It’s great to make new connections, contacts, and friends, but it’s really important never to forget about the person you’re stuck with for the rest of your life… YOU!

Thinks I’ve been doing to connect with myself, in no particular order of importance or level of help connecting to me.

1) Waking up for 4am yoga… yeah crazy I know… my roommate heard about it and we wen. We were two of four people crazy enough to be there. I slept through most of it, but hey I tried something new.

2) Walking around my neighborhood to Momo Sushi. It’s a 3 mile loop and I got to watch Culver City High School beat Beverly in baseball while eating.

3) Making dinner for a friend. Sometimes a nice dinner at home with whatever I an find in the pantry/fridge and great conversation is the best way to remind yourself where you come from and who you are.

4) Watching old movies. I have a thing that I like to see the classics. In college I took an American Cinema course to be forced to watch films like Singing in the Rain, Girl with a Yellow Ribbon, and the Godfather. It was great! In the past few weeks I’ve watched All the Presidents Men, Boondock Saints, The Emperor’s Club, and Full Metal Jacket… this week hopefully I’m going to watch Taxi Driver.

5) I returned to Rockclimbing. This was an activity I took up the last time I was unemployed and was looking for something that would provide positive reinforcement in the absence of a man or a boss. This weekend some friends and I went climbing in Point Dume on the beach in Malibu. There was a pod of dolphins and humpback whales that cam by just a few hundred feet off shore. It was amazing!

6) Free Yoga class at Lulu Lemon. The instructor was amazing, and during the class I came up with the name for one of the sections of the Iphone Apps (”Xtras”) and a quality tagline “Stalk and Talk with StarTrax”. Mental clarity often comes when you aren’t trying to connect with anyone but yourself.

7) Reading my favorite magazine… The Week. Much like other things I like, it pulls together pieces of columns from top news sources to provide less biased reporting on the top stories from the previous week. If you’ve never read a copy, I’ll give you one. It might be the best news in print. I haven’t gotten the chance to pick up a book to read, but maybe sometime soon.

Catching up on my DVR/Tivo. I have a guilty pleasure… it’s called Brothers and Sisters on ABC. Until I got a DVR I used to watch it on Abc.com, but I’ve always watched 2-3 episodes at a time. I’m not very good with waiting for cliffhangers to be completed, so catching up with a few episodes at once works out nicely.

9) Going to NYC. I maybe the only person who goes to New York and relaxes, but the GEL 2009 conference was a great excuse to visit my two best friends and sisters who live there, and not do very much else. I think I had 80 emails on my blackberry that collected while I was there, but I got to them eventually and no one seemed to be too mad to wait a day or two. In NYC just sitting on buses and subways for long periods of time can be a very meditative experience.

10) Walking my old dog. When I lived in Santa Monica, land of the lucky people, my roommate had a wonderful golden retreiver named Bella. She’s the best dog ever… chill and friendly… and super soft to pet. When I was forced to move out (my roommate’s fiance was moving in), it was agreed that I would get “visitation rights” with Bella. Now that I’m in Santa Monica practically every day to work at Tsavo, I get to go over and have Bella accompany me on a long walk along the ocean at least once a week. Few things are as relaxing an calming as walking along the ocean, listening to the Beatles, and having a friendly companion like Bella.

11) Sleep. I’ve been sleeping a lot more. It turns out that every day is better if you’ve gotten some sleep the night before. Who would have thunk it? There was a point in January/February where I was sleeping 4-5 hours a night and working my tail off. This did not make me happy and didn’t make me that fun to be around, so I’ve been sleeping more. It means I can’t be at as many events, or be there for after parties, but I feel better, and as mentioned in the beginning, it’s all about ME for this post.

Please tell me what you do to connect with yourself….