Category: Self-care

Categories
Ayurveda Mindfulness Self-care Social Connection

An Anniversary

Celebrate?

Twenty-eight years ago, this week, I thought I had six months left to live.

I learned the startling news on a grueling hot day, not unlike today. I was told by physicians that I had a serious health condition that was probably terminal and that I’d “be awfully lucky” if it was a different condition (as I suggested to the physician it might be). My most vivid memory of that time is riding the clinic elevator, alone, in semi-hysterical tears, medical records in hand, heading out to have my various body parts scanned and prodded. People in the elevator looked at me, sobbing uncontrollably, like they just wished they weren’t there.  I can’t blame them for that.

A few weeks later, after extensive surgery, I discovered I was, in fact, “awfully lucky.” I wasn’t dead, nor was I intact, but I was alive. I was shaken to my core, but I was alive.

Thinking I was going to die, only to discover that, oops, I was right about the “different condition” and I would live on, was a surreal experience. I felt a combination of terror and relief at the idea that I had diagnosed myself more accurately than had those with years of medical training. Later, as I was struggling with what this all meant, I felt guilty that, after being given a death sentence, I didn’t suddenly have a revelation that all things in life were wonderful, nor was I inclined to run down the street proclaiming “I’m alive”, like in the movies. Despite the kindness of friends and loved ones, all I felt for a long time was alone in a confusing trauma. And, I was pissed-off …all the time.

I was confused, alone, conflicted and pissed.

Recovery from that experience took at least a decade and required a great deal of self-examination and reflection. I ruminated over how I ended up in such a difficult situation. I reviewed my past and I how I had approached my health. As I struggled to feel better, I found little support from the conventional medical system. But I persisted—I felt I had no choice. Over time, several key observations became apparent:

Buck Up!

  • I’d been raised in the “buck up” school of health.
  • This “buck up” attitude taught me to not pay attention to my body, mind, or spirit (whatever that was), and, it taught me to not talk about my health with anyone–these things were private matters.
  • The conventional western approach to health did of good job of eliminating the physical manifestation of my issue, once it was out of control,  but had hindered any chance I may have had of dealing with the situation years earlier, when it was not life threatening.
I’d been raised in the “buck up” school of health.

A difficult journey

Since then, I’ve embarked on a journey of discovery that has taken many wild twists and turns and seen setbacks and advances. When I look around now, I feel like I have ascended from the depths and am living a full, exciting, and happy life.  For this life, I can thank traditional Chinese medicine, conventional western medicine, ayurvedic medicine, energy work, body work, Pilates, yoga, reiki, music, painting, many other practices, friends, colleagues, family, strangers, and my own internal resources for supporting me in this turnaround. 

Ascent from the underworld

I haven’t thought about this anniversary in quite a few years and have never acknowledged it out loud (or in print) before. But like all anniversaries, it deserves to be acknowledged and named. And so, I’ll name it Persephone, in celebration of my descent to the underworld and return to the world of the living.

I’ll name it Persephone, in celebration of my descent to the underworld and return to the world of the living.

Categories
Mindfulness Self-care The Spirit

Taking time

Lavender blooms

This morning I discovered that my lavender plant was blooming – just a few little blooms, but blooming nonetheless. Witnessing this filled me with joy: joy of accomplishment, joy of beauty, and joy of the recognition that things take time.

So, why the big deal about two tiny little flowers on a lavender plant? Well, first, lavender is a plant that seems to thrive in all gardens but mine. I’ve been trying to grow lavender since the inception of my current gardens—that would be fourteen years, which feels like a long time.

When I first planted lavender in the ground,  I had visions of the fields of French lavender we see in photos on the web.  Most years I would put a plant in the ground and it would just sit there in the garden; if I was lucky, getting green, if unlucky, turning brown and wasting away. One year, when I was not particularly aware of the lavender, I accidentally dug it out, thinking it was a weed.  So, I was about to give up my dreams of fields of French lavender.

Pretty, but NOT my garden.

