Listen to Yourself!

Having a coach has been one of the best things for me in the last 4 years. I was having a really hard time with severe pain and fatigue. I was very overweight and depressed. I have made huge changes that have lead to better health, and happiness. I have listened to my coach. I have listened to my yoga teachers. I have listened to advice from self-help books. And most importantly, I have listened to myself. 

I know the desperation of trying to make changes and looking for some magic pill or answer. I've been there and tried lots of those things. I knew that they wouldn't work when I tried them, but it was a burst of action that was an attempt that preceded hoping real action would come soon. 

When I was ready for that real change, I knew it. I searched out people to listen to, but I always trusted myself and listened to myself and my body, too. When you try to use pure will power and go against everything you know is right for you, things won't last. 

If I tried to keep eating things I hated or just starve myself or exercise in the late afternoon or do running for my exercise because someone said you have to run to lose weight, it wouldn't work for me. There's a difference between not facing things or trying things you need to do because you're in denial and listening to yourself and knowing yourself. 

Nobody could just tell me not to associate food with love or fun. I had to somehow figure that out on my own. I had to listen to my stomach. I had to go through the process of trying different things. I don't even know how or when it happened. 

Nobody could just tell me that sugar and cheese would make my pain worse. I had to experience that for myself and make that connection. I had to stop eating sugar. I had to try other things. I added fiber to my sugar when I did eat it. I'd have chocolate chip bagels. I don't even consider candy or ice cream or cake now. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. 

In the last 4 years, when I have had a candy bar or cookies or cake, I don't feel guilty, but I also don't feel that great after and it makes it really easy to not want it again the next time. It's a process. I listen to my body. Not to some outside person or some deprivation mindset called will power. 

Nobody could just tell me that weights would make my pain go away. I had to be surprised and experience it for myself. Nobody could tell me that training would do so much for my confidence, my posture, my happiness and so much more. I had to listen to myself as I experienced it. 

Nobody could just tell me to try a more challenging level 2 yoga as my pain levels decreased. I had to listen to myself and know that I know how to rest when I need to and modify poses when I need to and know that I'm not embarrassed not to be the best person in a class. 

Nobody could just tell me that by losing weight I'd start a healing process that is so much more than losing weight. I just knew I had to start somewhere and that somewhere took me to more somewheres and bigger and better somewheres so my body, my mind and my soul were open to listening to my coaches, my yoga teachers, my self-help books and most importantly, myself! 

Appreciating Training After The Lockdown

The pandemic threw some curve balls at everyone. In the long run, for me personally, I have had some very positive changes during this time. It started with some loneliness and soul searching. Some self-help reading. Some walking. Lots of screen time and then some baby steps with some new routines and some experimenting. 

I added meditation, outdoor walking. Yoga and training flip flopped from outdoors to zoom to in-studio to back to zoom, to back to studio to zoom and on and on. 

I discovered that I like doing zoom restorative yoga a few nights a week in my home. I like walking outside again even in the winter. I love challenging yoga in the studio, but not on zoom. I don't like getting out of bed without a few minutes of meditation. 

I loved my zoom training during the lockdown when there was nothing open. I also walked outside. The outdoors and seeing Khris saved me from my loneliness. Outdoor training during the summer was heaven. Outdoors and people!! 

In the fall, when the yoga studios were open again, I didn't need to go back to zoom training. Not because I didn't need the training, but because I was in my apartment all the time. Getting out of the house and seeing my yoga teachers and other people in person helped me more. So I did tons of yoga and less training. 

Now that things are getting back to normal a little, I need to get back to training. Not for pandemic reasons, but because I need the actual training!! I love my meditation. I love my yoga. My walking. My restorative yoga. But I miss my training. 

Khris has been training people out of Planet Fitness as well as Zoom. So I joined Planet Fitness and Yay!! I trained on Tuesday and today (Friday) and wow! It's so great to get back to training. 

