India visa application time again! Anxiety vs calm, necessity vs choice

I’m about to go apply for my India Visa. It’s funny the last time I did this I was all nerves. I remember vividly at one point after I had handed over all of the relevant documents and such to the post office, I had a thought – I’m not going to India in October. At this point Belgium was just a whisper, not even a possibility, but something inside me knew. I knew this deep inside me, that I couldn’t even do the application on my own, I had my friend do it. I see now that my intuition was fighting with my mind. I knew I wasn’t going, I just knew, but I wasn’t ready to face that yet. This time, I was adamant to figure it all out on my own. J was there with me in case the computer failed me, but I did all of the research, I figured out what I needed to do, and what documents I needed to bring. A stark difference from last time.

This time around, while it’s a lot of work and double checking, I’m calm. I’m about a month away from going and I’m not anxious at all, I have a feeling that everything will just work out. Last time I sent my application in as early as possible, this time, I am sending it now, not out of fear or anxiety, but because this has been the first semi-free day that I’ve been able to gather my papers and make the drive up to Brussels. And that’s the big difference between the first time and now. Back in August I was anxious, and as the month progressed it seemed that all things having to do with India were forced.

There’s a difference between making something happen and forcing something to happen. Today, we made things happen. We woke up early, set up the computer and prepared all of my paper work. Slowly, methodically, calmly. Last time I went quickly, I had to do each step at an allotted time or else – or else what? A part of me knew I wasn’t going in October, but I wasn’t ready to accept that, and so I rushed and forced and instead of noticing the signs all around me, I ignored my gut feeling to wait for when the time was right – a lesson I continuously fail to learn apparently!

It’s quite strange really. Last year India was an ultimatum, we had to stay in northern Quebec an extra year, so I decided that I was going to India. This year it’s a choice. I could choose not to go and my life wouldn’t crumble. I’ve got a lot going on here, a home to organize, a town to explore, travelling to do, etc., but I know I want to go. I’m not forcing something to happen in order to temporarily solve another problem by escaping it. Instead, I’m going to India to expand on my life and explore my possibilities.

For a long time now India has been on the back burner. Back in Canada we had to organize a huge move in 2.5 weeks, once the movers came and our things left for Europe, it was our turn to move. Since then our lives have been one errand after another with no breaks. Yoga has even gone from being the centre of my world to a rare activity unfortunately.

Now India has become the link between my life in Quebec to my life here in Belgium. It’s the in-between. I have no idea what is going to happen at teacher training and I am not about to start hypothesizing on something that I’ve never experienced before. But in my life right now, as I prepare for this journey, India is a time of reflection. I am going there reflecting on my life in Quebec, the challenges, the mistakes, the heart aches, achievements I have faced and I’m saying good bye to that part of my life.

But that part of my life has become a part of who I am. I feel it every day. I even walk up the stairs in our home and turn left – every single time – even though now our bedroom is on the right – and I know this, because on the left is my yoga room. But my mind is stuck back in Quebec. I need to put it to rest, and so I go to India to put the fearful me, the insecure, the anti-social me away, because I can begin to see how Belgium will change me, and in order to grow in this new place, I need to say good bye to the walls I built in the last 4.5 years.

What India will become, who knows! For right now it’s a moment for me to put some things to rest, test my boundaries and see where I will end up.

For a long time I’ve been excited about this move, from the moment I walked into the India visa application office I’ve been excited for this new adventure. No stress instead a clam understanding that everything will work out the way it is suppose to in the end.

Good byes (until we meet again)

I don’t have many possessions, I often kid with J that I would leave him few things if I were to die: my cat, my DVD’s, my ipad, my Honda Civic – Electra (named due to the many times she shocked me), my yoga mat, and the money I have saved – nothing that would change his life, financially, in any real way. But all of these things mean a lot to me. Most signify key points of freedom and determination to get my life back on track.

Tomorrow I’m giving one of those things up, my car. When I returned from Greece I had no car, I had nothing other than the clothes on my back and a room waiting for me in the house I grew up in. I went from living from albeit paycheque to paycheque but living independently, to living at home, in the suburbs, in Winnipeg where nothing happens and there’s no where to go. I knew that if I were to survive living at home for as long as I had to, I needed freedom – I needed a car. I also needed a job. So the first thing I did was look for work. I ended up finding a job out of town at a swanky country restaurant. It didn’t pay very well, and the drive was no that great, but I had a job, all I needed now was a car. I was starting to work there a week after my interview, so I had seven days to find a car. I was told by various family members that I was crazy to think I could find, deal and have a car in the driveway in seven days. I was determined to prove them wrong, and I did. I found Electra.

