Sankalpas for 2018

At lunch last week, my co-worker was telling me about her yoga retreat in Costa Rica. It sounded like an amazing experience, albeit one I have no desire to partake in; but what really interested me was the idea of a sankalpa. During the retreat, they had everyone tell their life story and then with the lessons learned from their stories they were to create a sankalpa, or resolve, for the rest of the retreat. 

A sankalpa is an intention from the heart and mind that you vow to yourself and repeat three times at the beginning of any yoga practice or meditation - ideally it should be done each day. By making and repeating the vow you are bringing a positive change to your life and making your sankalpa a truth in your world. It should be a short phrase or sentence and begin with "I am." Unlike a New Year resolution, this does not come from the idea that you aren't good enough and need to make a change to be better; instead the sankalpa is a declaration of your core beliefs and what you will use to guide your choices. 
After hearing all of this, and doing a fair amount of reading on the internet - I was sold. In lieu of a resolution, I was going to be making a sankalpa. Well two actually, as there are two kinds. The first is a statement you make about something which is already in place, and the second is the to set a specific intention or goal, which you have to aim for.

All my reading advised to meditate and spend a few days thinking about my life and where I want to go. I still struggle with meditating, but I have spent a lot of time this past year thinking about both of these things, so the first sankalpa came pretty easy to me: "I am at peace with myself." I almost went with "I am me," but the first seemed to be a bit more along the lines with the philosophy behind the practice. After everything I have been through the past few years and all the work I have put in to my life this past year, this statement is the most pure and true reflection of where I am in my life. I know who I am - strengths, weaknesses - I accept and respect the whole package. It wasn't easy to get there, but I have gotten there and truly am at peace with who I am. I also accept and respect that this may change, as I continue to grow and change as a person, but at this moment - "I am at peace with myself."

For number two, I struggled a bit not to turn this into a resolution or a focus on something that I saw as a lacking. I wanted it to be something that was right form me and that I could benefit from holistically, and not some specific goal that would restrict me in what I am hoping to achieve this. So after some reflection, and some googling on creating your sankalpa, I settled on "I am happy and open to whatever life may offer me." For me this is a great intention to challenge myself this year and open myself up to new possibilities. I am a planner, down to my very toes; and the idea behind this intention is to be open to not having control or a plan. Leaving behind 2017 and walking into 2018, I don't think anything else could benefit me quite as much as saying "I am happy and open to whatever life may offer me."

With that, my sanklapas are made for 2018, "I am at peace with myself" and "I am happy and open to whatever life may offer me," and have been repeated three times to set the intentions. And now I wish you all a safe and peaceful 2018 and if you are up for it - go ahead and make your own sankalpas in lieu of the traditional resolution. Let's start 2018 focusing on our strengths instead of our weaknesses. 

This is Christmas

For me, Christmas is seeing the palm trees wrapped up like candy canes in Christmas lights. I may be from Wisconsin, but growing up in Florida gave me a whole different view of what Christmas feels like and until I see those trees, it isn't really the season. As it is 73 degrees outside right now, you can safely assume that I am in Florida and fully in the Christmas spirit, and as such I wanted to do a self-indulgent post about what else Christmas is to me...

Christmas is spending two days with K. before I head down to my parents' house. Two days filled with Chick-fil-a, margaritas, walks, shopping, lounging on the world's most comfortable couch (Sorry G., the replacement will never be the same), watching 90's movies, and gossiping.

Christmas is dinner with my parents and K. and G., where we eat too much and everyone fights over the check. It is my dad pretending to be shocked that I have already bought a pair of shoes and listening to me and mom wine-drunk chatter the entire 2-hour ride to Venice. 

Christmas is getting to my childhood home and being greeted by two big, happy dogs who attack me with kisses and toys. It is watching Opie destroy the Big Lots toy I bought with K. and watching Porter walk around with his new prize. It is giving scratches to Boscoe and more big sloppy kisses from Opie. It is Porter jumping up and grabbing his bone as soon as I say I am going to bed and then walking me to the bedroom where he promptly settles in for the night at the foot of the bed in case I wake up and decide I need a dog to protect me. (Yes, he does this every night.) 