Khris is really a great trainer! His workouts are so special! He makes them very efficient and just for you and your needs. They make sense. They are quick and effective. Nobody in that gym is doing what we do. It's not just going through motions. More is not better. 

I can tell he does things in an order and for a reason. I did 5 walkouts, BUT after some triceps and arm work and those walkouts were better strength and cardio work than those people leaning on stair-climbers were doing! 

When Khris says it's more than a workout or change your mindset and mind/body, he's not just talking. Your mind has to change for your body to change. When you are mindlessly doing workouts, nothing is really happening. 

When I am doing a training workout, I am in the moment. I am out of my head. I am not making a grocery list. I am focused on the work. On my muscles. I am letting my muscles and my body know I am taking care of them. They get the message that they can relax and they can do the work without fear or stress about other things. They are working together: mind and body. It actually means something. 

When training with KBuddah, he pays attention to what I am doing. He's my coach. He sees if I need to move my feet or adjust my stance. He adjusts the seat or the weight. It's progressive. It's not just going through the motions. It's training. 

I'm so lucky that I found him 4 years ago. I would never go to a gym any other way. It feels great to be back to training. Thank you, Khris, for coming to the gym today just for me. I appreciate my training more than ever now. 

The Difference Between Training and Going to the Gym

Reasons people don’t try personal training? I know them all. I can’t afford it. I don’t want that much spotlight. I can do it on my own. I can just go to classes. I can do DVDs. I already know a lot about exercise and form.

I never thought I'd have one. But I do! I love him and I will never give it up!

I think the biggest reason in most people's mind is the price. But all of the reasons are just mindset. I’ve learned that now. I've been there. I was cheating myself out of long-term results and really changing my way of life.

A good trainer makes your workouts interesting and fun. You look forward to going to workout. You have accountability built into your schedule. You have progression and growth built into your workouts. Your workouts are more efficient because of the precise focus on form and the types of activities you do.  

It becomes a lifestyle. You don’t worry about falling off the wagon. You just stick with it--no sweat....well...sweat!

The focus is on you! You learn to take care of yourself. 

When you try to cheat yourself out of the benefits of a trainer, you end up in the yo-yo fitness lifestyle. You join a gym and go for awhile. Or you get into the habit of doing your DVDs for awhile. You’re always in the process of pushing yourself or motivating yourself to start a fitness program or get back into one.

You might get results for the short term, but it’s the rare person who has a great fitness lifestyle without some kind of structure built into their life. Some kind of passion that keeps them wanting more. 

Something that makes it part of your life for the long-term and that you don’t even think about sleeping through it or skipping it. Then skipping becomes getting out of the habit and having search for motivation to make a new promise or resolution again.

Now that I have a personal trainer, I don’t have to give myself any pep talks. And I do more challenging things than I'd ever do on my own. With the pandemic, I still have my trainer. I communicate with him and I still have done some Zoom training. Summer brings outdoor training. 

I also have incorporated more yoga during the winter. Good yoga classes are like training. They are challenging. They provide structure in my day. I'm not bored and just going through the motions. I look forward to them. 

I have also added restorative yoga and meditation and walking. It seems like having a personal trainer would make you more intense about gym life and exercise. For me it has made me less intense. As Khris once told me, my workout is intense, not me.

Same with my diet. I’m not frantic about it. I eat good food and I pay attention to how I feel. I am not always giving myself pep talks about losing weight. I've become mindful. My decisions are much easier because I know I don't want to feel icky. 

I’m not fearful of gaining my weight back. I know I have developed good habits and I have a trainer who works with me to keep me progressing and feeling my best.

Having a trainer is not about learning what to do so you can do it by yourself. It’s about having a partner and a coach. Athletes don’t get coaches for a few practices and then compete on their own without them. They keep their coaches and their trainers with them all through their seasons and their off seasons.

It's funny. The only people who ask me if I’ve learned enough from my trainer now to do it on my own are people who are focused on the money aspect. They don’t understand what training is or does. I don’t blame them. I didn’t either until I found my trainer and experienced it myself.

