Stereotypical Halloween Post...

I love Halloween! Absolutely love it. I loved it when I was a kid and I still love it now. I used to carve  four pumpkins, varying sizes every year and pretty much started planning my costumes in August!!

In college, when Halloween become more of a holiday to be a hoochie (I don't judge), I still tended to take the more traditional costume route. I remember I went to the Sheridan College pub dressed

Chakra Class: Root & Sacral...

Monday night is my favorite yoga night of the week at Kula Oakville. There is a teacher (I won't name names just yet) that has three hot yoga classes in a row. What's crazy is that she actually practices along with us during each class.  That's stamina! It's unbelievable how strong she is in her practice. She is defiantly an inspiring teacher and yoga role model.

She concentrates a lot

The Person you were Yesterday...

So I don't really have more to share than this picture that someone from my course shared with me. It really just resonated with me and I figured I would share it here.

Other than that, nothing really else to share unless you want to hear more about downward dog??? lol probably not right?

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Namaste xo.


 

Downdog Overload...

This weekend is a yoga training weekend. We have one weekend out of each month that is a 4 day training schedule. We have a 3 hour class Thursday and Friday and then a 8 hour class Saturday as well as Sunday.  Normally it is only one class a week.

I am not going to lie, I am completely spent.  I will be looking forward to the end of the day on Sunday.  I don't mean that in a negative way though. I just need a moment to absorb all I have been learning. We have been discussing Downward Facing Dog for the last three days.  We haven't even got to the leg part yet.

What I discovered in the later half of class today, is that my downward dog doesn't have "Integrity". A little dis-concerning to say the least.  I was even volunteered to show the class how my pose didn't have integrity...awesome *sarcasm font* It is a pretty comfortable group of people so I didn't mind showing in the sake of knowledge.

Not having integrity in my pose means, that although the pose looks OK and I seem to be "sinking my heart to the floor" quite far, I am actually extending too far past the integral part of the pose. I am not sinking my heart, I am sinking my shoulders.  I have a lot of mobility in my shoulders and not enough stability which means I can set myself up for injury down the road by putting stress on my joints and ligaments.  NOT what I want to do at all! The same can be said about stability.  If you are too stable or rigid in a pose, you can find it difficult to find mobility in the pose. I will admit, I was a little confused.  From what I was hearing, I am to stack my shoulder blades on top of my back, squeeze them in and down, turn my biceps outward, forearms inward, slight micro bend in the elbows, hands and fingers splayed with the index fingers forward and the rest slightly outward, equal pressure through out my palm and wrists, soften the back of my heart and push up with my upper inner thighs.  ....   ....  ... ... WHAT!?!?!?!?

All joking aside, what I have really taken from this is that there is a balance between mobility and stability. There is a balance between pushing too far and not pushing yourself enough. I need to listen to my body as it will tell me if I am pushing too far, past my edge or limits. Now, if I think about it, downward dog has always hurt my shoulders a little.  I was pushing too far and losing my own personal integrity in the pose. I'm starting to think your body is the best messenger to tell you where you are at in your life and when you need to pull back or push harder.

Surprisingly I am not really frustrated by learning this information about my pose.  I want to learn yoga in ALL possible ways to avoid injury....it is my whole purpose for being there. I am not upset that I have discovered that what I am doing is incorrect, it's more that I am confused by how much there is to think about in order to fix it.

One thing my teacher said was:

"The best way to learn, is to take the familiar and make it unfamiliar so you can make it familiar all over again."

I am officially unfamiliar with downward dog now. lol. If it was perfect to start with though, then what would I have learnt while studying this pose? Nothing.  So I guess I am getting my money's worth! It also means I will be better equipped to help people keep their downward dog integrity. That's exciting to me!

Tomorrow is a new day! Hopefully I will be stacking, micro bending, outward and inward spiraling, stretching fingers forward and lifting areas of the thighs I didn't even know I had, tomorrow. But tonight I am taking a rest from my practice. Instead, I am following my dog, Aston, around the house. I will be watching to see how much integrity her Downward Facing Dog has.  I bet you any money her shoulder blades are stacked!!! Happy Saturday!

Aston when she was 10 weeks old! Cuuute!!

 Namaste xo. 

Opposite Day...

