health

I prefer to live in a “drama-free” zone. So does my husband. Even our dog hides when a voice is raised at our house.

Now, that doesn’t mean our life is 24/7 Kumbaya or completely void of passion. It’s just that, after the past two years, I can hardly imagine what could be more dramatic than a persistent pandemic actively seeking to infect us all the goddamn time. One that gleefully throws a curve-ball into, well, every plan, every chance it gets. Self-certified experts at rolling with punches, the two of us are officially all out of shits to give, making it nearly impossible to be, “emotionally surprised by events or circumstance— which is how Miriam Webster defines drama.

Enter 2022.

Last Monday night, as we engaged in some not at all sexy tandem teeth-brushing, my husband informed me that he might have to visit Urgent Care at 3am.

“Why don’t we go now and save ourselves some drama?” I asked, with a mouth full of paste.
“Because right now I’m fine. I want to observe.”

Let me just say, we observed the shit out of his condition——if observing is snoring with your eyes closed for seven hours.

The next morning, everything appeared under control. I even got my new dryer delivered six weeks late, a day early.
All was right with the world.

“Why don’t you pay urgent care a preemptive visit today?” I suggested, while loading perfectly clean clothes into the washer so I could give my new dryer a test spin.

“Good idea!” he replied.
So he did.
That’s when things went sideways.

“Urgent Care can’t fix the problem so they’re sending me to my doctor,” he said, from his car speaker-phone.
“Mmmmmkay,” I shouted over the loud kerplunk of jeans in the dryer, “lemme know how it goes.”

“I’m getting worried.” I texted two hours later. A short time after that, he called me. “I need emergency surgery,” he said. He sounded like shit.
“I’m coming!”
“You can’t. No outside visitors allowed. Covid.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.”

The surgery went well. I know that because the doctor told me so. My husband, on the other hand, texted me from recovery which was…well, if you ask me, I think they give them their phones too soon, you know, because they can’t have visitors and let’s just say—— I don’t recommend it.

Alone in bed that night, I petitioned god for a referendum on any further drama. We’d had an agreement and she’d broken it. “That’s it!” I declared. “You get one thing. And you blew it all in January so, that’s it for 2022. No more drama.”

Did you know you get to do that?

I learned this trick from my shaman after the California earthquake of 1994.

Terrified of aftershocks, I’d feel every damn one while he felt NONE OF THEM.
NADA.
Zip.
Zero.
It was beyond infuriating!
“I didn’t feel a thing,” he remarked after one particularly strong tremor that sent me diving under the dining room table. Apparently, the kitchen, a mere ten feet away, was not prone to aftershocks. “Remove yourself from the drama,” he advised, “you lived the initial trauma, you don’t have to keep re-living it. Ask to sleep through them.”

So I asked. And from that day forward, I was impervious to aftershocks. I slept, or drove, or simply ladeedah’d my way through them. Seriously.

At 9:30 Friday night, there was a fire across the street. Another one! Except this one was inside the house and it was enormous. Five fire trucks. The home fully engulfed, with flames shooting ten feet in the air. Thick, black smoke. I saw the pictures and I’d have to say it was the highest drama possible without anyone being hurt.

And we had no idea. None.

Our neighbors knocked for us, but when we didn’t answer, they assumed we were out of town.

Stranger yet, you know who hears and smells all of that? All the sirens, smoke, raised voices, and door knocking——Our dog.
Did she hear a thing that night? Nope.

The three of us were blissfully ignorant inside a drama-free bubble in the back of our house. Indulging in comfort food, watching The Prisoner of Azkaban. Spells are magic. Agreements are nonbreakable. God is a mensch.

Abracadabra, y’all,
xox J

“I have been so mean to my body, outright hateful. I disparage her and call her names. I loathe parts of her and withhold care. I insist on physical standards she can never reach, for that is not how she is made, but I detest her weakness for not pulling it off. No matter what she accomplishes, I’m never happy with her.”

~Jen Hatmaker Fierce, Free and Full of Love

In the ‘before time’, right before Covid hit, I was listening to Jen Hatmaker’s book while on my morning walks with Ruby, our six-year-old boxer who, ironically enough, has the body confidence of a super-model. Most of the book had me laughing. Other parts had me shaking my fist at Audible and the fact that I couldn’t dogear a particular page or highlight every other paragraph with yellow marker. 

Like the one above. 

This one stopped me in my tracks. It had me fumbling to hit rewind while juggling a bag full of poop at the same time eliciting deep unexpected sobs of recognition—in public. 

If you’d asked me about body image a week earlier I’d have told you mine was pretty good. And then I heard Jen struggle with her own emotions while reading her very vulnerable admissions without choking on her own snot. Seriously. She did a far better job at keeping the full-blown ugly crying at bay than I did. 

I too had been hateful. 

I’d set unattainable standards.

I’d done all of the shitty stuff you can do to a body and as I’ve aged, I may be guilty of cranking up the volume on the insults. 