Your Trainer Talks for a Reason

Show and tell. Look and listen. People always like the first part, but aren't so hot on the second part. I've noticed during training and classes that people tend to want to watch and look at how something is supposed to look instead of listen to instructions about what to do or how it is supposed to feel or helpful analogies about how you're supposed to do the movement.

Teachers tend to want to tell rather than show and students are very resistant to that. Their usual excuse is that they are visual people and want to see how it should look. Something that occurred to me today was that there are good reasons for trainers and teachers not always wanting to show, but wanting to tell.

One reason is that things don't always look just one way. They don't look the same for everybody. When I do my pushups, if my elbows are 90 degrees, it might not look as impressive as someone else whose elbows are at 90 degrees. My body is different.

In yoga, if I do a side angle, in order for me to stay 2 dimensional, I need to reach for my knee and not the floor. If I were to just watch someone do the pose, I'd try to reach the floor and compromise everything for looks. By hearing the teacher say that I should be able to drop my body into a toaster like a piece of bread, I know I have to lift up and make space in my side ribs. I feel good about making that adjustment instead of feeling like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to.

Another reason my trainer tells me things more than shows is because the important adjustments to the exercises are usually small and subtle. He demonstrates the large and overall movements, but then tells me the subtle things. If I'm always worrying about how things look and wanting to watch him, I would miss those things. When he tells me to pinch my shoulder blades, or pull my head back or square my hips, I wouldn't have been able to notice that I needed to make those adjustments just by watching and mimicking him.

If my trainer or teacher is always doing the movements next to me or in front of me so I can watch, then he can't watch me. And that's his job. He needs to watch me so he can tell me how to make those subtle and small adjustments. He can see things I can't see.

He can help me make adjustments from what he sees, but he can also tell me how and what I'm supposed to feel that you can't see, even if I don't feel it yet.

That's the most important reason my trainer tells me instead of shows me. He wants me to be in my own body. If I'm always watching him. I'm outside myself all the time. He tells me what to do to make adjustments to how I move so I know how I should feel in MY body. How things look for me.

People always tell you to listen to your body. Your trainer wants to you to listen to his cues to help you learn how to do just that. Learn to listen to your trainer so you can learn to listen to yourself.

Winnie the Pooh and KBuddah, too! Namaste!

I've had some of the best teachers! I learn things all the time from them and their lessons come back again and again. This week the lessons did a nice little smash up. Things from all of my teachers came together.

Khris has always challenged me in a variety of ways. The challenges are never meant to be challenges just for the sake of challenge, as in to do something that looks hard or seems advanced. There's a reason for the challenge. In Nadja's hot yoga this week, we did a super challenging sequence that I did as best as I could.

It was just like when I do something super challenging with Khris. I loved it because it made me focus and really think about what I was doing. I was really in it the whole time. I didn't care that I couldn't do some of it. I felt really good about giving it my all and trying it.

Heather talked about the idea that Level 2 yoga is about subtle improvements. Khris works on that all the time. We take squats or push ups or basic exercises and focus on small adjustments. It's the same way in yoga. We know what Warrior 2 is and now we focus on tiny adjustments in alignment and creating space or making small changes to progress.

Sometimes you can't even see the changes, but you feel them in your body. I know when Khris breaks down a familiar exercise and focuses on tiny adjustments, you can feel it in your body. It's not about doing more; it's about doing better.

Nadja always makes me think about things when she's not even trying. She talks about saying I'm breathing in and I'm breathing out when trying to relax during restorative yoga to bring your attention back to the breath. She gives other mantras like Inhale Let; Exhale Go. But I like I'm breathing in. I'm breathing out.

I'm not a good visualizer and I don't like abstract things when doing yoga. When thinking about relaxing and meditation, it's common to think we're supposed to clear our minds and not think at all. Or get out of our bodies and minds. But Nadja made me see things differently when she said, we want to focus on what will bring us back to our bodies. We want to ground ourselves in reality.

