dance

Yesterday, during our tango lesson, I was feeling out of sync dancing with my wife. Our teacher shared that it was because I was moving ahead of her. I was focused more on executing the steps rather than being completely present with her and moving together. When I included her in my awareness and focused on being connected in motion, it felt so much better!

I couldn't help but think that this is another metaphor and a reminder for how I can show up better for myself. So often I prioritize my tasks, completing them, and pushing through while ignoring how my body feels, until it's too late. I'm leaving my body - 'my partner' - behind. But there are times... usually after I'm reminded that I've been neglecting my body... that I make a conscious decision to support my body with movement, good food, and rest, which inevitably supports me in being more focused and better with the tasks at hand.

So I wonder what else becomes possible when I prioritize taking care of myself while working and it becomes more of my norm. 

Yesterday, during our tango lesson, I was feeling out of sync dancing with my wife. Our teacher shared that it was because I was moving ahead of her. I was focused more on executing the steps rather than being completely present with her and moving together. When I included her in my awareness and focused on being connected in motion, it felt so much better!

I couldn't help but think that this is another metaphor and a reminder for how I can show up better for myself. So often I prioritize my tasks, completing them, and pushing through while ignoring how my body feels, until it's too late. I'm leaving my body - 'my partner' - behind. But there are times... usually after I'm reminded that I've been neglecting my body... that I make a conscious decision to support my body with movement, good food, and rest, which inevitably supports me in being more focused and better with the tasks at hand.

So I wonder what else becomes possible when I prioritize taking care of myself while working and it becomes more of my norm. 

Yesterday, during our tango lesson, I was feeling out of sync dancing with my wife. Our teacher shared that it was because I was moving ahead of her. I was focused more on executing the steps rather than being completely present with her and moving together. When I included her in my awareness and focused on being connected in motion, it felt so much better!

I couldn't help but think that this is another metaphor and a reminder for how I can show up better for myself. So often I prioritize my tasks, completing them, and pushing through while ignoring how my body feels, until it's too late. I'm leaving my body - 'my partner' - behind. But there are times... usually after I'm reminded that I've been neglecting my body... that I make a conscious decision to support my body with movement, good food, and rest, which inevitably supports me in being more focused and better with the tasks at hand.

So I wonder what else becomes possible when I prioritize taking care of myself while working and it becomes more of my norm. 

Yesterday, during our tango lesson, I was feeling out of sync dancing with my wife. Our teacher shared that it was because I was moving ahead of her. I was focused more on executing the steps rather than being completely present with her and moving together. When I included her in my awareness and focused on being connected in motion, it felt so much better!

I couldn't help but think that this is another metaphor and a reminder for how I can show up better for myself. So often I prioritize my tasks, completing them, and pushing through while ignoring how my body feels, until it's too late. I'm leaving my body - 'my partner' - behind. But there are times... usually after I'm reminded that I've been neglecting my body... that I make a conscious decision to support my body with movement, good food, and rest, which inevitably supports me in being more focused and better with the tasks at hand.

So I wonder what else becomes possible when I prioritize taking care of myself while working and it becomes more of my norm. 

Significance of Kendrick Lamar's Superbowl performance. Here's what I've learned so far, would love to hear everything others find!

The Drake Stuff

• As the lights in the audience at the end said, this is Kendrick's "Game Over" in his ever-increasing beef with Drake. They teased the song "Not Like Us," in which Kendrik calls Drake a pedophile, nodding to the immense talk over whether he would perform the song there. When they did do that song, they added insult to injury by panning the camera over a cameo of Drake's ex, Serena Williams, dancing.

Black Culture

• Every human in the entire halftime show was black, including the prime old-school representative of the USA, Uncle Sam, portrayed by Samuel Jackson.
• When the dancers were in the american flag formation made only of men, there was a potent dance move of them all simultaneously did the Black Power fist.
• One youtuber referenced the significance of the colors, when Kendrick was wearing mostly blue and the only other color on stage was dancers wearing red, that it was a powerful reference to last year's "Pop Out" concert in LA which was a groundbreaking moment in music creating unity because the stage was filled with members of both the Bloods and the Crips, two gangs that have had decades of violence between them, going so far as to gather for a group photo at the end of the concert. During the photo, Kendrick said "This is unity at its finest... this shit makes me prouder than a motherfucker..."
• The choreography was jam packed with black culture, all the way to one of the most successful tennis players in history Crip Walking.
• Black culture is also celebrated with the souped up Grand National car, streetlights, and clothing styles.

Things I want to know more about:

• There had to have been a lot of commentaries on America with how blatant that theme was. I'd love to learn what all people find, beyond what I've heard about the boldness of doing that while Trump was also there.
• Symbolism, including the colors and all other things I missed.
• Significance throughout the lyrics and phrases that were added in during transitions, etc.

Why I keep forgetting that exercise feels amazing. This could just as easily live in my journal, but in my favorite version of reality a lot of things get added in the comments, and this lives as a resource for everyone and for me the next time I forget that exercise feels amazing.

The culture I was aware of as a kid: 

• Athletes go to gyms. The only other people that go to gyms are vain people, and they only go because they care about having an impressive appearance.
• Exercise is hard and painful. If it's not kicking you're ass, you're lazy.
• I loved playing soccer all through childhood. When I started Junior High I tried out for the soccer team. I was the best player at tryouts- scored the most goals, saved the most goals, had the most steals. But I didn't make the team because I wasn't competitive enough. On the last day of tryouts I gave goals to girls who seemed like their self-esteem was getting battered by their failure to get a goal.

