A Mindful Nation

It is Saturday morning and I just returned home after a wonderful few days with friends and family and wondering what gift could I buy for my coming of age nephews who will be coming over tomorrow for Easter Sunday.  On my desk was the book that I just ordered, A Mindful Nation by Congressman Tim Ryan who will be speaking at Mind Body Week DC in a few short weeks.  The forward is by Jon Kabat-Zinn who is a pioneer in mindfulness meditation. Jon talks about a Surgeon General report done in 1979, Healthy People “stating that no amount of money could address the negative consequences bound to emerge from unhealthy ways of living and not dealing effectively with life stresses”. ..At that time, many people with chronic conditions were falling through the cracks of the health-care system.  Today, those cracks have become chasms, and in spite of the health-care systems’ great technological advances, for the average American it falls far short of promoting genuine health and putting the patient at the center of health and healing.”

I witnessed this revolving door syndrome 30 years ago as a Registered Nurse working with chronic illness and cardiac care and with diabetes and cancer patients. It was a primary reason that I chose to move on to work with a 12step program that included nutrition, family and life style changes and a major reason why I choose to be a health coach today.

We spend over $2.8 Trillion a year in healthcare and are ranked #41 worldwide.  Detroit has lost over half its population and yet has 15 hospitals within its city limits.  The biggest and newest buildings on the waterfront are homes to the UAW and Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  Health care is very big business but it has not proven effective in managing and preventing chronic illness; which accounts for 80% of patient visits to physicians. 

To better understand how to effectively prevent, manage and heal chronic illness come to Mind Body Week DC www.mindbodyweek.com . 

Jon Kabat-Zinn in his foreword goes on to say, “Mindfulness can literally change our brains…and enhance our emotional intelligence…”

And. “Who can argue, as he (Tim Ryan) himself emphasizes, with training our children in the how of paying attention so that they can excel at learning, rather than just yelling at them to pay attention, which so often happens in our schools?  Who can argue with encouraging and actually practicing pro-social behaviors, such as kindness and compassion in both children and adults as a way to enrich and deepen our ability to relate effectively with others and improve our own quality of life?   Who can argue with our need to slow down a bit and cultivate greater ease of being, to appreciate how we are in relationship with ourselves, with each other, with nature, and the society we live in, in the face of the ever-accelerating pressures and demands of our digitally driven era?  Who can argue with confronting PTSD and suicide in the military, and taking care of our troops and their families in ways that are up to the tasks and burdens that they shoulder?”

Mindfulness is about being human, alive and doing the right things for the right reasons because our well-being and the health of our nation hang in the balance.

This book is my gift to my nephews and I invite you to come hear Tim Ryan speak in Washington on April 18^th www.mindbodyweek.com or come to my class on Adrenal Fatigue April 21st at Beloved Yoga Studio   http://www.carpediemwellness.org/events-news

Carpe Diem

Lisa

Stress and the light bulb

Do you know how you know when you are really stressed?  You can’t remember anything; you walk in a room and forget why you walked there in the first place?  You cannot seem to focus on even the most mundane jobs and then you beat yourself up for being so stupid?  Does this sound familiar?

This is all too familiar for me.  Stress can sneak up on you too.  I think I am being super productive, working so hard, doing all the right things.  I push myself to do one more task, got to get that “to do” list done before I can rest.  I often say to myself, if only I had more time, (or you might say more money, the right job, car, clothes etc.…) I might then get everything done that I need.  I might then have peace and happiness. But instead I find myself with signs and symptoms of ADHD, (or at my age is it Alzheimer’s?!)  My productivity slows down to a dribble…this is when even the simplest problems and decisions can seem so overwhelming and I cannot see the simplest solution right under my nose.   It is also when the little roadblocks also seem like mountains.

