Here I Am 9-9-15

Hiiiiiii everyone!  I’m here, I’m here!  Did you miss me?  I missed you!  What on earth have you all been up to lately?  Have you started a blog yet detailing your day to day happenings so I can keep up with you?  55555

(In Thai, Ha is the number 5, so instead of writing/texting, hahahahaha everyone uses 5555555 and if it’s really funny it’s 555555+)

What have I been up to your wondering?  Well, let’s see – Hmmm, I’ve been:

• Taking my Thai classes.  I really suck at it, honestly.  It’s really difficult and I’m not spending too much time studying as it’s just not a high priority.
• They have the funkiest little fruits here in Thailand, so I thought I’d do a VIDEO post for you.  Let’s have breakfast together!  https://youtu.be/Vl49iEp_X68
• Having dessert dinners with my girlfriends and beading friendship bracelets like I did back in school.  You’re never too old for this kind of girly fun!

• Oooooh I’ve been reading about our ego, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle – brilliant book!  Please do yourself and the rest of the world a favor and get a copy of this book and dive into it.  Really really really worth reading!

• I went on a 5 day retreat on lucid dreaming.  Did you know you can train yourself to be lucid in your dreams?  Whoa!  It takes a long time to really get good at it and it involves early wake up’s (4 am!) then doing special yoga exercises before going back to bed.  In the 5 days I only made it to the first stage of being lucid in my dream, but wow, just to know that we have the power to do that – super cool.

Picture taken by my friend Carly Noel

• I did a 10 day brown rice diet with 4 of my other yogis to cleanse my mind and body.  That’s right only brown rice, buckwheat, wheat and himalayan salt allowed.  Booorrrrring. 🙂

• My computer crashed – arrrggghh!  What a sad day that was.  Surprisingly, though, I didn’t freak out at all.  I thought of all the places we’d been together and could hardly believe we’d made it this far.  I put that little macbook through some crazy stuff, moving all around the world with me traveling dirty buses in Tanzania, boom festivals in Portugal, Brazilian bungalows, Indian cafe’s, changing altitudes and climates.  You wouldn’t believe the dirt inside when the guy opened the back cover.  Oyyyyy!  I waited 17 days to find out that it was not cost effective to repair, so I had to get a new one.
• With my computer down, I started working on a large mandala painting for a charity auction, hopefully I’ll finish that very soon so we can auction it.

• I had a surprise visitor from far far away that made my week a lot more interesting.  Hmmmm, this international dating can be so complicated!
• I’ve been on a commencement speech youtube kick lately.  I don’t watch TV anymore, but I do love a good inspirational video.  My favorite so far was Oprah’s, ‘Harry’s Last Lecture‘ at Sanford.  Hearing her and part of her speech led me to read the classic book, The Color Purple.  It just seemed wrong that I hadn’t read it before, so when my computer crashed, it seemed like a good time.  Ironically enough, reading that book inspired me to structure my own book in a different way, and I was suffering a bit from project fatigue anyway.  Look at all the good things that happened during the down time without my computer!

• I’ve been doing lots of yoga and have a strong morning meditation routine.  Did you know that yoga is so much more than a method to tone your body?  I’d never really given it much thought before as I did my downward dogs, but those long haired, orange robed yogis you’ve seen pictures of weren’t doing all those painful poses for extended periods of time to tone their abs – no, they were elevating their consciousness!  The yoga we know in the west doesn’t talk much of this and focuses on the fitness side of it, but here in Thailand I’ve run into a Yoga School that teaches personal and spiritual growth where I’m getting the opportunity to evolve myself in various different ways.  I feel this powerful momentum catapulting me ahead within myself and in the projects I’m passionate about.  I feel really blessed to have found my Chiang Mai yoga family at this stage in my trip now that I’ve landed somewhere long term.  And they’re like a little family for me.  We get together several times a week and are always there to support each other.  Most of us in the yoga school are expats from all over the world that live here, so it’s nice to have a community when we’re so far from everyone we know back home.  It’s just what I needed!
• Going to parks and hanging out

• Went to a 3D Art Museum here in Chiang Mai – very cool!

• I’m still writing writing writing ‘The Critical Path’ except for the last few weeks without my computer.  I’m so glad to have my new computer now and am dying to get back to the book!  Oh, and I was inspired mid book to write another small book about women and self worth and how we would all benefit from appreciating our physical differences instead of comparing ourselves.  Comparing creates such a negative environment within our minds that breeds emotional turmoil, don’t you think?  It was an issue I’d been dealing with for decades and I just decided I was sick of it and I didn’t want to do it anymore, so I tackled it with a special meditation.  Stay tuned for more details on that later, it’ll be an ebook, coming soon!
• The mandala bags have finally arrived in the U.S.  Yaayyyyyyy!!!!!  I’ll be working to get those online for you too.  They turned out great!  I had one of each kind delivered here to me in Thailand.  I do have a bit of a bag fetish, so it would seem so wrong if I didn’t have one of my own bags.

Hmmm I think that’s all for now folks.  Just wanted you to know I’m ok out here – great actually.  Hope all is well with you wherever you are 🙂