Fashion, Beauty and Musings.

Thursday 20 March 2014

e.

clarification after sickness.

It's weird how much clarity and how open minded you feel after a terrible bout of sickness or anything else that takes you out of work and has you feeling down right disgusting.

You just kind of sleep most of the day, sometimes restless, sometimes really deep out of exhaustion but when you wake up and realise you aren't sick anymore or that you're going to be ok its like you've just had an amazing shower. You have the day to really get stuff done and recuperate.

Perhaps i also feel clarity because it's the first day of spring today, new beginnings and all that. In which I've realised my body is a temple and you get what you bloody well put in to it. I'm not going on some fitness craze because it shouldn't be about getting fit all the time but generally about wellbeing inside and out.

I'm not into holistic practice per se  but i am a believer that your body is the first indication of how you're feeling, stress or otherwise and it's important to listen and respond accordingly. Your skin, nails, hair and, dare i get gross, your toilet time is a cry out for help. I've been run down for the last couple of weeks and i know it's because i think i can get away with eating junk all the time and sometimes going without dinner weakening my immune system so i caught some bug but its also been more than just that. I have been stressed as hell.

Stress affects us all differently, some people can't cope with pressure or busyness and some people thrive in it, some of us let external things that have nothing to do with US stress us out, some of us are just worriers in general and anxiety takes place over everything making us unhealthy. Your body and mind are unique little so and so's and will do anything to put itself in a better state, including trying to show us how unhappy or unhealthy we are.

'I'm fine' we all say 'let me take on your problems because i can deal with mine' we lie. But take some time to reflect. If you say you need a holiday you probably do but  look at why is it you want to escape? Has something thrown you out of balance? a job or relationship not going how you wanted it to? (lol, agony aunt)

you stay up all night and only get a couple hours sleep before work or a task the next day- what is it you don't want to face? Stress is a serious problem, this intangible thing can really make us unhealthy not just unhappy. First and foremost reflect. Then, let food be thy medicine (go Socrates) more than likely out of stress you've been feeding your body but not fueling it- time to get real and treat your body with some respect in order to help your mind see a bit more clearly what it is that getting you down and how we (mind and i) can go about fixing that. (really you should do that anyway everyone knows a good diet makes a more energised, focused you.)

Clarity is: reflection and action. I reflected on how sick i had made myself and now its time to take action.

So lets see how this goes.
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d.

Conversations with my body.

I studied theatre arts at university and have recently taken up an acting course to further my practice in an all too complicated craft. For the first term i was met by a small and powerful Trinidadian lady who would teach me a thing or two about my body, the core, and it's importance in life and acting.

We would start the lesson moving around, literally just moving our body in as many warped ways as we could, travelling across the room arms up in the air, rolling on the floor, squatting and pointing our toes. Then we were asked to walk. simple. just strut my stuff, right? WRONG. Greta Mendez a dance and acting teacher was able to look at your walk or stance and see injury, bad posture, even an emotional state you were in. We spent classes trying to free our bodies from the 21st century constraints, for example: ladies don't walk particularly strong, we don't use our thighs enough to lead us more our hips, hence why many cant get a leading role in acting, our focus on technology had stopped us from exploring and using the body and sitting down had ruined our spines.

"The body moves in spirals" She would say. She would never call it moving but having a 'conversation with her body' and breathing was 'inspiration and aspiration', not in and out. Another task thrust upon us was our ability to 'deliver', Greta would ask a question and stop you in your answer if you sounded at all weak. Language was to be respected it took someone a long time to come up with letters of an alphabet and those letters put together for words are not to be wasted. They are important, choosing a certain word to get a certain message across. None of us spoke from our core. So we spent weeks either making tableau's or pairing up and writhing across the room shouting strange things at each other trying to get it to come from the gut.

Many times i found myself furious at what she was asking of me, it seemed like she had this beyond hippy outlook on life and i was expected to understand it straight away so when i didn't she would give me a hard time. One tipping point lesson in particular i had to position myself in a tableau and where ever i put myself she told me i was wrong, to come out and look at the picture and then go back in. I yelled at her: I'm not going to see whatever it is, you want me to. She told me i shouldn't give up so easy.

fudge.

she's got me there. I do give up more easily than i'd like to in life. Perhaps i found it easier to let someone else get it right/win and i could coast on by but Greta wasn't about to let me do that. I succeeded eventually through my stubbornness and when i went home i found this weird sensation to move. To literally stretch my body up and down and explore how far i could push myself.  In lessons after that i was very open.

It wasn't just about acting but about life and the world around me. I have a new appreciation for it, and in turn being able to tap into my body and the way i use it in the external will help me fulfill characters; become somebody else.

She once made us hold an orange, smell it, stare at all the colourings, dimples and scratches then very slowly peel open and taste the orange. She said all the world was in this orange; the wind that blew the seeds, the earth that brought it up, the sun and water that fed it, the man who picked it, the man who put it on the supermarket shelf... everything. SOOOOO hippy, but true.

I now try and hold regular 'conversations with my body' perhaps not so warped as before, but stretching and dancing to not forget my abilities. This amazing body i was given in this amazing world is to be appreciated not bound. As an actor in particular my body is my instrument but if i wasn't an actor i would still want to respect such an incredible thing as being alive on earth (i'm now a hippy)

I sometimes fear we find an ipad more interesting than an ocean- if you get me.

So if you do nothing else today, get up and just move. You'll be surprised what you find!
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Saturday 8 March 2014

c.

Lavish in good company.






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Wednesday 5 March 2014

b.

indulge.
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Tuesday 4 March 2014

a.

sometimes you have to stay unhappy.

I don't mean forever of course, what i do mean is in the moment of unhappiness and stress we should acknowledge and accept that fact.

your unhappiness doesn't need fixing. Instead of saying 'I'm mad' or 'I'm disappointed that xyz hasn't happened' and accepting that and being that for a moment we tend to dissolve into this pit of despair and drag up allllllllllllll the things that have made us unhappy in our lives and allllllllllll the reasons we could be and will be happy when we fix ourselves like a certain image, outlook, clothes and style, blah blah but what if you just say 'I'm ..... right now. And that's okay.'

Because it is OK. For example 'I am pissed I haven't got this' and 'I'm stressed I haven't got that' doesn't turn into "....because so and so didn't give me this opportunity and if I had of done this, that and the rest of it I would be driving a Mercedes right now and so tomorrow i'm going on that diet that will make my boss promote me." That isn't happiness. I'm coming to learn its an internal thing,  not a possession to be lost and found. It's a mood you feel alongside any other but often we stress ourselves trying to get into it. You'll find yourself a lot 'happier' when you say i'm sad, i might cry for a bit or yell or whatever it is i do and then go to sleep and let go of the restraints i put on myself and let tomorrow come to me. A new day.

the thing you are feeling stressed/anxious/mad about is NOT the first thing you think of when you wake up. When you fully wake up and open you eyes subconsciously your body and mind says 'i'm alive' then it says 'where am i?' then your mind tells you what it is you need to do right now (go to work, or back to sleep, HA!) but it doesn't care about your emotions which i suppose shows you the stress isn't that important.

whatever it is, it isn't that important.

So when you're mad. Be MAD. and when you want to cry, CRY. be in that feeling for a moment. Just be, acknowledge and accept. And i assure you, the bad feeling won't be there for long.
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