I returned last night from New Orleans on a much delayed flight and bringing a cold back with me so I don't have too much to say today.

Except for perhaps one funny. Four of us (including my honey) were in a Voodoo shop in the French Quarter when I saw a mug that I found particularly funny. It went something like this: "Voodoo: Even if the marriage wasn't magic, the divorce can be".

Silliness is good. Very good.

Well nothing today. I literally mean nothing. I am sure this is some sort of self defense mechanism where you just don't feel anything.

Last night honey and I, through an odd set of circumstances wound up in Athens with his son. I adore his son and usually I have great time with all of them. It was very nice but I just feel detached. This morning the same. Tonight we have a very fun formal then tomorrow we head out to New Orleans and I just feel ... nothing right now.

Like I am on the cusp of letting something go and I hope letting someting good in its place but until that shift occurs, just zero.

I am going to finish laundry and go to Bikram. That will at least center me so that I can be in a place to let go and let good in.

I am copying this directly from Wikipedia:

Namaste
"I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me." -- attributed to author Kabir Chopra[4]
"I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."[5][6]
"I salute the God within you."
"Your spirit and my spirit are ONE." -- attributed to Lilias Folan's shared teachings from her journeys to India.[citation needed]
"That which is of God in me greets that which is of God in you."[7]
"The Divinity within me perceives and adores the Divinity within you."[8]
"All that is best and highest in me greets/salutes all that is best and highest in you."
"I greet the God within."
That said, these are all arguably simply attempts at translating the same concept, which does not have a direct parallel in English, although Aloha would be a good attempt.
"I bow to you. The light within me honors the light within you."

I recieved an email this morning that had me sitting on my bed with tears just pouring down my cheeks. It was from a woman that I have never met. She has been reading my blogs. She shared some of her life with me. She is also a Bikram yogi and we share much in life experiences. What I have to say to her, and to all of you that have also commented, is Namaste. I honor you, I respect you, I greet the God within you.

I do not have the words in our western culture to say thank you to the depths that I would like to express it. I feel expressively bankrupt to tell you how deeply you all move me with your support. The closest thing that I can say is Namaste. I hope that this helps you to understand how grateful I am for your words and how much I respect and thank you for them. I welcome more and will share more.

Namaste

Good news! No nightmare again last night! HOWEVER I am angry.

One of the moments that I am sure contributed to my nightmares about my marriage and my working on my "baggage" happened a few days ago. It seems I had so many other things to spit out that I am just now getting to it.

My cousin was in town for two nights. She is fantastic. She got married on new year's eve and is one of those people that is a mix of vivaciousness and a lack of any filtration system between her brain and her mouth. This means that every second with her is non stop hilarious. My boyfriend really likes this cousin. She is warm and friendly and simply easy to be around. We had a fantastic time at her wedding. Not only did it have a lot of alcohol but also a performance by the bride of "Dead or Alive". Silliness galore. She and I drove over to my boyfriend's house, all shared a bottle of wine and then all loaded up to get dinner.

My boyfriend has been married twice. He doesn't talk much about the first time as I gather that was the true definition of an early 20's starter marriage. The second time he was married for 17 years and has two wonderful sons from that relationship. He has been divorced for probably about 11 years and did have one six year relationship between his divorce and me.

We were talking about her settling into her marriage and the roles that each of them were taking. My honey commented "one of the things I noticed is that all of a sudden the woman suddenly expects you to do things and help with things that she took care of without a problem before you were married".

Jesus, (I mean no disrespect) steam blew out of my ears.

(Here is the part of the program where my baggage takes the floor!!!)

Holy sh** this man had the audacity to make this stereotype in front of me! First off, I spent my marriage being and doing everything. I mean I was head a** wiper, banker AND door mat all rolled up into one. If his car was damaged~ I took care of it, when he needed caps for his teeth~ me again, cell phone~ I got it, cable, internet, heat, clothing, food, insurance, electricity, retirement, furnishings, cleaning, washing, home remodeling, basically everything from every day to every emergency was ME etc etc etc..

So now I am single and know that I deserve more. I deserve to be paid attention to, cared for and cared about. I am a human and although at times I think I am a superhuman, well it just isn't true. I would LOVE help sometimes. LOVE a little help. Not a lot, it would be an affront to my independence. But enough to feel that someone is watching out for me.

