Time Managment is Yoga Too

Some of you reading this may know that I'm up to something that's pretty wild right now. I live in Ottawa. And I'm taking a course in Montreal every week pretty much. This week I've been in Montreal twice for the course. What it is, is the Introduction Leaders Program and I love it. And it takes a bunch of time to spend a bunch of time in Montreal. (Which is part of why I'm taking this course - so other people will hopefully be able to take some courses in Ottawa, but we need to have people trained in this course first. More on that some other time.)

And this weekend is my daughter's 9th birthday party. It's a slumber party. So that's happening tomorrow night. And on Sunday, I'm teaching yoga as usual and then my meditation workshop from 11-1 at Rama Lotus. Fortunately, my sister has agreed to sleep over on Saturday so she and John, who lives with us too, will be able to handle the morning time with the kids.

On top of all of that, Remi went all zen-like and wanted all of her stuff tossed out. She wanted it out of her room, out of her life, and she was pretty clear that she wanted it to happen right away. So my birthday evening was spent clearing out her furniture. I had people over who could help lift that stuff up some stairs and out onto the porch. I thought I'd do the right thing and call the Diabetes Association to come and pick the furniture up. They were booking for the end of October. Wha? So on Tuesday my sister and I put it out on the street and by the time I came back from teaching yoga, it was all gone.

Being the keeper of my daughter's memories as I am, I am more sentimental than her and I thought I would regret just simply tossing all of her stuff out so I have been going through it. I took 3 boxes of books to the school today to drop off for their book fair in November. That was fine. But there is still tons of stuff in the hall way that needs to be sorted so the garbage can go in one place and the other useable toys can go to another place. Maybe some of the slumber party guests can take the good stuff with them...

On top of all of that, I'm a procrastinator. So I like leaving things until the last minute. And the pressure helps me. So I did a lot of it today, but there's more to do. I expect to get home around 3 am and then I'll go to sleep and in the morning start to take care of the rest before the kids arrive at 4 to make a big mess all over again.

This is a stretch. And earlier today I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and like maybe I'd taken on too much. But I made sure I got enough sleep over the past few days and I really think it's going to be fine. And I'll take a lesson from Remi - just throw stuff out - get rid of it. Some of the toys we receive as kids are keepers, but mainly they are consumables and should be used and then let go of...

I'm letting go of being a pack rat... (wish me luck!)

It's Hard Doing Things That Are Good For You

I know it's hard to do things that are good for you. It's hard to keep doing yoga when there are so many other things pulling at you. Without mentioning which hi-tech company I go to on a weekly basis to teach yoga, I can say that even signing up and paying for a series of classes won't make you stop work and take care of yourself. That's happening at the moment - people get busy and then eat lunch at their desks and get wrapped up into crises at work or whatever and then think they can't stop and take a few minutes for themselves. So they skip class. Ever happened to you?

Knowing that yoga is good for you and knowing that it will help you in other areas of your life won't make you do yoga. The only thing that will get you on your yoga mat is you.

I was at a presentation last night in Montreal, A Special Evening of the Landmark Forum with Will Steel, who was very entertaining. At one point he asked the room of 350 if anyone felt they were overweight or out of shape. Most everyone raised their hands. Then he asked if anyone in the room knew what they needed to do to get into shape and/or lose weight. Everyone knew. Eat less or eat right, and exercise. Everyone knew that. Noone was shocked that that's all there was to it. Everyone KNEW what to do about it. But there's a difference between knowing what needs to be done and doing what needs to be done. Right?

And I know things take on a life of their own. Stress lives on in us like it's an organism of its own and wants to survive. We get used by things that we wouldn't allow ourselves to get used by if we were paying attention. But we're not most of the time, we're just run by our programs. That's why yoga can be radical. It gets us out of those programs and into the present moment. Sometimes when that happens there are changes that need to be made and we can't go on living our lives the way we have been. We start to think for ourselves. Lots of workplaces and living places don't want us thinking for ourselves. And most of the time if we're honest about it, we don't want to think for ourselves. We want to be told what to do so we don't have to figure it out.

