I’m back in Boston, visiting family and friends, and spending time by the Cape Cod Sea Side. I came back here because I had been feeling so unlike myself and wanted a place to reconnect and recharge.

It’s been beautiful and I can truly say that I feel like myself again!! My spirit  is back, and this is an incredible feeling indeed! 

In this time, I am re-reminded of the importance of support systems. Of reaching out to friends and family who will love us unconditionally and who will help pick us up even when we feel like we have nothing left inside of us. I’m realizing that building a strong community and support system in San Francisco is something I would like to put conscious effort into, especially as I imagine having a family out there one day. It’s interesting that we need to put effort into creating community in our culture, that in some cultures that idea of putting the elderly in homes, children in day care, would be un-heard of. There is no judgment either way, I’m just more aware that here the creation of community becomes a responsibility and a choice, rather than a given.

I’ve been overwhelmed the last couple of days as thoughts of “I’m a failure, I feel stuck, I feel alone in this…” continue to cycle on repeat as stories around money and the ego thinking I don’t have enough continue to blast on my mind’s radio.

  All this has been surfacing as I continue to dive deeper into my spiritual life. When I turned 25 last year, I had deep a sense that this was the beginning of my spiritual path and began exploring different modalities —meditation, shamanic journey work, the Diamond Approach, Family Constellations and Holotropic Breathwork.  All of these have opened me up to new realms, new understandings and a deeper a sense of being, but I have come to realize that my most profound moments of aliveness and peace come when I’m on a run, or dancing, or in moments like tonight, when I was in jail.

I haven’t written in a while.  I haven’t felt like myself in a while, I keep thinking, ‘where has my spirit gone…’

I went to the Landmark Forum last weekend in San Jose, I stayed in a Motel 6 and ate big cartons of ice cream when I returned to the funky smelling room. I went because I wanted to gain insight into what this funk is about; what unconscious beliefs I’m holding onto that make life seem a little more difficult than usual…And though Landmark has been a powerful medium in the past, this weekend I ended up sneaking out the backdoor Sunday afternoon, feeling refreshed by the freedom.

I’ve been living into a fairly dark cloud recently, a feeling of emptiness like I haven’t felt in some years. There are not so much thoughts as feelings of numbness, sometimes sadness, as if my spirit decided it wanted a break from the world  and went into hibernation.

I got an email from a beautiful spiritual healer the other day, she said, “Polina, I had a vivid dream about you last night…I was healing you, talking to the feeling, and it said it wants you to accept it, that it’s here to teach you a great lesson…I feel that you are on the verge of a deep transformation…”

Three days ago I made a commitment to post a healthy tip a day. Yesterday, instead of writing healthy tip #3, I spent the evening in bed, eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Macadamia Nut Ice Cream, thinking how I should be writing a healthy tip and how I shouldn’t be eating the ice cream…

Should/Shouldn’ts; damn them! I keep reading about how changing our lifestyle and  unhealthy habits through        sheer will power doesn’t work. What does work then?

I recently returned home from Burning Man. And while at times the chaos, the elements, the hyper stimulation and the abundance of temptation felt overwhelming, I have come home feeling transformed.  I didn’t necessarily anticipate it going in, but much the week became a beautiful spiritual quest and i’d love to share some of the lessons learned:






1.  As I danced on an art car to a song about all the different flavors of ice cream, and felt completely transcendent, I thought, ‘The Divine is in the Ordinary, not just the Extraordinary.”

Yesterday I interviewed Billy Polson on my radio show, WholeBody Talk: http://www.fccfreeradio.com/?page_id=630.  Billy is the owner of DIAKADI Body,www.Diakdadibody.com, a beautiful fitness and wellness center is San Francisco. He was named one of the best 100 trainers in the US by Men’s Magazine and DIAKADI has been repeatedly named the top training studio in S.F. When Billy talked about starting DIAKADI, he said, “I wanted a place where people could see the sunrise, where they were happy to come to and felt like a place of healing. I wanted a place where all different types of health specialists were, fitness trainers, massage therapists, nutritionists, life coaches…It has grown into something above and beyond what I imagined!”

So the often ‘anti-corporation,’ sometimes overly kuombaya liberal in me is slightly embarrassed to admit that I frequent the 9th avenue Starbucks around the corner from my apartment. Since the beginning of 2010, I’ve noticed they’ve launched a “Real Food’ Campaign, with signs around the store boasting similar sentiments to the one above. At first, this was very exciting, until I looked into the food display case…

















It seems with the implantation of the “Real Food’ Campaign comes the addition of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes (which you can also conveniently buy in a 6 pack container), ‘low-fat’ Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake and a whole assortment of cookies and doughnuts. I didn’t notice any real food, let alone anything gluten free, except for the non-organic bananas (which are more expensive than the small cookies!) by the counter. Thank you, Starbucks, for taking out the trans fat and high fructose corn syrup, but a slice of lemon cake with vanilla frosting doesn’t quite qualify as ‘real food’ in my book.

At this point in my life, I’m really interested in understanding what it takes to transform and heal our bodies, on a physical, nutritional, emotional, psychological and spiritual level.  There has been much learning in the process, and much learning to come, so I’ve started this blog to track what I’ve learned, as well as my thoughts and inquiries.

My goal is to post at least twice a week. I hope you enjoy it! And of course, I welcome any feedback, comments, thoughts and questions!

In the spirit of health and healing,

Polina

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My history with exercise: