Sunday, March 20 was a big day for me, but life is so great these days that I totally forgot to notice it! Things weren’t nearly as fabulous on March 20, 2009, the first day of implementing my decision to live clean, one day at a time.

For those of you who are newer to the blog, you may not realize that “living clean,” to me, has nothing to do with “eating clean.” See my post about living clean without eating clean. I consider the whole idea of “eating clean” to be at best a misleading way of thinking about food and at worst, well, I don’t know…maybe silliness isn’t all that bad but really, you eat “clean”? Even as a metaphor I don’t quite get it.

Maybe that’s because I think of it as a way of life, living without drugs and alcohol (which is a drug anyway), and more importantly, trying to keep in check any of the myriad other ways addiction can take me down. This is a constant process of self-awareness, pattern recognition, letting go of old ideas and behaviours.

Like the other day (I wish I had a picture), I felt myself worrying that I might be close to running out of hangers. Then, I looked up at one three foot section of my closet where there was literally nothing hanging other than hangers. I’m going to say there are at least 75 identical plastic white hangers there. I chuckled to myself and said, “that’s why I keep coming back.” (Meaning: that’s why I continue to attend my 12-step program for dealing with my addictive tendencies)

I won’t debate whether addiction is a disease that kills people (I think it is and I know it does, but if that’s not what you think, fine) or whether 12 step programs are successful, not successful (for the record: I think they’re successful for some, not for others, and could be successful for lots of people for whom they are not if they would let themselves take some direction, but again, if you disagree, fine).

What I do know is that I flew under the radar for many years because I didn’t partake in the stereotypical way that we think of when we think of addiction — I wasn’t shooting IV drugs in a dark alley beside a dumpster or staggering around with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And keeping up appearances meant that I was slowly dying inside, with few solid coping skills and a lot of self-loathing.

My decision to try a new way of life on March 20, 2009 has taken me in a new, more promising, and most of all, more peaceful and honest direction. I still battle some of the same old demons from time to time (procrastination is the most relentless), but I don’t suffer alone anymore. And I don’t suffer nearly as much. And I realize that when I do, in fact, suffer, it’s often because of my own poor choices (which I realize is not always a popular way to think about life and suffering, but it holds true pretty much every single time I suffer as a result of procrastinating, so there you go).

So why do I blog about this on a fitness blog? Well, for one thing, this blog and the community around it means a lot to me and I like to share milestone. And for another thing, I wouldn’t be doing any of the things I’m doing today in the fitness department if it weren’t for living clean. And finally, this isn’t just any fitness blog, it’s a feminist fitness blog. And when women do awesome things that promote healthy, fit lifestyles, it’s blogworthy.

The life I’ve had the opportunity to live since March 20, 2009 is an awesome thing. Right now, I’m taking a time out from the end of a long winter in Canada, visiting Renald in the Bahamas on our sailboat (where he retired to last May). So you can’t blame me for overlooking one the most important anniversaries in my personal calendar. I haven’t even kept track of what day it is since I got here last week!

Wishing you a very happy 24 hours.

Tracy I

People often express surprise at how much activity I fit into my life. “I get exhausted just looking at your Facebook posts,” friends say. But I do it because I love it, because physical activity is, for me, both recreation, fun in itself,  and pretty necessary for getting through my life. Exercise helps me cope with stress. I feel instantly better and sleep better and everything runs a little bit more smoothly.

But I don’t always get what I want. Case in point? Last week.

What I wanted: a week of bike camp in South Carolina, warm and sunny, nothing to do but ride up and down mountains

What I got: a week frantically trying to meet end of term writing deadlines in not so sunny, in fact a bit cold and rainy, Ontario

(Not quite true..I did get some weekend bike adventures in. See here.)

I went six full days without running, biking, lifting, yoga or Aikido. ARGH!

But today I’m back at it with running in the morning and hot yoga at night. In the middle, I’m getting my cx bike ready for some weekday commuting. Next week, I’ve got running and Aikido on Monday, boxing on Tuesday, more riding on Thursday. and running and Aikido on Friday. Can’t wait!

When I decided to try “floating,” I first imagined a tiny pod, trapped in a tank like a wet tanning bed. The actual flotation room was way more spacious. A normal height room, about the size of a double bed, like a shiny white molded shower with a tub about 18 inches high, filled with about a foot of water completely saturated with Epsom salts. Serene. Pristine. Slippery.