In yoga class we are always encouraged to stay present and not to zone out. It is important to keep our brains focused on the postures and how your body feels. Although this may be difficult after a long day of work, it’s important to not just go through the motions. You get the full benefit of yoga when you are present.

Even if you have just a little knowledge of yoga, you probably know that focusing on the breath is important. The breath will help you achieve a presence in class. For me, it helps me bring my attention to my body and what I am feeling in each posture. Is my breath smooth and comfortable or is it choppy and harboured? Can I continue to breathe well in a difficult pose? Regardless of the answer, concentrating on the breath keeps you present in class.

To keep our brains in the class and thinking, a sneaky trick that clever yoga instructors do (which I secretly like and dislike all at the same time) is make us switch legs when sitting cross legged or switch finger arrangement when interlacing the fingers together. These tricks somehow short circuit my brain and slams me RIGHT back to the present moment. It feels so awkward, weird and unnatural but it really makes me focus. Sneaky yogis!

So this got me thinking, if doing something different or opposite really makes you think about a situation, brings you into the present moment or moves you out of your comfort zone, why not try this in your life outside of class?

LOVE this!

Think about who you are and how you react to certain situations. In tense situations do you freak out and say things you shouldn't or do you stay quiet and too afraid to speak up? Well let’s call today Opposite Friday! If you normally stay quiet, try voicing your opinions. If you tend to fly off the handle, stay contained and maybe listen what the other person is trying to say. It may not feel natural or comfortable but who knows what may happen...maybe it will be magic ;)

Try to stop concentrating on what you are NOT and concentrate on what you are. Or concentrate on the things you have and not the things you don't. To often, we concentrate so much on our negatives traits and attributes that are less than favourable. I also find that we do this to other people we meet or to our friends. Sometimes we don't notice the great things in people as we have a tendency to focus on the negative.

Sometimes when I wake up my body and back are really sore from being still for so long. During the darker days of chronic pain, I used to concentrate only on how much it hurt and how sorry I felt for myself. Now I try to have the attitude of, "I may hurt BUT at least I have the ability to get out of bed and walk today, so I guess I can manage" It could always be worse. I had to change my thinking and do something opposite. It was easy to feel sorry for myself...other people felt sorry for me too. It was harder to make a choice to feel better in my mind. I now believe a part of healing comes from your mind set. If you stay with your usual habits and ways of thinking you may not ever allow yourself the potential to discover new ways to live your life!

Try pondering that....or if you always ponder it, in spirit of Opposite Day...don't ponder it :)

Namaste xo. 

View from my matt....

So I mentioned in my last novel post, I am a complete nail polish addict! I follow new collections coming out from brands like Essie, OPI, China Glaze, Chanel, Nubar and Dior.  To get the most up to date dirt on new collections, my favorite blog is Vampy Varnish. She swatches all new collections so I can get an idea of what the polish looks like on nails not just in the bottle.  Somehow she manages to get the collections before anyone else...I want to know her dealer??

Like any respectable addict,I try to find my vice at the best price and the fastest way I can get it into my hands.  Some of these collections are not available in Canada or not released yet. Ebay is a girls best friend! The price is usually cheaper and some of the sellers ship so fast I have the polish the next day.  *Joy*

Nothing beats a great pedicure while practicing yoga.  You are bent over, looking at your toes often, so why not give yourself something to look at?

This is my current view in class tonight!

sorry a little hard to see the colors :(

I call it Clown Barf or Circus Puke.  I am assuming this is why I am not a professional nail polish colour "namer". 

The original colour is Deborah Lippmann in Happy Birthday retailing close to $20 bucks!!  I challenged myself to find this little luxury cheaper!

I sourced out Milani brand polish in Gems which retails for only $5. Score!

The only thing that stops me from having a different colour and pattern on each nail is the ol' 9-5 job. Even I consider some of my colour choices unprofessional and sometimes a little tacky!! I just can't seem to help myself. I have had a shoe box full of nail polish since I was 10 years old. 

I change my own polish each week with something new so I will have lots of interesting colours to show you.

I should stop buying so much nail polish and I promise myself, every time, it will be the last bottle. Something just comes over me though and I have to have it. I think I need help :)

Namaste xo.

A Long History...