She was the fist sign that I was getting my life back on track, and from the day that she became mine, until now (9.5 years later) she has always been there for me. She may now be a little rusty and warn around the edges, but I will never forget that she gave me freedom when I felt trapped in a life I thought I had put in my past. She moved me out of my parents house into my very fist apartment. She moved me into my first condo. And later moved me into J’s condo. She has been broken into in -40 degree weather in downtown Winnipeg. She’s been in two car accidents (one of which was on the day J was leaving for Afghanistan – talk about adding on stress – luckily it was a minor accident but nonetheless it was not needed on that day!) She has moved J, my cat, and me to Quebec trailer in tow, she has never let me down driving to Montreal and back these last 4.5 years (other than her temperamental refusal to start fiasco last winter – but with a little tender love and car she calmed down and came back to best friend status in no time). She has a Canadian flag sticker on her dashboard to remind me of what I had taken for granted when I ran away to Greece. Her passenger side door sticks on lock randomly and she is a little rusty, but she has been and will be a wonderful companion because tomorrow, I am giving her away. My time with her is done.

I am feeling a bit emotional over this, and for good reason. She was the beacon of hope when I had no hope, and she’s been there through everything from the time I came back from Greece up until now. But I know deep in my heart it is time to say good bye. Her time in my life is done. She’s done was she was meant to do because now I am on my feet and my past is behind me. It’s time for new adventures and new friends.

Today begins a series of goodbyes, some of things we will be leaving behind in saguenay, and of friends who we may or may not see again. I am not fond of goodbyes, they’ve always kind of scared me, but maybe we never really do have to say goodbye because even if things or people remain in our past they are still a part of the events and experiences that make us who we are today. In a way, we carry everyone we meet, and every experience we’ve had in our hearts because without these things we wouldn’t be who we are today.

I know that without the purchase of my car I wouldn’t have found the courage to get up and move on with my life. I would have been stuck. I also know without the many friends that I have made here in saguenay I wouldn’t have found the courage to get out of my comfort zone and meet people I wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for J being in the military. Each person I met gave me a little more hope and a little more courage to attempt this military wife thing for real. Each friend has led me to today. Each experience has led me to here. And so I will not say goodbye because my first car, my friends, my experience will forever remain in my heart. So instead, I will say until we meet again, because one day I know we will – whether it be in our memories, or for real, we will always be connected.

My first car will always be my first car, so Electra, thank you for giving me the courage to start anew and see the world with a different view. I will never forget the feeling of driving around in my first car, knowing that even though I didn’t know how – I knew I’d be ok. I will miss you, but I promise you have years in you still and you’ll make someone else very happy. Until we meet again dear friend.

Dear Saguenay, this yogini is ready so BRING IT ON

Yoga is not a workout it’s a work-in. This quote was taken from Meditations from the mat

I read this quote this morning before yoga. It resonated so much with me that I highlighted it and used it as my intention during my yoga practice. Like most people i started yoga as a way to work out. I used the opportunity of being kept in Saguenay for one more year as an experiment of what yoga could be in my life if I were to practice it every day, read about it, and try and live it through out my life. Through this process I have learned that yoga is not a work out. It has great benefits of a workout (just ask my never before existed arms and back muscles) but it is not just a work out. I guess it could be for some people, but in my opinion the other, more important, benefits of yoga are pretty hard to ignore.

I wasn’t sure why this particular morning this quote hit me quite hard, and it really stuck with me through out my practice. Then I got to advanced half moon pose.

The pose itself is not difficult for me, well that’s not true, sometimes it is rather difficult. But I have been trying out a choreography with advanced half moon pose that sometimes works, and other times really really doesn’t – this makes it quite challenging. The choreographyd I’ve been trying begins with advanced half moon (as shown above). Now in order to do the pose properly you don’t only grab your foot but you also need to open your hip. If I can successfully open my hip and remain balanced – half the work is done. But it doesn’t end there. After I have completed this pose (I try and stay for five breaths) I realign my hips to the centre and without bringing my leg or arm down I get into dancers pose.

Ok, sounds semi-normal, right? Well, I’ve accomplished this choreography maybe four times without falling in the last four months. ( I don’t do this every day, but the times that I have, I have finished it without falling a total of about four times). Today, standing on my right foot I was able to actually do the full sequence without falling. However, on my left foot, I couldn’t do it, at all. I tried three times, failed all three, and I was frustrated. I realized I wasn’t only frustrated with this dumb choreography that doesn’t even really matter. I was frustrated with moving.

Now, I want to make this clear, I WANT to move. What I’m frustrated with is not the moving itself but what is surrounding the move – the military. Being involved in the military as a member or as a spouse you need to give up control. You need to realize that sometimes there’s nothing you can do, even if the orders make no sense, you have to roll with the punches and keep going. Yesterday, we were told that we were not going to be able to move until mid December due to our possession date on the house being on December 15. We had been told in Belgium that J’s COS date (date he begins working – December 01) wouldn’t change even though we don’t get possession until two weeks after. Now, this issue has now been resolved, but this morning I did not know that.