Crepy skin, burgeoning neck waddle, old lady pillow tummy, ugh, HOW IS THIS MY BODY?  

The five stages of grief were quickly setting in.

Denial— (Catches own reflection in storefront window) That’s not me, it can’t be. That’s my mother! 

Anger— (Age spots appear as if by magic) Seriously? You’ve GOT to be kidding me!

Bargaining— If I drink the celery juice can I eat nothing but carbs on the weekends?

Depression— I feel bad about my boobs which are now a pair of 38 longs.

But I hadn’t quite gotten to the acceptance stage. Until I heard the words she wrote. THAT changed everything for me.

I apologized to my body. Profusely. Every morning and every night. 

I saw her for what she was, my ally, not my enemy. 

I looked at all the evidence and discovered she has ONLY ever had my best interests at heart. 

So, I started to lavish her with praise and compliments and love. After a while, it became a habit.

Then the pandemic hit and being over sixty I was considered to be at higher risk of complications so I upped my little ritual to include extreme gratitude for my continued good health. 

Every morning when I woke up, I’d thank her for her stamina on the hikes, her cheerful disposition in the face of looming uncertainty, and her strong immune system. And as the Covid numbers in Los Angles rose, I assured her that even if she caught it, I wouldn’t hold it against her, on the contrary, we would fight it together and she would be fine. 

It reminded me of experiments researchers have done with water and plants, the ones where they verbally abuse them or shower them with praise —and then study the results—which are astounding.

https://yayyayskitchen.com/2017/02/02/30-days-of-love-hate-and-indifference-rice-and-water-experiment-1/

The ones that are praised, thrive, while the ones that are subjected to hateful speech/emotions, literally wither and die.

Which brings me to yesterday and my fall down the stairs. 

Well, I didn’t so much fall, as get pulled by Ruby down the flight of concrete steps that lead to her daily free-range walk. To be fair, she’d spotted a discarded half-eaten cheese sandwich at the bottom, and who among us hasn’t lost their mind and sprinted toward cheese? Nevertheless, it happened too fast to even let go of the leash so I was knocked on my ass and pulled down the entire flight of stairs on my back until I managed to get her to stop—by yelling STOP at the top of my lungs. I know it was loud because it echoed back up the stairs and out onto the street before waking the dead. 

Lying there in a heap, I assessed the damage. Ankle twisted, elbows, ass and back bruised and battered, but eventually, I was able to get up and walk —which I took as a good sign. Reflexively, I thanked my body for not breaking a hip or anything else for that matter and went on with my day. But as the hours passed, a deep soreness set in. At about seven in the evening I felt as if I’d been hit by a caravan of trucks carrying elephants. “Wait until tomorrow,” my husband warned, handing me the Motrin. “The next day is the worst.” Later, in bed, I tried not to move a muscle, lest I scream and wake the dog. 

“You’ve got this,” I told her, lying there together in the dark.  “Nothing is broken, which in itself is a miracle because YOU ARE A BEAST! You’re sixty-fucking-two and you fell down a flight of concrete stairs and barely missed a beat! You ROCK!” I tried to shift position and moaned. Everything hurt. Even my hair.

“I will take care of you,” I reassured her. “If you need bed rest, I will make sure you get it. If you need CBD rub or Motrin at regular intervals, you can count on me. We are in this together because I love you—now go to sleep!”

“How do you feel?” my husband asked me this morning as I wandered out for coffee and a hug. His face was a twisted grimace, bracing for the worst. “Actually, I’m fine,” I said, twisting and turning to prove my point. 

And I am. Fine. No aches, no pains, no bruises of any kind to speak of. I give all of the credit to my body and our recently renewed love affair. 

Not a big story, not life or death, but proof to me just the same that Love really does work miracles y’all. 

Carry on,
xox

“Pain is real, and sometimes it can’t be avoided, but suffering is a choice.”

I don’t think I have to explain why I’m writing this. Unless someone, a thousand years from now digs this up and wonders. So I’ll just let a single word be the explanation: Pandemic.

Scary, huh? I mean, seriously, 2020—can we have a do-over?

Anyway, until they figure out how to do that, here’s an hour-long chant/meditation that I adore that you can fall asleep to or have playing softly in the background while you build that puzzle or cuddle your cat.

Because that’s what we’re all gonna do now. We’re going to hit pause, be smart, chill, and get to the end of this, this, shit show—together. 

You can fight the restrictions, steep in worry, and run around town like a headless chicken looking for that last bottle of hand-sanitizer, OR, you can take this time to reintroduce yourself to your family, read a book, binge on every episode of EVERYTHING you’ve missed, and check on your neighbors. I’ve been exchanging contact info with mine (from six feet away of course) just in case the shit hits the fan and we’re forced to isolate. Isolation can be lonely and scary and I always have extra butter in case anyone runs out. And AAA batteries and so many boxes that I’m embarrassed to say how many, of Kraft Mac n cheese, you know, real zombie apocalypse type stuff.