I invite you to take the risk and be inside yourself and look around at your life. It's going to change anyways. But see if you can notice anything about your life that's working or not working. Yoga increases our awareness in general - when the lights go on in the room, everything gets lit up - the things we like as well as the things we don't like. Go ahead, turn on the lights...

Birthday Season

It's birthday season in my family and it gives me a chance to reflect and notice how things change.

Today's my birthday and in a week it will be my daughter's birthday. (Not to mention it was my step-father's on the 19th, my grandmother's on the 20th, Remi's dad on October 9 and it goes on.) But when I was younger, my birthday was a special day. Things happened on my birthday and other things didn't. It wouldn't have all been unusual to take the day off work because it was your birthday. Who works on their birthday? It's a special day! (I didn't get into taking my birthday off but I know lots of people who do...)

But there was always something different about my birthday and that has become less and less so and my birthday has become more and more like any other day.

Perhaps it is because my daughter's birthday is so close to mine and for her the month before and the month after her birthday are all tinged with that birthday-ness.

Maybe it's because I'm like so totally present, man, that I'm where I am all the time if it it happens to be my birthday than that's what's happening but it's really not different than being on the bus back from NYC or wherever. What-ev-er.

I guess it's probably because I'm getting old(er) and time has a different quality to it. When a year is a smaller fraction of your life than it was when you were younger, it's maybe less significant and for sure it seems to go by faster. I mean, there's closets I don't get to in a year. A year can go by and I haven't cleaned out that drawer I was meaning to. Know what I mean?

Maybe it's because I have some resistance to having a birthday that makes it so it's like any other day. I try to down-play its importance so I won't have to face the things I said I'd do and haven't done yet, and face the new wrinkles and grey hairs that mark the time. I like to think I don't mind getting older...I really do feel better now than I have at any other time in my life! But perhaps there's some underlying sadness about being closer to the end.

Perhaps I'm not making myself as important in my day, now that I'm a mom to someone who's having a birthday in a week, (and she will not let me forget it), that I have taken a bit of a back seat in the birthday department and have just let her have all the birthday fun. That sounds sucky and like I'm a poor loser. I don't think that's it.

Plus, now that I am a mom, I am well aware that the birthday for the kid was really the mother's birth day. Giving birth with my eyes wide open, with the intensity and uncertainty that surrounded that event was definitely a day I was involved with. Remi got out of my body that day but she sure had been around for much longer than that. Her personality came through while I was lying down in a way that made her uncomfortable and at other times as well. So the birthday really was my day at the time. Or rather, it was our day, as we needed to work as a team to have her arrive safely, as she did, right on our bed in Johannesburg with 2 midwives standing by along with her father and aunt.

The birthday season has maybe just matured and changed a bit. I still notice it's my birthday and I tell people, in part to make it real for me so I don't miss it. And I still look forward to opening my presents and eating cake this evening!

Yoga Subs

I think being a yoga sub is a tough job. I'm going to sub a class this morning for Lynne Cardinal, who's a well-loved and highly respected teacher in Ottawa. I don't take classes with Lynne so I'm not totally sure what they do in class. I got a rough outline from Lynne about what people expect and I'll follow that and do what I do.

I know that sometimes people who sub for me have a tough time. In my beginning class at Rama Lotus especially because there's a set routine and I've been teaching it that way for years and people get attached. So someone coming in has a tough job if they don't know how I normally do things.

Being a substitute teacher in a class like Bikram isn't so much a big deal because the teachers are all trained in exactly the same thing. Most teachers around aren't trained in exactly the same thing, which makes yoga classes interesting and with lots of variety.

I've heard from my regular students that it's nice to have a substitute every once in a while so they get to do something different. I teach what I like and what I know, and there's waaaay more out there, so it's good for people to get some exposure to other styles. But when you get yourself to a class expecting it to be one teacher only to find out that it's another, it sometimes doesn't feel so great at first...

Well, I've got to head off to be the "sub" over at Metta this morning!

The Best Moment is Now

I know I've written about this before on my website, but it's time to mention it again.