So while I was desperately trying to hold my advanced half moon pose, balancing on my left leg, I could feel something boiling up inside me, and I heard the words I can’t do this come from the boiling point. I fell out, I got back up and tried again.

– Boiling point again
– I can’t do this again
– I fall down again.

I repeated this about three times, until finally I decided to re-evaluate. I instead did my advanced half moon pose got out of the pose, stood in mountain, and did dancers pose from there. Then I thought yoga is not a workout it’s a work-in.

It dawned on me that I had done both poses. Yes I hadn’t done it the way I had invisioned in the choreography, but I didn’t give up, nor did I push myself beyond my limits. Instead I found my balance for where I was at today. That is why yoga is not just a work out (one of many reasons). Your life seeps into your practice, almost always. And because it does you see how you’ve grown, what you need to work on, and the many reasons why you can’t balance or whatever on that particular day. Because all there is, is you and your mat, and in order to do yoga you must listen and learn not from an instructor or a book or even a guru, but you listen to you, to your body and your mind, and you learn.

I realized in that moment through these two poses and my difficulty in performing them today, that even if we had to stay in Saguenay until mid-December and move with tons of snow on the ground, we’d get through it. I knew then that it didn’t really matter, what mattered was how we spent the last few weeks here: complaining and blaming – or making the most out of our situation. I chose to make the best I could out of the situation, just like I chose to make the best out of my lack of balance in my sequence. That’s all we can do as military families. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, we can complain and pout all we want but things continue on.

Our moving date has now been moved to December 08, giving us a buffer zone. Because one thing is certain about any move, especially a military one – there will be surprises, and we will need a buffer zone at some point.

My lesson today – Saguenay hasn’t broken me in 4.5 years, I am not about to let it break me now. So bring it on Saguenay, I’m ready for whatever you throw at me. I’ve seen it all, and I’m not about to give up now. The time on my mat hasn’t just been about toning my arms or my back, I’ve learned to roll with the punches, and I’ve learned to get back up and try again when I fall down. You won’t break me now Saguenay.

Preparing for my second farewell to Canada – this time with a bit more gratitude

The last time I left canada to live in another country (about 10 years ago) I didn’t realize what I was leaving behind. I ended up moving to Greece and missing so much about Canada – endless supplies of water that doesn’t mysteriously shut off, the friendliness of Canadians always willing to give a helping hand, winter (yes I actually missed winter!) and so many other things. I felt sad then that I hadn’t realized what great of a country I had grown up in and how much of it’s comforts I took for granted.

I find myself, ten years later, leaving my beloved country once again. Having spent the last 1.5 weeks where I soon will be calling home, I’ve been enthralled by the beauty and newness of this land that I’ve forgotten about how wonderful Canada is. This morning we checked into our flight very early (our hotel is literally right next door) and as we turned to leave the line to check in our baggage we were confronted by other Canadians who politely moved over for us to pass with a smile on their face. Their friendliness reminded me how great canada is. I decided, instead of being sad and annoyed that we have to return back to pack instead of stay here and enjoy Europe, I should appreciate Canada because soon enough I will miss it so much.

I now find myself excited to return home and take in the beauty of Canada one more time before we head off to our new life. Winter will have probably begun in Saguenay and I’m excited to take the first breath of fresh air that will send a chill down into my lungs, and with it a promise of Christmas and cheer. I will miss that important aspect of Christmas – snow. I will appreciate the first real snow fall (if it comes in the next two weeks) and watch as the night sky is lit up with tiny (or big) dots of snow, lighting up the ground, giving the night life. I will sit and look with awe that first morning after a big snow fall and sit mesmerized at the beauty of the white earth, and hope no one ruins it with car tracks or shoe prints. I will find the beauty that is Canada, because while it is not Europe, Canada has it’s own kind of raw natural beauty that you only notice when you’ve left it behind. I will smile at people as I pass them by because I know in canada they will most likely smile back and two strangers will share a moment.

It’s staring to hit me, I won’t be living in Canada for awhile now. I will be in a new land, and while I love this place, it will take a while for it to become home. Before then I will have moments where I will want to be back in Canada with the mundane and the normal. So instead of knocking it down for being – normal or mundane – I will take it all in and appreciate every moment because soon enough it will be in my past.

House Hunting Trip day 2&3: We have a house! (And it’s not the one you think!)

Our house hunting trip (HHT) has come to an end (well the home finding portion of the week at least) we have found a house! Surprisingly it is not the house we had originally chosen.

