Minimalism – Living Elysian

Shedding Physical Excess

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 EVLeave a comment

Shedding physical excess can be painful.

Shedding any excess can be painful. For some, it may feel like a surgical amputation. I experienced this many years ago when I started to live a serene life. I had known only chaos since I was a small child. My physical body and my emotional state rebelled. Consequently, I developed panic attacks.

However, there was a lesson to learn. Fortunately, I had a strong tribe of support and help along that part of my journey. I just needed to learn to live a better life. And learn I did.

To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

– Ecc 3:1

It’s been a while since I have done some good writing. This was not planned. Two months ago, my GP (Gastroparesis) returned. What can I say? I had a great 5-year remission. Remarkably, this came just as I was about to address the topic of shedding physical excess.

Nonetheless, I have had to shed a whole lot from my diet. For three weeks, I was unable to eat any solid food. So, there’s that. Keto is out the window. I cannot eat any meat or anything too fibrous.

Exercise and Yoga practice is limited as well thanks to my low nutrient count. So, what does one do? One finds another form of movement. Just as I found other ways to get as many calories in me when I cannot eat.

One night, I truly thought I was done. My body shaking, vision blurred, I was weak & in severe pain. I knew the flare-up was almost over. I just needed to make it through the night. Still, I thought I was going to die. I ain’t going to lie, I kind of wished for death. But I’m a survivor. And as survivors do, I survived.

Anywhoo, let’s talk about shedding physical excess:

Diet (And Weight)

Ha! You would think someone who hasn’t eaten much in 2 months would be shedding some weight right? Not me. Well okay, I lost about 5-7 lbs. maybe. But hey, it is what it is. In the past, I have scraped the whole internet regarding diet plans. Currently, I’m not actually looking for a diet plan for myself.

Regardless, there are many people out there looking for the diet plan that works. One thing I know: our bodies are all different. Find a plan that works for you. And make sure you are getting some movement. You’d be amazed at how much one misses working out when it is not an option. This too shall pass.

Sometimes, our bodies divulge the need to change things up. Moreover, I realized that when I am weak and, in a fog, I cannot think about preparing something that I can digest. So, I subscribed to Daily Harvest (Yes that is my affiliate link :). I prefer their fruit smoothies and Avocado/Cucumber soup. And they add veggies to the smoothies! As always, I add protein powder.

These days, my diet mainly consists of pureed food, soups, and smoothies. Somedays I am okay with that. Sometimes not. But we don’t always have to like our circumstances. We just need to accept them, right? After all, this too shall pass.

Additionally, I am on liquid forms of vitamins and supplements. Iberogast is a German made herbal concoction that is almost miraculous. Danke, Deutschland.

Beauty

I know there are women who don’t get excited about beauty products. I’m just not sure I’ve ever met one. Before this last flare up hit, I went through all my gear and tossed away any expired items.

Moreover, I cannot count how many products I had barely used. Of course, when I purchased them, I thought each item would be the miracle cure for my numerous imperfections. What? I thought I had expressed my desire to be perfectly imperfect. To the trash you all go!

Now, when I see a shiny new product, I ask myself the following questions:

Do I need this?
Do I need this now?
Is it within my budget?
Does this item serve any real purpose in my life?

If the answer is “no”, time to move on. If the answer is “maybe”, I put it on the wish list. And if the answer is “yes”, I first get rid of one item before purchasing my new precious.

Click here to get a free download of 3 Tools to Help You Shed the Excess [Infographic]

Yeah, I was pissed off when Gastroparesis returned to my life. I don’t like it. But I will accept it. For me, today GP is not a death sentence. It only controls me when it is at it’s strongest. But I am not GP. I am E… And this too shall pass.

He

He is not mine.

He never was.

Can we ever really own another anyway?

Time to let go.

Time to move forward.

Resisting the evolution of life is fruitless.

I want to be a healthy, strong tree.

And sometimes, I must stand alone.

Feeling the winds of adversity trying to take me down once again.

Trusting my roots to grow.

Strengthening my stance.

Until the calm returns.

And I may rest.

And I may delight in the sunshine once again.

I deserve this.

And so does he.

She-Shedding Emotional Excess

March 4, 2019March 5, 2019 EVLeave a comment

2019 has become the year of shedding excess for me. Remarkably so, this theme has been communicated to me through, prayer, meditation, yoga, and Netflix. All in January 2019. I hear you, God!

