Fire Up February

Okay. It’s 2019, but the glitter of a new year is all rubbed off, and the winter and the routine has set back in. We had massive high hopes for what we’d accomplish and how much we’d change this year, and maybe we’re stuck in the same habits and distractions as before. I get it. Maybe you wanted to try something new, and you got scared and chickened out. I’m not here to judge you about it, I did for sure. But I do have an offering for us that might restore a bit of confidence and delight in ourselves, that will teach us to care for ourselves because self-care is a joy, not a burden or a to-do item. If winter’s starting to grind on you, and you want a resource to help you find your way through it, I hope you’ll join me for #FireUpFebruary.

Fire Up February is a month-long yoga challenge I’m hosting on Instagram centering how yoga and pranayama can be a tool for supporting women’s health. Starting on February 1, I’ll post a short how-to video of postures, and though the sequence is designed to support women at various stages of health and in their cycle, the postures and practices are suitable for anyone who’s looking for some asana inspiration.

The schedule breaks down like this:

Week One February 1-7 Essential Postures

These are poses that are good for anyone at any time of the month, and are accessible from beginners to seasoned yogis. These poses offer balance, strength, poise, flexibility, and expansion.

Week Two February 8-14 Vigorous Postures

These are poses that are more challenging or sophisticated: arm balances, inversions, deeper backbends, and postures that put the spine through more a complex range of motion. Newer yogis attempting these poses should listen to their body, work slowly, and seek the guidance of a seasoned and trusted teacher if any questions or concerns arise.

Week Three February 15-21 Prenatal Postures

While Week One postures are safe for expectant people, these poses are especially modified for pregnant folx. Be sure to have a wall nearby, a sturdy, non-slip chair, and a block or two for extra support.

Week Four February 22-28 Restorative Postures

These poses are for anyone who needs a little extra rest or softness. You’ll find they use more props than some of the others—bolsters or pillows, blocks and blankets, and a chair. While in the video I’m in them for only a brief moment, you should feel free to linger in them as long as you like.

Bonus Material

In addition to the postures you’ll find on IG, every week, I’ll be posting a brief how-to video featuring a pranayama or dhyana (mental concentration) technique here that pairs with its corresponding week. So plan to check back here every week for additional content to help support your practice.

How can you stay involved? Comment on the videos with questions, concerns, victories, or lessons as you practice these poses with me, or comment here weekly on the pranayama techniques. Tag me and use the Hashtag #FireUpFebruary when you upload content on IG. These are all ways to connect with other folx who are interested in using this practice to support their physical, mental, and emotional health.

I hope this February challenge gives us the chance to dig deep and slough off some of the winter doldrums that can come with the snowy, cloudy days. I hope it can teach us all to listen deeply to our bodies. Rather than pushing with our egos, or with our sense of obligation, I hope we can unroll our mats, and if only for a few minutes a day tune in to our bodies and our needs. What a gift to have a body you can take care of: let’s treat it like the marvelous, complex, miraculous place that it is.

Come with me.

31 Days of Black Minimalism: Week 4

I woke up from a dream this morning, in which I was eating plastic. Literally. I'd eaten a takeout container or two, and a couple of those black, plastic spoons they have on the salad bars and hot bars at grocery stores. They were in shards and small pieces inside me, taking up a lot of space, but I knew and could feel that I wasn't being nourished. I was afraid of what would happen when I tried to... eliminate, and was sure that all that plastic was going to tear the insides of my bowels apart.

So my body knows, my subconscious knows. I'm not eating well. This is due to a number of factors: my routine, and my struggle to work it in the most efficient way so I continue to nourish myself; choices I've made about how to eat, which mean I don't just throw any old thing into my mouth; the unique bouquet of cravings and samskaras that have a solid grip on the choices I make, especially when I'm too stressed or tired to do better; previous programming, which is loosening its grip with each passing day. Whatever the case, feeding myself is sometimes a challenge.

Wow. I'm an adult. Like, I have a mortgage, I've been married for years, I had to sue somebody once-adult. And I'm still having to wrestle with making sure I eat the way I want to: eat food that tastes good, that doesn't harm my body, and doesn't harm others or the planet. What I eat has been a source of contention between me and other people. Lucky for me I share my home with a man who doesn’t really mind what I eat, so long as I’m choosing to eat, and not stuck in a pattern of eating my feelings, and so long as I’m relatively healthy. I don’t get crap from him about choosing not to eat animals who are… harmed* before they’re killed in order to put food on plates. I don’t get mocked by my partner, which is more than I can say for other members of my family. But that’s a different story for a different day. (And if you want to hear it, you can find it on this page, at least until I get bumped off this podcast.)

I take a lot of pleasure in eating. Being both gluten free and vegan means I get to be creative about how I eat. It doesn’t take much work for my meals not to taste like rabbit food, but still, I get to have a lot of fun considering how I’ll compose breakfast or dinner in such a way that it’s healthy and interesting.

Eating like a minimalist is challenging for me. I like to spend time making food. I like meals with lots of different, even fancy, ingredients. Now, I haven’t found any clear manual about what minimalist eating is, and frankly, I’m not sure how interested I am. I understand that the fewer ingredients in food generally the healthier it is, and generally the fewer apparatuses its touched the easier it’ll be for me to digest. But minimalist eating is… hard to pin down.

I think not only am I struggling to figure out what it means to engage in minimalist eating, but the controlling nature of eating this way makes me feel a bit unstable. I feel like I’m tiptoeing toward disordered eating, a landscape I’ve been in before (hard to imagine any woman in America hasn’t been there before). It took me months to finish this blog post because the week or so that I spent experimenting with this practice was triggering. I couldn’t reflect on it because I didn’t like the way it felt. Finally, after some distance and time, and the capacity to remember that nourishing doesn’t mean processed crap, but also doesn’t mean two baby peas, three grains of rice, and a thimble full of hummus for lunch—after all that, I can write that I’m happy eating the way I do, even if it’s not always convenient, or even understandable, to others, and that while I can try not to be wasteful about it, I can also be creative without compromising my minimalism.

Look at this.

I was recently at Union Theological Seminary, and as a part of their swag bag, they gave me this reusable utensil set. A sustainably grown bamboo fork, knife, spoon AND chopstick set all housed in this pouch made of recycled water bottles. I was just knocked out by it: that is some ecological justice, right there! I carry it in my bag (so long as it fits) wherever I go, and I don’t have to worry about using plastic unnecessarily. I Love It!

So, minimalism at the table is tricky. The next step for me isn’t about eating less, or controlling my calories or portions more; it’s about making sure I buy and take only what I know I will eat, using what I buy, and wasting as little as possible. That will be a tough and exciting challenge.