Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Regimen Lapse and Brain Prison

So I'm into week three, I believe, of Operation Self 2010: Yoga. I missed two more days of yoga-doing, which would be yesterday (Monday) and the Friday before. This is fine. I don't view this as failure yet, mostly because on Friday and Monday I was super duper sleepy or had friends over and I am okay making room for "imperfection" in my mission.

Here's some justification from my head: Besides, in my happiness criteria, sleep is an element of health, and relationships are their own criteria, so if I had to somehow stratify my requirements for happiness, then sleep and friends would at least be par with doing yoga, if not above. But I have not stratified my requirements for happiness, because each aspect is part of the delicate soupy broth that sometimes just needs more seasoning than other times. Really, to get everything perfect everyday, fitting in spirituality, the just-right physical feeling of health, putting effort into my relationships, and accomplishing meaningful work, would be impossible. I just can't do everything right everyday.

So this is the teetering atop the axis of my selves: on one side (side A), the disciplined, focused gal who mindfully eschews temptations, forgoing immediate, darker pleasures for the sake of her own future wellness; on the other side (side B), a reckless imbiber yelling gossip over the band and sleeping off a hangover in front of the tv. I am both these things, feeling at once both entitled to be reckless and yet sure that discipline is the only way to save my soul. Somewhere between side A and side B I think I should be able to pursue discipline and indulge recklessness. And, I am truly, truly, sorry to get all eat-pray-barf about it, but what is the expression of this balance?

For example, this weekend was all about side B. Saw bands, hung out with friends, drank a bunch, had a big dumb tv hangover, ate nothing but toast with butter all day. And I am not giving myself too hard a time about it, since I feel like having fun and partying it up is part of integrating myself in my community and permits departure from the Operation and actually helps fulfill the relationships thing, which is important to me, so whatever. Can't just stay home being "happy" all the time. And then Monday was all about recovery, and seeing some more friends, and getting back on the sleep train and getting all ready to get back on track. So then to get all the way back on track, today I am up fairly early, and have a hike planned, and found a yoga class to go to, and totally plan to practice my guitar playing, so I feel like this will "balance" out my bloated, imperfect weekend efforts. Fine.

But here's the problem for me at the moment - with this effort to recover from the weekend, am I being attendant to my delicate happiness soup? Or have I, with my regimen vision, only devised a new compulsion to stress myself out with? I mean, I'm happy that I am okay with the "imperfection" in the Operation. I think this is healthy. But being permissive with myself in this way feels like such a slippery slope, and sometimes I slide all the way down that slope, no problem. And I mean, there is no doubt that if I let today slide over to side B, I would feel bad. Not just bad as in physically sluggish and tired etc, but guilty. Guilty about failing to maximize my day, like a failure for losing the chance to take whatever invisible step forward with myself that only I can understand. As my friend recently pointed out to me so brilliantly, some people can make a prison out of anything. Even free time and finding happiness.

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