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Chocolate, Yoga, and 13 Countries: The Past Five Months in Interview Form

posted 29th January 2012    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, Travel, Travel/Adventure

The past five months have gone by entirely too quickly! It’s still a little mind-blowing to me that I’ve been on the road for nearly four of those five. A lot has happened during that time, and while the big things are obvious, I think the smaller changes are going to take another five months to process. And that’s okay! I want to keep growing and transforming as I continue working through my QLC and settling into my new life. I’m still so honored that I’ve been able to share this journey with all of you!

What are you obsessed with at this exact moment?

Zotter chocolate, yoga, mochas, getting my etsy shop up and running, visiting my OddDaughter in England, my impending gluten detox. (I’m gluten-intolerant, and I have not been careful during my travels.)

You can time travel but only to the past! What time period/ historical event do you go and experience?

This is an easy one! Every time I talk about Coney Island, I tell people that I want to go there during the early 1900s, when it was “America’s Playground”. Coney Island is literally one of my favorite places on the entire planet, and I’d love the opportunity to experience Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, and Dreamland in their heyday.

If you could be any animal, which animal would you be and why?

A tiger. I find them mesmerizing; they’re so strong, and yet still graceful.

Any person dead or alive, who would you have dinner with?

David Lynch. I think he’d be an utterly fascinating dinner companion, and boy, do I have some questions for him!

What is on your life’s soundtrack?

I planned my final yoga class at my old studio around the theme of overcoming fear. This was the playlist for the class, and I think it’s a pretty accurate soundtrack for my life as well:

In addition to that playlist, I’d add these songs that I can’t live without:

I’ve linked to as many of the songs as I could, so hopefully you’ll go forth and enjoy some new music – and if you like it, support the artists!

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

If I could clone myself and simultaneously be with my friends in NYC, Seattle, Minneapolis, Raleigh, St. Augustine, San Francisco, Vancouver, Edmonton, Oxford, Graz, Vienna, Rabat, Melbourne, Sydney, and Okinawa – well, I’d do that. Since that’s not going to happen, I think I’ll stick with wanting to be where I as I’m writing this: Barcelona!

Who has been your biggest inspiration throughout your QLC?

My yoga kula (community): the ladies who completed teacher training with me and several other friends/mentors. They inspire me every day with their passion, bravery, and love.

If money, education, time, or location were not an issue, what would you be doing for work in life?

It feels pretty awesome to say this: I’d be doing exactly what I’m doing now/about to be doing (teaching yoga, writing, taking photographs, traveling)! I just wouldn’t need to worry about my bank account so much in the process. :)

What was the biggest mental shift you’ve made from 5 months ago to now?

Over the course of my last few weeks in New York, I was seriously doubting my decision to leave and my ability to keep myself afloat financially and emotionally without a 9-to-5 job. Now I feel certain that I did the right thing, and that I can make this all work.

What’s changed? List 10 little sweet things.

  1. I gave up my cozy Brooklyn apartment for a transient lifestyle.
  2. I don’t really mind wearing the same clothes four months in a row.
  3. I’ve developed and renewed so many amazing friendships.
  4. I miss good tacos and bbq.
  5. I’ve learned, once and for all, that my yoga practice – the reading, the āsana, the meditation – is crucial to my well-being.
  6. I drink coffee!
  7. I’ve visited 13 countries (six new ones and seven return trips).
  8. I’m learning to be less afraid of making mistakes.
  9. I’m a pro at navigating new European cities where I don’t speak the language.
  10. I don’t think I ever want to go back to the 9-5 world.

What’s one thing that you’ve learned – in general or about yourself – over the past five months?

I’ve (re)learned just how important it is for me to have a community. I am fortunate to have amazing friends scattered around the globe, but what makes a place feel like home for me is having some of my people nearby.

What would you have done differently on your Stratejoy journey if you were starting today?

I wish I’d put more time into soul-searching (writing morning pages, completing The Joy Equation, etc.) at the beginning. I feel like I’m only now beginning to tackle some of the really big, deep stuff! At the same time, I think that I needed space to get there, so maybe it’s all worked out for the best.

What song(s) will remind you of the past five months?

What is your favorite thing about YOU?

I am so proud of myself for doing things – from minor items to major life changes – even when they absolutely terrify me.

Name 3 things you absolutely love about yourself.

