It’s been…a week! My pinky slice has all but healed, thankfully, but my hormones have had me on an emotional roller coaster, and the addition of plenty of sugar and fun foods probably didn’t help. I also made a major life decision-for the good, but still a huge change- and the enormity of it is still overwhelming me a bit. A lot of my habits have been on and off, but I’m working to rein it all in (with gentleness) to rebalance.

Nutrition: My daughter, sweet Ladybug Girl, had her birthday last Friday, and, especially in the midst of the pandemic, with my anxiety keeping us from gathering or feeling safe to go most places, I really wanted it to be a weekend of saying “Yes” to her requests, a lot of which happened to be food related. That meant cake, ice cream, burgers and fries, pizza, French toast…It was fun, and she deserved to feel celebrated. I chose not to track my calories these days, because it wasn’t important. What was important was making the memories and celebrating my birthday girl.I ate with intention (2 slices of pizza, burger in a lettuce wrap, etc.  I didn’t really track them closely Monday- Wednesday either, because, due to hormones and big life decisions, most of my intense exercise is off the menu this week, so I am mostly focusing on my hunger cues and what my body is asking for.

Rest: Bedtime is getting better and more consistent overall. Not great, but not staying up watching TV either. The transition to bed is where I am falling short, and where I am going to focus some intention going forward. When I felt my hormones shift, and all my energy just tank the second half of last week, I really tried to listen, and took Friday and Saturday to rest. I have still kept things very low key physically since then, to honor what my body needs.

Exercise : Like I said, due to where I am in my hormonal cycle, I’ve scaled things back. I have a chart for my training plan through the phases of my cycle, and I am, for the first time, really, trying to really honor it. I have a tendency to go hard as long as I can, and, in recent history, that has caused me to just crash and do nothing for a week or two surrounding my period. Not this month. In what I call my “orange” phase, the phase between when I expect my period to start any day (yellow) and when it actually odes start (red), I limit myself to beginner yoga flows of whatever length seems right that day, and optionally getting on the bike to “show up” but not push hard in a ride. This is intended to keep me moving but not overdoing it. After taking Friday and Saturday to rest entirely, I resumed yoga Sunday morning, and have enjoyed practicing daily since then.

This…leads me to the big life decision that I’ve mentioned. Long before I knew I was called to be a writer, I knew I was called to teach yoga. I knew this a few months into practicing, that this practice could give others what it gave me, a connection to the body’s strength, grace, ability, that translated to changes off the mat as well. Yoga changed my view of my body and what I thought it capable of, and that led me toward confidence in stepping outside my perceived limits in other areas. I might go so far to say that if I look at the times in my life I have been most confident, brave, and expectant of good things, I would find that I was also practicing yoga consistently.

The only thing that has really held me back from beginning this training was cost. It has not been something we felt was affordable in our current season, as valuable as it would be. The pandemic has changed a lot of things, though, including the availability of the certification my heart was set on-online. I had seen ads for a yoga school being able to offer the exact certification that my own yoga mentor has, the one that was out of my reach financially in this season, online, self paced, and at a fraction of the cost. There had to be a catch, so I didn’t look any further into it. At first. When I finally did, because the pull was too strong not to miss this opportunity, if it was legitimate, I found it was not only legitimate, but better than I could have hoped. I talked it over with Scott, and signed up. I am now 4 days into my Yoga Teacher Training, Y’all! I hope to graduate sometime between October and early December. True to form for me, I already have a list of add on trainings I want to take when I’m done, to deepen my knowledge of a few areas of practice that I find valuable.

Right now, I am neck deep in anatomy study, and somewhat ironically, the same day I started studying anatomy and alignment, I also managed to twist my knee by stepping wrong and wake up with my elbow hyperextended- so, that’s kinda “fun”, by which I mean frustrating and not fun at all.

Soul care: AAAAARGH. I’ve been dreadful at this the past week. I forgot to mention last week that E and I started a new approach in therapy, one I am really excited about, but I’ve been inconsistent with checking in on that daily as well as my meditation and time in the Word. That changes TODAY. I have been sticking pretty well to intentional down time in the afternoon, which crosses somewhere between rest and soul care. I find that as I add new pursuits and priorities to my life, I need to also continue to prioritize this, or I am going to burn out.

Self care: this has been very 50/50. I got thrown off my shower routine by both my pinky injury (had to sponge bath with my non-dominant hand for most of last week) and easing back on exercise (I usually shower right after I ride), and haven’t yet fixed that. I’ve done about halfway well at skincare, but nothing extra, and y’all I really need to do the extra, to take the time to treat myself like I matter. I truly carry myself differently when I am well groomed.

Body image/love: well, it’s the limbo before my period, I have a mild injury, and I ate massive amounts of sugar last weekend, so… body love isn’t super great right now. BUT, I know that these things are not definitive of who I am or what I am capable of, so I do still love this body for all it can and will do and give me.

This week, I love my body because it carried and grew and nourished the amazing eight year old girl I ate all that sugar in celebration of, and she is a miracle and a gift.