Humor. Humor will get us through this. I’ve already tried screaming and it doesn’t work.

Stay healthy & carry on,
xox

Hello Tribe,
I don’t know if you saw this the other day but when I read it I knew I had to share. It’s by Maria Shriver, one of those women who strike me as having it alllllll together. i’s dotted. t’s crossed. All of her ducks nicely in a row.

And while I’m pretty sure that is true most of the time, I was surprised to read what similar paths our thoughts were taking these days. Me and Maria.
Maria and me.
Two peas in a pod.
Bff’s forever.

Anyway…check it out and see if you’re feelin’ it too.

I bet you are.
Carry on,
xox

Maria’s Sunday Paper: The Power of Re-evaluating Your Beliefs ~ by MARIA SHRIVER | Oct 29, 2017 |

I’ve Been Thinking, The Sunday Paper.

The news of the week, as it always does, got me thinking. It got me thinking about politics.
Thinking about addiction.
Thinking about success.
Thinking about how to live one’s life.

Every new year, I usually do some kind of inventory of my own life.
But I can’t wait until then. I just can’t. (Plus, my birthday is around the corner, so now is as good a time as any.)
And the truth is, it’s not just the news that has got me re-evaluating. My body has also been speaking to me to pay attention.

My heart has been calling me out. My mind is telling me not to get caught up in the noise, but to instead step back and think about the effect that the noise has on my life, and on all of our lives. Plus, it’s all been giving me a complex migraine, complete with vertigo and vestibular damage (don’t ask).

As you can you see, it’s not just one thing that brought me to this moment again.
It’s been a series of whispers and then a few 2x4s.
If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s to pay attention to the whispers and the 2x4s because they usually precede a knockout. (Speaking of knockouts, the voices of the Architects of Change featured in today’s Sunday Paper just blow me away. I love being in community with them and so many others that we have featured. They help me rise above the noise and inspire me to have hope and move forward.)

What also gives me hope is knowing that at any point in my life, I can change things that aren’t working.
So here are a few things that the week’s headlines made me think about. I share them with you in hopes that they may give you something to think about in your own life as you move forward.

Success
I’ve made big misjudgments here. I used to think that if I were the anchor of a network news show that I would feel successful. Same with publishing a best-selling book. I was wrong. Success, I’ve learned, is an inside job. I didn’t grow up with that message, but I now know it to be true. The people who I now think are the most successful are the ones who have beautiful, loving families. The ones who love and are loved. They are the ones who toil quietly and patiently on the frontlines of life, serving those who they love without seeking attention or notoriety in return. They are the ones who recognize that a modest life is just as meaningful as one lived in the spotlight. (Boy, was I reminded of that this week when Albert Einstein’s notes on living a modest life sold for $1.6M. Check it out in the section below my essay.)

Politics
I used to think the Democratic Party had all of the answers. I was wrong. Both parties contribute to divisiveness, as we see each and every day in the news. Both parties have brought us to this mean-spirited, divided place. I left the Democratic Party a few years ago to register as an Independent. There lies my hope.

Work
I used to be so judgmental about people who weren’t working like maniacs. I was wrong. Working like a maniac makes you sick and it’s an addiction. Put work in its proper place. Find balance. Your happiness depends on all parts of your life working together.

Rest (Mental and Physical)
In my home growing up, rest was a big no-no. My parents never rested, so neither did my brothers or I. Today, I know better. Rest is critical to your mental and physical well-being, so make time for it. No one else is going to give it to you.

Health
I used to think that I could eat whatever I wanted, for however long I wanted. I was wrong. Bad choices catch up to you. Before you know it, you could be that one that cancer decides to knockout. You could be the person that Alzheimer’s decides to take hold of. Make your health (especially your brain health) a priority. And, while you are at it, get to the bottom of your relationship with food. Cookies are not a substitute for real love. They don’t love you back.
Trust me. Candy, cake and Swedish fish don’t either.

Fear
I used to view myself as fearless because I skied black diamond runs and jumped off cliffs. I spoke up and spoke out. But then I came face to face with how much fear I actually had deep down. Today, I work hard at pushing through the things that scare me emotionally, like sharing this list with you. Sometimes, I feel like I’m alone when I’m vulnerable or admitting that I’m scared. But, I now know that I’m not. (Speaking of fear, as I watched Sen. Jeff Flake give his speech this week on the Senate floor, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was feeling fear or afraid as he stood there so boldly making his public statement.)

Solitude
Speaking of fear, very few things scare me more than being in solitude. In order to not be alone, I often pack my life and my house full of people (I mean, lots of people). Because the truth is, I’m happiest when my house is filled with the people. But, I know that I’ve also done this because I’ve been afraid to be alone, look like I was alone, or feel like I was along. I’ve noticed, though, that the universe has a way of doing for you what you can’t or won’t do for yourself. Today, I spend quite a bit of time alone. (My son and niece who have been living with me for the last year are now both moving out.) I’m not saying I love being alone, but I’ve realized that I’ve learned most of the truths that I’m sharing today because I’ve spent time alone. I’ve spent time in silence. At the end, my takeaway is that we should try and spend more time in solitude so that we’re comfortable with it when we have to be.

