Surf N Sol

*Note: I love animals, and I really don’t believe in the caging of any monkeys, except for the figurative ones described herein below.

Yoga parlance is full of fun and descriptive phrases (“shine your heart forward”, “let your buttocks blossom to the sky”, and others), but one of my favorites is “calm your monkey mind”, because you immediately understand what it means. And, if you’re like me, you wind up with a cute image of your inner self as a monkey that is running around willy-nilly. Its a humorous and gentle description that draws attention to the fact that your brain might have been very far away from your mat. We all have those moments where we are running through mental to-do lists or remembering an argument with a friend, and so often we don’t even know that its happening unless an outside voice is there to remind you.

Recently, I was reading a book about meditation that encourages lovingly recognizing when your mind has strayed into the world of thought, as opposed to thinking you’ve failed in your practice. I am especially fond of Pema Chodron’s description of imagining an arising thought as a bubble, and tapping that bubble with a feather while acknowledging it, letting the bubble pop and disappear, and then returning to your practice. If the idea of bubbles and feathers is too distracting in and of itself, Chodron also recommends just acknowledging “thinking”, and then returning back to your breath.

Whether you practice in a studio, at home, or just while sitting on the bus, check in with yourself from time to time. If you find your mind wandering, gently allow your focus to come back to your breath and let the mind fall quiet. We will probably need to do this more than we wish we did, but it is the awareness of the noise that is more important than the noise itself. Each breath taken with that fuller consciousness is the reward.

Happy practicing! Namaste.

Acknowledging what you have is a major lesson to living happily– rather than focusing on what you don’t have, and being miserable as a result, life tends to be a lot better when you focus on how fortunate you already are. My recent injury has caused me to think about this concept a lot, and I’ve come up with two new rules for living based on it:

Rule # 1: Appreciate everything you can do. Immediately after my accident, I fell into a very steep downward spiral, because every moment of my day seemed to point out all the things I couldn’t do anymore. Showering, getting dressed, feeding myself, brushing my teeth… everything was suddenly difficult. Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t surf, hike, ride a bike, or any of the fun things that made up my regular daily activities that contributed to what I considered a good lifestyle. But rather than dwell on my limitations, it became imperative for my own sanity to be grateful that I still had my vision, use of my arms, one good leg, and countless other functions. It is still an uphill battle, but day by day I am getting stronger. And even if that weren’t the case, I am still damn lucky. Rather than lamenting your physical limitations, embrace what you have and don’t take it for granted.

Rule #2: Be unceasingly grateful for the people in your life. I always prided myself on being a modern independent lady and not needing help from others. That came to a crashing end very quickly. In the first weeks, I needed help to do the most basic tasks, and I had to rely on others. If you have those few special people who are there for you, no matter what, then count yourself very fortunate, and say thank you. Because sometimes you will need them. And be there for them when they need you. Share love.

It’s unfortunate that the concept of living in the moment, or being present, has become a yoga cliche, because it is such good advice. Often at the beginning of a yoga class, the instructor will have the students take a moment to quiet their minds, find their breath, and slow down to come to an awareness of the present. It is too bad that no one tells you to do this while you’re running errands on your lunchbreak while making a grocery list and drinking a smoothie all at the same time.

I had (very smugly, shame on me) thought I was finally getting the hang of all this living in the now. And then the Universe decided to give me a whomping lesson to bring me down a notch. One of the reasons that there haven’t been any posts recently is that I’ve been recovering from a car accident that caused some serious, but luckily not permanent, injuries. I’ll spare the details, but essentially in my quest to have it all, I forgot the basics of common sense. I guess in a karmic courtroom, my defense would be “But, Your Honor, I was going to be living in the moment in 5 minutes!” The short story is that I was in such a rush to go surfing and so preoccupied with the logistics of getting to where I could be present, I forgot to be be present. As a result, I won’t be surfing or practicing yoga for at least two months.

Sometimes life is what happens when you’re on your way to the beach. So take this as a warning– live in the present, or else. And don’t forget to use your E brake. Just a little friendly advice from me to you.

Happy living!

Today I woke up and fixed two sticks.  My Slick board got a ding out at Pops two days ago, so that needed some work. Then the tail of the thick 6’3″ was thrashed, so I just sawed it off and glassed it. Now its a 6 1 squashtail, sort of.

Then I took a picture of the mullet I’ve been growing and I stocked the ice cream truck with ice cream.

I live with Chris Slick, the guy who shaped my surfboard.  His mullet from back in the day that I saw on his website here was part of my inspiration to grow my own.  yay mullets.

Then I checked the surf…only 1-2 today….but eh, I’ve got a new squashtail, a truck full of ice cream…

and it sure is a nice day:

-Drew