Tobbe Becomes a Yogi in South East Asia

[Tobbe]

I'm just going to continue my current/previous challenge

 

 

I'll be home again before this challenge is over, so not really sure how to structure this. But I have like three weeks to figure it out. For now I'll just continue as I have been   Posting a photo every day, and trying to do some yoga. Why complicate things, eh?

[Terah]

Following along!

[Mad Hatter]

Uncomplicated is always good!

[Tobbe]

Tuesday

 

The good vibes I got from this place have proven to be spot on so far! Had a good first nights sleep, the included breakfast was decent, wifi is much better than the last place and my family can enjoy themselves at both the pool and the ocean while I work. Plenty of good restaurants around, and bikes to borrow if you want to explore further than you want to walk   

 

This is our bungalow and the pool

 

 

 

 

Yoga

 

Went outside to find a spot to do my yoga, but there's live music in the bar, and lots of people moving around. So I couldn't find anywhere with peace and quiet where I could put my yoga mat (aka my pool towel ) down. So I went inside again and did yoga on the floor.

 

Did the same dolphin pose yoga routine with Adriene as I did yesterday. Felt much better today than it did yesterday. Remarkable how much just one practice makes a difference. Not that I'm any stronger or more flexible, just that I recognize the movements and better know what to expect. But I'm still not strong enough to do the whole video without taking a break to rest my shoulders. Especially lifting one leg a little bit, so that it's horizontal, really puts my shoulder muscles to work  

[Tobbe]

4 hours ago, Terah said:

Following along!

 

Thanks, happy to have you here  

 

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Uncomplicated is always good!

 

💯

[KB Girl]

That looks like a lovely place to stay for a while! 

[Butternut]

What a beautiful lil bungalow! 

 

I bet yoga outside there will be great (once you get the space )

[Jean]

Ohmyohmyohmyohmy! Vietnam! And yoga with Adriene! That's awesome!

 

 

Following!

 

[iatetheyeti]

Following along!

 

It looks wonderful where you are right now, perfect conditions for outdoor yoga (people aside, I guess).

 

[Harriet]

Oooooh, I don't know what your challenge is, but the place you're staying looks delightful.

[Tobbe]

10 hours ago, KB Girl said:

That looks like a lovely place to stay for a while! 

 

Yeah, it's been great so far  

 

10 hours ago, Butternut said:

What a beautiful lil bungalow! 

 

I bet yoga outside there will be great (once you get the space )

 

There is a patch of grass not far from our bungalow that I'd love to use for yoga, but this place is way more busy than any of the other places we've stayed at. Not sure I can focus with all the people walking around. Maybe I could make room on our tiny patio. I'll look in to it next time I do yoga.

 

9 hours ago, Jean said:

Ohmyohmyohmyohmy! Vietnam! And yoga with Adriene! That's awesome!

 

Following!

 

Thanks for following along, and yeah, the yoga has been nice  

 

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

Oooooh, I don't know what your challenge is, but the place you're staying looks delightful.

 

Yeah, I don't know. I think I'm just using the challenge threads as my Battle Log these days 😛 But whatever. I just want a place to journal and share  

[Terah]

That place looks gorgeous! So pretty ❤️

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following along.

[Scaly Freak]

I expect detailed reports on all the food.

[fitnessgurl]

Nice place!

[Tobbe]

18 hours ago, Terah said:

That place looks gorgeous! So pretty ❤️

 

This place, and especially the garden around here, is the prettiest, and cleanest, place yet without a doubt

 

15 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following along.

 

Thanks

 

3 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

I expect detailed reports on all the food.

 

I try to find other things to highlight about my days other than the food. But a lot of days I sleep, eat, work and do yoga. So it's a bit difficult to find much else to write about...

 

1 hour ago, fitnessgurl said:

Nice place!

 

It sure is. Thanks for popping by  

[Tobbe]

Two days ago, Wednesday.

 

You all seem to really like this place, and I haven't even shown you the most stand out feature yet! When we first got here one of the boys had to use the bathroom ASAP, and as soon as he ran in there we heard a loud "Wow!". Then my wife walked in, and again, "Ohh, wow". That really made me curious of course, so I had to go see for myself.

