Trying too hard

This post was inspired by the lovely Nadine Fawell.

I have been for many years a great believer in The Middle Way. Balance. In terms of yoga practice, to feel as if you are working on all levels but not to feel as though there is any strain. This is my own version of Ch2v46 of Pantanjali's Yoga Sutras, about finding steadiness and softness at the same time I guess.

In terms of life, I'm not a fan of extremes or fanaticism, I always find that getting too extreme about a belief can lead you all the way out the other side. I try to live a good life, a kind life. But at the same time I'm only human. I try to eat a vegan diet but when I wanted an egg salad sandwich yesterday I had one. I believe in women's rights, but not to the point where we begin deny men rights.

But sometimes when it comes to my own emotions I find balance very hard to maintain. I beat myself up over the tiniest thing. I obsess over constructive criticism. I will try so hard to be kind that I let people walk all over me.

I constantly need to remind myself about balance. Just as I constantly need to remind myself that all that really matters is right now. This moment.

And all of this raises the question - do we try to hard to be "good yogis" whatever that means? Do we put too much pressure on ourselves to reach some sort of unacheivable perfection? Is our pursuit of happiness in fact making us unhappy?

Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is OK to break the rules sometimes. After all, I set the damn rules to begin with!

Paris is burning all night long...

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Paris. My memories are always in sync with books like this (which I'm currently reading), but the reality is quite different. Every time I go, Paris is an even bigger, even dirtier city and my love affair with busy polluted cities is rapidly coming to a close. Honestly? Paris disappointed me this weekend. I'm sorry Paris, it's not you, it's me.....

Paris is not a city of romance for me either. At least not of the "I love you" branch of romance. Italian cities do that a lot better. Paris is Romantic with a capital R - dark, gothic, melancholy - looks much better in the rain.

Exhausted as we both are at the moment, a city break was probably not really the holiday we both needed. Himself needed a rest and I needed somewhere I could be a little more introspective as I turned 35. I'm not sure how much good it's done us. That is of course not to say we didn't have fun!

The two main things that stand out for me are two things I have wanted to do for a long time and never got around too.

The Palace of Versailles - about half an hour out of Paris (on a very exciting double decker train!!!) is the palace made famous by the various King Louis and Marie Antoinette before all the beheading and so forth began. It has the most breathtaking gardens I have ever seen and the best thing about it? You can go in the gardens for free, you only have to pay for the Palace (which we didn't really want to go in anyway). Himself spent a lot of time dreaming about being a Muskateer and saying "en garde" a lot.

Pere Lachaise Cemetary - this cemetary in the east of Paris is probably most famous for just two of its hundreds and hundreds of graves. Oscar Wilde's and Jim Morrison's. I have wanted to see Jim's grave since I was about 17 and I felt a door close (in a good way - and pun very much intended) as I stood before the last resting place of James Douglas Morrison. And Oscar Wilde's stunning tombstone brought a tear to my eye engraved as it was with a verse from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (imho the most moving and beautiful work of poetry ever).

I also had a lot of fun showing Himself around the Latin Quarter and St Germaine (my favourite parts of Paris) as well as taking him to the Musee National du Moyen Ages to show him the amazing Lady and the Unicorn series of tapestries made famous by Tracy Chevelier's novel. I could sit and look at these for hours and hours (except even this relatively unknown museum is crawling with tourists these days. I was particularly amused by an old Australian woman holding forth to her friends about the tapestries with such confidence whilst spouting so much misinformation a French woman intervened to give a more accurate account - ah the Australians!)

I also had a very special birthday lunch in a gorgeous restaurant on Rue Bonaparte. I had sea bass and Himself had duck and I spent two lovely hours just watching the painfully cool Parisians eating their lunch (including a woman who had a little dog in her handbag!).

AND I managed to do my yoga practice every morning despite having the smallest hotel room in the world!

Why Yoga wasn't one of my six things!

My last post was a meme from K about 6 things that make me happy. You may have noticed that yoga was not one of them. You'd think that someone who gave up their career to share yoga with as many people as possible would put yoga at the top of the list....however....

The list was 6 things that make me happy - and somehow yoga is much more than that. You see yoga doesn't always automatically make me happy in the same way as writing does, or reading a good book. Sometimes yoga is a huge struggle. Sometimes it almost breaks me to drag my carcass out of bed at 7am and get on my mat every day. Sometimes the pain from my fibromyalgia is so bad the thought of doing yoga is too much.

But over the years I have come to realise that just by getting on my mat I feel better - body and soul. But better doesn't always equate to happy. Sometimes my yoga practice makes me question the limitations of my body, my health, even my own mortality. Sometimes my practice makes me cry. Yoga works on so many deep energetic levels that it equates to so much more than happiness. Yoga is a part of my day, part of me. Everything....

Yoga allows me to live with being me. Being me doesn't always make me happy, but it does make me be....

Mixed emotions

I'm like a rollercoaster at the moment. Ups and downs with a few twists and turns in for good measure!

On paper I know what I'm doing and where I'm heading. I've taken on too much, more than I'm capable of, and the time has come to cut back. With the yoga teaching I no longer have the ability to work full time and with a long commute as well, so I am giving up. Easy. Simple. Notice handed in, last day in two weeks time.

But what I am also giving up is quite a hefty salary.

So whilst I'm elated to be giving up a job I really don't like anymore, I am also more than a little fearful about the whole bill paying thing. Himself is earning much more than he was, but it's still hard for me to learn to rely on other people for financial support. Even if it is done with love and faith.

I think I need to question my definitions of "enough". What is enough anyway? How much money is enough? How many yoga students are enough? We live in a society crippled by affluence and greed. It is difficult not to get caught up in the whirlwind. Over the last few years I have certainly cut back on huge amounts, sorted myself out financially, tried to stick to the basics. But I had still sold my soul to a corporate law firm. Now I have a chance to buy it back. But the price of a soul is high. To get what I want in terms of time, quality of life and living by my principles I have to pay the price of a high salary and re-learn the ability to always have enough.

Besides, if I approach my new venture with fear I will never be successful!

Something to meditate on nevertheless.