messiness

dear me…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

Life rarely goes according to plan when you’re trying to sell your house and move with a toddler. Life rarely goes according to plan when you’re dealing with a toddler – period. I naively started the Tiny Devotion’s #insanelyintentional challenge a few days ago and, not surprisingly, I’m already behind. 🙂

Let’s pretend day 6 was yesterday and today is day 7. Let’s.

Day 7’s assignment: to forgive someone.

insanelyintentional-day7
I chose me – we’re often the hardest on ourselves and this is absolutely true in my case. Here goes.

Dear me,
I forgive you for being ordinary.
I forgive you for not being particularly beautiful, exceptionally smart, or one iota funny.
I forgive you for being serious, often too serious. 
I forgive you for not accomplishing as much as you thought you would – you found a magical life instead.
I forgive you for not being a lawyer, a doctor, or a CEO – you’re a kick-butt mom, wife, and administrator instead.
I forgive you for not being the perfect earth momma you thought you’d be – sometimes the kid just wants a bagel with cream cheese for dinner and there’s no room for negotiations.
I forgive you for still having a soft tummy, 15 months later, and for being upset about it too often – croissants and wine are worth it.
I forgive you for not being able to bend into the perfect yoga pose for the perfect instagram pic (although lord knows you try) – sometimes it’s safer not to break things.
And so on.
I forgive you and I embrace you for all of the above… and I’ll forgive you in advance for when you lose this feeling and feel whiny and sh*tty again.
I embrace your ordinariness. It’s enough.

Love you,
mxo

 

resistance…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

There’s a lot of resistance in me… a lot.

Change makes me anxious and any positive lifestyle changes seem to really drive me b*tsh*t crazy.

Case in point: I’ve been reading a lot about the evils of sugar recently. The stuff really is poison. I don’t eat much of it but as soon as I decided to cut back, I started to get the twitch… you know, the twitch that only six chocolate chip cookies could calm. Six!

sugar
how?? source: globe and mail

When my friend told me she’s been minimizing her dairy and wheat intake and feeling great, I made some crack about maximizing mine and then ate an entire box of mac and cheese at home (I had to go out of my way to buy the stuff at the health food store).

And don’t even get me started on exercise…

WHAT’S THAT ABOUT?!!

In War of Art, Steven Pressfield states that the more resistance we feel towards something, the more important it is to our soul’s evolution. The more we run, the more we need to stay. Here’s my question: HOW?!

Maybe I should keep reading the book…

Sigh.

mxo

zombies…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

This past week I added myself to the queue for the iphone 5S and I watched this (though I’m not entirely sure in what order):

It’s something I have thought about for awhile, our zombie-like-ness.

Image

This is just sad.

But what really struck me was the idea that we have forgotten how to be alone. The minute we start to feel the “uh oh, I don’t know what to do with myself now” feeling, we seem to need to anesthetize it with texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.  It’s a temporary comfort, a dull, mildly satisfying experience… but at the expense of what?

“You never feel completely sad or completely happy…”

I often daydream of just deleting all of my accounts and going all Walden for awhile… but I know cutting myself off technology isn’t the solution either (it’s analogous to when my mom traded in McCain’s fries for quinoa – keen-what?! – 20+ years ago).

So for now, perhaps it’s even to just be conscious. The next time you check your Facebook account, ask yourself why.

mxo

Perspective

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

Today was a sh*t sandwich kind of a day.

I cried… a lot. I b*tched and moaned. I bailed on one of my best friends. It wasn’t pretty.

But then the universe sent me this little nugget of wisdom:

“be thankful for what’s right rather than complaining about what’s wrong”

And this.

And this.

Trust me, I know it’s hard to see the forest for the trees when you’re in the muddy thick of it, but I promise you, there is a forest.

The universe has your back. Oh yes, and this: if not this, than something better.

Much love!
mxo

beautiful messiness

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

August hit hard, so hard that it the reset button on my life. I turned 28 and a few things happened to remind me just how fleeting life really is. 

I’ve also started to really truly accept that life is supposed to be messy. 
My pops and I…

Somewhere along the way, many of learned/ decided/ started believing that:
  • life is supposed to be neat and tidy, and
  • if I only do x, or stop doing y, my life will finally be neat and orderly, and I’ll be happy.
Until a few days ago, I completely subscribed to all of the above. This whole blog has been based on these ideas – if I only do more yoga, eat less gluten, run more frequently, save more money, etc, I’ll find the missing puzzle piece and then I’ll be happy. All of this assumed that I wasn’t happy and couldn’t be happy all along.

I’ve recently realized that that kind of thinking more often than not leads to anxiety, burn out, and generally missing the beautiful messiness that is life.

Now, after all that August was, I’ve been mulling this over instead:

”We think we’re supposed to figure out how life should be, and then make it that way… How did we come up with the notion that life is not okay just the way it is, or that it won’t be okay the way it will be? Who said that the way life naturally unfolds is not all right?”
                        ~ the untethered soul

mxo

Crazy Sexy Week

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

I disappeared again – sorry about that!

Here’s what happened in the last week, in rough chronological order:
  1. I had a physical and emotional breakdown over Easter.
  2. I got so frustrated with my dismal state that I decided to take my health and happiness into my own hands. 
  3. I started a mostly raw, very green cleanse (inspired by one of my role models, Kris Carr).
  4. I had a follow-up session with Joy McCarthy (read about my first session here).
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = the perfect reset at the perfect time, and the start of a new direction.
What I have known intuitively for awhile, and what Joy confirmed today, is that I need to focus less on dietary restrictions and labels (raw foodist, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc), and instead focus more on my emotional health, especially when it comes to food. 
So many of us desperately cling to diet after diet, food trend after food trend, and we do “all of the right things”, but we continue to suffer. What we often ignore is all of the other toxic aspects of our lives: jobs we might hate, bad relationships, maxed out schedules, etc. 
Here’s what I’ve realized recently: health and happiness are holistic. We each have a perfect blend of where we need to be mentally, physically and spiritually to be happy and healthy. But you can’t be happy or healthy if one of these elements is drastically off balance. You can take all of right supplements and eat all of the right superfoods, but if you’re not addressing the other elephants in the room, you’re not going to get very far.
I believe the key pillars to health are:
  1. Nutrition – are you eating foods that truly nourish your body and enrich your soul? how is your relationship with food?
  2. Exercise – are you moving your tush every day? are you pushing yourself too hard?
  3. Stress – what are you doing to curb stress in your life?
  4. Sleep – are you sleeping a solid 7-8 uninterrupted hours each night?
  5. Job – do you like what you do? are you stressed about your finances?
  6. Relationships – do each of your relationships support you? are there toxic relationships you can let go of?
While each needs to be addressed, it can be overwhelming to tackle everything at once! In the spirit of breaking things down into manageable pieces, start with the one pillar you know is the most off balance.  Personally, I’m going to attempt to tackle my guilt-ridden, misguided relationship with food.

So here’s what I propose (for me): I’m throwing out all rules, labels, and 30-day challenges that I’ve set for myself (because they didn’t come from healthy places). Instead, I will listen to my body, provide it with the nourishment it most desires, and I will try to enjoy every single morsel. Generally, I’m going to start being good to myself holistically…. oh yes, and I’ll share my journey with you!  
The road may be bumpy but I’m not afraid of a little hard work! 


What do you most need to do right now, what one step can you take to steer you towards your most perfectly happy and healthy self?


Happy tumbling & stumbling!
xo

P.S. Phew! What a long post! Oops… 🙂