Unavailable Guy is like a busy signal on a phone...JUST HANG UP.

So there are the Nice Guys and there are the Bad Boys.  Girls will always say how they always go for Bad Boys, or guys always say Nice Guys finish last.

There is another type of Guy.  And this is the guy that I’m always seeming to go for.  It is the Unavailable Guy.  Now there are subcategories of the Unavailable Guy.  There’s the obvious one, Emotionally Unavailable Guy, who always has an excuse as to why he can’t commit to a relationship.  Someone in the past shattered him, his parents had a messy divorce, etc, etc. 

Then there is the Physically Unavailable Guy.  You meet someone, hit it off and low and behold, he doesn’t live here, but visits all the time, or semi-regularly, or he travels all the time for work, but wants to stay in contact because “you’re just awesome”.

Either way, Mr. Unavailable has trained himself, either consciously or subconsciously to only give a portion of himself, of the true awesome person is.  Unavailable Guys are not Bad Boys, they’re just messed up guys.  And no matter what you do, you cannot help them to become Available Guys.  They will only become Available Guys when they feel it’s their time.  But, these guys will continue to keep a hold on you because you make them feel good and special and cared about, even though they cannot give you the same in return.   

Here’s the kicker though...women that are attracted to Unavailable Guy, aren't actually available either! When we habitually date men that are unavailable, it's because deep down, we don't want to put our heart completely on the line and when everything goes wrong, as it ultimately does with these Guys, it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you know me, you know my history of relationships.  Thankfully, it went from worse to slightly better and not the other way around....but still.  Abusive first relationship that took YEARS to get rid of, followed by a doll of a man, who was regrettably more like a man-child.  And all in between and around that was the ultimate Mr. Unavailable.

If you’ve watched Sex in the City...like all 6 seasons...I LITERALLY WAS CARRIE...with my very own MR. BIG...BUT...as we all know, it’s a t.v. show and life doesn’t end up with the guy saying “it’s always been you” at the end...just.doesn’t.happen.  Lol.

I allowed myself to be in a 9 year off and on “relationship” with Mr. Unavailable.  It was painful on the whole, but it was easier than putting myself out there to something real. 

I’ve learned a lot about who I am, and who I want to be, over the past 2 years.  I’ve kept people in my life because they are teaching me about myself, when others think I should let them go.  I like that I am a forgiving and loving person.  I don’t see it as being stepped on, or disrespected to continue to have friendships with people who have hurt me, yet molded and shaped me into the person I am today.  These people do not get to continually hurt me though, let me be clear about that.  I get to see my strength every day in the knowledge that I am a better person, and the people I have in my life also get to see my growth.

I’m ready to step out from all Mr. Unavailables and move into Nice Guy territory.

...my question then becomes, where do you find a nice guy?

Scent Free

Hello, my name is Stephanie, and I have scent allergies.

This is a relatively new issue in the world today.  Some people with scent allergies affect their skin (hives, rash), others it affects their lungs (closes up, can't breathe), for me, scents give me migraines. 

Now anyone who has had a migraine understands the pain that goes along with this.  They can be dibilitating.  For those of you who have never had a migraine, you probably think it's no worse than a headache, and "suck it up princess".

My scent allergies have been getting progressively worse over the past 6 years, ever since I quit smoking.  It is to the point now where I have to leave house parties, baby showers, weddings, work functions, because the minute I smell a reactive perfume/cologne/body spray, my throat will close up for a minute and then I start to feel the ache behind my eyes and a stabbing pain in the back of my skull. 

I have coworkers who don't believe there is such a thing as a scent allergy and therefore REFUSE to stop wearing whatever product it may be that has a scent.  I work in a scent sensitive environment.  It is not a scent free environment because the public is constantly coming in and it is really hard to regulate the general population.  Also, you can't tell someone they cant come to their court proceeding because they've worn perfume or cologne.  BUT, the people that WORK in the building, should have enough respect for people with allergies to not wear scented products!!!  

If there was a person who worked with you, that you knew had a severe peanut allergy, it would be mandated that no peanuts were to be brought to work, and everyone would follow that ruling for fear of killing their coworker!  But because scent allergies are so new, people think it's a joke, or just don't care.

I love yoga. It has literally changed my life, who I am, how I react to my environment and people in it.  My yoga studio is SCENT FREE.  This means, there should be no scents worn to the studio.  Not scent sensitive, scent free! 