Loyalty
I grew up in a family where loyalty was king. I heard about it all the time.
Loyalty to family.
Loyalty to friends.
Loyalty to a particular faith, political party, or person.
But, what I never heard about was loyalty to one’s self. It didn’t dawn on me that one could crush the other. Today, loyalty to myself is more important than my loyalty to anyone or anything else. I’ve learned it’s not selfish to put yourself at the center of your own life. I’ve learned that you must honor that person looking back at you in the mirror because the cost of not doing so is high.

Celebrating Life
Life is short. I grew up knowing this to be true, but now it seems like I’m reminded of it all the time. Healthy friends call and tell me they have stage 4 cancer. Someone else whispers to me that they have early-onset Alzheimer’s. Another person tells me about a crippling depression that makes life unlivable. And then, of course, there is the news. We don’t celebrate life enough. We don’t tell our loved ones what they mean to us enough. I’m not writing this because of my age (and because my birthday is on the horizon). I’m writing this because of my first-hand experiences.

Honor your life. Celebrate your life. Enjoy your life. Do it now.

Re-evaluating—whether it’s on your birthday, New Year’s, or any other day—can be painful. But, it can also be incredibly liberating.

Every time I take inventory, I discover things I’m wrong about. But, I also discover that I’ve been right about more than I realize. I’ve been right about certain friends. Right about the importance of family. Right about my faith in a God larger than me or any one building. And, I’ve been right that there was something in me—as there is in you—that’s always worth fighting for.

That’s something none of us should ever have to re-evaluate.

P.S. I’ll be sharing more thoughts like the above in my upcoming book that’s inspired by these essays. “I’ve Been Thinking: Reflections, Prayers and Meditations” comes out February 27, 2018, and is available for pre-order now. I can’t wait for you to see it!

“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up until the day he killed himself.”
~ Johnny Carson

I had a startling realization about myself recently, I am to the diet/health connection what the deniers are to climate change/global warming. I know that all of the studies are true—it’s just so fucking inconvenient!

Case in point.

I love to eat. Food makes me happy. Almost happier than good sex with bad boys.
Most of the time I try to eat healthily but I’m far from fanatical about it. Unless you count donuts. Donuts are my Kryptonite and they are banned from entering my house lest I devour an entire dozen, naked and dripping in raspberry jelly in the space of an hour. And here’s the thing, my body doesn’t react in a negative way at all, at least not in an overtly obvious way. I’m sure the blood sugar spike is off the charts, I just can’t see it so it doesn’t exist. The only thing I CAN see is the shame on my face in the bathroom mirror so that is deterrent enough for me.

Denial. That has been my default setting up until now.

Last week my husband and I did a cleanse. Not one of those highfalutin celebrity cleanses that promise you clear skin, shiny hair and an ass you can bounce a quarter off of. Nope, my husband absconded with some literature (basically, the how to’s—whys — and what for’s) of a client’s wildly expensive, doctor supervised cleanse.

Never ones to take things at face value and because we happen to be as cheap as the day is long, we decided to follow the basic tenet of the program—but morphed it to our liking.

Instead of their spendy protein shakes twice a day (at breakfast and dinner), we drank what we had on hand, our old faithful, Shakology.
We also included coffee.
And pumpkin pie.

Just kidding, No pie.

The rest of the day you are required to juice and I know how lazy I can be, especially when I’m in full victim mode, like during a cleanse, so I went to the grocery store (ours has a juice station in the produce dept.) and bought some juices to go so I’d have no excuse.

The cleanse advocates a healthy lunch of fish or a lean meat and filling up on tons of fresh veggies and fruit. My husband was great about that especially since the dinner of a protein shake loomed large for him.

Me, not so much. Once I get in full deprivation mode I tend to run with it in a religious pilgrim kind of way. I swing to an unhealthy extreme. If I was into pain I’d self-flagellate.

I know, what can I say, I need help.

All week for lunch I switched between albacore tuna out of a can, a baked sweet potato, or raw apples and celery. Instead of juicing them I ate them raw so I had something crunchy to gnaw on in lieu of my own foot.

We were both diligent. Our stick-to-itiveness impressed even me and I have impossibly high standards.
He was dropping weight at a slow and steady rate. I don’t weigh myself (long, violent story. A lot of scales were killed along the way so I won’t tramatize you with the details). Suffice it to say my skinny jeans moved out of the torture device category and back into fashion where they belong.

Then this happened. Nothing. At least not what I expected.

I didn’t get tired. I was filled with energy.
I slept great. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (I finally know what the means).
I wasn’t angry about anything. My moods stabilized, giving me a perpetual skip-in-my-step giddiness.
I barely pooped and when I did it smelled like violets (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration).

