85 degrees of awakening.

This morning instead of my usual "go go go run walk bike climb lift" hectic chaos of thoughts, I woke up calmly realizing that it's yoga morning.

Yoga @ Aloha Yoga Kula is a hard experience for me. Each time it's a battle to get out of the door, knowing how painful it may be for me physically and mentally, mostly mentally. I bite my lip not to cry in the middle of the class, or go into a panic attack during savasana. The outcome is most magnificent as usual. I re-programmed my body and instead of a hike and some grueling hours in the beating 85 degree sun ( though cool and breezy), my mind turned to a 3.2 mile run and some potting/planting/weeding of my little garden followed by hours of opera listening on 88.1fm while crawling around outside in my bikini.

Most grateful, aware, focused and healing...
Ultra T

Disclaimer: No REAL beer was actually given to the plant babies.

backwards. forwards.

7 weeks post surgery. Long long weeks. I seem to make good progress of getting back into shape and then I slide back into disappointment. It's harder than I thought to go through mental and physical changers alone. Of course, I feel the energy of few close friends and my immediate family, but bottom line I am here alone and only I can change my way of thinking, acting, reacting and evolving

At this point, physically I am getting back to gym 2-3 days/week for stair climbing, core and upper body session. I ride to the gym 5 miles there/5 back. Saddle road continues to kick my ass with the steep inclines and rolling hills. It's a challenge just to get to the gym some days. Other days, I am walking 3 miles and add light biking or a 2-3 mile run at the end of the day. I found out that running first thing in the morning is very painful because my body is super stiff. On weekends or sometimes during the week if I feel up to it I climb some mountains by my house, usually Keolu hills.

Mentally, I am still sorting through the "trash" in my mind. I have to say, I am proud of myself for really focusing and tuning out the "noise". I have settled on no tv, haven't gone out to a bar really since Chicago ( 7 long months ago!), picked up some books to read at library and continue to do research for going back to school. In fact, I applied to start taking pre req to grad school courses at local community college.

Yes, sometimes it feels that all I am doing is backtracking through my memories, reliving my mistakes over and over, but I am learning and training and it takes practice to become good at anything. I should know this :)

Training of the mind

As I was making my way up Mokapuu road on my chicago schwinn *grin*, I realized something. I have been battling with the idea of how is it possible for me to move forward mentally and away from the insecurities, fears, emotional traumas of the past.Words of my friend echoed in my soul as i peddled and peddled, nearly stuck and not able to turn over. "your mind is just a muscle. you trained your body to do impossible, now it's time to train you mind to do just the same."

It hit me.

Wow! "No shit!", I thought. I did exactly that. It was easy for me to build up my stamina, my endurance, now my strength. My body is trained to recover fast from most serious injuries. I am nearly 70 or 80% after a little over a month of getting a giant plate and screws inserted in my femur. After my muscles were cut in half, I am already able to walk up to 10 or 12 miles, bike 25 miles, hike and swim a little, lift weights as if nothing happened.

But EVERYTHING happened. It's just that I trained my body little by little, pushing harder and harder to overcome.

It is the same thing with my brain, my mind, my soul. So much has been done to them, so much damage and so much trauma was caused both by my environment and myself. It's a long road ahead, but it only has to be as long as I make it. I can drag it out, run away from it, or I can face it and deal, be aware, work through all those things. Little by little training my mind and soul to RECOVER just as quickly as my body does now.

This is very exciting as I continue healing physically, I am now ready to heal emotionally as well.

Happy thoughts..and much aloha

flying mouse and island living.

Journey of a thousand, a million, an eternity of steps is unfolding most beautifully, perhaps, most painfully at times, yet in the end, with most amazing outcomes.

The next chapter of my book is writing itself without any help of it narrator. The thoughts and memories flooding in. I am unveiling slowly and carefully that which has been silenced my entire life. Amazing people, angels in my life, so few and so rare... how blessed I am to find out who they are and how deep do I feel my connection with them now, how carefully do I listen to each one of their words.

Numbing was nice. Numbing myself was easy. Running my body into the ground was easy. Uncovering and dealing and being aware hurts more than the stainless steel plate and all the damn screws put together.. all the rest of the scars on my body... the scariest moments of physical pain do not hurt this much.

In happiness, in excitement but in stillness and with much aloha...

Forever
Tone