I was on a bus back from a training in NYC via Montreal. The bus was noisy, it was a bunch of people who all knew each other and there was just a lot of noise and vibration and smells and I was uncomfortable and dying to go home. It was late, as we left NYC around 7 pm and didn't get to Brossard until 3, so yea I got home at 5 am. I was not a happy camper. But while I was on the bus a thought occured to me. "I'm pretending that there's some future moment that will be better." When I got that, I had a little chuckle to myself and resumed meditating on the bus as sleep was virtually impossible for me.

To be fair, when I came home and curled up into a warm bed with someone I love, I checked it out again. "Hey, do you know that while I was on the bus, I was pretending that there was some future moment that would be better!" And if I'm honest, it was better, but just as fleeting. But the me that noticed myself on the bus and the me that noticed myself back at home as in the very same place.

The main point is you don't have to suffer. I don't have to suffer in a situation that isn't going as I'd like it to.

I hope that makes some sense because I've got to stop typing and run (bike actually) off to teach some more yoga today!

Yoga minds

It's a new school year. This week I met Remi at the bus after school at the day care where we used to teach yoga together. The little kids getting off the bus before her (two schools get dropped off here) and the kids saw me and talked to me about yoga. "I did yoga this summer!" "I can do yoga!" "Are we doing yoga?" We haven't started up yet - the building the day care was in is being demolished and they just moved to another building. But we'll start up again soon.

I'm pleased when kids get a good impression of yoga even if they don't "do" yoga. Maybe one day they will and they may have a good impression of it...

On another note, I teach yoga at CHEO to the eating disorders program, as you may already know, and I think that group has become my favourite group to teach, especially the inpatient program. I see them twice a week, which is more than I see anyone else, and it's the same people each time unless they're progressing out of the program. Today one of the girls celebrated her 16th birthday and we did poses she requested. She wanted to do partner poses and the wind relieving pose (read below for the "flarp" story) so we had a great class and wore hats and had a good time.

DVD Factory

So I've been so pleased with my ability to finally, Finally, let the DVD out into the world, and yesterday I was making new DVDs, burning them on the computer - please keep in mind this is my own DVD - and I wanted to get some ready for today. So I opened up the file for the insert, because yes, there is going to be a great insert with pictures of the poses and I might even come up with a poster so it can be easy to follow along - and my printer was out of ink.

I have a hand-me-down beast of a printer that uses special ink. It's some sort of Xerox, too-heavy-for-me-to-budge, workhorse of a printer that eats wax ink even if it's not printing anything and yesterday afternoon it said it was out of ink. As if. It didn't even print spotty up until then. It totally had ink, but it would not spit out a page. "Give me what you've got. Isn't there a button I can use to override your internal message?" Nope.


I called my stepfather, who gave the printer some months ago. He agreed with the printer. When that thing says it's out of ink, it won't put out a thing. Which turned out to be good news and bad news. The bad news was that I have a useless beast practically full of ink (because I did add more wax chunks to it except for the yellow one) and wasn't able to print the labels for the DVD. But the good news is - I felt justified in buying a new printer! People are going to want this DVD and I want it to look good. So it's going to need a label on it rather than the handwritten "Jamine's Yoga Class" I'd been doing up until now.

I squeezed in a trip to the printer store before my lunchtime class and got that thing home, installed it as far as I could until this message showed up. "You don't have enough privileges (or something like that) to install this printer. Contact your administrator." Huh? I AM my administrator! It's me! You're talking to her! But I was this close to being late to teach my Monday lunch time Beginning Hatha Yoga class in the Sky Room at Rama Lotus, so I stopped futzing and ran to class. I really wanted to spend more time with that printer and get it all set up, but of course, I couldn't. I'm in between classes right now and I can tell you that my mouth is watering at the thought of getting home to that new printer.

Yoga in Chairs

You can do yoga in a chair, for sure. Sometimes you need to do yoga in a chair because doing yoga on a mat or even a spot on the floor is not appropriate. Sometimes you're in a seminar and start to get stiff. Sometimes you spend 3 hours in a car to get to a workshop where you will sit for 5 hours and you need a stretch. Torsten and I needed a stretch last night in our Landmark Introduction Leaders Program in Montreal. So we did a little chair yoga.