Therefore, I am sharing this part of my journey for the next few blog posts. I have outlined my she-shedding as follows:

Emotional
1. “Responsibilities” to Family & Friends
2. Circle of “Friends”
3. Fear
Physical
1. Hair
2. Weight
3. Clothes
4. SHOES!!
5. Home
6. Yoga Practice
Career
1. Number of Clients
2. Amount of “Busy Work”
Spiritual
1. Empathetic Attacks
2. Sex
3. The Overwhelming amount of “Inspirational” Facebook Groups

For today’s blog, let’s focus on shedding emotional excess:

“Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

The summer of 2018 was not an easy one for me. I was selling my home and moving from Colorado. It was time. I had planned to move to Hawaii but took a detour to West Texas. I found a love for this little town and its community. Things run slower and it is much quieter than Loveland, Colorado.

Unfortunately, some of my friends and family felt I was abandoning them. This pulled on my “responsible” apron strings. And shit got ugly. I can’t remember feeling so guilty about “doing me”…well ever. People said I was chasing after my new love. Not true. He and I decided to hang in West Texas for a couple of months, while I decided what I wanted to do. Since we both travel, we decided to make our RV in West Texas our landing spot.

The gift of this relationship: No unrealistic expectations or responsibilities. However, my guilty feelings over the summer flowed into our vibe from time to time. On one such day, at a carnival, I could not bring myself to smile. If you know me, I smile a lot sooo…

It was time to set my friends and family free to make their own decisions. Time for them too experience their own journeys. Regardless, of my desire to “fix” everyone else’s problems. I need to do the things I have feared my whole life.

Thus, I let them go. Of course, I let them go with a blessing and not a curse. Regardless, I did experience frustration and shake my fist at times. I am human after all. This began my process of shedding emotional excess.

But Elysia, How do I Shed Emotional Excess?

I’m so glad you asked! As have always been instructed by my advisors: First thing you do is pray. But faith without works is dead. Therefore, action must follow…

Service Work to Others – Just because my life seems like shit, doesn’t mean that others who have it better than me. Absolutely not! Being present and offering an ear to someone else surely gets me out of my own BS.
Staying True to Commitments – Life continues no matter what. Suit up and show up, even if it is just to shut up…
Focus – When we are emotional, we can certainly be effective. We have emotional energy. Use it!

And personally, most importantly:

There are no victims, only volunteers

I took a 2-month trip to South America to be alone for a while and reflect. Speaking with my boyfriend on the phone, I recognized that I didn’t handle the summer of 2018 so well. But now I was getting a do-over – celebrating Summer Solstice the second time. I was not going to let history repeat itself twice in one year!

Suddenly, I observed how I had re-developed the victim role. WITAF?!!
I had been playing victim during the whole summer in the states! What an effin’ waste of time! Precious time, I might add.

Just to be clear, there are benefits of being a victim – people feel sorry for me, the person who upset me might send gifts…etc.

Therefore, I took some time to identify the pros and cons of being a victim. Not surprisingly, the cons outweighed the pros. How could I be the warrior queen I say I am and be a victim at the same time? I cannot.

Consequently, I stopped letting people talk to me a certain way. This is not easy. Indeed, it takes courage. But we do teach others how to treat us. Stepping up and standing up for myself is essential.

None of this is new. I have known this for a long time. I guess revisiting this lesson was in order. Just to make sure that being a victim still does not serve me, I’m sure.

While in Punta Hermosa, Lima, Peru, I rediscovered my courage to face the power of the waves. I have always had a love for swimming in the ocean. But I also have a reverent fear of its strength. I wanted to swim further. Swimming into the waves, I ate shit a few times. Then enjoyed the glory of floating far from the shore… That moment, that day I shed some excess – fear.

Do you “feel” the need to shed excess emotional excess? If so, comment below. And stay blissful my friends.

Short Hair & Other Resolutions

December 30, 2018October 28, 2019 EVLeave a comment

We could all use a little change – Smashmouth

My hair is short today. At the beginning of the year, I had long extensions. They were removed in the Spring. My hair was then just past shoulder length. Not a bad length. But then I got obsessive about my gray hairs and decided to have it colored, then highlighted.

