Putting on the brakes

Every so often, I come across something I read and think, "I must share this with my peeps." This blog was written by my dear friend and yoga teacher, Kathleen Thompson. I first met Kathleen over 10 years ago at her yoga studio in Mansfield, a small town in rural Pennsylvania, just after the birth of my third child, when I was desperate to hold onto my identity as a woman outside the confines of motherhood. Her yoga classes were not just a welcome escape, they rejuvenated my body and soul, making me a better mother, woman, and healer in the process. I have since come to love and respect Kathleen not only as a yoga teacher but as a community builder, mentor, and friend. She never stops learning and appreciating, figuring out what works and what doesn't work, and then getting rid of the "doesn't work" that holds her back.  As such, she spreads joy and smiles wherever she goes, like a Glinda the Good Witch, and looks 20 years younger than her age. She is beautiful and radiant, inside and out.

I am honored to be able to share Kathleen's wise journey with you. Don't miss out on her manifesto (words for us all to live by), or her insightful metaphor at the end; we all need to know how to recharge.

---

Winterlude

In the week between Christmas and New Years I rented a little apartment in Ithaca, NY. I needed a getaway: from Christmas, from busyness, from tired.

I needed a retreat. But instead of booking myself into a fancy place like Kripalu, I tried a “self-guided” retreat this time, in a nearby city where I know a few, but not many people, and where I could be happily alone.

I cooked up a a batch of kitchari in my home kitchen and brought that to eat, along with a few other staples.

Every day I cooked up the kitchari for lunch with greens I bought at Oasis.

The man at Oasis who checked me out told me this joke one really cold morning:

Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?

A: Frostbite!

I drank a lot of hot water which I heated up an electric kettle I found in the apartment kitchen. But the mugs there didn’t fit my hands so I wandered into Handwork and bought a beautiful handmade mug for my hot water.

The one I bought was made by hands, for hands.  It is beautiful and I treasure it. It is currently sitting on the the table beside me. It will forever remind me of this time of great regeneration.

I sat on a small brown couch all day and edited my manuscript.

I slept like shit. (The bed was very mushy.)

Most nights I stayed up very late. (For me.)

I sat on the windowseat and looked out.

I finished The Distraction Addiction.

I started Daring Greatly.

I went to yoga every day.

When you teach yoga every day like I do, it is such a thrill, such an utter indulgence to be led. I got to follow someone’s else’s path every day and it was lovely.

I went to Starbucks. (Not every day, but almost.)

I cruised through the bookstore a few times. I ran into people I know, and like, from home. I ran into people I know, and like, from Ithaca.

I sat and meditated with my dear friend Zee, and her friends, on New Year’s Day, and then had Indian food with them afterwards at Diamonds.

All day I worked.

I noticed the way I worked. I noticed that I like alternating between digital and analog; between computer and fountain pen. When I started to stagnate on the computer, I’d pick up the pen and a fresh world would appear. When I felt that world begin to fade, a return to the keypad ignited me again.

And in this way, back and forth, digital to analog, hour after hour, day after day, with breaks only for fresh hot water and to pee, I spent my interlude.

I worked on my manuscript, but I wrote other things, too.

I wrote deep reflections on all the yoga classes I took, for example, pondering what it really means to be a yoga teacher, and how I might become a more effective one.

I wrote my “manifesto” which was deeply inspired by the two books I was reading. My manifesto lists the qualities that I hope to cultivate and manifest in myself and my life from this time going forward. I love this list and feel so happy to have finally articulated it.

I wrote in OmWriter, which is a new writing platform for me. I was inspired to try it from the writer of Distraction Addiction. I really like it a lot. I found it allowed me to go deeper into reflective space than I have ever gone before, and stay in that depth longer.

I severely limited my connections to other people, and to distractions like email and internet. I only went online twice a day: morning and night, and would not have gone on at all if I didn’t have a business.

I thought about installing Freedom but my self-discipline was strong enough and I really didn’t need it. Still, I like knowing that it exists, because I can foresee a time in the future when I will need to utilize it.

I loved living in this small, walkable city. Everything I needed and wanted was less than a 5 minute walk away: yoga, health food store, bookstore, Starbucks, even an indie movie theater. I could walk to Indian food and Thai food, as well as Tapas and Mexican and vegetarian.

On my last day, G came and we went to see the movie Wild. For my final dinner, we chose the tapas restaurant right below my apartment. We drove home in two cars, following each other.

(my apartment was on the 2nd floor, the 2 windows on the left with the white blinds.)

As I drove home I thought about the Prius, and how the battery of that car recharges every time you apply the brakes.

It recharges when it brakes.

What do you know? Me, too.

Go figure.

Healing for the FUN of it

Most of the time, people become my clients because they are unhappy with the prescriptions they get from their doctors, whether conventional or naturopathic. They are overwhelmed by the pharmaceuticals, supplements, and diet changes that their provider insists they must swallow and follow for what seems like an infinite amount of time -- a year, the foreseeable future, or in some cases, forever. And that saps any possibility of joy from their potential healing. The client loses their mojo. They see Mt. Everest before them. Huge. Looming. Insurmountable.

