With the Good comes the Bad?

With the good comes the bad. But with the good comes the bad comes the good comes the bad comes the good.

Thus is life. There will be pain and joy all throughout the ride.

Perhaps when we understand this, accept this and then remain enthusiastic through the reality of this, we will triumph over the day.

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill

"Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you."
-1 Peter 4:12

Progress

I have awoken this morning thinking about progress.  I thrive off of it in an intense, intense way, and I am lying here thinking that it's cool how we can show the world our progression into new and better things via the internet.  Yesterday, my friend posted pictures of her new dermatology office that is completely beautiful, and I thought, "Wow, Sam!!!", as I looked at her pictures.  Progress.

On my end, in just these past few months, I've shown you guys my website, I've brought you to inspire kids with me,  I've brought you to the studio,  I've posted sneak-peek, underwater pics of my EP cover, I've written some blogs, I've status updated about my Canadian Select League water polo team (that is in the championship game later on today, by the way!), and I've informed you of my travels to Hawai'i and Portland and Gatineau.  If you follow my story at all, you may think that I am a high-functioning individual, and you would assume that progress is a natural part of my life.  And you're right.

But, there is something the internet and all of my self-promoting can't necessarily give you guys, which is a window into the progress of my relationships.  Sure, I can tweet about the great conversation I had with my friend, @KarahHawkins, last night, but I can't really prove to you that our friendship is healthy and strong via the internet in the same way I can provide evidence for my budding career.

And that is something I think we all need to be aware of.  Ok, you're interesting because you're talented and do stuff with your time, but do you have true, loving relationships?

There is a high chance that you're not all over the internet letting the world know of your adventures, but that you're living an adventure of meaningful and life-giving relationships.  I think this really matters.  More than almost anything.  So, if you are, be encouraged!  There is substance to your journey, even if millions of people aren't hearing about it.

Relationships do not lead to quality of life; 

they ARE quality of life.

Showing Up

Yesterday, my sky was falling.  I was haunted with some thoughts and feelings I'd thought I'd worked though last year. The day was colored melancholy, and I couldn't seem to work it out.

But I had a water polo game at 5:30pm.  So, what to do?

Last year our swim coach, the very motivational Justin Finney, spoke a phrase to us that has rested in the forefront of my mind ever since.  He said, "Losers show up just to say they were there."  We had a strenuous swim set in front of us, and he wanted us to understand that we could get through it or we could give it our all.  What was our mentality going to be?  If we were only showing up to get through it, it was better for us to go home.  Don't show up just to say you were there.

So, yesterday I was sitting in my apartment asking myself why I was even going to go to my game?  I would only be getting through the experience, which is such an ugly way to live life.  So, why show up, Rosie?  Be true to your loser state of mind and stay home.

And then I remembered I was captain of my team and probably felt a little pressure to be awesome, so I went to the pool, still feeling soupy.  

It was probably about the second quarter of our game when it all changed.  The combination of a few nice shots I had, a few sweet shots by my teammate who was down about her shooting that morning and the best player of the other team getting kicked out of the game for talking back to the ref that made it all...fun!  My mood switched, and I was present again.  

What would have happened if I stayed home and sulked?  A gradual mood change, yes, but perhaps a lack of confidence in my ability to be mentally tough?

What I realized yesterday is that sometimes showing up is enough.  I remembered that having faith in something greater than myself leaves a little room for...drum roll, please...grace! If this story of life on earth was centered on me, and I was completely in control of how every star aligned, then there is that pressure to be absolutely perfect and present all the time.  But when I believe in a God that does extraordinary things with ordinary people and creates beauty out of mess, it changes the way I view 'showing up'.  

My friend Don explains it by saying that we are trees in a story about the forest.  And the story about the forest is better than the story of the tree.  I matter,--I am a pretty, lil' tree, folks!--but I am not the center of the universe, with all things resting on whether or not I can manage to have the best attitude in all moments.  I am human, I am flawed.  I will do what is needed to continually refresh my perspective; however, on days that I can't quite pull it together, I can still show up.  And you never know when something greater than you is at work, willing to magically pull you out of a melancholy state of mind that is rocking your entire world and causing you to reconsider all of your motivations and beliefs about yourself and life.

Exhale.

Young Women, Is This True?

You’re a girl.  You’re in school.  You watch Glee.  And you admit you watch Jersey Shore because everyone else seems to.  But you’re stumped because your life doesn’t seem as fun as Rachel’s.  So, you smoke a little, drink a little, experiment with drugs and mess with the wrong dudes.  Gotta pass time somehow.  Satisfy your curiosity.

