Mentors

I'm proposing this awesome idea for a mentorship group and I'm excited to launch it in two months' time. I love and need to be around people that are doing the same kind of work I am and learn from and with them and share encouragement. Anyway. I'm launching a professional mentorship group or partnership situation and I'm excited about the possiblities:):):)

Every year for the past two years I've had the privelage to attend some world class wellness conventions - one in Brooklyn and the other in Toronto. Just being around all these people who care about fitness and health is amazing. I am so happy in that environment and I always leave thinking - there must be a way to recreate this at other points in the year.

Meanwhile there is so much support for me through blogs such as these: http://zenhabits.net/

I just spent over an hour watching The Last Lecture by Prof Randy. The other day I watched Steve Jobs commencement speech.

Do you ever wonder sometimes where these people are when you need to be reminded that it's ok to forge ahead on unchartered paths? Or when you crave the nudging that says everything's gonna be alright in hindsight...

Everything is alright.

Live 'n Shine in 2009!!!

My horoscope is amazingly right on target.  These are exactly the thoughts that were on my mind when I decided to check my 'scope.  (don't worry I'm not gonna turn into a fanatic about this stuff.)  Wow.  

2009 Leo Horoscope

"Living to Learn While Learning to Live"

Your usually bold outlook may be tempered at the start of the year by sad stories in the news or friends who have unfortunate personal problems. Your empathy may be charged up, and you may feel you want to become more involved with helping others. There may be a time when you're tempted to reach into your pocketbook and solve the problem with money. Although there may be a few situations where that's helpful, for the most part, it may not be as constructive as you'd like. Use your artistic talents and past experience to help guide others through hard times. In the broader spectrum of world affairs, you may have to hold back a little, contributing just enough without sacrificing the needs of you or your loved ones.

Toronto Aint no Manhattan...Manhattan aint no Toronto

Seriously.  All the grocery stores here close in the middle of the afternoon on New years' Eve!!!!  What's that about?

A lot of banks aren't even open on weekends, and even weekday hours are shoddy.

Banks charge you to see the face of the tellar here.  I'm not kidding.

Only two pharmacies are open all night.

I haven't been able to find the 24hr post office.

Add 50% of the price to account for tax in everything you pay for.  Again.  Not quite a joke.

Everyone starts work at 9am or 10am. 

The subway is overpriced.  I pay more than I did in NYC.

Torontonians take Christmas more seriously than Thanksgiving.  Shouldn't it be the other way round?

Zellers smells like TJmax.

I have to travel very far to find edible food.

It snows every day beginning in September.  Ok...maybe a slight exagerration.

Cell phone plans ridiculous.  You get half the minutes for twice the cost.  

Toronto aint no Manhattan...

Manhattan aint no Toronto...

In Toronto...

I cook every day.

I feel safe.

I am part of a caring community of people.

I have learned to meditate.

I am at home in Toronto.  

I am growing every day.

Manhattan will always be my second choice of vacation.  After Paris, that is.

Happy New Year everyone!!!  

Twittering away?

I've been a Twitteree since June.

I remember to log on once a month or so.  Lately maybe once a week.   I remember back when I lived in good ole Africa.  We had no TV at my house most of the time I was growing up.  I know almost nothing of jingles and 90210 and Twin Peaks.  I barely listend to the radio and when I did it was to Alanis Morrisette or some symphony orchestra.  I read a lot!  I loved to read.  I would lock myself in the study to just spend hours reading.  I never liked the classics.  Mostly cutesy stuff like Anne of Green Gables and Enid Blyton.  Sometimes romance novels and I'd only read the steamy parts of the Mills and Boon romance.  I was always stimulated.  I studied a lot until I was 16.  I don't recall ever being bored.  I remember I spent 4.5 hours walking one day just to walk to and from a friend's house to give her a birthday present.  I loved going to the movies and it was such a treat...

Now.  Facebook, Twitter, Google and my present self employed status and lack of discipline are uncool.  UNCOOL.

2009 will be different my friends.  I will devote more time to blogger and hotmail and gmail.  I will discard my twitter and facebook time.  Hello blogger.

However I am greatful for Tynan's blog.  

How often do you feel passion?

It's 4am. I've been up for a while.

My roommate just knocked on my door because she has a medical emergency. Lately it seems she confides in me about her medical issues. I feel so honored because I love healing and helping.

So I'm in my PJ's and smell like ----- because of blablabla also my breath is unpleasant coz I've had a super duper lazy day today. Did not brush teeth yet. ewww. So with my very limited knowledge and the help of webmd, she's now off to take a taxi to one of the only 24 hour pharmacies in Toronto. And she has my number if she needs me.

It's quite exciting. I think this is probably the second time I've felt any kind of productive emotion today. Something really wonderful happened today and I was very happy. Then the responsibility dawned upon me and the joy went to the background.

I had a very productive day. But the tasks I took on have exciting long term results but offer no satisfaction for today.

