BTS My Mindset

Aloha, this week it felt right to come into some vulnerability flavor which seems to permeate my life lately and what I’m called to do here in community with all of you as a Mama.  Sharing 3 things that have been on the forefront of my life landscape lately.  

Going BTS (Behind the scenes) today.  Here’s 3 things I’d like to share from behind the scenes in my life.

• Health and taking inventory: being in a Hallelujah + Hard season the past few months with family 
• Bike vibes with the Peloton
• All things Halloween (and convincing myself its PSL season despite the mid 80s temps)

Firstly- delving into creating.  I’ve challenged myself to go deeper into a sacred space of creating over consuming.  I’ve struggled with letting go of my scroll on social media lately, but it’s feeding me back and illustrating time that I’m claiming in other ways.  Playing, journaling, writing, filming, Duo-Lingoing (would be making my HS Spanish teacher Senora S. so proud), and Zillowing our town. I think mayyybe you’re 30 something when Zillow takes a more prominent role on your app stage.  

It’s been fun to struggle some and not fill the void of space with the usual flick of the wrist up to head onto my hard wired paths of scrolling social media.  And I do think there is a lot of power and positivity and momentum to be had on those platforms.  I’m currently on a self designed sabbatical while I create and then emerge with content I’m stoked to share and which I hope will bring value and uplevel the lives of others who interact with it.

So been getting jiggly with my inner artist lately.  She’s there.  Despite the fact that I believed most of my elementary school years after Mr. E wasn’t too stoked on my paper mache creations that I maybe just wasn’t that creative or “artsy.”  It’s been so magnetic and grounding for me to come back into the place and passions within which exude so much creativity and to acknowledge and celebrate the artist that has always resided within me.  What kind of art emanates from you when you truly dial in?!

with all that I’ve been creating lately.  This picture was taken the other night filming some exciting content I’m absolutely stoked to get out to you all soon.  I re-filmed and tweaked my Sleep Medicine course and all the sleep vibes I’ve chased over the years and helped other Mamas achieve.  This is what it looks like to be staying up late to film this when we finally got everyone down (Kai Kai the husky included) so I could film at the studio we created for me at home.  I remember first getting these scrubs.  I remember the scrub machine and the hospital I got them from.  The feeling that I was on the trajectory of the way I desired to be serving- to be healing.  And here I sit in an entirely different capacity- one that is so expansive and filled with all of that same enthusiasm, purpose, conviction and excitement I had putting these same scrubs on for the first time.  

When we got home from our 2 months on the Mainland seeing family and getting to be a part of my parent’s healing journey after surviving their plane crash, I was able to really recalibrate and take inventory of this season.  That it is made of so much Hallelujah + Hard.  So much Gratitude + Grit.  So much Change + Compassion.  Traveling around is one of my most favorite things.  This trip to the Mainland our ‘ohana and extended ‘ohana welcomed us in.  We had a lot of transitions between states and houses and a routine was nonexistent.  I didn’t take great care of myself assuming additional roles helping my parents navigate their new normal in addition to showing up for my babies and JD the way I love to do.  I pushed myself to the back burner and didn’t realize the cumulative toll it was taking on me.  

I was texting with a friend the other night and I think it does mirror Motherhood, where we give ourselves the grace and space to realize that there will be times when we feel really BA like we’re prioritizing ourselves well and growing and creating and coming in touch with our genius zone. And then there are times where we default to “do it all mode” (which is a total mythological place although we are pretty amazing) and neglect to care for ourselves in the ways that nourish us.

When we got home and I was able to take inventory of the ways I wasn’t nurturing my creativity- meditating, doing yoga, exercising consistently, journaling, allowing space for dreaming and manifesting, welcoming in the abundance and prosperity meant for my life… I realize the trajectory of survival I’d been fast panting and running down for the previous few months.

It’s cultivating this awareness that instead of choosing shame and self doubt and letting that inner mean girl out, to choose to PIVOT on our inner compass and that sense of self and intuition, MAMATUITION, that invites AWARENESS and a building upon this new knowledge.  That it gets to be a curious place.  One where we get fascinated and ask questions like, “What can I learn from this around how to better care for myself in the future?”  So choosing this fascination and curiosity for me in all things is lubricating for my mental spheres and it helped me choose to pivot in a healthy way once we got back to Maui.

So here’s to the Hallelujah and the Hard that has marked the past few months of my life.  I actually venture to believe that Hallelujah and Hard are always present when we’re looking at life.  There is the inspiration and there is the inflammatory.  There is the light and the darkness.  And they coexist.  And it’s okay.  We’re meant to be in there.  To grow in there.  To thrive in there.  We’re safe there.  We CAN care for ourselves in nonnegotiable ways and keep the commitments we make to ourselves despite the weather and temperature of what is happening in the social and emotional climate around, and even within us.  

Here’s to mental health and uplevling always in a way that recognizes ALL of our emotions exist as our teacher, to guide us and to prosper us, and not to harm us.  So let them come.  