I can understand if it's the end of the day, and you've just completed work, and you come to the studio straight from work, that there may be trace odor of your perfume/cologne/body spray left behind from the day.  But you don't have to then spray yourself again, prior to coming into the scent free studio.  What I don't understand is the mindset of someone who wakes up on a weekend for an early morning class and PUTS ON a perfume to come to a scent free studio?!? 

There have been numerous occasions where I had to leave a class because of a scent permeating the studio.  One of my biggest triggers, in particular, is patuli oil.  This is a common ingredient in a lot of perfumes/colognes/body sprays.  If you don't know what this smells like, imagine cat pee mixed with weed...and you've got patuli oil.   Some people will put patuli into their moisturizer to help with psoriasis.  Some people just like the smell...

If I could do something to get rid of my scent allergies (like take a pill) I would do it in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately there is no treatment for scent allergies known as yet.  So I suffer at the hands of those at my work who don't believe they should have to change their ways because of my condition.  And I miss out on my bliss at yoga....

I understand that scent allergies is a new condition and not a very understood one, but on behalf of allergy sufferers everywhere, PLEASE, follow the rules!  Whether it's an office building, a hospital or a yoga studio, consider that you may come in contact with someone like me and leave the scented products at home!

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/fragrance-allergies-a-sensory-assault?page=1
maybe the above link will help you understand a little bit more...maybe not...

I knew there was a six pack hiding under there!

I was always a skinny girl, short & tiny.  And then in 2008 I had a hysterectomy.  As great as the after affects of having no uterus are, the recovery from that surgery was horrible.  I couldn’t do anything for 8 or 9 weeks.  Needless to say, I gained weight.  And even after those 9 weeks, I couldn’t do any regular form of exercise because it just felt weird and painful on my stomach.

From 2008 to 2009 I tried Turbo Jam.  Which was fun at first and worked the hell out of my ass.  But it got boring doing videos in my living room by myself.  I tried going to the gym, but I always felt completely out of place.

In October 2009 I found Moksha Yoga.  I fell in love.  In love with the place, with the people, with the practice.  I found a calmer me, a happier me, a fulfilled me.  I also dropped 2 pants sizes by Christmas 2009, so needless to say....veeeery happy!

From December 2009 to October 2010 I felt my body shifting.  Gaining lean muscle in areas I didn’t have it before.  Being able to do a full flow, chaturunga to up dog and not feel like I’m going to fall on my face or belly flop down is amazing.  Eventually I’ll be doing headstands...or so the lovely Lauren tells me...

I have not lost any more weight though. Well, I know I have, lost weight, and gained muscle mass, but still, I was looking to trim down.  Go down from a size 8 pant to a 6 or 4 (wishful thinking).

So I’m not big, by any means.  And most people were pretty surprised when I told them at the end of October I weighed 148 pounds.  I’m 5'2.  I do have a lot of leg muscle, not much upper body muscle, but yeah, 148 pounds at 5'2 is considered overweight.

So a few friends of mine in Ontario have been promoting Body By Vi through their Facebook and losing weight rapidly and loving their lives.  They got me involved.  I joined, not only as a customer, but as a distributor in Nova Scotia.

The Body By Vi 90 Day Challenge involves drinking 2 shakes a day as meal replacements and then eating one healthy third meal.  Let me just say right now, if I hadn’t seen the results for myself on other people on the challenge I wouldn’t have done it.  I’m a skeptic when it comes to shake meal replacements.  But then I tried the shakes!  It’s a powder.  You can mix it with any form of liquid.  Juice, milk, soy or almond milk, water, tea, coffee...there are HUNDREDS of recipes so you never get bored.  Butterfinger, Reese PB Cup, Chai Tea, Ice Capp...need I say more?  Throw it in your blender with some fresh or frozen fruit...good god, I’m thirsty just thinking about it!

I started my Challenge in the last week in October.  It is now the last week in November.  I AM DOWN 10 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!   Not only do I look better.  I FEEL better!!  I have more energy.  My yoga practice has so much more strength behind it!!  My IBS is completely under control (between these shakes and the regular yoga practice...it is gone!)

I was getting ready for work this morning, searching through my closet in my bra and panties and caught sight of myself in the mirror and actually said “holy crap!” out loud!  I had to stop what I was doing and just look at my body!! 

I know that it is a combination of my Body By Vi Challenge, and my 30 Day Yoga Challenge that has gotten me this far, but I know that it’s BBV that kick started the weight loss again.

I still have 2 more months in my 90 Day Challenge and I can’t wait to see what I look and feel like at the end of January!!

http://stephanieolive.bodybyvi.com

You grew a moustache....I did Yoga

Day 29 of 30.