That changed the way I look at meditation. I want to be in my body. I want to be in the moment. In the now. Khris did that for me when he told me to use Inhale. Brace. Exhale. I use that all the time in training even when he doesn't tell me to. It keeps me focused on being in my body and in the movement.

Being in reality reminded me of Winnie the Pooh's Say What You See game. It keeps you in the moment. It's a simple meditation. Your mind can't really wander or worry, if it's focused on naming what you see.

Alisa's intention for us this week was observing without judging. That's exactly what Pooh is doing when he plays his game. A funny way of seeing how you can get caught up in making stories around what you see instead of just observing is watching what happens when Pooh's friends try to play his game. 

And finally, Heather's topic for the week was magic. The simplicity of all of these things creates the magic that is yoga. That is training. That is meditation. That just is. 

Christopher Robin: What are you doing, Pooh?
Winnie the Pooh: Sometimes when I’m going somewhere and I wait, a somewhere comes to me.

Rocketman

Watching Rocketman gets more enjoyable each time. The music is the best part, of course, but it's really fun to see lessons and interesting comparisons between me and the people in the movie and to relive lots of things from that time period. I was a child of the 70s. My grade school years mirrored the 70s. I graduated 8th grade in 1978. So I was in 1st grade in 71, second grade in 72, etc.

I did get to experience the magic and freedom of the 70s, but as a kid instead of a teenager or adult. It was a great time to be alive! I distinctly remember listening to Elton John on 45s, and on the radio. I also remember that the older sister of my friend down the street had the Yellow Brick Road ALBUM! I remember the flamboyance of Elton. And I remember my name being in Crocodile Rock!

Something I noticed watching the film again at home is how much I relate to characters or people who are introverted and sensitive and yet have inner performers, artist and creators, and long for connection. I always thought I connected deeply to the Bernies, but I realize I also connect to the Eltons.

Those whom movies are made about tend to be very dramatic in the ways that those things manifested. For me, my subtle inner performer and creator came out in my classroom. I connected with my students through my creativity, art, music, and lots of different and somewhat flamboyant ways.

Something that really hit me this time watching Rocketman is that it's a good thing for me that I am not attracted to drinking or drugs as a coping mechanism, even though there is a strong genetic likelihood that I might be and I'm sure I used food as a drug from an early age.

Watching Elton connect with himself and forgive himself and love himself in the creative and surreal ending scene in the circle, I was struck by the words that he 'gave everything to keep something he never had in the first place' when referring to John. It was a very enlightened way of taking responsibility for everything he had not seen when it was happening.

And if only everyone could have a Bernie in their lives, the world would be a better place.

Throat Chakra

Our restorative yoga class today focused on the throat chakra. A little over a year ago, Khris gave me a stone that he picked for me and it was supposed to be helpful in balancing and opening the throat chakra.

At that time, I thought it was to help me open up and speak up more. I looked for signs about that in the last year. But I was looking for the wrong signs. I had the idea that the throat chakra was about speaking. Unconsciously, subconsciously or somewhere in me I was looking to open up in the wrong way.

When we think about using our voice more there is a misconception about getting louder. Telling people what we really think. Telling people off. Getting things off our chests. Not taking any shit. But that's not using our voice. That's misusing our voice.

If people used their voice like that with us, it wouldn't help us. We wouldn't understand them any better. We wouldn't want to listen to them. It wouldn't open communication.

We have to use our voice the way we would want to receive someone else's voice. With compassion. With love. With clarity.

Opening the throat chakra comes with breath. Breathing and speaking come from the same place. They help each other. Slow your breath and your speech slows as well. Your thoughts slow. Your heart and mind have time to express what you really want to express. Not what your emotions are tricking you into expressing to cloak your body for the moment.

Let the throat chakra remind me to breathe before I speak. To remember that the mind, the voice and the body all speak to me with words and without words. I need to listen. To listen to myself with compassion first and always speak to others the way I would want them to speak to me.