Making decisions that will alter the course of your life

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to decide on a yoga teacher training course, a location for the course and the school I'm going to train with. Seems like an easy decision, but it is in fact one that will alter the course of the rest of my life. 

There are so many options, but so few viable choices, as I had a few list-whittling challenges:

• Can't take time off work during the week as it would be a logistical nightmare. 
• Don't want to give up my weekends (and need them free in case of work).
• Don't have $7000 lying around and won't be taking out a loan. 
• I won't be giving up my day job. I love it too much.
• I need time free to work with my coaching clients to pay for the course fees!
• Needs to be either close to home (already impossible) or an inexpensive overseas destination where I can combine it with a holiday.
• Dates need to synchronise with my schedule.
• I can't really do a whole whopping great length of time away from work at once.

I need a qualification from a widely respected school that is affordable in terms of time and money, fits my schedule and will produce the desired outcome. It's not about getting a fast result, it's about making this fit with my already pretty awesome life.  

So, I narrowed it down to two possible options - Santosha or Byron Yoga. 

Santosha do a month in Bali or a full distance learning option. It's at Canggu, where I could also learn to surf. But, I'd still have to finish the course in Australia.

Byron does 12 days intensive in Bali with the rest of the hours as distance learning. It's in Ubud and I could still go to Canggu and learn to surf.  

Byron is a very highly respected yoga school and is the longest established school in Australia. That's quite the pedigree!

I spoke with my yoga teachers and the director of my studio and did lots of research. I finally decided on Byron Yoga. 

Doing the YTT200 through Byron means I get two weeks in Bali, at half the cost of doing the course in Australia. I can do the remaining 80 hours in Australia and get to enjoy a few days either side of the course in Bali to chill out. I have plenty of time to save up and airfares to Bali are dirt cheap (cheaper than flying to NZ return, in fact). 

Yoga teacher training is just one more feather in my cap, as my Granny would say. It fits nicely with the coaching practice, fits nicely with my day job and will enable me to help more people. 

It will still take me around 12 months to complete the YTT 200hr certification, but I get to combine it with a holiday and develop my own practice further between now and the end of July 2014.

Winning.

Just be there...

One of the greatest lessons I've learnt from enjoying nearly 40 yoga classes in the past few months is to "just be there". Okay, so that line comes from a previous Yoga Teacher, Tom. But this very concept still applies three years later and, quite frankly, it always will. 

Life changes in an instant. One second you're on top of the world, the next minute you're underneath it as it rolls over the top of you, flattening you like a pancake. You can choose to "lie back and think of England", or you can choose to roll up and get back on with life. 

Life is about choices. I choose to roll up.

I choose to enjoy every day. I choose to be happy. I choose to do something each and every day to move myself closer to my goals. I choose calm and peace. I choose to be a free-spirited, sandal-wearing, chai-drinking, semi-vegetarian, organic-selecting, recycling bouncy person who lives to inspire and encourage others. 

I choose to no longer allow anyone to squash my spirit, trash my dreams or silence my inner voice. I choose to be the best me that I can possibly be, in public and in private. I choose to achieve my goals and find something every single day to be grateful for. I choose to live in the moment, to be present, to cherish others and to cherish myself. 

I choose life, with all of its inside-outs and back-to-fronts and upside-downs. 

Downward dogs and paradigm shifts

This past week has been a big test of my patience, my ability to deal with stress, my temper, my positive attitude and my mind. I've had a paradigm shift over the past few weeks and I'm loving it.

To cut a long story short, we had some issues with the building we lease for the club I run, as water and electricity are not good friends. After getting up and leaving slowly after Tuesday's yoga class I found a dozen text messages, missed calls and voicemails on my phone. While I'd been upside down, we needed Noah's Ark. 

Instead of freaking out and swearing like a sailor after three bottles of rum, I calmly returned the missed calls and text messages and voicemails. I quickly walked back to the club, dealt with the situation fairly calmly and jumped into action for a resolution. I didn't get one that night, so I went home. I had several SOS calls overnight which left me with only a few hours of sleep. I was back at the club at 6am Wednesday to try and get it sorted, and 13 hours later it was. I was tired, hungry, sleep-deprived and covered in muck, but we had a resolution.

Fast forward another hour on Wednesday night and I was back on my yoga mat, even though I really wanted to just go home and fall into bed. I had a great class and felt much better afterwards. I managed to get my feet flat and heels down in downward dog for the first time - awesome! I felt stronger, more flexible, calm, centred and empowered. 

