Sleeping Beauty, the caffeine addict...

In the past year sleep has been a luxury and not a given, as our youngest apparently feels that sleep is overrated. I have inhaled coffee as the only way to keep me standing upright. During this time I have been more stressed and moody. And I haven't been getting as much out into the world as I wanted to. By habit doing nothing didn't seem like the best cure for the above. Thursday my partner told me to go away for 3 days, sleep, relax and do what I felt was most called for - wow, uhmmmm are you sure, really, ok see you Sunday. I am lucky in the man department I must say.

Out the door I went and took the train to my sisters. Of course I took some work with me thinking this time away would be productive... HA!

I am tired.

At my sisters I had a cup of coffee and didn't really like the brew she was cooking up, so I drank some tea instead. I left the coffee for the next 3 days. This being the first break from the black liquid in over a year. Friday morning I was so tired all I could do was lay on the couch - I stayed there until Saturday midday only to return a few hours later.

I couldn't believe how tired I was and being honest with myself I knew I had been for a really long time. Work, kids, life, habit got to me and I didn't really "hear" the need for more sleep.

Sleeoing beauty the caffeine addict

I normally listen to my body and respect my limits. I also know that I love cuddling up in the evenings a little late, I don't like sleeping during the day and I have so many ideas and love my work that it is hard for me to leave it be.

I am however even more aware that to keep it all up I need to respect my bodies limits and not drown it in caffeine. In the end it wasn't offering a positive contribution to my life.

And as I dive into the material for the upcoming HEAR*SEE*HOLD course I deepen that listening. As with most areas of self and life there is always more to be discovered. The coffee overpowered what my body needed, and in my case boy did I need to sleep, relaxation and to do absolutely nothing.

I came back with a few lessons learned:

1. I don't like filtered coffee

2. Sleeping on a couch for 24 hours ain't too good on the back

3. That I too have blind spots

4. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away

5. zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz

My holiday in numeros...

This year I took the first 3 weeks off since I went solo 5 years ago... hurrying along, so we don't get into why that is a fact, I decided to do the 3 weeks, offline... well anyway this is how my Summer and those 3 weeks took shape - in numbers. Evenings with sis and man, by a fire, drinking a mojito as an owl flew by under the shining stars: 1 - would love to redo this one though. It was pretty awesome.

Music Festivals: 2. 1 with my man and 1 with the kids, man, sisters and friends. I had so much fun and loved the music.

My holiday

Lice: HA! I want to say none, but enough is more like it. The whole family itching away and kids screaming as we try to comb the buggers out with a comb, that I'm not too sure hair can get through.

Mice: Not in hair, but in cupboard 3

Days at the beach: 10

Kids tantrums: stopped counting after 15

My tantrums: stopped counting after 5

Beautiful Sunsets: 25

Carina Lyall Sunsets

Days offline (planned): 21

Days offline (actual numbers): 15

Days offline (actual, truthful, numbers): 9

Books read: 19. Oh no sorry that was books bought... books read to the end: 0

Birthdays: 1 - mine

Strawberries eaten: 20kg

My holiday in numbers

Floors painted blue: 2

Runs: 15!!!! High fiving myself as I write that number.

Number of baby selfies on the phone: 150+

kids selfie

Number of cool photos, videos and apps deleted from phone: 17. That's what you get when you try to steal 5 more minutes of sleep by slipping your kids the phone.

Awesome evenings with friends: 8

Ideas for writing, courses, people to interview for the podcast: 1117 and I can't wait to get started again.

Just a little peak into the great Summer Holiday in 2014. <3

Put on your Red Shoes...

Ruth St Denis in a Burmese solo dance.

Something I have always admired is when people have the ability to play, let lose, dance crazy just because, kind of like Phoebe from friends and the episode where her and Rachel go for a run and Phoebe runs crazy, just because it makes it more fun (have you ever watched that episode?).