  1. I love that I’m my quirky self; I rock diverse interests that range from the badass to the absurd, and everything in between.
  2. I love that I’m not afraid to cry.
  3. I love that I don’t need a lot of stuff to survive and thrive.

How are you living life on your own terms?

I quit a steady job to travel the world and move to a new country to start a less traditional career path. Despite the concerns of my family and my slowly dwindling bank account – which will be pleased when I arrive in Sydney and also begin selling my photos – I am overall the happiest I’ve been in my life. Even when I get scared (and it definitely happens), I feel like I made exactly the right choice for me, and I love that I’m listening deeply and following my heart.

[photo credit: me!]

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15 Years Apart

posted 22nd January 2012    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Life Lesson, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, What I've Learned

Dear 15-year-old Kat,

The past 15 years have been interesting, that’s for sure. Life certainly takes a much different path than you’re imagining right now, but I think you’re going to love the way it all comes together! There are so many things I want to tell you not to do (namely, guys to avoid), but if I did that, you’d miss so many other opportunities, so…I can’t. Bummer. (No, I really can’t. I know you’ve seen that episode of The Simpsons where Homer time-travels using a toaster, and things get crazy. I know you don’t want a world without doughnuts.)

I’m hoping that I can give you a little advice that will guide you through what’s to come, though. Even though you’re going to have certain challenging experiences, I promise you’ll learn from each of them, even when it doesn’t seem that way at the time.

I can tell you to be less afraid of questioning things, especially when it comes to your family. It’s okay to want what you want, even if they don’t understand it. (Hint: they’re never really going to get it, and that’s okay. They’re still your family and they love you.)

Speaking of your family, spend more time with your grandparents, looking through old photos and learning about your family history. Head over to make pierogi from scratch with your grandma, or have her teach you how to sew. Try to convince one of them to start teaching you Polish or Italian. You won’t regret that.

The love of travel that you’ll develop this coming summer is going to be hugely influential in your life. Run with it. And when your dad gives you his Nikon FM, get a tune-up for it immediately. You’ll want to take it with you everywhere you go. Take lots of photos.

Over the coming years, the saying that your friends are the family you choose will become increasingly true for you. Choose wisely! (Mostly you do.)

Don’t be afraid to be YOU. Be willing to break some of the rules. Let yourself dive into life, even though sometimes it hurts. You have an amazing support network, and they will help you through the tough times. Don’t be so hard on yourself!

Last but not least, I want you to know that you that you’re strong, capable, and beautiful. No matter what the guys you date over the years say – and some of them will say some awful stuff – that you shouldn’t stop believing that.

I love you! Don’t forget to love yourself, too!

30-year-old Kat

[photo credit: me!]

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Sex and the Zerbert Test

posted 19th January 2012    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Love/Relationships, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, Travel, Travel/Adventure

My friend Rebecca* and I decided that we’re going to implement a new test to determine whether we should be dating someone. The name of the test is still in the works, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that we think it’s going to be really useful.

It’s a simple test, really. All you have to do is give someone a zerbert (or raspberry – you know, where you put your mouth against their arm or belly and blow, and it makes a funny sound) and see how they react. Because let’s be honest: if someone can’t handle a zerbert, they’re not cut out for a long-term relationship, at least not one with Rebecca or me.

I haven’t decided at what point I will perform the test, though I suppose I’ll know when the situation arises. It doesn’t seem like first date material; however, I can’t remember the last time I had a typical first date, so maybe it could be. I could ask the basic questions – job (He should have one, and possibly like it.), last book he read (It needs to be something more recent than The Very Hungry Caterpillar, unless he spends a lot of time around two-year-olds.), favorite place he’s traveled (If he doesn’t travel, he gets the boot.), how often he calls his mom (Three times a day is not an acceptable answer.) – and follow them up with a zerbert.

…okay, maybe I should come up with an alternate plan.

I think the most practical application for me will be in bed. Now, naturally, I don’t want to have sex with someone before performing the zerbert test. If they can’t handle a zerbert, why would I want to go all the way with them? I’m thinking that perhaps the first time we find ourselves moving in that direction, I’ll lift up my date’s shirt and attack his belly. If he laughs, we can get it on. If he stares at me like I have three heads, I’ll have to hightail it out of that situation. Because if he thinks that’s weird, he probably won’t be able to cope with my penchant for having Spice Girls dance parties while I cook.