I had an uninterrupted sleep Wednesday night and woke on Thursday feeling like I'd actually slept, so I stayed in bed for an extra two hours reading a book. I needed the quiet and the solitude. On Thursday night I was back on the mat for the third night in a row. I was sore, but still had my heels down on the mat in downward dog and managed flip the dog reasonably gracefully. 

On Friday night I taught a Zumba class cover, with a bit of a low blood glucose incident on stage. It wasn't major, but I went blank and forgot my choreography to a song I've taught about 50-odd times before. I fumbled a few more times, smashed down some candy and upped the intensity. I haven't been that low for a while, so clearly the stressful situations, the yoga, the masses of walking and my inner calm conspired to drop my glucose and my former stress cadet self. Stress usually pushes up my glucose levels, so clearly being calm does the opposite!

I woke up Saturday morning ready to take on the world, before I remembered it was my the 25th anniversary of my Mother's death from cancer. I went to yoga feeling a bit glum. I was sweating like crazy, which was clearly from the toxins (i.e. all the sugar) I had to smash down the night before. I felt a little miserable during the class but by the end I'd stopped feeling sorry for myself and a bit less wrathful. 

I didn't have time to mope, as I had to head home, eat and shower before heading off to sell Pink Ribbon Day merchandise as a volunteer for the Cancer Council. In previous years I've sat around and moped and been angry at the world and felt like crap. I decided this year would be different and that I would do positive things on the key dates (her birthday, Mother's Day, her anniversary, etc) to try and turn them into better days. As a result, I met two awesome people and made a new friend while raising lots of money for the Cancer Council. 

So, paradigms have shifted. This year has been different because I've been different. 

Thanks to my yoga practice, I'm not stressed out at the slightest little thing. All the time spent upside down is sending my creative brain into overdrive and I'm coming up with new ideas and new ways to do things. I'm less focussed on stuff and more focussed on experiences. I'm less stressed and more calm.  I'm more grounded, more centred, more chilled out and more laid back. Stuff that used to really get to me no longer does to the same extent. 

Sure, I do break into the odd expletive and I do get wrathful, but not angry. Injustice still frustrates me. People hurting other people still grates on me. I don't tolerate people's shoddy behaviour towards me or others but I'm not going to tie myself up in knots about it either. Karma exists for a reason. I'm not perfect and I will never claim to be perfect. I will never be perfect, but I can be a better version of myself. 

With all this in mind, I'm going to back to Langkawi in April for a two-part eight day yoga retreat. Four days of relaxed yoga retreat to unwind, two days in between, then four days of intensive retreat to really push myself. There's a few chill out days in the there and three days in KL on the way home to get back to reality (and a few different yoga classes). By April, I will need a break. I'm looking forward to massages at Alun-Alun Spa again too. That place is amazing.

I've also decided that I am going to do the 200 Hour YTT (Yoga Teacher Training) next year. I'm looking at either Ubud in Bali or Jakarta (Bali would be better!) for 12 day intensive program. Doing the training in Australia is two or even three times the price, so why not incorporate another holiday and  go somewhere new and pretty?

So, how have you been different this year?

I'm a Certified NLP Practitioner!

I had some fabulous news this week - I've passed my final assessment workbook and I am now officially a Certified NLP Practitioner! 

My journey with Neuro Linguistic Programming (or NLP) started in 2008, when I was forced onto a course at work that, at the time, felt a bit like some sort of witchcraft. I was there with one other girl and a bunch of guys, we were all part of the same team but had totally different jobs. They were supervisors of 15-20 people each, I supervised two people and 250 pieces of technology. I wasn't sure why I'd been sent on this course when I only managed mobile computers that didn't talk back...well, not too often.

The course covered NLP, Neuro Semantics (NS), coaching and leadership skills and a few other things. Turns out it was a fantastic way to spend three days - I'm still using precision questioning to this day! We didn't get certified, so when I found out that you could get certified in NLP, I was a little more interested. Anything with a final outcome involving a qualification to me is something worth pursuing - or at least it was when I was rolling in the corporate world.

Fast forward five years and I was trawling Groupon Malaysia one night in May this year, looking for deals for my adventure holiday, when I spotted the certification course I've just completed. I checked it out, it seemed good - online, study when you want, download the material to your iPod, very thorough, etc. I looked at comparable qualifications in Australia, they involved a lot of money and taking days off work that I didn't have available due to my upcoming Malaysian trip. My adventure had to come first, so I decided to spend the couple of hundred Malaysian Ringgit and buy the coupon to enrol in the course.

