I dare you...

I received the quote below in an email this week.

"Dare to be what your best self knows you ought to be. Dare to be a bigger human being than you have ever been. Have great hopes, and dare to go all out for them. Have great dreams, and dare to live them. Have tremendous expectations, and believe in them. The more you dare to be great, the more you will be great." ~ Norman Vincent Peale


I always love a good inspirational quote.

Each day I come more and more to the place of dreaming even bigger and believing in those dreams.

How blessed we are to live in a time and place that makes it possible.


DREAM BIG.

I dare you.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Going for it!

(A few thoughts from my email newsletter today)

I'm in week two of my new radio show, A Matter of Balance:  A Woman's Quest for Health, Harmony & Kick-ass Heels on World's 1st Fitness Radio, FTNS.  And I'm having a blast.

It's so much fun to chat with inspiring and interesting women about health and fitness and how they are able to balance it all.

What I really appreciate about the experience, is that I decided to just GO FOR IT.  I don't have any radio experience, other than being a guest a few times, and it's a whole new world to explore and learn.

It's so easy to let fear hold us back, and believe me, I have all sorts of fear when that little red light in the studio goes on.  

But I'm still going for it.

I think I get that a little bit from my dad.  When I was considering whether or not to accept the radio opportunity, my mom said, "your dad would definitely have said to go for it."  

This week marks nineteen years since losing my dad, but the lessons live on.  His death has helped to shape my philosophy of living without regret.

This spring presents us with a whole new season to seize the day, I know I for one, will continue to GO FOR IT!

My moment of Zen

My post show cappuccino at Caffeine

This week marked the launch of my new radio show, "A Matter of Balance: A Woman's Quest for Health, Harmony & Kick-ass Heels." on FTNS, the world's first fitness radio Hosting this show will surely keep me in tune with the balance, or occasional lack of, in my own life.   I wrapped up the show vowing to heed my own advice and set an example by heading to the care around the corner for some downtime to celebrate the first show with a good book and cappuccino. Today's email from the Daily Om was a good reminder to make choices which ensure we are in the driver's seat of our own lives.   Enjoy.....

Back in the Driver’s Seat The Passenger Simply going through the motions of life puts us directly in the passenger seat when we should really be in the driver’s seat. It’s easy to go through this fast-paced world feeling as if you are being dragged through your weeks on the back of a wild horse. Many of us go from one thing to another until we end up back at home in the evening with just enough time to wind down and go to sleep, waking up the next morning to begin the wild ride once more. While this can be exhilarating for certain periods of time, a life lived entirely in this fashion can be exhausting, and more important, it places us in the passenger’s seat when really we are the ones who should be driving. When we get caught up in our packed schedule and our many obligations, weeks can go by without us doing one spontaneous thing or taking time to look at the bigger picture of our lives. Without these breaks, we run the risk of going through our precious days on a runaway train. Taking time to view the bigger picture, asking ourselves if we are happy with the course we are on and making adjustments, puts us back in the driver’s seat where we belong. When we take responsibility for charting our own course in life, we may well go in an entirely different direction from the one laid out for us by society and familial expectations. This can be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term it is much worse to imagine living this precious life without ever taking the wheel and navigating our own course. Of course, time spent examining the big picture could lead us to see that we are happy with the road we are on, but we would like more time with family or more free time to do whatever we want at the moment. Even if we want more extreme changes, the way to begin is to get off the road for long enough to catch our breath and remember who we are and what we truly want. Once we do that, we can take the wheel with confidence, driving the speed we want to go in the direction that is right for us.

Secrets before sunrise

Compliments of Pinterest, my latest obsession

"The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep."

I first heard this line from Dr. Wayne Dyer, though apparently Dr. Dyer actually borrowed the quote from Rouemy, the Persian poet. These great thinkers believe we are closest to God between 3-4 am and that it's the time that we get the greatest inspiration.

Had it been a woman who had come up with the thought, she would have incorporated something about peri menopause in there. Not as new agey perhaps, but possibly more accurate.

Dyer describes inspiration as the time when an idea takes hold of you and brings you to a place you were always intended to go, as opposed to motivation, when you get hold of an idea and bring it to it's conclusion.

The sentiment often rolls around my head on those early morns that find me tossing in my bed.

Rather than fight it, I often heed their advice, drag my butt to my comfy overstuffed chair and start writing. Most of my blog posts are crafted before 6 am. It is when inspiration, or maybe it's more like pseudo coherent ramblings, strike me.

