As many of you know by now, I am a woman of extremes. One day I’m letting it go, and the next, today, I’m reining it in. What is up with my karma, Gorgeouses? I have some major, major karma to deal with. I mean, obviously, it could be worse — like, Oedipus (dude had some bad Karma), Anne Boleyn or George Costanza…. But this is definitely a karmic situation. And I’m not talking this Situation, for the record….

Looove. Seriously. Not in a Clive Owen kind of way.

I just struggle. I really struggle with the day-to-day stuff. My problem is that I just want to do whatever I want. Period. I struggle between my intense desire to do whatever I want and my severe desire to live an ideal life. I get completely overwhelmed by the idea that there may be a balance between these two extremes — freedom and restriction — but, I know, there is freedom in restriction, and that there is so, so much restriction in, erm, gluttony….

Woahh, this is getting to heady for us.

Take my puppy Betty White, for example. She knows exactly what she wants or needs to do. She’s perfect at it if you think about it — running in the yard, eating when she’s hungry, attacking me with kisses while I’m driving…. She’s definitely one of my idols when it comes to my karmic situation. Not this Situation, for the record….

Looove. Seriously. Not in a Javier Bardem kind of way.

Before we continue our very important conversation here, can we talk about Mr. Bardem’s serious hotness in Eat, Pray, Love for a second? Omigosh, SWOON. Hold on a sec, here….

Paaaaaaauuuuuse………

Sure, I’m one lucky woman. Not as lucky as Julia Roberts, who got to spoon Javier Bardem….

But she did it. Or, her character, Elizabeth Gilbert did it, or at least wrote the book about it. Elizabeth Gilbert — the same woman who reminds me that no woman, none of us, really knows what she’s doing these days. We have oodles of choices, and, having no oodles-of-choices predecessors, we struggle with what to do with these oodles. Here, let her say it herself….

No wonder, amid a sea of Eat, Pray, Love haters (I know you’re out there), I love Elizabeth Gilbert. She and I are, like, the same person: neurotic and struggling among the extremes of pleasure, restriction and relationships, and we are a wee bit obsessed with yoga, writing and eating. Fast forward to the last few minutes of the video….

Oh, heady again.

…When all I meant to write about was Betty White at the dinner table….

(Underbite.) She’s out of control!

(Tongue. Also chili.)

And he! He stole my favourite lip gloss!

(Bottom-teeth gap.)

And this. Between me and my macbook….

(Withkerth.) — You have to say that one out loud to understand it.

Out of control. Or, in Canadian speak, OOT of control. I’m starting to talk like that, Gorgeouses. For real life, eh? (“For real life” is actually Monkey speak for “For real” — FYI.)

Sighh. Anyway, I think I’m going on a diet (ish). And I’m doing Ashtanga yoga again — an hour or so every day but Saturdays and moon days.  Because it’s one or the other for me. I just feel like there’s freedom in it. In not having to choose all the time…. Dammit.

One day I’ll write the book on my karmic roller-coaster journey among extremes. And I’ll call it Dogs at the Dinner Table. It has a ring to it, right? On the cover, a picture of me and Betty White in downward-facing dog pose…. You can read it on your Kobos (my latest obsession. see twitter).

I had an aha moment as I was walking down the hallway at work the other day on a little scenic route past Flare Magazine‘s steamers, stylists and clothing racks — the novelty of which remains untarnished, especially because I’m a huge fan of MTV’s….

On the recommendation of Caroline Dupont and Oprah, I’ve been reading Geneen Roth‘s bestselling book Women, Food and God: an Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.

The book came so highly recommended that I just had to make sense of it. And I’ve been working really hard to apply the great lessons in this book to my life; but, in the meantime, I’ve been eating when I’m not hungry and, mostly, the wrong foods. It made sense to me that one’s relationship with food could be, as the subtitle of the book says, “An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything,” but only theoretically. I couldn’t quite pin down how it could apply to me practically.

