Here it is, the beginning of my 5th year of practicing Bikram yoga and I have decided to do a 60 day challenge. I have been a very active yogi for a long time but I am at that edge. My practice has stagnated and I have more mental baggage that I want to dump so it is time to relax, let go and reshape things. A 60 day is hard for me as every Thursday night I have agility classes, one Monday night a month I have a board meeting and I have a LOT of Rotary and other commitments that I have to attend to. This means that I will be doing multiple doubles and that is fine by me.

After my travels two weeks ago to NY and the past several days in KY I missed classes for almost a week. Whenever I do that I come back to class and it feels like I haven't stretched in... forever. It feels like I have to wake those lazy bones up and get them back into a discipline. I have to clean out the cobwebs.

I was in KY this weekend with my honey and his family. He was receiving a big award from his alma matter and I was able to spend time with his family. I adore his family. They are wonderful people and I enjoy my time with them. At one point, someone slipped and addressed me by the wrong name. This wrong name was the name of someone that I know and that is not exactly a good person. In fact the name of this person causes one of the family members of my honey to wince. It was a completely honest mistake but it made me feel horrible. After a brief conversation with my honey the conversation came around to my ex husband. At that point, I got caught in the mire of bad feelings.

WHY WHY WHY is it that after 3.5 years do I still feel ashamed about my decisions to marry my ex? I am still so embarrassed by my choice. Why can't I let go and forgive myself for making such a huge mistake? I am so ashamed. Ashamed that I would ever let anyone treat me that way. Ashamed to be married to a gluttonous, self centered man that had an IQ of a gnat. WHY can't I let it go?

I am hoping that these 60 days of Bikram help me to let it go. A challenge after being a practioner for so long isn't the same as for a newer yogi. I am intimately familiar with the nuance of each posture. I go slowly into each posture with great intent instead of rushing anything. I have developed grace and have learned to laugh at myself if I do something goofy. I don't try to struggle and compare myself to anyone as I already have a strong practice. This means a challenge occurs at a much deeper level. After two years, my sister just completed a 60 day and she spent countless hours talking to me about how each posture changed for her. I have been through many of the changes already that she expresses and accept these changes as natural in your practice. I embrace my challenge to occur at a level to help me to center and clean out the cobwebs. This isn't a physical challenge but an emotional one. I want to literally breathe deep and let it go. Release not only my physical limitations but also the shame that I am tired of feeling. My practice is completely different from the days of my marriage, why isn't my attitude?

The business of breaking up. It is ugly. I don't know anyone that has a "pleasant" divorce. Usually it comes at the point where everyone is exhausted of the long and intense demise of the relationship. A part of this demise is the business of "stuff". My stuff, your stuff, etc.. Wedding jewelry is a big part of this.

My former father in law was a jeweler. He was magnificently talented. He made my engagement and wedding rings. Not only did I treasure them for their beauty but also for the love that went into creating them. I have since learned that the man I loved as my father in law turned on me, but that doesn't mean that I adore him any less. I expect that as he refuses to accept any flaws in his son and addiction is a big, hard item to swallow for any parent. It is easier to simply blame an ex spouse and gloss over the truth.

When my marriage got particularly ugly, my ex husband refused to move out and refused to talk with me. I had a post nup drawn up to attempt to give me some legal protection from his mounting debt. As I asked him to come home and meet with me to discuss this, we had a final blow up. I canceled his cell phone and changed the locks to my house. I had the divorce papers drawn and a court date set to have him forceably removed from the home that I built, paid for and hosted him without any consequence to him. I had enough. My lawyer informed me that I had a 50/50 chance of being forced to allow him to stay in the home until our court date. He called the cops on me. It was ugly. Really ugly. Finally after he was gone, he was bound by the court to only come in and move his items out under supervision and my permission. Sure enough on the day he was supposed to do this, I had moved everything except his washer and dryer into the garage and I had a neighbor give him access to only the garage. That was when he jumped the fence, found an open window and broke into the house. When I arrived I found him in the house, upset because he could not find my wedding jewelry. He wanted both of my rings back. He was willing to steal them from me. Of course he hadn't stolen enough that he wanted the only thing he actually did contribute to the marriage back.

I had moved them to the safe at my office. We had prenuped our wedding jewelry and he had no right to them, just as I had no right to his. Oh BTW my engagement ring was paid for by the blackjack table at the Bellagio and the wedding rings were paid for by me. I didn't go after his ring.

So what do you do with them?

This took me a long time.

