Day 23: Happy New Year's Eve!

I'm not gonna lie, tonight's practice was somewhat unfocused. I did my practice while watching New Year's Eve coverage in Times Square with my husband while our son slept on his chest.

Best. Dates. Ever.

I wasn't focused but I did try and stretch it out with some A series followed by my usual suspects: bow pose, cobbler's pose, pigeon, etc. I've been working on evolving my pigeon pose to king pigeon and I'm actually noticing improvements. Usually the front of my thigh is SUPER tight and I can't really pick it up but now I've been able to get my back leg to what I think is perpendicular to the floor.

Let's be real, it's probably at a 45 degree angle and I'm all,
"OMG, guys, I'm doing it!"

Tonight I also made a point to do goddess pose because I hate goddess pose. I used to do it a lot in my prenatal class and I don't care for it much now. However, I've often heard that the pose you hate the most is the one you need the most. So I did it and did my best not to cry since my legs started protesting immediately.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!?!?!
OUCH!!!!!!!"

My savasana wasn't really focused on closing my practice with Taylor Swift performing in the background (although is there seriously a catchier song from this year? I think not).

Taylor, I didn't even like you before this song,
but can we please be friends and hang out all the time?

I'm not going to resolve to do better starting tomorrow because I suck at New Year's resolutions. But I am going to continue this project and I do want to be more dedicated in my practice. Realistically that isn't going to happen every day but I want to commit to this challenge in a real way. Although I think I'd get benefit from these half-assed daily practices I'm doing, I want to fully invest myself because if I'm going to do this, I want to do it correctly.

Watch, tomorrow I'll be posting the same stuff. "Did A series again, love cobbler's pose, hurr hurr hurr." But at least the thought is there and all action begins with thought.

Right?

Day 22: You Can Pose But You Can't Hide

I feel like I'm still reeling with the news of the death of my friend's daughter. One minute it feels totally unreal, like I just had a super messed up dream, and then it feels overwhelmingly real. Luckily I had a light load of work today because I couldn't focus on anything today. The advantage to being a freelancer was I was able to push back the bulk of my work until tomorrow which is really for the best. I took me a few hours just to craft a coherent 500 word article which I can usually knock out in 20-30 minutes, an hour tops if I'm super distracted. I just kept worrying about how my friend was doing and thinking about her daughter.

I spoke with her tonight and she's doing . . . well, not good. But I don't think anyone expects her to be doing well; I know I certainly don't. She told me the details of her daughter's last couple days and out of respect for her, her daughter, and her family, I'm not going to share them here. But in talking to her, everything finally became real and stayed real.

With that context for my mental and emotional state, I decided to look up some yoga poses for emotional healing. One site recommended doing sun salutations as a way to kick start and energize the mind to help pull it out of a dark, emotional place. Sure it was late at night but that's never stopped me from doing sun salutations because I have a co-sleeping baby--I don't sleep anyway.

This is my life.

The sun salutations actually helped. I was focused more on my breath than on how sad I felt and it felt nice to have that momentary relief. I also read that hip openers can be helpful for healing since people tend to hold a lot of emotional tension in their hips. If that's true, that might explain why both of my hips were incredibly stiff today. Pigeon helped, as did cobbler's pose and reclined cobbler. Towards what ended up being the end of my practice, I decided to do bow pose. I lay down on my mat and was about to reach for my ankles to go up into the pose and I found myself unable to move. Everything I've been holding in about my friend's daughter's death felt like it smashed on top of me and pushed me down into my mat. I just couldn't move.

Eventually, I found some strength to pull myself into bow pose. It took all of my concentration to hold my ankles and not collapse back down on to my mat. After that, I felt pretty done and decided to close with savasana. If I thought all the feelings had overwhelmed me before, they felt like they were smothering me during savasana. I couldn't help but cry. I cried for my friend, I cried for her daughter, I cried for the unfairness of being the parent of a heart transplant kid, I cried for the fact that her daughter and my son were supposed to grow up together. That little girl was three days younger than my son and between the two of them, they've inspired so much strength and positivity in others. I'm honored to have known that little girl.

Yoga is apparently just causing me to better access my emotions instead of suppressing all of them which is my usual modus operandi. I don't know if I'm feeling emotional healing yet but I'm feeling all the feelings--maybe this just means I'll be able to process what I'm experiencing in a healthy way.

Yoga: it gives me what I need, not necessarily what I want.

