Imagine if I could wake up at 6am everyday, do yoga everyday, cook healthy food everyday, drink herbal tea instead of Starbucks’ chai cracké every day…. Is it possible?

I live every day in the aimless shadow of this perfection. So let’s figure out what’s going on here, what’s actually attainable, and what I might be like, what I might look like, if I could possibly live this near-perfect lifestyle. Because what I might be like, or what I might look like, is in part (I think) what I’m afraid of.

Emotions aside, there are three obvious things to think about now that enough is officially enough:

A) I can do this. People do this. It’s possible. Anything’s possible, they say — except maybe somersaulting all the way around the world. In the air. With your feet behind your head. And your eyes crossed.

B) All the constant striving has to stop. Either just do it, or stop striving and accept things as they are (which won’t work because this just isn’t healthy, or the way I want to live, and enough is enough, and more about that over in the kitchen).

C) This striving is actually who I am. A Virgo. Quintessential. Perfectionista. Which means I’m constantly disappointed in myself because no one can be a perfect mother or person — but certainly clean eating and an hour of yoga a day and a dog that doesn’t jet down the street every time you open the front door is a kind of achievable perfection, no?

So I think what we need is A+B+C. I accept that I’m a perfectionist. But I can’t keep beating myself up all the time and giving up on things I want in this short, precious life. Yet I know this one thing I want for myself (and ultimately for my loved ones) is attainable. As my brillers yoga teacher told me, and as @lindseyjay kindly reminds me every day, “I can have this if I want it.”

As I write this, my little guy’s sticking his fingers on either side of my mouth, and streeeetching — you see why I only blog once a week now, sighh…. No longer the perfect every-day blogger I once was. Is everything FAIL? WAH! Wah wah. I know.

So I have a new focus, and hopefully this will do the trick. COMMITMENT. Eureka!

It’s not: “Should I or shouldn’t I have that chai fa-ri-ckin latte?” Instead it’s: “How committed am I right now?” If I find my level of commitment is 3 out of 10, I need to take a few breaths, conjure up an image in my mind of Jennifer Aniston in a bikini (at 40!), and raise it to 5, and then to 8, 10, 11, and drive right on by the seductive green sign.

Maybe this sudden new focus, new urgency, explains why I’ve been dreaming constantly about this guy….

…and seeing him and elephants elephants elephants everywhere. Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles. How awesomely fitting.

I think it’s time.

No. It’s time.

It’s time for a rebirth. Not of the old, pre-motherhood me — who was skinny and fit and driven and self-obsessed — but of a new healthier me who just so happens to set a better example for her children and maybe even for others, too.

So it’s on. Starting (necessarily, I think) with a cleanse. The Fall Fast begins…………NOW, with the famous Feel Good Guru of Toronto. Who’s with me?

And it’s on. Yoga six mornings a week — with a break on Saturdays and Moon Days — as the Yoga Guru prescribed. No need for aerobics. Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga is crazy rigorous. Though it’s so much more than a workout…. How committed are you?

Join me for a complexion-clearing, calorie-buring green smoothie? Cheers!

And now the Rascal’s calling me “Hayay.” He still can’t fully pronounce those L’s. Haley. Hmm. Who’s that? Who will that be (or look like) if I attain this attainable goal? Time to find out again. Not scary at all.

Love!

xo Haley-O

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