So I am at the doctors office. I’m waiting, my doctor is never on time, I’m not even sure why they always bother to inform me about her “running late” – I’m prepared, I even brought a book. I am however uninterested in this particular book so naturally my mind starts to wander and I am back to thinking about my impact on the world. And I start to reflect on my life; all the friends I’ve made and all the friends I’ve lost. All the food I’ve eaten and all the clothes and shoes I’ve worn and outgrew or simply grew bored and tired of. I think about it all and the impact I’ve left in the world.

I am not really ready to look into my impact on friends and family yet so let’s look into something less daunting shall we.

My thoughts have been circulating around my impact on the world a lot lately. Sometime, somewhere last year I started thinking about the very real impact that my life, mostly the consuming element of my life, was leaving on the world. After all this thinking this year I finally decided to put an end to the constant wondering when I decided to avoid all animal products in my food, in my clothing and in whatever element of life I was going through.

If I’m honest I haven’t really struggled so much with the food element, except for a few social events when I’ve felt like I needed to over explain a lot of myself I haven’t really struggled. I really do miss having salmon sashimi but not to an extent where I feel like a major part of my life has been cut out, I can still enjoy sushi and good food without any of the animals that I used to consume. The biggest conundrum for me has been all my stuff.

Now I don’t necessarily have a lot of stuff but I have stuff. Stuff I have acquired prior to wanting to shop more ethically (and not at all) and stuff I bought before I knew that the fast fashion industry is one of earths biggest polluting industries and that they are also a leader in exploitation since most of their clothes are made by underpaid employees (most of whom are women) working in terrible work conditions.

So I am trying to reconcile my new found knowledge and my stuff. My approach to existing more ethically is simply by consuming less. I’ve decided to stop buying stuff. Truth be told I don’t need more stuff, the stuff I have is more than enough and I am content with most, if not all, of it. So I’ve been trying to decide what is more ethical for me at this point: do I get rid of all my clothes that were made unethically and start from scratch? Or do I accept that my clothes were bought in ignorance and eliminate the need for new clothes and ride these until the seams fall off?

What do I do? I don’t know. If I’m honest I am taking the option that will involve not consuming anymore stuff. I’m not fine with my prior ignorance in purchasing these clothes, far from it, but I am also not willing to have more stuff made in order to replace all my other stuff. Making stuff takes energy. For now I think keeping my bad stuff and not buying anymore stuff is my best option? At least until I find a way of disposing of it in a less harmful way.

How do you dispose of bad stuff anyway? Is it ethically sound to donate clothing made badly, by people who worked in atrocious conditions to someone less fortunate? Why must that person carry the burden of my stuff and my ignorance?

This is post that has no answers. I just needed to get these words out. Maybe by reading them I’ll find a solution or maybe someone out there knows something that can help me?

I did something radical today. Maybe radical is a bit of an exaggeration but for me it certainly felt like a radical thing. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I got a car and started working in 2017. Today, on the 19th of March 2019 (two years later after dreaming of all of this) I took nap in my car during lunch.

This seems like a not so big deal but for me it was because it stemmed from something I have been practising and trying to implement a lot lately and taking a nap in my car has been a pretty big deal to me for a while. I have always been of the belief that we all need a nap during the day, something short, something simple, something to help us recuperate somewhere during the day and find the calm and centre we usually have a few minutes after waking up. You know what I am talking about, those few hours (or minutes) of a day when you feel well rested, ready to tackle the events of the day and you are feeling alive both with possibilities and in a more practical sense in that your lungs are filled with air for yet another day? That is one of my most favourite feelings because I happen to be a morning person and someone who feels really good and motivated when I wake up early in the morning.

So back to this great nap I took and why this simple thing took me so long. It all goes back to what I wrote about a while back about the shoes. These two things seem unrelated but when one takes a closer look it all has the common golden thread that was my desire to please others. Even though most times this option has always sort of been available to me I have resisted doing it based on what I thought others would think of me if I chose to enjoy my lunch alone with a book or followed by a nap. I always assumed that people would think I am rude and stuck up or that I saw myself above them or their conversation, I am not quite sure how I reached these rationalisations but I did and after I did I let them keep from doing a lot and napping in my car was one of those things.

Lately I have been trying to check in a lot with myself and what feels good to me. This was inspired by a lot but most recently (yesterday to be exact) I discovered it via a yogi on YouTube (Yoga by Adriene on Youtube) who encourages one to “do what feels good” when practising yoga. I think this a terrific concept for life especially for those of us who go through life just simply doing because it is socially acceptable or because of some deep seated desire to be liked that has as a result made us disconnected from what we actually like and who we actually are. And so I have been asking myself this a lot lately: Does it look good on you? Does it feel good on you? Does it taste good you? Does it make sense to you? Does being here feel good to you? Stopping throughout my day and asking myself these questions is giving me some meaning to my days and consequently to my life that I never knew was missing. It is also helping me be more honest about things I have no interest in doing because I am slowly realising that something NOT feeling good is a good enough reason for me not to do whatever that thing is.

