Spring Cleanse

I actually have a lot to say but no time to say it so for now here is a post I wrote a few weeks ago and never posted but revisited and may be of interest.

I attempted my first cleanse yesterday. I was "lucky" to get my hands on the 3-Day Cleanse by Zoe Sakoutis and Erica Huss. Before I receive hate mail or differing opinions let me state that I am ignorant when it comes to cleansing and I do not make it a practice. I am not the healthiest eater in the world and I realize my diet needs an entire restructuring. I found this book easy to read with more information about cleansing than I anticipated. These are the same women who made the Blueprint Diet in NYC a fashion trend last year. I LOVE to eat so consuming only juice is a bit daunting, but I thought I would give it a go. 

My diet has consisted of frozen food and cookies since Holiday season so I could definitely go for a change. After reading through the book and choosing my level I made my list of vegetables and fruits...I already knew I set myself up for disaster. The book has you take a quiz to determine your level. I, never having done a cleanse, should be a level 1...maybe a level 2, but seeing as I am also on a limited income and have no time for high maintenance combinations chose level 3. Level 3 has mainly the green juice (also so popular in this city) and 1 fruit juice. It also has a cashew milk "treat" made from scratch (I opted out of this knowing there was no way I could remember to soak nuts for an hour and strain and mash them or find the required coconut oil etc). So yes I already was bailing on the cleanse. 

I began the day with the green juice and decided not to have coffee ( a Mommy staple in my mind). An hour later I decided coffee was a necessity and really should be part of my life. I had half a cup as opposed to my normal 2 cups. I felt pretty good throughout the morning and went home later for my second juice. Again feeling fine. I thought I could really do this. Of course then it was later in the day. Isa was sick with the stomach flu and really hated the juice. She wanted pasta then a sandwich and then turned both down. So I began to pick at the pasta and you know where that goes. So that was the end of my cleanse. 

I am not turned off to cleansing at all. I think for me it is too much maintenance and thought and if I had the money would just call and order the juices to be delivered. As a single Mom trying to do this cleanse with all its recipes and rules I find I am just not organized enough. Cleaning a juicer 4 times a day is tedious and aggravating. It is hard enough to make meals for my Toddler let alone think about separate meals for myself. Did I feel better with the short lived version I put myself through . . . "Yes". Would I recommend this to others . . . "Yes". If you have the time, the mind power, the interest I think this is a great start for Spring. There is information on how to prepare for a cleanse and how to maintain life after it. There is also information on food combining that is easy to understand for those of us who do not do this on a regular basis.

I wish I were a more organized person who liked to cook. I do know I need to think more about the food I put in my body. I try to eat as healthy as I can but it is the one area of my life that still needs a lot of work. 

Spine Twist (because during a Cleanse exercise is important but difficult)

• Sit up tall on your sitz bones.
• Pull your abdominals in-think of tightening and lifting area of pubic bone to navel.
• Flex your feet and reach through your heels.
• Extend your arms directly out to the sides, keeping them even with your shoulders, so that there is one long line from finger tip to finger tip.
• Straighten and lengthen from top of head to bottom of tailbone. Exhale, get taller as you rotate your torso and head, exhale again as you twist a bit further.
• Make sure the twist is from the abdominals and not from the head or shoulders. The upper body, including the head, moves as one piece. The pelvis stays stable and does not twist at all. Your feet should stay even and together
  
• Inhale to return to center.
• On the exhale, take the twist to the other side.

Repeat 3 times each side

Hope

Hope. I have been thinking a lot about this the past few days. Also strength. Transformation. Courage. All words I use daily when describing single mothers. I have recently had the amazing fortune to find several like minded single moms, and I feel better already for knowing them. I am reminded of when I worked in a shelter for domestic violence. The impact of the work I was doing at the time didn't fully hit me until I had a child of my own and even more so when I became a single mom. Now I think of that time always. I think I would approach it differently now. The fear and devastation and the choices that these women made. I understand now more so the millions of questions and doubts in their head. Yet, what I also see clearer now is that even in those moments of pure desperation, rage, and devastation there is so much strength, courage, and hope that is radiating out of these women. While there is fear and panic there is hope. And hope is stronger than anything else we have. Hope can bring new life. Hope can cure. Hope can keep us safe. It is transformational. 