Or maybe substances and Snooki don’t do it for you, but you feel stuck.  You don’t love math, you love English.  But then you don’t love English, you love math.  But then you don’t love either and ask who am I?!

Your family situation is a bit messier than most of your friends'.  You’re not sure you can amount to anything when you’ve come from what you’ve come from.  No support, no example.

And then there’s romance.  If only you had some, maybe your life would have purpose.

You retreat to your iPod, and sometimes it happens.  You love it and you hate it, but you can’t avoid it: you catch yourself dreaming. You catch yourself wondering if you were supposed to be somebody. You see yourself somewhere, doing the unthinkable.  You totally lose track of time and where you are because you’re caught up in a story that you’ve imagined for your life.  

The story you’re supposed to be writing with your life.

Birthday Request

It's my birthday today, and I am now 26.  Since today is about me!!!, I have a request.  Let me explain.

I have this friend named Michael Muniz, who I met while living in Los Angeles a few years ago.  We used to talk about our aspirations, both of us wondering what we'd make of our lives in the future.  He was about to finish his Master's degree and, well, I was jumping in pools all over the world.  Today, I'm happy to say that Michael has figured it out (and, yes, I'm still jumping in pools).

Michael is the General Manager for Generosity Water, a non-profit organization that builds clean-water wells in third-world countries.  The truth is, one billion people don't have access to clean water, and a child dies every fifteen seconds due to water-related illnesses.  (Just stop and think about that for a sec!!!)  In the past two years, however, Generosity Water has built over 120 wells (151 are currently funded) in 15 different countries, and the impact is amazing!  And tangible!  Michael has traveled afar to see some wells and the changes they've brought to entire communities.

Michael and a sustainable, clean-water well in Uganda!

So, my request: What I want for my birthday is for 24 people to join me in raising the money to fund a well in Liberia, the second poorest country in the world.  If we each give $10 a week for three months, we can raise $3,000!  It starts this month and culminates on December 25th, Chrismas day!

In case your inner skeptic has come out to play, I wanted to tell you that Generosity Water is legit!  A bunch of celebrities are on board.  And the process of donation-to-completion is fully explainable.





I know the problems in the world seem really overwhelming, and sometimes it's easier to turn a blind eye to it all.  But here is a way that we can understand and measure a difference we'll make.  No one is expected to do everything, but we can do something.

And once we do, it'll be exhilarating!!!  And we'll get video footage.  And I'm going to throw an epic party.

Who's up?  I need 24 friends to be crazy enough to think they can change the world with me.

Here is a link to our profile page, more information, and where we can keep track of how we're doing.  I just donated my dough for October, so add your name!

Manipulating Your Alter Ego

If life is a road, and the journey is in the car, my best self is always in the car.  If you've met me, you've met her.  She is the real Rosanna.  She can be pretty awesome.  The thing is, she is not always driving.  And in the car is also my alter ego, Rosetta, who sometimes takes the wheel.  (Yep, I named her.  It's more fun!  Try it.)

When I'm driving, I go where I want to go with joy and a strong capacity to be resilient no matter the circumstance.  When Rosetta drives, it's a bit of a different story.  She's quite the trouble maker, that Rosetta.  She wants to take me to Dairy Queen on lonely nights.  She wants to get the hell out of practice when we're only thirty minutes in.  And she definitely loves to slack off.

The thing is, I'm learning to mess with Rosetta.  I can push her buttons from the passenger side and get her to do what I want, to drive where I need to go.  And, so, I might be learning the art of manipulating my own self.

The other morning, I was having a hard time finishing our swim sprints with zeal.  Rosetta was preaching to me about how giving 90% on a 100% sprint was okay because it was the first week back at practice.  She was telling me that my coach needs to ease up a little.  Blablabla.

So, I played with her.

I told her that the hottest guy we've ever seen was on the pool deck, watching us, so we really needed to impress him.  Maybe he'd think we were so fast and take us on a date?  Maybe it would be the beginning of our love story, right then and there, because we were oh-so-fast!?

I knew in that moment that the real reason I wanted to swim fast--to make the most beautiful story out of the life God has given me--wasn't going to work.  Rosetta was driving.  So, I played some ball with her.

And we swam fast.

And I'm driving again!

