New Year's Intention

A few years ago, friends of ours introduced us to, or co-invented with us (none of us can seem to recall which happened) a practice of coming up with a single word for the upcoming year, on New Year's Eve. The word, we decided, should have many possible meanings, and not be stated as any kind of affirmation (I will play more in the coming year/I am playing more in the coming year) or resolution (I need to play more in the upcoming year). Instead, it would allow for word play - for exploration, for change in meaning, throughout the year.

The first one Dylan and I chose, and we chose the same, was "consume." We tried to gently explore our food consumption (going on a diet, eventually, but really focusing more on watching/noticing consumption than losing weight, which was a helpful change in perspective), and also financial consumption, consumption of goods, of energy, of social interactions.

Luckily, neither of us developed consumption.

Yin Support

Cracking ice in Sheboygan, Wi

Yin yoga was suggested to me a long time ago, back when I wanted to return to yoga, but wasn't sure which style or teacher to go with. As I posted here and here, I struggle with physical practices in particular, and need to have a sense of total safety (and anonymity, I've found - plenty of my students are yoga teachers, but I need to not be both their student and teacher at the same time). As a part of my new year's intention to support myself more, I have committed to yoga at least once a week at Jewel in the Lotus in Madison. And the main class I've been taking is Yin.

Integration

Integration

I have noticed that dialogues in my head are changing. For a few years now, since finding the book Born to Win and exploring Transactional Analysis on my own, I’ve become more aware and able to distinguish the people inside me who direct a lot of my decisions. For instance, though there are more than these three: there’s my father, or some reduced version of my father, who says strict things and orders me to do them. There’s an inner child of four or so who understands little but likes to play; there’s an inner child of eight who understands a LOT but is stuck on her version of the stories.

The eight-year-old is my storyteller, my spinner.