Infinite Perceptions

Hi, it's me...yes I'm still alive. I appreciate your emails and I apologize for not being able to post more lately. As someone put it, "it's like you gave me a book, let me read half and then took it away!" I am so happy that people even read my posts and that they look forward to the "My Journey" series. Here's a quick update/what's going on in my life.

First thing is that I have decided to go back to school to be a yoga instructor. This takes up quite a bit of my time. I'm going to 4-5 classes per week on top of reading and assignments. This unfortunately has taken up a great part of the "extra" time that I previously used to blog. I am learning a lot and am excited to start sharing some things that I've found to be helpful. Once school is out for my little ones, I'm will have more time to dedicate to the blog.

Secondly, I have loved the "My Journey" series and I will continue to write them but sometimes recounting my past is hard. I have always written to sort out my emotions and going back and remembering what was going on with me at the time, forces me to think and process even further. Which is a good thing because I learn, and grow from each new realization. But a lot of the time I feel like I can't write a new installment until I've finished processing the old one. So if it takes a while in between posts, that is what is going on.

Lastly, I watched this video the other day and it resonated with me so greatly that I needed to share it with all of you. You might have already seen it. Watch it and then I want to share some thoughts.

Here are just a few statistics for you:

*Only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful

*60-70% of our internal dialogue is negative  

*In a study by Brown University, 70% of women feel worse about themselves after visiting social media sites or looking at women's magazines. 

Think for a second about all of the negative things that you say to yourself during a day. Things like, "I can't do that", "I look terrible", or "I'm fat". I want you to now think about one thing that you like about yourself. What I want you to try next is every time that you say something bad to yourself, I want you to stop and replace it with the thing that you like about yourself. So when you walk by a mirror and think, "Oh I need to start working out. I'm so fat" stop yourself and say out loud, "I am beautiful and I have a fantastic smile" You choose what you like about yourself but replace the bad thought with a good one. After a week or so assess how you feel about yourself. Do you feel better about yourself? Chances are that you will. Then when you feel that confidence, you can start taking out each bad thing you say about yourself, one by one, and replace it with something good. Before you know it all of the negative things you once thought about yourself will be replace with all of the really great things that are true and beautiful about yourself. 

We choose to focus on only the bad because we know ourselves in our darkest hours and we judge ourselves based on that. It is also then affirmed when we turn on the t.v., log on to Facebook, or peruse through a magazine at the grocery checkout. Realize that in these instances you are seeing the best version of those people. Which is not necessarily their "real" selves. It is what they have consciously chosen to be seen by others. Nobody wants to put up a Facebook picture of themselves first thing in the morning with their hair all crazy, glasses on, no makeup, in their holey pajamas that they've had since 1999. It's the same reason that you clean your house like a crazy person before you have company. You want to take out that trash that is overflowing so that your guests don't think you're a slob. But the truth of it all is that we ALL have these moments. We all have better and worse versions of ourselves. In our society, unfortunately, we only choose to let people see us at the best versions of ourselves; which a lot of times is not who we truly are. 

My wish for women on this planet is hat we get back to our authentic selves. That we sit with the "bad" version of ourselves and be okay with it, that we not buy into societies idea of beauty, and that we remember that social media is a consciously chosen image that people portray. We all have good days and bad days but what really matters is that we love ourselves and surround ourselves with women who empower us. That we stop the madness of self hatred and replace it with kindness and compassion. And that we teach our daughters and sons that all women are beautiful, especially the one who is raising them, teach them to love themselves through loving yourself. Break the cycle of "traditional beauty" and take your place in this World as the most beautiful women your eyes have ever seen. 

Something that my yoga instructor read in class and something to seriously consider. 

If you wipe away the perception of yourself and look at what is, you will realize that your 

beauty and talent is infinite. And that it was only stifled by your own mislead idea of what you "should be". Let go of what you think should be and embrace your own truths and your own infinite beauty. 

My Journey - Kenya - Baggage Claim and Revelations

In the last “My Journey” post I highlighted some of the really great things that I love about Kenya but as with anything, it is not perfect. I was in a spectacular place, with really great people but I was struggling and trying to get a grasp on my health situation among all of the newness that was around me. The one thing that was a blessing and a curse was that I had packed all of my medications, with the exception of what I would need for the plane ride, in one of my checked bags. This just so happened to be the bag that was lost somewhere in Europe. I was without that bag for a week and without my anti-depressants for a week. When you are on such medications it is a really bad idea to just stop taking them. In this case I didn’t have them so I didn’t really have much of a choice. I was off of the meds for six days and during that time I was able to realize how huge of a hold these medications had over my mind. I came crashing down...hard. For the first couple of days there were long random moments of crying. This coupled with the complete disarray that I was in over being in a completely different place made for a doosey of a time.