Our second day of our HHT did not begin so well. The first two houses we saw in the morning were complete duds, and so my number one house from day one remained in tact. However, we had a third house to see in the evening. Usually the housing office chooses the houses we will see on our HHT but J had added a house into the list. This would have been a problem if it didn’t meet the standards, however the house met all the standards and so we went to see it in the evening. I was excited and scared. Excited because we had been talking about this house for so long, and fought so hard to see it, but scared because I had already chosen my number one, I didn’t want to get confused. In all honesty, I was glad the two houses in the morning were duds.

We had already seen the neighbourhood and town on our night out looking at the exterior of the houses we would see. We already knew the house was just outside a small city which is 30 minutes away from Brussels. We already knew that the house looked majestic surrounded by beautiful houses and beautiful greenery. But we had no idea what it looked like on the inside.

J says he knew right away that he loved it, and that I loved it. He describes it as the wow factor. It’s beyond what you expected. It’s big, but not too big, just the right size. Very modern, and zen will look fabulous in this house! We even have a room (one of the three bedrooms) which will be a yoga room!! I knew, right when I saw the kitchen, this was my new number one. House In the woods be gone! This house had everything:

Space (we live in military housing – we both had condos in Winnipeg and for three years have attempted to fit two condos in a tiny military house (at times I felt that the furniture was taking over).

Amenities – we’ve got 3-4 grocery stores very close by, a town with many restaurants and cafés, which is also known for its festivals (the town is Braine- le-Comte). The train station is close by – but not too close – so a day or evening in Brussels will be easy, and it’s 20 km from base (15 minute drive) perfect distance.

Kitchen – my kitchen in bagotville is a cave – it literally is a cave – for about a year I couldn’t bring myself to stay in there for more than ten minutes at a time. My number one item on my must-have list was a great kitchen since I love to cook and haven’t been able to enjoy cooking fully for three and a half years. The kitchen in our new home is so fabulous I could live there.

(Side note, we found out after looking at the house that my previous number one (house in the woods) had been sold, which after having seen this house was no big deal at all!)

It all sounds great right? Well, it wasn’t the end of our list of houses to see. We still had two more to see the next morning (today). At fist we didn’t want to see them, we had made our choice. But I remembered what our housing coordinator had said on our fist day, see all of the houses.

The first house we saw this morning was a house I had wanted to see since we went driving around a few days ago with our list of houses in hand. It looked like a fairy tale house. For example, if Disney wanted to choose a real house for snow white this may have been it. But that was only from the outside.

I was still pretty excited this morning to finally see if the interior would match the cute exterior, and you know what? It did! If we hadn’t seen the house yesterday evening this house would have definitely been a contender, however it was not number one.
The second house we saw this morning is not worth mentioning – it was built in 1975 and it still remains in 1975.

So, after finally finishing the parade of housing we made our decision right away – we wanted the house we saw yesterday evening. Tomorrow morning we meet with the agent to sign all of the documents, and we will officially have an address in Belgium!

Now to just be ok with going back to canada to pack. I still don’t miss home, and the thought of leaving belgium and all of the wonderful people here hurts a little. The welcome I have received by the base hospital (for my social work practicum) the MFRC (military family resource centre), and the people on base in general puts bagotville to shame. I have never felt more welcome, and given so many opportunities than these last few says in Belgium and the SHAPE NATO base.

Feeling eternally grateful!

HHT day 1: it’s official, I’m in love!

How can I thoroughly explain the first day of our HHT (house hunting trip)? I was very nervous last night, as this is my first ever HHT and we’ve been living in military housing for the last 3.5 years. I don’t know what I was worried or anxious about, I guess it was the complete unknowing of what it was going to be like – would I be able to take it all in and make an informative decision?

The first day is over, and I am over the moon happy – I don’t even know how to express such happiness. However the day was filled with pleasant surprises and some not so pleasant.

J and I kind of cheated, we got a hold of the houses that we were going to be shown by the housing office for Canadian military on base, and drove to each house last Thursday to get a look at it’s location, and get our first impressions of the actual house. I had vehemently refused to see quite a few houses in the last two days – another reason I may have been apprehensive last night.

We were told this morning at our intro meeting that houses are taxed by their curb appeal in belgium, so basically the better they look on the outside the more they’ll get taxed. And so, many people neglect the exterior while go over and beyond on the intrerior. Having heard this we decided to see all of the houses on our list – even the ones I had refused to even consider – I’m so thankful for this decision.

We saw a lot of houses (we have another two days to go so we are far from over) some I loved, some not so much. Here is an overview:

There were two houses I really wanted to see that really dissapointed me:

One of them was huge with a nice backyard, it looked really good in the pictures, the only apprehension I had was a sink in one of the bedrooms. Immediately waking in we were presented with a very unique smell – the smell of a group home – almost reminded me of those scary movies about a house that used to be a home for the sick or the insane, but a family now moved in only to find that it was haunted. On top of the smell (as if that wasn’t enough) the house was full of useless antique furniture which had to stay with the house, none of which matched our tastes. And the worst was the rat poo (which thankfully I didn’t see but J did – if I had seen it I wouldn’t have been able to stay in the house). As if all of that wasn’t enough, there were also the dead birds in the closed off heated garage that J was planning to use as a man’s cave.

