UPCOMING EVENTS:
🔜 New Offering: Gentle Yoga (On-Zoom W 9:30am PT)
🔜 Hatha Yoga (On Zoom T/Th 8:30am PT)

Long time no write, eh?!? If you are asking yourselves if the reason I haven’t written is because I have not had any struggles to tell you about (usually my main reason and focus for writing is sharing struggles), well have no fear - I have had PLENTY! So many in fact that I have been overwhelmed, exhausted and just generally not in a space to write.

While the move to San Francisco may have seemed impulsive to ya’ll as I announced it only shortly before I moved… believe it or not, I did have a plan in place that I spent a few months working on. Move in with a friend who was kind enough to offer me a rent free space for 3-6 months so I could focus my energy and time on building the next iteration of CJoy Yoga and get the yoga business up and running. I had also signed up for an ACE© Personal Training program so I could get certified and open up more possibilities for work in health and wellness.

Well…. the day after my arrival, my friend’s landlord started to play dirty. Not over me moving in, but do to other unfortunate circumstances that are not my story to tell. Suffice it to say, I could not unpack so no one could tell I was there for the JIC (just in case) AND look for an apartment that was available - immediately. AND look for some sort of full-time job to be able to pay the new bills that would start immediately. All of that happened within the first few weeks of me moving here. Hence the title of this musing, “Best Laid Plans”.

I had to make a huge pivot and the beautiful fluid of the Water Element so as to let go of what moving here was “supposed to" look like. IMMEDIATELY! I had to reach out to friend’s to ask for help. From past musings I believe ya’ll know how much I struggle with this one. I had to revise the script that was playing in my head that I had lost my chance at every building a business here. And so many more things that had come up for me.

All of that was on top of the fact that I was mourning one of my dearest friend's death. Like, living in his apartment, working at his restaurant, seeing all of his things, packing up his things - just a FULL ON immersion kind of grieving. He was in EVERYTHING I touched, saw, ate, etc… It was intense. it still is. In edition to grieving, everything was brand new. I had to learn a new neighborhood, roommates, job systems, driving routes, public transportation routes, routines, etc…

I have been exhausted people! Utterly exhausted - physically, emotionally, and mentally. Until fairly recently that is. I’m still feeling the effects of it fer sure, but I am just finally in this past month able to do anything more than work, come home, eat, rearrange/unpack what’s needed, and then just go to bed. I certainly haven’t been able to focus on building a business. I have barely even been able to find any sense of routines to keep myself sane and as well as I can be through this transition.

But even as I say that… do you wanna know the main tool I have been pulling out of my tool belt to help me through this time? Self-compassion!!!!! No, really.

I have been trying to remember every day (shit - multiple times a day) to not be hard on myself for not eating well, for not being physically active, for not having energy to do anything other than stare at walls, and a myriad of other things that an older version of me would have spent hours beating herself up over. I still tend towards it fer sure. But I am trying to catch that part of me before I cause the deepest part of me shame, embarrassment, or despair. I keep reminding myself that I have lost soooooooooooo much and so many beings I love in the past 3 years and that IT’S ONLY BEEN THREE YEARS!!!!! The latest one was just 8 months-ish ago. I’ve been so busy with the chaos of what happened upon arrival here that I haven’t even gotten to sit with that as much as I would like to so I can digest and integrate it. And quite honestly even if I hadn’t just lost a number of loved ones or moved…. I would still be practicing self-compassion that I am doing the best I can with what I’ve got at this time!

Anyway… all of this is to say… I’m hanging in there. I’m loving myself and the choices I am making at this time. I just said it, but I’ll say it again: “I am doing the best I can with what I’ve got at this time.” One of the other main practices I’ve keep intact is meditation. I am meditating everyday, even if only 5 minutes in the morning, so i can drop down into this inner part of me who has such clarity when I bother to connect and listen to their wisdom.

