Just breathe

What do you do when you feel like you pushed too hard, like you're exhausted, regretful, fuzzy, confused.

What do you do when the weekend has come and gone and your facing down another long, busy and hard week at work?

What do you do when you really want to just hide away? To wear pajamas for a month, watch movies, read books and eat peanut butter toast.

You take a deep breath, and put behind you the things you did wrong, the things you could have done better.

You take a deep breath, set your alarm and think only as far as the meditation you will do first thing in the morning.

You take a deep breath, and another, focusing on the in, focusing on the out.

You take deep breaths until you fall asleep and can try again tomorrow.

(Image via backonpointe.tumblr.com)

The third space

Of all the downfalls of commuting to work (of which there were a few), it turns out there was an interesting upshot.  

Distance.

Two hours each way between work and home to be exact.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my job. Sometimes a little too much. But it can be stressful. And I took for granted how healthy it was to have space and time between work and home.

Now I'm a 10 minute bus trip away from work. It's amazing. But an unsettling side effect has been the return of some old habits, like staying back at work and bringing work home - both literally and in my head.

I think a lot of people struggle with this issue of boundaries. When you enjoy your job or you care a lot about it, it can be consuming and it can be a challenge not to bring it home. Whether it's overt - like talking about it non stop, or less obvious, like finding you're upset, snappy or distracted because of something that occurred during the day.

At a conference I sat through years ago a speaker was talking about this and came up with the idea of the third space - the necessary in-between space between work and home. For some people it's a commute, a long drive home, a song, for one CEO it was actually building a separate entrance to his home where he could shower off his day and change out of his suit before he saw his family.

Without the funds to build myself a new entrance, I have opted for a walk. I have discovered that if I walk home from work, I can give myself 30 minutes to process my day, shake out any stress and worries. By the time I get home I can make a conscious decision to leave my day behind. This allows me the headspace and the energy to be all the other things I want to be and do.

Do you have a third space? Do you need it?

(Image via the chicdepartment )

Just write

When I started this blog, I committed to writing a post a week. I figured that was not over committing, and it meant that each week I was accountable for doing something positive for myself. If I had nothing to write about, then I was straying from my goals of health, wellbeing and balance.

So here I am, confessing, that for the past couple weeks I have struggled to pull out my laptop and write. Partly because I felt I had nothing meaningful to write about, partly because I have been busy and distracted with work and life, and partly because I am still finding my routines after the move, and on most days, I am feeling more unsettled than balanced. 

But I am getting there. Day by day, week by week, I am feeling more comfortable in my own skin and in my surroundings. Our place is starting to feel like home and I have started to carve out some new routines and spaces that feel healthy and restorative. Like walking home from work, doing yoga stretches each morning on the patio, Sunday afternoon grocery shopping, coffee and spelt toast at Sonoma, flowers from the fratelli fresh market…

And so I have pulled out the laptop, pushed aside the excuses, and here I am again, making a commitment to write about this journey, every week, even when it feels hard or unworthy. 

Because that was the point wasn't it. 

X 

(Image via pinterest)

A weekend at Swami's

The Hindu religion tells the story of Lord Ganesh, lord of success and destroyer of evil and pride. 



The story goes that the goddess Parvati created a boy out of the dirt of her body and told him to guard the entrance of her house while she bathed. 



When her husband, Lord Shiva, came home, the boy Ganesh would not let him in, like he was instructed. Unimpressed and growing madder and madder as the boy continued to refuse him entry, he took a sword and in his rage, cut the boy's head off.

When Parvati saw what had happened she broke down in grief, for she loved this boy as her son. To make amends, Shiva sent his guards out to search the lands for a any child who was sleeping facing north, not facing his mother.

The guards returned with the severed head of an elephant.


Lord Shiva started to protest but Parvati stepped in. It didn't matter if Ganesh had the head of an elephant, he was her son, and she would love him, no matter what he looked like.

It is a reminder that we should not judge others by appearances. And this is the biggest take away from my weekend yoga retreat at Swami's. 



The place was not luxurious, the reviews were less than encouraging, and Swami, her son Sanjay and Gavin the masseuse did not on first glance appear to be the gurus/mentors/spiritual guides we were looking for. 

I could not have been more wrong. The weekend was enriching, nurturing and relaxing. The people were warm, welcoming and insightful.

Sure there were some funny moments, when dear Swami who seems to be suffering the ailments of old age told the same stories over and over, when she almost forgot to feed us dinner and when we were woken every 15 minutes by smoke alarms with low batteries. 



But when the retreat was over, I felt something had shifted. And I left feeling clearer and calmer. I left feeling loved. I don't think I will forget my weekend at Swami's. 

