Slack...How Fantastic!

So I managed to stick to the positive thoughts from last weeks yoga class of fakin' it til you make it. I lost a little over 3 pounds, which brings my total to 15 pounds since the first week in January. I got a goofy star sticker and everyone clapped for me at the meeting. I'll admit it was kinda cool, and really, who doesn't love a sticker?

It's amazing how Adrienne, the yoga instructor, always brings a lesson or thought to class that is so pertinent to my current experience.

All day yesterday, I was suffering from the "I just can't do it all, and therefore, I'm a loser" blues. Somehow I managed to get the idea in my head that I am supposed to keep the house clean, the marriage nurtured, the children happy and healthy, cook nutritious shit, the dogs looked after, some money coming in, stay on the diet, exercise three times a week, write a script, begin a book or two, blog, go to the 'isits' and take my meds so I can stay sane, and report it all on Facebook in some pithy and comical manner. Seriously.

I end up putting so much pressure on myself, I become practically immobile. I know I need to cut myself some slack, but I honestly don't know how. I really don't. I can say out loud that that is what I'm doing, but I'm lying every time. I need to read 'Cutting Yourself Some Slack for Dummies', or at least the cliff notes version.

Meanwhile, back on the yoga mat...Adrienne read her interpretation of what she gleaned from the book 'The Art of Possibility' by Benjamin Zander, the conductor for the Boston Philharmonic. According to Zander, we should celebrate our mistakes, and he encourages his orchestra to do the same. You fall behind the beat, "How Fantastic!" You play the wrong note, "Stupendous!" By celebrating your mistakes it gives you a world of options. By closing all the doors and windows to error you end up frozen in a place where there is no air, no creativity, no grace, no life. That, in a nutshell, is where my brain gets stuck when I try to cut myself some slack, or relieve some of the pressure, in that airless room. Sometimes I get locked so tightly in there I literally have to remind myself to breathe.

Adrienne encouraged us to celebrate the mistakes we made in class. Fall out of a posture - 'How Fantastic!' An opportunity to try again in a different way with a different mind set has just presented itself to you. After all, it took Edison 1000 tries to invent the light bulb. So he learned a thousand ways to not make a light bulb. Stupendous.

So this week, I will give it a go, but I gotta say I'm a little skeptical right out of the gate (How fantastic?). It would appear I'm even scared of celebrating my mistakes incorrectly. What the fuck brain?!?!

So here we go...adding another layer to the process. You don't have motivation to exercise? Get

It Girl! Burned the new recipe for brussel sprouts, Wah-hoo! I guess where we go from there is rife with possibilities.

I'll report back with my findings to this attempt. But if I don't, it's probably because I'm celebrating that mistake of a forgotten promise by chillin' with my new friend, Slack.