Montreal

The last few days have brought me to drive around Montreal a lot...  From the West Island all the way to Rosemont, passing thru St-Laurent,  not using the higway most of the time because of traffic...   It has allow me to revisit this beautiful city I have always lived in... Of course, it is early spring.. to the city is not at it's best esthetically...  but nonetheless, it is a very interesting place to live!

I was born and raised east of Montreal... and gradually my life path brought me all the way in the west of the island... I have loved every area I lived in.... each being very different... and this is what surprise me most with Montreal...

This city is so rich and so poor at the same time....  So francophone and anglophone... so old and new.... so modern and classic...  so many buildings and yet great parks...  surrounded by water... so many things to do like festivals, museum, shows, shopping, dining out, outdoor activities for every seasons... You can go from Greece, to Italy, to China, to Israel in a couple of minutes! And so much more... 
Downtown feels like a small Boston... and Old Port like Quebec city... West island like Ontario... 

You can go from places where you can see people's misery on their face to places that are so filthy rich it is ridiculous!  Places where people have to go through garbages and popular kitchen to eat to other's where only the finest cuisine is eaten!  You can have on the same street, restaurants where the bill will easily come up to a couple of hundreds of dollars to have a wiener for 60cents or a slice of pizza for 99! People walking around with all their belonging in a grocery cart or driving around in a Mercedes!

People from all around the globe live here...  with all their individual culture... without it being such a big problem...  of course there are some incidents here and there but all in all, it is quite a nice place to live...  peaceful, multicultural with a low criminal rate for such a big city!  It is actually safe to walk around or take public transportation for a woman at night in most areas!

All kinds of people, with all kinds of different backgounds living in harmony on a small island!  Minding their own business... but yet helping each other...  Makes you wonder, why is it not possible then to have all those same kind of people living all around the globe in the same harmony?  What makes this place so different?? 

I honestly wonder...    maybe I will never find out but to me, this is the best place to live.... 

Happiness

What is happiness???  As the trainer that I am, I would say that this is an open ended question....  with many possible answers.... or is there?
I use to think that buying stuff, doing activities, going on vacation, having a car, a house... would make me happy... However, this feeling of happiness would not last... and I tought that I needed something else... Perhaps this is how the "big money making machine" keeps moving foward...  Having us believe that we need all those things... And quite honestly, it is true that many things seems very appealing...  The color, the smell, the sounds... the urge to conform, to be like other people... to not miss anything... to not be left apart... I bet most of you know that publicities are studied to create an urge for us to buy...  and in the movie 99F, they even say that those guys are deciding today what we are going to buy in 5 years! Huge machine!!!!! but did you know that even stores do that... The way the store is layed out, the smell in it (they use perfumes creating an urge to buy and specific to a store so it creates a smell memory and makes you wanna go back - for the smell - and hopefully buy more! All this is subconsciously obvioulsy), the music (loud music creates a rush to buy, an exitement)!

Now at one point in my life I had a house, 2 new cars, a pool, lots and lots of everything and would go on vacation twice a year but I was quite unhappy!!! I was sick and not in a good place in my life...  but ever since I met this great psychologist who did not wanted to give me medication and pushed me towards meditation and yoga instead and I slowly started turning things around in my life...  and here I am... I have not buy unecessary things in almost 3 months... and don't miss it!! I am actually happier then ever!!! I can read, do yoga, knit, spend quality time with my son and husband instead of shopping!

Now, in the book that I am presently reading ("How to go further"), they state a statistic (quite interesting) according to which, in the USA, the number of people claiming to be happy peaked in 1957... (and went downhill since then)  consumption has double since... (people are spending more and more money to try and find happiness)

But are they looking in the right place?

What does that tell you??? 

16 hours later

Hi!  for the few of you who may not know that I have officially started the process of doing my 300h yoga teacher training, well now you know...
I have not blogged about this yet because I had mixed emotions and was not sure I really wanted to get into it anymore... It seemed like a lot... and I was afraid I did not have what it took to start this challenge...

This week end, we had our first 16h workshop...  Modern Ashtanga.  We went thru the first and half of the second series, did many hours of led practice and try so many poses and transitions that I had never even see before...  We also learned about the chant and the theory behind the 8 limbs... it was very interesting... even thus extremely challenging....  every morning I would wake up more sore than  the previous one... and after all the backbending we did today (which are one of my weaknesses), I cannot imagine in what state I will wake up on Monday!!!

We also did a spring solstice ritual that consisted on writing on a piece of paper an emotion or feeling or habit you wanna get rid of... then burning and flushing down this paper...  thus getting rid of that thing you no longer want in you...  It was refreshing.... and I really liked it!!!

So that will be it for now....  I have many infos to process.... and digest before I can get back to you...

