love thyself

            At the beginning of a flight they often announce that, should oxygen masks be required, mothers put theirs on before helping their child.  We need to be in a good place in order to be nice to others and help each other.  A modicum of self-care, therefore, is not egoistic or self-centered, or even a luxury, but a smart thing -  as a grounding base and for basic physical and mental wellbeing. 

            Self-care does not mean that you are supposed to spend gobs of money on massages, lunches out, facials and manicures, or toys for the boys - those are all excuses for spending money, unless you've got lots of it.  Self-care is special time with yourself, away from family, away from chores - for mental sanity and balance.   You can practice self-care in many different ways, many of them without spending a dime.  Going for a contemplative walk by yourself can be self-care, simply making yourself a cup of tea and taking a break in the middle of the day could be self-care (one of my favorites), having a regular meditation session is definitely self-care, if you are a busy parent date night out with your partner is self-care, if you are a busy business person date night out with your partner is self-care, taking  a weekend nap can be self-care, going to bed early on occasion is self-care, taking a long leisurely bath is self-care.   It's good to get away from rut and chores, and just think about your own enjoyment for a bit.

            We are also better able to love others when we love ourselves first, able to give more if we are in a good place.  I suppose you have you heard that one before.  Do you have a regular self-care practice?

unlimited energy

            And by this I don't mean your personal level of energy, I mean energy to produce electricity for transportation and machinery/electronics as a basis for our economy. 

            Rob Hopkins founded his Transition Movement in England in 2005 based on the idea that we are coming to the end of the fossil-fuel era and need to revert to local economies to reduce our reliance on oil.   One element of this reasoning, the suggested need to decrease our energy requirements, is now changing.  While the local economies movement is stronger than ever, it is for different reasons than the potential lack of energy. 

            We are now seeing a strong movement towards renewable energies, much of it based on solar and hydrogen, but also wind, geothermal, and others.  My prediction is that we will actually have way more energy than we have available now, an overabundance of energy, and that geopolitical alliances will shift because everybody will have access to enough energy, not just a few.  We will never ever run out of sunlight and hydrogen.  So even if a country didn't have enough sunshine, well - nobody will ever run out of hydrogen.  Iceland is such an example that is already energy independent and produces all of its energy from hydro and geothermal sources.

            Volvo, no longer Swedish but long owned by the Chinese, bets on the future of electric cars, and is throwing their Chinese power and money behind it.  Hydrogen is unlimited and may become one of our foremost energy sources in the form of hydrogen fuel cells.  Meanwhile the return to local economies, away from globalization, will remain a strong movement because people want agency, they want responsibility for, and involvement in, their local politics, be it for reasons of local customs and culture, sustainability, landuse, or general policies.  But the return to village life will no longer happen due to a lack of energy.

changing my world

            When I change my perspective the world around me changes and adjusts.  Amazing.  Here is how it works.

            During a recent introduction to NVC - nonviolent or compassionate communication - we were supposed to recall a recent incident that irked us, and look at it from two perspectives, our own, and then the one from the other person.  I recalled my daughter's recent phone call from school in the middle of the morning that she didn't feel well and needed to be picked up.

            I noticed that I felt annoyed, irritated, and resentful for being interrupted during work - my needs were for space and independence.  However, once I turned the perspective around and understood that she felt miserable, hurting, and anxious, and that she needed affection, compassion, and nurturing, all I wanted to do was come to her rescue and comfort her.

            It took my own inner shift, not coercion, not anybody else's action or change in attitude, to want to help her.  Amazing.

so serendipitous

             Serendipity is my new favorite thing in life.  "The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way," is how the Oxford Dictionary defines it.  Serendipity seems to occur the more we refrain from trying so hard, from steering life too much.  Oftentimes I want something specific for lack of a better imagination, or for lack of the courage to imagine something bigger and better yet.  But when we try to will a predictable outcome we actually discourage the universe from bringing us the best of its abundance and fabulousness, we put the brakes on, w choke the energy.

            I just love it when the universe brings forth something unexpected that is way better than what I could have envisioned on my own.  Both our children found their first cars in completely serendipitous ways; exactly when they needed them, for the price they could afford, from people we could trust.  In the spring the perfect paid summer internship in Europe manifested for our son out of nowhere. And recently the possibility of producing a documentary from my book came about- something that was completely outside of my realm of imagination.

            When things like these happen my enthusiasm bubbles over and I am in awe of the amazingness of the world.  How have you experienced serendipity?

your beautiful microbiome

            All the fauna in your system, all those micro-creatures, have garnered much attention lately.  There used to be a time, not so long ago, when we thought killing all the little creatures, internally and externally, as in taking antibiotics or sterilizing everything in your home, was the way to go - the Lysterine and Chlorox way.  We took hygiene to the extreme, inside and out.

            Now we are learning that we are living in dependent coexistence with our microbiome, which is the entirety of all the little microorganisms in our body.  We are beginning to understand that a well populated and diverse gut and intestinal microbiome is the basis for a healthy immune system.  Hence fermented foods have become all the rage - yogurt, kombucha, Sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, pickled vegetables, sourdough bread - because they all add to and diversify our gut bacteria.

            In that regard researchers noticed that Amish children, who grow up in a farming environment, are less susceptible to the more and more prevalent asthma and allergies that children experience who spend much of their time indoors.

            So, cultivate your microbiome, don't sweat the small stuff, such as a piece of bread that fell on the floor or a lettuce leaf that still has a bit of dirt on it, it all helps to "grow more hair on your chest" or strengthen your immune system.  Please revisit two earlier blog posts on fermented foods and sauerkraut and kimchi..

a better world

            It seems that many things in this world are currently a mess - the environment in general, the way we treat each other, social issues, climate change and erratic weather patterns, our medical paradigm and quandary, our food supply, our politics - oh my!

