The Best Break-Up Advice you'll ever Receive

Ugh, it’s a horrible feeling.  You’re on the train heading home and you feel as though you might burst if you don’t allow those tears to flow.  You put on your sunglasses so other passengers don’t notice.  You’re stomach won’t unknot itself and you’re not looking forward to any interaction especially with your family today.  You fear one simple hug or “how are you?” will send you straight back into a tearful fit, full of heaving and choked up sounds.

You get home and all you want to do is curl up on your mom’s lap.  You don’t want to talk about what happened or all the cruel and awful things that were said.  You don’t want to admit to anyone else how hurt you are despite the fact that they can tell by your red swollen eyes.

She hates seeing you cry.  She was never the maternal type.  She showed love other ways rather than caresses or kind words.  In this family, the women are warriors, their internal strength delivering them from every evil.

She gives you precise directions on what to do next:

1. Stop crying.
2. Get a haircut.  Pamper yourself.  Buy some new shoes or clothes.
3. Go to church and pray – or yoga to meditate.
4. Clean your apartment – make it immaculate.  Throw out everything you don’t want.  Get rid of things that you don’t need.
5. Go and find a new boyfriend because “un clavo siempre saca al otro,” (one nail always gets another one out).

If this had been two years ago, you would have scoffed at her advice and thought that a broken heart was far too serious to remedy with superficial adjustments – but she’s been right too many times this year and you follow each instruction.  The pain dulls away as though someone had put ice on the wound and each day you awake with less and less.  

At some point in adulthood, you realize your parents are not just your parents, but human beings that have probably been through a lot of rough times they hid from you when you were a child.  You realize that no matter what you’ve done or how horrible you feel that they understand you more than you know. 

Thanks mom.

Cyclical

When I told the moon

What you’d done before you’d left

She gave me my blood back

Then told me to remember my lineage

Of goddess warriors and artisans

Women before me fared much worse

And this blood that I carry is a gift, not a curse

All those nights you cursed the moon

For her half absence

Demanding she lay herself

full and bare but I knew

she never cared to please you

She’d wane and disappear

Unattentive to your petty whines and sneers

She was always full to me

Just hiding from your periphery

Just like her, so much of me you couldn't see

You never understood my poetry

Your silence never gave way to depth

believe me when I say

you were the cruelest of all

Back to being a tortured poet!

'cause everyone just loves tortured souls, no?


there's this sadness inside of me like an endless tear
and everytime I think it's gone it's merely been wiped away temporarily
by the surprise of a new toy on Christmas morning
The glimmer of hotel chandeliers with the taste of champagne
Lingering like a quiet kiss
and then I go to sleep and remember
waking up choked by my animal cries

Love only breaks your heart
the foolish brave souls are so brash as to open that door
the one full of skeletons and do not enter signs
treasure chests once gold, now mothballs
of the dress you wore when your eyes first met
they say you're healed when you're ready to open that door again
But you’re just another soldier, a pawn
To buy into a nonexistent happiness
Expectations unfulfilled like empty wrapped boxes
With a bow on Christmas morning


My father told me that you’re born alone
And you die alone only accompanied
By memories of all the choices you’ve made
And I love all the men
with their tall dark figures
and authoritative voices
that never say much
but say just enough
to convince you it’s worth the battle
and this time you’ll know where the shooter will be
who he is and his intentions

You’re wearing your best
In your little black dress
With a bullet proof vest

That bastard always shoots you in the arm
Enough to wound but not to kill
And you wake up crying wishing for the latter

The Yoga Project: Calming the Monkey Mind

I was going strong having done yoga for 13 days straight but I was going crazy.  I hadn’t been able to see my boyfriend or friends for more than a week (and I live alone – so when I say going crazy, I mean it literally – all work and no play make Jen Jen cray cray).  I was getting home at 10 each night and leaving by 7:30 a.m.  I felt exhausted.

It dawned on me that the point of yoga isn’t to drain your vitality but rather to replenish it.  In conclusion, I’m planning on doing yoga as much as I can without burning out or losing the point of this exercise which was to integrate more yoga in my life and develop a regular practice.  That being said, I’m planning on practicing at least five times a week or so.

Now that the technicalities are out of the way, let’s get to what it’s been like on the mat for the past couple of weeks. 

I’m learning and relearning so many things like what it is to really breathe or how to sit up straight to remembering promises I made to myself as a child that are no longer useful to me.  Engaging in a yoga practice so aggressively (bet you never thought you’d hear yoga and aggressive in the same sentence, huh?) is no joke.  There are days where I just can’t get with it – the teacher says left and I go right, my downward dog looks like a pathetic panting puppy and I’m not feeling so zen towards my instructor. 

Then there are other days where practice seems to flow so gracefully.  I do a pose I’ve never been able to do before.  My breathing stays consistent with my movement and shivasana (corpse pose) feels as though I’ve entered into a magical realm between dreamscapes and reality while conscious.

Last night, I would not allow myself to enjoy my yoga class for whatever reason.  I was having a really off night.  During these off nights I feel as though I learn the most about myself and my old thought processes and patterns.  For instance, you decide you’re good at hip openers but bad at core work so you avoid the core work and at some point you realize that you are deciding it all and not allowing yourself to be open to the experience.  Instead of opening up, you then become your mother’s voice in your head telling yourself that everything you do sucks and that of course you’ll never get into the poses that the tiny girls right next to you get into and of course you’ll never be strong enough to sink that knee fully into Warrior pose then you REMEMBER.  You remember that you’re in control, and that you love yourself and your body and are thankful it can take your knees halfway in warrior and that you can get into that one bind that you couldn’t do last week. 

