Yesterday at 9:17a.m. I laid out my yoga mat and started with a series of Sun Salutations. I know a couple of you are going to snicker at the preciseness. I don’t blame you. It seems a little rigid, timing such a graceful, meditative practice. But I do that with all my exercise. I put on ABBA at 4:11 in the afternoon and danced for precisely 30 minutes. And last night I lifted weights for 27 minutes. Why do I do this? Because I keep a log. A log of the type and duration of my exercise. I found many years ago I respond best to this type of discipline and it has served me well.

As I was flipping up and down and breathing in and out, I was listening to Robin Sharma’s CD, “Extraordinary Leadership.” He talked about discipline and I felt a little tug of pride that I was performing at an elite level. But as the CD continued, I felt a little tug of alarm as well.

He was telling the story of his visit to a restaurant that had reached the height of its success, and seemed to be sliding in the customer service department. When Robin shared his experience with a business leader, the man explained to Robin that nothing “fails like success.” In other words, when success is achieved, complacency sets in and the downward spiral begins.

I began to think about that in terms of everyday life. You see, the reason for all the flipping around on the yoga mat and the weights and the cardio is because I’ve let complacency take the place of discipline and I’ve gained a whopping 8 pounds. More snickering I know. But 8 pounds to me might as well be 50. In 1995 I was over-weight and it took me a year, but I shed 40 pounds and managed to keep it off for 14 years with a lot of hard work and even more will power.

During the past year I have endured more stress and been more sedentary than ever before in my life. Exercise has been intermittent and every time I get up the steam to start over, I hit a snag; whether it be another job challenge or personal drama. Instead of working off stress in my sneakers or on the mat, I grab the (low fat) comfort food and moan on my couch. And don’t get me started about cortisol; that fat hoarding hormone which doesn’t know the difference between my stressing about money and an attacking sabre tooth tiger. It thinks it’s doing me a favour by storing the extra weight in case I need to draw on the reserves.

So I’m starting again. I expect better of myself and frankly I deserve the best. We all do.

Complacency is a tricky and potentially devastating state. How often do we take ourselves for granted? We go about our business day in, day out, doing the same things, saying the same things, eating the same things, watching the same shows…and another day goes by in a very short life. How often do we take the people we know or love for granted? As we all sneak little looks around the room, I’d say it was the majority of us. You know someone for years. You know their habits, likes, dislikes, thoughts and idiosyncrasies. You know what they like to eat, where they like to go, what they like to do. There’s no mystery, no surprises….or so you think.

I want you to try something. Look at your spouse, your kid, your friend, your lover or look at yourself in the mirror and say something totally unexpected. Something they wouldn’t expect you to say in a hundred years. Say something that you’ve kept deep inside you. Pry off the outer mask and let your bare face show. Why do you want to do this? Because within each one of us lives a soul that rarely dares to show itself. It’s the soul that loves and hopes so deeply that should you say the words you are longing to speak, you would double over with the pain of their release. We keep our desires, our hopes and our dreams bottled up so tightly, that to speak them would find us floundering in a whole new world. How could we stand to expose ourselves like that? Someone might judge us or laugh at us. How could we live with THAT?

Well, easily. I threw my mask away many years ago. I’m still here. I’m still loved. I’m still respected and honoured. I speak my love, I share what’s inside the deepest part of my soul and I’m not afraid of any of it. Complacency was very much a part of the first half of my life. I can look back and see where I could have stepped up or spoken out. I can see where I used silence, when all the while I was longing share my heart song.

Take a leap of faith today…do one thing or say one thought that frightens you to death…and leave complacency behind you. Life gets very interesting when you dare.

I was in a cab a while ago laden with goodies from a trip to my parents’. The driver was a nice looking middle-aged man. Very polite. He took a call on his cell  and after he hung up I asked what language he was speaking as it had been musical and not one I recognized. He told me it was Farsi….the official language of Iran. And after spending 17 years studying and working in Italy, he was fluent in Italian as well. I discovered that I was in the cab with a highly trained architect.

I asked what on earth made him leave a good life and a career he loved to come to Canada. He explained he wanted to give his daughters a better chance at a better life. Their accomplishments since moving here, which he proudly cited, have made him very happy. But I heard a deep sadness in his voice as well; because how many opportunities are there for Iranian, Italian speaking, middle-aged architects in a new country?