***

I know I don't have many readers, but if whoever is reading this has a few extra bucks and can contribute towards this family's funeral costs for their daughter, the help would be so much appreciated: http://www.gofundme.com/ryleeswildride

Day 21: Devastating News

Tonight, our family received some terrible news: our friends' baby girl passed away this afternoon. As I referenced in my first post, my son received a heart transplant. While we were in the hospital, I befriended another mom who had a little girl who was born just a couple days after my son. Both of our kids received heart transplants and this mom and I call our kids "heart siblings." Hearing of her daughter's passing has broken my heart and I can only imagine the pain she feels.

After receiving the news, I almost decided not to do yoga tonight but I thought maybe it would be good for me to get moving. I made a point to do more standing poses since I've been skipping them lately and at first, they were great because my leg muscles are weak and the poses hurt and focusing on my muscles kept me from focusing on how devastated I feel emotionally . . . until I did warrior 2. When I was pregnant and doing prenatal yoga, my instructor always called warrior 2 "fierce mama warrior." I felt like I was going to lose it so my solution was to do dolphin.

Take that, feelings!

I made it through the rest of my practice okay until I got to savasana. Apparently, there is only so far you can run away from your emotions when you're on your mat because I started crying. I wish I could say it felt cathartic and I feel a little better after doing yoga, but I don't, not really. Maybe tomorrow's practice will be better. I know a lot of people use yoga for emotional healing, maybe I can be one of them.

Day 20: Sick Sucks

I'm still feeling under the weather so I kept my practice short and simple tonight. I started with hero's pose, which I'm quite excited to even be able to do. It's simple but in the past, my feet had a tendency to cramp quickly. Here's a great demonstration photo from sexyyogaschool.com:

My internal monologue:
"AAAAAAAH!!!! MY FEET!!!!! AAAAAAAAAH!!!"

I moved through a bunch of my regulars: cat and cow, cobbler's pose, reclining cobbler, and downward dog (which my sinuses instantly regretted). I also did what I believe is called extended cat pose. Here's a photo from gaiamtv.com:

My balance was, initially, a little more "iffy" than this picture.

I could really feel this one in my abs which initially felt awesome but then I remembered that I might've overworked my stomach yesterday which could've led to me feeling so sick last night. I did it for a few breaths on each side but then I moved to staff pose and then to cobbler's pose, reclined cobbler, and savasana.

I joke but I managed to not fall asleep this time. I'm glad I got on my mat but honestly, my head feels like crap. I'm congested, my face feels like it's constantly leaking, and I keep almost sneezing and then I don't. It's like a perpetual case of blue balls for my nose.

404 Picture Not Found
Here's a kitten and puppy instead.

Day 19 (Late): Get Down with the Sickness

It seems that I've caught my son's cold. I suppose that comes with the territory but it's been ages since I've had a cold and my sinuses are not happy. I did yoga last night before bed but when I was done, I felt super sick and just crawled into bed. I felt nauseated which is odd since I hadn't felt like that all day and I don't now, either. Maybe I pushed myself too hard during my practice, maybe it has something to do with drainage, maybe I sat up too fast after savasana--who knows? But since I felt so horrible, I decided to let the post go until this morning so here we are.

Before my practice, I looked up some poses for when you have a cold. A lot of what I saw included things like plow and headstands which I'm sure are great but just weren't going to happen. I've never been able to do a headstand and while I've done plow before, I haven't done it recently and I didn't think it was a good idea to try it for the first time while sick and less than three weeks into my year of yoga challenge.

Guys, I'm like really good at yoga.

But there were others that I could do, namely bridge, reclined cobbler, and standing forward bend. Although I couldn't do the full inversion of a headstand, I figured that maybe an inversion of any kind could have at least similar benefits so I spent a lot of time in downward dog, too.

My back is tight (as usual) so I also did a lot of cat and cow which felt great. My back actually popped at one point during cat--I'm not sure if it was supposed to do that, but it felt nice anyway.

Once again, I mostly focused on floor work because I was super tired and kind of lazy but I'm going to blame that on my cold and not on the fact that I was doing yoga at nearly midnight. When I was researching poses that are good for colds, another one I saw suggested was widespread forward bend. I figured that one wouldn't be that hard because it just involved sitting on the floor, spreading my legs apart, and leaning forward. I can comfortably go pretty far forward in cobbler's pose so I figured this one wouldn't be too bad.

No.

