You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘stress relief’ tag.
Well, strictly speaking, over the bridge from San Francisco. Marin is home to a number of things that make my heart sing.
The Pelican Inn - a little bit of England on the West Coast, is one of them, and Rick and I had an amazing staycation there on Friday night. Dinner in a pub, followed by sleeping in a lush Four Poster bed, and waking up to great coffee and a rare Full English, with the glorious May sun streaming through without a cloud in the sky? Gorgeous. Like a warm bath for your soul.
Although a strenuous hike had been on the cards, in the end we opted for a scenic ramble to Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center. I’ve often wondered about this place, driving past, and wanted to go explore. This place is amazing and I can’t wait to go back. It’s like a Zen oasis in the middle of the city – all the cliches about only being able to hear the birds sing, or noticing a butterfly alight on a rose bush, are all true at this place.
There is zero cell reception. Which for two people who pretty much breathe in synch with the “new email” notification on their iPhone, was at once completely relaxing and yet still oddly stressful. But, as it was Saturday morning, and we both remembered that we are in fact NOT brain surgeons, we went with the flow.
Green Gulch Farm is Buddhist in practice and runs regular meditation classes – something I have an emerging interest in, and would like to explore. So i’m sure we’ll be back. In the meantime, here are some pics from the farm:
I work pretty hard. At my desk by 7:30am, and then it’s full tilt until home time. I’m not complaining. I’ve always worked in a high-octane environment, and I get a lot from it. But lately, my body hasn’t been getting what it needs from it.
I’m the queen of good intentions when it comes to fitness and exercise, but also the queen of excuses. And “I’m too tired” after a long day, can rank pretty high for me!
But it didn’t always used to be this way. In my 20s, full of vim and vigor, with the same high-energy job that saw me working similar hours (and often longer!), i still managed to hit the gym when i could, and commit to two strenuous 2 hour long dance classes a week, PLUS at least one, if not more, gruelling yoga classes. The sweat and burn until you might pass out kind, rather than the be at one with your mental breath kind. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course.
But recently? Not so much. I’ve even started to see the emergence of, horror, middle age spread! And I’m only 33. Couple that with just really wanting to get back to some of the things in life that really excite and inspire me, and the 30 day yoga challenge was born. At the California Yoga Company, they offer a 30 day unlimited yoga pass for just $30. It’s a great deal, and a great way to try it out (of course, that is a one-time only special price!), and so i signed up, They practice “hot yoga”, not quite Bikram levels, but enough to really make you sweat out that extra cookie or glass of wine. Just up my street.
So, i’m giving it a whirl. I’m not quite a beginner, having practiced a lot in my 20s, but it’s definitely going to take some time to ease back into it and learn to bend like a pretzel again! My aim is to go as often as i can during these first 30 days – not easy with my schedule – but i’ll try! I’m looking forward to the benefits of (hopefully), detoxification, increased strength and suppleness, better muscle tone and stamina and maybe even a clearer mind! Of course, if i can drop a pound or two as well, i won’t be complaining…
I really hope this is just step one in a new, lighter and brighter phase of my life. I’ve been through quite a lot of upheaval and stress in the last few years, so time to laugh, relax and look after myself. More posts to come on that, but meantime, wish me luck on my challenge!
Photo credit: http://www.101healthsolution.com
Meh. It’s been a tough day. One filled with misunderstandings, mis-communication, frustration and one rather surprising disappointment. In fact, it was an apt day for me to be reading this post from the personal blog of one of my favorite writers in the tech industry (where my day job keeps me busy), Sarah Lacy. She wondered when she became such an angry girl, and if it was somehow linked to her own high expectations for herself, and of herself. I nodded along as I read, even commenting about my ridiculous desire to keep approximately seventeen plates of my life spinning all at once, even the “organic veggie growing when you have neither the time or space to do it and the mere fact of having to water that thing stresses you out every morning as you rush out the door at 7:15am for the bus” plate.
On days like today and in situations that test me, my best intentions sometimes desert me, and I find myself doing or saying things that i know are about as far from graceful as David Beckham is from ever being really welcome in a U.S. soccer stadium. Then of course, i go home and stew about them, and beat myself up about them (not literally of course – don’t get scared people). All filled with the intention to do better the next day. Which I’m hoping will happen tomorrow.
In the meantime, I was stuck feeling blue. My usual, set-in-stone-on-the-calendar-never-miss-it Tuesday gym class failed to lift me, even though it was filled with the types of kicks and punches that for me, release stress in the way that ten hours of yoga never could. In fact, I was so tired and all my limbs ached so much (for me, one of the worst side effects of stress), that it was all I could do to crawl home after bailing on the class half-way through, a cardinal sin in my book.
But whaddya know? As I hauled myself up the stairs to my city cottage, i spied the box of squash plants, sown in wild optimism two months ago. Only one remained after the great snail siege of 2009, and i was privately wondering when to admit defeat. Maybe the squash plant didn’t take too kindly to me belittling it in public, because the very beginnings of a flower were starting to show! Ok, it was only a very slight emergence, but it was enough. Enough to send me barrelling into the house for an impromptu play session with Sophie the dog, pour a medicinal glass of delicious Pinot Noir, and heat up a mound of the carbohydrate described by skinny people as “ugh, a bowl of white bread with sauce all over it” and to the rest of us, pasta. With home-made cherry tomato sauce, natch. Perhaps I can keep those plates spinning after all…