I figure it even changed our character a little. We didn’t cheat. Not even little. And we kept on going through the weekend which is unheard of for us. It’s just a thing we’ve silently agreed to. We use the weekends, which of course start Friday night and last through Sunday, as neutral territory. Nothing sticks. No fight, no diet, and no freaking cleanse. Duh.

Except for some reason, this one lasted until a baby shower we were both required to attend on Saturday late afternoon.
I was reluctant to eat. I felt tentative around the crudites. Skittish. I eyed the cheese with suspicion.

He piled his plate with fresh bread and a perfectly ripe camembert but passed on the red wine.

Did you hear me? He passed on the red wine!

Who were we?

We were the freshly cleansed. That’s who.

After the smell of the dark, freshly baked bread took up residence inside my nose, hanging drapes and laying carpet, I caved too.

Cut to a couple of hours later with me in the car, prone, my pants unbuttoned, moaning.
I felt like shit. Worse that shit.
I felt like the foul smelling shit on the bottom of shit’s shoe.

When we got home I went straight to bed without my shake. So did he. It was 7:30.

Never in my long and illustrious life as a foodie have I noticed the connection between food and how it affected the way I felt more than I did that day. It made me a believer. A convert. And now a zealot.

I’m currently on a writing vacation with my tribe, happily eating my way through Nashville but I have to confess– I can’t wait to get back to my cleanse and the way it made me feel.

Has this ever happened to you? I need to know.

Carry on,
xox

This was written waaaaay back in the fifteen minutes when I was eating healthy. But the questions are more useful than ever!
Carry on,
xox

The house is still. It’s the middle of the night, so that’s appropriate.

The only sound I can hear is the whrrrrr of the refrigerator motor, which spends its nights keeping my kale and green drink ingredients fresh.
Damn you stainless steel box of cold air (yelled dramatically while waving a fist).

Rant Alert:
Why can’t my protein, vegetable laden juices taste like a chocolate malt?
Is that too much to ask?
I’m submitting a formal complaint right here and now. This healthy shit has GOT to start tasting better…or else…

Anyway…
My refrigerator has undergone a recent renaissance.
It seems to follow my life’s trajectory. It’s all cleanses, and bitter greens and shit.
I’m home most days writing, so I give myself very few choices so I won’t cheat on fat infused deliciousness. As a matter of fact, there is nothing delicious within a three-mile radius. I’d have to get in my car and drive to get it, and my laziness overrules any craving for carbs, so I think technically, I’m not an addict, which gives me some solace.

What I am is a clear channel…with a bad attitude…in dire need of a cheeseburger.

Back in the day, for about two decades, the freezer in my apartment contained two things: vodka and cigarettes (if you’re just the casual smoker, keeping cigs in the freezer keeps them fresh) not even an ice cube dared show its face. Later ground coffee replaced the cigarettes.

Quick story about how THAT happened.

Back in ’93 when I had my first “energy work” done, a friend came by the apartment to get the skinny. Remember, I had been violently ill for three days.
She was a regular, so she knew about the cigscicles and since she could tell my story was going be juicy, and warrant a smoke, she walked over to the kitchen, which was just to the left of where I was sitting, on the couch, and opened the freezer. Suddenly, she stepped back like she saw a ghost – and slammed the thing shut.
I watched it all happen, puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her with my head tilted sideways like a dog hearing a high pitched whistle.

My friend still standing in front of the closed freezer door says, “A voice just told me: DONT SMOKE AROUND HER!”
“What?”
“I’d better go.”

Man, the disembodied voices in my apartment in those days were bossy! (PS. Nothing’s changed.)

“Sit your ass down, I’ve got a story to tell.” I barked from the other room.
And THAT was the end of my casual smoking. I tried one occasionally in the years that followed but they made me feel awful, and when something stops being fun, I quit doing it.

Think Jane Fonda Workouts and hot yoga.

So, back to the middle of the night as I tossed and turned and awfulized; mulling over this decision or that.
I finally made the first decision and that was to switch my brain from FU mode to productive mode, remembering all the recent things I’ve heard and read on making life altering choices and decisions.

So, to save you the obsessing, the time, and trouble, here is a list of the things you should ask yourself:

1) Will I regret not making this change? (Regrets are like walking around with a wet coat on. They are killjoys.)

2) Why exactly am I hesitant/ indecisive? Make a list. (The list that you make in light of day will always be shorter than the phone book sized one you make at three AM…just sayin’).

3) What doors will close if I make this change? Do I care? (That one makes my butt cheeks clench)

4) Which choice will make the better story? (Kinda like the movie viewing analogy from Saturday’s post.)

5) How does the choice or change FEEL? (That really should be number one. Check your kishke.)

6) What’s the worst thing that can happen? (Rewind your three AM worries, they’re ALL there).