 

 

They have planted live flowers/greens in the floor of the bathroom! It's literally a flowerbed. And above them there's just bug screen. So you can feel the wind and smell the fresh air while taking a shower. And you also get that damp tropical feeling in there. It's very unique. We all love it ❤️

 

For lunch we tried a new fruit

 

 

I ment to go buy mango, and I did, but when I was about to pay for it the lady in the fruit stand pointed at this green fruit I had never seen before and said "Want to buy? Very good!". Sure, why not I answered  And she was right, I liked it! They boys thought it was alright, and my wife didn't care for it at all. We didn't finish it, and second time we brought it out it was only I who wanted to have any of it... But after trying it I had to google the name. It's called Soursop in English, and Taggannona  in Swedish. Had never heard any of the names before. But glancing through the English wikipedia page for it I noticed the Latin American name for it, guanábana, and that rang a bell somewhere in the back of my head. After a while I thought I knew what it was, and a quick Google search confirmed it. We have a still drink in Sweden called Festis, and one of the flavors you can get it in is "Guanábana & Pineaple". It made the news last year because they got some bad press about the fact that the fruit they've used the most in that drink is actually apple, which isn't in the name at all, and the amount of guanábana is only 0.003%. When eating soursop you can really tell that it's sour. It's almost as if your tongue curls up a little bit and you get almost like a tingly feeling in your mouth. I love that, and I remember some of that from that still drink as well (I bet it mostly comes from citric acid in the drink, but still...)

 

In the afternoon I worked, and looking at the calendar I realized I had a meeting at 7 - 8:30. So I asked the family if we could have dinner at 6, so I could eat before the meeting. Eating after the meeting would be too late - we all know what happens if everyone is too tired and too hungry... So at looked up a restaurant that was close to where we're staying, and that had something on the menu for everyone. And at 6 I asked if we could head out. No problem, and everyone started getting ready. But as you might imagine it does take a few minutes to get three kids out the door, and then we had to walk to the restaurant. But still, we were there around quarter past 6. Got a table and looked at the menu. Took a while for everyone to decide what to get, and even longer to actually get the food. I started getting worried if I would have time to eat at all... I told my wife I might have to leave before finishing my meal. So I asked her if she could ask to get any leftovers to take home. I expected a reaction along the lines of "Ohh, that's too bad. I'm sorry you might not get a chance to enjoy this meal with the rest of us. How can I help make the best of the situation?". So that's what I expected. What I got was her yelling at me "Sigh! No I don't want to ask for takeaway for you! Why are you such a nuisance! I don't want to look weird! That's so embarrassing! Why do you always make everything so difficult for me?!". I told her I didn't understand what I had done to deserve to be yelled at. And I asked her what I could have done differently. But she didn't have an answer. At 6:50 everyone else had gotten their food, one of the boys had even finished his, but I still hadn't gotten mine, but I really had to leave to be in time for my meeting. So I just told them to please ask if they could have my portion to go, and then I went back to the hotel.

 

At 7:10 they came back to the hotel, with my plate of food wrapped up in clingwrap, in a bag  I ate it in front of the computer while listening in on the meeting. The food was delicious! Braised lemongrass chicken with a side of brown rice cooked with black beans  After the meeting I thanked my wife for bringing me the food, and she seemed happy again. As I've said before, she (or I) never stay angry for long. I took our baby girl in her baby carrier to go and return the empty plate to the restaurant. The boys were doing homework, so I told my wife to take some time for herself for a minute. When we got back she was reading a book, which I know she loves to do. I had wished for a "thank you for giving me some time off", but that's apparently too much to ask for. (I didn't tell her that though, I was just happy she wasn't angry at me anymore.)

 

 

Yoga

 

I had done the dolphin pose yoga twice in a row, so I wanted to do something else. Either find another instructor for dolphin pose, or another session with Adriene. I still wanted something to help me with my inversions. I went with a core workout session with Adriene. It was intense! And I liked it!  

[Tobbe]

Thursday

 

Another day of mostly just working. Had a meeting today as well, but it was later. Started at 9 pm. So turmoil around dinner today   When the meeting started the boys were already in bed, and my wife was trying to put our daughter to sleep. So, not wanting to speak, to wake anyone up, I just texted her "I'm going out to have my meeting now. Please do come out to me when she's asleep if you can get up without stirring anyone awake." 

 

Fifteen minutes later I got a text "I'm in the double swing right behind you"   I blamed bad hotel wifi and excused myself from the meeting, to go sit with my wife. We sat in the swing for a bit, just having some smalltalk. There was a live band playing in the hotel bar/restaurant, so I asked if she wanted to go have a cocktail or a glass of wine now that it was just her and me. She said she didn't feel fresh enough to sit with other people in a bar, not without first having a shower. So we decided to just go get a smoothie from one of the numerous stalls along the road instead. We got the smoothie and decided to sit down where we could still hear the live music, but far away that we could actually carry on a conversation.

 

I didn't really intentionally ask her anything in particular, but she told me she has been feeling lonely and under stimulated. My wife is extremely extroverted and need to regularly meet a lot of people to get energy from them. She has a lot of friends and regularly meet a lot of them. Now she hasn't met a friend for over a month. It's been very difficult for her. She also hasn't worked for over a year as she's been home on maternity leave. And she told me she's really starting to miss the intellectual challenges she gets at work. She also mentioned that she feels she never gets any rest. There is always a child that wants her attention. And I'm not there helping her because I'm working (she actually said that in a non-judging voice for once, she usually says it in a voice that makes me feel really bad, but not this time).