I was supposed to blog throughout this whole month long challenge, but that didn’t work out so well.

First off, yoga took over my life.  When I wasn’t doing yoga, I was doing laundry to have something to wear to yoga. 

Before this challenge, I tried to get to yoga 4 or 5 times a week.  I didn’t realize the difference between 5 and 7 times a week!  It was hard.  There were days where I hurt so bad that I didn’t want to go.  There were days that I went with such bad sciatic pain I couldn’t do a forward fold but rather the flat back, hands to shins, that you’re supposed to come UP out of the forward fold to!

I started to feel sick at the midway mark.  Like my skin hurt on my muscles kind of sick, nauseousness, just plain icky.  Then I received an email from the lovely Estelle telling me that a lot of people get sick during a 30 Day Challenge because you’re pushing yourself so hard and your body isn’t used to it.  She told me to just come to class and if I had to, lay in savasana the whole time.  Well I didn’t lay in it the WHOLE time, but there were a couple classes near the end that my back was flat on that mat when everyone else was flying in dancer’s pose.  To be fair to myself, these times were during a second, back-to-back yoga class after going all out in the first hour!

One of my yogi sisters said to me the other day, “when this is all over, I’m taking a break from yoga”.  As nice as it sounded, I knew that my 4 or 5 days a week practice would continue when the Challenge is over.  If I don’t get to yoga every second day I can feel it in my muscles, my bones and most definitely in my bowel (see earlier blog).

So what have I learned from this 30 Day Challenge. 

I learned to put my ego in check.  Leave it outside of the hot room.  It doesn’t matter what others think of my practice in the studio (they shouldn’t be thinking of me at all!)  If I need to be on my back, then that’s where I need to be. 

I learned patience with myself.  So many injuries surfaced during this 30 days.  Sciatic pain in both butt cheeks, right shoulder pain, lower back...which I think was related to the sciatic pain, what felt like a broken pinky for one week (try toppling tree on a broken pinky...not as easy as it sounds!)  I had to come out of a lot of asanas and I would shake my head and say to myself...that’s okay.  Every day is different.

I learned strength.  Not just the strength of my physical body, but the strength of my mind and my heart.  Don’t get me wrong, looking in the mirror and seeing a difference in the shape and contours of my body is absolutely amazing!  But the strength of knowing I could commit myself to something this powerful and complete it.  Do whatever I needed to make sure I got my 30 days in.  I’m proud of that accomplishment even more than how I look!

I learned all over again how much I love this community of mine.  I may not know everyone by name, but going through something this challenging with so many happy, loving faces, changes a person.  I’ve been practicing with Moksha Yoga Dartmouth for over a year now, and it still amazes me every day how blissful it is to be there.

Something I still have to work on....

Patience for others.  I have to put this as an afterthought because it is something I REALLY struggled with this month.   November was an insanely busy month at MYD.  You knew that every class was going to be packed.  The teachers tell you when you enter to put your mats close together to make sure there is enough room for everyone...so why is it that there are those same people every class that take up room enough for 3.  WOOSAHHH   

Patience for others.  Savasana is a time to allow your body to take in all the work you just did and process all that work.  When I first started going to MYD, I was one of the yogis who got up and left ASAP.  I didn’t realize how important savasana was back then. Whether it was because I didn’t want to stand around a crowded change room or because I had to rush home for some reason or another, I left as soon as possible.  BUT!!  I left as QUIETLY as possible.  Respecting the fact that others needed that time to process.  I am now one of those yogis who remains in the hot room for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.  I even place a facecloth across my eyes so that I won’t be tempted to look around the room as others leave.  I NEED that “me” time on my mat.  Newbies and even those yogis who don’t feel the need for savasana....PLEASE, I beg of you, pretend there is a newborn baby sleeping next to you.  Roll your mat up as slowly and quietly as possible, wait to put it in your bag with the zipper or velcro until you leave the hot room, tiptoe out so as to not wake that sleeping baby, and slip that door closed softly.

So patience for others is my new goal in yoga and in life.

If you knew me a year ago, you would be able to comment that I have already grown by leaps and bounds in this area....but I know I have a long way to go...

~ Namaste ~

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end. ~ Margaret Thatcher

This pose is for you Dad!

So I have been away from my blog for a very long time...but honestly, I was thoroughly enjoying my yogi sister, Wendy’s blog so much that I felt mine wasn’t required anymore!  Seriously, that girl is a RIOT!  So poignant and honest, and FUNNY!!

So I’ve decided to join the blogging world again because I feel I have something to blog about.