I guess I should let everyone know who I am and why I feel the need to write a blog about yoga and other ponderings in my daily life. First off I love to write. Always have. I find it a wonderful way to express oneself, even if no one reads it. I find I am more honest to who I am on paper (in this case computer) than I am in person. I have always wanted to start a blog but couldn't find the right topic as I found I am interested in many things. I am going to try to keep this blog strictly to a few of my main passions which are yoga, fashion, personal beauty (a suffering nail polish addict), and good karmic thoughts and maybe a little food and travel just to keep things interesting. 

So who is the lady behind the curtain who writes for My Ommm Life? The Cole's notes version is; my name is Carrie and I am a 28 year old female living in GTA, working as an importer for a company my Dad and I started about 10 years ago. I am married to the most amazing man in the world and I have wonderful parents who support me in any endeavor I venture on (well I forced my Mom to bookmark this page and read it every day or ELSE!!! I know she would anyways).

So why am I passionate about yoga? I started my yoga practice when I was around 15 and tried my first class with my Mom. Needless to say we didn't take it seriously. If anyone knows my Mom and me, well that means uncontrollable laughter for the entire session. We got in trouble from the teacher and I still feel bad to this day. At that time I obviously did not understand the full power of yoga. 

Around nine years later, when I had moved away from home, finished College and began working full time, I found a yoga studio near my house. I decided to join and take it a little more seriously. As a matured young lady now, I found myself going to yoga 5 times a week and really enjoying myself. It was powerful stuff. I felt stronger and more agile every day. The only thing missing was a good connection to my teacher. I wasn’t fond of her teaching methods and found she pushed too hard past my personal level of comfort in my practice. I felt like I didn’t have enough knowledge of the poses to be pushed that hard. I knew I would personally challenge myself to push to new levels but the environment was not conclusive to my own growth regulation. That being said, having this be my second yoga teacher, I didn’t know any better, so I continued to practice.

In class, we were instructed to venture into Camel Pose. If you know yoga, this is a very challenging pose and should not be ventured into lightly. Like I had mentioned, I didn’t really know what to squeeze, hold or to tighten and I guarantee I wasn’t breathing in this pose. I did feel I had it under control, although I was not comfortable. The teacher came to me and gave me a physical manipulation to move my hips & quads forward to deepen the pose. I wasn’t ready for any movement not made by myself. What this resulted in was an extreme compression of my lumbar spine and I dropped to the floor in pain. During my job in high school, I did injure my back badly and it has bothered me off and on for years. Unfortunately this yoga class just put a nail in the injury coffin. I knew something was wrong. I stuck around after class to talk to her about it and her response was I was hurt because I had a weak core. I never returned back to her studio. I just didn’t feel cared for and respected in my practice. I felt weak in more ways than one. I was sad as I had developed a great love for yoga and so desperately wanted to continue.

What resulted from that class was a deep chronic ache in my low back every single day. Chronic pain, as anyone who has experienced it, is with you ALL the time. It never leaves. It makes the rest of your body weak as well as your mind.  Simple tasks became difficult to do and sitting long hours at my job felt impossible. Being so young I figured my body would bounce back as it did in high school but the pain kept getting worse and worse. I should have taken care of it sooner but my naivety just made me live with the pain because I thought it should get better ANY day now. Going back to yoga seemed completely out of the question and I now feared it. How could something so simple hurt me this badly? 

About a full year later with no relief my back finally gave me the cue I needed to get help. On a Friday night, alone at my house, with my phone down stairs, a shocking, nerve crushing pain started at the base of my spine and just started to radiate over my entire lower body. I dropped to the floor and every breath kept sending these electric nerve bolts throughout my back. I have never felt so scared and vulnerable in my entire life. You may think that was the worst part but in fact, I was naked, THAT was the worst part. I kept thinking to myself, "If I only have one chance to move before this gets worse, would I rather get dressed...or go down and get my phone to call for help?" I chose get dressed believe it or not. Getting dressed allowed me to take my time, calm down and work out a teeny part of whatever was happening inside of me to tackle the stairs to go down and get my phone. I called my dear friend Diane and she came over to rescue me. It was a long night.

Next morning was no better and I called the closest chiropractor I could find to my house. Luckily for me, Dr. Paul at Southdown Chiropractic is the most compassionate health care professional I have ever met. I felt immediately comfortable with him and he promised me, with my dedication to recovery, he would fix me. His passion for my recovery has never faltered. Every time I see him, his concern for my well being is just like the first day I had met him even though its the same issue each time. I also felt I have had a friend with me during the really scary and painful parts. I knew this pain wasn’t going to go away overnight and I trusted him immediately for the journey I was going to go on. 

I had an X-ray and then an MRI. The X-ray showed I had arthritis my L4-L5. I assume this is from my injury from high school. The MRI showed I had two herniated discs in my L4-L5, L5-S1. I was told they are two different kinds of herniations so sometimes my chiropractic adjustments don’t work as well.  One adjustment will correct one joint and then the next adjustment can easily undo the first correction. Oh well, now I knew what was wrong and knowledge was power!

I saw him three times a week for almost three months religiously. There went my shopping fund! The relief was coming slowly. That wasn’t the last time my back decided to call it quits on me. It happened three more times. I was way too young for this to be happening!! I knew I needed more than just chiropractic adjustments.  Dr. Paul was advertising that he was going to try therapeutic yoga in his studio after hours and he thought I should join. I was so nervous of yoga at this point I didn’t want to sign up.

The teacher, Nancy, was actually one of the old teachers at the studio I hurt myself at. She was not the teacher I got injured with. We were both really excited to see each other. Some members stopped coming so I ended up with a lot of private lessons with her even though it was supposed to be a small group lesson. She knew what happened and encouraged me to go very slow and at my own pace. A teaching style I wasn’t accustomed to and greatly appreciated. I became hungry for more knowledge about each pose and what it benefited and what muscle groups to use to protect other areas of the body. My practice was weak at that point though. Up-Dog and Cobra consisted of me lifting my face off the ground and nothing more. I didn’t care. I was happy to be moving again and happy to be practising with Nancy who was happy for any progression I had. I saw her for almost three months and felt better every time I did. My Grandmother’s saying for back injuries was "move it or lose it!" So I kept moving it. 

After my classes at the Chiropractic office were finished I felt I could join another studio. I found a small hot yoga studio and met another great influential teacher named Suzie. She is just the greatest and most positive person I have met. Her story is similar to mine, being 23 and someone who used to dance religiously, she hurt her back and everyday life became impossible. She turned to yoga as well. She took it one step further and became a teacher....and a wonderful one at that. We clicked instantly and she took extra care of me in class to show me modifications and poses that were gentler on my back. She also seemed to really trust me because when I felt I wanted to try to push a little further she would watch my form but never tell me to slow down. She just let me be me in MY practice. And that’s the moment I realized yoga is a personal practice. It doesn’t matter what everyone else next to you is doing or what the teacher says, you do what feels good. Yoga should be challenging but should always feel good.  

A quote I love is:

The world needs yoga. This stuff is powerful and intense. It has the power to harm when held tightly, studied without practice, and posed rigidly. Done right, it also has the ability to heal and cure.

That is something I read recently and I believe in it 100%. For everyone who is thinking about starting yoga or have tried it and didn’t understand it, I encourage you to try it again. I know yoga changed my life and gave my life back to me...no punn intended :) When I don’t practice, I feel my back pain creeping up on me and when I practice regularly it lessons and sometimes, when the day is just right, it disappears. Those are amazing days! Yoga also helped with the negativity chronic pain imposes on your life.  I feel healthier in mind and body. 

Now I am sure any excises program could have given me my life back but yoga fits my life and who I am.  I truly love it. That doesn't mean, after a long day of work, I don't drag my ass off to yoga dreading class but every time I leave I am so grateful to my body and allowing myself to be there. Yoga makes me grateful for my body like I have never been grateful before.  Yoga has also made me understand to appreciate your body no matter what form it is in (tall, short, skinny, fat or any other combination) it could be worse in every case.  Life can throw curve balls at you and I figure that you never know what the future holds, so you might as well do and use everything you have been given, to the fullest, as one day it may all be taken away.
  
My journey doesn't end here. I am currently taking my training to becoming a certified yoga teacher.  I would like to specialize in people just starting or returning to yoga after a long period off. I also want to work with people who come from a back ground of chronic pain and injury.  Chronic pain is a long road to recovery and it is nice if people have a friend along the way to walk with them, to listen, help and understand.  I hope to share with you all my learning’s from training and share some insights to what I believe yoga is and what it can do for you.

Thanks for reading!! More...shorter...posts will be coming soon.

Namaste xo.

The first day of My Ommm Life...

Welcome to my first blog post! More to come soon! Namaste  xo