            But I truly believe that there is a better world under all this chaos.  We just need to create it, envision it, imagine it.  How do you do that?  You have to imagine it, then you have to live it - that's what Gandhi said. 

            There is indeed a lot of beauty already on this planet; there are a lot of wonderful, kind, compassionate people on this earth; the healthy food movement is growing stronger every day and we have all the inspirational models already out there; climate science shows what we need to do; we know that we want people to thrive, feel safe and secure, have easy access to good medical care, and easy access to good education; there are better ways of communication than judging, belittling, condemning, surmising, and berating. 

            Instead of condemning and fighting and criticizing what you don't want, just put yourself on the side you prefer - every day - with your words, your dollars, your thoughts and beliefs, and your world will change for the better. 

lots of salt

             We all know by now that ingesting too much salt by eating processed and prepared foods is bad for us.  But lots of salt around you may potentially have beneficial effects.  Think Himalayan salt lamps, or salt spa treatments.  One of my friends swears by the beautiful pink salt lamp in her bedroom.  Salt lamps are supposed to promote negative ionization of the air and, for one, counteract the electro smog caused by our household electronics.  Read here what we know about the science behind salt lamps. 

            Salt spas or salt caves have been around Europe and Japan for a while, and are starting to become more popular over here.    Inhaling salt air supposedly improves asthma and other afflictions of the respiratory system; it's called halotherapy - read more about the potential benefits of this therapy.   I guess that was always the idea behind seaside vacations.  Of course, if you live on the coast you don't need a salt spa.

            Although I haven't tried either I'm intrigued.  I never discount alternative therapies simply because mainstream derides something out of lack of understanding, knowledge, scientific context, or belief system rigidity.  Do you have a salt lamp at home?

it's not about you!

             When you become annoyed at your friend for saying something not so nice about your outfit, it's not about you, it's about her.  You obviously liked your outfit when you got dressed this morning.  But your friend has different taste and likes different styles, or colors, or outfits.  When she reacted to your outfit it had to do with her ideas, her taste, her likes - not you.  We get it all wrong when we believe others criticize us for us.

            You have no control over many of the things that happen to you during the course of the day, whether it's people's comments, their demands, or unexpected events.  What we do have complete control over (at least in theory until we get used to this new way of thinking) is our emotions and feelings, our own reactions to our interactions with life. 

            So, you became miffed at your friend.  Well, who knows why she said what she said.  But you'll never know until you make an effort to find out and dig deeper.  You might consider saying something like "Sounds like you don't like my dress."  And your friend might completely surprise you by replying "Oh, I've always hated the color red," or "That dress reminds me of something my mother used to wear, and it brought back a lot of negative memories."  You never know where someone else's comments are coming from until you tune in and actually ask.  Then there is true connection and you'll find out that it was about her all along - not you.

writing to learn

             My daughter used to play teacher and explain her school lessons to an invisible audience while writing on her dry erase board.   It was a way for her to integrate her school lessons from the day and understand them better.

            It seems that we teach best what we need to learn, or that we like to explain what we need to understand, or that we learn better if we teach what we're trying to understand.   Understanding is a process that solidifies through teaching or writing for example - hence the idea of homework, or writing papers in college.

            I am currently reading the book Learning By Teaching, which is chock full of relevant quotes.  Author Donald Murray writes "Why do writers write? ......most of all to discover what they have to say."  Brilliant!  He goes on to quote novelist E.M. Forster, who said "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" and poet Cecil Day-Lewis, who concluded that "We do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand."  All these quotes express how understanding unfolds and deepens through processes, such as writing or teaching.

            Murray even takes this realization one step further when he says that, "...writing is an individual search for meaning in life."  We writers discover the meaning of our own life through writing; writing for us is a process of self-realization in the same way that painting is a process of self-realization for an artist, or baking pastries is a process of self-realization for a pâtissier.

            Life is a process, life is self-realization - through interaction with people and things.  We each chose to live, to be life, through the lense of a particular medium - for the painter the medium is his art, for the writer it is her books.  What is your medium?

crystal bowl healing

             Last year I wrote about the theory behind sound and gong baths because I was intrigued by the idea - as a holistic adventurer I gobble up all alternative therapies and love to try them out.  In the meantime, I have finally experienced a crystal bowl healing session.

            The sound therapist had laid out a rug in the large studio where the session took place.  Crystal bowls of various sizes (different sizes for different sounds, some quite large) and various colors (I don't think color makes a difference) were set up on the rug, and wooden mallets were set aside for producing the sounds.

            After a long guided winding down period, or savasana (my daughter coined the term slowvasana), we were all deeply relaxed and receptive.  It had been suggested that we come up with an intent, because the deep relaxation coupled with the healing frequencies channel the message of the intent into more easily into the subconscious, which guides - hold your breath - 95% of what we do (yes, indeed!).  Then the sound therapist began to produce sounds by rubbing along the edges of the different bowls.  There is no melody or pattern to the sounds, so the mind has no place to cling to, it can drift and let go.  Not only my ears, but my entire body experienced the sounds - I felt with my body that sound is frequency.  The deeper sounds of the bigger bowls were so powerful that the sounds filled the entire room and my entire body.  Some sounds sent shivers down my skin, others appeared to travel from one side of the body to the other. 

            I ended up in a timeless space where the sound bath could have gone on forever, it was profoundly grounding and calming - definitely to be repeated.