announcement: i'm moving!

OK, so I know it’s been REALLY quiet on the Mind Body Blissful blog these pasts few months. And they have been some pretty exciting months!  First off, I did take the trip to Haiti in April, and it was EVERYTHING I could have hoped for, and more.  Following that, I’ve been spending lots of time attending some interesting coaching sessions.  Oh yeah, and I quit my full time job!  I can’t wait to tell you ALL about these things in the months to come, now that I’ve got more time on my hands to write.  :) 

Something was stirring in me, which prompted me to take all of these actions.  Something like a calling.  A little voice told me it was time to create something new.  There are lifestyle changes and next projects still taking shape, and I look forward to sharing them with you as I go.

But I also wanted to say a little bit about why I haven’t been writing. 

The truth is – I feel like I’ve been bullshitting you. 

I haven’t been as honest as I could be, and I’m committed to cutting the shit. Let me explain.

See, I felt like I needed to keep things cheerful, not delve into anything too messy with my writing.  There were lots of reasons I censored myself – a corporate management role, a chipper blog name, fear of being vulnerable…  The thing is: life is not always pretty. 

When we hold back our authenticity, when we show only the prettiest, shiniest parts of ourselves, no one is served.

We miss the opportunity for connection. Instead we reinforce a culture of shame. ‘Oh look, she has it all together – perfect kids, perfect body… why doesn’t my body look like that?’ and so on. Who needs it?

I want to share myself with you more authentically, to really connect. 

Mind Body Blissful is moving on, and evolving into the Fit Feminist blog! I am passionate about feminism and want to speak more about what it is to live powerfully for women in a culture that doesn't always empower us.  I hope this will be a space of risks, authenticity and connection.  I hope you’ll challenge me, and I hope some of what we can share will connect us, empower us. And if not, I hope you will love me enough to call me on it.

My blog is moving to my new digital home: andreaisabelle.com.  The new blog can be reached at fitfeminist.com or andreaisabelle.com/blog.  Come visit me there!!  This will be my last post on Mind Body Blissful.

Oh, and what would you like to see on Fit Feminist??  Let me know by commenting on this post, or send me an email.

Thank you for reading and please stay in touch!!

Andrea

 

this will change lives!

I am inspired to make a life-changing trip for the many women and children of Haiti who suffer under a widespread sexual violence epidemic in the post-earthquake tent cities that have formed there, where assault has become rampant.   As a surivor of domestic abuse I am personally committed to raise money to help these victims and ask for your help.
As you know, I am extremely passionate about empowering women to live healthy, happy lives. This passion was ignited not so many years ago when I myself survived domestic violence, and went in search of healing. Today I am stronger and happier than ever before, and as a result of my experience, I firmly believe that healing for women who have suffered abuse must come from an integrated mind-body approach.
A Boston organization called yogaHOPE is partnering with a group in Port-au-Prince called AMURT.  AMURT is creating safe spaces and programming for women and children who have been the targets of sexual violence.  Team yogaHOPE has just returned from Port-au-Prince where it began the first of what will be a series of trainings for Haitian Community Leaders in a powerful integrated yoga and mindfulness-based curriculum to aid in these women’s healing—most of whom are survivors of horrific sexual violence. Many of these women's young children have also been raped, resulting in compound trauma for entire families.
I am one of ten Americans who have committed to raise $3,500 toward the project and will have the life-changing opportunity to go and train with the group in Haiti this April.  Please take a moment to watch this inspiring video of yogaHOPE’s inaugural training in Port-au-Prince.
100% of the money I raise will go to support this initiative, and I'll be paying my own way to Haiti. I am hoping for 100 of my friends, family and supporters to donate $35 to my page. To some in Haiti, that is one third of a monthly salary; $100 will pay one of these Haitian Community Leaders’ salary for an entire month. What may seem like a little to you is so very much to others.
Please donate HERE!  If $35 is too much for you now, please consider giving $10, $15, $20.
Thank you so much in advance for making this possible, and for helping me pay my healing forward!

previous love, a poem by keith althaus

I've been dying to share this beautiful poem I read in The Sun magazine a few months ago, but I wanted to wait until it got closer to Valentine's Day. It's the perfect ode to someone from the past, for those times when you're feeling all nostalgic...  

Previous Love

by Keith Althaus

Previous love,
think of the sky
above us still,
the parade
of clouds here,
the starlit evening
there, and this one
breath expelled
that you might
catch someday
on a street corner
after its long journey
across miles of ocean,
fields, and woods
that comb it,
take out the scent,
the taste, the sweet
stuff, until
there's nothing left
of me or this place,
or just enough
to make you think,
standing on the curb,
waiting for the light,
of me, and us.