(Image via Pinterest)

Off to a yoga retreat

It’s the long weekend – what do you have planned?

I have decided to escape for the weekend and head to a yoga retreat with my friend Emma.

With the excitement of moving, my energy levels have been all over the place the last few weeks, so I have been looking forward to two days of stretching and rest to balance myself out again.

After we booked and paid for said retreat, we made the mistake of going on trip advisor for tips. These reviews are just too good not to share.

Wish me luck.

Not entirely sure I will come back balanced so much as hungry…

"For Drinking they only served tan water and some tea. We got sick and our tummy hurt a lot. The pool is full of leaves, the spa is dirty as hell and the rooms for your personal comforbility like the massage room and the tea rooms seemed like they have not been used for ages. The tea room seemed to be used as a cat litter pan and the terrace was a paradise for spiders and other insects."

"It was hard to get along with Swami because she was telling the same stories all the time and if you wanted to say something she would not let you."

"An exercise I’ll always remember was walking around a tree on rough gravel without shoes. It hurt but overcoming that was very calming and a bit addictive."

"Swami casually mentioned on our last day that she hadn’t known anyone was coming."

"The cooking was appalling, varying from bland to weird tasting. No desserts, no coffee, some nice herbal teas though. We were even asked to do the dishes on one occasion!"

(image via pinterest ) 

A post about moving

The removalist trucks are about to roll in. We're really doing this.

I want to go. We need to go. I want us be healthy and I can't look at my husband, exhausted, bags under his eyes, no energy, any longer.

And I am tired. Oh to sleep in until 7am on a work day. To be able to have a life after work...hobbies, exercise, I don't even remember what that looks like.

And I want the adventure. The adventure that is fun and challenging but brings you closer together when you realise as long as you have each other you have home and everything will be ok. That feeling that only comes when you push yourself out of your comfort zone.

But I can't help but feel just a little emotional about leaving our home.

The little two bedroom unit we bought together when we were 23 years old, with glimpses of the ocean and a beautiful sea breeze. We fell in love the moment we saw it and over the years and have made it our own.

It's the home where we learnt to live with each other and look after each other. The home where we brought Paris the cat home and slept on the lounge room floor for two days to help her adjust, and played Angus and Julia Stone when left the house because when it was on she seemed to stop crying. The home where we planned a wedding and learnt to cook and watched storms over sav blanc on the balcony, and had Christmases and talked and cried and argued and loved.

I adore the walls we painted, the bamboo floors we laid and the new kitchen we put in last Christmas.

It's the home we have returned to after trips around the world.

It's old and it's not fancy but it's ours.

(Image via observando )

Alcohol free zone

Did I mention I am going alcohol free for a month?

Now for the record I do not require alcohol to function in my everyday life.

But I do fancy a glass of wine (red, wine, sparkling- as long as it is quality and comes in a long stemmed glass). I fancy a glass when I go out, when I am catching up with people, when I have had a stressful day at work. And because we are among friends I don't mind telling you that the frequency of those glasses tends to increase depending on my stress levels at the time.

And herein lies the problem.

So I have decided that in the interest of New Year health, and in response to the fact that wine is not and should not be the solution to all that is wrong or scary in the world, I will spend January alcohol free to prove to myself that I can. And as a bonus I hope to also promptly farewell my Christmas kilo.

I am one week in - including New Years Eve - and I won't lie, it has been a little tough. But I am starting to feel the physical benefits of my self-prescribed alcohol detox. I will keep you posted on my progress. I just wont tell you all about it over a glass of chilled Rose....Oh Rose....

(Image via pinterest) 

Sitting with the yuck

I go back to work tomorrow. Not overly impressed with the idea, particularly because I feel like I didn't really get a good break.

I was lucky enough to have nine days off work. It should have been amazing.

I wanted to feel healthy and rested and ready for the New Year. But mostly I felt stressed- about work, about moving, about not feeling amazing. And I cried. Not because I was exceptionally sad, just because it was an emotionally charged week. And I didn't get much sun, and I didn't read a book and I didn't do great things.

And because I felt out of sorts and didn't want to feel that way, I spent the first week running and keeping busy to feel better. Christmas and drinks (there was too much drinking) and dinner and busy-ness. But I still felt yuck and time was running out and I was going back to work soon and why did I feel like this? How could I make it go away!

And when I could do no more, I had to face up to the fact that I could not control this nine day break. I could not control the way I felt and what I needed from this time. I obviously just needed to feel a bit shit, and this time was obviously going to be a bit stressful and emotional because let's face it, Christmas always is, and we were combining that with needing to pack up our home for the move and sort through stuff and throw stuff away. 