I wanted to sell them and use the money for something significant such as something that represented a new phase in my life. I later discovered that I could only sell them for less than 1/4 of what they were worth! Finally my sister convinced me to turn them into other jewels. Last year I went to NY to her jeweler and had that done. It was impossibly hard to do. I cried while I approved the plans for the new items and handed over the rings.

It was the end of something. My ex husband didn't love me. His father did and made these items for me with all the love in his heart and I was destroying one of the last pieces that he would ever make. Shortly after our engagement he had eye surgery and couldn't work on jewelry any longer. I wish I could sell them for a price that I would be happy with. The majority of the materials went to a necklace that I only wear occasionally to formal occasions. It sits in a safe. Useless. Those diamonds are not a girls best friend as that necklace is similar to wearing an albatross. I could not even use it to seed the future. What a waste.

Time to go back to this topic. Marriage.

As I was excited to go to NY, the morning that I was leaving I did it again. I had another dream about my ex husband. Now these are never pleasant, even if nothing bad happens in the dreams I always wake up feeling ashamed of my decision and anxious to get away from him.

I loved the idea of being married and thought that I valued it so much yet you could have measured the length of my marriage with an egg timer. This embarrasses me. Yes, I had an overwhelming set of circumstances between his gambling addiction and his utter disregard for me that means that my time being married was probably twice as long as it should have been.

In spite of all this, there is something so compelling to me about sharing a lifetime together. It wasn't "marriage" that obliterated my marriage. I like doing all the mundane things you do in a relationship. HOWEVER I think marriage is completely to the advantage of the man. A woman tends to double her workload and a man does not. Well, at least not when it comes to women like myself, who are insanely independent. This of course makes me sit on the wall about marriage. I love the idea of the commitment but I put in so much to everything and feel like I take so little that it isn't necessarily the best fit or me.

As I finished the book, Committed I saw this also in the mental struggle Elizabeth Gilbert went through before her marriage. She had to get married or her beloved would no longer be able to visit America. No one is holding me captive to marriage. I don't even speak about it with my boyfriend. I don't want to have children of my own so I don't have to seek out any type of relationship for that.

Then there is the notion that if it went so badly so quickly the first time, how would I deal with a melt down in marriage a second time? Not that the two relationships are equal in any way. I thought I had a strong relationship but I was actually holding onto the relationship equivalent of a vampire. (looks great but sucks your blood until you are a living corpse)

?

As we approach wedding season I am elated for those who are getting married and look forward to attending weddings. But I am utterly stumped about how I feel about this notion someday again for me.

YESSSSSSS

New York tomorrow. Very excited.

So on my to do list is going to take a yoga class at X. No not a Bikram studio this time. I have found that I am sort of stagnating in my practice and I would like to try something different that I can bring back to class. This is common among several of us that have been practicing for years. It isn't that we are so talented, it is that we need some other way to help to stretch and stregthen. Since I have not gone to teacher training and don't plan on ever going, I am not able to participate in the advanced series in this area. There is hope that my studio may offer it but as of now, no luck.

So I am going to take a form of yoga that my sister says is so challenging to her that she is thrilled about it! She has been doing Bikram for a few years and is one of those people in class that when the teacher says, "Lock your knee" they mean the one that is up in the air so she is doing a perfect split in standing bow.

I am hoping that when I am gone my foster dog will be adopted. I don't know how long I can foster her without wanting to keep her. She is amazing but I just can't fit a third dog permanently into my life. i will be so sad to see her go but so happy for her to be a family member to someone wonderful.

So after I get twisted up in a yoga pretzel, I will get a massage to "unpretzel" yea!

I am so familiar with the Bikram series, I wonder if I will welcome the unfamiliar? I have been trying to embrace that and see what works in my life more now. After all, that is why I am blogging which to me is a very unfamiliar thing. I have no issue reading other people's blogs but to share all these things to me is unfamiliar. Maybe that is why yoga has been so beneficial to me. It is a safe space. Am I going to welcome the change to my safe space?

Meet Robin, my latest foster dog from Atlanta Pet Rescue.

Here she is shown lounging on the deck with my dog Madison (an APR alum). She is 7.5 lbs of joy. I don't know what happened to her before she came into the dog shelter system but something caused her to be afraid. Sure enough dogs, unlike humans, are more willing to let go of baggage. She was scared of riding in the car and for the first two hours at my house she was frightened. Then suddenly, she started exploring and now she feels quite at home. She is playing with Madison, enjoying our everyday rituals and is happy to explore, relax and be a dog. I took this video and posted it on you tube...