Here's what you do...sit up tall in your chair, pressing your sitz bones down and elongating your spine. Breathe. Even a little ujjayi breath can bring you present quickly. Then do some version of 6 movements of the spine. Any order is okay. You can turn in your chair and look behind you one way, and then the other way. You can reach up and go side to side with your torso a la Half Moon. And placing your hands on your thighs you can try a vertical cat/cow. If you want to go on you can bring a leg up, holding your thigh into your torso and swtich. Another stretch is to cross one leg over and bend forward. Switch sides. Those moves got us through until 12:30 when we got back into the car to return to Ottawa.

I've led Chair Yoga workshops and there are loads more moves I could show you if you ask me. Just because you don't have a mat and aren't all dressed in lycra, doesn't mean you can't do yoga!

On another note... The DVDs are being shipped and are $20 and if you contact me I'll get one out to you.

Yoga Outside

A lot of people think it would be great to do yoga outside. And sometimes it is great to do yoga outside, but often doing yoga outside is distracting for a number of reasons.

The number one reason yoga is distracting when you do it outside is bugs. There are bugs outside and when I teach outside, there is usually some time spent clearing bugs off of mats or making sure bugs are not going to be coming onto mats and like that.

There's also noise to deal with. When you're outside, depending on the group, the sound travels differently than inside and sometimes my voice doesn't carry as well as the truck backing up or the nearby lawnmower that starts up once the class has begun.

Then there's people. Passersby. People on phones, yelling as they walk by. People doing frosh week activities. Today's class was special...I'm at CHEO, so we're on the grounds of a hospital, and we're teenaged girls (except me I know), sitting on yoga mats, just as I'm saying, "and there are people around but chances are they won't be interacting with us," the point being they could just relax and know there are distractions but they can go inside and focus, some guy walks up to us and asks me if I have a spare smoke. A spare SMOKE! We're right outside doors that have no smoking signs and again, obviously engaged in a small group activity that did not include him, an activity that promoted health indicated by our exercise mats, and he comes up. Just after I had finished saying no one's going to interact with us. I said, "you must be joking," and with that he walked away. We all had a great laugh out of it.

Careful doing yoga outside...

Tae Bo-Bo

Last week I was at Costco and I was debating whether or not to get Wayne Dyer's latest book or Billy Blanks' newest Tae Bo DVD. I didn't want to get both because that would just be too much. I wanted to put my hand on Wayne's book and just get all of the knowlege without having to actually do the reading of the book. And I've seen Billy Blanks' stuff around for years but have never bought anything by him. He's even been faculty at Omega some years ago and I thought I'd take a listen.


I started his program that has this "amped" helper. Accelerator maybe. And I did it for a couple of days and it was fun. I felt really goofy doing a work out in front of my TV. I even had my spandex pants on and was working up a sweat. But the "set" I did on Sunday killed me! I had to put the accelerator down and just do the moves without the 3 pound workout wand. Crazy stuff. I was always uncordinated in aerobics classes and I felt a bit off in the virtual gym.

I must have done something wrong though because I hurt my shoulder! I didn't notice it right away but yesterday and today my shoulder has been killing. So I have a Tae Bo bo. :(

I think I'm taking it back to Costco. Maybe I'll trade it for the Wayne Dyer book. Or the organic bread I like get. Or maybe just get my money back and put the money towards renewing my membership at the gym, which ran out at the beginning of the month.

Billy Blanks sounds like a neat guy. I watched the interview with him and checked out his website. But he's not here in Ottawa. I like taking classes in person and being with people live. Bye-bye Tae Bo.

Flarp

If you don't know what Flarp is, you're going to know now. Flarp is a "noise-making goop."

So Wednesday, I'm teaching one of my favourite groups, the teens in the EDP at CHEO, and one of them says, "Jamine, are we going to do wind-relieving pose today?" And I said, "sure, we can do that." There we are lying down holding a leg into our torso, and one of the girls starts making body noises, let's say. And I have encouraged these girls to let 'em rip when they need to and gosh, there's one of them doing it now. My, she really has some awful gas. Wow, that's pretty serious. Hope she's wearing...then one of the other girls starts giggling and before you know it, they're all laughing and it's revealed that Sabrina's got some Flarp and is using it. Ha ha. The joke was definitely on me.