This is one of the lessons I am trying to learn. It's hard, I forget, I need to keep reminding myself. It's ok just to feel yuck sometimes, for things to not always be wonderful, and you don't always have to fix it or run away from it. There is great value in sitting with it, feeling uncomfortable for a little while, to find out why you feel like this in the first place. Or maybe to find out there is no reason, you just feel this way and it's ok. It's ok to feel whatever you need to feel. Just sit with it. Sit with yourself. It will be scary at first but it will get easier.

I will keep trying. 

(Image via pawleys island posh blog)

Happy New Year

The start of a new year is a great opportunity to reflect on the year that has been and think about what you want to achieve/experience/do in the next year.

I like to start a new journal on New Years Eve and kick it off with a list of highlights from the year. Things I am proud of, grateful for, things that made me smile or helped me grow. Most of us don't stop and reflect enough so this is a really nice time to look back at 2012 and see that even though it appeared to fly by, you did an awful lot.

And then it's time to look forward.  

What do you want your 2013 to be? What will it look like? What will you achieve, do, learn, feel, conquer?

Why not take a few minutes to think about your list of highlights and what you want out of 2013. You don't have to write it down, you don't even have to tell anyone.

Here's an extract from page one of my new gold sparkly journal.

In 2012...

·  I got married to the person I love most in the world and had a beautiful wedding

·  Traveled through the US

·  Started a new job which allowed me to learn a whole stack of new things, including the courage to stand up for myself. Also managed to survive another year of commuting and pulled myself out of a really hard slump this winter

·  Finally found a great yoga studio and decided it is something I want to do for the rest of my life

·  Learnt to cook (still wearing my training wheels but it's a start)

·  Pushed myself out of my comfort zone, grew in many unexpected ways and started my blog

·  Let life surprise me and now we're moving to Sydney.

In 2013 I want to...

·  Feel fit and energetic and happy

·  Be a good wife, friend, boss, sister and daughter by being kind and honest and present

·  Find a regular yoga class I enjoy and practice yoga in the mornings at home

·   Make exercise part of my life. Keep cooking

·  Make a home in Sydney

·  Keep pushing myself to grow and learn. Work on replacing my perfectionism with authenticity

·  Read more books. Keep blogging.

Now it's you're turn.

I want to thank you all for your encouragement, love and support this year. May your new year be whatever you need it to be. May it be filled with joy and love. May you move closer towards your truth.

Very Marie

x

(Image via Geronimo Balloons )

Preparing for Christmas

I have two Christmases.

My family (mum's side being from Finland) celebrates Christmas in the evening of the 24th. My family Christmas is a fusion of snow inspired Finnish traditions set against a backdrop of an Australian summer.

We pretend it's -15 outside and have a sauna, light candles, and eat hot casseroles and gingerbread. Then when we're done with that, we sit outside swatting away mossies while drinking champagne and listening to a chorus of cicadas and televised carols.

My grandmother cooks everything. She always has and any attempt to contribute is met with a disapproving stare. One year my sister and I volunteered to do all the dishes. We broke three glasses and have been banned from the kitchen ever since.

Our family Christmas has largely remained the same for as long as I can remember, but as we have grown the emphasis has become less on santa and presents, and more on spending time with eachother and laughing over baileys and milk as the summer sun sinks and is casually replaced by the familiar twinkle of Christmas lights in the street below.

The next day we wake up and get ready for an Australian Christmas with Mr Marie's side of the family.

This is always a big day that involves breakfast, lunch, prawns, an afternoon nap and dinner.

We host breakfast at our place and it's always a challenge to make something yummy for six people that doesn't require much prep (given we're out until midnight the night before).

This year I am going half gluten free, half naughty Christmas goodies for the guests.

This year's menu consists of;

Strawberry granola trifle 

Almond and vanilla scones 

Finnish Christmas cookies (cooked and donated by my grandma)

Sweet Christmas bread with cheese and Christmas ham

Orange juice and strong coffee

Hope you're feeling relaxed and organised in the lead up to Christmas. Always remember that if you forget to buy someone a present, you can just re-gift a box of favourites.

Very Marie

x

P.S. It has been a really busy few months/weeks and I have not been feeling festive or at all organised for Christmas. I'm also on-call for work until Boxing Day which is never fun.

But today I found out a good friend and of mine has been diagnosed with breast cancer. In the week before Christmas. And it made all my silly worrying about food menus and presents and work seem really unimportant. My friend is going to be fine, I know that, but it did prompt me to think about what a special time Christmas should be. A time to enjoy the company of family, friends and the people you love, a time to be grateful for what we have, not because it's perfect, but because it's here and it's ours. 