Pivoting to point #2.  After JD and I met as college athletes at University of Miami (I played 4 years of soccer and he played baseball as a LHP), we always bonded on athleticism and pushing our bodies.  After college an the honor of serving as team captains, we transition to minor leagues for him and a brief stint of semi-pro soccer and coaching for me.  Subsequently, we took to running marathons (basically pushing our bodies to the brink despite not having adequate time to train) haha and did have some fun running the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Marathon, Chicago Marathon and NYC Marathon.  We decided to “retire” from marathon life after those 3 marathons and me not being able to basically walk into medical school the day after the NYC marathon- we legit finished in Central Park, hailed a cab to the airport and flew home and then I drove the hour to medical school the next morning.  At least I went to osteopathic medical school and had the benefit of my colleagues and professors to do lots of OMM (osteopathic manipulative medicine) on me.  But Mamas, literally it wasn’t until LAST YEAR that I gave myself the permission to basically WALK anywhere.  I was perpetually in a hurry.  Toward the next finish line, the next goal, the next fitness test.  I am a super power walker like I crack up my family with the way my hips can move in a fast walk.  These hips don’t lie.   So this discovery in my postpartum period with Cruz and walking Camden to preschool last year pushing my Double Bob and stopping (gasp! Because stopping in my previous workouts was also NEVER an option… completely self imposed) to look at the fish in the gross side pond next to the street which brought them joy and me too actually, was revolutionary.  I started to think about my posture and my gait and to take an active role in my pelvic floor healing and recovery and our phenomenal bodies as women, mothers, visionaries.  I read “The Vagina Bible” a gift from one of my besties here on Maui who is also my OB-GYN (highly recommend that book- I’m a science nerd so it is sciency but written in a whimsical and humorous and also understandable way by Jen Gunter, MD).  She has a “Vagenda” as she says in this book to empower women around their bodies and demystify the ways we’ve minimized and not acknowledged how amazing our bodies are.  Anyway, so I walked ya’ll.  We walked down the neighborhood streets looking and to the beach.  I did the virtual Hawaiian immersion preschool with Cruz last year that’s so fun and offered locally here in Hawai’i.  I listened to uplifting workshops and memberships and coaching courses I had chosen to invest in because I knew things were shifting in A MASSIVE way in my life.  So, I’ll do walks now.  I’ll still sweat it out and push it and honor that inner athlete.  But I’m also so down to namaste (MAMASTE Camden calls it and I will forever too), walk, stretch, cool-down…. What who am I?!  It’s so fun and a whole new frontier of fitness for me.  

So JD had been campaigning for a long time for a Peloton and for some reason I was a hard sell.  Peloton and these other communities didn’t initially appeal to me because I felt like I had done the whole athlete thing and I liked the freedom now to just go for a run or jog with Kai Kai, go surfing or enjoy the hiking and outdoors that surrounds us.  Whilst on the Mainland, we took the plunge and ordered the Peloton.  It arrived while we were still away and when we got home the first thing we did was carve out a dedicated space in our Hale to workout and to create.  I’m sitting in here now crafting this message to you with the Peloton behind me.

I love it.  I’m obsessed with it.  Come ride with me.  My leaderboard name is DrAnik.  And my hashtag is #mamamindset.  So please come and nourish your inner athlete if you’re into Peloton.  I do the meditations with Camden and Cruz and we do them as a family.  I actually just opened an email for a free shirt coming my way because I’ve already done 100+ meditations (mostly the relaxation and sleep ones because they’ve become an instrumental part of the bedtime routine 💤), they’re so good. 

I’m absolutely loving riding with Cody Rigsby.  I can’t take a class and not laugh, smile, dance and marvel at how entertaining and colorfully charismatic he is.  So hilarious.  Making us feel all the nostalgic vibes- talking about whatever random comes to mind… chuckie cheese, squeeze it drinks, how we love a song that tells us how to dance, it’s all there.  Seriously having a blast.  I’m dripping sweat at the end and looking forward to the opportunity to get stronger and more in touch with my own athleticism and inner power.  So, Peloton vibes all the way.  Or whatever allows you to transition in your mind to moving your body getting to be a privilege.  I get it, we definitely don’t always WANT to work out or sweat, but really never have I ever said “I regret that workout.”  It just aligns everything that transpires from there- how I hydrate, how I interact and am reverent with myself and what I’m creating, improves my playfulness with my favorite people around and me and motivates me to make more nourishing choices in the food realm.