I have needs. I have a outdoor heater that I purchased so that I can grill outdoors in the wintertime that needs to be assembled. I have a motorcycle that won't start and I have a toilet that is cranky. My honey has volunteered to help me with all of these things. I have resisted, against my type A personality, from taking care of all these things myself to see if he would actually help. He has twice tried to help with my motorcycle and says there is one more thing he wants to try. This has been going on for... six weeks? Now it is cold here and I don't plan on riding any way but I would love the help.

There are other things he has helped me with. Recently my 10 yr old car finally gave out and I found the exact car that I wanted but it was a five hour drive. I needed a car for a week and to be driven to my new car. He loaned me his car and drove the 10 -hr round trip with me to get my car. That was awesome. He also helped me all day for two days with landscaping issues in my yard. Wonderful. Thank you.

I interpreted my boyfriends comment to mean several things 1. you shouldn't expect help or support 2. don't bother me 3. you aren't worth my time to help you with stuff that you should be doing yourself. All these are probably an exaggeration of what he meant but that is what it felt like to me. He has helped me with some things and ignored others. Sadly I take this as a direct interpretation of how much or how little he values me.

As I woman, I have done my part to be all man and all woman all wound up into one. I am a single female roofer that makes a good living. I put out the signal that I can do it all and be it all without anyone else. I think this is one of the things that was a detriment to my marriage as several people (my lawyer my family my friends) have told me that many men are intimidated by women that earn more money than they do and that are strong and independent. I think my independence is a quality my boyfriend admires. Somewhere between my baggage and reality is a place where I think that I can have someone help me with my toilet without feeling bad about asking and receiving without having to wait weeks to do so.

Yea right. There is no crying in yoga.

My cousin asked me last night about this. I use yoga to let go and just be at peace with myself. But sometimes the let go means other things.

One day, shortly after one of my dogs passed (snapper bless his little heart I miss him) and so so so many other things were just falling apart in my life I went to Bikram. Sure enough the one instructor that was teaching was by far not the "right"one for me that day. Or so I thought.

She is an absolutely brilliant instructor but I didn't want that that day, I wanted a path to just be gentle. I was so emotionally frayed.

Then it was time for standing separate leg pose. I was inverted and the tear just poured out of my eyes. No stopping it. The best I could do was try to control my breathing so that no one would notice. Luckily it is a long two sets of this posture and when you stand, you look sort of like a tomato face so I got away with it, twice. You couldn't tell my tears from my sweat so I was ok. Then triangle and I was so grateful to have kept my secret safe I did it. The postures continued on while I continued to put a good face on it. Then my worst fear happened, the instructor came over to me during half tortoise pose. The healing restorative posture and again, I was crying but my face was in the mat so no one could see. She gently pushed on my lower back and I finally just let go into the pose. It was like a hand from the universe was comforting me.

I don't think anyone knew I was a crying mess that class but I do know this, sometimes from the least expectant places your heart is filled with love. Sometimes you get what you need even when you are hiding from receiving.

Namaste

No nightmares last night thank God. I attribute it to doing Bikram yoga and trying to blog out some of these feelings. Learning to empty out this emotional garbage can is a new challenge for me.

I didn't feel anxious when I first work up but I am not getting some of those feelings again so I want to recognize them and let it out before I focus on it and stay in a place of anxiety.

I hold what is probably a very illogical view about marriage. I believe that it offers a level of security. I desperately wanted that part about being married. The idea that someone is there when I get home and we can do mundane things like going to the grocery store, together. You are happy to fall asleep on the couch on New Year's eve together. You no longer are trying to plan dates galore, doing things galore, putting a good face on things. Now, I have stated before that was my hope always about my marriage but my experience was so bad and so far from anything I could have ever hoped for. My marriage was everything except physically abusive to me. I thought it was an opportunity to be fully accepted for who you are even if you have silly chicken hair in the morning and squeeze the toothpaste from the middle.

It was a level of release from judgement that states "the baseline of who you are and all your quirks and quams, although they may make me nuts, I fully accept and support".

Wow the idea of that is incredible to me.

This was not my experience at all and frankly I fully rejected everything about my husband by about three months into my marriage. My cousin asked me if I had had lived with him before the marriage, would I have married him? Not easy to answer since he would not have had legal control of my money at that time and would still have to play a charade to hide his gambling addiction. But certainly I may have seen how it was my job to be the maid, the mechanic, the visa card, the gardener, the whatever and that would have been enough for me to run far far away.