Following your gut

How often do you follow your gut?

When you have to make a decision and something inside you seems to be drawing you one way even though you know it might be risky. Or you're getting ready for a night out and for some reason your instincts are telling you it's not a good idea and you stay home instead only to find the night was a disaster.

When it comes to making big decisions, I have chosen to follow my instinct. To do what feels right even if it doesn't seem entirely smart on the surface. And to date, I have always been very grateful. So much so that last week when trying to decide whether or not to take a unit in Sydney, my biggest frustration was that I couldn't decipher what my instinct was telling me.

Moving to Sydney is going to be a big change for us, the space, the lifestyle, and while struggling to find a pet friendly place in a good location was proving difficult we were finally approved for a one-bedroom unit.

Now don't get me wrong, the place was fine. The complex was lovely, the interior was brand spanking new, but it was small. Like kitchen in the living room, not many windows, all the furniture is going on e-bay, small.

Mr Marie was nervous but I was so worried that we wouldn't find anything else and the move wouldn't happen that I pushed forward, convincing the both of us that we could make anything work and we should just take it.

So we put in the application and we were set.

But we weren't. For the next week I was a mess. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't concentrate, I felt nervous about the move, my chest felt tight, I was confused and scared. Putting it down to the fear of change I tried not to let on to anyone how I was feeling.

I tried to meditate on it, knowing I had been able to draw on my instincts before gave me confidence the answer was inside me. But when the resounding feeling coming through like a knock to the head was not to take the unit and keep looking, I put it down to fear and kept going.

It wasn't until someone else saw the state I was in and asked me how I would feel if we pulled out of this one bedroom unit that was destined to be our home for the next couple of years.

I closed my eyes.

Relieved.

And there was the answer. We withdrew our application and immediately I felt lighter. My chest wasn't tight, I could breathe, I didn't want to cry, I felt excited about the prospect of moving again. I felt like I was back on the right course.

And just in case I doubted it, the next day, for the first time in three months, three units popped up in our price range, in the right location, pet friendly.

Two days later we had our application approved on a two bedroom place that feels... right.

While this was a not a life changing decision, it does serve as another reminder about the importance of listening to myself. To seeking out and listening to that voice inside of me, that feeling in my stomach, that when I sort through all the external crap and the fear, is there to keep me on my course.

(Image via A Whole Lotta Love on Pinterest)

Sunday afternoon food musings

My eating of late has been less than ideal. I could sit here and develop a whole series of reasons why, explanations to justify it, but the truth is it probably doesn't matter.

What matters is that in the last month wine has become an accepted addition to my personal food pyramid and hot chips have moved from 'every now and again' to 'almost every day.'

I have a complex relationship with food. I eat or drink for comfort, boredom, celebration, stress...and surprise surprise it's not usually the good stuff. My fledging cooking skills means this task still remains in the too hard basket when I am getting home at 730 or 8pm and it's much easier to get takeout or head out to a restaurant.

And it has to stop. I know because when I am eating well and sticking to what I know is good for me, I feel fantastic. And right now, after a weekend of too much champagne and salty foods, I feel like absolute rubbish. In fact I think I deserve a medal for successfully pulling myself out of bed this afternoon and out of my food coma to sit on the lounge and write this.

So what am I going to do? I’m going to try again.

Write a list of what I should be eating this week, do a trip to Woolworths so I have all the fruit, veggies and snacks I need to stop me reaching for junk when I get tired, bored or stressed this week. I am throwing what’s left of a bottle of Pinot Noir down the sink.

I'm just going to try again.

(Image via pinterest) 

Have a lovely weekend

Spending Friday night at home with Mr Marie and a very content kitty cat. It has been a busy week at work and we're both exhausted.

We are eating left over soup from my Mummi (that's my Finnish grandma for the unacquainted), drinking a bottle of Audrey Wilkinson Semillion, and catching up on some of my favourite blogs while Ben watches SUV, because it's the only thing on tv and we don't have the energy for anything more.

It's raining outside and it's cold enough for the coach rugs.

I feel completely relaxed.

Tomorrow I am going to look at some units for rent in the city. That's right, after almost two years of commuting, and four for Mr Marie, we have decided it's time for a break and we are planning a stint in Sydney close to work. Not sure how long we'll be gone for or when we will find a pet friendly place that accepts all three of us, but it's pretty exciting all the same.

I hope you have a relaxing weekend. While I do love the sunshine, this rain is a great excuse for a lazy weekend indoors.

Enjoy.

X

(Image via Kellymccaleb tumblr)