Then there was the house that was 90s avant-garde gone wrong. I named it the ‘three men and a baby house gone horribly wrong’). It was awful, I couldn’t stand being in there it was just too much.

The last bad house was a small house surrounded by old, run down commercial buildings, on a busy street. The house literally made me very sad just being inside it. It was a little house surrounded by commercial properties. It was on a very busy street and it was as if the house was trying too hard to be a house in a place where there shouldn’t be a house. I immediately became melancholic looking around at the house. It just wasn’t going to work, and I felt horrible because I knew the house wanted to work, it just wasn’t.

Then there were the gems, the houses I will dream about tonight. One was so zen it’s unbelievable. The funny thing is I had refused to see the house because there were a lot of woods on one side of the house. We had visited the house initially last week at night and it was eery. On top of that I imagined that they would be building around the house for the next couple of years and didn’t want to be surrounded by construction for 2/3 of our stay here. But J urged me to give it another shot during the day, I’m so glad I did. At fist as we walked around the house I thought it was too trendy, almost cold, but I loved the greenery, and we were told that the woods were actually a protected forest that would remain that way – so no construction. Initially I chose another house as my number one – one with a beautiful kitchen but not big enough bedrooms (our king size bed would JUST fit in the master bedroom). However as the day went on I couldn’t get the woods house out of my mind. I started to love the kitchen, it was bigger than my previous number one, and so beautifully modern and spacious – a rarity in Europe. I also started getting inspired by the greenery and thought that if I used that greenery as my inspiration for decorating the house I could potentially create a very zen-like home that J and I would fit into perfectly. By the end of the day I fell in love. The bad thing is we have seven more houses to go so who knows if this will be it, but at least we know that if today was this good, there is no need to worry.

Belgium has definitely captivated me, the people, the country, the culture all have made me want to stay. I still don’t miss home and am actually worried about going back for three weeks. I wish we could stay and begin our life here immediately – but all good things come to those who wait.

Yoga the other day was fantastic. The people in class were more than welcoming, and practicing with such a variety of people was such a pleasure. There may even be an opportunity for me to teach on base when I return from India which is super fantastic. We’ll see if that works out, for now I’m just happy that the people in the yoga class and in general have been more than welcoming. A stark difference from my first few days in Saguenay.

First impressions of our new posting!

Alright, so I wrote a post about my first couple of days in Belgium preparing for our house hunting trip (HHT) but I unintentionally deleted the post, which is ok because it wasn’t my favourite post anyways. So this is a chance to start over!

I’ve been here for about four days, and honestly I have nothing bad to say about Belgium. There are obviously some differences, but nothing negative or disheartening.

I have learned a few things here in the last four days.

It rains a lot, like every day – my first day was full of sunshine, but I noticed that every car had water on it (it was morning) at first I thought this a was dew from the early morning, but it was too much – how dewey could it possibly get? So I asked J about it, and his response was – the rain. Since then it has rained at some point every day or evening and I have come to realize that I will be preptually cold in belgium. But here is the positive spin: cold damp weather means more boots, scarves, beautiful coats and hats – perpetual fall weather clothing!

Aside from the rainy weather, my hair seems to love Belgium, a welcome change from Saguenay, where my hair never cooperated with any kind of weather.

The driving is it’s own kind of crazy. Not only do I have to get used to all of the confusing European signs (I think a circle with a line through it and a circle with an x through it both mean no parking – why two signs?) but also all of the signs painted directly on the road. Most are pretty understandable (turning lane, one way) but then there is the what I can only imagine is another form of a yield/stop sign painted on the road.

Let me explain. So, in belgium cars turning onto oncoming traffic, from the right, have the right of way, unless indicated by this weird painted yield sign across the road. So basically from what I understand if there is no painted yield sign on the side road (right hand side) then that car can just cut off oncoming traffic, and it is the drivers on the main road’s responsibility to yield. I couldn’t find an image of this crazy road sign but I found a description of the rule:

Priority is given to the right; drivers must stop for traffic joining from the right. Marked by an inverted “yield” sign with a red “X” in the middle, the “priority from the right” rule means that cars coming from the right always have priority, unless a yellow diamond sign or other priority road sign has been posted. This does not apply on motorways, roundabouts, and roads sign-posted with an orange diamond within a white background

While there are some things I will need to get used to, there are some really great things as well.

