Today is rather an emotional day...in that I am experiencing a wide range of emotions! I feel excited. I feel nervous. I feel anxious. I even feel a little bit dizzy but I am linking that to all the deep breathing I am doing to deal with the other stuff!
Tomorrow is Day 1 of 7. Day 1 of my Nia White Belt Training.
I think in total I have taken 13 Nia classes now. Some in Hong Kong, some here in Canada. It's not many in the scheme of things but I feel OK about that because I have enjoyed each and every class I've taken. I want to delve deeper and get to the heart of this vibrant practice that for me, feels like Dancing My Yoga. Right now it's for personal development but who knows where that may lead. One step at a time.
I'm more nervous than I should be, or normally would be in a situation like this and it all relates to my last blog post and the events recounted there. The finger is healing. Slowly. On the plus side it looks much better. I can indeed look at it now. I can feel compassion for it rather than horror and fear. I think that's important. However, looks can be deceiving of course and it is hard to tell how this story is going to end. I'm doing my best to write the ending I want: It will heal perfectly and a new nail will grow. Lets assume that. In the meantime, the Finger is so utterly full of sensations, most of the time. It feels quite bizarre. Moving around and any contact needs to be done with full awareness. At first I panicked a bit at this realisation....how would I cope? How will I be able to dance? How will I write my notes? What if there is partner work?
Of course I spent some time here...worrying...and eventually I smiled...maybe even laughed out loud. This is just perfect. It's like I have an extra tool to help me with awareness as I learn about the joy of movement and other Nia principles, over the next 7 days. Of course I'd prefer to be without this particular "tool", but what I need to do is accept it and let it become part of my experience rather than hinder my experience. Work with it and allow it to help me learn more about my body and my limitations, even my thought processes. I've learned a lot already in the last 3 weeks without a classroom and a schedule, so surely by adding these things, I can only learn more.
Once I worked that bit out, I headed out to get my toenails painted a beautiful purple colour and I'm now officially ready to dance :-)
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Learning Curves & Changing Patterns
What a roller-coaster week of emotions that was! I'm glad I managed to resist posting an entry earlier in the week when things were feeling very raw indeed! Now though, I have come through the dark tunnel and can see some daylight again!
Last weekend was not a good one. A flooded basement and a trip to Emergency Care all within 24 hours of one another. The basement flood was the result of a pretty violent storm on Friday night and as irony would have it, when it happened we were out for a relaxing massage to help soothe away our troubles and tensions...the effects of that particular massage had to be the shortest lived in my experience!
As for the hospital run, that was due to an incident involving our new super duper cheese knife, my lovely husband, some cheese and my right index finger. The result was extremely painful, very bloody and a cut not only to my finger and nail but to my nail bed too. The rest of the details really do not need to be shared but I have been pretty lame around the house this week. I continue to be amazed at how losing the use of just one finger can be potentially so limiting. I've been very lucky to have Alan around this week, that is for sure.
On the other hand though (no pun intended) I am trying to see it as a new learning curve rather than a limitation. I happen to be very right handed. I've discovered that I barely use my left hand alone because my right hand is so much better at everything! I soon realised that if I wanted to be able to do anything for myself this week that I would have to adapt my way of thinking..and doing. Change some patterns and expectations. Be open to doing things differently, more slowly and with care and much greater awareness. As it turns out, this was easier than I thought it might be, once I removed my own expectations of how things should be.
I do believe that things happen for a reason, as hard as that is to believe sometimes. It is always very easy to let yourself feel like the victim in a situation like this but that is never going to get us anywhere other than a state of self pity. And I've been there a few times this week when the pain was at it's peak. It didn't feel good. I think it actually made the pain worse. The mind is powerful and has such influence over our bodies. I'm sure that on the days I have been able to stay happy and positive, I have been less aware of my injury - both the pain and the inconvenience.