The month of November is dedicated to Prostate Cancer.  Men from all over the world grow their mustaches and raise money for a cancer that doesn’t get as much exposure as say, breast cancer, but yet affects just as many people, including my family.

My father is a SURVIVOR of Prostate Cancer.  In 2005 my dad was diagnosed.  I remember the day when I got the call from my father that he was given a clean bill of health.  No more cancer.  I remember I was standing up at the time at my desk at work and when he told me he was cancer free, my knees gave out from under me and I collapsed to the floor, crying happy tears.

My father is my hero in every sense of the word.  There is no man in this world that can compare to him.  He is the strength I look to, he is the wisdom I seek out, he is the humour that surprises me with bursts of laughter.  My father is the TRUEST measure of a man.

This month Moksha Dartmouth is doing a 30 Day Challenge where all proceeds are going to Prostate Cancer Research.  As a participant in this challenge, I have committed myself to practicing yoga for 30 days straight.  This is a feat for me.  Getting to the studio every day may prove difficult, along with the aches and pains of a daily practice.  Knowing when to push myself and when to put my ego aside and modify my asanas.

My father SURVIVED Prostate Cancer.  Everything he went through is what will push me through this challenge because nothing I go through over the next 30 days will come close to what he had to go through to BEAT Cancer.

I dedicate my 30 Day Challenge to my father, Tim Olive.  The strongest person I know.

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

An End That Is The Beginning

Well, blog followers, as you may have noticed...I missed Week 7 completely.  I was out of the country at a wedding in Jamaica.  It was definitely a week of indulgance, but I did manage to do morning yoga on my room deck 3 times, so that has to count for something right?!?

I didn't find out until I got back that the final week's challege was to do Savasana for 20 mins, 5 days straight.  I know that I do NOT rock the savasana in class.  I'm usually one of the first ones to leave class, due to childcare responsibilities.  I have gotten scolded by many a teacher on staying after practice. 

I think this probably would have been a very beneficial week for me to participate in, so I am sorry that I missed out.

Having said that...I am not sorry for spending a week in Jamaica!  I had never been anywhere south (past Florida~Disney)  It was not only a beautiful, relaxing place, but to get to meet locals, visit the straw markets where they sell their wares and bartering prices, it was fun and informative!

Every now and then I got to check the internet on a friend's iPad and the emails that inundated my hotmail account were mostly from the LYM facebook page.  I missed my Moksha family!!!  I had to spend a lot of time reading back through the page, and of course catching up with the always hilarious Wendy's blog.

I really can't believe this Challenge is over!  I hope that the page stays open, or that a new Moksha Sangha page opens on Facebook, so that we can all keep in touch and continue such open communication and guidance. 

I have learned so much about myself, who I am, what I want, all from opening myself up to these Challenges. 

I just finished reading Wendy's latest blog, and agree that a year is an awfully long time to wait for another LYM Challenge.  Maybe Wendy and I will have to get together and plan some weekly challenges to keep ourselves busy!

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself. 

Hecato, Greek philosopher

Pooh had it right all along!

I have a Happy Buddha that I absolutely love.  His smiling face, his jolly belly, his stretched out ears.  Everytime I walk by him on my landing, he makes me smile. 

As a non-religious person, I always felt more partial to Buddism than to any other religion.  I always made a blatent statement of "if I had to choose a 'religion' it would be buddism"...until I started doing some very weak research.  This started about 15 years ago, when I picked up The Tao of Pooh.  Yes, I said Pooh, as in Winnie-The-Pooh.  Benjamin Hoff uses the characters from Winnie-The-Pooh to describe and explain the many facets of Taoism.

Right at the beginning of the book he takes the time to explain the differences, as he sees it, between Confucious, Buddist, and Taoist. 

The book starts with a description of the Vinegar Tasters, which is an actual painting portraying the three great eastern thinkers, Confucious, the Buddha, and Laozi over a vat of vinegar. Each tasting the vinegar of "life," Confucius finds it sour, the Buddha finds it bitter, but Laozi, the traditional founder of Taoism, finds it satisfying. Then the story unfolds backing up this analogy.  It was in this story that made it clear to me that what I am searching for is more in the Way of Laozi, as opposed to Buddha.

I am not looking to transcend this world for something greater, as in Buddha's teachings.  I am looking to love the life I live, not fight against it, searching for more or living in the past where mistakes were made.  I want to be happy in the now, enjoy every moment that I have and learn from everyone and everything around me.  This is the Tao Way.

"We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us." ~ Benjamin Hoff