As we approached my house my eyes were already welling up with tears. I paid him quickly, way over-tipped, wished him good luck, threw my bags out of the car and before I was ten steps away started sobbing. From there to the door I repeated the same litany over and over….broken dreams, broken dreams, broken dreams. Walking down the hall to my kitchen, it changed to “No more!!!”

I was crying for him. I was crying for myself. I was crying for everyone I know who has lost a dream to circumstance or tragedy.

When I’m asked why I want to take on the task of helping people strive for their heart’s desire, it’s because too many tears have been shed….too many hearts have been broken….too many spirits have wilted. Too many architects and artists and dancers and writers and healers and teachers have given up on their dreams. Your dreams don’t give up on you. SO WHY SHOULD YOU GIVE UP ON THEM? Why do working to survive and working towards a dream have to be mutually exclusive?

Next time you walk by a stranger or even someone you’ve known a lifetime, listen carefully. That music you hear is their song.

As I declared in the manifesto on my first website (see image below), I wanted to start a network of people helping people achieve their dreams. And that’s what Donna Marie Antoniadis is doing on shesconnected.com as well. And that’s what the sponsors of the Yoga Meltdown yesterday at Queen’s Quay were doing. I witnessed a community of people gather together to support and uplift each other in their dream to create a physically strong and mentally harmonious life.

Well you can help too. If you know someone who longs to sing their song and you know of ANYTHING that might help them take that first step, I urge you to make that effort.

(visit lindakaban.com)

I was thinking about excellence and what it means.

I was once interviewed by a young reporter from NOW magazine. She was writing an article on chronic worry. I was concerned after reading the article. There was a HUGE omission in my quote. I was giving her my thoughts on how we all give too much mind space to worrying. I’m guilty of that. You know that small problem that starts as a twitch in your stomach and after you’ve dissected it and looked at it a hundred different ways, that twitch has turned into full blown anxiety accompanied in different degrees by shallow breathing, stabbing fingers of stress along your shoulder blades and maybe even a migraine.

What I DID say to the reporter and wanted to emphasize is, that worrying is useful in one respect. It makes you AWARE that a problem exists. Once you acknowledge that it exists, turn off the worry and turn your efforts to finding a solution. I know I can’t think straight when I’m gnawing on a problem. I’m thinking of the “what if’s” instead of the “what can I do’s.”

That article was read by a LOT of people. That one important omission by the writer could have affected people adversely. 

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Another day, I went to work out at a local YMCA. After tread milling for 30 minutes, I joined a yoga class. If my jaw could have dropped to the ground while holding my leg in the air at the same time, it would have. I was appalled at the total lack of professional ethics demonstrated by the teacher. She had 30 people in the class, of all shapes and sizes. A lot of the women and one man were either well into their senior years or infirm. The instructor had us do poses that it would be difficult for the very young and fit to accomplish. I was ok, firstly because I’ve practiced yoga for 36 years and am a certified yoga teacher as well, but I also know my body and what is and is not good for it. A lot of people lack that awareness. They want to look cool, or “in the know.” They don’t want to stand out in the class as the one who couldn’t do a pose. She let people twist their bodies into poses without any concern for the proper alignment. She never stressed the importance of linking inhaling and exhaling to certain movements. When she said, “We’re going to do some rock and rolls and then roll right into shoulder stand”, was when I got up and walked out of the class. Shoulder stand MUST be done properly because of the very great risk to the vertebrae in your neck. One small wrong movement could mean a lifetime of paralysis….and this woman had the class THROW themselves up onto their shoulders. I was horrified.

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And again this past weekend. I joined a Yoga Group through Meet Up.

(in an aside, if you have a hobby, passion or a desire to try anything from Rock Climbing to Bonsai, check out the Meet Up groups near you.)

I went through Meet Up because even though I have a devoted home practice I like to meet new people and value any opportunity to do so.

The idea was to meet at The Beaches on the shore of Lake Ontario in Toronto. After conducting a workshop on an island retreat last summer where we practiced yoga on the beach every morning as the sun rose, I was drawn to this particular Meet Up.

So we met at the designated location and were nervously joking about the looming black clouds over the CN Tower which we kept turning to watch over our shoulders as we headed east down the beach. The teacher found a spot under some trees, which had a few of us cocking our heads, since the black clouds were now issuing some pretty serious thunder.

