Tag Archives: yoga

2013 Lessons: When to Push and When to Let Go

I’ll admit, there’s parts of blogging I’m totally over, especially writing posts that feel forced, like Thanksgiving and Christmas posts. Do you really care about my Christmas when everyone else in your reader is writing about their Christmas? Probably not.

I try to be as real as possible on the blog, while not dwelling on the bad, but last year, the idea of a year-in-review sorta post felt so freaking forced to me. Yeah, there were some good times in 2012, but I was still in the midst of some STUFF in the beginning of 2013 and just didn’t have it in me to put that happy face on. I was in St. Croix, and I was trying my best to unplug and be in the moment of a beautiful vacation.

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I was lucky enough to have the best friends in the world who took me to Puerto Rico to celebrate my 30th.

Immediately after I got back from Puerto Rico, things changed very quickly in my life, and I went through a long, difficult job search.

Through these months, I learned when to push, push, push through my life, and when I had to let go. Let me tell you, it’s so much easier to push than it is to let go.

But I credit a great therapist, yoga and meditation with teaching me when to let go, and I found the first two through sheer luck. Thank you ZocDoc for helping me find a great therapist the same day I wanted an appointment without calling every therapist in the city and potentially waiting weeks to see one, and thank you Laughing Lotus for helping me learn to let go. I freaking love that place, and I can’t say enough good things about it.

I pushed, pushed, pushed to get a HUGE PR at the D.C. Half. (Thank you to RB Fiona for being by my side for it!)

I pushed, pushed, pushed to get through my open-water fear at the Franklin Lakes Triathlon.

I tried to push, push, push as running through the hot summer felt impossible…but then I just had to let it go. I could push against something that wasn’t changing, or I could embrace it and just go through it.

As I let it go, it slowly started getting easier.

One particularly harrowing day in the job search, I called Emily, frustrated beyond belief. I did a fair amount of whining but trying to stay strong, and I’ll never forget what she said: “you don’t have to be strong. It’s okay to cry.” I started blubbering, and I felt so much better getting a good cry out. She also said something about letting go, and I fought back and then realized I sorta had to, at least for a few days.

I did, and you know what? I found the posting for my current job just three days later, and I am so incredibly happy with it. Sometimes that cheesy stuff people say about things happening for a reason and things being worth the wait is true.

After running the Philly Half and having some Real Talk with Meggie, I was still really focused on my goal, obviously, but I also tried so much harder to let the fun back in and run more relaxed, rather than fight and berate myself if I didn’t hit goal pace. And, OH HEY, sub-4, and I did NOT bust.

It’s worth also noting that for as many times as I’d tried in the past to make myself a Person Who Liked Yoga or a Person Who Liked Strength Training, forcing myself never helped. But this year? I fell in love with yoga, and I found an amazing community of people at Uplift, and I really enjoy strength training now and, whoa, miss it when I take a few days off.

2013? You ended on a fabulous, fabulous note, but good lord, did you teach me a lot of lessons along the way.

I’m so, so thankful for good friends, good family and an awesome friend/coach who put up with all my #runcrazy to get me to two awesome big PRs.

What did you learn about yourself in 2013? What did you discover once you started letting go?

(On a side note about meditation, my girl Heather released her own meditation album yesterday! Go check it out. I supported her KickStarter, so I downloaded it yesterday but haven’t listened yet.)

That Time I Got Full Wheel Pose

I’ve been doing yoga much more regularly over the past few months.

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Om…

I push myself hard in running, and in life, and I want yoga to be the opposite. I want it to be where I go to chill the eff out from all that other pushing myself hard in life.

But if I show up, I’m going to work hard, whatever hard is for me that day. As a still yoga newbie, I’ve taken things pretty slowly and carefully because I’m terrified of twisting myself into some weird pretzel-y shape and getting stuck there or ripping some muscle straight off my body, but I work hard within my own limits.

I’ve stopped looking around at everyone else and started focusing on my own damn self, but there’s one pose that I know everyone else is doing but me when the instructor cues for it: full wheel pose.

I did gymnastics up until sophomore year of high school and I could pop into a bridge or a backbend like it was no thing, but I’m now 30 years old and my body is a little more creaky. During yoga in Times Square last year, I was so freaking determined to get into full wheel. One of the assistants helped me into it, and it literally took every bit of upper body strength I had. It was humbling how hard it was for me.

Yesterday, I took a class with Jen and was having a particularly good yoga day. My balance and focus were strong, and I was feeling totally blissed out. Err, blissed in. When we got to bridge, I first just did my regular bridge. The second bridge, I put a block under my sacrum (lower back) and was just chilling there for a second…when I decided to just go for it, and I popped up fairly easy into a full wheel!

Whether it was always that easy, or whether I’ve needed the time to build up to it mentally and physically, I don’t know. But I was amazed at how easily it came (I mean, despite already being part of the way up.) I hung out there for a while and then let myself down slowly. To my pleasant surprise, the awesome teaching assistant had moved the block out of my way for me. We did one final bridge/full wheel pose, and I got right back up there.

I took a chance on pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, and it worked.

Boom.

What was the last thing you did that pushed you outside of your comfort zone. Yoga people, tell me about either that one freaking pose that totally eludes you and you would die to do sometime…or a pose you recently conquered.