Champion Yogis

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

tra1669.jpgI think yoga is a sport, just like the World Cup. Hear me out.

Tuesday was one of those days. I love yoga, love my home practice, love class, but there are some days, some weeks, even, when it all goes off the rails.

This is one of those weeks. I’ve been in hotels two weekends in a row, I’ve seen my share of drive-through windows over those weekends, and my hotel practice has been less thorough than my home practice. I’ve been away so much that my dog rolls her eyes when I come home.

The result is that my body and spirit are tired, chunky, and unsociable.

It took Olympian determination to get myself to yoga class on Tuesday. It was touch-and-go all morning. I kept thinking, “I can go home for a break, I can eat, I can read, I can get some work done, I can sit here and stare out the window for an hour.” Most of these options looked much more appealing than going to class.

(It’s possible some of you never feel this way. I am determined to like you anyway.)

By the grace of Whatever, I get changed, get in my car, and drive to the studio. I lie down, and almost immediately I could cry, I am so happy. Class starts. My left hamstrings have shrunk considerably over the weekend, somehow, I have NO balance, my thighs and rear end burst at the inadequate seams of my formerly roomy yoga pants, and still there is no place I’d rather be.

This is where the World Cup comes in.

When we go to class on these days, I think our teachers should welcome us at the door with big, glossy medals.

“Would you like a medal today?”
“Yes,” I’d say.
“Bronze, silver or gold?”
“Are you joking? Do you have any idea how far I’ve come today?The French fries and pizza I have overcome, the hotel coffee, the hours in the car, the dog’s face, and lethargy the size of an oil spill? Give me the gold, absolutely. I am the champion of the world today.”

There are days when we should all have medals around our necks.

Thanks to yoga for making me show up, and thanks to you for the conversation.

Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, writer, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. KristinShepherd.

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Time In, Not Anaesthetized Time Out

Posted on July 7, 2010 by kristinshepherd

A woman came into my clinic this week and shook me up.

She’d just returned from a two week retreat/course/mini-sabbatical.

It was two weeks of being fed well and looked after while going through some self-discovery process. The kind of thing that makes you look at yourself, the parts you love and the parts you don’t. What’s working and what isn’t in your life. Whether you actually love what you’re doing with your life or not, and what you can do about that.

She looks radiant. She sparkles, for god’s sake. I wish somebody had taken LDL levels and blood pressure and all the rest of it, because she is healthier than she’s been for the seven years I’ve known her.

Which made me think, what are we really doing with our lives?

We work hard, we say, in order to create a life for ourselves and our kids, to create some kind of wellbeing. To create a future. I get that.

But something about it isn’t working.

My clinic, like any other clinic, like walk-in clinics, like hospitals, is filled with people who are there because of stress (psychological, environmental, emotional, physical, post-traumatic, dietary, blah, blah, etc.). Period. It’s the biggest contributor I know to physical pain, degeneration, disease. Stress is the Big Aggravator.

So we “fight” stress.  (Which sounds pretty stressful to me.)

When it’s too much we eat like hell, watch reality shows, drink, shop, medicate (lotta mother’s little helpers helping the day go by out there), do whatever it takes to take time out of the whole tornado whenever we can.

Even if we “fight” stress in “healthy” ways – with treadmills, therapists, “coping strategies”, baggies of carrots and celery and low-fat yoghurt – aren’t we still just demented boxers who are working at better technique?

Why not put the gloves down?

I look at my friend’s radiance and genuine wellbeing, and I think, that’s what we need to create a real future for ourselves and our kids.

We need real time in, not anaesthetized time out.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin

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An Earth Moving Experience

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

aa050850.jpgTwo fantastic things occurred over the last 24 hours.

1. We experienced an earthquake yesterday. Very exciting. It lasted 26 seconds. The dog growled for a few seconds, and the antennae on the TV shook for a full minute. In fact, the quake shook much of the province, which was wonderful, because it led to phone calls with my mother in Ottawa and my sister in Toronto. It’s the kind of thing everyone wants to talk about.

2. I tried naked yoga this morning. My goal was to last longer than 26 seconds. There is no doubt I was shaken more by the naked yoga than the quake.

If you haven’t tried it, if your dad is British, say, and you’re uneasy in short sleeves, if you wear flannel clown pants to bed every night and peel your socks off during the middle of the night as you become unbearably hot–if you do all of that–well, we can talk. (If this isn’t you and you’re the type who goes naked to the movies, you have no idea what I’m talking about. In my next life I’ll be just like you.)

The first 26 seconds are spent dismayed by the complex surface of my thighs, which look as though they have undergone several earthquakes of their own.

Then I forget about them, perhaps because it is hotter this morning than it’s been all summer, and as humid as cottage cheese. My first forward bend makes me sweat.

I make it to 40 minutes, naked. I put my clown pants back on for seated postures, to avoid rug burn, I say to myself. I conclude that this naked thing is no big deal.

And then something unexpected happens.

I move off the rug and onto the wood floor for Savasana. And, oh, oh, oh, the floor is as cool as ice cream on my poached back, so cool that I take my clown pants off again for the last couple of minutes. I press my low back into the floor and when I relax it makes a deep, suction-y, rumbling, farting sound that is the best thing I have EVER heard during my practice.

