words, words, words

There is so much going on right now in my life and in the world. We are living in a very scary time. There are terrorist attacks happening all over the world and too often to feel safe. We also are in the midst of a racial war in this country. Black men are being shot by the police for no reason. I don't believe this is a new occurrence but now that we can record everything, we are more exposed to it. Our current presidential race is also contributing to this because the Republican front runner is a huge bigot and racist. People are angry and confused and upset. You can feel it in the air. I step onto the subway every day fearful of something happening. I live in New York City where there is certainly a higher possibility of some kind of attack happening and it is frightening. We can not always live with our flight or fight response activated in our bodies. It causes undue stress and leads to a society of unhealthy, fearful people. I also feel helpless as many people do right now. ...

I turn 41 today. It has been a year full of reflection, growth and change. Last year at this time, so much was in flux. I was living in New Jersey, working full time as a fitness manager, going through my husbands unemployment trial, researching new places to live and having no idea where life was moving me. Since that time, life has stabilized. There is still so much in flux but there is equally as much that is secure. I am no longer wondering about where we will live in 3 months, I am not searching for a new job, I am not worrying and stressing about every inane detail of my life and most importantly, I am content. I know that life will always have its challenges and unexpected turns but I am learning (and it is a process) of accepting life as is and not wishing I was somewhere else. It doesn't mean I don't want certain things like my own  place to live and more financial security but I am happy with what life brings moment to moment. I am not always planning ahead anymore an...

In a few of my previous posts, I wrote about how I am struggling to find my place - the little holes in life where my soul fits snugly in. I am happy to say that I have made some progress.  The first thing I have done is to become a volunteer at the ASPCA animal shelter. I have such a deep love of animals that has only grown stronger as I have gotten older. I realized that I may not be a mother to my own children, but I have a mothering instinct for animals, especially baby animals. I have an 8 month old kitten that was starving and flea infested when we found her underneath my mother in laws car back in November. Now she is the most loving, adorable healthy kitten and I like to think I had a big part in her being this way. I took great care to make sure she felt loved and safe and it has made me realize that I have a gift for caring for animals. I want to use and strengthen that gift. I know I can't take in any more of my own animals (the inn is officially closed at 4) but I can c...

The other day I was doing a guided meditation and about 7 minutes in, I found myself thinking, "this is such crap!" I shut it off and went about my day. This sort of scared me but got me thinking about how I have yet to find a balance between being spiritual and being human. For a while I was trying to be loving and kind and positive all the time. When something shitty would happen, I would take some deep breathes, center myself and move on but after a while of doing this, I realized that I wasn't allowing the emotions I was feeling at the time to flow through me and release. Recently, I've been getting angry at everything. I feel less than spiritual let me tell you. I was making potatoes last night and when I shook the pepper into it, the whole container dumped into the mixture essentially ruining the potatoes I had just spent over 45 minutes baking. I had to fight not to throw the pepper across the room. I took a few moments and then asked my husband calmly for help...

Yesterday I had a breakdown. A legitimate crying, blubbering, screaming mess of a breakdown. I had another run in with the executive director of my company. She persists in treating me as if I am a child that is hard of hearing. She has no respect for me or for any of her employees and it finally got to me. I snapped at her and then when I got home, I lost it to my husband who was more than understanding and supportive. I am tired of taking shit from people who have no understanding or caring of others. The way she was treating me was reminiscent of the way my husbands boss used to treat him and that situation caused a chain of events that we are still recovering from. Whatever was building inside me over the last few months or even years let loose in a barrage of emotion last night. I have to say that it felt very cleansing and liberating. Cleansing because releasing emotion that has been bottled up for so long is always a good thing and liberating because I realized that no matter th...

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when people who are in positions of power look down on anyone they deem "below" them. This is a topic I get very upset about for many reasons. I was taught by my parents that everyone should be treated equally not matter the color of their skin, the size of their bank account or the country they call home.  Because of how I was raised, I would like to say that I am not prejudiced or judgmental but that would be a lie..I definitely have a prejudice against people in positions of power that abuse it and people who have money and act as if they are better than everyone because of it.  Something happens to the ego when one gains power - it explodes. In yoga and meditation, we are taught to let go of the ego and connect to our higher selves - ego is destructive and earth bound - lack of ego is a connection to our divine side. This resonates with me so powerfully because I have seen the path of destruction ego can create. It is blinding. I am...

The buzzword of the moment seems to be mindfulness. Everywhere I turn, there is mention of this - in the podcasts I listen to, in the articles I read, in my guided meditations and during yoga. It means essentially staying present in every moment and not projecting your mind into thoughts of the past or future. This is extremely challenging. I am struggling with this lately. My mind has been obsessing over what steps I want to take in my life next but also what mistakes I have made in my past that have gotten me to the present moment. I haven't been meditating as much lately and that is one of the reasons why my mind seems to be wandering so much. It is not being trained properly. I have also only done yoga 2x this week which is highly unusual for me. I have been mentally and emotionally exhausted and so because of this I have neglected many of the things that typically keep me sane. I am trying not to beat myself up over my lack of motivation but it is where my mind goes when I am ...