I don’t want ya’ll to think that there isn’t Joy and Beauty on the table too. There is! SSSSOOOOOOOO much!!!! I get to see my SF Village regularly. We gather pretty much every week to eat, play games, and celebrate the life things. I actually got to go to my niece’s quinceñera in-person which probably wouldn’t have happened without me living here.

I found an AMAZING house with 2 AMAZING roommates (one human and one 10 yr old mini-poodle [Peg From Accounting}). I am 100% sure I never would have gotten this place had I not had to hustle to get out of the first place. That “terrible situation” had a silver lining for me. Every time I walk out the door I am in love with the views and so much of what this city has to offer. I get to take public transport to work and don’t have to drive regularly. I’ve already read 3 books on Muni!!! I took a job working at what was Lanny’s restaurant. Without filling out resumes and interviewing all over town to do an admin job or going back to waiting tables - I got a job helping in the office at a restaurant I have history with and love, working for a human that I love. Do I love the work? No. Am I 100% grateful to have it and to be able to help during this crucial time to try to help keep Lanny’s legacy alive ? You betcha!

A bit after I had to hustle to find a place and job, my inner witness noticed something. Even through what felt a bit crisis-y, I never once thought anything along the lines of “I should have never moved here.” Or, “I need to get outta this town.” Or any rendition of it wasn’t suppose to go down exactly like it did. For the most part, it just felt like “this sucks”, and yet, the Universe is still lining things up for me if I am just open to my life not going exactly as I planned it when I decide to move here. That’s not always been an easy lesson for me.

Yet here I am, sure I am suppose to be here at this moment in time and trying to lie down into the current of this river of life and allow it to take me instead of fighting it the whole way. I just keep thinking about how lucky I am. It may sound so corny, but almost every day I think, “I am one of the lucky ones. I woke up today.” Just to be able to experience this life… I am fortunate.

That reminds me: I just re-listened to one of my favorite single episodes of any podcast anywhere! The second episode of season one of “All There Is” with Anderson Cooper. It’s a conversation about grief and loss between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert. For anyone who has lost someone they love… I HIGHLY recommend this episode. I have listened to it about 5 times in the past 3 years and each time it brings me GREAT healing and reminds me I am not alone. This is part of the transcript from that episode that has always really stuck with me:

Cooper: “I’d read that Stephen's father and two of his teenage brothers were killed in a plane crash when Stephen was 10. It's the same age I was when my dad died. I was feeling lonely and sad after my mom's death, and I decided to see if Stephen might be willing to talk with me about some of his experiences with grief.

Cooper: You told an interviewer that you have learned to, in your words, ‘Love the thing that I most wish had not happened.’ You went on to say , ‘what punishments of God are not gifts.’ Do you really believe that?

Colbert: Yes. It's a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering. There's no escaping that. But if you are grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. And so at a young age, I suffered something so that by the time I was in serious relationships in my life with friends, or with my wife or with my children, is that I am understanding that everybody is suffering. And however imperfectly, acknowledge their suffering and connect with them. And to love them in a deep way that makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered, so that you can know that about other people. I want to be the most human I can be. And that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn't happen, because they gave me a gift.”

From All There Is with Anderson Cooper: Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief, Sep 21, 2022 T

I mean… how profound is that?!? Grief is lonely making if we let it be. But I have also found that in sharing my grief (which is NOT easy most of the time), I have never felt more connected. Way more connected then if I just speak to others about superficial things.

Okay, now I’m just rambling. So Imma stop there for this musing and let ya’ll chew on that. I’m okay. I am not. But I am. But I’m not. Yet I am…. I’m immersed in this thing called Life and trying to practicing accepting it all. Ironically - the more I learn to accept it, the more I an learning to love it.

So my wish for us:
May we show up for whatever is happening in each moment.
May we practice accepting it (which, just for the record is different than approving of it).
Above all else , may we accept ourselves, our choices, who we are in each moment with self-compassion, mindfulness, forgiveness, and love.

Love Ya,
SweetPea Johnson