Almost 10 years ago, yoga literally fell into my lap. It has become a practice that I've committed too on the mat, more importantly off the mat.  I can honestly say it saved me, sustains me and now creates space for this little person in me AND in my life.
For more than 15 years I obsessed with my exterior. How everything I did or ate affected the way I looked. I paid a big price for this…with my body, my skin, my mental health.

There is nothing more damaging than living a life fixated on the superficial. TOO much time spent in a gym, feeling guilty about things that I ate, and constantly worrying about 'how I looked".

I was riddled with anxiety and stress, bad skin for 8 years of my life. People wonder why I hid from the camera? Yet, how do you put yourself out there when you have to keep up with 'perfect'? This was a job in itself and a vicious cycle that fed itself.

My diet has RADICALLY changed. I eat way more stuff that was on the 'banned' list years ago, that would normally send me to the gym for guilt motivated cardio. I work out at a fraction of what I used too. From 5-6 days a week at the gym for hours, to probably once a week (if that) …and when I do go, I go because I WANT to be there. To enliven my body, invigorate my muscles, to get the blood pumping. But I'm far more interested to walk outside amongst the fresh air and trees, or go for a run…tap INTO nature, and my TRUE nature, with yoga. I make sure that I'm always giving my body something, my intentions have nothing to do with 'how I look' but 'how I feel'. The byproduct? I look and feel greater than ever before. In fact…at 2 months pregnant, (if weight matters) I weighed less than before my hard core days of strict eating and working out. Mind you, I have a lot less muscle, but I don't have more than I need.

I can honestly say, I have never felt so balanced and healthy in my whole life.

I love the below quote from Bryan Kest...and if you want to know more about this journey and how I got to this place, let me know. xo jodi renée

"The original function of exercise was to heal or maintain health. It wasn't about looking good so much as feeling good. Now, most exercises have nothing to do with healing and everything to do with looking good, creating even more dis-ease or imbalance by overdeveloping the outer muscles and ignoring the rest. Even the exercises themselves, created to give fast and extreme results, can be damaging. Yoga is about balance, because health is a state of balance.

The practice of yoga is the practice of cultivating balance - mental as well as physical, because they go hand in hand. Doing the poses is one thing, but how we do them is the key; that's the yoga, the state of mind behind all things. The outer environment in which I live, is a reflection of the inner environment in which I live. The yogis traced back the root of all misery and, the seed from which that root stemmed is attachment. And, what am I more attached to than me and my body? I have this image of myself and, when I can't maintain it, a whole lot starts to surface…" - Bryan Kest

Labels: health, personal, yoga

it's taken me awhile to write this post...
Up in the Air Part I. This might just be the sequel. A trend in post beginning with airplanes and the photo above brings me peace. Flying over Vancouver on my way back from Bali last year. Excited to be back in so many ways, the journey I had just gone through - my GOD! ...and who knew the journey that still lay ahead.

Maybe we put TOO much on people...places...things. Maybe it's the experience we're looking for...and that really doesn't require us to go. Anywhere.
Things that make me come alive, things that make me come alive...hmmm...Well. Yoga. Even though doing yoga at that time created a next day migraine that made an anvil dropping on the head seem like a vacation of bliss. Imagine. Anvil = bliss. And I know that some of you get it. Right? cuz on some level we're all dealing with or masking some sort of lingering pain that keeps us from doing something...anything...everything.
I had been looking up yoga trainings for quite some time. Teach? hmmm...on some level there's a deep rooted belief that I suck at teaching. I can't teach. And it's that exact fear that provokes me to 'go'...flip that coin and there may just be a great teacher in the making. Define 'teach' though. Getting outside of my definition and I've come to realize "I am teaching"...just not the physical practice of yoga. Yet.
Back and forth between researching different trainings. You'd think I was doing a research for a PHD! ...unfortunately it's just one of my 'control issue' things rearing it's beautiful face. Cuz maybe if I know absolutely EVERYTHING without even having experienced ANYTHING I'll be ...what? What the fuck will I be?
Nothing can beat experience.
No prep can ever PREPARE you for the actual doing of it...BEING there.
Trust me. NO PREP.
annnd why I do I know this? I felt that the 100% raw food diet would cure me. Of all my ailments. I was 100% convinced that this was THE ONLY way and that I'd come back rejuvenated, limber, lean and radiant! ....oh man. Was I ever wrong.
And that's not to say that 100% raw food doesn't work. I SO believe in so many of the ideas behind it and you honestly have to choose a path 'that works for you'. So if that's 80/100 raw ratio...50/50 ...
It's a personal thing. You can't expect what works for others to be the miracle for you. TRY and be your own experiment.
Seriously this whole Raw food thing has soooo much more to it. I'll have to write another post on it. Cuz I do implement this into my life - the parts that work for. ME.
Rewind: how did I get to Bali?
it's people.
People lead me to places. In a hell of an adventurous way. Maybe because I trust them, what the world brings to me. People give me that. Faith and trust.
So meeting a girl at a snowboard camp in Whistler ...who introduced me to Raw food AND..."Radiantly Alive Yoga"
Let the research begin! and then the torment of deciding ...should I go, shouldn't I go...go here? go there? wait? Now!? OhmyfreakingGod! Decisions are my uh......the opposite of strength let's just say. Mind you I can buy 3 pairs of jeans and over priced eye cream without even blinking!
woooo....revealing as I'm typing. It's the 'going of places' that I struggle with.
I was thinking about it TOO much. My body was screaming at me...
Life was just getting uncomfortable.
So I booked. Cuz all I wanted was instant change and for me to look and feel better AS SOON AS I RETURNED.
Yep. Notice the lack of patience and understanding for the Self? Big time.
And keep this in the back of your head "the way you do one, is often the way you do everything"...extremist, no patience, go hard or go home? wow...no wonder I have no balance in my life? I'm living one end of the pendulum. WITH EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IN MY LIFE (feel the stress there - bold caps are less shouting, more pronunciation. Like in slow motion...kinda like THIS) Hilarious fav clip from Old School
Expectations. Hell ya. Bali was going to give me everything I needed. Healing my spine, my migraines, my horrible complexion, lack of sleeping........pain.
Bali was going to heal my life.
oh. And because of all the pain, I no longer thought photography was the path - so it HAD to be yoga teaching.
Wow. Bali are you ready for me?
And you know what happens with expectations? Disappointments. Cuz there's a wanting of something. There's a strong urgency to 'get'. Where can life dance and play...weave it's magic when you already have it all figured out?
ahhh...this is what they mean by 'surrender'
I'd heard this enough in the last two years...you'd think I'd understand.
Experience.
You need the experience.
All of your expectations to come short. To be disappointed.
You need to fail and fuck up. TO BE WRONG.
Fail again....
and again and again.
Turn around. Apologize to the world, to YOURSELF.
Forgive you.
Fall flat on your face.
You need to give up knowing or 'wanting' to know anything...and everything.
In the NOT knowing? Possibility. Opportunity. Magic and soooo much freedom.
To just be. YOU. And this wonderful, amazing moment.
Because really. That's all that's required of you.
In this life.
Right now.