The first time during my marriage that I asked with full respect, understanding, openness and in a calm demeanor to talk about my feelings in the marriage I knew that everything I had wanted about being accepted was fully a lie and had been rejected. I guess you could say that moment, three weeks into my marriage, it was officially over. Every single action after that was just dirt being thrown on top of a coffin. I simply had to determine when I would say "NO MORE". No more lies, disrespect, disgust, disdain, resentment, anger, and neglect.

Perhaps if I had been greeted with the smallest indication that he cared about me and my feelings and that I was important, I wouldn't be where I am emotionally today (btw note to everyone if someone really wants to speak to you because they feel so strongly that they need you to understand and talk and work on things, probably not a good idea to say things like "shut up, I don't want to hear it, I don't care and stop f*****g causing trouble". Seriously)

I think that was the moment where I shut things down and never opened them up again. A part of me just gave up the idea that I should trust that anyone call fully accept me in a way that I want.

This brings me to now. I never lost hope of what I want. My confusion is that it occurs only in marriage. So I get very anxious in my relationship. If he gets upset because I am tending to the needs of my dog, does that mean he rejects all of me and my hopes for being accepted are gone? This is how fast I can go from everything is fine to everything is on the line. I can interpret a moment of crankiness to be a moment of rejection. It doesn't help that I don't like to talk about my feelings very often and neither does my sweetheart. I am NOT the person that needs to talk about anything during a political tv show (aka what most value like sports, we value political tv). The bad thing about this is that means we are not lovey - dovey so when I go a million miles from an offhanded comment to rejection there is no positive reinforcement to help me to counterbalance this.

I have never discussed this with my honey. I don't even want to enter into a real discussions on feelings because to me, all that means is before a discussion would begin is that I am universally rejected. All they are going to give me is a hit list of everything that is wrong.

Would you believe that I have been divorced for three years and still believe this crap? I am a strong person that could lead a small country and still allow myself to believe this utter crap.

Since I am doing what I can as far as "blog therapy" I thought I would continue with something simple. A cup of coffee.

How do you take your coffee? Of course you know that like you know which pair are your favorite jeans. You may not take coffee, you may take tea still same question applies. Now, how does your spouse, lover, partner take their coffee? I bet after a few short weeks, you know the answer to that question..

I dated my ex husband for almost three years before we were married. We were married for 14 months. Toward the end of our marriage, we were out somewhere and I ordered coffee and I can't remember if I stepped away from the table or what the situation was but someone asked my ex how I take my coffee. He had no idea. Now I drink 1 - 2 cups of coffee a day, every day. I have a Jura Capresso espresso machine in my home I am so serious about enjoying coffee (and not paying a zillion dollars for it at any large coffee shop). I have been this way since my early 20's. My husband didn't have a clue. He took tea, mint was his favorite and he liked about 2.5 packs of sugar in it. I still know that.

Early in my relationship with my boyfriend, he brought me coffee in bed, the way I like it. I was both thrilled and saddened all at the same time. I was thrilled that I got such an act of what I considered kindness and saddened because that never happened before.

I think that everyone should know some basics about the person they are involved with. No one knows my favorite flower is the peony. I love blueberries in my cereal. I hate it when someone opens up my wall st journal before me as I love to crinkle the page myself. I love the smell of vanilla. I hate carnations. I don't like it when people reach across a table to eat my food without asking. I like extra pulp in my orange juice.

I think that I deserve for people to pay enough attention to me to know these things. If your husband doesn't know how you take your coffee, that might be all you need to answer a very important question in your life.

It happened again last night.

I woke up at 2:37 in the morning with another nightmare about my ex husband.

I tossed and turned throughout the rest of the night to wake up to that horrible feeling of being shaky and stressed and tired and even my skin is dry to make me look as bad as I feel.

I am convinced that this garbage can of feelings needs to be dumped out and so I am about to work on day two of releasing this baggage.

My marriage was awful. I was married to a bad man. Now, I don't have anyone to blame but myself for that but I want to let go of everything that was wrong so I am actually going to put it down in words.

He changed the day after we said I do. No joke. I can not look back at ANY day in marriage that was a happy or a good day. None. Zero. I wish that I was exagerating.