During some mindfulness practice this week while I was at one of my lowest points, I managed to catch myself...catch my (self-pitying) thoughts mid flow and I remembered a book I read last year... a wonderful, inspiring book called "Waking" by Matthew Sanford. I first encountered Matthew at the San Francisco Yoga Conference in 2009 where he was giving the Keynote Speech. His speech left me wanting more, so I had to buy the book. It took me a while, as usual, to get around to reading it but once I did start, I simply could not put it down. It's the story of his recovery from a near fatal accident in which one of his parents and a sibling died. It is one of those books that has stayed with me ever since and it was at this low point that the memory of it helped me breathe a little deeper and get things into perspective. My situation was unpleasant and painful both emotionally and physically but it was far from serious, in the scheme of things. Remembering parts of the book made me feel very humbled, and very grateful for life in general. It is so easy to get thrown off course by an unwelcome event in life but our ability to bounce back and get things into perspective and to be grateful for all the good stuff, is what it's all about.
Adapting to changing circumstances seems to be a familiar theme in my life lately but of course I'm not the only one. We all have our dramas, but when the only constant in life is change, how we respond to change is critical to our wellbeing and our state of mind.
I highly recommend you read Matthew's book.....
Last weekend was not a good one. A flooded basement and a trip to Emergency Care all within 24 hours of one another. The basement flood was the result of a pretty violent storm on Friday night and as irony would have it, when it happened we were out for a relaxing massage to help soothe away our troubles and tensions...the effects of that particular massage had to be the shortest lived in my experience!
As for the hospital run, that was due to an incident involving our new super duper cheese knife, my lovely husband, some cheese and my right index finger. The result was extremely painful, very bloody and a cut not only to my finger and nail but to my nail bed too. The rest of the details really do not need to be shared but I have been pretty lame around the house this week. I continue to be amazed at how losing the use of just one finger can be potentially so limiting. I've been very lucky to have Alan around this week, that is for sure.
On the other hand though (no pun intended) I am trying to see it as a new learning curve rather than a limitation. I happen to be very right handed. I've discovered that I barely use my left hand alone because my right hand is so much better at everything! I soon realised that if I wanted to be able to do anything for myself this week that I would have to adapt my way of thinking..and doing. Change some patterns and expectations. Be open to doing things differently, more slowly and with care and much greater awareness. As it turns out, this was easier than I thought it might be, once I removed my own expectations of how things should be.
I do believe that things happen for a reason, as hard as that is to believe sometimes. It is always very easy to let yourself feel like the victim in a situation like this but that is never going to get us anywhere other than a state of self pity. And I've been there a few times this week when the pain was at it's peak. It didn't feel good. I think it actually made the pain worse. The mind is powerful and has such influence over our bodies. I'm sure that on the days I have been able to stay happy and positive, I have been less aware of my injury - both the pain and the inconvenience.
During some mindfulness practice this week while I was at one of my lowest points, I managed to catch myself...catch my (self-pitying) thoughts mid flow and I remembered a book I read last year... a wonderful, inspiring book called "Waking" by Matthew Sanford. I first encountered Matthew at the San Francisco Yoga Conference in 2009 where he was giving the Keynote Speech. His speech left me wanting more, so I had to buy the book. It took me a while, as usual, to get around to reading it but once I did start, I simply could not put it down. It's the story of his recovery from a near fatal accident in which one of his parents and a sibling died. It is one of those books that has stayed with me ever since and it was at this low point that the memory of it helped me breathe a little deeper and get things into perspective. My situation was unpleasant and painful both emotionally and physically but it was far from serious, in the scheme of things. Remembering parts of the book made me feel very humbled, and very grateful for life in general. It is so easy to get thrown off course by an unwelcome event in life but our ability to bounce back and get things into perspective and to be grateful for all the good stuff, is what it's all about.
Adapting to changing circumstances seems to be a familiar theme in my life lately but of course I'm not the only one. We all have our dramas, but when the only constant in life is change, how we respond to change is critical to our wellbeing and our state of mind.
I highly recommend you read Matthew's book.....
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