three elements of health

      For years I have pondered what makes us sick and what heals us.  What is the body's healing mechanism?  Could we heal if we simply ate a superior diet?  Would we heal if we got enough exercise and a good night's sleep?  Would we heal if we cleaned up our emotional house all the while eating crappy foods and living a stressful life?

            My conclusion in a nutshell and in order of priority is this:  The physical, and tantamount being sleep, comes first and is the basis for anything else.  Without a good night's sleep (sleep I said, not energy drinks) the body can't even begin to do repair work, be it physical or mental.  Moving your body is secondary to sleep and it is essential to identify with the movement (think gardening, dancing, chopping wood, running around with your children, as opposed to going to a gym as a chore).  Next is diet.  A superior diet (no sugar, low or no grain, lots of greenies and raw stuff, no processed foods, only grassfed or no meat) is crucial for replacing damaged cells with healthy ones and promotes clarity of thinking and natural weight control.  Without a healthful wholesome diet your damaged cells will simply soldier on.  #1 and #2 are the easy ones to change, at least relatively; #3 is the one that requires hard work.  This crowning element of the healing process consists of "checking under the hood," as author and coach Cheryl Richardson calls emotional spring cleaning.  It involves examining and shedding self-sabotaging beliefs, limiting fears, dealing with emotional trauma - clearing your emotional attic. All this emotional muck creates stress and stress kills because it dumps too many stress hormones into your body on a continuous basis, which damages your cells.  This work can be so profound and may need to be so drastic that you actually have to become "someone else," as researcher, chiropractor and author Joe Dispenza put at the recent Hay House conference I attended.   

            Ready?

purely for pleasure

             It's time to put your bird feeders out, birdseed, tallow blocks and all.  But, mind you, it's not for the birds, it's really for you. 

            A few years ago we attended a talk on birds and bird feeders and learned (I didn't know this) that bird feeding, whether in the winter or year round, is really not a charitable act to save the poor birds from starving otherwise.  The birds were around before you and I came along with our bird feeders and survived the winter just fine.  They are not relying on our seeds.   Instead, we learned during the talk, bird feeders are strictly for our own pleasure - me-perspective allowed. 

            We attract the birds for our own enjoyment.  And what's wrong with that?  Nothing.  Life is about experiences.  I love watching the birds fluttering around the feeder, as do our cats from behind the window.  The birds' colors are especially beautiful and bright when there is snow on the ground.  We placed our bird feeder so we can observe it while sitting on our living room sofas.  I've got a whole case of bird seed in the basement for a long winter of bird watching enjoyment.


gratitude as a habit

It's good to give yourself a pep talk every once in a while.  We tend to forget how good we have it when the going is good, and it's easy to hone in on the negative when yin changes to yang.  Why not practice some gratitude on occasion - it may just turn into a habit.  Gratitude is the door to contentment, as they say, and it is a timely thing to practice when spirits are high during the holiday season (just keep it going when January rolls around).

            Listing things you are grateful for is one thing.  A 3-step practice I like even better is one Christiane Northrup proposes in her book Goddesses Never Age:  Brag, be grateful, and let yourself desire something. 

·      Think of an accomplishment you can be proud of

·      Think of something you can be grateful for

·      Think of something to wish for

            A woman in my yoga class this morning smiled when she came in, then explained that she just found a piece of paper in her pocket with five things she was grateful for, and which she wrote down when she did the exercise a while ago.  Why not write your thoughts up and collect them in a jar?   Or distribute them among some coat pockets to find them later and smile?  Or ask the three questions above at the dinner table?  Or when you sit together with some friends?

think from the end

This is powerful!  And it let's you imagine and manifest with a lot more freedom and a lot less constraints.  Instead of racking your brain how on earth you are going to get there -wherever that is - turn the process around. 

Imagine what you want to achieve - that Maserati you absolutely want to drive, those friends in high places you believe you deserve, the pool you always wanted - but don't worry how you're going to get there.  Just kidding about all that material stuff, although that works, too.  You can start small just to test how it works and then make your goals bigger.   I always ask for a parking spot near where I need to go and am almost always lucky.  This morning I woke up with an uncomfortable backache.  My body reminded me that I hadn't been to yoga in a while.   So I went to yoga and casually mentioned my achy back - you do need to ask the universe for what you need, it does not guess your thoughts.  Well, I had the most beneficial yoga practice and it felt as if it were custom tailored just for me.  My back is restored and I am pain free. 

Imagine that new job with the nice boss, the creative team, near your home, with a good salary, or whatever else you want to manifest.  Author Mike Dooley compared the process of thinking from the end to a GPS system.  You put the destination in and then watch how the GPS aka universe finds the fastest way to get you from A to B.  And be careful what you wish for ......