Why in the world would they want to invest the time, money, and energy in a process that might or might not heal them, but will, in their eyes, cause them to suffer, whether physically or emotionally? To me, that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I do not believe in telling my clients they have to “suffer through it,” “stick it out,” "feel crappy," “endure it,” or anything of that nature. Yuck.

One of the fundamental tenets of the work I do is to show people how to capture the joy in healing. Healing – no matter how it comes about -- should be FUN. If you’re going to spend the time, money, and energy to heal, it needs to feel good, whether it involves whole foods, herbs, or diet and lifestyle changes.

This is not some idealistic Pollyanna scam on my part. Like all of the work that I do, this premise is based on science. Just look at the research surrounding laughter as medicine. When patients feel joy, they feel better. It doesn’t matter if they’re depressed, have cancer, walk with pain, or are on dialysis. Their symptoms improve.

Therefore, incorporating joy and fun into a client’s journey towards optimal wellness is critical. They are integral components of earth-based medicine, especially where food is concerned.

We all understand the joy and comfort that we get from eating certain foods and drinking certain beverages. Unfortunately many of these foods and beverages take away from our health, particularly when we are dealing with some sort of health crisis.

For instance, I had a client, Liz*, who came to me wanting to lose weight and unable to kick a 30 year Diet Coke habit. She drank anywhere from 5-10 cans a day. She knew the Diet Coke was unhealthy and contributed to her weight gain, but she enjoyed drinking it during her stressful day as a high-tech executive. I asked her what she specifically liked about the soda, and she said, “The bubbles refresh me.” I suggested that she drink mineral water instead. Violà – the Diet Coke habit disappeared in one week, and she’s been on a healing journey ever since. All we had to do was tap into her joy.

Patricia*, who was already an amazing cook, has started listening to music while making dinner. She says the food tastes better, she is eating more slowly, and her digestion has improved.

Children especially need to have fun when they’re healing. Kate*, a beautiful 11 year old, came to me with her mom recently after dealing with debilitating joint pain for over a year. She has been to countless doctors, all of whose different diagnoses and prescriptions, despite their best intentions and steep costs, have caused Kate to suffer even more. Some recent bloodwork suggests that Kate needs to make some major changes to her diet, including not eating her Halloween candy. Together with her mom, we figured out what would bring her joy instead of the sugar, and she left my office empowered and smiling, knowing she would get some of her favorite Pangea Organics lip balm at the end of her candy-free week. There might even be a trip to Disneyland in the spring.

When you give people options, when you take the time to find out what brings them joy and what’s “fun” to them, you also tap into their innermost source of deep healing. Yes, healing can mean making major life changes, but these changes should be rooted in joy, not suffering.

I want my clients to have fun while they’re healing. I want them to savor the physical and emotional joy that comes from their symptoms disappearing and from living life to the fullest. My clients are redefining wellness for themselves and having a darn good time in the process. And that’s what I call medicine.

*Names have been changed to protect clients’ privacy.

Home, sweet home

Finally, some warm weather. No, scratch that. Perfect weather. I just about froze my tootsies off this morning in SF... the fog was still rolling in at 10am, and that wind! It goes right through me, right to my bones, no matter what I am wearing (and admittedly, I wasn't wearing very many layers today, and I didn't even have socks on, because I'm ready for spring!).

It's amazing how many different climates there are in the Bay Area, let alone SF. I stopped at a friend's house on the way back home this afternoon, and it was already ten degrees warmer there on the SE side of the City, not too many miles away as the crow flies. By the time I made it home, it was 70 degrees. Finally.

For those of you following Yogamama's Virtual Yogarians blog, you know that I've been writing over there this month as part of her annual April Challenge. I can really feel it in my arms today! I guess I spent a little too much time in downward dog yesterday.

Instead, the warm weather called me outside this afternoon, and I headed over to hike the Stanford Dish around 4:30pm.

OMG.

It was so beautiful. The hills are finally green from the late spring rains, and the views today? To die for. To the north, even though the fog was creeping over the hills, I could see all the way to the silhouettes of the skyscrapers in downtown SF and everything in between. To the east, I could see Mt. Diablo, all the bridges, and even, in the distance, the outline of the windmills on Altamont Pass. To the south, the buildings on top of Mt. Hamilton and Mt. Umunhum reflected in the sunlight, with no smog to speak of, and to the west, as I said, the fog extended over the tree-filled hills like little ghostly fingertips. Hard to believe that Mt. Hamilton was covered in snow not too many days ago.

I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being home. This is my home. This has always been my home.

Days like today make me so grateful to be back in northern California, in all its glory. I know, I know, I complain about sitting for hours at red lights that are out of sync, or the ridiculously inflated housing prices thanks to the inexperienced 20-something homebuyers from Facebook and Google who are cashing in on their stock options, or the fact that I do have to wear a scarf and a parka in the middle of June when the fog comes rolling in like a tsunami. But there is something magical about "hiking the Dish" (as we call it) on a day like today, when a thousand different worlds come dancing together.