7) What’s the BEST thing that can happen? (Tiny little list, usually written on a Post-It with a question mark at the end. )

8) What would I tell my best friend to do? (Sans all jealousy, competitiveness, and ego).

9) What’s the “next right thing” to do to stay free of ego? (In other words, check your motivation. Is it pure? Not really? THERE’S your answer.)

10) What choice or change would make me the proudest in five years? (That’s often the clincher for me. Can’t say I’m too proud of myself when I play it safe.)

There you have it. I hope this helps. Clarity is key to making the best choices. That and chocolate.

Love you all,
Xox

*Perhaps the best thing I’ve read about the connection between the mind and the body. EVER.
Hands down!
I know Liz did the wise thing and cautioned everyone regarding this method—but I say DO IT!
DO TRY THIS AT HOME!
What have you got to lose?

I advise the people who ask me, to talk to their body. Make friends,with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s weight, a “bad” knee or cancer. Your body is NOT your enemy you guys, it’s your ally and it wants to partner with you to achieve balance and health so you can both lead the best life ever!
Carry on to health,
xox

“PERHAPS I AM STRONGER THAN I THINK” — Thomas Merton

Dear Friends-
I’ve spent the last eleven days hiking in the Italian Alps.

And that is a sentence that — 15 years ago — I would never have imagined myself ever writing.

I used to have a bad knee. It started during my divorce, when every part of me was falling apart — head to toe, inside and out. But my left knee was the worst of it. I twisted it one day, and it was never the same again. I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs without pain. At the time I went to see a doctor about it, who said simply, “Well, that’s why they call it getting older, and not getting younger.” (Thanks, doc.)

For years, I babied my knee. I identified myself as someone whose knees were “bad”, the way certain dogs and neighborhoods are called “bad”. If I took a yoga class, and the teacher asked if anyone had any physical limitations, I dutifully raised my hand and explained that I had a bad knee. I was given special movements, and told to be extra careful. Every new doctor was told about my bad knee. My friends knew about my bad knee. I iced it and heated it and put braces on it and took tons of ibuprofen and kept my range of motion limited because of it. I visited all kinds of professionals — traditional and alternative, alike.
But my knee never stopped hurting.
Until 5 years ago.

Now listen — before I go on here, please don’t do anything stupid to your body because of what I’m about to say, OK? I’m not a medical professional, and you must be a wise steward of your own lovely physical being.

But here is what happened to me.

One day — and it did happen suddenly, one day — about five years ago, I asked my knee what it wanted from me.
I literally spoke to it. I got very quiet, and very sleepy, and I said, “Tell me what you need from me, dear knee. I’m listening. I’ll do whatever you say. Surgery? A replacement? More gentle care? More acupuncture? A change of diet? Reiki? Just give me the word.”

Then I got very quiet, and my knee told me what it wanted. I heard the answer in the depths of my mind, as clear as day. It said, “GO FASTER.”

Go faster, said my knee. Go running. Go climbing. Go dancing. Use me. Jump up and down on me. I am a KNEE. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I am wondrously designed, said my knee. I am not a weak point, but a strong one. I am part of your body, and I want to be used. I am not a symbol of your divorce. I am not a sign of aging. I am not a problem. Don’t baby me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being treated like a Victorian invalid lady who has to take to her bed because of her fainting spells. I am not weak. Stop this. Please, please, please — said my “bad” knee to me — please stop using me as an expression of your weakness, fear, and emotional fragility. Please talk to your therapist about whatever troubles are ongoing in your mind, but don’t blame for everything. Please just trust me. Please just use me as I was designed. Use me as a freaking KNEE.

The next day — hand to God — I went running for three miles and I was fine. I’ve been fine ever since.
Again — PLEASE don’t go and do anything physically stupid to yourselves because of this story. I can barely explain it myself — how suddenly my “bad” knee was no longer bad. I have never been able to speak to a body part so clearly again, and I know it seems crazy that it happened at all.
But it happened.

There was pain (remember — that was my “divorce knee”) and then I was finally ready to put the pain away, and to stop using my knee as a pain-memorial.

All I know is this — that pain is a complicated and multi-layered force. Nobody experiences pain the same way, which is why it’s so difficult to treat. Some of our pain abides in the body, and some of it abides in the mind, and some of it abides in our histories. As pain moves through us, it passes through what scientists call “amplification centers” in our beings. Our emotions are amplification centers. our fear is an amplification center. Our imaginations are amplification centers. Our anger, too. All of these parts of ourselves amplify the pain in our mind, and sometimes commit to that pain fully — forever.

I had a friend once who injured her back during a hard time in her life, and it didn’t recover for years. One day, a doctor finally asked her, “What was the first thing you thought, when you felt your back go out?”
My friend said, “I thought, ‘This is going to hurt me for the rest of my life”.
The doctor, very kindly, said, “Maybe it’s time for you to stop thinking that.”
Her healing began there.