You see what I mean? It’s the perfect test.

This whole conversation started because over the course of my travels, I slept with someone new. Now, I tend to keep this sort of thing to myself – or at least a limited group of close friends, because let’s be honest, we all love talking about sex. I wanted to talk about this hookup in particular because, over the course of analyzing every detail, I realized something: I hadn’t enjoyed myself in bed that much since…2005? 2006?

Over years of worrying whether I look good enough naked, or being pushed away by my ex, or hooking up with inappropriate men, I forgot how much fun sex could be. I forgot what it was like to spend the day in bed wrapped up in each other. I forgot the electricity that can happen when a guy runs his fingers up my arms with fingertips barely grazing my skin. I forgot how good it can feel to get into a tickle war and shriek and laugh. I forgot that we can be silly in bed and that it doesn’t have to be so serious.

I think this guy would have passed the zerbert test.

Now, I do see one flaw with this new plan: someone could pass and still not be a good long-term partner for me. I’ll still have to ask those first (and second and third) date questions, think about whether he’d be a good father to our potential future children, know that he doesn’t hate my tattoos, and so on.

Chemistry and silliness – and the ability to appreciate the unexpected – are good steps in the right direction, though.

*Name has been changed!

[photo credit: me!]

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I Am Strong, Capable, and Beautiful

posted 15th January 2012    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Life Lesson, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, Travel, Travel/Adventure, What I've Learned

There are a few things that I wish I’d known before I started traveling. The first, of course, is about the disconnect that I wrote about recently; apparently, that’s not an uncommon phenomenon. The second is that I wish someone had told me that I was going to put on weight.

Six months ago, I was probably in the best shape of my life. I was doing yoga regularly, drinking plenty of water and rarely consuming alcohol, and eating foods in response to my body’s needs (plenty of fruits and vegetables, protein as I craved it, no dairy or gluten). I’d finally dropped weight that hadn’t wanted to go, and I felt good in my own skin for the first time in years.

Once I got on the road, though, it was hard to maintain this routine. I haven’t been able to find (m)any yoga classes that I like as much as the ones at my old studio in New York, and it’s been hard to practice at home since I’ve been sharing a room. Though I’ve done my best to eat reasonably healthy food, I also tend to stick with the diets in the places I’m staying – and especially at the farms, that’s meant a lot of bread. (And when it’s not at the farms, it’s meant a lot of meat, especially in Central Europe. My love for that region knows no bounds, but cucumber and tomato – out of season, no less – do not a salad make.) I often haven’t been drinking enough water; I don’t relish using the bathrooms on overnight trains, for one.

The point of all of this is that when I recently saw myself in a full-length mirror for the first time in a few months, it was HARD. It’s tough to write that, because I feel absurd for even thinking it. The fact of the matter is, though, that I have a challenging time seeing myself as attractive.

I’m able to look at things rationally and see that my body is strong and capable. I can do yoga. I ran a 5K in June without training for it, and I was really happy with my time. I walk all over the damn place, including to the top of clock towers and such – even though I’m afraid of heights. I’m learning to play lacrosse because I might be competing in a tournament in Budapest – just because I can. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to look at myself and say that I’m beautiful, though, and putting back on weight that I lost a year ago doesn’t help.

In yoga, we talk about saṃskāras, or mental and emotions patterns. I like to picture them as the squiggly ridges on my brain, each groove representing a thought pattern that I developed over time. This one about beauty is very much present and accounted for, though I have no idea where it began. All I know is that it’s been reinforced over years of ex-boyfriends pointing out “flaws” in my body, of seemingly not being noticed by the men I find attractive, of constantly telling myself over and over that I’m not pretty enough.

It’s an awful way to exist.

I realized something important as I looked into the full-length mirror a few weeks ago. As I saw myself standing there, extra pounds and all, I finally understood the yogic practice of ahimsa. It’s often translated as non-violence, and it’s the reason why many yogis don’t eat meat. I’ve also heard it translated as compassion, though, and that day, something clicked. I’d always thought about compassion being directed externally – be kind to others, etc. – and then it hit me: practicing compassion needs to be internal, too. It seems like a simple thing, and yet, it’s really not, at least for me. How can I be a compassionate person when every day, I tell myself that I’m unattractive or not enough? How is it okay to look at my body and think horrible thoughts about my appearance?