Between all the chemicals and heat styling, my hair started dying. Rapidly. So it had to be cut down. Oh, it will grow again. Maybe.

Oh, and the weight gain…caused another back injury. Just as I arrived in Ecuador. Most of my food goes bad because I buy too much anyway. But I continue to wake up in the middle of the night to sneak Oreos from the pantry. Why are there Oreos in my pantry?!!!

Laundry day has become an all-day event, prompting me to buy more clothes?! Am I the only one?

Outward Representations

They say the outward is a direct representation of the inward. This year has proven that statement to be quite fair. I have taken a long inventory of the excess in my life as of late. My physical being told a great story.

Weight (This one Really Hurts)

I had a back injury in 2016. In addition to treatment, I was put on a Ketogenic diet to lose 30 lbs. This was a complete success throughout late 2016 and all of 2017. I felt better than I had in years!

But then, I thought I could have a cookie in 2018…Mind you, I had just begun a new relationship with a wonderful man and lost my soulmate (my dog, Chewy). So much emotion – and this will be another topic in the Shedding the Excess Process.

Because emotion plays right into eating habits for me, by the end of 2018 I had gained 15 of those pounds back. Now that doesn’t seem like much but let me tell you, I injured my back again. Additionally, heartburn and burning mouth syndrome have returned.

The solution to this: Find another healthy eating program. One in which I can afford. I decided upon HIITBURN after completing their questionnaire. For $97.00, I get a personal coach. This is extremely helpful since I travel a lot and cannot go into a clinic for weigh-ins.

Home

My house in Colorado was difficult to give up. So many memories. My son wanted to buy it to raise my granddaughters in the home they knew so well. Unfortunately, he could not come up with the money in time and my ex-husband was wanting his money.

This proved to be a blessing in disguise. The house did hold many moments in time. And it was time to let those moments go. Just as I had said goodbye to Chewy, I needed to say goodbye to the home I raised him within.

Again, this was an emotional process. I had already minimized so much and moved into an RV. But there was more.

How many of us hold on to a cluttered home because we just cannot let go of the dead energy that we know so well. There is safety in the familiar. I had learned this when I got sober. I had learned this when I got divorced.

I realized that I did not want the responsibility of a mortgage. I didn’t even want the responsibility of digging in roots anymore. It’s time to travel the world. It’s my time. And, it’s time to own it.

House sold.

SHOES!!

Okay, I have a love-hate relationship with shoes. But especially boots. I have been stalked by shoes and boots on Facebook. But alas, I have no room for all the shoes that I once owned. Furthermore, I don’t need all of them!

Clothes

When I am in my new landing spot in West Texas, I dread laundry day. Packing for my long-term trips around the world is a nightmare.

I had a flannel shirt for 15 years. It served me well until the holes could no longer be mended. After which, trying to find that perfect flannel again took another 15 years. I remember a conversation with my favorite pair of white pants when I was 16. “Okay, I am giving you one more chance to make it right. I’m going to wash you with bleach and if you are still pink when you come out, it’s off to the Segunda for you!”. They came out white again…

I downsized my wardrobe twice in 2018 and have concluded that I need to do this again. But clothing also has an emotional connection. This item was a gift, this other item was something I wore on a special day. How can I hold on to these memories while letting go of the piece of clothing that means so much to me?

Yoga Practice

How can one practice Yoga too much? When it starts to lean more on either aspect – the physical/spiritual. Yoga burn-out is real. It happens. It was happening to me. Just after a great year of taking two additional Yoga Teacher Trainings.

It was time to change it up. I had no choice but to do so when I injured my back. Taking a look at the many different practices:

Hatha
Iyengar
Restorative
Yin
Kundalini

I landed back on Kundalini because, though it can be physical, it is also less stressful on the back for some reason. I found a lovely 40-day Kundalini for weight loss program. What I started to see as a continual topic through this program was “Shedding the Excess”.

This is just a small piece of the pie. (oh, I want pie). There’s much more excess to cut:

People are flocking to the Minimalist Movement. But do they really know why it is so appealing? Do they understand the philosophy behind this movement? Or is this just another pop-cultural thing to do? Another “Shiny Object” to play with for a while?

For me, it has become a new prana. The only way to truly breathe now. And I realized this when I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair is short today.

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