And lastly, it’s Fall y’all.  You best believe I had us signed up for the first time slot at the pumpkin patch.  I LOVE  good pumpkin patch.  I just want to go and see allll the pumpkins and gourds and decor.  Here on Maui there is a magical patch of land that sits on the side of Haleakala in Kula upcountry Maui about 4000 feet above the Pacific where you can look out and see the neighboring islands and sweeping views of the island to the south, west and north.  It’s gorgeous.  And here at Kula Country Farms on the slopes of a dormant volcano the pumpkins are grown and sprawled and ready to welcome the island vibes and version of Fall. This year you had to have reservations because of continued COVID protocols and so we were there.  We got to see the patch in all of its glory with all the pumpkins not yet picked through.  Camden just went and sat right in the middle of the patch and communed with the pumpkins.  Cruz was trying to gather as many as his chubby (but fast leaning and lengthening out arms… no say it ain’t soooo) could carry.  Camden didn’t want to take any posed photos, and she constantly reminds me to be in the moment in this way, plus the Cam-did camera of her in her whimsical ways and imagination and capturing them as they are and our ‘ohana in this colorfully chaotic season of life are always my favorite and more raw and real and true anyway.  So after a few failed attempts at negotiating a “family photo” at the designated spot, we explored and got dusty and dirty walking all over and hanging out with the goats and goards, counting pumpkins and sunflowers.  Volcano and vistas included.  We bought 3 small pumpkins for our 3 keiki (including our FURst baby Kai Kai always of course) because we already had 2 bigger pumpkins from a recent Costco trip.  I got those honey straws when we were checking out too because those always bring back fun childhood memories- the ones you pop open at the end and it’s a thin tube of honey.  So I’m over here sweating and admittedly haven’t had a PSL yet, but you best believe when I do, it’ll be hot, even if it’s 85 degrees.  

There is a magic to me in the changing leaves, in the crisp air, in the invitation of a new season to come, of smelling change in the air and being in harmony and noticing how nature and the animals are preparing for change and evolution to come in the winter ahead.  Although Fall is brief, I believe we Fall in love with it because it is a harmonizing rhythm, a vibrant display of colors and growth and a dance and invitation to join in on the beauty surrounding us.  We all get a little frisky with just a hint of cool in the air and the holidays to come.  I absolutely would love to hot apple cider and apple pick and candy apple and fall leaf my way through a Fall season coming my way soon, but also marvel and give gratitude for the dancing hula evergreen palm trees that beckon the coming seasons with basically no real perceptible temperature change.  

We have so many Halloween books and I Anik the geek out on requesting them to read for Camden and Cruz (and the inner book worm in me) every year.  We’re loving Bonaparte Falls Apart,  Monster Academy, Peppa’s Giant Costume, Peppa Pig and the Halloween Costume, Midnight the Halloween Cat, Coco, El Dia de Los Muertos, My Monster Mama Loves me So, What was I Scared of, How to Help a Pumpkin Grow, Gustavo: El Fantasmita Timido, Spooky Pookie, Halloween Hats, The Biggest Pumpkin Surprise Ever, Bad Kitty- Scaredy-Cat, Halloween Hats, Five Little Pumpkins Came Back, and Pete the Cat and the Five Little Pumpkins.  And we’ve made forts and read them all probably a dozen times already.

I ordered our ‘ohana themed Halloween costumes from Amazon and am sooo stoked on them to get here!  We have also been taking our ebikes or going on drives all around town looking for Halloween decorations and I will never tire of the increasing volume, screams of delight and excitement coming from the car seats in the back of the spiders, “big ghosts’ s house,” pumpkins, black cat and dragon house and “Miguel’s house (skeleton from Coco) that we frequent.  We’ve got our stained mummy pajamas from last year back in the mix and we’re ready.  We’ve had our jack o lantern pails out pretend trick or treating, I raided some old pez today from the fridge and we even have a paper chain we made yesterday for a Halloween countdown.  We spent most of the weekend inside because our yard is getting an overhaul- we decided to pursue in ground irrigation, remove a super massive amount of gravel to green up the remainder of our yard and to build a pergola in the back because we love being outside and considering that extra “rooms” in our house.  But, we are most definitely in the “it gets and looks worse and is mildly overwhelming phase before it gets better currently” and it’s been interesting to see what emotions that evokes when doing projects.  I am so excited for the green to come.  Give me all the green grass.  We’ve also been laying down in our driveway at night and looking at the stars.  We don’t have street lights and it’s super dark here after the sun goes down and the last twilight glow fades.  The moon, Milky Way and Jupiter have been super bright lately.  And I cannot refuse when Cam and Cruz lay down on their backs and beckon me to come and look with them.  

So here’s to looking up at the splendor and light and twinkles all around us.  For staying in the hard and hallelujah, inviting our inner artist to the party, nourishing ourselves, saying yes to new fitness opportunities and ways to move our bodies, and embracing that ALL ACCESS backstage pass to the adventure that is the BTS of your one wild and precious, amazing, gorgeous and creative life! 

Love you Mamas!  Cheers-ing you with a pumpkin spice latte- WITH whipped cream obvi!!

PS not sure if there are spelling blips and things woven into this and because I had fun writing it and free flowing it, not going back through it. It’s coming raw and real and vulnerable, complete with the cobwebs of the season and the BTS look!