The other night J and I were trying to decide where to go for dinner. It was a hard choice – not due to lack of choice, but the diversity of choices we could make. We had choices of cuisines from all over the world – a welcome change to Saguenay where it’s either poutine, fake Greek, fake sushi, or a semi Thai restaurant. That night we were debating whether to eat Greek, Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian. We ended up choosing Italian, and had a wonderful meal surrounded by a wonderful ambiance. The food was so good, I even dipped my bread in the tomato basil sauce my scampi were baked in for my appetizer. I had the most wonderful pizza, and an authentic tiramisu for dessert. The house wine was delicious and smooth, it was evident by the fresh ingredients, the wonderful aromas, and the superb wine that we were in Europe.

The moment I truly realized we were in Europe was when we entered the main square where we had to make the choice of where to eat dinner. We were in the city of Mons and the main square was all cobbled road. The buildings were very European, and there were people everywhere talking, smiling at passer-bys and generally just having a good time. It was then as I looked around in wonder that I finally realized we were going to be living in Europe.

The people here are so kind-hearted it is unbelievable, and I’m from friendly Manitoba so that is saying a lot! We are about to begin our HHT tomorrow and so have been asking locals about houses for rent. Every time we ask, people go out of their way to give us the most information possible. We have even had people searching online for us on their phones. We obviously had no idea they went that out of their way and when we realized this we couldn’t stop thanking them. Everyone has welcomed us with smiles – a welcome change from saguenay again where for about a year I was gawked at due to my English and different looking characteristics – I honestly felt like an alien. It’s nice to see the variety of cultures again without the feeling that some are considered ‘different’ or ‘strange’.

Speaking about language the French here is very different from Quebec French. The words are the same, but the accept takes some getting used to. It seems that Quebec French has more of a open sound in the end (it’s hard to describe it) for example the word maman (mom) ends in a short ‘a’ sound in Quebec French. Here the same word ends in a ‘ong’ sound at the end. This is the case for every single word that when put into a sentence it is hard to understand what they are saying. To them even J, who is fully bilingual, souds strange. More often than not they will speak to him in English when he is speaking French because they have a hard time understanding his French hahahaha (that feels good since for the first two years people in saguenay could not understand my strange accent in French).

Overall my first impressions of Belgium are great! I know that there will be some adjustments (like in every move) but I believe having lived in a place two years longer than we were suppose to has taught me to always look for the positive in every situation, and I believe this will help me in my transition into our new life here. I can’t help but feel excited. The most promising thing about my first impressions is that I don’t want to leave. I don’t miss the normalcy of Canada yet, I don’t miss home. I might still be on my honeymoon phase (or wearing my rose coloured glasses as I had mentioned in the post I mistakenly deleted) but from someone who is a homebody not missing home yet is huge. It tells me that this next posting is going to be very differnt from our posting in Saguenay Quebec.

Thank you Belgium for welcoming me with smiles and a helping hand everywhere I turn. Now I’m off to my first yoga class in Belgium!

And slowly it begins …(as I pick myself off the floor in disbelief)

Believe it or not, life in Saguenay has become comfortable, and leaving my life here, I have realized, is kind of scary. I may have been lost in the craziness that is the twilight zone when we first moved here, but the madness has become ordinary.

Some of the madness I faced when we moved here

The crazy driving – heck, I get ticketed when I leave Quebec so obviously I have unfotunately become accustomed to the very lax definition of road signs that is Quebec.

French – I catch myself talking to myself in French in public at times. Again, this is unfortunate since my Greek has since gone down the drain. Before moving here I used to talk to myself in Greek.

The lack of city life – I’ve actually become accustomed to the mediocre sushi, no Thai, Indian, or REAL Greek food (I cook a lot of Thai and Indian at home – and obviously I cook Greek dishes as well).

New and strange job opportunities – I had taught before when I lived in Greece for two years (before my military life) but Saguenay was different. I have taught in hospitals with chalk boards (yeah, how ghetto is that!), in office conference rooms with no board at all, in a law firm, on base with all the equipment you could imagine, and I’ve gotten quite used to the work, I actually loved it.

So why am I semi-panicking?

I’m not second-guessing our move at all (geez wouldn’t that be crazy) but I am realizing that life is very quickly going to become very foreign to me. The things that I found so difficult about Saguenay are going to become fond memories very very soon. I realized this today because (unlike Saguenay) I have a chance at finding a job very quickly in Belgium (like starting the day after we move) however it is nothing like I have ever done before. I have had many kinds of jobs, and I have many (if not all) of the skills required for this job, but it is very different from teaching. It’s going to be a whole new world. And today as I went about my day feeling like super woman due to a powerful yoga practice this morning, the floor suddenly disappeared from underneath my feet, because I received an email about the job posting and I realized how different and new this job would be.

Back to square one, once again.

I finally get why my friends have been staring at me googly-eyed asking me if I understood how quickly we will be on our way out of Saguenay. My response to this up until now has been: No not really, I don’t really believe it yet. We are about to head to our house hunting trip in a week and I’m more concerned about cleaninng the house than preparing for the move. But today it suddenly hit me, or rather it pushed me to the ground in disbelief, things are about to change drastically.

