Body Positivity with The Fat Yogini

About a month ago, one of the members of my hiking club mentioned to me that she heard about a new Yoga studio opening up in Maple Ridge called Body Positivity Yoga.......now with me being all about positivity, I just HAD to check this place out.

On April 10, the studio had their grande opening, so I popped by to check it out and I got a chance to meet the owner, Lisa Papez (aka The Fat Yogini).  We chatted for a bit and I felt compelled to ask her if I could come back and interview her for this blog. She loved the idea and we set up a date for me to come back and do just that.

So take a few moments and enjoy meeting Lisa, learning about what Body Positivity means to her, why she calls herself the Fat Yogini and what is happening at her studio.


This is the blog post that I mentioned in the above video where Lisa talks about the origin of her name:
http://www.fatyogini.com/1/post/2011/06/on-why-i-call-myself-a-fat-yogini.html

Now, to connect with Lisa and the yoga studio, here are the links:
http://www.bodypositivityyoga.com/
http://www.fatyogini.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bodypositivityyoga
https://twitter.com/fatyogini

The studio is located at:

• • B-11767 225th Street
  • Maple Ridge, British Columbia V2X 6E6

• (just south of Lougheed Highway)

So, if you have ever toyed with the thought of trying yoga, but felt too intimidated to go to what I would call a 'traditional' studio, this is THE place to go! All shapes, sizes, abilities and ages are welcomed with open arms here!! 

Namaste

What's in your Pandora's Box?

According to Greek Mythology, the box (or rightfully, a jar) was a gift that Zeus had given Pandora and she was told that she was never to open. With the natural curiosity that most women have, she did and unleashed untold evils upon the world.

Today, the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but it turns out to have detrimental and far reaching consequences.

Did you know that we all have our own personal Pandora's Box? It is located right between our ears! What it contains, I would argue, are not untold evils, but emotional hurts that we gather up as we go through life.

Somewhere along the line we are all taught that emotions are scary and to be feared, and the sad part is, we are rarely taught how to deal with them effectively. We either let them completely consume us,  or we try to ignore them and stuff them down so we don't have to deal with them. Which ever method we choose, the reality is, they are always there in the background driving every action that we do. Just like that app on your smartphone that is constantly running in the background without you taking notice of it, it drains all the power out of your battery. You're left bewildered, thinking you have done everything right, yet with time, that battery keeps getting drained faster and faster.

Have you ever wondered why you keep getting involved with the same people over and over again, and it always ends in heart ache?  Or you find someone great, maybe even 'the one' and you end up doing something to push them away? Tried every diet on the market, but you just gain the weight back, or no matter what job you have, you always end up hating it? We all find different ways of 'stuffing' our emotions. Whether it be drowning them in alcohol, numbing them with prescription or recreational drugs, over eating, starving ourselves, activities of self loathing, isolating ourselves from the world and other people, never letting anyone get close to us for fear that they will add yet another hurt to the pile. In doing those things, we only end up hurting and punishing ourselves, and in a lot of cases if we were asked why we do it, we couldn't give an actual answer.  I know I am not the only one that has had a situation in life that you seem to be doomed to keep re-living! But it doesn't have to be that way. I have realized what the secret is to change your course in life, but the problem is, it's not an easy process, it's going to hurt, it takes a lot of courage to stay the course and you will feel like giving up more than a few times. The choice lies in whether you want to stay on the same path that you have always been, constantly re-living those situations that drive you insane, or are you sick and tired of being sick and tired and are open to some change in your life? What if I told you that one thing that most people don't realize about Pandora's Box, is that after all the 'untold evils' had been released, there was one more thing that stayed at the bottom of the jar.........and that one thing was the Seed of Hope.

If you knew that once you released and dealt with all those emotional hurts that you have been carrying around with you for years and years, that all that would be left was hope.......hope for a brand new future, hope for happiness to overtake your life, hope to live the life that you thought was only a dream.........would you do it? Would it be worth it to you?

I am no different than anyone else, I have collected various kind of emotional hurts throughout my life....but with not knowing how to deal with them, I choose to ignore them and stuff them so far deep inside that I forgot that they were there. Over the years, my Pandora's box grew and grew as I continually stuffed more and more into it, until finally one day it reached it's critical mass and began to crack. In what seemed like all of a sudden, all these emotions that I had held at bay for so long came rushing at me with a force that took my breath away.  To say it was overwhelming, would be putting it mildly. Like Pandora, as they came rushing out, I tried in vain to gather them up and stuff them back in the box, but once released there was no turning back. I had no choice but to one by one, stare them in the face and get to the root of them.  Once you start the process of getting to the root of them, it opens your eyes to a whole new world that was living inside of you that you didn't even know was there. How what seemed to be a simple incident in childhood got so ingrained in your brain that you can now see where it has reared it's ugly head over and over and over. There are days when it just seems like it would have just been easier if they had all just stayed in the box, but the reality is the time had come, that I was finally strong enough to deal with them. Now, in saying that, there are more days than not where I don't exactly feel strong, but I know instinctively that I am. I have reached the point in my life where I was ready to say ENOUGH!