I believe that I did hurt my knee 15 years ago — but mildly, temporarily, and not in a way that it needed to cause me pain for a decade. I believe that my “bad” knee lived on inside my mind, not in my knee itself. When pain abides in the mind, it does not mean you are crazy, or that the pain is any less “real”. Trust me, my knee HURT. It just means that pain is living on within your body because — for some reason — it must. Because you are not done suffering. Because I was in heart-pain for ten years, and that pain needed a location. My poor knee took the pain for me. Until it didn’t want to any more.
Anyhow — what if you are stronger than you think?

I am all for people treating themselves with gentle loving care (and maybe part of my recovery from emotional pain was all about focusing on treating my knee like a poor, suffering baby — so that I could take care of myself with kindness at some level. Maybe that helped me to heal my heart.) But what if there are parts of your body that don’t want to be babied forever?

What if every single part of us longs to be USED?

What if our bodies long to be freed from the past, so that they can move as they were designed to move?

What if our hearts long to love?

What if our minds long to be creative?

What if our spirits just want everything to be forgiven?

What if your knee wants you to climb a mountain, to show you how powerful you actually are?

Wouldn’t that be crazy?

Wouldn’t that be freaking wild?

Wouldn’t that fill you with so much joy, you feel that your heart may burst from it?

ONWARD,
LG

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com

So…
I found this handy-dandy chart online and then I immediately lost the next two hours looking at the different energy centers—and self diagnosing.

Oh… anger is stored there…interesting…that explains SO much.

That old pit in the stomach. Fear. I knew that.

Shoulder and neck pain? Yeah, me too, like every day of my life. Carrying the weight of the world?
Hey! Me too! Wait a minute, If I’m carrying the world’s weight—and you are too—why does mine feel so freaking heavy?

I remember certain Yoga classes where a pose or a stretch would send me into an emotional tailspin, unleashing the Kraken and freeing up all the pent-up junk that had taken up residence inside my hips, torso and thighs. I would always feel a hundred percent better after class, a good cry, and an Epsom salt bath.

Yoga is great if you’re looking to release stored emotions. So is exercise. And dance. Anything that moves the body.

Rolfing is good too. Rolfing is a very deep tissue massage, you know, the kind that hurts so good. I don’t ever think I’ve left a Rolfing session without crying—partly from the pain, and partly due to the deep emotional release it triggers.

And that’s the thing you guys. You WANT to release those stored emotions, otherwise there’s a very good chance they’ll make you sick.

So get out there! Dance! Do some yoga! Walk in nature! Release! Release! Release!

Okay, I’m off to get a shoulder massage. I need to set the weight of the world down, just for a little while.

Carry on,
xox

I have a friend who’s a bit of a germaphobe.
Before and after every meal I’ve ever shared with her she has to run to the restroom. “Washies” she says doing that shoulda putda ring on it gesture with both hands, you know, the one from the Beyoncé video.

Inside ladies rooms, even the swanky ones, she won’t touch the doorknobs, sink or faucet handles.
She has an elbow that is so dexterous it could tie rope into a Mariners knot. The automatic electric eye and the hot air hand dryer (which I can’t stand by the way, give me a fucking paper towel goddamnit) are her friends.

I once heard her freak out because there weren’t any toilet seat covers. She actually screamed.
When she begged me for one, her fingers grabbing frantically under the shared wall of our stalls, and I informed her that mine was empty as well and that there was full, unprotected ass-to-toilet-seat action happening right in the stall next to her, our freindship tooks months to recover.  Meanwhile, from what I heard, she went through an entire roll of toilet paper to protect her lady parts from those nasty germs.
But guess what?

I could see her handbag on the floor between us. Her black Marc Jacobs messenger bag just sittin’ there, soaking up the Ebola, and enjoying the view from the floor of a public restroom.

I wasn’t going to mention it, you know, I wanted to have a reasonably sane lunch—until she put her bag on the table. That’s a deal breaker for me, go figure.

A different friend shares a similar affliction. She won’t eat or drink anything that she’s not certain is…safe. Because the story she tells herself is that all food is out to kill her.
Restaurant dining with her is a lark. Such a relaxing and pleasant experience (that right there, is sarcasm).
The menu is frantically read and re-read like it’s the assembly directions for a FLAAGENHOOPER from Ikea. Even the small print. Especially the small print. “That’s where they hide the fact that they use MSG or GMO’s” she whispers conspiratorially across the table.

Like I care.
I eat any gluten-laden, GMO ridden, piece of warm bread you put in front of me. Real butter? Even better.
Oppps. Fell on the floor? Butter side down? That’s okay—five second rule.

One day at lunch, said friend was relaying the story of another friend’s upcoming nuptials. “Oh, that reminds me. I had better get this card in the mail TODAY” she announced, pulling a pale pink envelope out of her purse and dropping it onto the table.
Suddenly her hand dove back in. Soon it was both hands rifling around inside her bag, pushing stuff all the way to one side, then the other. Exasperated, but with absolutely no break in the conversation she removed its entire contents, piling it up beside her plate.

