Comfort is the Enemy of Change

Women...stuck in a rut?  My godsister posted this great article on "why women get stuck"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mia-redrick/why-women-stay-stuck_b_6271628.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

everything will be ok :)

Climbing Clouds by Jetty Rae :)



I explore life every day in different ways, through people, through things, through animals...I am an observer...a thinker...an idea person......a mover when something moves me to move.......



I've follow this dope blog for years called Our City Lights.  She is an intelligent and cool chick.... I enjoy to read her posts and today she moved me to move..

The original post can be found at:
http://ourcitylights.org/ourcitylights-1/2014/12/climbing-clouds?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PuncturedBicycle+%28punctured+bicycle%29



This is a beautiful song about loss and it made me cry and it made me happy and it made me feel...so I hope you enjoy it too :)

blessings,

estroJen

11.23.14 WOD

I took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and decided to pull out my tires and get in a good bootcamp session.

But first let me take a chunk selfie.....

Started out with sprints from one end of the yard to the other.  I had to clean dog poop along the way. 

The day was seriously beautiful and perfect weather for having some backyard bootcamp fun.  Roxy sat on my ab station and wouldn't get up.  It's ok though, I love her and love when she wants to be close to me :)

Sprints from one end of the yard to the other

x 5

- Jump rope - 20 seconds

- squats with 8lb medicine ball  - 20 seconds

- tire flip - 30 seconds (ended up being like 3 flips)

- burpies 30 seconds 

- I did one leg jumps onto the other tire - 12 right leg and 10 left leg bc I need to build my right leg more

 x 3

 ab circuit 

- medicine ball over head crunch - 25

- overhead taps - 25

- side taps with medicine ball - 50 

- butt lifts (that's not the right way to to say that) - 50

- legs down and then lift butt in the air - 25 

I did the first circuit again x 4 then the ab circuit x 2

then I flipped the tires a few more times for fun :)

Woke up today feeling really good!

blessings,

estroJEN 

Week 1 - December 2015 Food/Workout/Life

Here is my life schedule starting November 30th.  The first part of my program will consist of a calculated eating plan (clean and routine) and I am going to build my workout according to the NASM OPT model.

I have been working on my strength and balance aka stabilization a bit already but am turning it up a notch in December with minimal rest periods.  Since I am about 5ft tall, I am keeping my caloric intake below 1200 calories daily. I will evaluate and adjust my routine as needed.  The goal is one - two hours of movement per day divided in morning and evening sessions.  I enjoy HITT and Tabata training routines so as I create them I will post them on here.  To make it easier on myself I googled some basic HITT and Tabata workouts according to what I want to work on each day and will change them on a weekly basis.  Going to the gym and zumba is on my list (3 gym days and 1 zumba class in the evenings) and when I save a bit I plan to take TRX classes and also take a yoga class weekly.  As for right now all my workouts will be home based body weight workouts and at the gym I will do mostly cardio.     

I created a playlist on spotify with some jams that I like: 

  https://play.spotify.com/user/estrojen30/playlist/6PiXx7sOHIxtzTneUBv69Y

It takes time to adjust your habits and live consciously.  We have been taught to take the easy route and let other people do the work for us.  I am making a conscious effort to take control of my life, my health and embark on a strategic journey for a better life.  I have included time for other things that I do like crafting, cooking, errands and grooming (yes, I need to remind myself to pluck my eyebrows, shave my cooch and handle my mustache so I don't look like chewbaccas lover)

     

(Chewy thumbs down hairy estroJEN)

There are so many resources to help figure out what to do, where to start and how to start.  Hiring a personal trainer is a great way to figure out what you need to do to achieve your goals and I highly recommend it.  Instead of hiring a personal trainer I decided to go to school and learn how to train as I train myself because I enjoy taking the hard road (not for any glory reasons, just because I get bored easily).   I am treating myself like a client and lemmetellyouuuu I am a sucky client.  I am lazy, I make excuses and truthfully it's not easy to open up time to do something that you really don't want to do in the first place.  I get it and this is what motivates me to really want to do this and share my story in real time so that people know that they can do things that they set their minds to.  I actually love to workout, once I am in the zone I am all in it but I really understand how difficult it is to begin and take that plunge.  I say that because if I can accomplish this...you can.  There is no magic that happens, you just have to decide to make changes in your life.  Adjust your sails to the wind and let go.  I hope that by sharing my journey and what I do I can help others learn fun ways to incorporate lasting upgrades in their lives.  We are all going to die eventually, it's up to you how you want your journey to be.  I am choosing to make life better, my body  tighter, my soul free'er and my mind  stronger.......by making my journey fun and fluid!!!!!!!