Am I ready? I think so. Can I imagine what life will be like? No, I know better than that – it’s never what you imagine it will be. It’s usually very very hard to begin with but through the turmoil and hard days and lonely nights you become stronger and the strange slowly becomes mundane, and this new place suddenly becomes home – but that takes a while. At first it’s just a lot of spinning around, trying to make sense of things, and feeling all alone.

I have a feeling that this posing will surprise me, but right now I need to get myself ready because the belief that I have more than enough time for everything is going to smack me in the face in a few weeks.

I guess it’s time to put to the test all of the lessons and skills I’ve learnt on the mat. Will I be able to embrace all of the change, keep my centre and find balance in new situations?

I think I’m ready to find out.

Sometimes you just gotta put a little yin into your practice

If you’ve ever tried yin yoga you’ll know that even though it’s extremely slow moving, it’s one of the hardest forms of yoga to do. Yin yoga is a series of poses (seated) that are held for about five minutes at a time.

Here are some examples of yin yoga poses (all of the poses shown here are held for about 5-10 minutes each).

While in most other forms of yoga poses are held not only physically and mindfully but with the use of bondas (or firmness of certain areas of the body). The difference in yin is that instead of placing ourselves into a pose and mindfully remaining strong, we relax into the pose. For example pigeon pose (or swan pose in yin yoga) usually requires us to firm our back leg, firm our front foot activating the front leg, and breathing into the pose for five to ten breaths, in yin your feet are relaxed, and while your thighs and hips will not be at first (they might be tight or uncomfortable) the point of yin yoga is to find relaxation in the pose, or to find comfort in the discomfort. If you’ve ever tried sitting in one position (cross-legged even) for an extended period of time, not moving, focusing on your breath, and trying not to allow your brain to wander, you will know that yin yoga is not fun, not fun at all.

Here are my reasons why:

1. It’s uncomfortable most of the time.
– sitting with this discomfort is torture at times. In yin you are asked to stay in a pose for sometimes ten minutes. Most of the poses are hip openers and are meant not only to get to the deep connective tissues but to also deal with why we are tight in the first place (physically and emotionally).

2. It’s difficult not to wander
– In my first class I swore the instructor (a good friend of mine) forgot to tell us to get out of the pose, I looked up, to see if I had not heard her, or if she had wandered off in her thoughts like I had. She hadn’t, it was meant to last a tortuous amount of time. I even had the classic Elaine Benes freak out on the subway (Seinfeld episode) except on my yoga mat.

3. A lot of emotions come up
By sitting with ourselves for that amount of time and accepting whatever happens – be it an Elaine Benes rant, crying, anger, making plans in our heads, hating yin yoga – without judgements allows us to eventually let go. Granted this might not happen the first time you try it, but it will, if you can gather up the guts to try yin yoga again. (It took me over a year to try it again).

There were many reasons why it took me so long to try Yin yoga again, one of them being it is not fun at all, and another being I wasn’t ready to see yoga as physically passive yet emotionally juicy. If you follow any yoga blogs, or webpages, you’ll notice that many people try to define yoga –

yoga is not a work out
Yoga is a work out
Core yoga/butt yoga/weight loss yoga
if you don’t sweat it’s not yoga
yoga is a sport
yoga is a spiritual experience

I used to define yoga, and I still catch myself doing so at times. But something I have come to realize recently is that none of these statements are true. In this last year I have strived to try as many forms of yoga as I could. And because of that I have learned that there is no one way to do yoga, and you can’t categorize it as good or bad, authentic or inauthentic, because the reality is yoga is a lot of things. On any given day yoga can be spiritual, it can be rejuvinating, it can be a work out, and it can also be yin. Yoga is what you need it to be.

Today I needed it to be yin. My emotions have been crazy these last few days (mostly due to my cycle but also the many changes, and changes within changes, taking place). In one minute I could be a-ok and in the next I could be completely PMSing, or panicking in my head about the lack of time, organization of the military – you name it, I’ve panicked about it in the last few days. I couldn’t concentrate, I felt lost and stressed and I was beginning to have no trust in any of my abilities. And so I decided to sit with myself this morning. Feel the burn and force myself to just be.

That’s what yin does: there is no flow to keep up with, no mastering of a pose, there is just you and your joints. There are no adustments to make you seem bendy, you can’t pretend that you don’t have tight hips, or that you can do wide legged forward fold (seated), you are forced to accept these things, and you see by letting go, that these things don’t really matter because if you were to define yoga it wouldn’t be a work out or a spiritual experience, it would just be yoga, yoga is in everything, in every movement, any BODY can do yoga, and when you finally see that, you realize yoga is just connection, union. When you finally allow yourself to let go in a yin pose you realize that even though you can’t even partially do turtle pose (me this morning) the fact that you sat with it and let yourself experience the moment (cry), accept it, but not let it define you, you’ve done it, you’ve welcomed yoga into your life.