Kenyans in general are very composed and rarely show emotion so to have this blubbering white chick around was not going to go over well. I spent the a lot of the first week in my room pretending to be “sick” to avoid Mark’s family seeing me in the state that I was in. This did give me ample amounts of time to sit with myself and to think about the situation of my health. I realized that the drugs, undoubtedly, were changing my mood. I realized that I hadn’t cried since I had been on them. I realized that I hadn’t really felt much of anything since being on them. I realized that as soon as I was suddenly off of them, my mind kept wandering back to many “issues” that I carried guilt over from my past.  I also noticed something different happening after being in Kenya for a couple of days. My body felt really great, even when I was off of the medications. I felt vibrancy inside of me that I hadn’t felt in years but emotionally I could barely hold it together.

I am a big journaler and  although my head was spinning from the lack of anti depressants, I wrote down my new revelations that I was having and vowed to deal with them on a later date. A week after being in Kenya my bags finally came and I decided to take the anti depressants so to stop my head from spinning and to help take away the constant crying and emotion that I was experiencing, I was not yet ready to deal with it all. That week of solitude gave me a good amount of time to adjust. But even just being in the house, there were things going on that aided in huge perspective changes on my part. One thing that is for sure in Kenya, is that the power is not a for sure situation. The first time that the power went out we were all sitting around the dinner table. It went out and everyone except for me continued on as if nothing had happened. Conversation kept on and food was still being eaten. About a minute into it, I blurted out, “its pitch black in here, am I the only one who noticed that the power went out?” Laughter erupted and they started lighting candles around the house and explained that it is very common, especially out on the farm where we were, to have frequent loss of power. And I realized just how true that statement was! There was a good week without ANY power which means no hot water. They had big coal burning units that we heated water with to take “baths” in. And I say “baths” because it was really just a large bucket and a water pitcher. In this instance I realized that although I wasn’t bathing in my shower with its ten setting shower head, I was still clean at the end of the day and not even any less clean. I was the same amount of clean with the bucket and the pitcher as I was using gallons of softened water back home.

Another thing that was a huge realization for me was the pureness of the food in Kenya. We were eating fresh, beautiful, clean food. Nothing processed, nothing added, just real fruits, veggies, meat, and dairy and I felt really great on the inside. I realized that there had to be something to this. When we went to the markets even the people who were selling the produce and goods had great skin and straight white teeth, they were healthy. There were people walking every where. Women with a baby strapped to each side and a huge bundle of firewood balancing on her head were seen frequently. As a whole, working class Kenya's work much harder than the average American. There is no large scale government aid for the poor so each person has some sort of hustle that they are pushing to make ends meet. It was very hard for me to sit and have any sort of self pity on myself when everywhere I went I saw people struggling. They were struggling but they were happy. This juxtaposition really blew my mind. If I was in many of those peoples situations, I would not be happy. So how could they be?

One of the greatest realization during that first trip was the disgusting mount of over-consumption and fantasy that American’s live in. I realized that to live, and even to live well, you don’t need as much as you think you would. I realized how much American’s spend on holidays and how spoiled American children are. When you drive by a slum in Kenya with millions of people in it, when you see children with no shoes and tattered clothing, when you see whole families living in tin structures the size of one of my bathrooms, when you see people starving and pan handling just to feed themselves just once a day, you are changed. And when you see these same people still smiling, laughing, children playing with an old tire and a stick, mothers loving their children, and happiness inside their eyes, you are even more changed. You begin to realize how great your life is and how much you have. The idea of what is important becomes very clear and everything else seems to stop being important and it falls away from your minds existence. It was these sorts of moments over a six week time frame that changed my life and the person that I am, forever. I left Kenya a different person, I had a new lens with which to view my life with and I was ready to make some big changes.

Check in next week for another installment of My Journey. If you’ve missed previous installments catch up on them here!

Update

Hello! Yes, I'm still here and still thinking everyday that I need to get a new post up. Here's a little update on my life. Last month or so I started school to become a 200 hour registered yoga teacher. This means that I am spending a lot of my free time writing and reading for my training. This has taken up the time that I usually spend blogging. There is a way to balance it all I'm sure, I just haven't had the time to sit down and figure out how it will all work! So in the meantime, check my Facebook and Instagram, I'll post small tidbits on there and keep checking back for a new My Journey post, there will be one shortly. I'll leave you with a quote that  my yoga instructor read in practice the other day.

Get out and play!