“Hmmmm…that’s funny” she mused, searching the bottom like a deep-sea treasure hunter.
“Ah, there you are!” she said, triumphantly producing a stamp.
One single postage stamp. It was obviously the lone survivor of a role used up long ago.

Covered with purse lint and flecks of tobacco, hair, the sweat of a troll, and who knows what else—she stuck out her tongue and licked it—placing it squarely on the upper right hand corner of the card. “There” she said, pressing it down firmly, pleased with her salvage mission.

I know my face must have registered my horror, so I hastily picked up my napkin and pretended to wipe my mouth, smearing lipstick all over my chin.

Although I probably could have eaten the stamp—I don’t think I could have licked it. Ewwww.

I have some other friends, a couple whom I adore, that eat super healthy, work out like beasts six days a week, drink alkaline water, fly separately so their kids will always have one living parent — and smoke.
Cigarettes.
I know.
What gives?

Fear of germs. Fear of disease. Fear of dying. Fear of life.
It’s all relative. Subjective. Open to interpretation. One man’s perfectly good butter-side-down bread, is another man’s germ infested trash. (FIVE SECONDS!)

It’s tragic. And hilarious. And we all do it.

Pay attention to your fears. What are you doing that is in direct opposition to what you say you’re afraid of?

Carry on,
xox

PS: I’m afraid of her bra…

One night a couple of weeks ago, my husband went into the lab for a sleep study.

It wasn’t all about the snoring so much as the ceasing to breathe (apnea). He gasps for breath like a fish out of water, and when the loud gasping wakes me up — well that shit has got to stop,

I can’t afford to sacrifice one moment of my beauty rest.

Seriously, apnea can cause a whole myriad of health issues — including death — which we all have to agree is the ultimate side effect—so he packed up his pillow and jammies and spent the night at the lab.

“You are one of the worst cases this lab has ever studied,” his doctor exclaimed, barely hiding her surprise as she read the report. “You wake up on average, thirty-seven times an hour! In other words, you get absolutely NO rest!”

She promptly wrote a prescription for one of those sexy CPAP machines, assuring him that it will “change his life.”

I know she’s right — I see a change in his sex life coming real soon.

That night when he got home he couldn’t stop yawning.
“I’m sooooo tired. You know; I get absolutely NO rest” he said, shooting me a zombie-eyed look as he stifled another yawn.

Two hours later, after yawning and complaining his way through dinner, I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Damn, you sure are suggestible,” I teased. “You felt fine until she told you weren’t getting any sleep, now look at you.”

He grinned sheepishly, “I know, right?”

I may know a thing or two about suggestibility.

I am NOT allowed to read the side effects that come with a prescription drug because I cannot be trusted from that moment on to feel anything legitimate.

If it says may cause constipation –– I won’t poop for a week.

May cause drowsiness –– I lapse into a coma.

If it lists depression or psychotic episodes –– I start hearing voices.

The same goes for Web MD.
It is my belief that no one without a medical degree should be allowed to log onto that site!

A few years back, that very same husband met me one morning in the kitchen doubled over, holding his side and wincing in pain. Seems he was up all night self-diagnosing his affliction with the help of the internet, and by morning they’d both agreed –– he had all the symptoms of appendicitis.

Ever the perfect, caring and sensitive wife –– I called bullshit.

“Oh sure you do. Come on, it’s just gas. Buck up and take an Alka Seltzer and quit being such a baby.”

In this case, I was wrong. He had to have an emergency appendectomy later on that night.

But my argument still stands!

Don’t read that shit, especially late at night or your headache will morph into a brain tumor in a matter of hours.

Trust me on this.

She felt amazing…until they told her she was sick…

I’m a firm believer that doctors should forget about their malpractice insurance for a minute and neglect to tell a patient the downside, the side effects, and the survival rate.

Most people are just too damn suggestible (myself included.) That information goes in their ears, bangs around in their brains, fires up all of the fear receptors, and then sets up shop up there—and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My father was told that people with his stage of lung cancer had about eighteen months and by God, he kept that appointment with death. Shit dad; it was an educated guess, not a directive from the main office.

Studies have shown that men are the worst. They will obediently mark it on their sub-conscious calendars.

How about if we all agree to attach our hopes to only the positive suggestions; otherwise known as The Placebo Effect—Things work out for the best because we BELIEVE that to be true. 

They feel more like a hopeful heart flutter than a gut-punch.

That procedure doesn’t hurt a bit.

Owning a pet helps you live longer.

Sex can be counted as cardio.

It isn’t only diet and exercise that keeps you healthy, it’s a positive state of mind.

This bug only 24 hours, you’ll feel better by the morning.

Coffee is good for you.

Red wine keeps cancer at bay…

Blonds have more fun.

Those are the yummy suggestions that we should let set up shop in our brains and become a prophesy fulfilled –– not the drama and dreck the fear hands us.

Agreed?

Carry On,
xox