Tender Mercies

Recovering from a restricted eating disorder is hard.  Really hard. February 26th, 2016 marks the 1 year anniversary of regaining my lady's cycle and subsequently, the path towards regaining my full fertility.  For 8 years (2006-2014) I struggled with a restrictive eating disorder, namely orthorexia and anorexia athletica  which led me to have hypothalamic amenorrhea. I wrote about my experiences in detail in my post titled,  A Letter to My Sisters and Future Daughters , last year. When my period returned in February 2015, I naively thought the main battle was over. While I don't want to discredit the grand accomplishment I had achieved by gaining 20 pounds and cutting WAY back on exercise, the greatest challenge for me in my life has been these past 12 months as I have waded through the recovery process.  Why is that? When a person lives with a restrictive eating disorder for any period of time, the body shuts down all the "unnecessary" system

March 2011, pre-engagement 5 years ago I fell in love with a boy. He picked me up at my apartment to take me to dinner and was carrying a single rose, chocolates, and a gift wrapped box of light bulbs. Yes, light bulbs. And that is what melted my heart. He had remembered that my dinning room light was burnt out and cared enough to help me fix it because I was a college student, skater, and coach and replacing a light bulb was not at the top of my to-do list.   At the end of the lovely evening, he hadn't held my hand or kiss me. But two days later on Valentine's Day, I found this poem in my inbox:  Physics can be hard, If you don't know what it's about. So I have written you a poem, Hoping it will help you out. It's the MAGNITUDE of you and me, As we fall at 9.8 METERS PER SECOND SQUARED, And the only thing to stop us, Is the RESISTANCE of the air. And with a VECTOR such as this, Our DIRECTION must be true. Because our TERM

I love that quote. I'm nearing the end of my 200 hour yoga teacher training, but I do not feel any more qualified to teach yoga than when I began. Strange, isn't it? However, I am grateful to have a teacher who is confident in my progression and has faith in my abilities as I improve each day. Thankfully she gives me opportunities to sub so that I can practice my teaching.  Yesterday I subbed a class with 11 women around my mom's age and older. They were all friendly enough.  Oh how I just wanted to be another body in the room instead of in the front leading the class!  I like to begin my classes with a quote to set the tone for the practice. Quotes are wonderful nuggets of inspiration that most students can somehow relate to.  Yesterday I used the above quote by American-Cuban author, Anais Nin. How ironic it was that the quote really said a lot about how I was feeling in my heart, never mind inspiring the students.  Why can growing be so scary? Difficult?