I had never heard of floating before that week.  I was in Vancouver for work and had dinner with my friend J. We were talking about my relatively new meditation practice, how I have started to see it as an essential part of fitness.  (There is increasing evidence that meditation changes the brain and the body ). J and I are both fairly high strung people and she said that she had tried to do it, but had never figured out what you actually DO when you meditate.

I was trying to explain my meditation practice, such as it is — that it’s not about relaxation or enlightenment or “emptying the mind,”  but about learning to be present, to experience everything that happens “inside our heads” and bodies without instantly responding to it.  For me, meditation is about being with discomfort and hard emotions —  fear, anger, sadness, loneliness — without being “pushed around” by them.  Creating that buffer between stimulus and response.  A buffer that I seem to need more and more as my work gets more intense and as I trek through the insomniac, moody jungle of peri-menopause.  An essential buffer for sleeping, stress, anxiety, the motivation to move my body when I feel overwhelmed and just want to lie on the couch and eat potato chips.

Janice asked me if I’d tried floating.  “Everyone I know who meditates does it.” (I thought maybe it was a Vancouver thing, but apparently floating is a hot activity in a lot of places).

So I did some research online, and on a mild rainy February Vancouver Sunday morning, I found myself being oriented to my little pod room by a cute bearded guy named Christian. The email had told me to have a light meal and no coffee, and I could feel the headache thud of caffeine withdrawal.

The little shower area outside my Ocean Float room glowed red, like I was already inside my own eyelids. A sealable door like a ship’s hatch was off to the left, the actual flotation room.

Christian had a lot of instructions for what was essentially a salty floaty bath.  “Turn your phone off so you don’t hear buzzing. You might want to put the earplugs in first, because they won’t stay in when your ears are wet. If you have a cut or scrape here’s some vaseline, but honestly, that doesn’t work very well and it will sting a bit for about a minute.  Have a shower first, and then when you leave the shower room, the lights will turn off.  I’ll play music from the front for about 10 minutes and then turn it off — that’s the best, total darkness and silence.  But you can always turn the music or lights back on — there are buttons inside the room beside the door. You may swirl around so if you reach up and can’t find the door, don’t panic, just run your hand along the wall.  If you use this head rest, just rinse it off.”

When he left, I felt self-conscious, like I was stripping naked in a coffee shop.  I showered, grabbed the blue foam head rest, and surrendered myself. The pink lights went off behind me, and I awkwardly plunged into the water. Slightly warmer than my body temperature, but not much.

I felt floppy, like a seal on the shore, as I tried to find a position. Tinkly bell-y drum-y flute-y music flowed around me.  I tried to settle, hit the darkness button.  Absolute pitch black. I stuck my head in the head thingy, and then thought I was maybe doing it wrong, so pulled away the head thing and rested my head in the water. With it, it was like my head was on a flat pillow.  Without it, I was completely floating, but the water half covered my ears. I didn’t trust I wasn’t going to sink without the support. I didn’t like it.  My ear tickled, I scratched it and the earplug popped out.  I pulled the other one out in annoyance and fished around for the little head float. Sighed impatiently.

I was not relaxing.

I laid back again, tried to start my meditation practice. Breathed deeply, floated. It was surprisingly hard to centre without feeling my body, with no visual difference between eyes open and eyes closed. I fidgeted with different positions, arms sprawled, hands on my belly. Breathing. The music went off and relaxing got harder. My inner dialogue got louder and louder. It wasn’t scary, but it wasn’t restful.  Then I bumped against something, and a surge of claustrophobia flooded over me. It’s just the wall, there’s a light, you can get out any time.  Same kind of inner reassurance as scuba diving. The flicker subsided and I felt my way around the wall, found the light button. Wondered what the hell I was doing paying $39 to unsettle myself when refugee families need warm coats. Turned the music back on.  Breathed again.

I floated, found a few moments of serenity, then I was suddenly, fiercely restless. I fumbled awkwardly to spin myself around and find the light button, open the door, and padded naked into the red-lit shower room to find my phone and check the time.  I’d been in there about 20 minutes.  What the hell is wrong with you?  Relax dammit!

I took a deep breath, centred myself, went back in, turned the music on, turned out the light. Clasped my hands over my spleen and focused on breathing.

And then, briefly, I found stillness.  Something about reminding myself that this is the point of meditation, just breathing through agitation, discomfort, restlessness.  I’ve never been the kind of person who easily loosens, lets go.  Another reminder — I have to scaffold it, actively claim it.  For a brief time, then, in this tank, I claimed it. Completely still, finally, without having to work at it or brace myself into stillness.  Just floating, occasionally gently hitting the side of the tank. Momentarily quieting the internal arguments, letting different emotions lap at my edges without holding onto them.

