What I Quit In Isolation
I am forever a life editor. Often I use my life like I do a piece of writing, I move a period, a comma, a word, a sentence and it changes the entire meaning. This is part of my experimental and movable nature, but also my desire to continually becoming more and more myself.
When the world shifted, I got to work, not just in the job sense, but in examining my life. Truthfully speaking, this is a process that never ends for me, but I do it differently now that I used to. I used to edit my life from a negative, self-loathing place of never being good enough. Now, I do it from a place of love, knowing that each time I become more myself through a change or edit. And in doing so, I am serving not only myself, but everyone I come into contact with. The ten thousand foot view of myself and my life is not only a gift of privilege, but it is an integral part of who I am really am. I connect patterns easily, especially for myself. Getting to the root of why and how I do things has always been a pet project of mine and as it turns out is interrelated to the work I have begun to do. When we strip away what is not ours, the doorway to our wholeness starts to open. We are deep in this process right now on a personal and societal level. First we have to uncover and see what isn’t working, bring it to the surface, and then once we have squarely looked at it and all its layers, we can start to see, plan, and create what will come next.
As Pema Chodron says, “we start with ourselves,” and I always endeavor to do that no matter how hard it can be. Here’s some of the ways I’ve experimented in this isolation period.
What I Quit
1. Hair Dye – I’ve been dying my hair for about three years. I had lovely streaks of grey before that that never really bothered me too much. I used to say I had one or 50 for each country I had traveled to. Somewhere around January I started saying to my hair stylist (who I love -LuLuBeauty ), that I was thinking about quitting dye and “letting it go.” She talked to me a bit about the process and then convinced me to stay with it. Then in March, right before we shut everything down, I had an appointment, and I said yes one more time, even though I waffled with wondering if this was the opportunity to start the ombre process. Turns out it was, and I would be farther along if I hadn’t said yes that time. But basically as soon as I left that appointment I knew that would be the last time, and it was. I now have a multi-colored head of salt and pepper and I truly love it. It feels like me. It also feels like I saved both time and money I can put other places. It also feels right.
2. Toe Nail Polish – I used to hate my feet (and all feet). I could barely look at them. This is amusing because Pisces, my sun sign, governs the feet and well, I teach yoga. When I was young, I had a boyfriend who couldn’t understand all of the things I disliked about myself, including the feet. A towering guy with feet about twice the size of mine, knowingly or unknowingly cause me to reconsider this aversion. I started painting them religiously to help me get more comfortable with them. It became a habit and for the next 18 or so years, I could almost never be found without polish on my toes (even when I was traveling around the world out of backpack, I carried a bottle of polish in my pack to make sure I was never without it). My Mom often says to me that “You should give your toes a break.” I often considered it, but never did because it had become part of my “uniform” for work. As a yoga teacher, I felt like I couldn’t be without toe polish (really this is an excuse to continue my own pattern). Besides the patterning around this, “my feet aren’t beautiful unless they are polished,” is the limiting belief if I had to put a phrase on it, I truly felt that when I was on my mat, it helped me really hone in on the placement of my feet, a toe highlighter if you will. But again, the pandemic allowed me to challenge this assumption, and I have been polish free since late March. I have developed a new relationship with my feet and toes, and I am happy to say I can still find them in space when I’m in a yoga posture.
3. Alcohol - This on is a bit of a misnomer because it is not just isolation/panemic related, but it did become concrete during these last months. Somewhere around a year and a half ago, my body started telling me that alcohol was no longer going to be an option for me. I love a good glass of wine or a bottle under the right circumstances. But slowly, it started to work its way out of my life. It just sort of happened. I’ve never been “sober curious” as they say, I was just listening to my body, and my body was saying “this is a thing we are not going to metabolize anymore.” I tried to challenge it a few times with a glass of wine at dinner, or a few sips here and there, but the answer was always a no. So here we are.
4. Deodorant – Ok, this one I am still not sure about, but I am still doing it. I am also realizing this list is starting to make me look like I have gone full hippie. I didn’t know this is a thing people could do, quit deodorant. I’ve always been active in athletics type activities, and I carried deodorant with me wherever I went. A few years ago I was studying at The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and one of my roommates offhandedly told me she had quit deodorant. I had never heard of such a thing and got curious. After that a few other people I know mentioned that they had quit too. Since I was isolating solo for the most part, I decided to give it a try. People, it was crazy hard! It took months. I think I am finally on the other side of it, but I’m still not sure. And in the heat of summer who knows I might start up again. What an experiment!
5. Makeup – Given the right circumstance, I’m sure I’d probably put something on again, but I never think of it anymore.
6. Eggs – Similar to the alcohol item above, this is one where I was listening to my body. I’ll still eat them if they are baked in a cake though ;) And I really miss a bagel, egg and cheese sandwich.
7. Most Milk – For years I struggled with migraines. I now without a doubt know that this compounded them. I haven’t had one in longer than I can remember and I am unbelievably grateful for that. I used to hate losing an entire day because I had to be in bed.
