I Make Myself

Who am I?

 

I found myself wondering if one of the hardest things about not having kids was not having kids. It became clear that this was an evident contradiction.

I also know the only reason I feel this way is because I actually don't have kids.

In her book Mating in Captivity the therapist Esther Perel writes that there are some issues that aren't meant to be solved, they're only meant to be acknowledged. 

- Major highlighter moment- although I don't actually highlight I draw little stars and planets to mark an important book location, quotes I like. Sometimes I even draw little hearts <3

She uses this phrase in the context of marriage but I believe the contained wisdom can serve more than one aspect of life. 

Such is a paradox. Not to be solved but to be acknowledged. 

There are paradoxes in almost every aspect of life.

Like that feeling at the end of a book. It can be the happiest  and also the saddest moment of reading a book. 

Surrendering to the fact that strength comes from vulnerability. 

Being aware that in the search for safety one might become constricted.

Wanting peace and finding solitude.

Loving and dreading writing. (<-This one is mine)

My life is full of paradoxes and I know. I wear them like an invisibility cloak. They act like a shield to my personal space.

They are a juxtaposition of experiences that make me who I am. 

Which is that I am Ruth but also Maya and sometimes Geraldina.

I am somewhere between a runner and a dancer. Between a dancer an a yogi. 

A wife and a lover. A lover and a friend.

I move to find stillness.

I can feel at home when away from home.

I am unapologetically complex. This does not translate to complicated. It translates to beautifully human.

My life is full of paradoxes and I want to tame them as words that I can use to describe all the magic contained in real life. Like how one of the perks of being alive is making mistakes. That magnificent experience of crying hard and laughing loud.

I want to write the story of how I'm not here to fix myself but the journey of how I am here to be simply perfectly imperfect.

 

Transitions

I think it's through this word that I found one of my favorite yoga teachers. 

Favorite is such an overused word. We toss it around without any consideration whatsoever.

Derek is one of my favorite teachers nonetheless. I don't care how misused this word can be, he really deserves it.

I've never actually met him, I take his classes on-line. He calls them Transitions.

The idea behind this word -and yoga class- was appealing. Could it be an approach in which points A and B were secondary and the focus would be on the journey? the in-between? Would it give me hints and explore the answer to the million-dollar-question of how the hell do I get myself from here to there...and there and there.

I've obsessively taken pretty much all his classes and it always amazes me how he weaves not only poses but music and words, he creates a sacred space that transcends geography. I can be thousand miles away yet I'm still part of his class.

Transitions are not easy. They're not easy  in a yoga class and they are not easy in life.

The thing is we are always transitioning, one way or another.

I feel like I suddenly woke up in an alternate reality. I mean...drama queen-ish speaking you know.

Yesterday I had to make the rash decision of officially transitioning my favorite shirt into...a pajama.

Favorite, I know. 

Did I mention I think having favorites is limiting? 

If someone asks me what my favorite ice cream flavor is I would say Chocolate, hashtag YUM.

If someone reaaaaaaaally wanted to know what my favorite flavor is I would tell them that  I actually don't have a favorite anything. I don't believe in them.

How can I claim to have a favorite something if my variety of options is only a handful of limited choices. 

I can say my favorite food is sushi but that is until, let's say, you try an amazing ceviche.

Ceviche is so darn good. 

So then you change your mind and now you're like "Ceviche is my favorite food in the world!" and that is until you try a Vietnamese Pho.

And so on. You get the point.

Having favorites never seemed like a choice to me. I can't pick one single band to be my favorite or one writer or a friend!

How is it ok to pick a favorite song but not a son. Favorites should be banned.

But not the word though, so I can keep using it when I refer to my shirt...and Derek.

Anyways, my shirt is a very random shirt. It's a loosely fitted white t-shirt, it has a V-shape neck and it is beautiful.

I didn't realize it was my favorite shirt until I had to stop using it. It is also undergoing a transition stage where it has stopped being white and is now aiming to an either gray and/or yellow hue. It is still undecided.

I love it because it is was white, simple and very very unpretentious. It wasn't a fashion item, it was a I-look-well-with-everything-type-of-shit. I mean shirt.

It traveled with me through Southeast Asia and while I was there I did try to go to every H&M I could to search for its replacement. The search was unsuccessful BUT looking backwards I definitely see a love affair starting to unfold.