You look down in all directions and see the huge Stanford campus... I feel a pride when I look at the hospital, thinking about my work as a student there... not to mention Hoover Tower, the most phallic building on the West Coast! You see the buildings of companies like VMWare, biotech firms with huge solar panels on top, the VA Hospital, NASA, etc., and in the other direction, this huge satellite dish looming over you, with Interstate 280 not too far beyond it. [Incidentally, I have no idea what the Dish does... a friend told me that they use it to search for contact from alien life forms. (I think she's pulling the old, "Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?" trick on me.)] You have the bridges and the skyscrapers, so tiny in the distance, but still so powerful. And then you have the nature... the green hills with the grazing cows, the already thigh-high prickly milk thistle and mustard growing off the path, the orange poppies and calendula dotting the hillside, those fat little squirrels scampering around, and the deer keeping their distance.

If home is where the heart is, then mine is scattered in various places across the world. Today my heart grew a thousand-fold, as I tapped into the roots that had been planted years ago, when I wasn't paying attention.

In my gratitude, I am paying attention.

*****

By the way, fellow bloggers, Wordpress isn't allowing me to link any websites to my posts. (The link button is deactivated.) Any suggestions?

Bloggin' again

This month I'm blogging over on the Virtual Yogarians page as part of Yogamama's Yoga Challenge. Here's the link to my first post. Check it out, and enjoy! (Note: for some reason Wordpress is not letting me add this as a link, so you'll just have to cut and paste it into your browser tab. Sorry about that!)

http://virtualyogarians.com/2012/04/01/

The most important speech of our time

I am posting this link because I truly believe it is the most important public statement of our time, and one that will get little to no press. It is a long read but worth every minute that it takes you. I hope that 30 years from now, we will all know that because of courageous people like Tim DeChristopher, we were able to turn things around in this country before corporations and politicians completely flushed us all down the toilet. Please share this link on your various tweets, walls, and blogs. This is powerful medicine for our diseased state of affairs.

The ritual of sleep

Do you every feel as if you are undergoing some sort of initiation, rituals which, if you pass, will take you to the next level of your development as a human being? I'm at that point right now. Knowing deep down that I can somehow make it, but having trouble finding the will to want to make it.

Today is day something of my cleanse. 16? 17? I have lost count. All I know is that Tuesday is my last day, and then I will start incorporating -- slowly, oh, so slowly -- grains, dairy, and other foods back into my life again.

The problem is, on a cleanse, you are supposed to rest, because you naturally feel tired when your body and psyche are cleaning house and getting rid of all that old stuff that doesn't belong there anymore.

At the beginning of the cleanse I felt a bit like Wonder Woman, with a will of steel. (OK, except on that day I was being chased by a large piece of dark chocolate.) Now my will falters as my energy falters. My patience is faltering. Life is simply getting in the way.

Sleep deprivation is the worst sort of initiation there is, don't you think? The last two nights I have been wakened at obscene hours by my children. I am used to waking in the night because of them, but the last two nights have been particularly difficult. On Wednesday night, Nadia woke at 3am crying with a fever and stomachache, and I spent the rest of the night (morning?) comforting her and doing energy work to alleviate the nausea so that she could finally fall asleep again around 6:30. Then this morning, after not getting to bed until 11, Luke woke me up at 5:00 with his tossing and turning and snoring.

I know. I should have gotten up to take advantage of being awake to do yoga. But instead, I went and tried to sleep in Nadia's bed (since she was again in our bed), though as you probably know, falling back asleep for 20 minutes seldom does anyone any good. It actually made me feel worse. The will, however, was simply lacking. My brain said, "get up," and my body said, "I don't think so."

Right now I can feel the pressure beginning to mount again, the pressure of wanting to just sleep dammit, the pressure of having all this studying to do, of needing to move and do yoga, of mama-guilt, of wife-guilt, of needing to see more clients so we don't bounce the rent check, and yet the tools I need to release the pressure are simply not available. Is this part of the initiation, to teach myself how to dig even deeper to find the light and love that are the whole reason for being?

Spring Cleaning, Day 11

I'm having a roller coaster day today, vacillating between being really stressed out and feeling really good. Today's schedule is typically hectic, and just getting the kids where they need to be at the right time -- while still trying to find some study and yoga time -- has been, well, trying. On the other hand, I enjoyed some salmon for lunch, I got in 90 minutes of quality study time (which certainly beats last Saturday's o minutes), and Heather and Emma are coming over for dinner tonight. My energy is fairly high, especially now that I've done yoga today, and I'm officially halfway through with the cleanse.

My friend, G, is doing a 21-day no-complaining challenge. What a feat! I think the Purification Program and the April Yoga Challenge are way easier to accomplish, especially in our culture of contagious misery. But since I'm on this road to make myself stronger -- physicially, emotionally and spiritually -- I might as well throw in one more challenge and see where it leads me.

You're right... I already know where. And it's a good place.