This Should Fix It 003
Free 8 minute meditation on boundaries, my never ending quest to be more grounded, and the things that supported my favorite delusion this week.
“Just hearing your voice and hearing you say that feels grounding and comforting to me.”
Robyn has a great voice. It’s velvety smooth.
When I’m conscious of it, I can make my voice sound like that, too, but I know she’s not trying to sound this way, she just does.
I hadn’t talked to Robyn in about a decade. The last time we were in a room together was for a photoshoot I did for her company in 2015.
This time she was calling to see if I’d like to be on a panel with her and some other entrepreurs in the Sunset. (I would.)
Before we got into that, though, we got into everything else.
She is the kind of person where you hear yourself saying shit like, “Well, I’ve had that pattern forever. I’m sure it’s my mom’s voice.” Within 5 minutes of answering the phone.
I was telling her about the cliff I jumped off (was pushed off?) last year around this time, and how it’s been a lot, like a lot, alot, trying to work entirely for myself again after having the support of other apps for the last 7 years.
She held space for me on the phone like an absolute professional. Then allowed me into what had been hard for her when she made a similar leap of faith. In her words, I heard echos of my own thoughts.
She told me about how she left a cushy corporate job that was paying in spades but chipping away at her soul.
I felt that, too.
How it just didn’t feel right to be on that path.
No, it didn’t.
And when you’re aligned with how you want to be in service it just works out.
Oh God, I hope so.
“I couldn’t possibly have predicted exactly how this path would unfold. And you just have to let go of the money part. Follow the service.”
You know how you know something and you’ve thought it, written it, screamed it to the heavens, but it just doesn’t land inside of you?
That landed.
I felt the lock turn and the door gently swung open, as it sometimes does when you hear the right thing from the right person at exactly the right moment.
Duh, yes.
I’m still working from a place of proving myself. My ultimate metric of success is still money, but it’s not actually mine. I inherited it. I took it on and have carried it with me my whole adult life.
My arms are tired. This way of operating feels heavy. It’s not grounding me, it’s sinking me.
And obviously, it is important, right? We live in the horrors of late-stage capitalism and everything is getting more expensive by the minute, so we need money and lots of it.
So it’s a “yes, and” kind of thing. I need it, but I can’t keep holding that above everything else. Or else, I should have just kept quiet at the job that was paying me a decent amount and making me miserable.
But I didn’t.
I chose to not be miserable, but have somehow forgotten that choice.
I have never felt like a Robyn, like a grounded person. I would love to, though. Very, very much so. And with that in mind, this week’s practices have all been aimed in that direction.
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Dive deeper into this theme and find practical ways to feel more grounded in our 60-minute Sunday 7 am pt LRY
I got a lot of requests for a way to return to the roots of our old format (one 60-minute class a week) and I have delivered.
Right now it’s $5/week in our new monthly subcription option called, Just the Yoga, on sale until November 1st.
I’ll be back here Monday to finish these thoughts and wax poetic on the theme once we’re done moving.
Keep scrolling for a free meditation, and things that let me enjoy my favorite delusion this week. A song, some pants, a fantasy, and homemade art fixed it, even if just for a moment.
But before that, you can peruse our other gounding practices from this week (that are included in our full LRY membership):
JTFS 110 - Be Stretchier (and Weirder)
(28 min)
We move through a stretchier practice that accentuates backbends and inner leg and hip stretching. The theme will be about tuning into your inner weirdo. What kind of pizazz do they want? Take your direction from the little kid inside of you who didn’t know about being self-conscious.
JTHS 121 - Sturdy + Deliberate
(31 min)
Lay down! Connect to the ground. Bring awareness into your abdominal wall to begin. Allow for a slow and steady breath as we get right into the hundreds. Then find the power of your side abs, shoulders, and inner legs. Blend all of that together in the third and final song of pilates.
Sometimes when I’m creating, I make arbitrary rules for myself. The constraints allow me to find more creativity. For this week’s classes, I challenged myself to do more yoga poses, which was inspired by Danielle’s request to have more simplicity for her early morning practices. (TY Danielle!)