That was funny. I got to try it too. We talked about whoopie cushions and other toys that make good sounds and how to get the most out of them. Flarp in a yoga class. Look out. (I mentioned the incident to one of my classes for the patent office and someone said, "I'd hate to look at the patent for that stuff!")

Farting happens in yoga. It's going on and you know it. It's just one of those things...

Black Belt in Yoga

So John's making jokes today about how he went to yoga but he didn't see any sparring and he's wondering how long it takes until he can get his black belt in yoga and I'm laughing but you know, that's what we're up against here. When I teach yoga in schools, invariably somebody, and I'm sorry, but it's usually one of the boys, says, "can we do karate?" School's starting school soon and I'll be faced with the kids who do and don't want to do yoga.

Maybe there could be levels and we have belts and stuff. Whaddyathink?

Home Again, Home Again

It's Friday, and we got home on Tuesday night.

Omega was a lot of fun. I'm posting two videos of Sister Alice and her Gospel workshop participants just to give you a taste of the scene. One of them still makes me cry as she was soooo awesome.





We left Omega on Sunday and drove to Little Compton, Rhode Island, where my friend from Recovery Yoga, Peter, has a summer place. We spent two nights there and drove home on Tuesday. It was a long drive for us - 11 hours altogether - and Remi was great for the whole time. She is old enough to be my copilot now and can read the directions from the computer, which she usually has in the back seat because she can watch DVDs on it. We were a great team.

As I was driving home, outside of Montreal already, I got a call from Rama Lotus. I checked in with them when we got to Harvey's outside of Rigaud (if you haven't had their veggie burger yet, I recommend you try one) to discover that I had completely forgotten to get a sub for my Tuesday intermediate hatha class and that fortunately Ichih was available at the last minute and they combined our classes and it was handled. Phew. That kind of thing hardly happens to me and when it does it feels really awful!

I got around to checking my www.capitalyoga.com mail, which is mainly spam, and there were some compliments from people who had been to my classes at Omega and a request for my DVD. For some reason I have trouble releasing my DVD to the world. It's like it's not good enough. While I was in Rhode Island Peter and I talked about how people don't sing anymore because recordings are so good and people can't recreate that sound and so often don't even try. I think I did the same thing with my DVD. Instead of letting it be what it is, a straight run-through of my beginning yoga class, shot with one camera with me talking and doing poses at the same time, and my hair is my hair and my face is my actual face, and my shirt rides up, just like it does in real life, I compare it to Yoga Journal and Gaiam productions and think it's not ready.

Well, I'm ready to give that up and I'm letting the DVD out. If you want a copy let me know. The few people that have it already have said they like it and can do the class no problem.

On another note, I took out a DVD from the library and watched it today. It's called The Fire of Yoga, and it was a good look at yoga and how it helps people improve their lives, not their bodies.

Lots of Yoga

It's really wonderful teaching at Omega. The space is really beautiful, there are mats and props for everyone, there are nature sounds coming in to the rooms, and the people who come to take yoga are unbeatable. Open, relaxed, ready, and very appreciative. So, thanks Omega, for making these 2 weeks really fun. Even though I didn't have a day off (people keep asking me how my vacation is going), it's been good to be teaching in a different space.

And being with my daughter has been wonderful. We've had a great chance to connect and it's been wonderful seeing her run and play and climb trees and go off with friends and have sleepovers and meet me at breakfast and just run wild.

And I went up to Deepak Chopra last night in the dining hall and muttered something to him about hearing him speak at Kripalu back in '91 and how I like the part about how we're not the TV but being broadcast and all that stuff and I saw him on The Hour on CBC and how his shoes are cool, those Nikes he has made for himself, and that I'm a yoga teacher here. So when the class I was teaching this morning ended up being in a different room and his class was supposedly doing something different, I figured it's because he thought that if that babbling fool (me) was the teacher that they'd better offer something else. That's not what happened, but I did get moved and the thought crossed my mind. There was a room mix up and I was the teacher and it was all FINE. GOOD even.

I haven't seen him close up again today but if I do, I'm going to try and get my picture taken with him ;)

Who Will Show Up to Yoga?