Case in point, I’ve been trying to clean out my office and especially my office desk for an eternity, guests are coming so the Ego says this is eminent.  To add insult to injury, the days are becoming shorter and although I have a sunroom for an office the lighting sucks and when the sun goes down so does my eyesight.  I even splurged and had my husband buy me two new office lamps for me for Christmas which came yesterday to solve “THE Problem” but last night as I tried to assemble them so I could see start cleaning the office out (of course it was close to midnight….) I discover they came broken…..ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!  Father time is clicking and I’ve convinced myself there is not enough time, money etc.….  It is also this week that my old office furniture decides it has had enough of my abuse.  The pretty looking file cabinets decide to collapse under the mountains of paper that I try to stuff into them, the handles come off my desk cabinets (because I’ve stuffed them too full, the bottom falls out of the big center desk…. You get the picture.  I get the message that it is past time to purge.  To let go of the old so I can bring in the new.  I’ve detoxed my body, lost the last 15 pounds to obtain my ideal weight but now need to clean the clutter in my office and my mind.  Like my nutritional coaching, I have to be kind and gentle to myself, listen to the messages that are being delivered to me.  STOP, LOOK and LISTEN.

I need to stop the negative mantras or ANTs in the head.  Deepak Chopra says that if you think there is not enough time, that is the surest, fastest way to high blood pressure, a heart attack and stress related illness and you will indeed succeed at your self imposed self fulfilling prophesy.  So I have to admit it, so it is with money too, or weight loss or finding that dream job or whatever goal it is that you are seeking.  You will only obtain that which you feel worthy of and the only way to self worth is to look at and accept both the light and the dark sides of ourselves clearly and kindly without harsh judgments.   To honestly look at what is holding us back. We must look at our fears and have the courage to move forward in spite of them.  This is why I have my own coach, my own sponsor and my own beautiful support groups.

So my only option last night was to stop and go to bed.  This morning when I woke up I took the time to journal (a beautiful and necessary gift from me to myself).  I wrote my to do list and then returned to my dark office to begin the process of cleaning off the desk.  I then noticed that one of the bulbs in the desk lamp is burned out and the other environmentally better bulb, (that was supposed to last 100’s of years without changing) had gradually slowly over time, lost almost all of its lumens. 

Isn’t this how chronic illness, anxiety and emotional discomfort develop?  Slowly over time, barely noticeable until some message hits us, we wake up and realize we cannot continue doing things the same way?

I went into the kitchen to find a new light bulb (forgetting why I walked in there when I saw the mess I’d made there the night before) finally found a new bulb and replaced it.

VOILA!  What a difference the new light bulb made on illuminating my desk!  I can now begin the process, one step at a time and it really wasn’t all that difficult or expensive to fix. How often do we create and or amplify our problems by not taking time or the steps to care for ourselves first?  How often do we ignore self care until it comes up to bite us (yes Lisa, this means organizational and financial health too) How often do we let our perceived stress control us instead of us controlling our time, money and attitudes?

It’s our successes that enable us to more freely move forward.  Recognize the small successes; celebrate the progress and the journey.  Maybe we can even laugh at our own humanness.  As my daughter Dana says, “Practice not perfection”.  Being mindful of what we want to bring into our lives.  Replace the fear with light and hope, self love and forgiveness.

Today, I am not only going to just clean off the desk, I am going to purge that which I no longer need. 

Can anyone tell me how to dispose of this “environmentally safer” mercury bulb?

Food for thought; I would love your comments.

Carpe Diem & Namaste.

More thoughts on Healing From Within

It was no accident that I titled my blog, “Healing from Within”. Intuitively I knew that all health, all healing has to come from within.  I say intuitively because this is not what I was taught growing up or in nursing school.  Our western thought is that science is king and if we just have the right diagnosis, the right doctor, the right therapist, we can get the answer we are seeking to “fix” our problems.