After pilates, and one song of squat salutations, we are headed into 4 songs of one long standing series. That may sound arduous, but I found it made class fly by!
(15 min)
Continuing on the theme of being more grounded. We relinquish and release as much as we can in terms of achieving or needing anything to be a certain way. And with that, hopefully, we can inhabit what this moment, and our bodies are truly calling out for.
Quick Core - Heartbeat Monitor 013
(22 min)
Heartbeat Monitor was born out of a desire to challenge, but not torture. It finds a balance between going for it and resting back into yourself. We use your heartbeat as the main feedback. Has it gotten to a place that is unmanageable? Have you left the space where you’re able to still breathe and think clearly? If so, is that useful? Are you mindfully pushing an edge? And if not, how do you come back in?
Marching is our upregulating theme for this one, along with spinal rotation. I added a 10 lb weight, but you don’t need anything extra to enjoy yourself here.
(15 minutes)
I try my hardest not to do things that feel forced. And for a while there, I needed to retire my breathwork practice so I could untangle it from what I had come to associate it with. It now feels sincere and exciting again, just like it did when I first started practicing and teaching it in person here in San Francisco in 2019.
This practice starts by grounding us into natural breath, slow breath, then an up-regulating 3-part breath (that part is done all through the mouth) for about 7 minutes. There are breath holds offered, and you can relinquish the hold or keep it longer depending on what your own inner healer (as it’s called in holotropic breathwork) is telling you.
MEDITATE WITH ME:
For When - Better Boundaries
If you struggle with boundaries, this could help. We settle into your body right away and then use the phrase, “thank you, not now,” any time your mind tries to steal you away from the task at hand. I am making the mistake of misplacing my energy in this moment of upheaval in the U.S. and I’m using my practice to help me feel clear, connected, and ready for the right action. For me, that means creating more boundaries about where I place my attention, how much noise I allow myself to scroll through, and asking myself, “is this hurting or is this helping?” Life is hard enough as is, we don’t want to be mindlessly making it harder. Use this short practice to help you feel what’s going on inside of you and ready yourself to show up in ways that are impactful for you and your community.
Things that Fixed It:
This song from this week’s 60-minute class. Do you remember the chokehold this song had on our nation when it was released in the fall of 2010?
Press play, sit back, close your eyes, and reminisce on simpler (?) times.
I know capitalism is destroying our souls and the planet, and I really try to only buy secondhand when possible, BUT.
These pants fixed it every time I put them on this week (which was almost daily).
They’re on sale here (Not an ad, I don’t get a commission, I just want to share the delightfully wild amounts of joy they brought me.)
Peering into the mail slot in this building that’s been empty forever by my house and fantasizing about opening my own studio/art gallery in the sunset called “The Living Room,” where we’d host a new artist’s show every month and the studio would constantly be changing and alive. And inside it we’d be inspired and work with our own living rooms (bodies) and it would just be a safe haven for freedom, fun, weirdness, and art and it would be magical.
Consider this your REMINDER to fantasize about your dreams!!!!!
It’s free, it’s fun, and it might make the weight of the world feel more managable if you devote some time to it.
4.Lastly, another free(ish) thing that provided joy and relief for my system: homemade Halloween decorations! I mostly loved them because I had nothing to do with that actual creation of them, I’m more of an art director than creator, but goddamnit if they don’t make me smile every time I catch a glimpse of them.
Grab a weird stick from outside, bring it inside! Boom! Halloween decoration. Go to a thrift store, buy some old candle holders, done! Spooky! Don’t take down the spider webs this whole month, tada! You’re on right on
theme, hunny!
Or, go Greg’s route and make very ornate decorations by painstakingly cutting out colored paper:
ALRIGHT!
That’s all from me on this fine Friday. I hope you’re having fun out there and I’ll see you in class on Sunday or back here Monday.
xo
Hi! This was fantastic!
Thank you!