A week ago I found out that one of my favorite blogs Ms Single Mama was writing her last post. I actually felt a great sense of loss because I had only discovered it a few months ago, and still needed the support and lessons I learned from it. It is an amazing source of information for single moms and in my darkest hours Alaina has held my hand and given me hope. I am not yet at a point where I can let go and walk on my own in this scary world. I may seem like a leader who knows what she is doing, but to be honest half the time (ok most of the time) I make it up as I go. I seem to know how to take care of myself and carry though, but inside I am screaming and shivering with fear because I have no clue what I am doing. Alaina is ahead of me in the single mom game so she has the older sister experience I need and gravitate toward. I am relieved to say that tonight I read her blog again and she has decided to stay, and I feel a bit calmer. Her entry was about hope and moving to a new apartment with a 17 month old son and starting again. That was when she began the blog and now starting again in a new way and a new direction. 

I remember that same time when I finally had my apartment to myself and the locks were changed. The first thing I did was redecorate and make it my own. It felt weird. I felt I was going to get in trouble, and yet free because I remembered I had no one to answer to or consult with. I was scared, clueless, but hopeful. I need to constantly remind myself of this because it isn't always easy being so responsible. Having to say "No" so often. Having to organize down to the second weeks in advance in order to take a class I may want to take. Being alone so much. Always always always worrying about money. And yet, I am always reminded that there is hope. It is there in the eyes of the other single moms I meet, and it is there in the eyes of my child. She is a free spirit and she is fearless. If I had stayed in my past relationship I don't know if she would have these qualities. Children mirror their parents. I am proud the reflection she sees is of strength and not fear. She gives me hope. 

Breaststroke

1. Lie face down with hands palm down near shoulders and elbows resting on mat. Legs straight with tops of feet pressing into mat.

2. Inhale, reach arms over head, exhale circle arms around to thighs while extending chest off mat. Inhale bring arms forward again and exhale circle them around and extend.

repeat 6 times

1. 
   

As I posted previously I was going to post about being a young artist or first moving to NYC with my naive dreams and aspirations. As much as I see now how unrealistic my goals and perceptions were I still am inspired by my fearless energy, open eyes, and naivety (although I think even at the time I was aware I was naive but I didn't care). All these feelings came back when I decided to watch a Netflix movie before bed and Every Step You Take popped up. I remember the Chorus Line movie and the Broadway Soundtrack (in vinyl form) from when I was little. I think I had both memorized (along with Gypsy and West Side Story - we were a Show tunes family).

Before I wanted to be an artist(visually) I wanted to dance. I grew up dancing. Not something everyone knows about me. I lived in my dance shoes and leotards. I don't remember a time I didn't dance. I even remember my dance recitals when I was 4. The yellow dress and corsage my Mom bought me to wear that night to make it special. The excitemement of the evening and the performance. I loved A Chorus Line because for me it represented the life I wanted. Watching that tonight in a documentary reminded me of why I came to NYC. I wanted to live in that excitement. I see the struggle the pain and energy in the audition. The pain and risk in following a dream. What it took for those dancers to live their dream in NYC during the 70's. New York has changed a lot since then. I didn't know NYC in the 70's because I moved here in the early 90's but I hear stories of the way it was. I think there was a lot of risk taking that was happening in the city in many professions but the arts seemed to be going through a huge change. I think when we reach a low or point in life where we can actually see the bottom coming it allows us some freedom. "What more can you lose". It is there that amazing things begin to happen. I felt that change in my life when I decided to become a single mom, and I think watching this documentary brings back the risk I took in moving to NYC, but also the risk so many people took who lived in NYC in the 70's as artists.

When I came to New York in the early 90's NYC had already gone through an enormous change but there was still an element of the art scene that was reachable and still about risk taking and pushing extremes not just about money and IV league schools. Sometimes I can still feel the energy that was once there like a ghost town still living in the streets- you can catch glimpses of it in architecture or less travelled streets.

When I turned 14 I was still dancing, but something else entered my life then. It was the year I fell in love with art...or rather the year art chose me. It wasn't so much a choice on my part. I think my heart was in dance. Dance made me escape and feel free and become someone else. Art possessed me and held me prisoner. Art was a different passion. It was darker and denser, and it took hold of me in a different way. When I was 14 my father gave me my first set of oils. To understand the importance of this completely you would have to understand my relationship with my father. It was not good. It was beyond not good. I'll leave it there for now. The importance of that gift goes deeper than a box of oils. I knew it then and I know it now, and it drew me in deeper to art. I knew then that I would learn to master it. I spent my days teaching myself how to draw and paint. I learned a lot in school but most of what I learned was through long hours locked away practicing. I painted paper, canvas, fabric, and when I ran out of that I painted my walls. I had a passion for art that was beyond my years and I think it scared me. I think I never allowed myself to be as good as I could be. I was always trying to tame it.