So useless bottom line is, it has been so far my favorite shirt ever. It made me think that if I had to chose one clothing item that could define me it would be that fit-for-traveling, go-well-with-everything random white t-shirt.

I'm officially letting it go, just as I am letting go a big part of my life here in El Salvador.

One of my best friends, scratch that. One of my favorite friends is moving abroad and it hit me today that this is yet another transition. Mostly for her but I can't help but feel a little -ok a lot- sad.

It's contradictory to claim not to have favorites and then having a favorite teacher, shirt and friend but you know what?...I make my own rules and hashtag YOLO.

When I was in Costa Rica I got the feeling that the word TRUST is something I'd always been looking for. Transitions are not comfortable and some people deal with them better than others. I'm on the transitionally challenged crew.

Sometimes my inner voice seems a little shy and only whispers, I needed it to scream louder so after I came back I got it tattooed on my right wrist. 

I look at it every day.

Now, back to serious business. Let's all have a minute of silence as a tribute to all those favorite t-shirts that someday had to transition their way into pajamas.

P.S. Good bye my friend. You are a gift from the universe to me and I'm always able to be myself when I'm with you. I'll miss you. A lot.

PP.SS.  I'm not talking about my shirt.

For Derek classes you can take them online here

 

Yoga + Creativity workshop

 

If you are here in El Salvador I will be leading this workshop on June 7th. We will explore our thoughts, feelings and sensations as creative forces.

It doesn't matter if you're new to yoga, this is a workshop where all levels are encouraged to join.

I hope to see some of you peeps there.

Namasté.

 

The void

 

As I walk this path that was once a scary place for me I ask myself:

What is it that has really changed?

The path caresses the same boundaries, the sounds are as loud and deafening as they used to be, the smell is a hidden but misleading sweetness yet as I keep walking I find that now it is a place quite opposite to scary. I find it welcoming.

Before entering this void I remember convincing myself that I had to rush my way through it. Now, every time I'm about to enter this dark place I feel empowered.

"This is it. Go." I tell myself softly.

Now as I start to walk, I don't rush but I wander. 

Aren't we born from a void anyways? aren't we gestated in a lightless, borderless womb?

Once we enter this life we are presented with two options. Either we rush through life or we become wanderers.

The ones who chose to become wanderers instantly join a tribe. A tribe of misfits. Always too weird to be normal, too vegetarian to be careless, too careless to be serious, too serious to be free. We never fit in, we are never satisfied, always looking for more questions, always looking for new places.

We thrive in the unknown, finding joy in having no answers.

As we know that as soon as we get a definite answer we become stuck. We are glued to the ground  with the concrete of certainty.

That is why instead of answers we enter an eternal quest for inquiry.

It is a life filled with improvised decisions and it is, for sure, the road less traveled but full of lessons and treasures. Filled with love and acceptance.

Nature is so wise. When did we stop learning from it?

As I stop to contemplate this path where I can't see neither its beginning or its end, I ask myself:

What wants to happens now?

The short answer is that I want to keep entering this void. Over and over and over.

Why? Is it less dark? less empty? less scary? No.

The long answer is that in the darkness, emptiness and fear of the unknown I found the whole universe. I found the planets and the stars,  Jesus, Buddha and my grandfather chilling with all the great sages, the writers, the painters. I found the past and the future. But most important I found the eternal now where I can share my present time with everyone and everything.

It is here where I found God or better yet, God found me. 

As God inhabits the most uncertain of the certain territories. He wanders in the emptiness of the unknown.

I guess that is what has really changed. The fact that I can now call this void something. I can call it God. 

So every time someone tells me they're scared of the unknown I think of how I once found this void scary. What I would have lost if I decided to become a planted answering book. 

Give me emptiness, give me uncertainty because I know that even if my eyes can't see it is there where I will find raw honesty, love but above all truth.

 

Yoga Teacher Training / Part II

I thought I would throw in some pictures because anyone who had to endure the last post deserves some sort of photo reward.

Hopefully this won't turn into an endless essay but beware I did start running again so it could go either way.

I'm back in Costa Rica and I'm here to take two more Yoga trainings. The first one was Self-Awakening Yoga Therapeutics (SAY). I finished that one last friday and the next one is Inner Quest for the Yoga Educator. This one will start this sunday and it ends mid April.