But what if our problems, our discomfort, our dis-ease isn’t a bad thing?  What if we took a paradigm shift in thinking and looked at these “issues” as gifts?  As a message to us from ourselves, or from God or from a higher power or whatever you can accept for the moment.  What if we looked upon ourselves lovingly like a parent looks at a child learning to walk when they fall down?  That falling down is just a natural part of the journey of life.  Scraped knees teach us balance, how to stand erect and ride a bicycle.

What if we took the negative judgment away, could we be more apt to find a solution?  Might then the journey feel loving and kind instead of fearful and overwhelming?  Might the journey even be joyful?

What if we focused on the first root chakra in Yoga Dance and the mantra, “I have”. What if we truly believed that we had enough?  We had enough time, enough money, enough food, enough shelter.  What if we changed our internal dialogue of “There’s never enough time” or “if I only had more money, more time, more whatever….” What if we felt and acted like we do have all that we need right here and right now, to be happy and satisfied with ourselves, in this moment.  What if we accepted that we are here where we are supposed to be to learn what it is we need to learn in this journey called life?  Could we then give ourselves permission to breathe deeply and fully? Could we then lessen our anxiety and fear? Could we possibly even be more productive?  Might we even laugh at ourselves? 

Could we then accept that we are all perfectly imperfect?  I believe that this is the reason to practice the art of (self) loving kindness and the practice needs to begin within, here and now. 

This is where a coach, a group, a therapist, or a good trustworthy friend can help.  Come begin to practice self care and loving kindness with me at a Let Your Yoga Dance Class Sunday afternoon in Great Falls, Va at Beloved Yoga Studio  http://belovedyoga.com/pages.php?name=Schedule#Fri

Namaste & Carpe Diem,

Lisa

One more on ESSENCE....

I’ve heard that we teach that which we need to learn.  That is certainly true for me with both the Fall Food Demo classes and Let Your Yoga Dance.  Last night, I couldn’t sleep.  I woke up again to pain in my neck and instead of berating myself for not knowing why I can’t “just fix this” with the right yoga stretch and massage, the thought occurred to me, “What is my body trying to tell me?”  Perhaps, I need to practice more of what I preach….

So I came downstairs to meditate on this question, to surrender to my need to “fix it” to let go of the need to control it and to just feel the pain and it occurred to me to practice the ESSENCE meditation that I had written about earlier this summer in my newsletter and then again in a blog (that I had written but just now posted).  I write a lot, but for one reason or another have not posted all of my blogs.  Why? Perhaps it is due to my own censorship, fear of inadequacy, lack of social media skills or the belief that I don't have enough time.  Deepak Chopra says, “If we think we don’t have enough time we won’t”…

So if my body is trying to tell me something, do I believe that my body is punitive or loving?  I choose to believe that my body loves me; and that our God (or higher power) also loves me, like a parent.  What are these loving thoughts then?  Is my pain telling me that I am weak or not good enough? That I'm innately bad? Is it telling me that it is my fault that I am ill?  Is it judgmental?  Is it shameful?

OR is my body merely just trying to get my attention?  Does it have to scream louder because I refuse to slow down… to stop, look and listen?  Or is it because I refuse to take time to meditate; to believe in myself, and the wisdom that lies innately within.  Is this really the essence of healing?

Which thought is more conducive to health?  Which thought would you choose today?  One that you are broken and need to be fixed; or one that is about taking back your health and of self-empowerment?  This is the paradigm shift in thinking that has to happen to heal healthcare.  This is the essence of what we do together in a coaching session.  This type of breakthrough thinking is what leads to self-love and self care.  We learn to choose to silence the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) and to create a new more loving script to live by.

I then Googled “yoga poses for insomnia” and reviewed exactly what it is I need to teach in this afternoon’s yoga class.  The workshop series I am doing at Beloved Yoga Studio offers food and a discussion after each Let Your Yoga Dance Class, and today our topic is staying “Healthy through the Holidays”.

I then slept for 5 ½ hours straight; which is exactly what my body needed!   Namaste & Carpe Diem!