I am now in the process of building up a 'tool chest' of strategies to help me deal with those latent emotions when they want to rear their ugly heads. Now that I am open to finding these strategies, I am finding that there are SO many ways and so many people out there that are trained to help you in this.  The trick is to find what works best for you. You could chose to look at NLP, EFT (aka tapping), hypnotherapy, traditional (psychiatric) therapy, EMDR, meditation, life coaches, the list is endless......but the main question I am now asking myself is why.........why is this situation causing me to feel the way I do? What is it in my past that is triggering this? When you finally begin to see patterns develop, and being to recognize your triggers, you are able to respond quicker to dealing with that emotion and hopefully, over time, eradicating it from your subconscious. As you learn to deal with the emotions as they come up, you will see that they eventually start to lose their power over you, finally releasing you from their tight grip.

Now, I am not saying that all emotions are bad........as they are not. There are some pretty awesome emotions out there as well.  I would rather be considered an emotional person, than one that is so hardened and detached that they don't feel a thing.  The trick is learning to control them, and not let them control you!

So, my wish for you, is that when you are ready, you find the courage to crack open your personal Pandora's Box, release those old emotional hurts, surround yourself with a support system to help you through the process, to find your HOPE on the other side.

Miraculous Communication

The Link for what is left of the 21 day Meditation Challenge is: https://chopracentermeditation.com/home

Living a Lie!

Recently I had a friend remark to me about how she has always admired me for the strong, confident woman that I am.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that for many years, that was all a LIE.

For many many years, I had mastered the art of outward perception.  Personally, I think it was an Oscar winning performance. I first learned this art throughout my 13 years of marriage, of which people all thought we had the perfect marriage, but on the inside we were both dying. We thought it was better to have the appearance of perfection, rather than ACTUALLY work on what was causing the problem. Even after we divorced, I continued with that mindset, as that is all I knew. It was the whole, if I just pretend that everything is all right, it will be.  Well......let me tell you from experience.....that does NOT work!  So for many years after my divorce, even though I was much happier being free from the all that was going on in my marriage, there was still something missing, but I had no idea what it was. So I just continued with putting on that strong, confident mask everyday, meanwhile, once I was at home, behind closed doors, it was a completely different story. It was then, when I would finally let down my guard, that the tears would flow, the negative bashing of myself would ensue, and the loneliness would envelope me.

As time went on, it was getting harder and harder to keep that *mask* on. Some days I would even forget to put it on.  It was becoming too tiring to be living a double life, but I had no idea how to change it. One by one, things started happening in my life that were wake up calls for me, but as each one came, I just coped with it and ignored it. As time went on, these wake up calls were getting larger and louder, but still didn't faze me.  That's when the tragedy happened that turned my life upside down. Apparently I needed a HUGE slap up side my head before i actually started to take a long, hard look at things in my life.

After I spent a few months of being VERY numb and completely disassociating myself from life, I had finally had enough and started on my personal development path to work on all the things going on inside of me. I have spoke of some of the seminars and such that I have gone to, and none of this work is easy. It takes a lot of courage to actually have some inner reflection, as we are all pros at lying to ourselves. Two and a quarter years later, I am still in progress. I will always be in progress, as I have learned that the world's most successful people ALWAYS feel that there is more that they can learn.  It's the people that feel that they know it all, are the ones that need the most help!

It has taken me some time to find the tools that feel right for me, and now I can finally say that what I feel on the inside is matching what I project to the world.  I no longer feel like I am lying to the world, but most importantly, I am no longer lying to myself!!  Some people in my life have had a hard time with my inner transformation, and I have lost friends over it, but I am OK with that.  As those people leave, I am surrounding myself with amazingly, inspiring people.  People who are of the same mindset as I am now, people who are not satisfied with mediocrity, people who are committed to their own personal growth and development. I have discovered the importance of surrounding yourself with people that raise you up to a new level, rather than drag you down to a place you don't want to be.

I firmly believe that it is NEVER too late to become the person that you were always meant to be, and that is the path that I am on right now......Discovering the GREATNESS that is inside of me!

                                   

Mediocrity or Greatness?

I was recently at another one of my marathon weekend seminars and even though I had been to this one before, there were certain things that really stuck out for me this round that I just felt I had to share.