But here’s the thing. You know how I’ve been waking up 2 hours early every day to do my rigorous Ashtanga yoga practice — sweating it out on the mat and pacifying the Rascal, pushing couches out of my face while in shoulderstand (seriously), or tearing growling, screaming cats and dog away from each other while trying to breathe deep, long ujayii breaths in forward bend? Well, you know, some things just don’t work. As much as I wanted to do everything right, to practice real, authentic yoga every single morning except Saturdays and “moon days”, it just wasn’t feasible. Waking myself up every morning to basically restrict myself for 2 hours was doing harm. And it was causing me to lose control in other areas. I was eating more. Running to Starbucks a sweaty mess, straight from the hot studio. Can I please have a grande soy no-water tazo chai? *glargh*

It was the food, that dang chai addiction, that showed me what’s really going on with me. A sweet, cinnamony looking glass….

Walking down that long hallway past the pretty people and posters and amazing clothes, I realized: The more I restrict myself the more out of control my diet gets.

So the yoga was getting too hard. Too forced. Everything, motherhood, was getting too hard. Too forced. And the old ways were coming back: the TIRED, the chai lattes, the cookies…the cookies.

Then I realized, just as I passed the fashion rack — AHA! The “doorway” that Geneen Roth talks about isn’t that one eating meltdown. No. It’s the patterns. The fall after fall after fall off the wagon. When do they happen? What’s going on when I fall?

When I eat poorly — really poorly — it MEANS I’M RESTRICTING MYSELF TOO MUCH. It means it’s time for a break. Time to crawl back into my shell and give myself permission to rest.

REST.

So, instead of trapping myself on the mat for two hours first thing in the morning, I’m waking up a little later and going for a walk with Betty White. I’m taking the kids for hikes, which are usually colossal epic FAILS (for another blog post), but beautiful….

I’m going to the yoga studio (two yoga studios — one for rigor and one for…rest) to practice when I can, and fitting fun yoga into some afternoons. It’s healthier for my kids to see me actually enjoying this healthy passion of mine, rather than struggling to get through it.

My eating is the key. The “doorway.” It tells me when I fall into those patterns of restriction, when I’m being too hard on myself, when I need to take a break, sit back, and enjoy life…. Enjoy life. #Concept.

So, as Roth recommends (read it!), I’m going back to my body, becoming aware of my breath and giving myself permission to chill. Oh, man, PERMISSION. Allowing Permission herself to melt over me like a like warm glinting maple syrup….. Mmmmm, syrup…. I don’t have to do anything. Anything. I don’t even have to please you right now….

But, love….

Tonight I made a lentil soup and this fabulous green bean dish (recipe to come). I tasted everything, and I felt something warm and bright and ray-like in my belly — happiness?

Love!

xo Haley-O

Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war we’re fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Well, it’s an old dream.

It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.

– Wendell Berry

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath ingested NO CHAI LATTES in two whole days. In fact, I have not had a stitch of sugar, nor a drop of caffeine.

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath exhaustion, anger and frustration — all the usual “evil” emotions that come-out-come-out with detoxification, with withdrawal.

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath posted LONG QUOTE (above) that I totally want you to read. It came to me today via iPod, via him, as usual. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal, if I didn’t ALSO get an email from her with a similar message — reminding me not to focus so much on “goals,” dietary and otherwise, but instead to make “one self-supportive choice at a time”:

What prevents you from doing things for yourself is not a lack of goals or intentions as you probably know. What would it be like to simply be kind to yourself? To rest, to eat nourishing food, to take your body out for some fresh air and movement, to allow yourself to feel your emotions, to make space for quiet time, to pray…? To trust that wholeness is already here, and not something you have to create or find? (Email, Caroline Dupont)

To think, I’d get such similar messages in two days — two days sans chai latte. So I’m DONE with GOALS, the “old dream,” “vicious illusion.” We are now, officially, all about the means (even though this, too, can become a goal if taken too seriously). It’s like a total sea change for someone as goal-oriented as I am — my entire life.

One self-supporting choice at a time.

Am I wrong? Or, could many of us use this beautiful, sage reminder?

