As Dale is away of course I had a crap dinner consisting of cheese and crackers, pickles and a diet pepsi with lime. As it is PMS week I am already extremely gassy and my dinner choices didn’t help to keep my quiet.

Well tonight I went back to the hot yoga studio after a couple days of rest. I usually try and pick a spot on the back wall so no other poor soul has to look at my rear in super tight shorts bending and flexing but tonight I was too late to get a spot along any wall – there I was, for the first time just out there, in the middle of the whole room.

I was far less centered and focused on not passing gas in a hot sweaty room with 25 other strangers. As I moved through the flow I could feel my body relaxing and as I came to rest in downward dog, pushing my hips to the back wall as directed – and then it happened.

A long time ago I howled at Heather Armstrong for being a public farter but now, thanks to a poor dinner choice and PMS week I have joined the ranks. As much as I never want to return to the hot room, I trust people will make space for me along the back wall to not have another poor sucker stuck behind me for the rest of the week.

After 6 hours of classes in 5 days my body is sore and feels heavy. I want to go back to class today to connect with that place inside myself I have only yet to see on the 4 corners of my mat.

Experiencing the fatigue and the pain in last nights class I know I need a day of rest to honour what I have asked and pushed my body to do. This is where the frustration of being out of shape and really inflexible comes in. I want to return to the womb room today but know I won’t be able to ask much of my body today and because I have unrealistic expectations for myself – I feel like a bit of a failure.

The October curse appears to have been broken.
Things might be looking up. I hope they stay that way for a while.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
And if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
For love
For your dream
For the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
If you have been opened by life’s betrayals
Or have become shriveled and closed from further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
Mine or your own
Without moving to hide it
Or fade it
Or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
Mine or your own
If you can dance with wildness
And let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
Without cautioning us
To be careful
To be realistic
To remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty
Everyday
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
Yours and mine
And still stand at the edge of the lake
And shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes”.

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair
Weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me
And not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside
When all else fades away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
And if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation.

I read Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking. I won’t say the book is a ‘miracle’ book, you do really have to want to quit, and I won’t also say that I didn’t the spend the first three days locked in my house driving both Dale and myself crazy as the little nicotine monster was dying but in the end it was all well worth it.

I look back at my life as a smoker and it feels really far away from where I am now. I may not be a superstar athlete yet but I sure breathe easier, smell better and have more pocket change.