Family Week just ended and Remi's workshop is over. She took lots of pictures and the whole week was wonderful. Elizabeth Lesser said "next year when you teach yoga, we can tell people it's okay to bring their kids to the morning yoga class." She had heard that people liked my class and I guess it would be good to go again next year.

I was going to have a bit of a rest this weekend because I was told that Deepak Chopra is coming and that he's bringing his own yoga teacher and they had forgotten to mention that to me and I could still teach my staff class but I wouldn't need to do the early morning and pm classes. Oh, Deepak doesn't need me, fine, I'll sleep in. Then they're chasing me down before lunch, "Jamine! Did so and so tell you? The person who was supposed to teach in the morning is stuck in California, and there's more to the story..." So I'm teaching in the am after all. The Main Hall holds a lot of people and if 200 people want to do yoga in there, they can. So I'm going to do down there in a while and practising using the mike. I wasn't using the mike for the other classes.

Hot, Hot, Hot Yoga

It's hot out. It's really hot here at Omega. I'm not sure how hot exactly, but it's very, very warm out. So doing yoga is hot and sticky. Some people like that, and some people don't.

Luc and I spent some time together this afternoon in Kingston. We took my un-airconditioned car over the Hudson River to the nice and cool Kingston Mall and did a little shopping. Came back just in time to teach some extra hot yoga.

I figured I'd go to whatever was happening at the Main Hall because it would be nice and cool in there. I was pleasantly surprised at the great entertainment. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I heard "the mask guy" was going to be performing. But it wasn't what we got, which was very funny and highly entertaining.

From his moves, I would guess that the "mask guy" is majorly into yoga. He had some wild positions and got a lot of laughs from the kids here at family week. By the end of the show he was completely soaked and we were all tired from laughing.

Remi's having a sleepover at the trailer park, which is adjacent to the Omega campus where some of the staff live. She's having a blast here.

Yoga at Omega

Teaching yoga at Omega got easier. It's actually a delight and is lots of fun. Everybody who comes to the class is motivated to do yoga. They've travelled far to get here and then they're taking their own time to come down and take my class. So they really want to be there. And even with the wide range of yoga experience people have, they seem to be open to what I teach. So that's good and splendid, really.

I'm not used to teaching so early (7 am) and that's actually been nice. My daughter, Remi, has joined me each morning in class even though she has permission to stay in our room at Crossroads and wait for me to come back. She always wants to get up at 6 and come down there with me. It's been really nice having her there. She gets my mat for me and puts it away at the end of the class.

It's Family Week at Omega and kids are welcome to come to the evening class with their parents. Yesterday no kids came except for Remi and her friend, Amber. I'm hoping to actually get some more kids in class today.

This is such a wonderful place to be. Kids feel safe and they run around in packs like in the olden days ;) Adults are generous and kind with each other. It's a treat to be here. If you haven't been to Omega, I recommend that you take a trip down and go for a weekend or 2.

One of the people here on camps this week is David Wilcox, the american one, not the canadian one. He has set himself up in the Garden Cabin during the breaks in workshops when people will be wandering around and can pop in. He calls himself the Music Doctor, and when the doctor is "in" you can pop in, tell him what ails you and he'll sing you a song for it. If he doesn't have a song, he'll make one up on the spot.

Last night I was walking down the garden path (heh) and I stopped in and had a listen. Someone was feeling like they were afraid to sing out in their singing workshop so he sang them a song about getting confidence. Another guy had something going on about fear of the future and David sang another song. He looked at me and said, "what's up with you?" I told him. I missed my boyfriend. I've been gone for a week and I've got another week to go and I miss him. He asked a few more questions about the situation and then David Wilcox sang me a song that made me bawl my eyes out. It was the medicine I needed. So I listened as he made up a song for me about looking through my eyes, and feeling love, and other things that hit the spot. It was magical. After he finished, I got up and wiped my eyes some more and headed to a phone so I could make that long distance call. It felt really good.