Last year I tried growing lavender in a container, where the soil was warmer. I tried it, just, because. To my amazement it survived the summer, but with no blooms. That was ok. I took what I could get.  I brought the pot indoors to my porch over the winter where it was the sole survivor of a suite of plants that couldn’t manage the rather “cool” winter we experienced. I put it back outside in the spring, watered it, fed it, and generally delighted in its mere existence. At one point, I absent-mindedly clipped out some of the lavender leaves for my rosemary potatoes—only to discover I’d clipped the wrong plant!  (I don’t think lavender potatoes are actually a thing).

Just two little bloom on a fourteen year lavender quest.

Then, this morning, after fourteen years of  hitting and missing, I saw two tiny lavender blooms! I nearly fell over. I thought of my mother who loved flowers and reluctantly acknowledged that maybe she was right (yet again) when she suggested I “be patient.”

These days I find patience to be a difficult quality to cultivate. Living in a world that rewards instantaneous results and dismisses patient resolve as “old school” can make me feel like a square peg in a round hole. It can be frustrating to be treated like a relic by simply suggesting  that we “wait and see” what happens.

Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee by John Hambrock, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 6/9/19

But, for a brief moment, the pretty purple flowers reaffirmed my belief in the value to myself and the world of staying present and living in and loving the moment.

In the end, when I look at the lavender,  I understand that we human beings live in a world of which we are a very small piece. And anyone who takes the time to observe this world knows that destruction can happen quickly but growth takes time. And with this observation I can choose to be part of the destruction or part of the growth. For now, I am choosing growth, one tiny bloom at a time.

Anyone who takes the time to observe this world knows that destruction can happen quickly but growth takes time. And with this observation I can choose to be part of the destruction or part of the growth. For now, I am choosing growth, one tiny bloom at a time.

Healing Ground Health Coaching
Categories
Mindfulness Politics of Well-Being Self-care Social Connection The Spirit

Politics: Yes, I’m going there

I’m feeling uplifted today. After watching two extended conversations between potential presidential candidates I am pleased that the counterforces to the current hateful political ideology have chosen to step up and speak out. Finally, people are speaking the truth, out loud and in public, and naming the horrors happening around us every day.

People in my profession, apparently, are not supposed to talk publicly about politics. I guess politics is considered unsavory in a spiritual and mindful profession. This makes no sense to me. If we are all made up a physical body, a subtle (energetic, spiritual) body, and a universal body (as I believe we are, at minimum), then how can we justify ignoring such a significant portion our universal body?  

The Universal Body

The “universe” isn’t just the sky, stars, eternal space, and ethereal energetic forces. The “universe” is also material. It’s our neighbors and the parent searching for their child at the border. The universe is the people sleeping in tents along Hiawatha Avenue and those wandering the earth looking for a place to reestablish their roots. The universe is also the pharma executive, the farmer in the fields, and person serving us our lattes. The universe is the person who rations their insulin. The universe is the trees, water, air, birds, turtles, and even rabbits. The universe includes the men who call themselves President of the United States, Prime Minister of India, and President of Russia. Everything, including ourselves, makes up the universal and we ignore it at our peril.

Gratitude

While watching the debates I felt an upsurge of energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The United States has been so laden with hate and anxiety over the last few years that I had begun to wonder if that was all there was left in the material political world. Was the answer to simply ignore the universal and retreat from the material into the spiritual?

Seeing the wide variety of individuals stating their philosophies, visions, and ideas I felt a sense of gratitude for these twenty real people who were willing to take on this huge challenge. I was pleased to see at least one candidate stick her neck out and approach issues from an energetic point of view—love versus hate. I nearly jumped up and kissed the TV when one candidate took on an establishment candidate with ferocity—when she made it personal. Hearing a candidate frame the ultimate universal issue of the climate crisis in honest existential terms made my heart sing. And hearing the words “piss” (“should piss us all off and spur us to action”) and asses (Russia has been laughing their asses off”) in a nationally televised debate made me laugh and reminded me that energetic forces may be realigning but I think they have a sense of humor, and I can still laugh.

Insight

This morning, during my meditation I received a helpful insight. Paul Wellstone, the no-longer-with us, beloved, former senator from Minnesota and political mentor and hero to many of us, showed up (as he does on occasion).  He smiled his honest, crooked smile and reminded me that while politics is a material action, it also embodies the spiritual action of creation, dreaming, and imagination: “In the last analysis, politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.”  