There are so many pockets of amazing experience I'm leaving out and maybe for a reason...maybe I'll get to writing them or maybe they'll stay cherished for 'me'.
However, if I could reach deep into the souls of the people who are still reading this post ...(thank YOU if you're still hanging in!) ...I would pull you up and out of your SHIT.
We can never SEE clearly and stuff will always be in the way, as long as we allow it to be. Our stories, the things that hold us back. Life in it's plethora of distractions tied with our own expectations can only lead us on a crazy circular journey that seems worse than a merry-go-round ...and the guy that pushes the button to stop the ride has gone home for the day.
I have realized that I can constantly LOOK for ways to heal me, to 'fix' me.
And until I tap into the part of me that's absolutely PERFECT. Nothing externally is going to fix what needs to be healed inside first.
It's not that we need to be more of anything...
Life throws you signs of pain and discomfort to say "hey! you're off balance"
Re-align.
Be still.
Listen.
Re-evaluate what it is you want. And why? Ask yourself questions. Do the work ON YOU!
You have all the answers.

You want to know what the most powerful snippet of info I took from 30 days of an intense yoga training?
Be calm on the inside.
Your breath is the biggest indicator of 'where you are'...
and it'll take you back to where you need to go.
But you have to listen, check in and be still.
Often what you think you need, is exactly what you do not.
It's time to get out of the 'thinking' of everything and into the FEELINGS.
This is yoga. This is life.

Do you really care if you're uber flexible? what is doing the splits really going to give you?
Flexibility of the mind however...
Gives you so much more.
Comparing in the studio on your mat.
Comparing to where you are in your life or job...
The only thing that matters is what FEELS RIGHT for you.
This is your life.
how high someone can pull their leg over their head or where they're at successfully in their job takes away from YOUR MOMENT. And this is the only thing that's going to move you forward. Tune in.
To you.
I'm beginning to recognize change..
And that it happens on it's own time,
and with patience. A lot of love and full on gratitude.
I can always get myself into a place of anxiety and THINKING that I need to be somewhere else or doing this, having that.
Putting myself out of this incredible moment.
Right here. Right now.
When you stop to think of what you have.
Full on gratitude.
Rocks.
And this is why people of the world who are faarrrr worse off than we are...are happy.
Because...
They're grateful. Just to be alive.
That's enough.
They don't need anything but the magnificent freedom that is their spirit.
Heavenly huh?

Start from where you are...
Even if it's not where you want to be.
Starting is somewhere that leads to that place.
And be open to the path less traveled.
We never EVER want the things, or the place...or the person.
It's the FEELING when we have those things, get to that place or find that person.
Feelings are our fuel and guess what?
We can create those from right where we're standing.

So it's gorgeous! and I'm all FOR travel and the experience it brings you, the people you come across and the amazing pictures!!! ...however it's not for everyone. It might not be possible for everyone.
You don't have to travel across the world to get the snippet of life changing 'be calm on the inside' that I did...
Maybe you just have to know me and be reading my long winded Blog!

...OR maybe just slow the FUCK down. In a world of fast paced, no-one-can-even-let-you-in-the-next-lane-because-they-need-to-get-to-the-up-coming-red-light-faster-than-you! whew....
We are all in a rush. Slooooow down.
So tapping in by tapping out (yes that means facebook and blackberry!) ...is an adventure in itself. Because there's more to getting somewhere and always having to connect with everything and everyone but yourself.
You're a lot more than you give yourself credit for.
Make yourself THAT important.
Often that's all you need.
I am grateful if ONE of you has read this whole post and made it to the end here...
Honestly. I could write forever on Bali and the expectations that fell short only to FAR EXCEED my expectations as life unfolded over the past few months up until today...

There will be so many more posts around pockets of this journey and new ones to come! I'd SO appreciate it if you do enjoy my writing that you let me know by writing comments on my Facebook Fanpage! ....
...thanks for being here...xo
jodi renée

Labels: bali, inspiration, journey, life, travel, yoga