blessings,

estroJEN

estrojen30@gmail.com 

the_beautifully_tortured_life - on instagram -  http://websta.me/n/the_beautifully_tortured_life_

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. ~ Bruce Lee

Pema Chödrön - HOW TO BUILD INNER STRENGTH

Pema Chödrön

HOW TO BUILD INNER STRENGTH

You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving-kindness for yourself. Loving-kindness for yourself does not mean making sure you’re feeling good all the time—trying to set up your life so that you’re comfortable every moment. Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty. In this way you become more attuned to seeing when you’re biting the hook, when you’re getting caught in the undertow of emotions, when you’re grasping and when you’re letting go. This is the way you become a true friend to yourself just as you are, with both your laziness and your bravery. There is no step more important than this.

do not struggle to survive in the emptiness of desire 

choose to live satisfied within the possibilities of the each day 

~estroJen

This mountain has neither ugly rocks nor clumsy trees. It raises itself ten thousand feet Towards the cold heaven. Even a stray cloud does not cling around the mountain. Only the moon showers its pale light Abundantly over the summit.  - Jakushitsu (1290–1368)

dailyzen.com

Today 9/23/14

Foxy Roxy the real star of my show!

I like this pic because Roxys ass is in it :)

Trying to find my signature pose

I'm bashful...

The kissy face pose made my hips look nice :)

Am I really care free?

A seductive wanna be face lol 

It feels a bit silly taking a bunch of pictures of oneself 

Does the "look away from the camera" look work..heyyy!

I love to sit in the grass :)

I just liked this one! 

This is what I wore to work today, we aren't supposed to wear leggings but I did...with dress I bought from Macys that I love.  My shoes are old lady shoes from Europe but they are comfy as shit and I got them for a great deal! 

If I don't start I will never start this blog!  I have a lot of cool shit on the horizon, bare with me and stick with me and tell ya friends friends friends to like me too :)

peace and love,

estroJEN

My goals

To live content with small means; to seek

 elegance rather than luxury, and 

refinement rather than fashion, to be 

worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not 

rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk 

gently, act frankly; to bear all cheerfully,

 do all bravely, await occasions, hurry 

never. In other words, to let the spiritual,

 unbidden and unconscious, grow up

through the common. 

Bruce Lee Oct. 20, 1963

Current Situation

A descriptive word that has been a theme in my life is that I am "real"....and to keep it "real" I been eating like a pig and not exercising for way too long.  I start personal training school the beginning of October so I am going to eat like a fat piggy and do as minimal exercise as I feel until September 5th.  Labor day weekend I am going to feast and drink and indulge.  Starting September 5th I have a plan, a good solid plan and it's not going to be easy but it's going to be worth it.....BUT FOR NOOOOWWW......Fatgirl nights every night until September 5th!!!!!! :)

be blessed, be yourself, make your own rules, discipline yourself and BE HAPPY!

estroJEN

Be

I agree Mr. Van Gogh............and sometimes art isn't pretty...or nice.....but it's still a beautiful masterpiece...

be blessed,

estroJEN

 

Do something out of the ordinary for yourself today,

estroJEN

 

***POSTS WILL BE ON AND POPPIN' SOON, I PROMISE!!!****

Everything that is matter....matters.....

 

estroJEN

 

 

Trust Your Struggle

 

 

I worked my ass for this pic...

literally....I worked out to look good in this outfit earlier this year and once I wore it....I stopped exercising.  This pic is my motivation pic in many ways.  This picture reminds me that I can do anything I want to do, that no matter what my circumstances are and who is trying to put clouds in my sky....I can do this...I got this....and I am worthy of this journey and it's fun! 

 

People come into your life for a reason, and even if you don't understand why they are there at the moment...understand that it's all for your benefit...all of it and for the betterment of yourself.  Life is too short to stay in places or deal with people that bring you down or use your energy because theirs is limited. 

 

One of my favorite quotes (I have this hanging, I read it often because I need this to sink in), I hope it touches you the way it touches me:

 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are weak. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world ... As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Marianne Williamson

 

 

 

gotta whoossaaa...comin' at me neva' works no matter who tries....

My song for the day is below, yeah I like Drake...bite me! xo

 

 

Peace and blessings,

 

estroJEN

Roadblocks

I already hit a roadblock on my blog journey, my internet has been down at the house so I can't post. It's ok because I'm all about roadblocks and am using this time to write down my ideas so that when I can post, it will be on and popping. 

When life gives you down time, use it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing is solid, nothing cannot be changed or moved and YOU have the power to overcome your obstacles.....ONWARD AND UPWARD.....PA'LANTE MI GENTE!!!


Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low....no river wide enough babyyyy.....

MAKE it a great day folks!!

oh...and that's my self portrait stick figure, she will be making many appearance  here in my blogworld!!