Asking myself if something feels good has added consciousness to my mind, body and somehow my soul as well which I have recently decided to feed more (a blog for another day). Of course this does not give me permission to be reckless in my interactions with myself and others. There needs to be some boundaries. Doing what feels good does not mean that I disregard anyone else’s feelings or efforts, it does not mean that I am self-harming in my desire to be a hedonist only eating dessert despite the consequences of sugar on my health. Doing what feels good does not mean living life selfishly but rather living life consciously. Doing what feels good means added awareness to what makes you feel joyous and alive as opposed to what moves your day along. Sometimes what feels good is eating lunch in company, sharing stories and laughing full heartedly. Other times it means having your lunch at your desk because you are doing work that is both fulfilling and nourishing to your mind and body. And in some very particular instances doing what feels good means having lunch in your car listening to a podcast you’ve listened to many times before, taking a nap and waking up refreshed and inspired to write something for your blog.

If you haven’t done this lately maybe now is the time to do it. Maybe now is the time to check in and ask your body if it’s feeling good. Start at the top of your head all the way down to your feet. Is your mind feeling good or is it calling for a break? Are your shoulders feeling good or are they tensed up? Is your stomach feeling good or does it need a little TLC? Are your feet feeling good or do they need to be planted a little more? Is your body feeling good or do you need to find balance? Stop today and ask your body, mind and soul if they are feeling good, you will be surprised at the responses you get.

I’ve always been scared of reading books that are deemed classics, more so books that are deemed classics and happen to be written by black women.

For as long I could I avoided reading anything by Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and up until today I have yet to bring myself to read “The Colour Purple” mostly because the movie has haunted me so much with it’s perfection that I am simply afraid what will happen if I even look in the direction of the book.

Of course every time I have read these classic books written by phenomenal writers who happen to be black women I have been blown away and have devoured each and every single word never stopping and coming up for air.

Zola Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is at the top of the list of books I’ve been terrified to read and I am finally breaking my fear and daring to finally let Ms Hurston tell me her story. I am ready to meet the characters, I am excited to get lost in their worlds and I am looking forward to falling in love the way so many before me have fallen in love with this book.

I had deemed 2018 the year of bravery and to my memory throughout the whole year I tried my best to ask myself if I was being brave in whatever I did. At the beginning of this year I had decided that this is the year of finishing things off and to a large extent it will be that for me. Some things I cannot avoid finishing off, for example my twenties, that is simply time and that is something that I welcome with bated breath. I have decided that this year will also be the year of not allowing myself to hide behind any excuses. So I stopped saying I don’t have time and I am finally learning French, I have stopped saying I am not flexible enough and I have conceded to the yoga mat calling my name, and I am finally ready to get lost in worlds that are rich in beauty and that require me to rise above my intellectual laziness.

So here’s to reading and getting lost in books – you know like back in the day when we used to read without the need to blog about it first.

🙂

I started doing yoga a while back and I’m really mediocre at it.

I have to say this because the fact that I was not perfect the first day I stepped onto a mat after nearly twelve years came as a shock in a way that such a thing would shock someone like me. See I am one of those people who tends to be hard on myself when I attempt something for the first time and I am not 100% great at it.

I am shying away from the term “perfectionist” because it’s a word that makes me uncomfortable, it’s always made me feel uncomfortable. Even in instances when I was in the presence of people who I deemed to perfectionists I always felt really uneasy, as though they were counting every step I took just to tell me how I’d faltered in some way.

Of course I was projecting – most people are too busy dealing with the voices in their heads that they don’t even notice anyone else’s anything let alone whether or not they are planking correctly during a class. Anyway, I was telling you about yoga.

So I started doing yoga and it’s been really hard on me for a number of reasons the biggest two being the following:

I am team all in. I tend to throw myself into new things. I get all absorbed in it, it’s all I can talk about and think about for a long time and then the worst thing happens – I obsess about it so much that I want to do it every minute until I turn it into a chore. I noticed myself doing this with yoga and I am trying to stop myself from turning it into something ugly because I really like yoga. I like yoga like I like spinach and broccoli in that not only do I know that they are good for me but I genuinely enjoy them. Yoga makes me feel free, yoga makes me feel intentional (a big goal of mine), yoga makes me feel like I am doing something right and most importantly yoga reminds me to pause, take a deep breath and try to touch a higher level of myself.