Christmas is spending a week with my parents where we play tourist in the town I grew up in - trying new restaurants, driving around looking at Christmas lights, and taking walks on the beach, on main street, and through the neighborhood. It is lying on the couch watching Lethal Weapon (all of them), Die Hard, Uncle Buck, Christmas Vacation, and however many cheesy Hallmark movies dad will put up with. It is making eggnog, cookies and pies, and all the food dad and I can think of. It is mom making all my favorite meals that I won't dare keep in my apartment - ribs, meatloaf, pot roast, meat balls, and biscuits and gravy. It is dad and I doing our annual treks to hit up all the ice cream parlors in town and at least one breakfast joint - just the two of us. It is mom and I wondering through as many malls as we can and then making a round through TJ Maxx, Bealles, Stein Mart, Target, and the Wally-World. Christmas is the three of us drinking wine and eating so many apps that we can't even touch our dinner. It is mom making me clean out old boxes filled with the treasurers of my youth and me finding all the notes and letters from friends over the years (all the way back to middle school...I may be a hoarder) and laughing and texting my friends as I read through them. It is my parents making me drive the car and dad trying to give me directions to the mall -thanks, I think I know that one. It is sitting on the porch listening to Down Home Cooking and reading a book while they do the last of their work. It is waking up on Christmas Eve and drinking nog-spiked coffee with our breakfast before taking a walk on the beach and coming home to a huge breakfast before delivering nog to the neighbors. It is opening one present before going to midnight mass at 7:30 pm, because it is Florida and 7:30 pm is just like midnight. It is waking up on Christmas morning and having more nog-spiked coffee while opening presents and then eating all day and embarking on another movie marathon.   

So for me, this is Christmas. It is low key and relaxing, it is a total indulgence of gluttony and slothness, it is full of dog fur and sloppy kisses and mostly warm and fuzzy family time; and I look forward to it all year long. As I settle into my last days of vacation and before I start downing that nog - let me take this moment to wish you and yours a joyous holiday season. And no matter what the season means to you, I hope you find peace in your holiday traditions (or in the copious amounts of booze you partake in)!

Dating Should Be Fun

Friday was date night. Which in my world either means Frasier and Dominos or some activity that is better suited to teenagers. As such, we went to the trampoline park. After an hour and a half of playing dodge ball, diving onto an airbag, pretending to be gladiators on a balance beam, and racing around - we called it a success and did one more lap across the park, before limping off the trampolines. While changing for dinner, I started chatting with a teenager in the bathroom and we got on the subject of dating. Naturally, I felt honored bound to impart some dating advice to her and shockingly enough she thought it was brilliant....she may have been pandering to me because she couldn't clean the bathroom until I left, but I am going with rapt attention...

So here was my advice: Dating should be fun and should afford you opportunities to actually get to know someone. Dating isn't hard, it is just answering the question, "Do I want to be with you?" If no, then move on. But if yes, then date some more, learn some more and add a "still" to the sentence and keep repeating the process. The problem is that we over complicate and add pressure to something that should be simple and in doing so, we take the fun out of it. Dating has become an over scheduled cycle of drinks and dinners with everyone telling their same story over and over again until it is robotic sales pitch. Which is where my advice comes in, bring the fun back. 

After that first yes, get out of the cycle and go do something together. For clarification: I am not advocating that you go hike in the woods on a second date - because no one needs to get murdered; but go bowling or mini-golfing. Do an activity together and if it is slightly ridiculous, that is even better because it makes for a better story and puts you both on even footing. When you do an activity like this you end up learning a lot about the person, but what you are learning is the stuff that that isn't on their standard script. You see how they act when put in a situation that may be a bit uncomfortable (hello, having to hit the golf ball 8 times on the first hole that has a par 3); you see how they handle competition (sore loser, or laugh it off); you see if they can embrace the silly (do they start counting strokes in a different language at each hole); and you get to see how the conversation can flow when not practiced. In other words you get to know the real person, and hopefully you get to have a ton of fun - because trust me, these are fun activities and dating.should.be.fun! Plus, if you kick your partner's butt you get to do a completely undignified victory dance ...or if you are like me and lose, you will get to blackmail them forever with video footage of that undignified victory dance. Either way, a good time.

I know it is simple advice, and for those of you not in the trenches it may seem silly, but for those of us out there dating - this is a game changer. You will learn so much more about a person over an activity than you will over 4 of those yawn filled dinners. And if you find a keeper, you may score a nice dinner with a whole new level of conversation as a consolation prize for getting you butt kicked.