Anyway the more I play, dance around, laugh, giggle, fool around with my kids the better I feel. I also know that in stressful times I do less of the fun stuff and it makes me feel stuck and down.

In our house we all love to dance around. Not because we are that great at it, but we just have fun doing it. I love dancing and the music and the smiles that come with it. Everywhere around the World dance and music are a part of culture.

How about making this the week of shaking it?

I would like to focus on DANCE. I want you to turn up the Radio or put on your favorite tune and dance. Invite your kids to join you or do it on your own. Move your body, smile, feel foolish, free and dance. For sure for some it will feel weird or uncomfortable but see if you can push yourself a little with this one.

And for inspiration I would encourage you to watch this little video. I love this dude…

If dancing isn't for you, is there another activity that you feel is fun that you would like to commit to, and that does have a focussed outcome?

With love

Carina

The perfect, imperfect poem

Maybe we just misunderstand what it says - I'm-perfect... :)

All I want to do today is share a poem about the icky and sticky subject of imperfection.  It is such a lovely poem and I feel it resonating with  A LOT in my life. Do you?

IMPERFECTION

I am falling in love with my imperfections The way I never get the sink really clean, forget to check my oil, lose my car in parking lots, miss appointments I have written down, am just a little late.

I am learning to love the small bumps on my face the big bump of my nose, my hairless scalp, chipped nail polish, toes that overlap.

Learning to love the open-ended  mystery of not knowing why

I am learning to fail to make lists, use my time wisely, read the books I should.

Instead I practice inconsistency, irrationality, forgetfulness.

Probably I should hang my clothes neatly in the closet all the shirts together, then the pants, send Christmas cards, or better yet a letter telling of my perfect family.

But I’d rather waste time listening to the rain, or lying underneath my cat learning to purr.

I used to fill every moment with something I could cross off later.

Perfect was the laundry done and folded all my papers graded the whole truth and nothing but

Now the empty mind is what I seek the formless shape the strange  off center sometimes fictional me.

Elizabeth Carlson

Hey fatso... you are looking good

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Well I guess this a more iffy subject for me. So I will dive into it a little gently.

The foundation of my work is that you belong here exactly as you are. There is no perfect ideal to strive for. You have an enormous amount of wisdom in you and maybe it takes slowing down to listen to that. I wish that this could be the way we all step into our lives. This is not to say that we can't shift, unfold, evolve. I am exploring the starting point and the tendency to feel wrong, to feel that we only deserve a place when we fit and mold ourselves into a certain standard - however we define what that looks like.

I know that for me not owning that statement has been exhausting. In motherhood I read books, looked at women who wizzed through the challenging parts and I felt like a constant failure. The art of comparison once again left me feeling less worthy. The foundation of being wrong or less than, isn't a nice place to be and very very seldom leads to a life with happiness and ease.

I will be digging deeper into that statement in further posts... for now a story of how I was challenged recently.

I was out for drinks with my two sisters. We had a great time and we decided to end the good times with a burger. Now it is no secret that I have put on weight after the 2 pregnancies and what not, but burger it was - YOLO or something.

In the cue some guys felt that we had cut in line, and looked at me and said that I probably shouldn't be in there anyway considering my weight. Well tears galore and I felt shitty. Reduced to an unworthy lump of Blubber (did you every read Judy Blume's book? It's awesome... anyway).

Fastforward 2 weeks and my man and I are away for the weekend for a music festival. As I am coming out of the toilet area a woman stops me. She is a scout for a model agency and thinks I would be an awesome model for the normal size/curve department... huh...

So which "truth" do I go with? A third - my own? How I see myself? How I feel about myself? Or do I let either of their perspectives rule and dictate wether I feel worthy just as I am? Do I wait till I have xx weight to go out again or do I pout my lips and work it like a supermodel? The "you belong here, exactly as you are" reminds me that none of the above is my truth. It is their eyes looking at me. What matters is how I look at me. And this has been such an awesome reminder.

This is what we can work on - how you see you. And knowing that you belong here, you already are. <3