 

savory over sweet

I used to buy several 5lb jars of honey every few months, and get quart containers of maple syrup a few times a year.  I also bought lots of organic evaporated cane juice aka sugar for all the baking we did.  We bought organic fruit juices, raisins and dried sweetened cranberries.

            But organic or not, I fooled myself a bit.  Organic or not, it was still all sugary.  The calories wasted on sugar were being diverted from much more nutritious options like vegetables (lots of those!), nuts and good quality fats.  In addition, sugars (and starches because they break down into sugar quickly) acidify the body and can lead to diabetes, heart problems, various inflammatory afflictions, as well as cancer, especially in combination with starches (white flour and pasta, bread and starchy veggies), too much meat and processed foods.

            My husband naturally lost about 15lbs when we began to cut sugar and starch out of our diet a few months ago, and I am able to close pants whose top button I used to have to leave open.  Our taste buds readjusted quite quickly and I find mildly sweet foods sweet enough and overly sweet foods cloying.  I have taken to making all kinds of different vegetable pastes as snacks to eat on raw veggies like red peppers, carrots, zucchini or celery.  Nuts are a great nutritious snack as well.

            Every body and digestive system has different tolerances and weaknesses.  However, a lot of people report not only natural weight loss but also an energy gain when they cut out sugars and starches. 

growing deep roots

             After Hurricane Sandy a few years ago a neighboring property with a lot of conifers looked like a disaster zone because many of them had toppled over.  All the deciduous trees, however, stood tall and unharmed.  Conifers have shallow roots and are easily uprooted, while deciduous trees grow a deep and extensive root system that anchors them firmly in the ground.

            Being grounded like a tree with deep roots helps to stay emotionally neutral when faced with a difficult or crisis situation.   The leaves may sway in the wind, but the tree won't topple over.  Instead of making a rash ungrounded decision you might regret later, or being confused about what to do, being grounded helps to keep a clear head.

            A regular meditation practice promotes grounding; you might visualize growing roots from under your feet deep into the ground; deep breathing (when we're in crisis mode we tend to forget to breathe deeply and don't get enough oxygen to the brain); walking, especially barefoot, and in nature, and dancing, sports in general, as a matter of fact, are grounding; gardening and working with the soil is literally a grounding activity; and any other activity that fortifies the root chakra, the chakra of basic needs and security.  Red is the color of the root chakra.  It's my favorite color.  Wearing it or surrounding yourself with it strengthens this first chakra.

gotta get out

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         When I stay around my home base too long I notice that my ideas and thoughts become a bit stale, creativity wanes and I tend to think along self established lines.   Whether you do the same comfortable job for a bunch of years, don't get out much, forget to invite people over from time to time, we all tend to get a bit stuck periodically.  So we all need inspiration from outside, fresh blood so-to-speak.  Travelling is a great way to see something completely different if you challenge yourself and travel outside of your comfort zone.  People can be a great inspiration and their ideas can give you a jolt out of whatever thinking modality you may be stuck in, whether in the simple form of socializing or in the more formal form of attending a workshop or conference.  Nature is a wonderful teacher, and animals can be as well - walking the Appalachian Trail or swimming with the dolphins for extremes.

            I make it a point to attend at least one inspirational conference each year so I can bring fresh ideas to my blog and book-in-the-making.  Two falls ago I attended Omega Institute's Sustainability Conference, last fall I went to Local Future's Voice of Hope in a Time of Crisis conference.  I am looking forward to his coming week-end's Hay House I Can Do it! conference.  What are you doing to dust off your mind?

 

 

busybusybusy

It's the American mantra.  "How are you?  I'm busy."  Many people believe that if they do not profess to be busy they are perceived as slackers.  That is cultural pressure.  The Japanese have had to ease up on that pressure in recent years as well after a growing pattern of suicides and heart attacks among middle-aged men who were simply done and couldn't give any more.

            A counter stream is now weaving itself into this workaholic culture of the American dreamer who must work hard to achieve a better lot in life than his or her parents.  Many younger people want more family time, whether in the form of paternity leave, longer maternity leave than the standard skimpy six weeks, half days on Fridays, working four longer days earning them a three-day week-end, more vacation time than the "standard two weeks" (so you forego your family vacation because you had a sick child???), working from home, and a clearly defined work schedule that doesn't stretch into the wee hours or includes responding to work emails and texts 24/7.

            Makes sense, it's a quality of life matter.  You and I are more than our profession (although it's always good to earn a living doing something you enjoy).  Family time, cultural time, friends time, sports and activities time - so many fun things to do besides work.  From all I have been reading, more and more employers on this side of the Atlantic get the message and are slowly beginning to inch a bit closer to the European model.  Acknowledge and voice your needs.