Gosh does that make me giggle. I know that I fuss sometimes with my pillow but just darn, that is soooo funny!!!

Amazing, in life as we progress we haul around all that baggage. We keep the strongest attachments and learn so much from experiences based in fear, hurt and loss.

I am the host family for a student from Fiji this year. She comes from a very modest background and Fiji holds ZERO opportunities for her to grow in life. There are no jobs, her community was horribly repressive to women and she still has to contend with a cast system as she is part Indian. She met a wonderful man in September and they are getting married in May. I took her to the running of the brides and got her wedding dress. Yesterday I took her for alterations work on the dress. Now thanks to my baggage, I am discovering I have certain feelings about marriage and weddings. My wedding itself was not any sort of joyous occasion. I neglected to do anything that would make me happy and spent so much energy on everyone else that by the time I was walking down the eisle, I was miserable. The experience of buying my wedding dress was not joyous and no one "helped" me in a way that I "helped" Ranjita. In fact I wound up buying two. The first one that I loved was a miserable buying experience, my husband saw a photo of in a magazine and said "well after the ceremony you can use it to mop the floor". He had no idea that was my dress. I sold it on ebb and bought another dress off of ebb. Heck at my wedding when it was "speech" time ~ I WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED. Two days after I was married I was at Atlantis playing black jack with my husband and he began taking my chips as he was loosing. The entire experience was void of one thing THE BRIDE. I can't go back and redo all this. Most were my mistakes as I let this all happen. I was an active part in my bad experiences. I can help to be sure that Ranjita doesn't have these experiences. I wonder if like Robin I would just explore, I would let it go?

Wild wild wild week. Finally I have our accounting package back online after the server migration. We have almost fully recovered from the robbery and still somehow were able to get out several bids on work. I hope to spend part of Easter weekend going to Atlanta Pet Rescue and finding another way to help and foster another dog that needs a little tlc until he/she can find a permanent home. If I had more space I would adopt more so this is one way that I can help.

Speaking of animals, I am not a goat and I am hoping that I will not be reincarnated as a goat. I think they are wonderfully cute but...

I have always wanted to see HH Dalai Lama. Last time he was in Atlanta, I was gone and unable to see him. I find him fascinating and everyone knows, especially me, there is so much I can learn from his teachings. I have had the date and time that tickets go on sale for one of his events on my calendar since the event dates were released to the public. (note not all of the events have a charge and the ones that do, are for overhead expense and have a range of prices so they are not for profit). At 9:59am I refreshed the ticketing website and was all excited to secure tickets when suddenly the website that sells the tickets was MIA. ? Oh no OHhhhhhh nooooooooo!!! I was on twitter and sent out notes and found the phone number so that I could purchase tickets via the phone. Sure enough, with speed dial, I could NOT get through. Then I started to complain about this on twitter and sent a note to the host of the event letting them know about the problem. Well I was NOT friendly with the ticket site BUT I am here to tell you THEY DID AN AWESOME JOB AT CUSTOMER SERVICE! I threw the kitchen sink at them and they took the initiative to contact ME and help ME with my order. They didn't have to care! BUT THEY DID! They handled me with grace, and believe me, I was upset!!!

Now clearly we can see here that I am a miserable student of the Dalai Lama. I am hoping to not be reincarnated as a goat. BUT additional we can see that some companies DO CARE GREATLY about delivering great service and Ticketalternative.com is one of them. And I got a good, well deserved dose of how to handle grace under pressure instead of the way I did it. I went back on twitter and told the world as well as the host of the event but I also want the world to know, in detail so I am putting it on this blog, great job handling me, the grouchy, hyper client. And I promise to pay good attention to HH when he speaks and LEARN from both the people of ticketalternative.com and HH!!!

This week has been out of control. I have spent most of my time running from appointment to task to meeting to ... whatever and I hate the feeling of being over scheduled. It means I don't have time to reign things in and keep them well maintained. THAT means I get grouchy. The sweeter side of me is blown right out of the window.

In spite of my mood, good things happened. Yesterday Tippy, my foster dog (as seen below) found a permanent home. I wish him and his new family many years of happiness and great health! All of the dogs that I have I adopted have brought me infinite joy and I wish the same for the new parents of Tippy.

I got to reconnect with some of my friends from Rotary at a meeting in Columbus yesterday and that is always a good thing. It did help me to realize I need to find a better sense of balance in my Rotary life. I am a little worn out in Rotary right now and I still have 2.5 years before I am president. We are about to implement so many great changes and normally I would be on this like a bloodhound hot on a scent but my attitude had me stopping and getting anxious about the fallout that I will have to manage. I have not wavered in the fact that the changes are the right thing to do I simply am wearing under the quantity of work that I have done over almost twelve years. I spend all of my time now in meetings and zero on projects. blah.