I finally made it to NYC at age 19. It was the early 90's and there was still an art scene although you could see it disappearing. SOHO was still where most of the galleries were. The East Village was still where most of the artists lived. I had an apartment on 14th and 1st that I shared with my amazing roommate Chris. I paid $400. I didn't have a phone and I sold tapes on St. Marks Place. I hung out in bars and with musicians and random people I met on the street or in the park. I walked all over Manhattan. I retraced the steps of several artists who lived there before me. I read that Martha Graham use to also walk from Downtown to Uptown because she couldn't afford the subway or bus fare nd I decided to do the same. It was an amazing time in my life.

So this movie is amazing because it reminds me of a time, but also it reminds me of this amazing quality that I am so lucky to share with other artists and people who follow their passion. I think I lost it for a bit, but am thankful to know it is still there...just buried a bit deeper. When you are lucky enough to be born with a talent and also have a passion for it so deep that you have no choice to follow it you experience something beyond the euphoria of drugs. Perhaps that is why so many artists turn to drugs. They lose the feeling and try to get it back. I think people can be obscenely talented but not passionate. When someone has that passion you sense it. You see it in their eyes. It doesnt matter that you can't pay your rent or find money for food. The act of creating or dancing or whatever it is fills you with so much energy you lose track of time. For me if I paint I lost time. The smell of turpentine and damp basements full of clay make me dizzy with hapiness. I can't get enough of it. I can work until my fingers cramp and bleed which they often use to when I was sculpting in those damp basements. New York has changed. It isn't what it use to be. The passion is still here but it is harder to find.

Stomach Massage on the Mat (because you have to look and work deeper then it appears)

• Balance on your tailbone with knees bent and shoulder-width apart, toes can rest lightly to the mat, reach forward with arms as you lift through the spine, tightening the connection from pubic bone to belly button
  
• Extend legs out in front as you twist upper body and follow one arm behind you. Keep arms atraight, inhale reverse twist, pull knees back in toward chest, tap mat with toes


• Repeat to other side

4 times each side

Being True to Yourself

The March weather is definitely helping my mood. I absolutely am aware of the fact that I suffer from weather conditions. Things are much more positive now.

The past few days, I have felt an inner drive and passion that I had put on hold over these long cold months. I also made a huge decision. I decided to go into private practice as an Art Therapist. I have been wanting to get back into it for a while now but fear has stopped me. Well, that and the sad fact that jobs in the field are not as available as when I left 2 years ago. I think a lot of the time I wait for the perfect opportunity, but sometimes that opportunity just never arrives and then we miss out.

This all came about when I was sitting in therapy discussing daily thing and everything else in life that was bothering me, but I wasn't feeling connected until I mentioned wanting to go back into practicing art. I became more emotional. My therapist pushed a bit deeper and I realized I really do want to go back into the field. I miss it. I miss art. I began, as I normally do, listing the practical reasons I could not return...the job market, the hours, the money, etc....and then my therapist said, "Well why don't you start a private practice?". Hmmm I couldn't think of why not. Well, I can-it's fear, but that's never been good enough to stop me. Suck in the fear and go on anyway.

So here I am now looking into space and posting my availability all over the place. I am terrified, but I also know I am ready. I am not leaving Pilates. I need that in my life too. But, it is definitely time to dive back into my career.

Funny enough, when I made the decision to truly follow through and move forward everything else fell into place. Over the past few years I have been trying to live as close to my true self as I can. I think there is a path for each of us and sometimes we ignore it and sometimes we follow it. For me when I ignore or fight the path I am meant to follow things tend to get off kilter and I feel I am caught in a struggle. I get depressed or life seems to throw rocks at me. When I finally get back on that right path life becomes simpler. I feel calmer and happier. I feel that way now. I think I was trying so hard to hold onto a life I thought I wanted. I knew Pilates was what I was good at and I threw all my passion and ideas into it, but maybe in doing so I ignored where I was suppose to be. I wrote another entry about my childhood decision to follow art instead of dance which explains this a bit more...it will follow this entry. I think we are always making choices and sometimes they don't make sense, but hopefully we are always following that feeling that is truest to who we are. It is mostly a quiet feeling, but I think it is possible to sense it. Sometimes it is scary to follow a path that seems to lead us in such a different direction than our logical brain can understand, but in the end if it is true and right we always feel better.

Follow your true path.

Open Leg Rocker

1. Sit up straight on sitz bones (bottom of butt), have knees bent

2. Slightly curl back to find balance between your Stiz bones and tailbone, keep the abdominals active.

3. Lift and extend one leg and then the other holding hands to ankles (or calfs), have legs shoulder width apart.

4. Find your balance here first

5. Inhale and roll back, use the abdominals to roll back to shoulders and then exhale up to starting position

Repeat 5 times