Originally published in The Sun

Photo by Meredith_Farmer

mindbodyblissful.com

recipe: chicken with lemon and rosemary

 

I got this recipe from my friend and nutritionist Julie Starr-Wood.  The original recipe calls for a butterflied chicken, but I just buy the "whole cut-up chicken" that they sell at Trader Joe's.  It's easy and good, and we usually end up with leftovers that can be used in another meal.

 

Whole (Cut-Up) Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary  

 

1 whole cut-up chicken

3 long sprigs of fresh rosemary

Juice of 1 lemon, plus more lemons to serve

1 red onion

6 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt

 

Put chicken into large freezer bag. Pull needles off 2 sprigs of rosemary and drop in bag. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze juices in bag, chucking the empty shells in afterward. Cut onion into eighths and add to bag too. Pour in olive oil and then tie up the bag and give it a good squeeze before sitting it in the fridge. Marinate chicken for 2 hrs or overnight in fridge.

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, if you have marinated chicken in fridge, try to let it come to room temp while oven is preheating. Lay flattened chicken, skin side up, on a pan lined with foil, along with the lemon husks and onion pieces, and add the remaining sprig of rosemary torn into a couple of pieces. Cook for 45 minutes.  At this point you can turn oven down to 300 and let it remain in oven after it is cooked through (this doesn’t over cook it, it makes it golden and tender).

 

Take pan out of oven, arrange chicken on plate, along with onion bits, then pour over any juices from pan and sprinkle with sea salt. Cut a lemon into quarters and scatter about the chicken J.

 

photo by jazzijava

trouble saying no? you may be saying it more than you think.

Recently I wrote about an insight that I gained working with my friend Erek of Verve Coaching, and I thought I'd share another great tip that he gave me. I spoke with Erek about my tendency to get excited about so many projects, that I completely overbook myself and wind up feeling tired and spread too thin.  He suggested that the next time I want to take on something new, I try the following exercise:

Saying yes to _________ means saying no to _________.

Since the number of hours in a day, week, or year is finite, it makes sense that generally something has to be displaced when we bring something new into our lives. Maybe it's sleep that we will be getting less of, or down-time. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's just nice to stop and reflect before committing to one more thing.

I immediately found a way to apply this at the end of the summer when I thought about how badly I'd neglected my blog for a few months. But when I thought about it further, I realized that I'd been saying no to my blog because I'd been saying yes to being on the beach in my hometown and favorite place ever, Ogunquit, Maine almost every weekend. (Sandy laptop = bad.) Although I had unconsciously chosen one over the other, I realized that if I had chosen more conscisouly, I wouldn't change a thing. It was an awesome summer!

Erek credits the Yes/No exercise to a book called Co-Active Coaching (Whitworth, 2007), but I still give him credit for introducing me to it.

 

[photo by chrisinplymouth]

mindbodyblissful.com

media images of "perfect beauty" bringing you down? watch this.

I watched the documentary Miss Representation over the weekend, which challenges us to think about how much pressure we women put on ourselves to look "perfect," thanks to the ridiculous amount of emphasis the media places on how women look, rather than what we achieve.  Meanwhile, controversy has been swirling lately over a sexy yoga advertisement on YouTube.  In reading one writer's response to this, I came across this genius video that I just had to share.  I'm always looking for ways to infuse this blog with feminist values, without turning it into "mind, body, angry rant.com..."  I believe we can keep our feminist ideals, and our positive attitude, and I think this brilliant video does just that.  I shared it with my kids, and talked a little bit about what it meant.  I'm not sure they understand it quite yet, but I want to arm them from an early age to think critically about the messages they are being sent in the media.  I also wanted to remind myself.  

Full disclosure: I've been feeling rather like "poop" since the holidays about 5 or 10 pounds that I gained over the last few months.  Seriously...  I'm over it.  What is it that I tell my students?  Life is cyclical, we have "on" and "off" cycles.  I'm back "on" now, planning what to eat so that I feed myself well, taking time for self-care so that I don't burn out.  Miss Representation was a great reminder to put my energy into positive, constructive things, like the people I care about, my work, my goals, and enjoying life!

Have a happy week everyone,

Andrea

hey, it's my first yoga playlist!

 

New class! I'm teaching PranaVayu Yoga Level 1/2 every Friday at 10:20am (right after Core Fusion Cardio) at exhale Battery Wharf! Not sure what PranaVayu is? Wanted to try yoga but felt a little intimidated? Come try it with me! I'll totally hook you up. ;) 

Here is my first attempt at a yoga playlist...

Lovers.................................Bahramji & Mashti
They....................................Jem
The Ghost Inside..................Broken Bells
Naive...................................The Kooks
Freedom..............................George Micheal
Help I'm Alive.......................Metric
Us........................................Regina Spektor
My Moon My Man................Feist
Tears Dry on Their Own.....Amy Winehouse
The Trapeze Swinger.........Iron & Wine
Glory Box............................Portishead
Swirling Ocean....................Meditation (I'm not sure the artist? I put this on repeat for the last 15 minutes of meditation)