Peace,

 

estroJEN

The next chapter has begun!!!

Hi guys, it's meeeememememe....estroJEN!!

Today is a wonderful day for me, I was accepted and confirmed to begin my personal training certification course this October!!! The program I have chosen is both book and hands on training, no bullshit online or college course shit....this is the real deal, you learn about a muscle...you work that muscle right after....efficient...effective and the correct way to learn to train people!!!! I'm soooo excited....you see that girl up there....she won't look like that for too long!!! My body is going to be my billboard and my goal is to inspire women to be the best version of themselves that they can be...mentally, spiritually and physically.....as best as they can everyday!!   

Today is a glorious day in my life and I am super blessed and I hope to be able to spread this goodness out into the universe to help as many people as I can!!!


Thanks for coming along for the ride!

estroJEN

Loving-Kindness Meditation by Josh Korda

How to Do Loving-Kindness Meditation

Traditionally, we begin loving-kindness practice by taking a comfortable seat. We can quietly shift positions when necessary, as this is not a time to investigate physical discomfort.

Once seated, we start by inwardly directing loving-kindness and goodwill to ourselves: perhaps toward a visual sense of our appearance or toward an area of the body where we experience core emotions, such as the chest or abdomen.

During initial forays into Metta the mind will often rebel; thoughts critical of the meditation’s value or stories of our unworthiness are swift to arise. All this means is that we need this practice, for, as the Buddha taught, we each deserve goodwill and if we cannot summon it easily for ourselves, we’ll never feel true compassion for other beings.

When I first started my loving-kindness practice, developing thoughts of self-regard was a struggle, to say the least. Finally it occurred to me that I was addressing myself, in my thoughts, in ways I would never address anyone publicly, even those I detested. I made a pact in my practice that I would say the same things to myself that a good friend might say. My first choice of phrasing was begrudging, along the lines of “I suppose you deserve some happiness.” It’s a sign of the degree to which I’ve healed that my phrase of choice these days is “I love you, keep going.”

Once some self-compassion has arisen, we bring to mind images of friends, mentors, or others we hold in high regard. This stage of Metta is generally uncomplicated, requiring little effort, as the admiration we feel for these people naturally results in goodwill.

Next, though, we direct goodwill in more challenging directions. We start with people we are indifferent toward, about whom we have neither positive nor negative feelings. This stage requires more effort, as the human mind is quite facile at developing opinions about people. Choosing a neutral person—for example, someone we see regularly during a commute or in a store we frequent—may require memory jogging.

Finally, we move to the most challenging stage of Metta practice: radiating goodwill toward those we’ve reviled or struggled with. (Dick Cheney and the Doobie Brothers almost instantly come to mind, but maybe that’s just me.) This part of the practice is as essential as developing self-compassion, since holding resentment is a primary source of agitation and suffering. The limits of our goodwill form the ultimate boundaries of our peace of mind, for we cannot achieve peace while aversion is present.

The goal of Metta practice is to free our natural feelings of benevolence from their limited confines. Loving-kindness and goodwill conditioned by agendas or expectations are not deeply beneficial. In Metta, we work to develop feelings of ease and love as boundless as the oceans that nourish and sustain our world.

Josh Korda teaches in the Theravada Buddhist tradition at Dharmapunx NYC + Brooklyn and is a regular visiting teacher at Against the Stream in Los Angeles.

A good read :)

Not Knowing Is the Most Intimate

By John Tarrant

Having a meditation practice is a way of fully entering your life, without reservation. When you meditate, when you sit and notice without assessing how you’re doing, you just show up for your life. In the moment of meditation, nothing is required of you. It’s enough to be here on the planet, to experience a moment of presence, to fully honor the gift of being alive. And it is a gift, one that just comes to you. You don’t have to ask.

If we don't show up for our own life, we tend to ask other people to fill in the bits we won't show up for. That makes it hard on them. So love begins with really showing up. And practice helps. It’s a way of not dodging the difficult, painful bits. It’s also not dodging the beauty and the marvel of life, the wonder and our capacity to connect to others. Love starts there.

But we often make a few really basic errors. We sometimes have the idea that a relationship is like a machine, one we can fix if we put the right oil on it or replace a few sprockets. We also can think that a relationship is a matter of calculating the sums of good and bad, what we’re getting and not getting.

If we start looking at other people as a gift, it helps us out of these traps. I have a teenage daughter and I'm close to her. You notice with a child that you show up without wanting a lot in return. It’s not an exchange: give this, get that. It could be like that in all our relationships, with lovers, teachers, friends, what have you. It’s not a trade. The word bodhichitta conveys wanting to open our own hearts and minds because it’s good for the world, not just for us (but it is good for us, too). Bodhichitta is not esoteric; it’s a fundamental human experience. It’s part of the nature of mind.

