Things Like Stars and Yoga and Podcasts

“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?”  

It's Virginia Woolf's 136th birthday today! She's one of my favorite writers, and when I was accepted to study English at KCL last year, I couldn't believe it because KCL was the school she studied at. I obviously didn't end up moving to London and attending KCL, but I keep the letter from them on my desk just because I like seeing it.  And it's a more positive reminder of Virginia Woolf than the movie The Hours is.  I love The Hours for its tragedy and depth, but if I watch it again I'm afraid I'll end up an emotional wreck.  Are there any particularly heartbreaking movies that you feel drawn to?  I have a hard time not watching sad movies or reading sad stories because they're so powerful.

From Wikipedia

Speaking of which . . . this month, I discovered the On Being podcast.  Whenever I'm doing work-work, school-work, or house-work, I like keeping company by listening to podcasts, and the On Being show is amazing. Perhaps the best description of it is from the pod's website:

On Being opens up the animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live? We explore these questions in their richness and complexity in 21st-century lives and endeavors. We pursue wisdom and moral imagination as much as knowledge; we esteem nuance and poetry as much as fact. 

I'm hoping to write more here later about episode suggestions, but if you have the time, you should definitely listen to the episodes with Marie Howe and Matthew Sanborn.  Howe's episode is perfect for Virginia Woolf's birthday. It's about "how language . . . has a power to save us," and it explores the way poetry brings experiences to life and makes us each a little less lonely.  Sanford's episode is about feeling compassion and appreciation for our bodies, and Sanford's story is incredibly compelling.  Paralyzed as a 13 year-old, he now teaches yoga to everyone from those overcoming physical disabilities to teens battling eating disorders, and his perspective on life is eye-opening. You really have to listen to the episode or read the transcript to get the full impact of his thoughts, but one of the things that he said that stood out to me the most was that, instead of focusing on ways in which his body isn't working, he focuses on all the amazing work it does just to keep him alive. Wow. It's beautiful.

From Daily Mom

 

The last little tidbit for this morning is (cue fun music) morning yoga! Yay! There is a lot of struggle and disconnect and resistance in the world right now, and stress is something that we all experience on a daily basis. As you may know from previous posts of mine, I've been working to combat the body-image/control issues that have resulted from anxiety, and when I'm stressed, I have a tendency to want to move into GOGOGOGO mode. 
But Ayurveda teaches us that like increases like. If you're freaked out and high-strung and do activities that build on those feelings, then they're just going to get worse. So I've had to hang up my "harder, faster, stronger" fitness mentality and focus more on softness and flexibility, which I've come to realize may actually be better for my health than constantly pushing the limit was.  Truth is, running fast and far may be exhilarating for some, but for me it usually just meant feeling wired.  I got high off the endorphins, but then all I could think about was the endorphins and when I'd "hit the wall" again . . . which is bad!  Now that I'm foregoing heart-gargling intensity for yoga, I'm finding that I'm thinking a lot more clearly. I've always appreciated yoga, but I never realized just how true all those "yoga changes your mind" stories are. The past three days, my mum and I have done short Yoga With Adriene or Lesley Fightmaster videos together to detox after work, and during one of Adriene's detox videos, my mum and I actually managed to really breathe for the first time.  We didn't take those shallow stress breaths we normally take but rather long, deep breaths with audible exhalations, and it was really freeing to be loose and fluid, not tight and rigid.
So if you're feeling anxious or knotted up or under pressure, maybe take five minutes (yes, just five minutes) and try a little "feel good" movement with Adriene.  See? I'm making it easy and putting the video right here, just a click away :).

 

 

Much love and light!

<3 Frances

Be Your Body's Friend

School and work are back in session now after the holiday break, and awards season is here, too. That's less relevant to day-to-day life, but I admit that, as a filmophile, I really do enjoy hearing about seeing what shows/movies/screenplays/etc. are recognized every year, and my mum and I share the guilty pleasure of talking about red carpet fashions and hairstyles.  We also always appreciate that there's been a recent movement towards more diversity in body image, with people being more honest about photo editing and makeup trips. Media representations of what is "normal" still have a long way to go, but at least there is more awareness nowadays that most of the images that we see aren't realistic. 

healthyplace.com

On a related note . . . I posted a few days ago about New Year's resolutions and the value of flexibility, nourishment, and self-respect over restriction and limitation and self-hate, and I want to touch on this again as it relates to facing our fears and moving forward with our lives so that we can be happy, productive, meaningful members of life. I know from experience that it can be easy to become very obsessive about things/rules/etc. that we see presented to us in the media. Dieting and fitness-ing are super "in" right now. If you're in Lycra and have a SoulCycle habit, you're cool.  Beautiful.  Successful.  And while I'm all for people doing things that make them happy and healthy, there are times when the pressure to be the Lycra-SoulCycle-chick is actually super detrimental to us.  When we congratulate ourselves for making our lives small and for hyper-focusing on things like what we're eating and how much we're exercising, we limit our potential to do meaningful things and we put our health at risk at the same time. It's a double-whammy! 
Here's the truth: all our bodies are DIFFERENT. While running long distances may be fun and healthy for one girl, gentler forms of movement may be better for another, and the sort of lifestyle choices we make are subject to change over time based on what our situations are. 

Don't compare yourself to other people.  

There are much better things you could be doing with your time!