If you can manipulate your alter ego without crossing any moral boundaries, I say go for it.  I know you feel that Dr. Octopus force inside of your head, convincing you that your existence is merely mediocre.  So, mess with it, play with it, dislodge it, love on it, and let it know that its spot in the driver seat will not last very long.

Rosanna and Rosetta, BFFs since 1948

Sneaky Beauty

On the journey to becoming our best selves, there are painful seasons of recognizing and fixing our character flaws.  Sometimes realizations about ourselves are awful, other times we're not as bad as we think.

I have loads of strengths and flaws.  What I have been struggling with lately is the balance between self-promotion and self-absorption.  It's hard to know when you're crossing the line from a good thing to a bad thing.  I also have a history of being judgmental.  I've noticed incredible improvements from sixth grade to now, but I kid you not, I could give your Baptist gramma a run for her money.  And then there's vanity.  Who doesn't struggle with vanity?   

As much as it's painful, sometimes recognizing an ugly aspect of our character is intensely meaningful because a veil of ignorance is lifted. You recognize, cry, note, work to improve.  But yesterday I noticed that sometimes I think I am worse off than I really am.

This is what happened.

I was on the metro, coming home from practice.  People were looking at me for a bit longer than usual.  I wondered if I could actually look that good after practice.  I figured probably not and continued reading my book.

When I got home, I looked in the mirror and laughed at myself.  I had black under my eyes like human-meets-racoon!  Woops, I forgot to wash off my mascara before practice!  That's why people were looking at me, silly.

What I realized after laughing at myself, slightly embarrassed, was that I also must have forgotten to look in the mirror before leaving the pool.  For someone who thinks she's vain, as much as I still felt embarrassed, I was also proud of myself.  I didn't even look in the mirror before leaving the locker room!!!  I washed, conditioned and brushed my hair.  But I didn't even take a glance at this purty face in some reflective glass.  That's serious stuff.

So, I bet you're not as bad as you think, at least in certain areas.  Maybe embarrassing or forgetful moments allow beauty to sneak out from inside.

Wouldn't It Be Terrible?

Wouldn't it be terrible if you fell in love and suddenly didn't care for all the Curious George stuff you loved while you were single?  The skydiving, the vagabonding and the establishing of yourself were all ways you disguised your search for love.  And so once you found love, you lost a lustre for life because something inside you believed a lie that your lover would now fulfill you and provide all the needed excitement.

But then you become boring.  And slowly but surely you forget who you are because you've stored your identity in your lover loving you.

This doesn't work.

Romantic love turns out unable to fulfill you.  You expect it to, but it lets you down.  And this let-down drives you into a loss of self and a loss of lover.

Wouldn't it be terrible?

      

Build Trust in Yourself

It's 1:04am, and I just got in from a jog.  Uhhh.

I committed to going for a run earlier today, and then the day went away with itself.  I had this and that planned, so I decided that I would run once I returned home tonight.

Well, it must be a full moon because I took the wrong metro twice in my own city and arrived home after 12:30am.  I really only inconvenienced myself about a half hour, but what was I thinking?!  I, first, took one metro in the wrong direction.  I, second, proceeded to fix my error.  I, third, forgot that I fixed my error and got off the metro at the wrong stop.  By the time I sat for my last ride, direction to destination finally figured out, I looked like I was high on something and seriously had to ask myself if I was dreaming.  I then thought that maybe I just needed to go straight to bed and save the run for tomorrow.  Jet lag, lack of sleep, who knows.

But then the better part of me argued back, imagining soldiers getting splashed with cold water in their sleepy faces to wake up for 3am drills.  Taking a 20 minute jog at 12:40am really can't be that bad, especially if I committed to it.

So, I went.  And it was dark and Fall out there.  I had a few twentysomethings whistle at me from their cars.  I listened to Alicia Keys' Superwoman (volume not to the max so I could be aware of nighttime creepers).  And it was done.

I'm home, and it wasn't too bad at all.  And I feel happy with myself.

You see, if we want people to trust us, we have to trust ourselves.  And the easiest way to trust yourself is to make a commitment to yourself and follow through with it.  Check.

Here's a great book on all this sort of stuff. It is very fantastic.

      

"There is absolutely nothing you can do that will increase integrity faster than learning how to make and keep commitments to yourself."

Harper, The Riptide

I was in Hawai'i last week visiting my childhood best friend, Steph, who gave birth to her first baby ten months ago. Her daughter's name is Harper, and you'd smile as big as she does if you met her. She has dimples under both eyes that forewarn of the heartbreaks she'll cause, and the size of her cheeks almost convince you that her DNA transcribed something to the effect of squirrel-storing-nuts.