My initial influences in adulthood:

• In undergrad I was required to take dance class all 4 years. The dance teacher's job was to prepare us for Broadway dance auditions, which are usually "cattle calls" of hundreds of people auditioning for one spot. So you had to be the best, the sharpest, the fastest to learn the choreography, the fastest to get into position. These classes were the first time in my life I learned what "getting into shape" meant. He spent the entire first semester of freshman year teaching us what the names of our muscles were by spending an entire 90-minute session going ham on that muscle. Freshmen voice majors at Carnegie Mellon limped around campus and yelped trying to pick up their backpacks. I wasn't taught about warm ups, cool downs, or how to navigate muscle soreness. I was expected to be capable of at least two versions of the splits by the end of my first semester of college, so I spent hours doing homework in very uncomfortable body positions.
• In my thirties I worked with personal trainers three times. I didn't know this at the time, but I've since learned from a friend who is a health coach that most people come to a personal training session and give about 40% effort, so most trainers get in the habit of pushing and pushing them to harder things in the hopes the client gets to 75 or 80%. My trainers and I didn't know that because of my dance training I was showing up giving 110%. So they pushed me the way they pushed all of their clients. And I did everything in my power to be obedient to what they were telling me to do. It took me 8 years to realize that what I had been calling "pushing my edge" had actually been the cusp of a panic attack because my heart rate was way too high and I was pushing strength training to the point of risking injury.

New updates to my experiences and beliefs about exercise:

• Thanks largely to my health coach friend, a wise ex-boyfriend, and resources from Dr. Stacey Sims, I finally was able to believe them that not only doesn't exercise have to be painful, the cortisol, muscle soreness, etc. caused from pushing create more problems than the workouts solve. And when exercise sucks it's wildly de-motivating and unsustainable.
• I've learned through countless failed attempts and Dr. Sims that any workout plan that doesn't take my menstrual cycle into account is doomed from the start. I learned that in the days before my bleed my body takes all of the tissue-rebuilding ingredients away from things like muscle repair and diverts it all to building the uterine lining. So strength training during this time results in a week of relentless pain and soreness. I've learned that during my follicular phase I'm a literal superhero. Live it up while I can, but for god's sake do not set that as my new standard to build on top of because the cycle is going to loop back again. I've learned that women have about 30% the glycogen stores in their muscles as men, so keto and fasted workouts are a distaster. I literally need to have eaten carbs before workouts to have any legitamite fuel to work with.
• I've had fits and starts of working out, but then I'd start listening to some damn exercise podcast, fall into my old mindset of "pushing for gains," and the habit would collapse.

New intentional mindsets:

I'm a week into returning to exercise, and so far everything about it is wildly different than before. I consistently feel the tug back toward my old mindsets, but I'm practicing reminding myself of these things over and over and over.

• Do classes, but relinquish obedience. The classes are great for me because a very knowledgable person has crafted something great without my having to expend any mental energy at all. But the key is that I stay connected with my body and be always willing to disobey the instructor in favor of what my body needs.
• Start slow and easy. What I want most if for exercise to become a favorite part of my lifestyle for the rest of my life. I've been mostly going to "Restorative" classes that are passive yoga stretches in a structure designed to regulate the nervous system. Nothing's hard, nothing hurts, and I leave feeling wonderful. This is SO effective at making me look forward to getting in the car and driving to the gym the next day.
• Pride can be a great energy source. It does seem to be part of my true nature that I would like other people in the class to be impressed with me. I want to be impressed with me. I'm intentionally relinquishing the lifelong energy source of "I want to get thin and hot" and replacing it with "I wanna leave here feeling impressed with myself."
• Two mindsets I picked up from Arun, "I like being a regular" and "third place," had me choose Austin Bouldering Project as my gym. It's just fucking cool, and very attractive people are everywhere. I like the thought of becoming a regular there. A lot. People knowing my name, new friendships, maybe even finding a romantic partner who likes going to the same gym together. And third place is based on home being the first place and work being the second place. I love the midset of choosing ABP as my third place. I bring my laptop and co-work upstairs after working out. I chill in the sauna.

These are all such different mindset orientations than I've ever had before, and I hope writing this helps me remember that when I do it wisely from the right mindsets, exercise and going to the gym feels friggin amazing.

Some Thoughts on Boundaries. Boundaries are mine. My portals to connection. They’re statements of fact: “whoops, I’m sorry, it turns out I can’t love from here anymore.”

The purest form doesn’t require anyone else to uphold. I can say “no” to a party I don’t want to go to. I can turn off my phone at bedtime. Asking someone not to interrupt me or not answering emails after work can feel a little trickier to uphold, because I have to be willing to walk away.

There are a bunch of socially agreed upon boundaries that are upheld by law enforcement, like cease and desists or restraining orders. It’s often not simple—in Texas I have a right to refuse anyone setting foot on my property (but what about racism, when my property is a business?).

There are some thoughts for now...

Some Thoughts on Boundaries. Boundaries are mine. My portals to connection. They’re statements of fact: “whoops, I’m sorry, it turns out I can’t love from here anymore.”

The purest form doesn’t require anyone else to uphold. I can say “no” to a party I don’t want to go to. I can turn off my phone at bedtime. Asking someone not to interrupt me or not answering emails after work can feel a little trickier to uphold, because I have to be willing to walk away.

There are a bunch of socially agreed upon boundaries that are upheld by law enforcement, like cease and desists or restraining orders. It’s often not simple—in Texas I have a right to refuse anyone setting foot on my property (but what about racism, when my property is a business?).

There are some thoughts for now...