There was a point that was made VERY clear to me.........we don't know how incredible we can be because we've never had to do ANYTHING at 100%!  In todays society, we have gotten used to just doing what we need to, to just 'get by'. I am the first to admit that I have fallen into this mediocrity/complacency trap.  For many years, I lived my life on auto-pilot and would then complain about why I didn't have the things in my life that I wanted!  Oh woe-is-me! Those of you that have read my other posts will know what word I will come up with next...........VICTIM........yeah, I did a real good job of playing one and I see people around me every day that are playing that role as well, if not better, than I ever did!  We need to decide within ourselves is 'getting by' good enough for this ONE LIFE that we've been given? Wake up people......we don't get any do-overs here!  This is it, this one life, it is what we make of it! Is a life of mediocrity OK with you????

RAISE YOUR STANDARDS! 

We need to raise our standards in how we think and treat ourselves, and in how we let others treat us!
We need to raise our standards in our relationships and friendships!
We need to raise our standards in our health!
We need to raise our standards in how we conduct ourselves!
We need to raise our standards in how we make our living!

I have finally come to the realization that there is a much bigger purpose to life that 'existing' between alarm clocks and time clocks!  There is SO much more!

There are SO many opportunities out there, and it just isn't good enough to be in the right place at the right time.  YOU have to be the RIGHT PERSON in the right place at the right time!

Now, my 'right person' may be different from your 'right person', but we each need to find within ourselves who that right person is that we were meant to be.

"It is never too late to become the person that you were meant to be!" ~Bob Reina

If you don't like the fruit that is on your Tree Of Life, it's time you took a long, hard look at your roots! We live our lives in 4 different realms, unfortunately, 3 of them most people don't pay much attention to.

Our roots are comprised of our Mental, Emotional and Spiritual realms and whatever you have going on in those 3, is what is going to show up as the fruit in your Physical realm. You want different fruit?  Then change your roots! You change your roots by raising your standards!

Now realize, this isn't going to happen over night, it is a process. I have always had a feeling that I was destined for something amazing and that I have greatness inside of me, I still have no idea what that might be, but I do know that each day I am growing closer and closer to being that person that I was meant to be and discovering what that greatness is.

Some Days You Need A Little Perspective!

So.........I have been waiting for this day for quite a while.  Not because it is anything exciting and fun, but because I kind of dreaded it's arrival, even though I know it has to be done.

You see, tomorrow I have to go into the hospital to have a not-so-pleasant procedure done, and today I have to prepare for it.  This prep involves me ONLY consuming clear fluids all day. Now I like my food, and the thought of only having fluids, kinda wrecked my day even before it started.  In trying to be positive and looking for the 'bright side', I thought, at least I can have some strawberry or raspberry or maybe even grape jello........THAT will make this bearable.  Yeah well, when I went to the pharmacy yesterday to pick up the meds that I needed to 'help' in the prep, he told me that I was not allowed to have anything that would have a red or purple dye in it, as that could effect my procedure. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??? The only thing that was going to get me through this torture and now that was taken away!!!

So I trudged (and that is the best way to describe it at that moment) to the grocery store to look for my other choices in jello.  Nothing red or purple left me with orange, lime and lemon.......all good flavours in their own rite, but NOT in the jello world (that is unless another certain clear fluid is added, and I didn't think that would be allowed, although it would have helped GREATLY with my mood!). I stood there and stared lustfully at the red and purple packages and begrudgingly took the citrus options, then moped my way home.

Because I knew that I most likely wouldn't be feeling that great with this prep, I had planned for a quiet day at home to myself, but now all I can think about is the chicken that I have in the fridge, or the jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.  Have you ever noticed how many fricken food commercials there are on television??? My newsfeed on Facebook is full of amazing recipes and pictures of what people had for lunch,  or statuses about what they are looking forward to at dinner, and forget about me signing into my Pinterest account!!! FML!!! I am walking around here like a caged wild cat! Hmmmmm........here kitty kitty kitty...........NO NO NO........that's just the hunger talking!!!

As I sat here this morning, forcing down the first bowl of jello, that just was NOT hitting the spot, thinking about how I usually have my gigantic cup of sweet tea (with cream) to start my day, I saw this picture that a friend posted on Facebook...........and then I felt ashamed!

Ok........so I am being 'inconvenienced' for a couple of days and can't eat and drink what I would like, but there are more people than I can possibly even imagine that would kill to be in my position.