Tomorrow is Josh and my 7th wedding anniversary. SEVENTH. Will I have a chai latte? Probably. Because if I don’t, I might be as miserable as I was today….

Or I may make the ostensibly more self-supporting choice and have a cleansing swamp smoothie…. Or or OR…, maybe for tomorrow — my SEVENTH anniversary — cake and chai lattes are self-supporting, and definitely spouse-supporting, choices?

For our anniversary tomorrow, Josh and I are taking a staycation. My parents are bravely taking the kids all day and overnight, AND they set us up in a five-star hotel in the heart of downtown Toronto — breakfast and a “special package” included! We are going to relax, enjoy, savour, indulge, hold hands, see ALICE IN WONDERLAND in 3D….

So, anyway, yes, I’m taking all the sage advice that came barreling in, welcomed, these past couple of days.  I’m thinking about my exhausting, habitual, annoying goal-making — a habit that’s even stronger, to think, than the chai latte. Without creating another goal, I’m going to simply recognize this goal-making energy, the striving, reaching, the insatiable aiming high, and to gently rein it in, rein myself back….

Kind of like this blog….

Forgive me Gorgeouses, for I don’t always know why I blog here. And I do think about this often. I don’t know where this blog’s going, for how long, to what end…. And that’s finally okay. I may lose readers and gain readers, as the game goes. Yet I plow on. To no end. With no goal.

And, so, I. I put away the arrows. I stand on this ground. Being with what’s here. Like it, or not.

Love!

xo Haley-O

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T’WAS A TIME OF CHANGE. Last week, I wrote a little email…. I needed some help. I’ve been pretty mum about this, but, if you were to seriously stalk my tweets, you’d probably see that I’ve been having some anxiety lately. A lot of anxiety lately. Not “OMG OMG OMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE!” kind of anxiety, but a very physical kind characterized by heart palpitations and obsessive thinking. It’s been rough. And, of course, I blame THE CHAI, which, no, I haven’t been able to quit.

Until last week, that is. THE TIME OF CHANGE…, when I wrote a little email to Caroline Dupont.

Caroline always comes to my rescue. She’s a total EARTH ANGEL, the best healer I know, and rife with sage, practical advice — in person, as well as in her book Enlightened Eating (my eating bible), her meditation cds, and new DVD (which I JUST ordered and am so psyched about).

I wrote a very “determined” (as she put it) email, asking for a complete “regimen.” I wanted breakfast, lunch and dinner DICTATED to me, as well as when to exercise, do yoga, sleep and meditate. I was hoping that this regimen would help me replace old habits with new ones — the right ones.

Caroline didn’t want to give me a strict regimen, though, because she didn’t think it would work for me in the long run. She wanted me simply to start with a few changes. The main one being…

MY MORNING SMOOTHIE (click the link for the recipe).

I’m supposed to drink that thing every day, come hell or high water.

I’m also supposed to walk for 30 minutes 4 days a week, and practice 30 minutes of yoga the remaining three days a week.

I’m supposed to meditate daily. (And, omg, this has been surprisingly SO enlightening and healing. More on this later in the week.)

I’m supposed to go to bed between 9:30 and 10:30 every evening….COOOUUUUUGH!

So, I’ve been drinking my smoothie every morning. NO CHAI (bingo!). And I’ve been walking and meditating and practicing yoga. The only problem with the yoga is that a certain someone gets a little, ermm, creepy while I’m practicing (with my camera in hand, apparently)….

…He’s horribly sneaky and distracting while I’m practicing. But, I INTEGRATE it.

The other changes that I’ve — WE’VE (Josh and I) — made this weekend are MIRACULOUS and will have to wait ’til the next post to be revealed because, without any chai in my system, I’m a total zombie. ZOMBIE. And I can’t write anymore because it’s 9:15 — almost “bedtime” (heh, I wish).

