I had a serious moment of hesitation shortly after I published last weeks post, What Makes You Happy? I shared it with the world and then went to the kitchen to tackle the piled up dishes before going to bed. I was scrubbing away at a pan when I started overanalyzing this blog, my writing and what it is exactly that I'm trying to share with you.

I started worrying that I might be coming off as 'preachy' with these posts.

Come on, the girl who has never had a corporate job, has lived a really blessed life and hasn't even hit 30 (that's coming up fast ha) somehow thinks she knows how I should live my life. Cue the eye roll. I'm with you! According to Urban Dictionary "the cut and dry definition of preachy is a term used to describe a person who is more times than not, giving advice in an irritating...or overbearing way." You know, those people that try to shove their ideas down your throat.

My approach to happiness is a lot like cooking - and come to think of it, I'm a lot better at cooking up happiness than anything else I've tried. I know that there are several key ingredients that I need to whip some 'happy' into my life. When I get the recipe right, I feel great. When one of the ingredients is missing, I feel myself start to slip.  

I'm not shy about the mental health struggles I've had in the past. I've shared plenty of times on this blog that for a long time - the first 20 years of my life to be exact - just 'being happy' was something that felt really hard for me.

I should probably clarify that when I talk about happiness in this post I don't mean the over the top kind where you're smiling ear-to-ear and super jazzed on life. That kind of joy is the absolute best when it feels natural but I don't think it's realistic to expect that all the time. I'm talking about the peace of feeling content with whatever life looks like right now - even as it unfolds around you and things inevitably don't go as planned. 

If they could see me now.

This thought - or tune if you were ever a musical theatre nerd like me - pops into my head every so often. It’s always during the moments of my life when I’m being triggered. Whatever I’m feeling - frustrated, upset, angry, overwhelmed, anxious - is beyond the the point. For the purpose of this post you just need to know that in those moments I’m the opposite of a yoga teacher.

Truth be told, I can be kind of a jerk.

When these moments strike, I could think of myself as a hypocrite for encouraging my students to respond instead of react when apparently at times, I can’t. But I don’t. I know at the end of the day, no matter how many hours I spend on a yoga mat developing the tools that I love to share with you, I’m human. And I react - unfortunately, not always in the best way.

I’ve been out of routine and out of my writing groove for the last few weeks. Luckily, organized, Type-A Jenn predicted this would happen with the travel I had planned and got some posts prepared ahead of time just in case I didn’t feel inspired to write while I was away. But of course, the posts ran out. 

And now here I am trying to let the words flow after a stretch of time living life and visiting with many different people that I love dearly. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about what to share with you and in trying to come up with something worthy to say, I can't really seem to find any words to pour onto this page.

It's funny isn't it. When we think too much, try too hard, we're actually working against ourselves. Life as a writer, yoga teacher, really whatever it is you do, becomes so much more difficult when you're trying to please people and prove yourself to the world. 

Whenever I tell people what I do for a living, they usually respond with:

"YOU MUST BE SO CALM"
Actually no, not at all, that's why I do so much yoga. 
OR...
"YOU MUST BE SO FLEXIBLE"
Actually, I'm less flexible than I was when I started. 

You read that right. I started dabbling in the world of yoga over a decade ago, I've been practicing regularly for 9 years, teaching full time for the past 7 and the truth is, I'm less flexible than I was when I started. Are you wondering how that's even possible? Stay with me, especially if you're one of the bendy ones that can access a lot of range of motion in your practice. 

I guess it's important to point out that I was a dancer first and a yogi second. I came to yoga with a lot of flexibility and an inner perfectionist that always wanted to be 'the best' which in my opinion at the time meant having the most range of movement.

This past Sunday I found myself lying on the floor with a room full of strangers waiting for Alan Dolan, of Breath Guru, to teach me how to breath.

So there I was, eyes closed, hand on my belly, listening to Alan's cues. I was trying really hard to nail the technique and experiencing the flip flop between breathing and thinking that I'm sure you've experienced if you practice yoga or meditate. 

Breathing.
Feeling my belly inflate like a balloon.
Noticing the longer inhale, shorter exhale.

Thinking.
How long have we been doing this?
How long are we going to do this?
Am I doing this right?

You know that voice in your head? The one that chatters incessantly about everything that's going on in your life, worries about what might one day happen in your life, overanalyzes your every move and oh, sometimes if you're lucky, wakes you up at 3 o'clock in the morning with a few problems you really need to worry about. Today we're going to talk about that. 

And for those of you that are reading or listening to this thinking 'I don't have a voice in my head', yah you do. Whoever you heard say that just now is the very voice I'm talking about. 

We all have that voice and while it serves a very essential purpose by allowing us to process and understand the world around us, when it's left to run wild, it causes problems. By problems, I mean it has the potential to make us feel really awful about who we are and what we do.

Committing to a weekly post has been both a really fulfilling and at times, I'll admit, really frustrating experience. Writing is so much fun when you're full of ideas, creativity is flowing and the words just seem to spill out onto the page one after the other. But what about those days when writing is more the slow process of staring at a blank page with no idea where to start and no clue what to say? You guessed it, not so fun.

Maybe it's that we're in the heart of winter and my energy is always lower at this time of year. Maybe it's the lack of inspiration that I'm feeling during my slow season - which I'm okay with and wrote about last week - but for some reason, I've had a lot of trouble getting words out recently. I told myself I would have this post finished days ago and here I am, finally tackling my blank screen because Monday morning is here and the 'editor' of this blog is pressing me for the finished product - that's me!

I'm sitting here at the laundromat - glam Friday, I know - and overheard the lady who works here say to a man leaving 'have a nice day'. He nodded towards the snowy street (in London standards) and moaned, "how can you possibly have a nice day in this?"

Mindset - it's everything. I've been in a bit of a funk this week that started with an overflowing pipe in our living room (ew) that then spiralled into seriously missing my yoga community in Canada and then moved into feeling sorry for myself that Mike works allllll the time. I find it usually happens like that, for me at least, start complaining about one thing and it has a domino effect.

Basically, I'm right where I should be. I needed to overhear the man in the laundromat letting the weather - something he can't control - dictate his happiness.