A soft, funny earthquake of my very own.

I am CERTAIN you have things to teach me about your naked (or not) home practice. My ears are quaking.

Thanks to earthquakes, to cool floors, and to you for the conversation.

Join Kristin at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at http://kristinshepherd.ca

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The Sounds of Yoga

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

stock3.jpgThe sigh with the first sip of coffee.
The click of my mug when I set it on the coffee table.

The grunt when I realize my left hamstrings are still half the length of my right hamstrings.

Ujjayi breathing, when I remember to do it.
Seagulls squawking outside.

The yeah! yeah! yeah! I say under my breath with my handstand and anything resembling a back bend.
Heaving groans that ease their way into regular breaths during side twists.

The big, fat sighs that settle me into Savasana.

Shanti, shanti, shanti, which I whisper to the lake (don’t know why I whisper at home). The tickety-tickety-tickety of Rosie, my dog, who hears me whisper and comes to join me after her own upward dog, downward dog series.

It’s worth it just for the sounds, isn’t it?

What are your favorites?

Thanks to yoga for the sounds and thanks to you for the conversation.

Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, writer, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Please join me at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. KristinShepherd.

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Everything I Need To Learn, I Learn From Actors

Posted on June 28, 2010 by kristinshepherd

I was at a theatre workshop over the weekend during which we presented audition monologues. Scary as hell, incredible learning. Wish you’d been there.

Here are some lessons for life, health, and business from that event:

1. Get in or get out. Nothing is worse than watching or working with someone who doesn’t care. And nothing is more attractive than someone who loves what they’re doing so much that you can taste it in the air around them.

2. Risk is beautiful. Courage is beautiful. Both of them make people radiant.

3. Looking like an untalented, incompetent idiot is a horrible, horrible feeling. It’s going to happen to me at some point if I decide to be courageous.

So decide: courage, risk, and falling on my ugliest loser face from time to time OR safety, a very small life, zero development of my gifts, and never ever finding out who I really am.You pick.

4. Realizing that I don’t die when I “fail flamboyantly”- when people think I’m an idiot for trying, when what I produce is mediocre or worse – surviving that sets me free. And freedom is the best gig ever.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin

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Why Naked Yoga?

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

hst126.jpgWhat’s with the naked theme? I write a blog about loving home practice, and you, some of you, write in that you love naked yoga. I write a blog about favorite poses, and you write in about naked yoga.

I write a blog about meditation or chanting or acting, for goodness sake, and some of you (is it the same people? The Naked Yoga Alliance? I don’t know!) write back that you love naked yoga.

Billy Connolly, the marvelous Scottish comedian, writes that he loves an ordinary love life with his wife. A meat-and-potatoes kind of lover, he is.  He’s all about comfort. It takes some self-assuredness to admit that.

I feel that way about yoga.

I love yoga in my flannel pajama bottoms. I start with two t-shirts and peel one off as I warm up. Sometimes I start in socks.

This naked thing? I don’t know. It’d be like grocery shopping while naked, or bowling while naked, neither of which is ever going to happen, so don’t feel you should write in about those. Besides, where I live, anyone in a canoe can see me unless I downward dog in the dark.
 
All right, all right! I’ll try it. I’ll try it in the dark (by the park, for a lark, with a shark. I’m going all Dr. Seuss in my nervousness.).

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the conversation, I think.

Kristin Shepherd lives in North Bay, Ontario. She is a chiropractor, workshop facilitator, actor, writer, and parent of two grown children and a perpetually infantile dog.  Check her out, fully clothed, at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd. 

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Everything Starts Again Now

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

26_OM.jpgYears ago, a friend named Tracy offered me an acting tip that has become part of every on-and-off-stage day of my life. It also affects my yoga.

We were in a play called Good Night Desdemona. I had to travel through time each night by disappearing through an absurdly small garbage can into, well, into the past to meet both Desdemona and Juliet. I climbed towers, faught with swords, was nearly strangled by Desdemona, and iambic pentameter-ed my way through seven enormous monologues that would have humbled Hamlet. It was a monster of a challenge.

On more than one night, I cursed myself for getting something wrong–missing lines, breaking my sword (tough to fight convincingly with a sword stump), not projecting my lines from under the pillow Desdemona used to suffocate me, etc.

One night, Tracy (Juliet) heard me whacking myself to smithereens at intermission.
“No way,” she said. Gotta stop that.

She said we can’t afford to criticize ourselves. It takes us out of our story, out of our best skills, and it ruins our relationship with other actors and our audience. It ruins our relationship with everything to come.

Practice instant forgiveness, she says. It’s the best tool there is for an actor. Everything starts again now.

This morning, in a seated forward bend, I thought, holy Toledo, my hamstrings are tight. Not enough yoga and too many butter tarts yesterday. (I don’t see the relationship between the two, now, but they felt completely connected this morning.)

And right behind it, like a great actor on cue, I thought; instant forgiveness, honey. Everything starts again now. Which saved the show.