On top of all the above advice (and so much more that I have yet to implement and share), Caroline gave me this gem of guidance that I know she’ll love for me to share:

Your principle spiritual practice right now is your kids. Soon enough they’ll be in school and you’ll have more time for uninterrupted yoga and meditation. Create activities with them…. When you take them to the park remind yourself to breathe and be…. To everything, there is a season.

I’ve really taken that advice to heart and have been LOVING the relief and peace of mind I get from getting down on the floor and really PAINTING and DRAWING again, with my children — ESPECIALLY when I’m not feeling “well”….

…one of my new favourite things…!

Many, MANY, thanks to Caroline Dupont.

Love…!

xo Haley-O

My eyes, THEY’RE BURNING. Not because I’ve been staring at my computer all day, because shockingly I have not, but, rather, because I worked out like nobody’s business in my living room today (and yesterday, and the day before). I walked every chance I got, ate relatively well, and burned and sculpted and kicked arse. I’ve been doing this hard-core for about a week now, and, for the most part, my energy’s way improved. But, I went a little overboard today and am sleeeeeepy, eyes are burrrrrrny. But, it’s quite possible that I’m sleeeeeeepy because all bets are OFF from now on as far as late-night snacking is concerned. No munchies to keep me awake, or to procrastinate with (there’s only twitter for that, now).

Why this new change? Why the many changes of late? Well, Cameron Frye of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off puts it perfectly:

I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I’m going to take a stand. I’m going to defend it. Right or wrong, I’m going to defend it.

Check it — the awesomely intense version:

“I’m going to take a stand.” Remember that? In the movie, Cameron repeats this over and over and over again. And, for some reason, this line has stuck with me ALL THESE YEARS. I’M GOING TO TAKE A STAND.

So, yeah, I am. “I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold.” I’m going to grab my addictions and excuses by the throat and throw them the heck out of my life. Because it’s time to take a stand and get my body, my energy, my peace of mind back — as much as I possibly can, that is, without going crazy.

I’m going to take a stand. I’m going to take a stand, man.

First thing’s first, I’m going to take back my time.

Even though I’ve never been organized in my whole entire life, I’m now officially ORGANIZED(ish).

FINALLY, I replaced that messy disheveled basket full of bills and fliers and school stuff and work stuff, which we’ve had on our wee kitchen desk for years now, with two beautiful file holders and some folders to match. So I now have a lovely place to put all my and Josh’s and the kids’ stuff. Because, I have learned, when you have two school(ish)-aged kids, my GOD, you cannot NOT be organized — even if the very CORE of your SOUL rejects organization! Also FINALLY, I’ve taken out my trusty BusyBodyBook — a complementary copy I received last summer — and I’m (did I mention finally?) putting it to good use.

So, I’m doing it. I’m taking a stand. I’m taking a stand, man, against ALL my freakin’ obstacles: my addictions, my disorganization, my laziness, fears, anxieties, all my waiting (FOR WHAT?) to make changes.

And, what do you know? EUREKA, I have time to workout. I have time to read. I have time to cook nice dinners (unfortunately I haven’t had time YET to blog about them). I’m not OVERWHELMED all the time by the loads of work and chimes of new emails every two seconds. EVERY TWO SECONDS….

I’m not the only one who’s benefiting, by all this, by the way….

Now that I’ve replaced that ratty kitchen basket with fancy folders, someone has a new bed….

(MARGE! is so unphotogenic. She really isn’t this creepy.)

And as soon as she leaves, someone else (who is much more photogenic) also has a new bed….

HENCE between my recent reunion with YOGA and my new-found commitment to organizing my life (and my family’s) after 35 years of flying flustered by the seat of my pants, I’m feeling pretty good — or maybe I’m just, like, bipolar or manic or something, which is totally possible, but whatevs ‘cuz it’s working for me right now.

One day at a time, I’m taking a stand. And I’m really tempted to quote Oprah here, but I won’t. Then again, I’m still as indecisive as ever (some things are unchangeable), so I think I will: Yes, I’m “living my best life.” Eek.

Btw, you can vote for my “LOL” HERE!

Off to bed. One day I’ll start getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Baby steps.