Yoga reminds me of Aztec danza – for every step to the right there is a step to the left and they call themselves warriors, not because they participate in bloodshed, but because they battle themselves in the danza.  I often feel as though I am battling my mind on the mat and I wonder: which half will win tonight?  The overly critical dark half that leaves me wounded and crying or the compassionate light half that allows me to feel the joy within my body and accepts me always as I am.

More to come on my yoga journey.

Namaste

The Yoga Project: The Beginning of my Destruction (Day 4)

Something happened to me in class tonight.  Yoga happened.  (dun dun dun – insert melodramatic orchestra here).

I left class crying and feeling defeated.  It will take more than a simple blog-post to fully comprehend what is happening to me.  I believe it's transformation.

The word “transformation” seems to be this ethereal new age term that cannot be explained in a pragmatic manner.  That is precisely how I feel about my strong emotional reaction to a physical practice.  Yoga is hard, much more difficult than many things that I’ve done and emotionally, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

There is a saying about destruction being necessary in order to rebuild (rebirth).  I believe I’m currently in the destructive phase right now.  I can only hope the plans I lay out after this phase are better than what I am currently in the process of destroying.

Through this I am realizing what yoga really is.  It is a challenging practice.  It is rigorous for your mind and body.  Yoga is a mindset, it is not a destination, it is not a competition, and it is far more than I understand right now.  It is powerful.

There’s something to be said about finding your breath through the discomfort of this process and being able to hold the pose.  I feel as though I am going to be here for a while. 

The Yoga Project: Day 2

My whole body hurts.  Yes it’s only been two days of yoga but there are these muscles that I didn’t even know that I had that are hurting me.

Other than that, nothing is that challenging for the first 2 days (unless you’re fasting, in which the first few days are by far the worst).  Classes, although not easy, have gone by quickly.

I did want to acknowledge one thing.  Last night when I got back from yoga class, I had a TON of energy.  Finding myself quite listless and distracted, I had to coax myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

At this point, I’ll go into my general background with yoga.  I started practicing yoga in 2007 and I took classes once a week for about a year.  That is the most consistently I’ve ever practiced.  Since then it’s been a class here and there but nothing completely regular for more than a couple of months.  One of my biggest hopes is to reestablish yoga as a routine in my life.

In later posts, I’ll go into the philosophy of yoga and the small nuggets of wisdom extracted from each class.  I’ll leave you with one here: last night my yoga teacher began to share his appreciation for many Republican presidential candidates.  Many yoginis began to groan in distaste (and perhaps because he was talking while we were holding a challenging position) and then he said something interesting.  He asked us to notice how easily our minds became irritated.  Then he said something completely radical: if we dislike someone else’s politics then we are not truly doing yoga. 

Something to contemplate, I suppose. 

Namaste!

The Year of the Dragon and the Yoga Project

2012 is the year of the Dragon.  I consider this good luck if only because I’m dating a Dragon.  I mean, a human born in the year of the dragon and not an actual dragon because that would be strange and possibly delusional but I digress.

I’d like to take a moment to do something that I feel I don’t do nearly enough which is allow myself some pride in my accomplishments of 2011.

As I began 2011 I was in a very different place than I am now.  I was very depressed, uncertain about my path and full of self doubt.  My health suffered as a result.  The year proved to be challenging and transformative. 

This year I found myself again after having lost myself.  I completed the extremely challenging goal of fasting for 40 days which required tremendous discipline and self control.  I regained my confidence.  I helped nonprofit organizations raise thousands of dollars for causes near and dear to my heart.  I backpacked through southern Mexico, had some great family time in California, lost forty pounds, started a new job, grew up a little bit more, became more honest to myself and finally, I found love again.

Despite these great strides I’ve made in the span of only one year, I understand that I am merely a work in progress. To reach one’s potential, one must never be fooled into thinking that she is done learning all she can learn.  I gained more from fasting for forty days then I’ve been able to convey here.  Benefits have included a healthier diet, emotional clarity and much self confidence. If I can do that through challenging myself to a consistent behavior for a period of time, what else can I do?   This has brought a new challenge to the forefront.

Having complete control over my body was great during fasting, I now desire more control over my mind.  I’ve decided to commit myself for the next 30 days to a daily yoga practice.  I plan on documenting my experience through this blog.

The reasons I’ve chosen yoga are trifold:

1. The challenge: It will be hard.  The purpose of challenging yourself is to actually do something difficult. Sadly, I've never done ANY exercise consistently for 30 days.  This will be demanding on my body, mind and schedule.
2. Nourishment of self as habit: daily yoga allows me the opportunity to pursue nourishment for my body, soul and mind.  Yoga is a rigorous practice that demands meditation, movement and time.  Making time for myself in this way is a constant statement in my psyche telling me that I’m worth it.
3. The benefits: I’m only human and that vegan chocolate cake I baked for New Year’s was fantastic!  My hope is that I become stronger, gain more energy,  lose some pounds, gain more clarity and maintain a regular practice when I am done.

For the next 30 days I will:

• Attend a yoga class DAILY (classes are generally 1.5 hours each)
• Blog about my experience on a regular basis
• Neglect my family and friends for yoga (sorry guys, but this is likely)

Happy New Year and Namaste!