Smart On Health

Canadian life

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I’m still not running laurajsmart.health coaching as a business. Settling in Canada is taking a rather long time. Understandably, a major move is a big life upheaval and I continue dealing with administrative aspects of building my life back in my home town. I simply have no spoons to do anything other than informal consultations with friends when they ask for help with habit changes or geek out on nutrition and its influence on mental well being. I’ve said before this is an avocation for now rather than a vocation.

I write when I can. The goal here is to have fun and not stress. Baby steps.

Repatriated

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Hello from Canada

I have repatriated and settled back into my home town i.e. I have the bandwidth to resume writing for smarton.health and updating web sites accordingly. My coaching business remains on hiatus.  I have returned to my prior career as an academic librarian. Health coaching at laurajsmart.health is currently an avocation not a vocation. I will take on clients again once I have more cycles for a side hustle.

I’ve got quite a few posts that are pending for recipes, wellness tips, reviews of things I love, and updates on my own progress managing my health. I didn’t stop writing while I was moving internationally during a pandemic. I’ll post those as I edit them and figure out a regular schedule for blogging.

Meanwhile, I am resuming scholarly activities. In academia one is expected to be an academic. That means researching and writing and disseminating information. Health and wellness remain an avid interest. I am planning a research agenda which includes health and wellness topics. I’m a metadata specialist in the academic librarian realm so my research and publications are geared to that domain. If you’re interested, I direct you to my scholarly portfolio at ljsmart.net.

It’s good to be back.

Vaccinated!

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I’m now fully vaccinated! Yay for science! One more move forward on completing my move to Canada. I am still working on other loose ends before I can leave the Bay Area with the last of my stuff. I’m working on back of the house stuff for Smart On Health and developing some new workshops for when the pandemic restrictions ease where I’m headed.

Staying in San Francisco Bay area

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Smart On Health has been on hiatus since the first Better Choices program ended. Thank you participants! It was a great learning experience as a new coach and I appreciate your patience as I work out my various work flows.

The blog will continue on semi-break for the next few months. I sold my home in Los Angeles and I am moving to Canada to be with bio family. Their support will allow me to dive deep and hone my wellness offerings. COVID-19 has made everything topsy turvy. I know many people making big life changes as a result of our year long pandemic lock-down. That’s life eh?

I have a bit of breathing room to take on some business work as I make the transition. I have missed all of you! I’m staying in California in a lovely spot near San Francisco until I’m vaccinated and tie up some other loose ends.

Keep keeping on my friends. We’re going to have our new normal soon. Get vaccinated, mask up, and stay healthy.

1pose1day1year October-December 2020

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Everything fell apart with my daily sadhana practice due to COVID-19. I continued my practice intermittently, as best as I could, when I began making the earth shaking changes in my life which I described in an update.

I’m moving to Canada! When my house sells I’ll be in stasis at a temporary home in California until I am vaccinated and I tie up a few loose ends. Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can with a daily bit of physical therapy work. There are a ton of yoga moves in my PT Rx.

My year of doing one pose each day was modestly successful, I’d say, looking back on it. I went for months with near daily attention with it. I don’t consider stopping something when one’s life is in the midst of upheaval to be a bad thing. One does ones best and carries on doing what one can do for today.

I may do another 1pose1day1year for 2022 after I’m more settled into my new home. My current daily focus is doing the physical therapy I need to allow me to return to activities I love. My challenge to myself is to hit 20 minutes of activity every day and to include a lot of recovery work. I’m nearly in my fifth decade and it’s time for me to adapt and accept that my body needs more respect and care as I age.

1pose1day1year September 2020

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This month I tried to deepen my daily yoga practice of doing 1pose1day1year of tadasana. I recorded myself speaking the Iyengar yoga instructions for mountain pose. I’d been saying the words to myself while doing the work but I found myself worrying too much about aggravating my tender spots of chronic injury.

I got the instructions from Yoga: the Iyengar way. Cover of Yoga the Iyengar wayMy recording runs five minutes 26 seconds. That’s a big jump from the one minute I’d been doing since starting this yoga practice nine months (!!) ago. The recording has allowed me to relax into my body and think less while focusing on truly gaining the benefits of precision.

I practice Ashtanga dhristi while I am in tadasana. Dhristi is were one puts soft focus during the pose. Dhristi is the end of one’s nose in mountain pose.Occasionally I’ll also do a full minute of silence in the pose after I do the posture with the recording. It’s a form of meditation.

I will also practice the pranayama for tadasana. To do the Ashtanga breathing, keep the mouth softly closed. Inhale through the nose and down the back of the throat with enough vibration to sound like Darth Vadar. Exhale through the nose.

I recommend Tadasana by Himanshi Parmar if you would like a great set of instructions for mountain pose that you might record for yourself. It’s consistent with the instructions for tadasana in my Iyengar-based book.

I was sore the first days of doing my daily practice with audio instruction. The body gets into bad habits over a lifetime so holding the correct posture works the body in “new” ways. Of course there will be soreness.

I have not been consistent this month, however. I threw my back out mid-month and have been doing my physical therapy exercises in lieu of tadasa as my pain allows. Sometimes you need to go with the flow and honor what your body is telling you.