One last thing, after doing this workshop, I am convinced that I can do this.... I will need to work hard, study and work on myself but it will be so worth it at the end...

Namaste,
peace,
nath

Lunch break

For years, I have spent my lunch time out...  I need the change of scenary for my mental health! Also I found
that if you stay inside, you have a tendency to work throughout lunch or at least talk about it! Over the years, my routine has changed... when I first started that, I would actually go out to eat in restaurants... which ended up not being good on my waistline nor my wallet!  Then I ended up spending my lunch time at the shopping mall...  because it was close to my job...  This was better on my waistline as I would bring my own lunch but not much better on the wallet! If not worst...

Now, since I started at my current job, I have decreased the number of time I go out because we sometimes
do yoga at lunch and we have a stitch and bitch club once a week... 

However, the remaining days, I would spend at the shopping mall up untill January 1st!!!  In order to
avoid temptation, I decided to change my routine and spend my free lunch break at Chapters (Starbucks)...
there I would have a chai and read a book...  minimize spending and avoid temptation...  but after 2 months
of that routine I am getting fed up and need a change... 

So today at lunch, I decided that on the days were there would be no yoga and no stitching, I would go for
a walk when it is nice outside of course (if weather is not cooperative, I would go for a chai!)!
But by now, the weather should be going towards better times...
A walk at lunch time would be good for the wallet (no more chai) and for the waistline!  ;)))
And if by any chance there is a park near by, I could even stop a few minutes to read whenever I feel like
it so it would be a winning situation for me - take some fesh air, soak up the sun and read!!!
When we hit really nice weather, I plan on using my bike to work at least twice a week so then I could bike to a park, read and get back to work all refreshed!

What do you guys think?
How do you spend your lunch time?  Nurturing yourself? Or just keeping busy with work related issues?

Fixing things

There seems to be an "art" that is disappearing... 

I remember when I was younger, my parents would get things fixed...  The TV, the bicycles, small appliances, clothes,shoes, etc... If there could be a way to fix something, there was no way they would get rid of it.... I remember my dad would fix anything (or just about) with crazy glue!  And he was not the only ones...

Over time, however, the trend shifted towards changing things instead of fixing them... I think that happened for several reasons... First of all, fixing things mean you will have to actually go without it for a while... wether it is a piece of clothe, a pair of shoes, furniture or appliances...  It means sometimes bringing it to the repair man, or waiting home for him to show up... and sometimes, it involved taking you own time to do it, as for clothes, toys, etc...  Now, unfortunately,  time is a luxury most people can't afford anymore... who would spend a week withour their TV so it gets repaired?  Who actually brings their clothes or shoes to be fixed?
Who can afford spending half a day home waiting for the guy to fix the freezor?

Isn't just easier to get new stuff?  This can be done in a couple of hours or even a few minutes over the internet (assuming the computer is not what broke down on you), and shipped to your house anytime you wish within 24-47 hours if need be... It seems like stuff is not done to last anymore... My mom had in her basement a fridge that was 30 years old... Which fridge build today will last 30 years? Same goes for TVs...  When I moved out in my first appartement, I found a TV that was some 30 years old if not more, you know those TV that were actually inside a wooden box?  Well it lasted me a few months... The TV I bought after that, in 1997, just died in 2009... just 12 years after... and not because it was overused... 

This is just my opinion, but the big consumerism machine would not do as well if everything
we buy would last forever!!!

Lastly, some people think that the cost of fixing things is just as high as buying new ones... that is not true! Even if it cost a few hundred dollars getting you washing machine repaired, a new one will cost much more! Plus look at the environmental cost...  Changing you stuff means sending something to the landfill most of the time...

Over the last year, I had several of my clothes fixed because I have been losing weight and stop wearing heels... Of course, shortening pants may cost 10$, making them smaller at the waste maybe 20$ depending on the cut... But that is well below the price of new pants... I even had a red velvet dress turned into a nice skirt for 35$ !

Now if you get a sewing machine for a little more than 100$ on sale and learn how to sew, those will come out even cheaper as the number of pieces of clothes you can fix with one machine is almost unlimited!  My next objective is to get a sewing machine! I already know how to sew, I just do not have the equipement!
I have just get two pair of boots repaired...  and they did a great job!  It cost me 30$!  Some might say that
this is a lot of money... but each of these pair of boots cost me aroung 70$... So that is 140$...  fixing them
for 30$ and allowing them to serve me for a few more seasons is way more cost efficient than buying 2 new pairs at the same price... Plus I saved the landfill from 2 pairs of boots still very wearable with a little help!

So I will ask you, the next time something brake down, please consider fixing it... if this is really not your approach at least send it to a place where they will do it and some people will at least be able to buy it for cheaper! Not everyone can afford a brand new fridge every 10 years!!!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!!