I enrolled in mid-May, got stuck in, took a break while on holiday and when I came back I slowly plugged away at the hours and hours of audio and the assessment workbook. I used the techniques to sort out a few things I had personally needed to resolve. I used them with other people. I tried to use them with the cat when she was all stressed out and scared of the sound of my keys, but got a curious range of stares in return. Come to think of it, perhaps they were they famous covert "you're an imbecile" looks that Siamese cats do so well!

I've used the NLP techniques to cure my heights and flying phobias, to set goals, to overcome my final issues with food and to get rid of a bunch of negative home movies I had stored in my head that were "doing my own head in".  I feel better able to communicate with people, I don't dwell on stuff like I used to and I feel more in control of my mind and my life. If there's something holding you back, let me know and if I can help you, I will.

Creating a peaceful sanctuary with space to live

I spent most of yesterday re-arranging and de-cluttering the living room at home. I had a hair appointment in the middle of the afternoon, but I'm happy to say that after picking up a few groceries I came home and kept working on it. I am totally stoked with the finished product. 

I've been thinking about doing this for about two weeks - pretty much continuously since the decision to cut off Foxtel, as the TV had to be in a certain spot to reach the aerial cables and all that jazz. Having cruised through the week with no Foxtel or TV, I was finally able to unplug and re-jig. 

It feels good to come home and not feel obligated to plonk in front of the idiot box. I can now honestly say "I don't watch TV". I didn't miss it while I was in Malaysia and I'm not missing it now. If I need information, I can get it from the internet. I don't feel the need to be constantly bombarded with information, advertisements and be hypnotised with suggestions to go and buy the latest whatever!

I had a few criteria for the "new" space, which are:

• I wanted as much free space as possible in the centre of the room so that energy can flow freely
• I must have a peaceful sanctuary on one side of the room
• A reading and lounging area where I don't have my back to the doors and windows (feels like someone is going to sneak up on me, which is bad Feng Shui)
• A dedicated space for my yoga mat where I can practice at home and don't have to roll it up when I'm finished using it. 
• A high space for my shrine, with enough room to get everything I want on it. I also wanted to get the new photo of His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama and offering bowls on it too. 
• Space at shoulder height for my Tibetan Singing Bowl and Tingshas for meditation
• Room for my meditation stool and space to meditate without having to rearrange the room and room for my oil burner so I can have my soy melts burning in the background
• Space to pop out an airbed for any visitors who may wish to stay over, without having to rearrange the whole room

Here's the finished product:

Since I don't watch TV anymore, I was able to move my recliner against a wall and still have a little wall space available to use for shoulder stands, until I have the strength and skill to enter them from my mat. I'm thinking that I could use the grey ottoman now for support instead of the wall as I work my way up from the mat. We'll see. 

The whole house has a totally different vibe and Qi flow about it now. It feels less stuffy, less cluttered, less stagnant and less stifling. I got rid of some furniture and have a massive empty floor space now. I could picnic on the floor if I feel like it, but I won't throw a wok burner on the carpet and cook my veggies on the floor like the last guy living in here did two years ago!

I had already pimped out the space with red accessories, as the boring beige/yellow paint throughout the house really does my head in. There's lots of green (earth energy) on the shrine to balance out the fire energy of the red, just so things don't get too energetic!

They say change is as good as a holiday, and it's nice to walk in the front door and see this first thing. 

For goodness sake, I've got the hippie hippie shake

I made a few important decisions recently and have taken some action to follow through. I am no longer prepared to accept the levels of negativity that have been creeping into my life and that I have been allowing to disturb my mind. I'm simplifying my life, focusing on developing wisdom, compassion, kindness, happiness and balance. 

I'm turning into a bit of a hippie. A tree-hugging, sandal wearing, yoga-going, recycling, crystal-wearing, aura-cleansing-spray misting, happiness-journalling, eco-yoga-mat-toting, meditating, chanting, ujayyi breathing, Feng Shui studying, Dharma reading, soy melt loving, candle and dried sage burning, Nepalese wool wearing, semi-vegetarian, Tibetan Buddhist hippie with a penchant for de-cluttering my home, mind, body and soul. 

Here's how.

What I want:

I'm not going to obsess over every minor detail in life anymore, I refuse to have excess clutter and stuff around me (either physically or mentally), I need some peace, calm, focus and more gratitude in my life.  