For me Yin yoga is about connecting with yourself, allowing yourself to feel whatever it is you need to feel. When sitting in an uncomfortable position for five minutes you have no choice but to eventually feel, eventually get to what is hidden deep in your tissues. A year ago this is definitely not how I would have defined yin yoga, because back then yoga was different in my life. Don’t let others tell you what yoga is, or who can do yoga, let it be what it is for you in this moment, and one day you’ll find yourself sitting in a random pose letting yourself cry it out and you’ll see just how mystifying yoga can be.

My yoga challenge and what change is teaching me about self-discipline

I started this challenge with the intention of getting on my mat every day, even on my day off from the mat I meditated (most of the time). I realized this last weekend that this is going to be nearly impossible in the next coming weeks. I had to face reality. There were way too many things to do, that doing a full practice was impossible, I was faced with a dilemma, do I abandon my challenge for the next few days, or do I change what my intentions are.

I felt that I had opposite destructive habits fighting against me while making the decision of how to practice amongst all of the changes taking place. On the one hand I wanted to avoid my mat and all the feelings I was having related to the move. On the other hand I wanted to stand strong and work hard, get excited for the move through powerful and sweat making movements, but I knew that during this time of constant list-making and stress that ‘power yoga’ would push my body to its max.

I decided to take a break on Sunday and reevaluate what it meant to get on my mat – was it just physical exercise (as my ego would like to believe) or was there another way to experience my practice – and what would that look like?

Deep down I knew I needed to get on my mat, not for any physical reason, but because it grounded me. I thought about what it meant to be grounded, I thought of poses that helped me feel grounded. I also needed to lose myself in a rhythm, to have to concentrate so much that the lists that keep forming in my head would have no choice but to fall silent. I needed to just breathe and move. I needed to meditate, I needed to pray. And so I chose to do sun salutations.

I didn’t know how many I would do, or in what order, all I knew is that I would get on my mat, follow my breath with my movement and lose myself in the rhythm. I knew I had a maximum of 45 minutes and that a set of five sun salutations take about 10-15 minutes, so my best option was to do a set of five for each kind of sun salutation: A, B, classical.

Sun salutation A:

Sun salutation B

In between the sets I would add a pose of my choosing, whatever I felt like doing – if anything at all.

Classical sun salutation

It was a wonderful change. It was also a wonderful lesson on the niyama – tapas, or self-discipline. Tapas is not driven by the ego, like self-discipline can be at times, but instead, it is driven by our highest intention, stillness. What does that mean exactly. If self discipline is driven by the ego, then you are more likely to get on your mat to prove something – I can do this pose, I can do more, I can do better. These are not necessarily bad things, but in yoga they can cause physical harm (if you’re not ready to do a certain pose, or your too tired to care about alignment), and emotional stress (if we continuously compare ourselves to others or feel inadequate because we can’t do a certain pose we can never truly be at peace or present on our mat). Working towards stillness means working within yourself. You get on your mat not to prove something, but to learn. You get on your mat every day not to get better at something physically (yoga is never linear) but to learn how great your are already. You get on your mat for yourself, and so in order to do this you need to listen, you need to be honest and present. You need to be willing to look at yourself, your life, and see what it is that you need from your mat today

Through this experience I learned that yoga is not about the difficult postures or the cool combinations – don’t get me wrong these things are great, but they miss the point of what yoga is. We often get caught up in getting better, being better, we compare ourselves to others and ourselves that we lose the point of what yoga is. Yoga is about union – pure and simple. Union of breath and movement, union of mind spirit and body, union between two people, union in life by being present in the moment.

Sometimes change is inevitable, and often times changes will help us learn or be reminded of something. I have been so focused on creating the perfect practice – a lot of variations, a lot of sweat, and a lot of poses, that I forgot about how simple yoga can be. All you need is a mat, your will, and the ability to do a sun salutation. You can even do yoga without being on the mat by practicing the other limbs of yoga that are often forgotten. You can see some examples of these that I have written about in my yoga off the mat challenge: here, here, here and, here. It is really easy to forget these things when we begin to practice. I’ve realized that my ego still has ways of leading the show – whether it’s by feeling guilty for not having time for yoga, or pushing myself because I know I can do more.

There’s a fine line between self-discipline being driven by the ego or by our true intentions, and often times we need a jolt from our routine to help us realize this. But that is the beauty of changes, they allow you to see something that you see every day, but suddenly you see it in a new way. Through changes we grow, and through the changes that are coming with the move, I am learning how yoga has helped me find stillness.