2020 intentions | the venturing east takeaway
2019 was a year of plunges. It was a year. I moved forward, away, backwards, and probably diagonal at some points. Sometimes I stared at the slate-blue walls of our home utterly paralyzed. I write this with that same-hued slab of space before me, at my desk on the island. The day is warm and I just noticed someone pulled cloudcover over the city. Haze does not constitute a favorite weather condition for me. I tend to struggle with foggy headaches and eye fatigue when so.
Overall, I’m glad for all 2019 brought in its wicker basket. I moved in with my wonderful man over the summer, which aside from the typical stresses of decluttering and preparing a space for vacating, felt seamless and correct. I finished RYT200 training with a new direction in both my career and my yoga practice. I applied to grad school in my dream state. I raced, I cooked a hell of a lot of good food, cherished days and evenings with my mom, visited my sister at her new home, packed multiple suitcases for adventures. I loved and received love. I celebrated holidays. I celebrated health.
Not all is glory, though. I left one poor job situation for a poorer one. I’ve felt stagnant while I await the carousel of my life to move in one direction or another. The stress away from home seeps into the home. I’m often reactive and negative. I cried on Christmas Eve for a long span before J wiped my eyes and brought some laughs into my belly. I become frantic when I’m still for too long, as if life must be lived at a breakneck pace and if I halt for a moment my inner world maintains its unbalanced spinning. I’m sometimes lonely but find difficulty socializing.
Venturing East, I’ve maintained since rebranding at the start of the year, is a haven of safety and friendship. I share my passions in hopes of igniting someone else’s zeal for whatever it is they adore. One could say VE is about living slow, learning, and holding space for others and the self. I cultivate time in my day to log onto the site, forget my outer concerns, and focus on words and visuals and creation. I hope readers on the other end of the screen do the same, and in reading and viewing find some sort of contentment and relation. The heart, then, of VE is reclamation. Doing something for yourself. In taking care of my human needs, I find more energy in assuring the wellness of those around me. Ultimately, I began VE for my own journalistic desires, to immortalize my adventures and stories to quell my fear of losing important memories. In doing so, however, I realized more that supporting others through what I offer in my writings carries substantial weight. Doing for others incites joy in me. So as you read VE, you may be reading my stories, but I hope you fill in the spaces with your own narratives as well.
2020 VE will look quite like 2019 VE. Running diaries, an abundance of fancy selfies from my DSLRs, yoga postures for different circumstances, simple and delicious recipes particularly for the mindful diner, travel, and tips and tricks I snatch along the way. If I’m called to share something a bit off the grid, so be it. My entire intention for VE is happiness, feeling it and giving it.
So, welcome! Enjoy the 2020 manifestation of Venturing East. I’ll brew the coffee and await your company most eagerly.
Personal Intentions for the New Year
As far as I’m concerned, the new year occurs on December 30. That’s my birthday. I have high hopes for 26 year old me, and these are some of the things I hope she implements in her life to a further degree.
1. Improve home stress management
I don’t discuss my mental health quite as often as I think I would. Instability presides over far more days than I let on. This year marked some intense life changes, several positive but others less than.
Reducing my anxiety is an everlong project, but I feel the need to reaffirm this intention with every passing calendar cycle. I’ve found nurturing and stabilizing pasttimes, but it has become apparent that I require more, and perhaps more substantial, measures. As I type, I’m not sure what those steps are, only that I need to take them, whether they’re immediate and large strides or a series of tiny ones.
2. Finish the Big Sur training cycle injury-free
I am not shy about discussing my injury history. Last year my marathon training was derailed by a crippling hip impediment, one that is frequently nagging but sometimes becomes debilitating. I finished Big Sur in 5:20:45, which is incredibly respectable considering that hurdle (and in general, that course is hard!) but I know I can do better with proper conditioning. If I complete the 16 week cycle sans a setback, I will be content, no matter what the resulting finish time shows.
3. Share more yoga
Yoga is the soul of my humanity and a gift I wish to sprinkle upon anyone I can. I taught several community classes this year but fell out of the habit when the days shortened. I want to return to those roots and offer the biweekly classes, consistently, again. I hope to build trust from all student communities, wherever I teach and regardless of their yoga background. My goal is always to teach from a place of openness and softness regardless of outside stressors.
In 2019 I invited more restfulness into my personal practice, and this severing of ego and control are benefits to carry over into the new year. My identity as a yogi is fluid, each new day might bring a new posture to love or a posture to avoid. I hope to remove expectation even more – even the expectation that I must get on the mat daily to be a good practitioner. Some days a stint in Hero is all I can manage. That’s okay. If it served me, even for thirty seconds, I’ll consider my practice a success.
4. Weekly complexion care
My day-to-day skincare is pretty solid, but I’ve fallen short on the little extras that boost the quality of my complexion and my enjoyment of bonus pampering. Mud masks and deeper exfoliation must shimmy back into my weekly rotation. I’m eyeballing Derma E’s Microdermabrasian Scrub particularly! I’m also willing to attempt homemade masks and treatments geared towards my sweat-laden tendencies. Might be a fun project to drag J into, also.
5. Daily journaling
I fell away from journaling in the latter part of this year and thus feel it’s time to get back to it. A fresh notebook might inspire me to plot out my day and my emotions more thoroughly and consistently. I am meticulous about my bullet journal, so keeping a casual thought catalogue won’t be too much to ask of myself, I don’t think.
Please share! What are some of your intentions? How will you work towards them? Can I help?