So, here it goes: I am strong, capable, and beautiful.

Writing that feels difficult and vulnerable. It’s hard to read, and even tougher to believe. But you know what? I can’t keep telling myself awful things and expecting others to see me differently, though. Changing this thought pattern needs to start with me, right now.

How can you treat yourself with greater compassion?

[photo credit: me!]

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Champagne, Bread, and Scissors, or How to Find Your New Year’s Traditions

posted 31st December 2011    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, What I've Learned

New Year’s Eve is never much of a thing in my mind. It tends to sneak up on me, so I forget to make resolutions. I also don’t like crowds – especially after doing the Times Square ball drop thing in 2001 – which seems to rule out a lot of typical December 31 plans.

Mostly what this means is that I attempt to spend the evening with a small group of friends. We’ll eat, drink, and be merry, and then we’ll count down to midnight, champagne, and kisses. (Unless, of course, we get distracted by board games or conversation and miss midnight, in which case we’ll count down to a random time at which we yell “Happy New Year!” This has happened to me more than once.) So basically, it’s just like many other nights with my friends, except that we’re usually drinking wine instead of champagne, and high-fiving instead of kissing. I do my best to avoid straying too far from my apartment on December 31, because the last thing I want to do is commute home on the subway at some crazy hour with a bunch of crazy drunk people.

Some of my friends have New Year’s traditions that I really like, so in the past, I’ve tried to incorporate some of those into my own life. One of my best friends makes her resolutions at Chinese New Year. The holidays are her busiest time of year at work, so she doesn’t have a lot of time for reflection in December. When I considered doing that, I inadvertently let Chinese New Year slip by as well and avoided making resolutions yet again. Another friend always says, “Start as you mean to go on“. I guess I kind of do that now, as I described above, but that saying always makes me nervous. Since I already get a little stressed out about making plans that won’t involve the subway or spending a lot of money, I don’t want to add any more pressure to the night. Another tradition that I tried last year with a friend was throwing pieces of stale bread – each one representing something negative that we wanted to toss away – into the Hudson River. We used a loaf of bread that I’d baked with dough that had been in my fridge a little too long, and I found the motion incredibly satisfying. As 2010 involved my break-up and other challenges, I had a lot of things that I wanted to release. The whole process felt cleansing, though I wished I’d brought more bread.

It felt like I was Goldilocks trying all of these out, and nothing fit quite right – until I read about someone picking a word for the year. When I first saw a blog post about doing that, though, the person picked a word at random from the dictionary. Of course, I only had a French-English dictionary at home, and I ended up with words like scissors and hydraulic. Would you theme an entire 365 days around scissors or hydraulic? Hell no. I decided to declare the following 12 months my Year of Awesome. And it was. I traveled somewhere every month, saw friends and family, had a great roller derby season, blah blah blah. I was sold.

…until the next year rolled around and I completely missed choosing something in time for January 1. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

That moment confirmed that in my mind, New Year’s Eve is just another night. There is one day each year that does feel significant to me when it comes to making life changes, though: my birthday. These days, I select the word that will carry me through the coming 52 weeks by August 4, my new year’s eve. Beginning on August 5, that’s what guides me. As I mentioned way back when in my very first post, courage inspired me to make big decisions from August 5, 2010 through August 4, 2011. I dug deep to find the strength to follow through with that, and it was well-worth it.

At the moment, I’m approaching my halfway mark for my year of flourishing. Today and tomorrow, I’ll spend some time reflecting on that…

…or, if we’re being honest, I’ll likely just have a few drinks and spend time being silly with my friends.

Wherever you are, Happy New Year! May 2012 bring you love, joy, and the strength to follow your dreams – and flourish.

[photo credit: me!]

Psst! Hey, you! Gorgeous girl! Down here!

The Create Your Magical Year program is available right now! Looking for a great way to take a hard look at your 2011 (good and bad) and get clear on what you want for 2012? This joyful, all-about-you program is packed with awesome goodies, inspirational interviews, a soul-searching, colorful workbook, guided recordings, and other little surprises. 2012 is your year, woman. I can feel it. Wanna feel it too? It’s not too late to get this year off on the right foot.Let’s do this!

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