January | 2013 | Ms Colleen O'Shea J

Occasionally I’ll find myself in discussions with friends over “unplugging” and living “off the grid.” Our use of technology has become an addiction: smart phones, constant, quick access to the interwebz, BLOGGING, #selfies (don’t get me started… wait, was that me who took one on the previous post? That doesn’t count… ;-p )… That said, while the addiction is very real and very disconcerting, I’m thankful to live an age of information bombardment… no, really. The fact of the matter is, I can spend hours on the internet searching for memes of angry cats doing shit (slash just take pictures of my own to share with the world…) or cross-referencing information about other countries and people and cultures I will likely never ever experience first-hand. The internet has also become this major resource for self-improvement. My commitment to a healthy, cruelty-free lifestyle (ps: there’s a really great picture of Dave Navarro being… Dave Navarro on this website, haha) has been fully supported by the internet, and furthermore, WOMEN have found a real presence out here in cyber space, aside from porn.

Apropos of this bombardment, I’d like to share with you some things I’m reading/loving/have stumbled upon as of the past week:

A candid, real, and in my opinion, important conversation about monogamy and sex and children

WHAT IS YOGA DOING TO OUR CHILDREN/WEARENOTACHRISTIANNATIONGETTHEFUCKOVERIT Thoughts? (The hyperlink description is my own, not NPR’s, so get mad at me not them should you have a problem with it.)

Vaccinations and Vegans With some really great comments from devoted readers. Also: Eating Right Gives the Most Protection During this Flu Season

My current favorite workout:

(Source)

Lastly, I’d like to know your thoughts about this CrossFit promo (below). As a person who has struggled with disordered eating and distorted body image, there have been times when watching Zuzka’s workouts, or reading fitness magazines, or being bombarded (there’s that word again) by celebrity media has not helped my recovery. I’ve been more selective in the past few years with what I’ll expose myself to or fitness programs I’ll support. The fact of the matter is that movement is better than no movement, so fitness program or no fitness program, or supporting certain programs over others is really your choice, no judgement here. For me, I find Zuzka’s workouts and those similar to CrossFit or P90x or TurboFire to be more up my alley in terms of ways that I enjoy spending my time. That said, there’s an image being maintained here, and it’s hard to separate “what I should look like” with how you’ll look once you’ve put in the hard work. I think the girls in the CrossFit video explain some things really well, but again, there’s this establishment of an aesthetic: if you don’t match that aesthetic, then you’re not pretty/healthy/fucking awesome, etc… There’s no declaration of this in the video, but for people who have struggled with themselves in this way, it can be interpreted as saying just that:

I also appreciate your comments/questions/concerns/musings on anything else in this post–enjoy, and I’d love to hear from you!

Peace,

“If we do not discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.” – William Feather

I came across this quote recently in my daily reading travels on the interwebz. Of course, it was fortuitous timing because I have been lacking inspiration (though not lacking in aspirations), and if you continue to look, you’ll find what you’ve been searching for—good, bad, and in between.

I’ve been thinking about where I’ve been and how I came to this place, meditating on these past ten years, as they’ve been the most painful, tumultuous, progressive, positive years of my life thus far. Part of that has to do with the age range (16-26). That’s self-explanatory. But part of that has to do with things that have been both out of my control and in my control and how I chose to deal with various events or realizations.

I often say to friends, perhaps ad nauseam (actually, I’m sure of it), that yoga is something that I believe helped keep me in the game and realign my life (and my spine). Somebody asked me some months ago, “Why do you do yoga? In what ways do you find it helps you?,” to which I replied, “It keeps me from killing people.”

I don’t have the most verbal finesse at times.

What I meant to say was that it allowed for me to discipline and heal my body at the same time—like a perfect balance between work and play, pushing forward and relaxing. That said, nowadays, I don’t believe that yoga is the only way to achieve this simultaneous stimulus and release. I myself have fallen in and out of the practice due to several issues including proximity to a yoga studio (I prefer practicing with others despite my aversion to humans), money, focus (ha!), boredom, etc. This bites me in the ass when I don’t fill that time with another discipline. Now, I allow myself to teeter back and forth between several different disciplines as I like. I used to be very totalitarian toward whatever activity I was engaging in, leaving no time or thought for anything else, but I’ve found that that destroys me and negates the goodness of any activity, particularly physical activity.

The other important factor is that physical activity allows us to explore discomfort in a controlled way, so that we can then learn to feel comfortable within our discomfort. The fact of the matter is, life on the macro-level is not easily controllable but your interactions and reactions are (not easily, but yes, they are controllable). So, in any sort of physical discipline, you are training your body to take on various stimuli being hurled at you—physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it—and find a solution or positive reaction or interaction with it.

And sometimes, that means looking at a particular set of circumstances and accepting that they are what they are. Nothing more, nothing less.

Back to Mr. Feather’s words, life will fuck you up if you keep sailing along waiting for something to point the way for you.

Going into this next semester, it occurs to me more than ever that we need complimentary (read: not equal) parts physical and mental activity. I personally refuse to stay sitting for too long or stay in my office for other or a practice room. I’m still finding the perfect mixture that works the best for me at this point in time (change is imminent, after all).

And now for some photos ranging from early December to just a few days ago. Beware: they’re all Android photos and while it’s got a pretty good camera on it, I know full-well that my photos should be banished from the blogging world. But it’s what I’ve got for you at the moment.