Saturday Musing on a SAD Confession

I have a confession to make. I have relapsed. No, I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. Both of which would have been so much worse or I may just be trying to rationalize. I think picking up an alcoholic drink or a cigarette would be just as bad given the health implications. I relapsed on sugar and flour.

It wasn’t even an event. It was sort of a progression. I can’t even pin down the exact moment. I just know that it was a little piece of something here and another piece of something there and over the past month it progressed to five (yes, five) pumpkin donuts. I realized then that I had gone over the edge. That qualified as a binge.

Today I start anew. That is why I am confessing. I also want to share what I feel led to this in hopes that others are able to learn from my experience.

Lately, I have been thinking of stress as being like the game Jenga, the one where you make a tower of wooden bricks and slowly pull out one after the other until the whole tower falls down. Well, my first brick started with a very busy September at work, followed by a stressful October. Then the time changed. That is the reason for the SAD confession. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Big time. Usually around the first of November I want to crawl in a cave and sleep until I can’t sleep anymore and this year was no different. Or maybe it was worse. November is also the anniversary of my mother’s and grandfather’s deaths and I am not all that fond of the holidays. November tends to hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn’t pay attention to it this year and it was as if the Jenga blocks were being pulled out quickly before I had a chance to get my footing. I hurt my knee and it affected my whole body. My self care fell apart and I got very cranky. I started to have carbohydrate cravings. I wanted foods that normally disgust me and I wanted lots of them. And it was harder to find fresh local foods to eat.

This is not a list of excuses. It is just a reminder that there are always things out there that will pull us under if we don’t take care of ourselves. On top of it all, we know that November and December are big food months, holidays and food gifts and potlucks and various occasions of gluttony.

Here is what I am going to do. Number one – get over myself and just forgive me and move on. Number two – re-evaluate my self care plan and do those things that I tell others to do – yoga, meditation, creative endeavors, sing, dance, go for walks, and pay attention to my body. Fortunately, I haven’t done too much damage with this relapse and I can quickly move on. I have the means to rebuild my Jenga tower and get back in the game. I am going to do it now. There is the temptation to say – “Oh, Linda, give yourself a break and just wait until January 1^st before you get back on the wagon.” If I had that much self control I would be in this predicament. Last year I went on a big December binge and I am pretty sure I gained 20 pounds in one month. Let’s not go there this year!!

That is it. That is the plan and I have just held myself accountable. Time to move on.

On another note – I haven’t written much lately because I am considering starting another blog on another site. I have finally decided on the name and may have found which blog site to use. I hope to get this set up soon. Rather than being a blog that is just me musing, it will be a blog specific to my experiences with yoga, spirituality, self care, and nature. I want it to be positive and a way to help others to find ways to change their lives. I will keep you posted.

Freeing Up Space and Easing into Vacation

Poor Boo! Between the garbage disposal, dishwasher, washer and dryer, paper shredder, AND the smoke detector (when I turned on the wrong stove burner) she is probably counting her whiskers until I either leave for Maine or go back to work. It has been a busy morning.

I don’t count the past two weekend days as vacation. I would have had them anyway. I was very glad, however, to know that I did not have to go to work today. I was feeling a little anxious and stressed. My body was reacting as if I had a busy weekend with little time to rest before going back to work. Even with the massage I had Saturday my body seemed to be carrying a lot of extra baggage. I had a good time with my son and grandkids on Saturday even though it was pouring rain. Caleb, Lizzie and I played Wii bowling and tennis and I tried my hands at Mario GoKarts. Fortunately, my bowling skills made up for the number of times Diddy Kong ended up in the water or crashing against the wall.

Yesterday I attended a Shamballa Reiki Level I and II workshop at Energies to Enlighten with Amy Gebo. She is an amazing healer and the group of women that came together to learn how to lay on hands to assist people in releasing negative emotional energies that can lead to dis-ease were phenomenal. It was such a great space to be in that we were reluctant to leave at the end of the day. Ever since then I have felt less stressed and able to ease into vacation and relax. I also journaled last night on some of the things that hang around in my brain and felt that I was able to relax even further by releasing those thoughts onto the paper.

This morning I was out the door around the time I usually leave for work. I wanted to attend a Kripalu yoga class at Ohana Yoga. This is the studio where I will be teaching a class on Wednesday nights and I wanted to meet some of the other teachers. I will still be going to Sharing Yoga in Concord regularly, but will also attend classes at Ohana as my schedule permits. The class this morning was a perfect way to start the week. I plan on attending a class at either studio each day that I am home. In fact, I plan on attending a class at Sharing Yoga tomorrow morning and then may head over to Ohana in the evening for a Kundalini class.

Here is the description for the class I will be teaching on Wednesday nights at 7:30 at Ohana yoga in Hopkinton.

This class is for those who need to truly honor their bodies or for those who are wanting to see what yoga is all about.

It is for those not feeling overly confident and having pre-conceived notions about what it is and how one needs to look in order to participate in Yoga.

Over time we go from wanting to do yoga, to needing to do yoga. Whether you want to feel extremely comfortable in a class with people similar to you, you have a slowed metabolism over time, or you are feeling a bit sluggish and not feeling yourself, this is the class for you!

After class I ran errands to make sure that Boo has plenty of treats for while I am in Maine and then came home and worked through the procrastination until I finally pulled up a chair in front of the fridge to empty out everything that was past the point of healthy and bordering on either fermentation or creating new bio-forms. I now have a lot more available plastic containers and a variety of jars to add to the recycling pile. In fact, there are so many that I will probably just slide the recycling bin over to the dishwasher and unload them straight to the bin.

I did pretty much the same thing in my office. I pulled an empty bin up to the desk and went at the stacks of papers and files as if I was purging my life. And it felt that way. I shredded old loan papers, info from accounts I no longer have, and, in one last flourish, I sent my 27 year old divorce papers through the shredder and turned them into confetti. I guess I have released the idea that somehow I could be accused of being married again. I kept the most important piece of paper out of that marriage – my son’s birth certificate.

It is amazing how freeing it is to let all that stuff go. And to top it off, I found empty spiral notebooks, envelopes of all shapes and sizes, CD sleeves and mailers, and file folders. I could probably open my own office supply store with all the things I found that have never been used. I had almost talked myself into going to Staples this morning for items I thought I would need for organizing but I already had more than I needed. I should never have to buy another file folder (unless I really like the design!).

Just as I was finishing with the office and getting around to folding a basket of laundry, the sun came out and lit up my world. It has been raining for so long that I forget when I saw the sun last and here it is. It just needs to dry out a little and then I can plan on a bike ride. I can’t wait to take a ride along the river where the leaves are changing and reflecting in the water. It was beautiful this morning in the rain and I know it will be stunning with the sun out.

That is my first day of vacation so far. I am going to rest and then go to my cello lesson. I am a little worried about that. My teacher had recommended I take it into the shop for some maintenance. It cost me over $300.00 to get a new bridge, new strings, and have the pegs lubed. Unfortunately, now I can’t seem to get it in tune and I am so frightened of breaking a string that I am going to leave it to my instructor to do.

One final thing – I am committing to regular yoga and losing 5-10 pounds over vacation. It can be done. I just need to avoid the one thing I appear to be addicted to at this time – Kettle Cut potato chips. Oy Vey!! Those things are lethal and so ruinous to what is otherwise a very healthy diet. I need to start carrying an apple with me whenever I am in the car. That is when I want the chips. While I am driving. I think it all goes back to smoking in the car. I need to have something to do in the car while I am driving, especially on long trips. Any ideas!??