From zombie to alive

This is how most of my day outside the office went.

Eating my comforting, warm bowl of oatmeal. That would be Trader Joe’s Raw Almond Butter dripping over the side (THE best in my opinion).

Sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window, wishing I could go back to bed.

Walking in the rain (to work, to meeting, to home).

Holding my umbrella (ella, ella…okay sorry).

Stepping over puddles (Note to self: must purchase rain boots).

Not a bad day at work, just a blah day. I sort of felt like a zombie all day. When I got  home I was in serious need of some yoga.

I missed class yesterday to stay late at work, and the next class I like isn’t until tomorrow.

So this evening I was a big girl and put my mat in our dining room that is not being used as a dining room.

I appreciate yoga for the way that it stretches and strengthens me. It brings me a type of challenge that running never will.

An intense running workout leaves me short of breath and completely sweaty from being constantly in motion.

But yoga is more about holding positions that are uncomfortable and surprisingly challenging, and moving between the poses with purpose. It’s also about being okay with the discomfort, and staying in a pose even though your initial instinct is to release it.

What you learn about yourself and the skills you develop on the mat translate into real life.

You are alive and healthy and strong.

You are just where you should be, right now, in this moment.

Your breath is connecting you to the earth and to every aspect of your being.

During a run it can be adaptive to ignore what’s going on in the body in order to push through the pain and go faster for longer.

In yoga, the purpose is to be in tune with every cell in your body and to be fully aware and in the moment. If I remained in the moment during every mile of every run, I would probably go a little crazy. Sometimes it’s much better to think about something else, like the crowd (if I’m racing), something I’m excited about, or just anything related to life – I get very reflective when I run.

Despite how different running and yoga sometimes seem, I actually wouldn’t say that running gives me “X” and yoga gives me “Y”.

Depending on the day and my state of mind, both can calm me down, relieve stress, energize me, make me feel overall strong, allow me to be more at peace with everything going on in my life, and physically challenge me incredibly.

After a blah day, yoga brought me back in touch with what matters and helped me feel more alive (and less like a zombie).

Since my half marathon, I’m only running a couple of days a week and few miles. And during this break I am very much enjoying cultivating my inner yogi

After my dining room yoga session, it was time to make dinner.

This beautiful heirloom tomato has been on my counter since last weekend’s farmer’s market.

I felt pretty drained of creativity today – the best way I could think of to use some of this tomato was to put it on a veggie burger.

On the side were sweet potato fries a la Kath and creamed spinach from this recipe. The sweet potato fries were crispy and awesome. The creamed spinach was just okay – there was something funny tasting about it.

What makes you feel alive?