It turns out that cobbler's pose uses different leg muscles than widespread forward bend. My cobbler's pose muscles are all stretchy but my other ones are . . . not.

This is about as far apart as my legs would go.

But I stuck it out and tried to do a few breaths in my limited range of motion in this pose. I can't get more flexible if I don't try, right?

I finished with some reclined cobbler before moving into savasana. Savasana felt really, really good--so good in fact, that I totally fell asleep. I was probably asleep for about twenty minutes or so before I woke up and when I sat up, I had the aforementioned problem of feeling super sick. My yoga practice concluded with me crawling into bed and just trying to fall asleep.

My practice feels a little lame but I think I need to keep in mind that I am sick and that pushing myself really hard right now isn't going to do me any favors. Simple restoratives might be the way to go until I'm feeling better.

Day 18: Tight as . . .

a drum.

Why, what did you think I was going to say?

My practice tonight was short and not terribly in depth tonight because I suck. But like I've said before, even getting on my mat for a brief practice is better than not doing any yoga at all.

I opened with a couple cycles of the A series and immediately noticed how stiff my back was. Stretching my arms above my head really worked my back muscles in a way that I wasn't expecting.

I experienced a similar level of workout later
when I went in search of Oreos.

My cobra pose was also back to being fairly inflexible and my shoulders were back to being halfway to my ears. But they weren't all the way to my ears which I suppose means I'm still making a little progress in the right direction . . . or at least I'm not completely regressing to square one.

If you get this reference, we can be friends.

After my A series warm up, I mostly focused on floor work. I'd like to say I had a bigger plan for it but I was exhausted and frankly a little lazy. When I first got into pigeon pose with my left leg in front of me, my hip popped about three times. I felt like I should be concerned but it didn't really hurt afterwards so I just decided to run with it and not ask too many questions.

Nothing to see here . . .

The right side, however, made me want to cry.

I was not this stoic.

I did some more floor poses and while bow pose actually felt really good, once again child's pose is aggravating my Edelman shoulder like nobody's business. I'm really wondering if I'm doing the pose incorrectly or if I just need to give my shoulder some extra time to heal like Julian did with his "concussion."

Someone was back in practice this week after my fantasy season is already over.

Honestly, I feel like the most productive part of my practice tonight was savasana. I figure I should embrace that, especially since I've recently had so many problems with achieving a state of conscious rest. But I felt relaxed and focused and I was actually able to mentally take stock of my body and spend some time meditating on my mat. This is something that I kind of like about yoga--I tend to get the practice I need, even if it's not the practice I think I want. I'm sure there's a lesson in there about not being such a control freak but I'm too tired at the moment to try to figure that out. It'll have to wait until tomorrow's savasana.

Day 17: Unfocused

Merry Christmas!

My son is still sick but we had a great day enjoying his first Christmas. Sure I spent my afternoon dealing with fevers and baby puke but he seemed like he felt okay in the morning. At least, he felt okay long enough to open a few presents. Granted, he seemed to like the wrapping paper more than the presents themselves but I suppose that's how it goes with babies.

Not that I blame him, this stuff is legit.

I found myself really distracted during my practice. I've had a lot going on lately and my mind kept wandering away. On top of all that, I'm prone to anxiety and I know yoga can really help with that but tonight . . . I don't know. I probably wasn't very focused since I had difficulties quieting my mind. Overall, my practice just felt off tonight. I did a lot of my usual suspects: A series, warrior 2, triangle pose, cobbler's pose, etc. I also included some dolphin pose and dolphin plank tonight which I could really feel in my abdominals. For narcissistic reasons, I'm hoping to tighten up what little squishiness I have left on my post-partum tummy and I'm hoping yoga will do that.

I didn't feel much strain on my Edelman shoulder, just a little when I did child's pose and puppy pose which surprised me a little. I suppose I figured that a "resting" pose wouldn't strain my muscles but evidently that's wrong. Either that, or I just don't understand how to properly do child's pose whereas every four-year-old can do it without even thinking about it.

Show off.

I'm going to be feeling unsatisfied with my practice but pleased that I at least got on my mat today. I know every day won't feel like nirvana but I'm still a little disappointed. Maybe next time I'll try and stay in my poses for a few extra breaths to help center myself but for tonight, I'm going to bed.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday!