I think in today’s world we all forget to stop and fill our lungs all the way to the brim and be grateful for the fact that we are still able to do that. We are always chasing the next thing; the next great job, the next opportunity, the next like, the next difficult pose, the next anything really. And I am no different. I like to run. I like to chase, I like to challenge myself, and I like to try and do more than my arms can hold or handle. Yoga reminds me that at the end of it there are only a handful of things, of values and of people that are deserving of the tight grips and tight hugs and that it all starts in my lungs. In every breath I carry my community, in every inhale I take in love and in every exhale I release love into into those who I hold dearly. So I am holding yoga very lightly, and trying my best to avoid squeezing the life out of it by obsessing and trying to be perfect.

Breathing. Pausing. Letting go. Every now and then throughout my day I have to softly remind myself to unclench my jaw. Sometimes I do it for a second then resume the clenching and other times my jaw remains unclenched for at least a solid five minutes. Either way it’s important for me because this little statement pushes me to interrogate exactly why my feet are constantly curled, why back is tightly wound and why my jaw is tense even when I am doing the menial task. Yoga is forcing me to sit, for at least thirty minutes and breathe and I appreciate that.

I appreciate being forced to breathe in an obvious way. I go through an entire day breathing but I never stop acknowledging it. I never stop to take stock on all that I am dealing with, I just sort of just deal and keep it moving. Which is raises the question of whether or not I am aware of what I am doing throughout my day or whether I am simply existing in a constant mode of autopilot. Yoga helps me pause, reflect and take stock off all I’ve done that day. And the best thing about it is that the number of times I get told to “relax my shoulders” is an extra reminder to simultaneously unclench my jaw and it’s always great to outsource.

I think the point of this post was to do what yoga is teaching me which is;

“Forget perfection, get on the mat” and I applying to that to my writing and journaling. Even if the words aren’t the best words to ever be put to paper – writing is better than not writing. It always feels good.

“Are you okay sis?” which is a reminder for myself to check in and be intentional with my actions even with my breath which seems pretty easy when you think about it but it’s actually not.

And lastly but definitely not least “not all that seems important is actually important” – something I’ve been trying to meditate on for 2019, digging deep within myself and finding what really matters.

Maybe yoga will help me with that, maybe it won’t be yoga and I’ll discover it one day sitting on my couch eating chocolate coated coconut flakes either way I am certainly enjoying breathing easy and taking stock of each day in downward dog, the world looks different from this angle.

🙂

I am on a social media break. I wonder if I can call it that seeing as how it’s been three months since I decided to cut back from social media and all it’s temptations.

Somewhere towards the end of 2018 I realised just how many of my decisions were actually adopted from someone else’s page or social media feed. The books I read, the music I listened to and the interests I threw myself into. Most of them were dictated by some stranger on the internet.

I think one of the pros of the internet is that we all have access to information. Whether it be through a trusted news sources, an article found on google scholar or a really attractive woman’s Instagram page – information is out there and with that comes the obvious temptation to consume and take it all in. The danger in doing this is that it also encourages us to be lazy in our thoughts and opinions, it allows us more room to follow and it fosters an environment where being the so-called black sheep is the worst thing you can possibly be.

I started noticing that my self-awareness was starting to chip off a bit as I deferred some key opinions to other people on the internet.

This of course doesn’t happen to all of us; some of us have the ability to see social media and the rest of the internet for what it is – a big blue ocean of information whereby careful discernment is necessary prior to drinking from the fountain. And I used to think of myself as one of these people until I started noticing some changes in how I made decisions big and small. I’d walk into the bookshop and I’d reach for books whose covers I recognised from my social media feed. I’d deliberately search and listen to music I saw propped up online as revolutionary and I’d never really stop and ask myself if I really enjoyed the melodies, what about the words? The meaning of the song? Was I truly listening or was I finding noise to fill my mind. I saw myself skim through articles, jump to the end to confirm an opinion I’d already seen a few minutes before on my twitter stream. It became a lot, I was wondering if there was any semblance of authenticity left in me. I needed to find that out for myself, I needed to discover what I liked, what my opinions were and whether they would stand solidly without the backing of followers and faux friends.

I needed my mind to get lean. I wanted small decisions such as “which music should I listen to” and big decisions such as the decision to cut down on animal products to be more mentally strenuous. I wanted to work for my decisions, I wanted to be intentional in my consumption and most importantly I wanted to create in a way and space that did not have outside opinions seeping through the cracks and killing any chance of authenticity.

I wanted a lot and I needed a break and so I took one.

As I get a bit further in my break I hope to write more on the benefits I am experiencing from spending a bit more time inside my head, with my head calling the shots and making big and small decisions autonomously.

For now, I just wanted to write this down for myself, and anyone else who needs it, just a small reminder to get me through on the days when I am wandering and I miss the quick fulfillment that comes with over consumption; a reminder to take a breath, ask myself why, to look within myself, find the answer somewhere deep in the pits of my intuition and make an intentional decision from there.