Sunday, December 25, 2011

Blog Restart and Updates

One of this year's birthday resolutions was to blog every Sunday and three weeks later, I am making that happen for the first time. One of the tough things about starting over on this blog is organizing my thoughts and having a coherent topic, so screw that. Here are some random updates.

First of all, as my graduation gift to myself, I went to Kripalu for an Art and Yoga Teacher Training with Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa, which was fantastic. I was initially intimidated by the traditionalness of Kundalini Yoga, but Hari Kirin has a certain glow or an aura or something of welcome and kindness and I loved it: chanting, meditating, yogaing (kundalini is really hard, by the way), singing (!!!) and art-making. On the last day we made our 40 day art and yoga plan which I have tried and often slacked on, but it is in my heart and I will keep working at making art and yoga a regular part of everyday. Expect to read more about this. Here is some artwork...

Painting from the workshop: "A New Relationship"
From my Art and Yoga Sketchbook
Watercolor after a yoga - run - yoga - meditation combo
My art life has been slacking recently and my physical life has been intense. There was a time before grad school that I was pretty hardcore into my physical life and that must be some sort of natural part of who I am, because now that I have the time, it's back. I am training for a half marathon and a trapeze show! Yes, a trapeze show! I am the least experienced person in it, so I feel compelled to work extra hard to get things as right as possible and not look like a big goober. This is not quite getting things right, but it is so fun and freeing and I cannot get enough of swinging and flying. This is my idea of self-care.

 
Back End Straddle

Work continues to go well. I've had some learning opportunities and successes to share in future posts. Currently, my guys are working on a strengths-based film. We just started, but they seem pretty interested so far, as is my director, so I hope that intervention goes well... More on that later.

I made my resolutions for this year of my life and the list is ridiculous!!! I was looking at past lists and I normally hit almost all my goals each year. I am okay with having intentions that aren't quite reachable, because even if I only get to 50%, I'm still growing. Even as I write this, I am trying to decide how much I should make my goals public, because it's a pretty demanding list I have created.

Alright, this is the gist:
1. Keep space neat.
2. Be proactive about getting things done on time.
3. Organize the basement (I'm still working on that studio space and it is in bad shape right now).
4. Take counseling exam.
5. DBT training (if I can afford it; work doesn't pay for trainings they don't provide).
6. Read at least 20 of the books I own.
7. Practice yoga at least 6 days per week.
8. Get job teaching yoga again.
9. Run 20 miles per week.
10. Art (visual, music or writing) daily.
11. Fly unassisted.
12. Develop a budget.
13. Pay off my credit card.
14. Clean up my etsy shop and try harder to sell stuff.
15. Donate an afghan in my mom's honor.
16. Write in my blog every Sunday.

This was my birthday list and I am making progress so far and feeling good about hacking away at this thing.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my update. Next time I hope to make the post more relevant to art therapy. Please stay tuned.