Harper does not sit still and explores with the curiosity of Steve Zissou. She picks up everything she finds, and in order to experience an object of discovery to its fullest, she puts it in her mouth. (Yes, Steph has already performed kiddie heimlich once.) She crawls in the dirt and sand, smears food all over like it’s a work of modern art and repeatedly practices the new sounds that she’s learned to make with her mouth.

The other day at the beach, Harper was living life large by raising both of her hands up as high as she could in the air and then pouncing them down onto the sand with an excited squeal. We were at shore, and she loved when the tide would come in to cool her off. She also had no idea that a riptide could suck her back into the ocean, which is why Steph was close by to swoop her up.

After watching Harper play at the beach, I realized that there is something so beautiful in her unawareness. Harper doesn’t notice everyday dangers, which is why motherhood really is a full-time job, but she also cannot grasp unimportant details that many of us tend to dwell on. Whether you’re outwardly beautiful, whether you have acne scars or cellulite and whether your teeth are straight or yellow, she only sees you as human (or creature?) and craves but your smile, love and attention. She has no idea that her beach bag is from Pottery Barn Kids, and her only interest in my trendy, Ray Ban Clubmasters is to grab them off my face and throw them in the sand. She doesn’t mull over what you’ll think about her when she makes ungainly, excited movements with her arms or unorthodox sounds with her mouth; she exists purely and messily, as Harper.

So I was thinking that as much as our biggest fear at the beach would be for the riptide to take her away, I feel like she is a bit of a riptide, herself. And she’s taking me, at least a few steps, away from the stuff that doesn’t matter. She has reminded me that hollow trappings of material North America, that all things physical and superficial, are cheap substitutes for some of the things that really matter: love, relationships, and unadulterated yet messy fun! And once again, I see why the wisest of the wise tell us to be more like children.

Facebook Caricatures

Facebook is cool because it helps me reconnect with old friends, stay linked to my pals around the world and sing you songs via Rosanna Sings To Me On Facebook!!!  When people start hating on Facebook, I have to say that I am one of those people that sticks up for it.

BUT!

But.


Facebook can be really lame because it allows us to tell the world lies about who we are and what's going on, and they'll believe it if we add the right amount of exclamation marks to our status updates.  We can conceal and reveal at our own discretion, creating an image of how we'd like to be perceived.

For example, last week I was in San Diego for a serious water polo tournament and posted to my status after a victory: "11-9 win over Hungary! China today."  However, when we lost to China and continued to lose every game thereafter, I kept completely quiet and didn't let any of you know that we came...last place.  


The truth is, I'll show you the parts of my life that I want to reveal.  But I won't tell you my real struggles or weaknesses.  


And so when I sometimes catch myself looking at other people's pictures or status updates and secretly wishing I could be them, there is a chance it's because Facebook only presents an edited, romanticized version of life.  You and I both experience day-to-day crap that we don't tell each other about on Facebook.  And that's why really knowing people is a much better indication of the quality of their life.

Therefore, I want to remind us: it's not always as it seems.  FYI: sometimes a woman is cheating on her husband, but her status update is about her pedicure.  Ya?  Ya.


It's hard to focus on our goals and aspirations when we are distracted by what we're not doing, by what other people are doing, and by what other people are apparently doing according to their Facebook caricatures.  


So, I just want to encourage us to not make this wonderful, cyber world too real and influential, as helpful and entertaining as it may be.


  

The Little Things

Back in April, I wrote of some pain I had in my right wrist.  It was affecting my yoga practice and driving me nuts.  I hit it in a weird way while scrimmaging in Rome and then fell down some Venetian steps onto the same wrist within the same few days.  I figured time would make it better because it wasn't a chronic injury, but my physio urged me to get x-rays.   I spent half a day at the hospital to be assured, in the end, that I had no broken bones.  Ok, so it will just take time, I thought.

But come June, it was still bothering me.  And most of all when I would do yoga!  It was discouraging because I have loved adding yoga to my life but was still compensating for the pain.

I finally went back to physio to see why the pain wasn't going away!  I happen to be the type that thinks we run unnecessarily to doctors to fix every booboo, but I now realize I waited too long.  It turns out that a one of the eight carpal bones in my wrist, called the lunate, was displaced and had to be kneaded back into its spot.  A bone that only measures a few centimetres was causing me such discomfort!  My physio worked on it for a few minutes here and there, pushing it back to where it belonged.  And now I am ok!