I have a pretty decent roof over my head, a warm bed to sleep in, food (when I can eat it) in my fridge and the means to get more when I need to, and my inconvenience is due to the fact that I have access to healthcare and doctors to take care of me, where others have no idea what that would be like. Sure I am feeling rather crappy at the moment, but I still have more health than a LOT of people, and my feeling of crappiness (is that word?) will pass, but many other peoples will not. There are a lot of people that would think that my dreaded bowl of jello is a delicacy. So instead of sitting here and feeling sorry for myself and what I can't have today, I have decided to re-focus my thoughts on all the great things that I have the fortune of having in my life. One of the biggest..........having clean water to drink......what a delicacy THAT would be for a lot of people in this world!

It's easy to be grateful when everything is going rosy and you're feeling on top of the world, but as I found out today, it means a lot more when you can still be grateful when you feel like crap. So the next time I get the urge to complain about how 'bad' I may be feeling, or how 'inconvenienced' I am about whatever, I need to pull out this picture.........I may even have to print it out and post it up just as that 'gentle' reminder on those days when gratitude is a challenge. 

Do you take stock everyday of things that you are grateful for?  I do, I have a journal that I write in every night before I go to sleep and tonight, I think there will be a few more things added to the list. 

To Change or Not To Change

Have you ever had a friend that is constantly asking you for advice, but then never does anything with that advice, and then when you call them out on that fact, all of a sudden there is something wrong with your advice? Huh? *shakes head*, well it can't be all that bad if you keep coming back!

Anyways, I spent many many MANY years being the person that people would come to, to tell all their problems to. Honestly, I didn't mind that, but the problem was that I would get too emotionally involved with THEIR problems, which would end up with me feeling like crap. The toll of taking on everyone else's issues left me emotionally and mentally exhausted with nothing left to deal with the things that I had to in my own life.

That became abundantly clear when my world came crashing down on me 1.5 years ago. I had neglected my  emotional, mental and physical needs for so long, that when the time came that I needed them the most, there was NOTHING for me to pull from, resulting in my body completely shutting down. I spent some time doing the 'what did I do to deserve this?', but this is not a constructive exercise, all it did was make me feel worse as I continued to dwell on the events that occurred and kept me in the past. Finally, I woke up one morning and literally said f*&k that!! Something needs to change and the something was ME! Did I wake up that morning knowing exactly what I had to do to do that? NO! This has been a long journey of self discovery and it continues. I'm learning SO much along the way, not only about myself, but how people in general deal with the crap in their lives. Being more aware of how we, as a human race, deal with emotional crap, has made it so much easier for me to understand the actions of the people around me.  The problem is, even though it is clear as day for me what is going on in someone's life, if they are not open and ready to have change in their life, I can talk until I am blue, but they just won't get it! So the person that used to just sit there and sympathize with and take on all the problems that were going on in someone else's world is GONE. She knows better now.  I will empathize with what someone is going through, as I have mostly likely experienced it myself, but I will NOT sit there and participate in their pity party and enable them in that behaviour. You don't do anyone ANY favours to do so!

So, if you are going to ask me for advice, you had better be prepared for a non-sugar coated answer. I will give you the straight facts, and give you suggestions as to what you should do to move forward, but if you are just going to sit there and not make ANY effort and have NO commitment to trying to take charge of your life, expect that I will close that door.  My time and energy are TOO valuable to me now to have other people suck it out of me. Sound harsh? Maybe it is, but I am #1 on my priority list now. Instead of just being the constant shoulder to cry on, now i will listen and then I will CHALLENGE you to take responsibility for your life and for the things going on in it. That's what I did to start this process for myself.

One thing that this friend said to me, was that my advice was too cut and dry and that life just isn't that way. Well............yeah IT IS! If there is something going on in your life that you don't like, you either do something to change it, or you don't. If you don't, then in my opinion, you have no right to b*&ch about your life. It is YOUR life, YOU are in charge! Don't be living your life for other people. That just gives you an out for when you need someone to blame. Your only job in this world is to make yourself happy. So if you're not.........whose fault is that? You can't expect to change your whole life all at once, but do one step at a time, and eventually you will look back and be shocked about how many steps you have taken! BUT the point is.......you have to take that FIRST STEP, and then the next and then the next, but you have to want it for yourself and truly be done with living the life of a victim.

Whether a person makes the choice to change the course of their life makes no difference to me, that is THEIR choice. THEY are the ones that have to live up to THEIR own expectations.  I do NOT set any expectations for anyone but MYSELF, and it is only ME that I have to answer to in that regard.  The sad thing is, there are a LOT of people out there that have set very low expectations for themselves and their lives and they need to own that fact!

So, do you want to be known as the person that whines and wallows in all the problems of your life, or do you want to be known as the person that has gone through hell and came out a stronger, more positive, resilient person? The choice is YOURS!