 

So now I have a much better understanding of why she's not feeling great right now. But I still think she needs to work on not taking it out on me and the kids. But I didn't tell her that yesterday. I didn't want to ruin our actually pretty nice time together.

 

 

Yoga

 

I wanted to do yoga outside. And as I said earlier I was going to see if I could make it work on our little patio. But with Queen's We Will Rock You blasting out from the speakers at the hotel bar I just couldn't get in the right state of mind. So I went inside, closed the door, and did the same Core yoga session as I did yesterday. I could feel my stomach muscles were sore from the day before.

 

Didn't want to risk waking anyone up, so I did the yoga in the darkness.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

How long have y'all been on vacation? She sounds exhausted and frustrated. Snapping is not okay, but her needs and feelings are. It sounds like you both could use some coaching on communication so that this sort of thing can be talked about before it leads to snapping. The fact that neither of you stay mad for long gives me a lot of hope for the two of you. In my unscientific opinion most fixable problems in relationships boil down to improving communication skills, or at least start there. Once the two of you can talk about things well, the other problems become a lot more solvable.

[Tobbe]

14 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

How long have y'all been on vacation?

 

Since the start of last challenge pretty much 😎 We left Jan 3rd and will come back home Feb 29

 

17 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

It sounds like you both could use some coaching on communication

 

Yes, I think so to. And one specific think I think we need to communicate is expectations. I feel like sometimes she expects me to do things I had no idea she wanted me to do. And the other way around too - she sometimes don't do things I take for granted that she should do. Or she expects that we should go do something, and I expect that I can get some time to do my work. Both at the same time. Which leave us both feeling frustrated.

 

21 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Once the two of you can talk about things well, the other problems become a lot more solvable.

 

Yes. I think we can solve a lot of our problems. But that would still only leave us as friends. I can give her a hug, I can sit close to her and watch a movie. But those are all things I can do with any close friend. Do I love her anymore? I have no idea.

 

https://psiloveyou.xyz/the-silent-relationship-killer-you-never-see-coming-ba16c1927aeb

 

A lot of what is written in the article above resonated with me. They also do offer a few ways to fix it. I/we will have to try it, and hopefully it works for us.

[Jean]

I can't give any advice on a situation I have no experience with but I still wanted to show support, so this message is just me cheering for you both and supporting Tank's words of wisdom.

 

Sending you positive thoughts and best wishes.

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Tobbe said:

Yes. I think we can solve a lot of our problems. But that would still only leave us as friends. I can give her a hug, I can sit close to her and watch a movie. But those are all things I can do with any close friend. Do I love her anymore? I have no idea.

 

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with something you said here: "only leave us as friends", is neither bad or a downgrade of any kind.

 

For a couple to remain committed to each other for a few decades or longer, you need to be close friends. And a genuinely close friendship is by definition an intimate and loving relationship, and it's a rare blessing to have that kind of deep connection with anyone. If you are fortunate enough to have it with your chosen life partner, the other parent of your children, then you are both lucky, and I hope you are able to keep it that way. Every couple I know who has been happily married for 30 years or longer, are each others' best friends. I refuse to believe that is a coincidence.

 

Is it the magical solution to all relationships problems? Of course not. But I do believe that it's a necessary component of a successful long-term monogamous relationship.

 

@Tanktimus the Encourager is also correct that open and honest communication makes or breaks marriages. I can confirm from personal experience that mine become exponentially better when we both started to put genuine efforts into trying to communicate better with each other. And good luck to you both. 

[Elastigirl]

2 hours ago, Tobbe said:

Yes, I think so to. And one specific think I think we need to communicate is expectations. I feel like sometimes she expects me to do things I had no idea she wanted me to do. And the other way around too - she sometimes don't do things I take for granted that she should do. Or she expects that we should go do something, and I expect that I can get some time to do my work. Both at the same time. Which leave us both feeling frustrated.

 

Oh man, I think that is so true. That is something both hubby and I have had to work on. I used to be so bad at this. I felt like  he should just know. We are much better at communicating now (34 years marriage) but we still occasionally struggle with this.

[Mad Hatter]

I hope you guys can figure it out. And not out of convenience. I've heard the framework of non-violent communication has worked for some people, maybe that could be worth looking into? Maybe scheduling time for these difficult conversations, for when you're not hangry and stressed? Just ideas, I'm terrible at this stuff. 

 

To me yoga with Queen sounds much more appealing than yoga without Queen.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

5 hours ago, Tobbe said:

Yes. I think we can solve a lot of our problems. But that would still only leave us as friends. I can give her a hug, I can sit close to her and watch a movie. But those are all things I can do with any close friend. Do I love her anymore? I have no idea.

I think you may find that as communication gets better the love will flow more easily. If you are not feeling respected it is highly likely you are not going to feel loving. Conversely, if your wife is not feeling loved, it's highly likely she will not feel respectful. 

 

As others have said, if your relationship is "Fixable" the fix is absolutely going to start with better communication.