I'm going to take a shower now at 4am. I feel rather icky.

I feel so bla. I love the stability and goodness I have here in TO. BUT I miss the NYC adrenaline rushes and 24 hour everything. My life here is so effin decent. I want brand new clothes and to be 600% fitter than I am now. Tall order.

This is more of a whiney blog entry.

I'm going to be up for the next 19 hours.

Right this moment I feel mediocre. UNCOOL.

I want to take violin lessons. I get bored so easily and my mbira lessons are cool but too far away. I will reassess this thought in a few months. Maybe I can find a violin teacher who lives very close to me.

Fuck mediocre. Since when did I become mediocre. Why are my standards so high? Why do I get bored so easily?

I think back to when I was working. I used to stay up just reading sometimes then I'd get sad because I had to stop reading in order to go to work. Now that I'm not working - it's not like you find me immersed in a book everyday!!

I find that if I choose to I can focus really intensely on a goal, but if something happens to break my focus, that's the end of that goal. I'm good at goals that have tangible destination. Like moving to NYC. Or moving to Toronto. Going home. Completing triathlon.

Maybe I should seek out adventures that have me traveling around Canada.

I am now embarking on some intense goals for the next two weeks. Among which is..."finish writing a book". After which I may call upon one of you readers to be my editor. Then there's the e-book project I must complete and convert format.

I'm tired. bye bye. I'm hungry :( cooking at this hour could be fun...eggsssssssssssss....breadddddddd....chickennn saussaaaaaaggee...delish delish delish.

I am craving attention. I am also very angry.  Watch out world.

Homeland Dreams...

Note.  this post is not structured.  just rambling rambling irregularly.

Soooo strange...

ok.  Maybe this is too much information.  But wtf.  A while back I made a decision that when I die I would like to be buried in Toronto.

Ok.  That is too much information.  I have a million more years to go though so no worries.

So.  everytime I have a dream that's set in Zim, I wake up feeling so weird.  Like where is this place???  I mean considering I haven't lived there in 8.5 years, it's amazing how my subconscious recalls it so vividly.

Toight I had a dream...

We were living at our house in Highlands.  Huge house, many acres of yard and a well, pool and lots of corn in the back yard.  In the dream, the house and yard looked exactly the way it did when I was in 3rd Grade. 

So we had this maid Tracy.  In the dream she had a boyfriend who happened to live in the servants' quarters of a nearby house.  

(growing up we were middle class and we had maids and gardeners) (now almost everyone is poor because of blablabla)

(given all the terrible ways that the colonizers treated us.  how could we then go on to treat other people of our own race just as badly by taking on the same classism that had been directed towards us.  how could us, black people, have maids who we paid very little and who we confined to living in these tiny really gross shacks)....ok. disclaimer.  in my family the maid shared a room with yours truly and was treated almost like family.  i effin hated sharing my room.  but maybe that was more humane...

Ok. back to the dream.  

In the dream, the maid went off on an errand to buy bread or something from the grocery store.  Instead she ran off to steal some loving time with her boyfriend the gardener.  since she was taking forever to return and the task was timely, my sister and I went to go get her.  We found her.  So on the way back to the house - we had to run quickly through a field of dried corn.  The maid kept saying how we had to run faster coz the corn spirits had been angered and were gonna kill us.  And in the dream I taunted back saying "Corn spirits don't exist.  Fuck them!".  My sister was appalled to hear such language and cautioned me abour respecting the earth or something....then the corn spirints got angrier but luckily we made it back to the house in time.

I dunno.  I just feel weird.  Right this second I can recall every single detail about the house in Highlands.  We only lived there for 4 years, but all of a sudden today 18 years later, everything is vividly awake in my memory...

the kitchen had bright green walls...There were two mulberry trees in the yard...i remember my mom making mulberry jam and my dresses being stained with the juice...the well in the garden was really deep and dirty and ancient but we kids found it so exciting that we had an actual well in the yard.  my neighbors had a lychee tree and sometimes they lychees fell into our own garden.  my parents had two cars - a blue nissan pick up truck and a white nissan datsun that my mom drove to work.  my mom was a nurse at the main city hospital.  my sister hadn't been born yet.  my eldest brother hated everyone and one day tried to kill the other brother.  The curtains in my room where purple and flowery.  I used to have these out of body experiences.  I was in 3rd grade.  i would wake up with this feeling that I had been flying around my room all night and I was convinced it was the case.  my 3rd grade teacher Mrs Harnden used to read Roald Dahl to us.  I remember listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I was a very cute child.  I was still alright.  I had very neat writing.  One day when dad was supposed to pick me up from school, he was 3 hours late and it was dark.  Everyone had left. and so I decided to walk home.  We lived a 15 minute walk from the school but my parents never let me walk.  Anyway, so I'm walking along and then dad finally shows up as I'm on my way and I got yelled at.  Like super duper yelled at.  I cried.  My cute little 3rd grade self.  I thought I was being sensible by walking home and here I get yelled at for walking home alone.  Effin parents.  I also remember going to Greenwood park.  It's this really awesome theme park kind of - with ferris wheels etc.  I remember going boating with my classmates and I was wearing this lacy green dress (i did wear dresses) and my belt got lost.  Dad was late to pick me up after that trip as well.  That's when I stopped trusting my parents.  You can't be late if you tell the child you'll be there at 5pm.  I mean...don't parents have to be perfect or something...

