It’s New Year’s Day. I wake up with a houseful of sleeping guests and my mind is racing through a long list of things I need to do:
I go into the bathroom (so as to not disturb anyone) to sew a small moth hole in a sweater.
Then I wash the sweater.
I’m thinking about making breakfast…
cleaning up the house…
and all the other things I meant to do but didn’t do over this past week’s break from work.
Maybe if I were to really focus (which is not one of my strong points), I can still do them in the next day and a half. And there you have it:
It’s 7:15am and I have already broken one of my two New Year’s resolutions.
I am the kind of person who wakes up with a clenched jaw…
...whose beloved massage therapist comments on how “we” might work on loosening what she says is one of the tightest backs among her clientele...
...I want to know “why?” in a world where it seems there are usually no answers to the question...
I’m on a continual quest for perfection which, as you can imagine, frequently does not end well…leaving me even more tightly wound... All this is why I enjoy wine in the evening, massages as often as possible and yoga. I need someone telling me to just breathe and forget about all the other stuff. Someone who can help me take my mind from constant churn to a few minutes of clarity and peace.
And so, on Christmas Eve morning I headed off to a yoga class. My teacher started by asking that we set our intention for that day’s practice on making the ordinary the extraordinary. And while I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, it seemed a shame to limit the intention to a single day. So it became my first resolution for 2011.
Now there are people who do this all the time. Tibetan monks do it by focusing on a grain of rice and seeing the universe. It is foundational to the creation of all art. Matisse did it with pieces of colored paper. Clowns do it with a bit of greasepaint and a wig. For most kids it is effortless. But for me, this will require great discipline and looking at the positive when I naturally gravitate to the negative. I’ll need a glass half full, not half empty perspective which, as I said, is not my forte. It will require me to wake up and take a deep breath before attacking the day’s must-do list. Will I succeed? Well I am hopeful because if I now look back at the past year -- a year I would have said was very ordinary -- and squint just the right way… I can already see the times that were, in fact, little jewels.
So making the ordinary extraordinary is my first New Year’s resolution.
And for the second, I have vowed to never ever again try a downward dog after two martinis.
Happy New Year and Kind (Self) Regards,
Vicki
Vicki Wray lives in North Stamford, and until recently spent most of her waking hours in New York City as a corporate communications executive. Working for companies like Pfizer, Revlon and AOL Time Warner has allowed her to meet wonderful colleagues and a slew of interesting personalities including the president of the United States, supermodels and star athletes, famous artists and a Justice of the Supreme Court. She is a natural observer, type A personality, and a life-long "spa junkie". Vicki firmly believes in the health benefits of being kind to oneself; taking a moment to breath, relax and finding simple joy in our every day existence.
Her column, Kind (self) Regards, will be a regular feature of the Aetheria Spa blog. If you enjoy her point of view, or would like to share your ideas, please contact her at vicki@aetheriaspa.com.
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