When we got engaged he wanted to move into my home as he had a condo. He also wanted to pursue a career with another airlines. I supported this. I had to make modifications to my home to accommodate all of his things so I started to clean things out and hire people to move walls, paint, etc.. I was tired and stressed and needed help with this and he refused to move a finger. I had to hire people to help me to move all of my things and adjust my house for him and he wouldn't take the time to help me to even bring boxes from upstairs to the garage to donate them or get rid of them. He would come over and watch tv while I worked. I should have taken this as a sign.

I worked 5 days a week and got up at 530 to work out before work then had some meetings at times after work. I was helping with his bills as we couldn't sell the condo and paying for the entire household. He is a pilot so he worked 3 - 4 days a week and was home the rest of the time. In his condo he was immaculate. In my home, he was a slob. After work it was my job to clean up after him. Since I was perpetually exhausted I would ask for help. He did his own laundry but if my clothes needed to be washed, that was my job. So he viewed himself as "taking care of his things". He would cook but make me do all the cleaning up after word. And he ate from dinnertime until about 2 am when he went to bed so at 5am I was still putting dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning off the counters, etc.. I asked him to help and his response was always, "just do whatever you did before I moved in" and although I said the work increased dramatically after he moved in he would say "his mom worked and cleaned the house so I could too". Yea but I am paying for everything and now have become the maid.

I knew that he would be short by X dollars each month for his bills and so he wanted 1/2 of all of our wedding gifts to make up for that loss although all that money was from my family. I wound up giving him a lump sum of cash to cover at least five months of the difference he would need. BUt within the first month he called me at work and said he needed X to make up the shortfall. ? OK, so I decided I would take his five maxed out visa cards and work on paying off that balance as well. I told him to give me a few days notice next time and to not spring it on me and need to pay the bills in one day. So in addition, I started to pay down his credit cards.

The next month he was short again. then again, then again. Meanwhile he became more and more mean to me. See I made the money so he resented it although I gave him everything he wanted. The big high def tv, the freedom and support in his job and zero responsibility at home. Then he wanted a new car as his had almost 75,000 miles and was I think 5 years old. Well my car had 150,000 miles and was 8 so I said no that now is not the time during this financial crunch. Especially since he was cranking through my savings at an alarming rate.

What I haven't told you yet was that his weekly trips were to Las Vegas and that he had an addiction to black jack. I had no idea before I got married that he had a problem. I had visited vegas many times with him and NEVER saw him do anything but push back from the tables when it was time. I later learned that gambling addicts are the most selfish of all addicts and that they are masters at disguise. Shame on me again.

I would ask him to talk to me as I couldn't take the pressure. He was mean and resentful of me for not giving him more $. He claims to have taken a 35% pay cut but I was making up the difference and I knew he was working to to make up the shortfall. Finally about three months into my marriage I started to cry and say that I need help around the house and that i deserve to at least be treated civilly when I got home. It would be OK for him to take out the garbage or vacuum or walk the dogs or anything to help or to contribute in any way. He was absolutely irate with me. He said that I had no right to cause trouble and stir the pot and he got absolutely pissed. I had no right to have feelings. I soon learned that I had no right to be upset about anything and that it was my job to do it all and handle it all.

Meanwhile he was putting on weight and I don't mean a little. He put on over 22lbs in the course of the 14 months that we were married. I got him a new ipod, workout clothes, anything for him to get off the couch and to do anything. What I didn't know was that he was doing a lot, he was gambling enough to get a compped room at either the Bellagio, Mirage or Wynn las vegas. In order to do that you have to play minimum $125/hand for three hour min. That is about 45 hands an hour so $125 x 45 x 3 + $16,875 changing hands! I knew he was occasionally gambling and he called me when he won one night and I told him to stop and pocket the money. Of course he didn't and lost it all and then blamed me for causing him bad luck.

Then it got worse. I told him that I wanted to go to counseling. He said hell no.

Then it kept going. Every time I tried in every way possible to talk with him about how I had needs and my needs were valuable and that I was being crushed under the pressure of doing everything and being everything and not even being loved at all I would be faced with the following answers "shut up and stop causing problems".

We went to the grocery store one day and I was short of cash and needed him to kick in $20 as I didn't have enough cash on me to cover our food and my tampons. He was absolutely irate to have to contribute for my tampons. $20! His first contribution to groceries after months of being married! Then he went back to Vegas and won and said he had $100 for me as I really wanted to go to the new Whole Foods that opened.

