Maggie Downie, Author at Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

About Maggie Downie

Thank you for giving your time to stop and read my blog. I hope it encourages you to keep moving. Move and the body will be happier. And when you're moving you can hike, run, swim in Jell-O, race over non-Newtonian fluids, travel the world or build igloos--if that's your thing. If not, you can watch me do it. This is just a spot to try and feel good about life.

The Magic of Christmas

And, my mom is rocking this little toddler bathrobe too.

This is a picture of my mom. She’s about three. While she was napping one day, my Grandma decorated the Christmas tree. My mom woke up and discovered the tree aglow. Someone got this snapshot, which is impressive because everyone wasn’t running around with a camera on their phone.

You can see the awe, wonder, and joy that Christmas can bring on her little face. It’s not only Christmas. We can feel wonder at other times and in other places. Usually for me nature inspires those feelings more than anything else.

I pick the places I travel and the activities I do to find a little bit of that astonishment. When you’re 8,000-feet on a snow-covered mountain at night and you look up at the stars, your jaw drops in amazement. I regularly seek the sense of wonder, awe and joy my mom is living in that photograph. It can be harder to find during the daily grind and on a day-to-day basis, but it’s there.

And Christmas is a time of year […]

The Magic of ChristmasMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:24:28-04:00

5 Ways to Chill Out in the New Year

Mundane tasks like dishes can be a time to be present.

I need to listen to what I’m about to say more than most. But as 2016 approaches, and we start thinking about New Year’s Resolutions, I’m trying to come up with little changes I can make that serve the purpose of meditation (help me chill out), but don’t require me to sit and be still for more than 30-seconds. Because every New Year I fail at that.

Stop at Yellow Lights

I’ve always lived by the moto: red means stop, green means go, yellow means go faster. I also have a tendency for road rage. Driving calmer and trying to get less frustrated has helped me hate driving a little less. This is actual the idea of one of my clients who used to work with patients post heart-attacks. It was one of her tricks to help them de-stress.

Pick the Longer Line

This idea was from the same client, and I love it. So much of life is a mind game. If you pick the longer line at a store, it doesn’t seem […]

5 Ways to Chill Out in the New YearMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

Do a December Detox

Do you want to join me on a 10-day detox this December? Please keep reading.

This holiday season I will not bite the head off of any more chocolate Turkeys.

This is not a detox where you don’t eat. That has never appealed to me. I’m way too active to skip meals and drink only tea, and I get really crabby when I don’t eat. My desire to do this detox comes from a couple of areas. One, I always like a good food experiment, and, two, I’d been eating so terribly that on Halloween I looked at a bowl of Reese’s and thought the idea of sweets were disgusting. That was perhaps a first in my entire life I was repulsed by food. But it’s been working in my favor. Since then I have been eating better. December is really hard month to stay on track, so a couple friends and I are trying this little challenge. Here’s the info (if you’re still reading):

A friend and I got together to combine forces from the most recent books […]

Do a December DetoxMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

Once Grateful for Boys, Now Grateful for So Much More

One of the moments when I just couldn’t stop smiling.

Tomorrow at my family dinner we will go around the table and express our gratitude for something. I always cycle through the same three answers. I’m grateful that I can travel. I’m grateful for my health. And I’m grateful for my family and friends.

All true, but I thought it might be worthwhile to think outside the box and come up with something different this year. For help I grabbed a gratitude journal I started keeping in 1998. While my intentions are good now, and I mean to keep a gratitude journal, I tend to only use it a handful of times a year. But twenty years ago, I was reasonably consistent.

Here’s a sampling of things I appreciated in high school:

Words

Long Walks on Beautiful Days

Being able to Clock Distances in your Car

A Man Running Back and Forth between a Stop Sign and a Stop Ahead Sign

My Brother’s Huge Bear Hugs

Listening to Other People’s Memories from Before I was Alive

Seeing Nick S Because He is so Good Looking but I Have Never Talked to […]

Once Grateful for Boys, Now Grateful for So Much MoreMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:24:29-04:00

The Power of Hypnosis

Not exactly how it works.

Once upon a time I loved sleep. It came so naturally. The second my head it the pillow, I’d be out. Actually, if it was after nine at night, I’d fall asleep standing up mid-conversation, mid-sentence. Eight hours later I’d awaken from a deep rest refreshed and excited about 5:30am.

I’ve struggled with sleep for close to four years since my thyroid went haywire. I’m hypothyroid and normally that means I should sleep ten hours a day and never feel rested. Instead, I only get four to six hours of sporadic sleep and never feel rested. For the most part, I just deal with being sleep deprived. Once you’re used to it, it’s actually amazing what you can still do, to a point.

At times I have moments of concern. I read an article reiterating all the things you try not to think about: sleep is when the body heals, lack of sleep increases your chance of gaining weight and making poor food choices, if you don’t sleep you’ll probably get Alzheimer’s. Basically, this sleep thing I seem to have no control of is […]

The Power of HypnosisMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

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