8. Negative Self-Talk – This is a big one for me and has created the most change. Every word I used to say to myself had a negative thought pattern, judgement or sneaking negativity (something that seems positive that really isn’t) in it. Working with PSYCH-K, yoga, meditation, writing, and walking I was able to really shift my internal landscape. This has been ongoing for a long time, years really, but I made huge leaps during this isolation time. Now this doesn’t mean that I am happy go lucky ultra-positive all the time in my head, far from it, but it means that I am able to catch myself and examine when a thought or statement comes up that has been put on me from the outside, and see how I’m using it to keep myself low. This is a lifelong process, but there has been a huge shift during this time for me.
Things I Started During Isolation
1. Daily Meditation Practice – I’ve had a meditation practice off and on for almost 20 years, but I have never had a consistent daily practice. I am on day 98 of a 10 minute daily practice, which I can easily say is the longest I have ever made it without missing a day. Never missing a day is not a goal I was ever worried about and this started on kind of a whim. I thought I’d try 40 days in a row to see if I could do it. I started to make sure I put on my Insight Timer every time I sat so I could keep track. I also made it a part of my morning routine which had always been challenging for me in the past. Sometimes I still do it at another time of day, but I found more and more, I would want to sit longer and more times a day. This process has been fascinating and I’ll do a separate post on it.
2. 3 Sun Salutations A Day – The beginning of isolation was hard on my personal yoga practice. I was working a lot on the computer trying to get the studio online and I was neglecting myself in favor of work, one of my huge shadows that I have salsa with pretty much every day. After I started to isolate solo, I wondered how I could reintegrate my practice and this is what came to me. Just do three sun salutations every day, see if you can do it and then you can change it up. Did you know that if you are really cruising it takes less than minute a salutation?! That’s only 3 minutes a day! I missed a lot of days at first, and it was more challenging than I thought it should have been for a yoga teacher, but I let that all drop away and offered myself the opportunity to look forward to them. Then I started pairing them with other things I was already doing and it made it easier to “get to them.” I also found that, if I did those three, I’d stay on my mat and work through other postures pretty naturally, each time spending a little bit more time on my mat.
3. Daily Walks – So this one is not new, but I got more committed about it. It helps to be in an accessible walking neighborhood. But I will say that even when it’s raining, sometimes I’ll do laps inside while I’m on a phone call. I know that sounds odd, but me moving my body intentionally truly helps in every way possible including sanity.
4. Earlier Bed Time – This is still challenging but I am getting better and better at it. As someone who has no problem staying up all night if I’m reading a really good book, this was once unheard of. Now, I make it a priority. Even though sometimes I fall flat on my face and find myself up past an appropriate time for someone with no kids, I just try again the next day.
5. Different Tech Boundaries – This is another pet project of mine and something I have been working on since 2016. I found that as a lot of us moved online all at once boundaries changed. Personal boundaries, work boundaries, what we would accept and not accept, texting and calling at all hours became the norm etc. So I reeled it in and re-established my boundaries that I had set for myself during the exploration to create my Conscious Tech & Yoga course. And let me tell you, it was liberating and I am so happy I did it in April and not in June.
Next Up on the “To Quit List”(Just kidding, I don’t have one of those)
1. Coffee – I love coffee. I started drinking it in college or maybe a little bit after. A few years ago I switched completely to making cold brew at home. It’s easy, I can make enough for the week at a time which appeals to my efficiency tendencies, and I love my morning coffee ritual. Every so often I quite coffee often paired with when I am doing a cleanse (but I haven’t done one of those in years). I don’t like the idea of being dependent on coffee, and let me tell you I am. My withdrawal headaches can be fierce. So I’m toying with removing the possibility of ever having one of those again. Maybe it’ll stick and maybe it won’t, but I never know until I try out it out.
One of the best things about everything mentioned above is that I never think about any of these things anymore. I am not berating myself for doing or not doing. I allow myself space to skip or change or alter as needed because life is not static and neither am I. These things have just become a part of my life and I think that is part of the allowing and the intention around this. Being what and who you need to be for yourself, so that you can live from a place of wholeness and contribute to the world from that space.
We often think that if we aren’t out there saving the world on a large scale that we aren’t doing enough, or that what we ARE doing doesn’t matter, and that’s just not true. Each one of these seemingly silly or serious items above creates a perspective shift. Each perspective shift creates a ripple effect through your life. You never know what a small change will lead to and how important it can end up being for you. Have you ever considered how many people you interact with every day and how many people we can affect in one day? Each interaction has value and potential and that is why it is important that “We start with ourselves,” and shift our lives and communities in small ways everyday.
So I say celebrate the small victories and small changes that are ultimately much bigger than you think. Be proud of being able to move something in your life to make you feel even a modicum of more centered and truly you so you can do your work in the world (whatever that may be).
Everyone is leading a different life with different goals, including me. I share information in the hopes that some small morsel can be adjusted to be helpful for you in your own way, in your own life. Don’t do as I say, but do stay curious and experiment for yourself.
Book Suggestions for Habit Change