Relationship is not an event isolated from our spiritual practice. We're involved in a relationship because we're on our path. We have a practice and somehow our relationship has become part of our practice. It’s not something different from our practice. It’s not this thing over there that makes me happy so I can have a practice over here. It’s not the other thing that pays the rent or gets me laid. It’s part of practice.

There's a long arc to love, just the way there's a long arc to having a spiritual practice. When you’re on that long arc, you don't say, “I tried meditation once, and I didn’t get what I wanted, so it’s not right for me.” If you have a spiritual practice in your life, you're actually showing up for your life. If your mind is restless and uneasy, you're showing up for your mind being restless and uneasy. If you stop fighting it, stop thinking it should be different, if you allow a little bit of an opening—even just having compassion for your inability to have compassion—the donkey will start to turn toward home.

You don't have to be good at this stuff. You just have to have a little bit of turning toward it and it will start teaching you and giving you gifts. It’s much better to do a spiritual practice really badly than not to do it. In fact, it’s much better to do a spiritual practice really badly than to do it well, because if you're doing it badly you'll probably learn something, so long as you keep doing it.

A while ago my mother was dying. I traveled home, went to the hospital, held her hand, and sat with her. The next morning she was still alive, so I did the same thing. Meanwhile, my sisters were negotiating with the nurses about oxygen levels, my father was trying to encourage mom to stay in this world, to eat for him (“May I tempt you with just a spoonful of this custard, Allison?”), and my mom was holding off my dad with garlic and crosses. But I didn't have anything to do, no special role, and I began to think that was probably good. I noticed that when I wanted anybody in that room to be different, it became rather painful. “Dad, ease up. I mean, she's dying. She doesn't want to eat.” Or, “Mom, he just loves you and he's trying to be helpful and it probably would help if you ate.” Or, “Girls, you could relax; the oxygen is not going to help her now.” I had all those let's-improve-the-world thoughts, but I noticed that when I didn't go with those, everything was completely at peace. People were doing what they were doing because they needed to. Who am I to know what they should be doing? It was beautiful appreciating how much they cared about each other.

The koan for that situation is, “Not knowing is most intimate.” What if someone shouldn’t be improved? Maybe if they gave up smoking, they’d turn out to be a serial killer. How about not wanting to change others? How about not wanting to change yourself?

We spend a lot of time whipping the donkey. If we stopped doing that, we might find we change in unexpected ways, and others do as well. Most projects to change other people or ourselves are really projects about interior decoration for the prison. A spiritual practice is really about jail breaking. When you show up for your life, what kind of ride do you want to take? Do you want to spend your time telling other people they should be different?

Love means bearing people's differences without trying to change them—not just bearing, but valuing and appreciating and loving people's uniqueness. That’s a path all by itself. What if the fact that you're different from me is a gateway rather than an obstacle?


John Tarrant, Ph.D., is a Zen teacher who for many years had a practice in Jungian psychoanalysis. Author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros and The Light Inside the Dark, he teaches physicians and executives at Duke Integrative Medicine and directs the Pacific Zen Institute

article can be found http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3273

Happiness begins with you!

Meditation - Good for the mind, body and soul

Recently I have gone through some major life changes which brought a lot of things I had hidden deep inside to surface.  I found myself having mini anxiety attacks and although I am able to control them without medication...It made me realize that I need to find a soothing place to go back to.  We are the masters of our feelings, we can only sooth ourselves...Go back to YOUR center Jenn...is what the universe guided me too.  There is nothing on the outside that cannot be controlled inside yourself.  Your life is a manifestation of your thoughts and feelings. If you do not learn to control this, it will control you.

Going back to center is very important, loving yourself is great and the way to go but MOST importantly...you must make every effort to accept your being as it is and to understand yourself as you are.  This thought process is very difficult to begin for people who are spiritually sensitive and empathetic to the world.  It has taken me many years to accept my flaws and am now finding a way to nurture the beast inside...which brought me to begin to meditate.

I sit in my backyard with my bare feet in the grass and I face the sun, arms resting on my knees and thumb and middle finger touching.  The first time I did it was amazing, I felt connected to the Universe and my dog felt my vibe too. (I have an awesome dog!!)  I also completely cleared out everything in my bedroom except for my bed and some plants so that I can meditate in my room.  Not everyone can have an entire room to dedicate but you are worthy of at least a corner of your house, if they can have man caves...we can have self empowerment temples right in the privacy and safety of our own home.

I am going to my first meditation circle on Monday, June 30th.  Here are some meditation tips for beginners.  http://www.freemeditation.com/meditation-basics/meditation-tips-for-beginners/


Thank you for coming on this journey with me,

estroJen

estrojen30@gmail.com