My Journey - Kenya - Culture

Both times that we’ve been to Kenya in the last couple of years I feel like the first couple of days your eyes are literally trying to readjust to what they are seeing. Kenya ascetically looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before so the first week your body and mind seems to be trying to regroup and adjust to the new circumstances. It looks different, the people look different, the food is different, the houses are different, the cars are different, the stores are different, I actually can’t think of one thing that looks the same as what I’m used to. Both times that I’ve gone I’ve definitely experienced culture shock. It lasted a couple of days and then you seem to settle in. You settle in and you began to be able to see all of the great beauty that is innately around you.

After breakfast the first day, we all got ready and Mark showed us around the farm. In Kenya there is no such thing as social security so older people have farms and sell their goods to sustain themselves into old age. The farm is completely self sufficient and I loved walking around with my husband hearing stories and him showing us the place that he grew up. If you are married to someone from a different culture or from a different country I highly recommend going to that place where they are from. You will learn things about and understand your spouse like you never have before. Here are some pictures from around the farm that day:

 They grow their own feed for the cows

 Banana Tree on the Farm

 This is an aloe plant...huge!

The next day was a day that the traveling market was in a nearby town so Mark’s grandma who is called Cucu (sho-sho), Mark’s aunt, Kaya and I got in the car and went to the market to buy some the weeks produce. The market is one of my favorite places to go while in Kenya. The produce is unbelievable and naturally organic because the Western world hasn’t (at least yet) infiltrated the farming practices of Kenyans. The food is fresh, bountiful, and extremely inexpensive. Cucu has formed relationships with some of the vendors over the years so as we stopped at one stand to pick up some tomatoes, a little girl was at the next stand over, selling fruit with her dad. She saw Kaya and I and looked in awe. The village where his grandparents live does not see white people often.  She had a pin wheel and walked up to Kaya and offered it to her. The little girl stood there with no shoes and wanted to give Kaya what was probably her only toy. I told the father that I was appreciative but that his daughter should keep it. He insisted and Kaya took the pin wheel and thanked the girl. It was such a small jester but such a powerful one for me. Worldly possessions meant little to that family; it was a lesson that was duly noted.

We walked around the market and I took pictures and observed as Cucu bought her goods. I later realized that taking pictures is not the greatest idea. One because it makes you a target, someone could have stolen the camera and two, Kenyans don’t really like their pictures taken. This is not because they think the camera steals their soul or whatever else you might that heard. Cameras are a relatively new technology especially among the older population. Think about pictures you see of people from the 1800’s that what you’re going to get if you take a picture of and older Kenya. They do not have the flair for posing as Americans do.  

The one thing that I noticed about the people of the markets and of the village is how healthy they all were. Kenyans as a population walk immensely more than Americans do. They all had perfect skin and perfectly white straight teeth. This fact was also curious to me and I stored it in my brain for a further reflection. Here are some of the things that I saw in the market that day. 

 Those are mangoes. The best mangoes you will ever taste in your life!

 Sugar Cane Vendor

 This is what happens when you donate clothes to Africa...they get sold in markets.

We were also able to go to the coast for a week but I can’t seem to find pictures from our first trip. Here are some from our second trip. One of the great highlights was that we were able to spend Christmas there. Mark’s grandparents had a cypress tree cut down for the kids and I and we decorated it. I had packed toys from the U.S. and wrapped them and put them under the tree Christmas morning. Christmas was one of the biggest eye openers for me. My whole life Christmas has been a huge deal and a huge exhausting charade. It doesn’t help that Kaya’s birthday is the day after so Christmas ends up being one huge long week of craziness.

I put the Christmas presents under the tree the night before and Cucu asked Mark what they were. He told her presents from Santa. “Santa” she repeated and then laughed as she walked into her room to retire for the night. My kids awoke that morning to three presents each from Santa, which was significantly less than they would usually get if we were back home. They opened them and then we all sat down to breakfast. Mark’s Uncle has a house walking distance from where Mark’s grandparent’s house is. He and his wife have two kids the same age as Kaya and Malik. They also walked over for breakfast. She was carrying a new doll and he was carrying a new soccer ball. One new present each of them from their parents on Christmas and mind you Mark’s Aunt and Uncle do very well for themselves. I was a bit in awe at the under extravagance of the morning, as it was not what I was used to at all  but I chose to sit with the feelings that I was having instead of immediately drawing comparisons to what I was used to.

That afternoon the whole family drove an hour or so to a town on a lake for dinner. It was at a country club and all we had to do was show up. We had also decided to celebrate Kaya’s 5^th birthday at the same time. The dinner was perfect, we ate and drank and walked and chatted. I wasn’t stressed and I wasn’t worried about getting to the next house for the next event. I was making memories and having meaningful conversations with family. It was by far the best Christmas that I have ever had. 

 A choir that was there sang as they brought the cake to the table.

And then the Maasai group that was playing came over to sing to her also.

 After they began playing again and Malik walked over to them and helped himself to the drums.