I need to learn and grow and appreciate and smile and laugh and sing and dance and love and give and do more yoga. I need to drink more green tea, consume less sugar, get more sleep, nourish my body, be more mindful, cultivate an awareness of my environment and surroundings, read more books, learn more things, play more and have more FUN!

I'll focus on a new thing every few days so that I don't overwhelm myself with change, but here are the updates so far. 

Step 1: Be more mindful of the environment

Since returning from Malaysia, I'm recycling pretty much everything now. I saw so many plastic bottles and flotsam in the waters of the Langkawi Archipelago islands that it broke my heart. The last bastion of recycling now for me is soft plastics, which apparently the local supermarket has a recycling bin for. I must go check out what can go in it, as although it will be a pain in the posterior to lug stuff down there, it's better than it ending up in landfill or on the beach. 

I'm down to about one physical trash bag a week now, which means I can put my bin out fortnightly if I choose to. If I had a garden, I'd love a compost bin, but green things and I are not good friends and there's no space for a garden here. Maybe some window boxes...hmmm...there's an idea! A few houseplants won't go astray either, so I guess I'm off to Bunnings soon. 

I was lucky to acquire a Manduka super light travel mat before I went to Malaysia so I could take it with me, which I did. It didn't get nearly enough airtime while I was away, thanks in part to my choice of tiny little hotel rooms with no free space. It's fantastic for being really, really light. It's also fantastic for being super eco-friendly. "Manduka’s eKO Series yoga mats are produced sustainably from harvested tree rubber. Unlike other rubber yoga mats, no toxic foaming agents are used in their manufacture and no toxic chemicals are used to soften the rubber. eKO Mats are 100% biodegradable and leave behind no toxic residue. Manduka have also chosen to use a natural cotton and recycled silk reinforcing centre instead of a synthetic polyester."  

I'm showering at work five days a week after exercising in the morning before I start work. That's cutting down on my energy and water consumption at home. From 1st October the only item that needs to stay on 24/7 at home is the fridge (goodbye Foxtel box, see previous post). I've been switching stuff off routinely for over a year, a habit born out of necessity from last year when I was made redundant and went to a 30 hour casual contract job and then wasn't working after my shoulder surgery. No point paying to run stuff when you're not home to use it. 

I'm thinking of doing a challenge involving using only three hours of electricity per day (mobile phone charger excluded, but that only runs overnight anyway). I can use 2hrs 45mins at night, then save 15 mins for the morning to make my coffee and green tea!  

On yoga nights sticking to three hours of electricity will be relatively easy, as I leave for work at 8.45am and don't get home until 9pm. This means that I can ration out my 21 hours of electricity per week and maybe, just maybe, survive on three hours per day on weekends too! My laptop has a great battery, as does my iPad and my modem. I have books and movies on my iPad, real books in the house and it's almost daylight savings, so this may well force me to get outdoors, get reading, get writing and get creative. Love it. 

I'll do some more research and figure out what else I can do to be more eco-friendly. There must be a way to up the eco stakes at work too. I just need to think of it!

Revelations by the refrigerator light

I had a BFO last night.

For those who don't know what a BFO is, it stands for "Blinding Flash of the Obvious". One of those Eureka! moments where something jumps up and high fives you in the face.

I realised that I'd started comfort eating in a big way towards the end of my degree studies in 2006. Right before my final exam for my final paper, actually. I'd spent five years working towards this Bachelor degree and all of a sudden my need for certainty was no longer going to be met by study. It was over.

I now had nothing to fill my evenings and weekends. Nothing to fill my public holidays, nothing to fill my wee small hours of the night, no excuse for a few beers before smashing out an essay, no reason to get up at stupid o'clock to bash out an assignment.

So, I was now bored and about six months off graduation. Instead of doing something useful, like taking up dancing or joining the gym, I took up eating. Eating gave me certainty, it gave me control and it gave me comfort.

Fail.

By the time graduation rolled around in May 2007 I was starting to look like the back end of a family car. By the time I went on my big adventure to Singapore and Malaysia for the first time in September 2007, I had a giant saggy gut - then I discovered grape soda. By the time I hit my first Microsoft Tech Ed conference in 2008 I was looking like the back end of a bus. By the time I had my worst ever photo taken in December 2008, I was the back end of a bus.