“In the last analysis, politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.”  

Paul Wellstone

Paul reminded me that as much as we want to deny and demonize politics, as something engaged in by the evil “them,” the truth is that ultimately, politics is us. It’s how we choose to organize ourselves at a universal level in this material world and it requires the spiritual self to even start the work.  

Let’s engage in some politics.

Categories
Mindfulness Self-care The Spirit

Recognizing the Sacred

My beloved native prairie garden is thriving. I planted this experiment in the most inhospitable of locations a number of years ago. It occupies a strip about 17 feet long by 2 feet deep between my garage and the city alley. That spot takes a beating every winter, facing snow, salt, snow blowers, snow plows, garbage bins, and shovels. In the summer it only receives afternoon sun and contends with vehicles, dogs, and, people who don’t even notice there is a prairie in their midst.

Little Prairie on the Alley.

I became enamored with prairies a number of years ago when I visited Blue Mounds Minnesota State Park in the south western corner of the state while on a pilgrimage to the family South Dakota grave site. I managed to visit in spring when the park’s prairie was in full bloom. I was so mesmerized by the variety and beauty of flora in the prairie that I never even noticed the bison for which the park is known. I couldn’t walk the relatively small prairie without wondering what it must have been like to see the vast mid North American continent before domestic agriculture turned the land into a chemical waste dump.

  • Prairie smoke, one of the original plantings, is an early bloomer.
  • I saw cacti in the Blue Mounds prairie and was inspired.

Leave it alone

I’ve learned that the trick for helping a native prairie thrive (once it’s established) is to just leave it alone. Fertilizer will kill it. So, I try to follow directions and just let it be (although I do some weeding of random invaders, pick up the trash that appears, and add plants periodically). This year, the two newcomer plants (planted last year) are thriving: the sacred prairie sage is glorious and the life-giving milkweed is doing just fine, thank you.

  • This milkweed is a newcomer. I bought it at the Bloomington Garden Club plant sale last year. Once they get established, milkweeds are pretty self-sufficient members of the prairie community.
  • Prairie Sage is considered sacred by the native peoples of this continent. This was the first plant entrusted to the care of humans by the creator.

Once, a few years ago, when I was cleaning out the prairie, a distant neighbor asked me “why bother?” to work on a garden on the alley in a city. I was stunned. All I could sputter out was “because it’s beautiful!” He just glared at me and walked away. I felt sad for that guy.  

The world is an ugly place these days, there is no doubt about it. I cannot ignore the ugliness or suffering will increase astronomically and I will be complicit. At the same time, I cannot ignore the sacred and beautiful or I will lose my sense of purpose. And without purpose, the question, “Why bother?” becomes a valid question with no answer.

I cannot not ignore the sacred and beautiful or I will lose my sense of purpose. And without purpose, the question, “Why bother?” becomes a valid question with no answer.

Categories
Mindfulness Self-care Social Connection The Spirit

Letting Go

Seeds Letting go

I let go of my record album collection several years ago. Of all the items I’ve let go of, my beloved albums were the most difficult. They defined a good portion of my life. From my very first Beatles album (Something New) to my favorite Beatles album (Revolver) to my musical mentor Joni Mitchell, to the eclectic sounds of Frasier and Debolt, to the intense beauty of John Coltrane. Each album described a piece of my life.

My first and my favorite.

I procrastinated for years about these albums. I couldn’t imagine life without them. Never mind that I hadn’t listened a single one of them for many years. In fact, I hadn’t owned a working turn table since well before the turn of the century!

My first record player, a Barbie record player, was my prized possession.

The realization

The final motivation for this purge came when I decided I needed to clear space in my house. I was headed into bi-lateral knee replacement surgery and everything—I mean EVERYTHING (I tend to go to extremes)—needed to be cleared out so I could use a walker in my house (even though my album collection was tucked away in a closet!).