I used to have this really awesome jacket.  It had snapper buttons and was a mixture of all kinds of cute graphics and colors like yellow and pink.  My mother is a super duper seamstress and she made it for me.  I wore it to almost all my civies days (the days when you didn't have to wear uniform) in primary school.  

All my life I slept with the light on.  Until very recently I started to turn the light off.  Right this second I want to sleep but my body and mind are just wide awake.  my head hurts prolly because it wants to be asleep too...my room is 150 degreen hot.  i'm convinced that maybe i'm sleeping in a sauna in some sleexy seedy gay bar.  i just turned on my lamp.  now i'll try to sleep...blogging while i sleep isn't helping.  i don't usually fall asleep like this.  always a first.  not working....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

dunno why these things are on my mind.  must sleeppppppp for a few more hours.  just needed to get it out on paper.  or screen.

Super Start Strong Sunday!!!

Well...now it's Monday.

Sunday was amazing.  Mostly because it was the last Sunday of 2009 and to me, such things matter.  Dates and ceremonies.

In the past year I would say that so many miracles and blessings happened.  I can confidently say the following:

1.  I know for sure what I want to do with my life and I'm getting there every day.  It's a lifelong journey and I love it.  It's not work - it's my legacy and I feel a very strong calling to it.  

2.  I don't care what anyone thinks of me and the things that I do or have done.  (Sometimes I care for a moment, then it fades away just as soon as that doubt showed up).  Only my opinion matters because I've been there since my conception and through all the ups and downs of my own journey.

3.  I am super duper confident in my daily choices and I allow myself to learn and falter as part of my journey.

4.  The most significant things about my year:

a)  meeting Paul Chek.  And for the first time since I became interested in health and fitness, I met someone who actually followed the advice he gave people, and who actually made sense and looked at the whole person, instead of just muscles and appearance.  Meeting Paul has changed my life in amazing ways.  He is not a hero or anything.  His legacy journey just happens to be one that can reach me and inspire me in ways that I need.  It's about finding an approach that works for you as an individual so you can be your best...In August, I attended a Q & A session here in TO.  For the first time in my life I heard someone answer questions I had had all my life in a way that just clicked and made sense and was true.  Like:  how come some people are born into difficult situations?  etc...  Rock on Paul.

b)  meeting my boyfriend.  For me it all happened unexpectedly at a moment when I wasn't thinking about dating because my energies were so focused on triathlon and leaving NYC.  I am blessed because I met someone pretty kool who I actually care about and doesn't bore me - in fact challenges me to grow.  My first internal response after meeting him was "wow-cool people like this actually exist?"  and" i thought i was the coolest person ever, how can someone be cooler?"!!!!!  anyway.  it was quite humbling.  Also I've been in a healthy place in my life for a while now and it's nice to be in a healthy relationship that's not about obsessive everysecondcalling, codependence and other obsessions.  I guess this relationship seems to be in line with where I am in terms of self love and wanting to share myself in healthy ways and learn from/with him.  Thanks handsome.  (hnk if you're reading this:))

c)  Going home to see my family.  After 8yrs.  I can't believe I actually made that decision to see them.  It was financially and emotionally a difficult decision to make.  I was heartsick to see them and I feel like I've seen them and now I need to focus on taking care of just me for a while.  I've given everything in being there for them for 8.5 years.  Emotionally and financially.  I've reached a place where I just need my life to be about me in North America.  Seeing them made me realize they were alive.  That's all I needed to see.  Now I must move on and focus soley on stabilizing my own life and in a few years I'll be even more of a solid rock for them and with them.

d)  Focusing on my journey.  Letting others take responsibility for their own issues.  Letting others make their own mistakes.  Unless someone is my client or seeking out my advice, allowing them to make their own health and wellness journey.  After all it's a journey, nobody has all the answers and one person's answers are different from those of the next person.

e)  Again letting go.  Focusing on me and what I need.  Always.

f)  Feeding the things that  make me happy and grow in healthy ways.  Being thankful for my blessings.

I'm disabling comments for this post.  Just coz this particular post is rather sacred to me and needs no judgement or encouragement.  It just is.  This is where I am now.  I embrace it.

See y'all on here in 2009!  I'm definitely back to blogging all the time now so check my blog!!!  Juicy posts coming along.  I don't have a journal so this space will be my journal.  Maybe you'll learn more things about me like - which South Park character I would like to meet...or the things that are running through my mind at 3am...also want to write down my dreams on here...

Namaste.