Day 16: A Pinteresting Christmas

I've been doing yoga before bed but today I'm way late. I mean, my day hasn't technically ended yet so I still did yoga during my "day" but it was after midnight when I finally got around to it. I would've done it sooner but it's Christmas Eve and as I mentioned yesterday, I am so not prepared for the holiday. I was up wrapping presents, cleaning, organizing, and all around trying to get my act together. Normally I'd just say "screw it" and move on but it's my son's first Christmas and I wanted it to be perfect.

I searched for this and Pinterest exploded.

I had big plans to make everything magical but realistically, that's just not happening. Our Christmas tree has lights and a single ornament (the rest of them are in storage somewhere), I didn't do half of the holiday-themed things I intended, and the only one chunking up on cookies this year is me.

Dignity is beyond the realm of possibility for me.

I realized though that I've been putting too much pressure on myself. I wanted my son's first Christmas to be perfect but honestly, he's 10 months old--it's more for my husband and me than for him. I'm sure he'll like his presents but he'll probably love the wrapping paper even more. Mostly, I'm just so thankful that we're celebrating with our son and that we get to be at home instead of in the hospital. Everything else is just icing on the gingerbread house.

Plus some people are just freaks.

I've noticed that I do this to myself during my yoga practice, too. I put so much pressure on myself to hit certain poses and that doesn't benefit me at all. On the fourth day of this challenge, I wrote about letting myself be a beginner and just embracing where I am in my practice but here I am, not quite two weeks later and I'm already having to remind myself of that sentiment. Oh, how quickly I forget.

Christmas is still Christmas without magical Santa footprints and the last can of Who Hash and I'm still going to enjoy the hell out of my kid's first holiday, even though he won't remember a thing. Honestly, I'm not even sure how he feels about the Christmas tree. For all I know, he thinks his weirdo parents got drunk and dragged a tree inside for fun.

With that in mind, I let myself relax in my practice tonight. As usual, I began with several A series and during downward dog, I really paid attention to the way my Edelman shoulder was bothering me. I think I really need to be careful that I don't seriously injure it further and have to miss an important fantasy game for some freaking reason.

"Concussion."
Whatever.

I want to strengthen my shoulder but I feel like I'm walking a fine line between making the muscle stronger and really aggravating it in a super painful way. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my cobra pose is improving. My shoulders are finally out of my ears and I feel like I'm actually getting some benefits from it. Here's a great demonstration photo from tinareale.com:

Hissing is optional.

I also noticed something interesting (okay, interesting might be pushing it) when I did cobbler's pose versus reclining cobbler. During cobbler's pose, I noticed that my left hip felt super tight. However, when I reclined, my left hip felt fine but my right was really tight. Something about the change in angle shifted my discomfort from one side to the other. This either means that I need to spend some time in each to try and loosen up each hip or it means I'm prematurely old and am going to fall apart by New Year's.

Whee!

Day 15: A Procrastination Christmas

I'm trying really hard not to be a Grinch this year. I usually don't like the holidays all that much--the crowds of sick people, the stress, the pressure, the expense--much to the chagrin of my husband, I'm more likely to dismiss it all with a "Bah humbug!" and wish we were skipping Christmas.

The beginning of "Four Christmases" before their flight is cancelled was my fantasy.

But not this year. Now, I have a kid and it's his first Christmas. Sure, he's only 10 months old and he'll probably be more interested in the wrapping paper than the presents but I'm still excited. I love that we get to celebrate with him and I'm even more excited that he's not in the hospital.

But that being said, there's still so much that isn't done. We have a tree but it's not decorated and we bought presents for our son but they're not wrapped. So what's my solution?

Do yoga!

I started with a couple of my usual A series warm ups. After that, I didn't have much of a game plan. I did a bunch of downward facing dog and I managed to do three-legged dog without my glutes cramping so I'm considering that a win.

I noticed an improvement when I decided to try and move from pigeon pose into king pigeon pose. I was able to pick up my back leg so it was perpendicular to the floor. My thigh muscles panicked a little so in addition to my Edelman shoulder, I apparently have an Edelman thigh.

For those of you who don't spend all their time following fantasy football,
Edelman hurt his thigh this season and apparently got a concussion
OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE DURING FANTASY PLAYOFFS.

I had a couple other wins and losses during my practice tonight. I decided my head hadn't taken enough damage when I fell over in crow yesterday and tried it again. However, I wasn't able to get my balance back and today I just wasn't able to get back up into it. My Edelman shoulder was also giving me some discomfort so I decided not to push too hard.

Tonight I also wanted to try lifted lotus. I've never been able to do this one before because my arms always seemed too short.