And it turns out I really like writing. This shouldn't come as a big surprise to me, I always loved English class, but have viewed writing as something to be done for work or school, not for enjoyment. I can also wield a mean red pen when editing others' work, a skill I inherited from my father.

Even when I began blogging, it was more a social media necessity, something a business owner has to do to to develop an online presence to stay in the game.

Do I dare say, it's almost a hobby? Possibly, but as Dyer and Rouemy suggest it's when my inspiration is running the highest, and through writing I almost always learn something about myself.

Maybe a hobby with less sleep deprivation would be preferable, but why mess with a good thing and risk missing future secrets from the morning breeze.

Well the sun will be rising shortly so it's time to hit the save button. Who knows when I'll post these musings, but that's part of the beauty of inspiration. Capture it and it will be there when you need it.

Celebrating my Birthday in my Birthday suit

No cameras allowed, so this image comes from blog.shopnastygal.com

The NY Spa Castle proved to hold a lot more than just a day of relaxation.

When I received the email from Annie suggesting a spa day for a few of the Yale gals I was very excited. The prospect of spending the day with these wonderful women coupled with spa fun, well what could be more right up my alley. As plans unfolded it was made more perfect when the date we agreed upon was the week of my birthday. Excellent, that will be my birthday treat to myself.

When one of the follow up emails arrived indicating that one option at the Spa Castle was the nude area, well I won't say my excitement waned, but there could be nothing LESS up my alley now. This was not a bathing suit optional pool, but bathing suit prohibited.

You might think that someone who works in the fitness industry and has spent most of the last twenty two years clad in spandex on stage in front of people that this would not be an issue.

Not so.

Not only do I have the usual body insecurities, I'm just plain shy about that stuff. Take the Loehman's communal dressing room for example. I have developed quite a repertoire of physical contortions to be able to try on clothes without full disrobing, wiggling into a prospective dress before taking off the top and pants I came in wearing. The list of people who have seen me 'nekid' in my adult life is limited to the men I've slept with, and no, I won't be revealing that number.

We arrive at the Spa Castle and nothing really prepared me for what was ahead. Your basic admission gets you into a wide variety of pools, jacuzzis, saunas, rooms for napping with heated floors, ice huts, infrared relaxation areas, you name it.

Nory and I arrived early and decided to treat ourselves to pedicures (fully clothed I should add). Additionally, it gavel us some time to settle in to the concept.

While I would have been perfectly content heading up to the "bathing suit" pools, Annie was ready to kick things off at her favorite nudie pools.

Deep breath.

I disrobed, with a deer in the headlights look in my eyes, trying to be careful not to gawk or stare (I never realized the Brazilian was such the rage). I focused on making eye contact, but then there was the matter of my arms. Cover above, below, a combination or just let them swing freely at my sides? Uh no, not ready or that.

What I did see when I allowed my gaze to wander were women of ALL shapes and sizes, with varying degrees of cellulite and undoubtedly body issues of their own. They were scrubbing, soaking, relaxing seemingly without judgement of themselves or those around them.

There were plenty of kids at the Spa Castle, most were enjoying the bathing suit pools, but at some point were skipping through the locker room where women wandered. I couldn't help but wonder if these girls may just grow up with a tad less body baggage being exposed to such freedom and confidence.

As I prepare to ring in my 46lth year this Friday, I both proud, and frankly quite surprised, that I took this plunge. Pun intended.

I'm thank for the women who made it possible, both those I was with, but all of the women who surrounded me.

There was beauty everywhere.

Trading adventure for spontaneity

February flew by without an opportunity for a K & P adventure.  With me home recovering from surgery most of the month, Pina jet setting to LA, along with a few other curve balls life threw our way, the month passed without a chance to give it much thought.  In fact , we found ourselves without the time to catch up beyond email or text for several days even sans adventure.  Very unlike us!

So this morning I arrived at work to teach early morning yoga and for the first time, there were apparently no yogis up for yoga this morning.   With time to spare I sent Pina about something, one text led to another and before I knew it I was picking up Pina in her pj's (don't you just love saying that -- Pina in her pj's), and we zipped through the drive thru at DD and spent an hour sipping coffee and catching up in the car.

We both agreed, spontaneity is a good thing.
 
While I would have been very happy to be immersed in downward dog this morning, I got just what I needed.  Life is always good that way.