It was an arduous job. Just dragging those heavy crates out of the closet and into the light of day required muscle. I reviewed, sorted, reminisced, and cried over them but eventually was able to lug them, small container by small container, into the back of my car for distribution. It took me several months to go through this process. I sold what had monetary value and donated the remainder.

The payoff

Several young people at the donation-station were very excited to see Beatle albums (so worn that the record store didn’t want them). They gathered around my boxes of albums to ooo and ahh at all this “vintage” music.  I felt like quite the sage-music-guru, for that brief moment.

And guess what happened. I went home and felt lighter, fresher, and happier than I’d felt in a long time. I put something that was important to me out into the universe, let it go, passed it on and, in this case, received instant gratification (who doesn’t want to be a sage-music-guru).

Who doesn’t want to be a wise sage?

The work

Today, as I’m noticing how I’m feeling refreshed (finally) after a two-week heavy metal dietary cleanse (started about a month ago), I see how helpful it can be for me to let go. Not all the time, but when the time is right. Just like our minds have difficulty letting go, so our bodies do. But once that letting go happens, what a delight it is. I’m beginning to see that I cannot control how that delight happens, nor can I control when. I just need to create the fertile ground for the delight to germinate. And, my experience tells me that I must pay attention, or I will miss that moment.

Seeds Letting go
Our job is to let go.

This brings to mind a portion of a prayer, I, and many of my like-minded friends, say when we find ourselves grasping for stuff, control, and outcome: “Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will…”

Our job is to let go. The rest takes care of itself.

Categories
Self-care Social Connection

Finding Grace

Memorial Day, for me, has traditionally signified the blissful start of summer. I look forward to it every year—the inauguration of long days at the local swimming pool and late nights playing four-square out on the street. That feeling has never left me over all the time I’ve been on this planet.

This year, up in the north country, we were treated to a dreary, wet, cloudy, and rainy start to the season of bliss. In short, Memorial Day was looking like it was going to be a bummer for me this year. It started out with a headache. As the day ground on, it evolved into an unexpected plumbing “situation” involving a very plugged drain.  

Being the self-sufficient single gal that I think I am, I was determined to “fix” the situation. This involved a plunger, drain cleaner,  and a “snake”—a long coiled cable that was going to drill down to the problem and solve it. I visited Menards in a rain storm to pick out my new snake. I settled for the twenty-five-footer…it sounded like a good in-between number. I then set to work.

Four hours later, I had plunged, snaked, and drain-cleaned myself into a frenzy of expectation. “Just one more plunge” would solve the problem! With each snake and plunge cycle my expectations grew, only to be dashed on the rocks by the sludgy water sitting there taunting me while not receding one iota. Finally, I gave up. I was done, summer was ruined (if it ever arrived at all), my plumbing was hopeless and would cost me a fortune to fix,  if it could ever be salvaged, and I’d have to live in a rain-soaked, over saturated, cloudy planet that, to top it off, was burning up and flooding at the same time!

As I pondered my pathetic plight, I decided that despite the catastrophic state of my world, I could not go to bed smelling of drain cleaner and sludge. Even I have my limits.

It was then that I had  one of those delightful moments of clarity. Out of the blue, on the first night of my summer, I decided to call a friend to see if I could shower at her house. Everything got better.

Of course she said “Come on over!”  I did. I took my shower, socialized, laughed, went home, and slept well that night. The drain got fixed the next morning by a pro (referred to me by my friend). Then, the clouds cleared, the sun emerged, and the sky was suddenly blue. I could breathe again.

I believe that cultivating meaningful social connections may be my most important life task.

As I reflect on this experience I see how my expectations for a perfect start to summer generated an unhealthy stress response, which clouded my rational thinking and lead me to forget (or ignore) that plumbing is not my forte (and probably never will be).

I am reminded of the significance of social connection in our lives and how it can break through the stress vortex that we all find ourselves in from time-to-time.  There is no question about it, we’re wired for social connection. We require it to stay healthy and without it, we, and the rest of the world, suffer (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015).

I believe that cultivating meaningful social connections may be my most important life task. By injecting this fundamental principle into my life I was able to break through my stress response and begin to celebrate the moment.

And that, my friends, is grace.

 

Social Connections
Social Connections Matter

References

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352