But tonight I thought, "Hey, why not?" and for a moment, I actually got my feet off the ground.

Do you like how I said I didn't want to aggravate my shoulder
and then I went and did another arm balance?
Me = Masochist

It was really only a moment but it's more than I've ever been able to do so that gives me hope that as I get stronger, I'll be able to do more.

I was also able to get back up into wheel and I held it for a few breaths but again, my shoulder started complaining so I had to quit. If a body part hurts, I really need to stop pushing it.

Is that how your concussion happened?!
I WANT ANSWERS!!!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my practice tonight. I didn't do any standing poses and I probably should have but I'm pleased with the work I did. I feel like my flexibility is increasing every day and it's happening at a much faster rate than I expected. I figured it'd be ages before I could even touch my toes let alone comfortably do some of these other poses.

Now I'm off to decorate the tree . . . or watch Food Network.

DON'T GO FOR THE ICE CREAM MACHINE!!!

Day 14: Diving Headfirst into Yoga

I decided to push myself a little in my practice tonight. It's very tempting to just do poses that I love and that feel awesome but I'm not going to improve by just doing the easier stuff.

OMG, guys, I am so freaking good at yoga. I can hold this pose for hours.

My legs aren't very strong so I decided to push myself to do warrior 1 and 2. About 0.05 seconds in, my legs were screaming for me to stop. It took a moment, but I was able to refocus my mind on my breath and hold the pose for a couple breaths longer than I thought I would. I mean sure, I felt like I was going to collapse but I did it.

I also had a small accomplishment today, and not just because I was able to get into wheel again.

For about two seconds, I was able to do crow pose! Here's a great demonstration photo from yogabycandace.com:

I wish I had fancier yoga tights.
I'm assuming that's the key to better poses.

Of course, after I successfully got up and balanced, I fell forward the smacked my head on my bed. If you've been reading this blog, it's the same bed that I cracked my toe on last week (which, by the way, still hurts. A lot).

"Pity party, table for one?"

Even though I'm pretty sure I can smell colors after taking that hit to the head, I'm feeling pretty good. Maybe Julian Edelman and I can hang out with our matching concussions.

I NEEDED YOU THIS WEEK!
I LOST MY MATCHUP BY FOUR POINTS!
ARGGGH!!!!!!

Day 13:Wheel in the Sky Keeps on . . . Hurting?

It's been a day. My son has been sick and in between talking to his transplant coordinator and cleaning vomit off of everything, it's been a long day. Normally football makes me really happy but there's a chance I'm going to lose my matchup this week because a certain wide receiver for the Patriots is out.

I NEEDED YOU, EDELMAN!!!!!
Not that I ever expect you to read this but if you are, Julian, I yell because I care.
And I really want to win my fantasy matchup.

But in all seriousness, I've been a bit of a stress ball today. I was looking forward to yoga as a way to clear my head a bit and it really did help. I've noticed that in worrying about my son not feeling well, I've stopped taking care of myself. I'm not sleeping, I'm surviving off coffee and worry, and I don't remember to eat unless my husband reminds me. Honestly, if it weren't for this blog, I don't think I'd be doing anything positive for myself.

Coffee is my frenemy.

In my practice tonight, I started with my usual A series and decided to work on some hip openers. I tried lizard pose which went really well on the right wide but my left hip was super tight, like it needed to pop. I wanted to push it a little but I was afraid I would dislocate it.

You laugh, but it's happened before.

I did several other poses but my big accomplishment came from doing wheel pose. Here's a picture from PopSugar.com that illustrates it well:

Although she's far more serene than I'd expect based on my own experience.

I haven't been able to do this since I was a kid so I was pretty excited. Side note: does anyone else remember being a kid and essentially being made out of rubber? I used to be able to do wheel pose, the splits, whatever I felt like. Now I'm a stiff old lady at 27.

But I digress. I managed to get into wheel pose and stay there for a couple breaths before my body insisted I stop immediately. I did some reclined cobbler's pose and decided to try wheel pose again to make sure I'd actually done it and hadn't just hallucinated that I'd done it as a result of drinking too much coffee today.

I'm sure it's the planet.

The second time I got into wheel pose, my body didn't react as favorably as it did the first time. I re-tweaked my Edelman shoulder and my body reacted like this:

It's like Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal knows me.

It was all I could do to not crash down on my head. I decided at that point I should move on to savasana before doing something else dumb--but there's always tomorrow.