and in doing so, I was met with extreme discomfort. Initially, I tried to resist it; it felt so uncomfortable that I almost asked her to ease off the adjustment. But yoga (and life) is all about finding comfort in the discomfort - resisting the discomfort only makes things so much more worse than it need be. Yes, you want to get out of said discomfort ASAP, but resisting it prohibits growth instead of enabling it. So, I took the deepest breaths I took all class and allowed myself to feel the uncomfortableness, to really experience and stay with the discomfort, and in doing so I... just started uncontrollably bawling - like so much so that I felt real bad for the teacher who is literally the kindest human in the universe because I'm like hundo p sure she was all "wtf". BUT, in releasing my tears, I simultaneously released my resistance and found myself naturally softening (in both the pose and in tears), and arrived at a point in the posture where I felt comfortable. This exact sequence of events was then repeated on my left side, which hurt a lot more because for some reason I'm super tight on that side. BTW, the teacher is a literal angel for coming back to adjust me on my other side, even though I exemplified the literal definition of a 'hot mess' when she came to adjust me on my right side. 

ANYWAYS, the message I'm trying to convey here is that those moments of discomfort are always temporary. If we try to resist them, then we only heighten the pain and end up hurting ourselves. Moreover, experiencing these moments of discomfort allows us to actively participate and experience the moments of our personal growth. Growth, like pigeon pose, is uncomfortable. It hurts. It feels uncertain. And it's awkward. But when you stop resisting the discomfort and breathe deeply throughout pose, you start to trust yourself. You begin to trust that "this too shall pass" (so corny, but bear with me) and eventually, you find softening, and eventually, comfort. 

These feelings of uncertainty will eventually subside and manifest into something that more closely resembles joy. I just need to sit with it, stop resisting it, stop forcing gratitude - because that will come in time - and allow myself to uncomfortably feel and experience the uncertainty. I need to embrace the discomfort because in doing so, I know that I'm embracing growth. With deep breaths in times of turmoil or mental distress or whatever tf, I'll naturally arrive at a place where I can finally soften and re-discover a comfort that I created for myself.

S/O to the QUEEN of MYM for dealing with my mental breakdown in tonight's flow class - you're the real MVP and if I'm grateful for anything today, it's you❤️

Namaste everyone!

créer l'espace pour de meilleures choses.

I started practicing yoga irregularly seven years ago. Unlike a lot of my fellow yogis, I didn't immediately fall in love with the practice. I liked it, I just didn't love it - which, I think speaks to my greater life, but that's another story. Sure, the attraction of the cute outfits and pretty poses was there, but I needed to spend more time on my mat to really fall in love with the practice - and coincidentally, to really fall in love with myself.

I don't know what happened or how it happened, but I think by the end of 2016 I had simply had enough. I had enough disappointment, I had enough wallowing, I had enough swiping - I had enough of trying so desperately to prove something - anything - to people. I just had enough. So, in January 2017 I impulsively decided to make some serious changes for myself. Now, my friends and family have affectionately told me that I was very high-strung and had a bad temper. I was never really into the whole holistic, green, hippie-like living (unlike my sister). And I'm still not that into it. So when I started this change there was a mixture of confusion and support from my loved ones because they thought it was weird that I got so into yoga so fast, but because they saw how much it changed my attitude towards literally everything, they found it best not to say anything (also, they were likely scared to say anything to me tbh). Anyways, I started concentrating on myself by setting goals and just made myself my own priority. I stopped giving af about what other people (though, to be honest, it was really just one person) thought about me. And I revisited the practice of yoga in mid-January and forgot how good it felt to just...be. But, let's be real, yoga is expensive stretching and I didn't have the dollars to spend on a membership each month. Luckily, my local studio (which has since, become my sanctuary), Moksha Yoga Maple (MYM), was looking for Energy Exchangers (EEs) to volunteer 3 hours of their day every week to give back to the studio in exchange for free, unlimited yoga. I applied and began EE-ing there in February 2017. And the rest is history.

EE-ing at MYM  introduced me to a whole new world of good. I converted my desk space in my bedroom to headspace and created the cutest meditation corner. I read that Mari Kondo book about the joys of tidying up and decluttered my space by getting rid of all the shit I had that no longer gave me joy. I began practicing yoga once or twice a week, downloaded a meditation app on my phone (Headspace - which is what inspired the name of this section of my blog), lit minty-eucalyptus candles, set intentions/goals, began writing down daily affirmations on sticky-notes every morning to put on my mirror, googled wtf chakras were and began my process of becoming. I had an alarm on my phone to tell me when it was time to meditate (10:00pm, everyday - I know it's something people usually do in the morning, but it helped me sleep better and more completely at night) and honestly, my meditation time was something I looked forward to everyday because it gave me so much peace, so much clarity, and so much presence. In literally creating the physical space by decluttering my room to make way for better things, I somehow created the emotional and mental space within to do the same. 

I quickly increased my presence at MYM and without shame, started showing up on my mat everyday - sometimes twice a day. I actually sometimes wondered whether those working at MYM thought I had a life because I was there so much. But whatever, what I didn't realize at the time was that in showing up on my mat, I was actually showing up for myself. Every time I stepped into that beautiful sanctuary, I was there for me. To better myself. To forgive myself. To heal myself. To treat myself. I was busy creating my own happiness, my own stability, and my own peace. This sounds so corny, but I invested some serious time in myself to make sure that I was happy with my own becoming. And sure enough, after just a month and a half of EE-ing at MYM and 2 months of tender self-love and care, my dream came true: I got into law school. And I know that all this was not a coincidence. It came at a time when I was ready to accept it. I got right within myself and shit got right outside myself. My chakras were finally aligned (something I could only say once I figured out wtf chakras were), my head was finally screwed on properly, and my heart was once again full - the universe forced me to find balance within before adding another layer of opportunity/challenge. 

This isn't dissimilar to the practice of Moksha yoga. In the part of the sequence where we learn to feel for balance in toppling tree, eagle, tree pose, and dancer's pose (or really, throughout the entire practice), we need to first get comfortable with the sequence before adding layers of challenges by either changing the direction of our sight or by using props. Once we are able to find our balance in the pose, we are then able to accept additional challenges that allows us to continue to grow our yoga. And honestly, if this ain't the biggest metaphor for life, then I don't know what is because the parallels between my yoga practice and my life are so interconnected that it's difficult to differentiate one from the other. Perhaps, maybe, that's the purpose. That's the point. Yoga mimics life. It is meant to continue to be practiced on and off the mat. And that's what I hope to do - to find balance in yoga, life, law, and everything in between. I may fall out of balance every once in a while, but as all my wonderful teachers at MYM say, "So what? Who cares? Just get right back into the posture when you feel ready". And once again, I need to reiterate - if this ain't a metaphor for life, then seriously what is?! Right now, I'm off balance - something to be explained another day - but, I am making every conscious effort to get back into posture (hence, this blog tbh).

My journey with yoga and my relationship with the practice continues to grow as I consistently find myself needing greater clarity. My chakras aren't currently aligned, but I'm hoping to remedy that with more MYM, more good, and more love and happiness a la Al Green. 

Namaste y'all.