So, I just wanted to say, ahhhh, the little things.  This might be a life lesson...

"A small leak can sink a great ship." 

   -Benjamin Franklin  

Stop Trying So Hard!

After a ten day tournament in Puerto Rico, all I had was a day until it was time to be back at the airport for our next tournament in Russia.  Considering all the white-bread-mayonnaise-processed-meat meals I had in Puerto Rico, I decided I was going to practice yoga twice.  It would help rid my body of some toxins and free my mind of overanalyzing why I just played like garbage.  

So into yoga I stepped and out I came with another lesson!  During my second class of the 24 hour layover, our teacher decided to have us hold downward dog for about 3 minutes.  No big deal, right?  As my body became tired after the first 30 seconds, she reminded us that it was supposed to be a resting pose.   Our frames were to support us and do the work, lower half leaning against upper half, rather than our muscles, she explained.  So, what was I doing wrong?  "Yoga is a combination of effort and surrender."  Her words hit me like a pile of bricks.  Surrender?!  Right.  Stop trying so hard, Rosanna.  

My downward dog experience that morning led me to begin to think about other areas I had felt the negative outcome of trying too hard, of engaging muscles that needed to be relaxed.


I came up with:
-When I play my guitar, my hands cannot transition easily around the fretboard if they are tense.
-When I sing, I cannot properly support my notes with my diaphragm if my throat muscles are engaged.  My voice gets tired and my notes sound flat.
-While playing water polo, my shot is less accurate if my arm and wrist aren't relaxed as I release the ball. 

I realized that her lesson was something I needed to relate to life in general, also--that life might also be a combination of effort and surrender.  If there was a physical tension stopping me from carrying out physical tasks to the best of my ability, perhaps there are mental, emotional and spiritual tensions that also constrict me.  Maybe there is a natural order of things that is beyond my control?  Maybe I can't govern every microscopic detail no matter how hard I try? And so my season of learning about the idea of trying too hard has begun.

Anyone have any advice or stories on how they've seen this come into play in their lives?

Feel Important or Go Crazy?!

This year I transitioned from driving a car to taking the metro, and it's been interesting to say the least.  I feel like I am actually getting to know Montreal as I cross paths with students, businessmen, young mothers, musicians, and an array of fashion statements.  I have also become connected to a whole new category of people: crazy people.  Literally.

Two days will not pass without me noticing or interacting with someone who is mentally ill as I commute on the metro.  To recount only a few situations, I've been serenaded by a woman who was sure she was Barbara Streisand, and I've been asked if I "want to hear a loud noise?!" while a guy brings the lighter in his right hand to the firecracker in his left (I got off the metro!!!).

This has made me wonder, "Why are so many people mentally ill?"  What are these people's stories?  Well, Dale Carnegie asked the same question and found some interesting information:

"One-half of all mental diseases can be attributed to such physical causes as brain lesions, alcohol, toxins and injuries.  But the other half--and this is the appalling part of the story--the other half of the people who go insane apparently have nothing organically wrong with their brain cells." 

 So, do people go insane by choice!?

"Some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of importance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality..."

What Dale Carnegie is trying to say, and what others like Freud and Dewey have also said, is that one of the chief human desires is to feel important.  We all want to know that our existence is meaningful and will do things to validate it.  Charles Dickens wrote novels, John D. Rockefeller gave millions to erect a hospital in China, Al Capone became America's best-known gangster...and my singing friend on the metro?  She decided she was the Grammy Award-winning Barbara Streisand.

So, I have a few questions for us:

• Do you feel like you're going crazy?  Don't yet!  You were made to do something important...don't shy away from finding it.
• What are you doing/can you do to feel important?  
• What does what you do to feel important say about who you are?  
• Who can you appreciate more so they realize their importance?

 (Quotes from How To Win Friends and Influence People)

Three Days Of Yoga!

Hey guys.  I'm here to happily report on the three days of yoga I did last week.  I wrote down a few things after each class and have elaborated further below.

Day 1:  First day back to yoga after two weeks in Italy.  After having eaten pizza, pasta and chocolate croissants without restraint, I felt, well, fat!  If only we were conditioned to see chubbiness as beautiful.

 I injured my wrist while away, so I started to have some red-flag pain while doing downward dog, plank, chaturanga and upward dog (all four together are called 'flow').  The coolest thing is that my teacher caught on to something being wrong when I didn't do a certain balance pose, bakasana, that I normally do.  She showed me a modified way to flow without straining my wrist.  Now, that's an aware teacher!