Thanks to Tracy for the acting lesson, and thanks to you for the conversation.

Kristin practices yoga, theatre, public speaking, writing, and chiropractic in North Bay, Ontario, at kristinshepherd.ca and at Dr. Kristin Shepherd on Facebook.

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Union

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

AA051101.jpgI love yoga because of its solitary nature.

An early morning coffee, my lovely man and dog still in bed, me shuffling to the living room in pajama pants and a t-shirt. Darkness in winter, green grass and blue lake in front of me in summer. This is good, good, good.

The other side of this is that I often have elaborate get-togethers during my practice. This morning was like this.

My daughter is in China. I miss her beautiful face. So, during Warrior II, I reach my fingertips forward and back and imagine my arms growing, circling the world until I can hold her face with both hands.

In seated forward bends, I think of one of my best friends, Riesa, who lives on the other side of the country. She taught me some of my favorite forward bends ten years ago. I miss her voice today.

My mom shows up when I’m trying to open my hips. I suspect we’d both love to be more flexible with each other.

And at the end of my practice, when the time comes to offer the fruits of practice to someone who might benefit (we do this in class, sometimes), I send my love and thanks to Nancy, a theater friend who passed away recently. She was still here when I came back to yoga 8 or 9 months ago. I got into the habit of sending her strength and courage and just kept on after she passed away. My hope is she’s out there somewhere, happy to receive the love.

Who knew home practice could be such a gathering place?

It also makes me wonder who you’re with when you practice.  I’d love to hear.

Thanks to yoga for uniting us all, and thanks to you for the conversation.

Kristin Shepherd practices yoga, theatre, public speaking, writing, and chiropractic in North Bay, Ontario. Contact her at kristinshepherd.ca and at Dr. Kristin Shepherd on Facebook.

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I am Invincible

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Kristin Shepherd

SO05_76a.jpgI can do a handstand! I’m 48 and I’ve never said that before.

We learned in class the other day. Rob said to try it if you’re ready, and I thought, no way, that’s not going to happen for me.  Like playing in the NBA, like leaping from the Eiffel Tower and landing on two feet, like flying to Mars. That’s where handstands belonged for me.

Then. We discuss. We prepare. We approach. We inhale one foot up, and exhale the other up.  Okay, I have to fling mine up.) First try, no go. Which is understandable because it’s about 75 miles from the floor to the wall when you’re upside down.

Second try, same thing. Third try, same thing. Then Rob comes over to help. Just slightly, by showing my feet where the wall is.

“Look at a point on the floor between your hands this time,” he says.

And on my fifth try, I fly to Mars. I swear to God, that’s what it feels like. And yes, my ribs are half way across the room, and yes, I need to reach with my heels. I need to do about 300 things to improve my form, but I DID IT!!!!!! The NBA, the Eiffel Tower. A handstand.

I read somewhere in Yoga Journal that a Handstand can change your life–they’re right! It has.  I feel invincible.

Have you tried? Do you hope to? Is this old hat for you? Do you love it? Tell me, please.

Thanks to handstand for changing my life, and thanks to you for the conversation.

Kristin Shepherd lives in North Bay, Ontario.  She is a chiropractor, workshop facilitator, actor, writer, and parent of two grown children and a perpetually infantile dog.  Check her out at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd.

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This is Your Spirit at Work

Posted on June 17, 2010 by kristinshepherd

Here’s something that excites me this week, in terms of choice and human talent.

I have a friend who works at Value Village. In theatre we love VV , where you can get clothes and furniture for an entire cast and crew for about $8. Used fedoras, romance novels, 8-track stereos, kitchen sinks. You name it.

Jane, I’ll call her, knows most of the regulars.   She asks you how the kids are doing at university, or how the bathroom redecorating is going.

People love her. Of course they do. She takes great care of relationships at the store.

Then comes a new manager.  He’s decided upselling is a great idea.

You know upselling: would you like fries with that burger? Shoe polish with those shoes? A doughnut with that coffee?.

Great idea when the offer makes sense.

Here’s the new non-sense at Value Village.

A pile of batteries will be at Jane’s cash register this morning. She has to offer them to each customer, no matter what, and she’ll be penalized if she doesn’t meet a quota.

This’ll mean her saying to you, would you like a battery with that nightgown? Or, hey, would you love some shoelaces with that paperback?

This is not a joke.

And  you’ll look at her, confused, trying to figure out why you need shoelaces in order to read War and Peace or what batteries have to do with your pyjamas.

If you have a curious brain, you’ll ask her what the heck is going on.

So she’ll lose the time she used to have to ask you about the kids.

She’s miserable, of course. She calls it soul-sucking. This is not good business.

Business is about relationships between people, first and foremost, and about offering you  something you want in a way that makes us all happy.

I’d eat Kraft Dinner for life before involving my spirit in the nonsense going on at VV.

Here’s the most important thing.

I hope my friend remembers not waste time and energy blaming her manager.

It is always my choice to stay or go.

Preserving my spirit at work is my responsibility.

Let me know what you think, and thanks for the conversation,

kristin

(What makes us happy makes us well.)

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