I know, I know--this is much easier said than done.  One of the reasons I'm writing this is that a few days ago I a had a revelatory moment while standing in the middle of Goodwill with my mum. We were dropping off a donation and popped into the store to quickly take a peek at the racks of old sweaters, flannels, and dresses, and I realized just how much I needed to fix my perception of wellness.  In the past, I too fell victim to so much of what the world tells us about what is "healthy," and I've been working on getting over many of the "rules" that I've set for myself over the years.  With the new year here, I'm committing to a lot of things (the environment, writing, reading . . . .), and one of them is to finally break away from the limiting beliefs propagated by our image-focused culture. 

We're surrounded by so many edited, filtered images and presentations of "health" that our expectations for ourselves are totally distorted.  We look in the mirror and expect to see features that are for many of us physically impossible, and, if we do achieve the renowned "thigh gap" or "six pack," it's often at the expense of our health in other areas. I saw a fitness ad recently that said "Once you see results, you're addicted."  This message made me sad because changing our bodies can become addictive, and if taken too far, it can mess up our lives in really big ways.  The things that we obsess over controlling eventually control us. Don't sacrifice your mental and physical health and your ability to live a meaningful life just because our culture glamorizes hardcore fitness and dieting.  

Much love today!

<3 Frances

The Girls of Art Nouveau

I'm sad to admit that I never knew who Frances and Margaret MacDonald were until just recently.  Their art is the intersection of fantastical and Victorian, and in many ways their paintings seem to have emerged from a book of Celtic fairy tales or an Isadora Duncan dance.

All images from JSTOR.

Frances and Margaret were one half of the "Glasgow Four," a group of artists who came together in the 1890s at the Glasgow School of Art.  The other two members of the Four were Margaret's husband Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frances' husband Herbert MacNair. Together, the sisters and their spouses took an innovative approach to artwork that incorporated watercolors, mysticism, and nature, and Frances and Margaret were particularly innovative in their depiction of women.  They captured the feminine in a way that appealed to Victorian grace but contradicted Victorian rigidity, and the girls they painted took on the qualities of faeries.  

They drew from Victorian Puritanism and Celtic Spiritualism and created ground-breaking pieces. Elongated bodies and a characteristic dreamy palette are ever-present. Colors are light, neutral, metallic, natural and mythical at the same time. And yet, there are touches of modernity, like geometric symmetry and the use of squares. (Green)

Sadly, Frances died in 1921, at the age of 48.  It is suspected that her death was a suicide. Margaret made no known artwork after 1921, and she died in 1933. I can't help but to imagine that Margaret's reduction in productivity was at least in part related to the loss of her sister, and I'm grateful to have learned about the two of them and their beautiful work. Their paintings are like looking into a dream world--something fit for the Fairy Pools of Scotland's Isle of Skye!


<3 Frances

Further reading:

"Glasgow and After"

"Margaret MacDonald"

"The Scottish Sisters Who Pioneered Art Nouveau"

Nourishment, Flexibility, and Self-Respect

I almost forgot it was January when I woke up on Monday. In my mental calendar, we were still in the month of candy canes and hymns, and it's only now that the "spring" semester has started up again that it's hit me that it's 2018.  Another year!
Of course, the whole "new year" transition means that everyone is coming up with resolutions. The "new year, new me" mindset is pervasive--rarely do we see so many ads about diet and fitness routines!  Please remember, though, to filter the "diet talk." There's a good and a bad to everything, and while diet/fitness reminders can be motivating for some people, they can be harmful to others. Life is about balance, not extremes, and if you tend to be a bit of an extremist (I speak from experience!), please make all your health choices consciously, focusing not on limitation, control, and self-punishment but rather on nourishment, flexibility, and self-respect.

NOURISHMENT, FLEXIBILITY, AND SELF-RESPECT

 

That said, I know that "nourishment, flexibility, and self-respect" may sound a little bit self-indulgent. But taking care of yourself enables you to give out to others. There's a beautiful affirmation by Louise Hay that I want to share here:

http://bmindful.com/forum/thread/7900/loa-loving-wonderful-health-affirmations-etc

This affirmation captures the whole idea of "pouring from an empty cup." Simply put, you can't give what you don't have--eventually, you'll burn the candle at both ends and run out.  I've seen so many of the beautiful, strong women in my family do this.  Fueled on nothing but coffee and cortisol, they push themselves as hard as they can, but then one day they hit a wall. Adrenal fatigue, autoimmune disease, stroke . . . chronic cortisol isn't the healthiest energizer! It will only enable you to go so far, but then it'll backfire on you.

http://adrenalfatigue.org/stress-and-your-health/got-stress/stress-affects-body/

Even though I, too, have been known to feed off of cortisol, I really am writing this post for people like my grandmum who for years have been giving giving giving without ever stopping to take care of themselves.  It's the NEW YEAR, so while everyone is using this as an opportunity to make a diet/fitness resolution, maybe take a deep breath and resolve to find some peace for yourself. Inhale, exhale. The work will always be there, but if you allow yourself to heal a bit instead of just working yourself to exhaustion all the time, you won't burn that candle out.  Here are some quick fixes for cortisol spikes:

Yoga for Stress Relief -- 7 Minute Practice

 

Meditation for Stress

 

Phnom Penh Lullaby

 

Much love!
<3 Frances