Last week at my latest doctors appointment, I had a moment of completeness. As I have written about previously, I have a lot of problems with my thyroid and after some frustrating conversations with my old doctor, I decided to switch doctors (well that and I have Obamacare which, well don't get me started). I am a big believer in not taking pills unless you absolutely have to and managing whatever condition you have with diet and exercise so when my old doctor immediately wanted to talk about ridding my thyroid gland via radioactive iodine, I knew it was time to get another opinion. She is an old school type of doctor - she's had her own practice for many years and is all about prescribing pills. She doesn't discuss eating or exercise habits and in fact is substantially overweight herself. I stayed with her initially because she treated my thyroid disease efficiently the first time around but when it returned after a year and a half of remission, she jumped way too quickly ...

This whole week I have been acting like a crazy person. I got so geared up to watch the season 6 finale of "The Walking Dead" that I was a nervous wreck on Sunday night. Let me just stop here for a second and explain a little bit about how I can be with shows sometimes. I get obsessed. Like, unnaturally obsessed. It has been this way since high school with "Beverly Hills 90210." My best friend and I used to call each other during commercials every Thursday night when the show aired live to talk about what just happened. When Dylan's wife was killed in season 6 we both sobbed and blubbered like we had lost our puppy. It was ridiculous. Then, when "American Idol" was in its heyday, I developed an infatuation with Chris Daughtry and when he was kicked off way too soon, my mother had to call me to make sure I wasn't suicidal. When Clay Aiken lost his season, I would't discuss it for days because I was seeing red. I went through an entire box of tis...

I'll be honest, I've been working on this one topic for almost 2 weeks now and I'm frustrated because I can't seem to get it right. I've been doing online research and having conversations about this because it is such a layered topic. I am attempting my fourth try at writing about this and it will not be perfect - it may not even be good but here is my attempt at defining what it means to be strong and more specifically a strong woman. What is so challenging about this topic is that the definition can be so broad and it has been skewed and colored by society and pop culture examples. I had to crack a lot of layers to get to the core of what I believe true strength is. I chipped away at the facade of the poster child for strong female: tough, outspoken, confident, well dressed or in some way physically imposing, bad-ass, don't take no crap from nobody, I can do it all super woman. I hammered through the lens of  brashness and boldness equating strength and the...

On Saturday I completed day 90 of 90 straight days of yoga. Well, I do have a disclaimer. I missed one day at around day 49 because of a excruciating migraine that knocked me out for the whole day. If you have ever had a migraine, you will understand why going into several downward facing dogs was just not an option. Other than that one day, however, I never missed. I began this program back in late December because I wasn't feeling well enough to tackle tougher workouts. My thyroid condition was in the midst of a fluctuation and any time that happens, I need more rest than usual. Although yoga can be intense, it is also restorative and rejuvenating. I found this program on youtube and it was by an instructor that I had used before and trusted so I knew I was going to get solid routines. I set out a goal to complete 30 days of the 90 day program. 90 seemed really intimidating at the time so I broke it down for myself to make it more manageable. Once I reached day 30, I just kept go...

I was listening to a TED talk yesterday on my way home about Identities. I have to credit a lot of these with the ideas I get for these posts. They bring up such interesting topics! Various speakers were breaking down what identity means and how they identify themselves. I've been pondering this since I listened and I'm not sure what I think. When someone looks at me they see a 40 year old blonde white woman but that is such a fraction of who and what I am. My heritage is purely Lithuanian and my roots can be traced back generations but I have never personally stepped foot in Lithuania. Am I truly Lithuanian any more or less than someone who was born there and lived their whole life there? What about someone who was born in Lithuania but has parents who are French? Are they more Lithuanian than me who has only Lithuanian blood in my veins? I was born in Boston, does that make me a Bostonian even though I no longer call that my home?  It is very difficult to define identity. In ...

My last post about body shaming got me thinking about my own journey with body issues and how I found my way into the fitness industry.I have shared pieces of this story throughout this blog but this is more of a timeline of how this all started and I have to go back to childhood to tell the complete story.From a very early age, I remember sports and athletics being a big part life for the men in my family. My father was a former amateur baseball player and coached my older brothers baseball teams when I was in elementary school. My brother Jimmy was extremely athletic: he played baseball and basketball. In fact, he was the only white guy the guys in the neighborhood would let play pick up ball with them because he was that good. They called him Larry Bird. Some kind of sporting event was always on the TV in my house and as much as I tried avoiding it, I had no say. I was the youngest and no one listened to me. My mother on the other hand was the antithesis of athletic. I don't thi...