And then, suddenly, I grabbed the door handle, turned the light on. Surveyed the earplugs floating, the blue head thingy, how awkward my naked body felt in the saline slosh. All at once, I was just done, like waking up.

As soon as I dressed, my caffeine headache came back. I didn’t want to hang out in the beautiful upstairs lounge with the rain drizzling poetically down the windows, drinking tea.  I wanted a coffee, time with my notebook and a pen and an unleashing of ideas that floated to the surface.

The other day I was running with a friend who has been taking a capoeira class. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that’s a combination of dance and acrobatics. It’s a pretty new thing around here, so other than the instructor, most of the regulars in her class are newbies.

For quite a few weeks, she reported how much fun she was having with the class and how she felt like it was really challenging her to move in different ways. She could tell the next day that she’d worked out.

And then one day a group of teens showed up.  One among them seemed really good at it. His style was a bit different than what she’d seen from her teacher. But he definitely knew what he was doing. Turns out he’d been doing it for quite some time.  As my friend told me this story, she talked about the way it changed the class dynamic.

“In a good way or a bad way?”  I asked. She hesitated a bit. So I asked something different, “Did you feel inspired or intimidated?”

I asked this because it’s something I’ve been reflecting on lately. When you see someone really talented doing a thing that you like to do, there’s that fine line between feeling inspired (wow! Maybe I can do that if I work at it!) or intimidated (I’m not worthy to be in the same room, on the same course, at the same event…).

Almost all of us have experienced this at some point in our lives. We feel like we’re doing really great at something, and then someone steals everyone’s thunder by being way more awesome. It happens on the dance floor, in yoga class, at races, in the pool, at the gym…and in capoeira. That’s one of the reasons for beginners classes — where you’re expected to be learning, starting out, trying new things, rather than showing mastery.

One the inspiration side of the line there’s a pull in the direction of possibility.  Inspiration is all about what we imagine we might be capable of. I’ve written before about why fitspo has, for me, a kind of inspirational disvalue. Why? Because I am pretty darn sure that my 51-year old body is never going to look like that. So pictures of lean, mean, slender, flawless young women at the gym just aren’t going to get me imagining real possibilities for myself.

But when I was a still struggling to do headstands in my Iyengar yoga class, being with other students who used to topple over backward but now stood strongly on their heads, without the help or safety net of the wall, for long periods of time inspired me.

Why? Because it made the goal of doing a solid, unsupported headstand realistic for me.

I am most likely to feel intimidated when I start to compare my beginner or early days self to someone who has loads of experience. Or when I compare what I do, with my 2-3 times a week effort, to what someone else does who works at it (whatever “it” may be) for hours and hours a week.  I experience this with the bike (my nemesis!).

I always put bike training at the bottom of my list of priorities. What that means is: I pretty much don’t get around to it. So it’s not realistic to compare myself to someone who gets out there 3 or 4 or more times a week. No, I will not be as fast. No, I will not get faster. And yes, they will.

When I used to make it to the pool regularly, I saw a noticeable difference in my speed. But of course, if I sleep in and skip out on the training, the people in my lane will get faster while I stay the same or fall back. That’s just the way it is.

So back to my friend and her capoeira class.  She said she felt a mixture of intimidation and inspiration. This more experienced teen took them out of the comfort zone of a group of newbies learning something strange and unfamiliar. When we’re thrown into the same all-levels class with people who are actually accomplished, it’s jarring for sure. But she said it was amazing to watch him, and when she thought about it that way, the whole thing was pretty cool. Inspiring even.

Sometimes we’re the beginner, and other times we’re the veteran. Taking up new activities is a bit like traveling to a new place. When I travel, I love that feeling of getting to know a new place. But I also know that after a few days, what seemed strange and unfamiliar loses its foreignness. In no time at all, I’ve got my routes, favourite spots, some sense of local customs, and I can navigate the new territory like a native, without needing to refer to my map all the time. But just because I didn’t know how to get to the subway station on day one and I had to stop and ask someone doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. It doesn’t have to be intimidating to be surrounded by people who know more and can do “it” better.

What about you? Are you more likely to be inspired or intimidated when you find yourself in the presence of someone who is much better than you at something? I get that it will depend on circumstances, but I think it’s interesting to thing about how talent in others affects our sense of ourselves and what we can do.