I can't even put into words what the SAY training was. It was beyond logic and exceeded every expectations -and I am a girl of expectations-

I remember when I was little I used to read the end of a book before I started reading it. I needed to know if it would have a happy ending. Ok, maybe not a happy ending but I didn't like that feeling of getting to know and love a character to then have them die in the middle of the story -Yes! I'm talking to you J.K. Rowling -

I do the same with movies -Heinz hates this by the way- but I need to know if it's a happy-ending movie before I watch it because I hate any open-ending crap.

So with SAY I had all kinds of expectations, not only with the training itself but with ALL the amount of things I would get done between classes.

I'll cut to the chase. I wasn't able to do anything. 

I brought -not one but two- pairs of running shoes, a curated list of books I intended to read and of course a laptop to blog and my camera to take tons of pictures.

None of that happened.

I was so exhausted from the training it was unbelievable. I'm not super energetic but I'd say I have a pretty active life so I thought you know -therapeutics- I'll still have time to do tons of stuff.

With the SAY I discovered how multi-layerd the human being is. How unaware of it I was. Sure I'd heard of this but I'd never experienced it myself.

The basis of the Nosara Yoga Institute is self-inquiry and I couldn't be more in love with their philosophy and their learning approach. It's so accessible to anyone.

I got so into the training that I was able to let go of any expectations both for me (running around, blogging, etc) and the training. I figured  even if it's totally outside my comfort zone I would approach every inquiry without anticipating the outcome.

It was exhausting because it was a struggle. Let me just quote a very famous song that fits perfectly right here:

Ooohhh, my body's sayin' let's go
Ooohhh, but my heart is sayin' no

It then goes on to saying how she's a genie in a bottle blah, blah...nonetheless you were so right Cristina, you were. so. right.

I'm currently trying to build a harmonious relationship with my heart, my feelings, my body and my mind. I think the more permissive I allow myself to be the more compassionate and loving I feel so we will see where that leads. Only one rule: no anticipation allowed.

And praise da' lord Heinz is coming. I really miss him. I needed to open a bottle of water -he always opens them for me because they are always too tight- and I couldn't open it so I spent a whole day drinking orange juice. It was sad. Luckily I didn't turn orange -remember that Sunny Delight urban legend...or fact!-

I've got a week off before my other training starts so that is why I did start running and got started on reading my books! <= insert heart emoticon here! I just love how you just know the book you are reading will become THAT book you absolutely love. I've highlighted pretty much everything I've read and by now Jung and I are best friends forever. 

I'm currently reading Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I'd been interested in reading C.G. Jung but somehow thought it would be too hard to understand. I read this would be an easy book to start with and it is. It's so story-like, paused and explained, he links his ideas to each experience that made him question or answer himself. He comes from a religious background and ever since he was little he remembers how he constantly went back and forth with the idea of God and the structure of religion so it speaks to me in a very special way (I come from a very religious family)

It's the perfect book for me right now and -I keep saying this- I think it's magical how the right book falls into my hands at the perfect time. 

Magic in Nosara is unfolding and my sister and my friend were here for the weekend and that was magical too! 

Nosara is a special place, you'll read that here and everywhere else because it. is. true.

 

Poser

The book with the soul of a blog.

POSER is the kind of book I would expect from a blogger but this is not the case. Claire is not a blogger, she's a hard core writer but her book only leaves you with the desire to keep peeking into her world, her journey. I really wish she had a blog!

I found this book in a second hand book sale. I inmediatly thought it was destiny. There I was taking my time reading each of the tittles each of them piled up in a mountain of hidden treasures. It read POSER. I reached for it, read the back and knew I was meant to read this book. The book is even hard cover! HARD COVER! that is the greatest form of book. Not traveler friendly, not couch friendly. They are the real deal.

Claire tells her yoga journey through a series of life changes or the other way around. You can't really tell.

I mean you can but the story is so well thread together that you can't tell one from the other.

She's funny but most of all she's honest and that my friends, that, I'll buy that anytime.

I can see people saying that some stories are forced into fitting a certain yoga pose but maybe its because I've felt it. I have felt something make sense without even knowing how I connected the dots. That's why I get it. It doesn't have to be linear or logical, yoga and its consequential offsprings are yours and yours only.

The book is her journey, her life, her story of how she tackled yoga and its consequences.

I loved Poser. It's a funny yoga read without being pretencious.

If you don't take yourself too seriously give this book a try.

Here is the Amazon kindle link if you want to download a sample.

Next Up: Junot Diaz <3 ...also a second hand treasure.

I am here

 

Yoga stuff

 

The best Yoga playlist

Inside the box