We're All Bozos on the Bus

I made it to Omega and have been teaching yoga here for the past 2 days and it has been interesting. There's such a diverse and eclectic group of people here with such varied experiences of yoga. Fortunately they are patient and really easy to get along with. I was a bit nervous coming in as there are so many teachers on campus and I'm teaching in the room that Kofi Busia is in and it's intimidating. Then last night I went to hear Elizabeth Lesser read from her book, Broken Open, and she read the part about how we're all just bozos on the bus and I relaxed a bit.

There isn't another bus where everyone is pretty and wealthy and doing it right, lives all running smoothly. We're not alone on the bus of bozos - people who live actual lives - lives of fear and insincerity and trials and ups and downs and wondering and wonderment and everything. She explains it much better in her book, you'll be happy to know.

Anyhow, while I'm here I'm teaching everyday at 7 am, which is a bit of a "stretch" as we're not usually out of bed at that hour this summer. I'm also teaching almost every night at 5:30 and a couple of classes a week just for the staff. And when I went to teach today I thought about how I'm not alone in this. There isn't a perfect yoga teacher out there just waiting to take my place. I'm the teacher for the next two weeks and I'm doing just fine. Some people might even say I'm doing great!

Remi's back from her golf cart drive with Luc, my mountie yogi friend. So I'm off for a while!

Grateful

So after I finished publishing my little blog post yesterday I noticed that I had some voicemail and I decided to take a listen. There was a message from Loblaws saying that they had my wallet and that it had been found in the parking lot. I hadn't even noticed that my wallet was missing. Oh well.

"C'mon kids," (Remi had a friend over), "we're going to Loblaws to get my wallet." On the ride over I was reviewing the contents of my wallet in my head - oh yea, there's 20 bucks in there - I took out my receipts recently so I've got those - oh, there are 2 cheques - and I'm wondering if the stuff will be there or if my wallet will be gutted. I figure the stuff's there or my id wouldn't still be in my wallet and they wouldn't be able to call me.

Sure enough, the wallet's there, everything's in place and so was the bag of broccoli I had also left when I had been shopping earlier. Whew. I got the guy's number who'd found it and turned it in, called to thank him when I got home, and that was that.

The last time I had my wallet stolen I had $300 bucks in cash (bad move) and I was able to keep my id and credit cards, but the person at Starbucks in the Glebe made off with an easy whack of cash (it was leftover from my trip to the States, which I'm about to embark on again, as a matter of fact). The time before that, my wallet was found in the parking lot of Costco, and instead of walking it into the store, the lady who found it took it home to St. Albert. That was a bit of a journey to get back, but well worth it as again, everything was left intact.

I learned a long time ago not to have anything on me that I couldn't stand to lose. Jewelry, money, passports, gifts for people, whatever. I travelled in Asia many years ago and slept in community dorms and on beaches and learned to relax and know that my stuff was probably going to be okay and if it wasn't, it wasn't the end of the world.

While I was living in South Africa, someone came into the house I was staying in while I was there and took my purse out of the house. They took the wallet, including my credit cards and id and left my cash and passport and purse, thank you very much. The credit cards were replaced within a week and my Canadian Citizenship card took about 6 months at least to get back. Oh, and a bracelet with sentimental value was taken too. I just felt grateful that I didn't know it was happening and that nothing happened to me!

Sometimes I leave the keys in the door to my house. And like in the Michael Moore movie, as a good Canadian sometimes the door to my house is open and you could walk in. I try to lock it up and pay more attention to that now that I'm a mother, but I figure that if someone wants to take something, they will.

I've learned that my happiness does not depend on my stuff. I don't have much that can't be easily replaced. Even trinkets I've bought abroad show up in stalls in the Market now. You can buy everything just about anyplace in the world. The rest that's local is usually perishable anyhow.

So I'm totally grateful that I got my wallet back, and if it had been gone it would have for sure been a hassle that I could do without, but I know I'd be okay.

Cops Get Fit

Below is a cute clip with a yoga bit at the beginning and then a story about the police getting fit back in the '70s. (Above is a picture of my buddy, Luc, that I took a couple of years ago for a laugh.) I still teach the police at the college, but here in Ottawa, not the one in Toronto they refer to in the documentary.

Here's the link: http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-41-615-3307/sports/fitness/clip5