Luckily, about the only structure on the beach, a sort of humungous car port was right beside us. As the first drops of rain fell we scurried inside and laid down our mats a few feet away from a Boot Camp Fitness group who were also seeking shelter.

The storm that came was not your garden variety sun shower, but a real monster. To us, under the eaves of our makeshift shelter, it just added ambiance. My blissed out state didn’t last long. Once again, I was faced with being taught by a very lovely, but inexperienced yogini. As I covertly watched the other folks in the class, I was in utter disbelief as they contorted into poses they were not meant to do at their stage of development, nor were their limbs in alignment and nor was the teacher even aware that her students’ underlying skeletons and over-laying musculature were being compromised.

It took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. When they suggested a walk along the beach after class, I begged off saying I had an appointment. I did not. Even this morning I am struggling with the decision whether or not to write to that gentle teacher and somehow, very respectfully, offer feedback without it sounding accusatory. I was classically and correctly trained by some yoga big shots whose first order of the day is to teach safety and correct alignment. So do I destroy a young woman’s faith in herself or let her continue unaware, and possibly seriously injure one of her students?

Regardless of my decision, I’m thinking that it’s not a long walk from giving something the short shrift to giving it your all. The sense of accomplishment and pride is only the first reward.

I guarantee you that committing to excellence is not that hard. Colin Powell said, “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”

Do one thing excellently today and see how you feel. See how it affects the people around you.

If you don’t proceed with excellence it can compromise not only your own quality of life, but other’s as well.

Be excellent!!

(visit lindakaban.com for more articles)

I receive an email every day from a guy I really admire, Brian Johnson. He’s the creator of Philosopher’s Notes. Well worth taking a boo at his website,  http://philosophersnotes.com/

It’s plain and simple, no frills, but the content, holy smokes!! Brian reads the books we all swear we’re going to make time for and he basically writes a Coles (Cliff) Notes version. Philosophy-to-go, because you can also download the MP3 version of each synopsis as well. Condensed knowledge, with Brian’s sense of humour and own depth of thought rounding out the experience.

So this morning I woke up to receive the quickie version of a Philosopher’s Note, called Big Ideas, of his latest read “Harmonic Wealth”.  James Arthur Ray was quoted by Brian as saying, “I’m a great believer in harmony, but balance is bogus. Many teachers talk about balance, and guess what? Not one of them is balanced.  I know, I used to be one of them. Balance in this world cannot be achieved so get over it. Think of a scale. In perfect balance, nothing’s happening. There’s no dynamism, no life, or vibrancy. Now think of a jazz band-the life and vibrancy are palpable aren’t they? The performers in this band have less to do with playing the melody as written and more to do with improvising. They give life to nuance and the music takes shape in the moment. Now that’s harmony.”

Now that is very interesting. I gotta give it to Brian. He has more than once shaken up my world view, and for the better. Another time I’ll talk about his devotion to “declarations” instead of “affirmations”; but for today I’m going to stick with balance.

I had was what undoubtedly one of the crappiest weekends in years. I got some news on Friday afternoon from someone I’m very close to that’s going to tear her world apart. During the conversation I called on every ounce of coaching lore I could remember so as to give this person not only a safe place to fall apart, but also a bedrock of strength to hold onto. It went well I think. Yep. She left the phone with an action plan she could hold onto as the one bit of sanity in an insane situation; and I even managed to get her laughing for a bit.

But when I hung up, I doubled over with the pain of what I knew was coming for her and her family. And that’s the way I felt well into Sunday. By that time I couldn’t take it anymore, so attempted to shut down the welling of emotion, by settling for just plain grim. I was trying to find a balance for myself, so that I could function without crying or lamenting, and maybe enjoy a little of the beautiful day that Sunday was.

By this morning I was exhausted, and it wasn’t until my Blackberry beeped with a text from my sweetheart, that I could see a little light creep into the dark corners of my despair. And then when he walked in with a goofy grin and a smacking kiss, I let go completely. I could have dragged him into it. He knows the person who called me in trouble. But I decided that talk could wait for another time, and I let myself get silly and giggly, and spent 3 glorious hours on the opposite side of despair.

James Arthur Ray may have something. Balance is not all the pundits crack it up to be.

Ours is a dualistic world. There is a heaven and an earth; female and male; sorrow and joy.

If we spend all our energy trying to walk the tightrope for fear of falling into a pit of sorrow let’s say; then when would take the chance of leaping off for joy’s sake?

(for more articles visit lindakaban.com)