Two years of comfort eating had me pack on about 40kg. I was already climbing my way up to hospital scales while studying (stress apparently turns you into cookie monster), but I can distinctly remember the day in the Doctor's office when his scales said "Error". They stopped at 125kg.

Fast forward five years and I'm now 68kg. Instead of coming home after work and stuffing my face for the past five years, I now work out in the gym I run when I finish for the day. I treat food as fuel, not love and comfort. Sure, I still have the odd boost bar or bag of chips, but not everyday like I used to.

Life is about making decisions and for me that was choosing a better path. I chose to decide to take action and change my love of food to a love for myself. I enlisted the help of experts, got good advice, put in the hard yards, set the goals and achieved them.

No, it hasn't always been plain sailing, but nothing in life worth doing, having or achieving ever is.

I can't control things too tightly or my need for certainty is overtaken by my need for variety (uncertainty). I don't plan my meals a week in advance as I eat pretty much the same thing for lunch every day. I have the same thing for Saturday lunch most weeks. I have oats, muesli or toast for breakfast. I have two coffees a day. I drink 2L of water. That's enough control!

So, a very profound BFO - thanks brain for the flashback. Now I can start using NLP techniques to erase it!

Get a new strategy

Every Sunday I set a few goals for the upcoming week - i.e. things that I want to be done that will move me closer to my goals. 

Last week I got a little lofty with my goals, so I wanted to:

• Complete modules 5-8 of my coaching course
• Attend Enrique Salomao's Flava Brazil Zumba Masterclass
• Meditate every day 
• Finalise my holiday itinerary
• Watch State of Origin Game 2
• Complete Personal Power II

I managed to fully complete three of these six items. I think I bit off more than I could chew, as I threw in a couple of extra goals last week in running 2km non-stop and them 3km non-stop.

So what have I completed from that list? It was all about the fun goals!

• Finalise my holiday itinerary
• Watch State of Origin Game 2
• Attend Enrique Salomao's Flava Brazil Zumba Masterclass
• Run 2km non-stop
• Run 3km non-stop

Clearly I had a need for more fun last week!  I'm pleased about that, as it has been ages since I had some fun and clearly I needed more of it!

Enrique's masterclass was fantastic - I took two members from my club along and we had a blast. They hadn't tried Zumba classes before and I hadn't been to a class since the last one I covered back in February. I love Samba but I'm not great at it, so I saw this as a chance to improve!

On the action list for the next few weeks, since I haven't completed Personal Power II yet, I haven't exactly meditated every day and I'm still on module 7 of my coaching course, I need to maybe try and complete three things a week, not six.  This is not a fail - I just need a better strategy!

Do you bite off more than you can chew, set sky high expectations for yourself or just try and get too much done?  It's time to prioritise!

Stay tuned.

Just make a decision!

About a month ago I attended a personal development weekend funshop (note the distinction of "Funshop", as opposed to "Workshop") called "Personal Power", facilitated by the amazing Joe Pane and held at The Coaching Institute in Albert Park. It was the best weekend I've had in ages - possibly even years!

At the funshop, I made some pretty significant decisions. I took action on some of them immediately, and have been reaping the rewards. I took action on another one tonight, something that has been bugging me for months. I decided that enough was enough, I needed answers and I needed them now.

And I got answers.

Not the answers I actually wanted, but at least now I have clarity and information and a desire to move forward with the knowledge that nothing ventured really does mean nothing gained. Apologies for being a little cryptic here, but this is the public domain of the interweb and let's face it, I may be a coach in training but that doesn't mean that my whole entire life is (or indeed needs to be) an open book!

Now there's a whole lot of "should-ing" on myself going on. I should have done this months ago. I should have presupposed the outcome, I should have known that this would be exactly how it went. I should have known that things would turn out the way they did. I should have given up weeks ago. I should have...blah blah blah.

As Anthony Robbins said, "before you know it, you've just should all over yourself!"

And then there's the could haves, would haves and all the rest of the mind games going on in my head. "It could have turned out differently if only I would have...". Where will this get me? Well, it won't help me GET OVER MYSELF!!!

I am disappointed that I didn't get the result that I wanted from this taking action on this decision. Would it have been nice to have things go my way? Of course. But that's not what happened and even though a tiny wee part of myself is annoyed with myself because things didn't turn out how I wanted them to, I am proud that I had the lady balls to GET OVER MYSELF and give it a red hot crack.

I am also proud that I haven't compromised my values.

I regret nothing.   Neither does this random spinning disco chicken.