BTW I make a 6 figure salary and was being drained so badly that I couldn't afford the luxury to go to whole foods.

When he came home I was looking forward to his first real contribution and asked for the $100 and he said, no that he needed it. I suspected that he lost it. Now he never kept lest than 5 $100 bills in his wallet at any time. I demanded the money. He asked me for what! I said for the air conditioning you feel in the house or the electricity or the internet that you are using or the cable for your HDTV experience, etc. He gave it to me after a very big tongue lashing about what an evil person I am to ask for money from someone who needed it.

Meanwhile I got the $1,200 bill for his latest car repair and the $1,000 dental bill for the new caps on his teeth.

I was being absolutely crushed and couldn't handle the misery. I looked forward to the days he was working and was gone although I still received all sorts of bills of his that I had to pay while he was out of town. See I couldn't afford to have any bad credit as I have a small business and need good credit to secure the business loans every year. Then I found out those five credit cards I had been making payments on were being run up via cash advances in las vegas.

I asked again for marriage counseling and was greeted with more disdain.

I confronted him on his gambling addiction which he vehemently denied. He blamed me for the need to gamble as he said he needed the stress relief. That was when I went online and pulled his bank account transactions. The day before or the day of each trip to LV he withdrew anywhere between $2,000 - $3,000. Plus he was cash advancing his credit cards. I called the hotels that he was supposed to check into with his crew and he never showed. He was getting a car from the hotels where he gambled and had a comped room and gambled all night until he was due to fly out the next day.

I told him that I would go to gambling support groups with him and he lashed out at me further. I told his family and that is when he really turned on me. They blamed me as well. Meanwhile he moved upstairs in my house and ignored me completely. He wouldn't talk to me at all. Finally it was our 1 year anniversary. I got him a card and an itunes gift card. On the morning of our anniversary he told me that he didn't get me a card or get anything as he was too busy playing black jack for the past two days.

That was the end. My needs to talk were greeted with hostility, my needs to work together were turned into how evil I was and to just shut up and do my job, my needs to be recognized as a wife, human being, and anything other than the maid were greeted with silence. I couldn't take it any more. The next day, I went to my lawyer.

I had prenuped X. He resented that as I was protecting my home, my retirement and my business. He wanted (before we were married) 1/2 my retirement although he never put a dime away himself to retirement. Now I wanted a post nup to protect myself from his mounting debt that was clearly never going to end as he was a raging gambling addict (which up to the last conversation I ever had with him he denied). My lawyer drew up the documentation. I called X and said I wanted to talk and had the paperwork for the post nup drawn up. He said he would be home when he wanted and I begged him to please talk with me. He called me a bitch and hung up on me.

That was the last straw. Immediately I call the phone service and cut off his phone, went back to the lawyer and proceeded with divorce papers. I had to serve him and didn't want to do it at his work. (really would you want to board a plane where the pilot had just been served divorce papers?) and I changed the locks at my home. I had his uniform and his credentials so I knew he couldn't go to work without facing me. Then he called the police on me. I knew that i had a 50/50 shot at getting him removed from my home and had already had a court date for a hearing to have him removed from the home and plenty of evidence to support the fact that he had a gambling addiction. The cops came (now up to this point I have lived the most quiet, law abiding life ever, I didn't even play loud music in my home). I was so humiliated I had to beg him, in front of the police to sign the papers that he had been served so that I didn't have to have this done at work. He chose to get his things and although I let him stay for two more days, I got him to leave the house. He agreed to therapy and we had 1 session that I asked him to pay for. The session went well and he demanded to move home. I agreed to do whatever the therapist wanted and the therapist did not want him to move back. My lawyer was concerned that he would win during one of his vegas trips and hire an attorney and hit me up for alimony. ALIMONY!! THe guy made $XXK and I would have to KEEP PAYING FOR HIS GAMBLING ADDICTION??????????????? So I watched and suddenly a $40K deposit went into his bank account. OMG a year of misery, anguish, disrespect, humiliation and I was going to have to pay to fight alimony. WHen suddenly a miracle occurred. He withdrew the money and it was all gone to vegas. He refused any more counciling. Honestly I as relieved as I didn't want this marriage for one moment more.

A month later I was divorced.

I could kiss my lawyer.

I let myself be taken advantage of and the worst is that somehow I have this terrible wrong deep seeded feeling like I don't deserve any better. I have always wanted someone to actually want to help me but am terribly afraid to ask because it feels like rejection if they don't help. I am super independent but realize that I have needs and sometimes I just need help.

I think some of these nightmares are occurring because I have asked for help from my boyfriend. He doesn't seem to have the time to help me. He isn't traveling but I am clearly not a priority. I don't want to bring this up because there was one other time that I had a critical need in my relationship and he let me down. I don't mean a little bit, I mean in the worst week of my life. We as a couple have recovered from that but I have not been able to recover from that blow. Now I am afraid to follow up with any of my needs because I am afraid I will hear that my needs don't matter. What have I done? Why does this happen? Why do I allow this? If this were business I would cut someones b***s off. But as a result of my baggage from my marriage, I am more afraid to confront a situation that feels like I am unloved because I am afraid that I will find out again that my needs and feelings don't matter and that I am unloved, just like my marriage. This is a ridiculous and illogical pattern since the man I am dating treats me wonderfully. We do things that I want, we travel, he values my opinion shares time with his sons with me and I love being with him.

This is a lot for me in general and especially for today. I gave more that I had in me to share with anyone. I feel drained but a little better as I want to let this go and create something different in my life.

Namaste

There is a lot of controversy in the greater yoga community regarding yoga and competition. Is it possible that we are taking a very ego driven perspective on the word competition?

In class it is horrible to try to do a posture "better" than someone else instead of doing the posture to the best of your ability. I understand this but certainly I am as guilty as the next person for using the mirrors in yoga class to see the next person's postures. Shame on me. Instead of having an inner journey on those days, I am doing myself a disservice.

However, I will openly admit, there is a gentleman that practices at my studio that I ... well stalk to be frank. Whenever I see him in class, if possible I put my mat close to him so that I can see him. I don't do this because I covet his postures, I do this because they are so beautiful. He is elegant, graceful and I am entranced to see some of them. I am not glued to his postures for 90 minutes but occasionally I will get a small glance of something special. There is a word for this ~ inspirational.

Let me bring this back to yoga and competition. Most of the people that I speak with or that I follow on any of the blogs, etc are full of admiration for the people that are competing. They aren't admiring them for competing but instead admiring them for sharing with the rest of us their art. I was a martial artist for 16 years and although I would "fight" I was always an artist. These yogis are artist, using their body as a canvas. They are being awarded on the way the canvas they use can interpret a posture. I, as an observer win this competition every time as I am inspired by them. Yoga is a beautiful art and any venue that shows that IMHO is a great opportunity for all of us that practice, to be inspired!

Namaste

OK, I am not graceful. Not even close.

I should be one of those "light on your toes" graceful people. I started in the martial arts at age 8. I was an instructor by age 12. I have been doing some form of yoga for ?????? 10 years. I should be a balancing goddess.

Now that is just silliness.

On one of my first dates with my sweetheart I fell. Now that wouldn't be a big deal if I were standing at the time but I was sitting about two inches from the ground. I do fine walking in stilettoes but in flats, I am in trouble. I frequently use the term "oh rats, new feet" since I am tripping over myself so often. Almost like a puppy that is all new paws except I am 40 so my paws are not new or growing.

This brings me to Bikram class yesterday. I am both hypothyroid and am recovering from what my dr calls "over stress to my adrenals". This means that although I have been doing Bikram for years, I have to be cautious sometimes and reserve some energy in class. So frequently during standing head to knee, I don't kick out. Yesterday I was doing a Bikram double so you have nothing to loose and you try everything and don't really care if you fall out of anything. So I proceed to kick out, bend my elbows down and place my forehead on my knee. Great, no problem. I am in the zone.

Or so I thought.

In 16 years of martial arts, I never kicked/kneed/elbowed myself. It is really hard to do and lets face it you are trying to avoid swings from someone else so you don't put yourself in a position of hitting yourself!!! Sure enough as I am holding standing head to knee I loose focus and realize that I am going to fall out of the posture. OK, no biggie, I have done this dozens of times before, just pick your head up and let go. ONLY I DIDN'T PICK UP MY HEAD OR LET GO. I actually kneed myself in the eye/forehead area. It was an impressively strong hit too so much so I am glad that I don't have a black eye.

Lessons ~ I wonder if perhaps I knocked some sense into myself? Any chance of making lemonade of this?