    Bakasana

What's cool about Moksha Yoga is that any given teacher may share a little snippet of wisdom from their lives or a book during class.  When two girls started talking in class, our teacher told them to be quiet and reminded us all that it was a silent practice.  She reflected on how difficult it is for us to be quiet and still because we've created these fast-paced, multi-tasking lives.  It made me think of something I had just read in The Witch Of Portebello:

"I felt uneasy:  Shouldn't I be doing something?  Well, if I wanted to invent work, that wouldn't take much effort.  We all have projects to develop, lightbulbs to change, leaves to sweep, books to put away, computer files to organize, etc.  But how about just facing up to the void?... Was it really so hard to just stay where I was, doing nothing?

Day 2:  This was the hottest class I've ever done!  Typically, the rooms are heated to 39 degrees celsius, but I swear it was like 45 in there!  I got really hot and then observed some ugly things going on inside of me.  As the class neared the end, I was judging my teacher.  Instead of being focused on my practice, or, essentially, on my breath, I was wondering whyyy she wouldn't open the door for a sec and allow some cool air in.  "Does she not realize this is too hot!?"  I was able to recognize that I was being a baby, and so I committed to stay behind and remain in our finishing pose, shavasana, until all of my lower back tension was gone.  It's crazy how much thought space we waste on making ourselves victims of stuff that is  bearable!

Day 3: I was very tired and sore going into this third day of yoga because water polo practices have been quite intense.  My wrist was still hurting, but it is getting better.  It's funny how in some poses I still feel some instability in my ankle I sprained a few months ago.  Am I getting old?!

Also, during our swim sets that morning at water polo, my feet and calves were cramping up, which is most likely due to dehydration.  Although I keep a close check on the color of my pee--clear as water, folks!--my muscles must have been dehydrated somehow.  I sweat like a banshee in Moksha Yoga, so I have to make sure to drink!

Ok, that's it!

The goal of this week: 4 days of yoga (7 water polo practices!)

Bye for now!

I like World Vision. And a change is coming.

I just got home from a World Vision informative session on how to be an advocate for change.  I have been sponsoring a lil' kid from World Vision ever since I went to a Starfield concert when I was 15.   I was moved by what the band members shared, and even though I wasn't sure if I had $35 to give every month, I said yes!  10 years later, I still sponsor a kiddy.  A different one, though.  'Cause guess what?!  My first sponsored child, Ireen Kasimba, is now married off and fine without me!  Cool, eh?

And then I read this book called Not For Sale, which is about human trafficking.  And there was this one section that totally blew me away.  It made me trust World Vision (because we're all skeptics) even more.  I am too lazy to find the exact quote (read the book; it's awesome), but when a story was being told about a child soldier that escaped the rebel army camps in Sudan, he said that one of the things the kids were told while being brainwashed was to stay away from the World Vision camps because they would be hurt, killed, would never see their families again, etc.  How crazy!  If bad people are talking about World Vision, it must be doing something amazing.

So, finally, the infomercials.  I asked a question today about the marketing campaigns of World Vision because I think they kinda suck.  Nobody wants to see kids with flies in their eyes on TV.  We'd much rather watch (insert favorite show here)!   We are becoming more and more overwhelmed with all the disasters in the world that it sometimes feels easier to simply turn a blind eye to it all.  But, if we rework our perspectives and think about how small initiatives can make a big difference, then things will change.  World Vision is currently working on communicating this idea and changing the way they market their organization!  By telling true stories of lives changed.  Through telling the story of a specific girl, Ireen Kasimba, that I, Rosanna Tomiuk, helped, we'll believe that our small investments of stuff like $35 a month can make a difference.

So, there, I shared mine.  Now, believe you can create your own.

Inflexible yet strong. Welcome to the journey.

I have been doing Moksha Yoga off and on for a little bit now. I live just up the street from the NDG studio! I'm excited to up my game and start taking this stuff a little more seriously.

Water polo makes me strong but inflexible. I cannot believe some of the stretches these yoga girls can pull off! Flexibility will give me more range of motion, prevent injury and help me sleep better (lower back tension=eeek). So, let's see if I can do this.

And perhaps yoga will help calm my mind 'cause it races regularly. And maybe help me consider what I eat more often--if you show up full of yuckiness, you're done.

They say yoga is far more than just a workout...