The highlight of the evening was going to a party given by my friend to celebrate the life of her late husband. He was very young and suddenly had a rare form of cancer that very quickly took his life. A heartbreaking story. I know this friend from yoga so we spend time before and after class talking and although it may be brief periods of time, they are meaningful. Almost like when you are having a rough day and someone pays you a complement but this is a perpetual complement. Bikram for both of us means a sense of peace and reduction in stress but add to that the people that regard you highly and are always happy to see you, that meaning grows. She has been this type of friend for me and I feel great warmth and appreciation for her. When she invited me to this party, I was very happy and spent last night at her home. I didn't know anyone however immediately everyone greeted me as if I was a person that had always been a part of the circle of friends. She had a wonderful slide show running of photos of her husband and all of the photos were of celebrations in life, holidays, vacations, dinners with family and friends. I only met her husband on one occasion but could see the great bond of love between them and everyone I met. It was a fantastic honor to her husband and to the life he had. She could not have respected her life partner better.

It are occasions like this that remind me to stop and get off the crazy train of perpetual meetings, obligations and house chores to smile and take more photos. Photos of my family, my sweetheart, my friends, buildings I think are beautiful, the crooked smile of a child, my dogs giving me kisses, etc..

OK, it is has been a weird few days that have got my head spinning!!!

1st ~ I survived the running of the brides at Filene's basement last friday. YES I did get my GRSP student from Fiji a BEAUTIFUL wedding dress. It was fantastic.

Then my student and I went to an Indian spa and yes I got my 1st body art ~ a henna tattoo. OK so it is only temporary but it was fun and we were test driving them for her upcoming wedding. I will be featuring more henna tattoos as well as a sari for her wedding! That should be fun!

THEN CAME TIPPY! See photo above for the adorable long haired dachshund. I had an interview with Atlanta Pet Rescue to be a foster home for a dog and sure enough they sent me home with Mr Tippy. He rocks! I can't imagine he will be without a forever home for long. He is a fantastic companion.

Then as I was in Athens with my honey visiting his son, I got a phone call. We had a break in at our office. They broke in to steal the Macs! UGGGGGG things were a mess and I have been crazy busy trying to get everything back so I can be productive again.

SO all this means I have been neglectful to my blogging. I HAVE been reading more of Committed and have more to say so stay tuned as I am going to be a blogaholic soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Namaste!

Sexy Sassy BABY I have a mole!

YEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!

So I go to my dr Friday and she gets very upset when she sees a 3mm black dot on my back. She sent me to another dr that agreed that we needed to remove it immediately and then send it to pathology. Both were concerned that it was melanoma. Great, tell an obsessive compulsive like me that you might have a life threatening cancer over a weekend.

AND to make it worse, no bikram for several days. I went back last night to discover that I am allergic to the band aids I am using and I have a welt on top of my stitches. I can't do certain postures for fear of busting the stitches. Ug. All this had me really weighed down until a few minutes ago when I found out that what was removed was A MOLE!

I never thought a mole was soooo sexy as I do now!

OK I have done the spectrum of irrational fear and now I am trying to come back to center. The worst part is that I am anxious and normally I would go to Bikram yoga and that would help me to relax. I have a stitches in my back where they removed the spot and sent it to pathology so I can't go to yoga for two days for fear of pulling out the stitches. So I am going to proceed with my weekend plans of continuing in the backyard.

But the worry has me quite tired. I will just have to work slowly. I also have to work in smaller steps so that I don't rip out the stitches. OK, a lesson in patience. Don't you just HATE lessons in patience? Yuck.

Good news is that I picked up my strawberry plants, three blueberry bushes and two olive trees (no not ready to extend any branches yet ) I will hang my woolly pockets on the fence and fill it with the strawberries and other herbs. I also need to start putting down my drip irrigation.

Does this sound like I have planned enough busy work for myself? Some times you just have to just turn on a flashlight into the darkness until the sun comes back to show you there is nothing to fear. I am ready for that day. I am also ready for my honey to come home. That won't be until tomorrow night. He is a scientist so he would be really great to have a discussion on cell replication with me and honestly, that is not what I want at all. I just want him to give me a good squeeze and make his fantastic coffee for me. I don't like being alone right now. Although my border collie really can give a great hug!