Acu Points!

New beginnings

2011-04-08T21:01:00.002-07:00

I have been looking forward to April 8th, 2011 for about 9 months. I am about to transition into motherhood, and though labor did not begin today (not so far), it still feels like a special day, like I am standing on the edge of the great unknown, with an acute sense of the inevitability of everything in my little life changing forever.

The thing I have enjoyed the most about this period of pregnancy has been the extra motivation to consider what kind of person I want to raise. What are the qualities that I value most highly in people, and how are those qualities nurtured? Who will this little person be? The other thing I have loved about pregnancy is the way even strangers tend to smile at me in a beautiful way -- in a way that reminds me that we all have mothers, and that we all started out just like my little guy, wiggling in my belly right now. It's a powerful thing to be reminded of, and I've gotten that reminder several times a day for months and months. Such luck!

Of course, even in this idealistic stage, questions arise. Will I be able to love and parent this particular little person the way he needs to be loved and parented? Where will I find the patience to deal with a child, and how will I develop the skills? I am particularly blessed with a loving community and wise friends here in Santa Barbara, not to mention a marvelous husband, and those supports help me maintain some equanimity, but they do not change the fact of our unknowable future.

Having written that, it occurs to me that the future is always unknowable, I'm just more aware that it is unknowable to me at this particular moment. And in a way, knowing that enormous change is looming is a kind of knowing -- so often the moments that change everything can't be anticipated, and sometimes we don't even recognize them once they have happened.

So, I feel like offering a virtual toast to what has been a wonderful and transformative stage of my life. It's time for me to move on to a new phase, and this has all of the makings of a rich transition.

Whether the new phase will involve this blog remains to be seen -- the irony of not posting for two years after my last post was about procrastination is not lost on me! I remain as passionate about health and living meaningful lives in harmony with nature and our values. Will I write about those things here? I hope so, but I do not know.

Thanks for reading.

For fellow procrastinators

2009-05-03T07:12:00.002-07:00

I've been having a marvelous week, thanks to a little e-book I read for the second time recently.

I am a highly skilled procrastinator, and I have this big exam coming up in 94 days, 1 hour and 44 minutes. Setting up the counter on my computer dashboard was a masterful stroke of procrastination -- "Look, self. I'm creating a motivational tool for you! That's time well spent." I have a million of them.

Instead of using this post as another procrastination tool, I'm just going to pass this information along. Hillary Rettig is a remarkable author, coach and activist who has written the book "The Lifelong Activist," which is about creating a sustainable, committed life, avoiding burnout, learning to be more effective, and I would say treating yourself more lovingly. On her website, http://lifelongactivist.com/, she shares an extended e-book called The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks: a Manual For Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other Ambitious Dreamers. It's wonderful, and if you are like me and can be pretty hard on yourself when you don't follow through on something, I would even say that it is healing. Hillary Rettig has such a compassionate and intelligent voice, and she is a remarkable woman. As an aside, she recently donated a kidney to a total stranger as an act of service beacause she had an extra one. What a beautiful way to live.

The other resource I draw on when I'm having trouble facing my work or other parts of my life is called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It's such a helpful tool.

So, fellow avoiders, let's all stop holding back our gifts and see what we can do when we get out of our own way and don't let our fears control us.

Love,
Eliza

Fear of success

2009-04-23T20:40:00.001-07:00

Alternative medicine as a profession seems to me to be fraught with insecure people. There are so many modalities that make so many claims, and there have always been charlatans, like in all professions. It can be hard to discern who may be authentic and well trained, and who may be really good at sounding like they know what they’re talking about. Sometimes the people who put themselves forward as leaders in the profession seem to be the most defensive and insecure of them all, even when they know what they’re talking about. They’ve invested so much, and it’s difficult to be an expert in something that is largely dismissed as being nonsense.

I was first drawn to holistic medicine because of a deeply affirming experience that validated my inner wisdom and my strength to make conscious choices to change. The new sense of self respect and the belief in my own completeness that I found was such a sweet relief from my internal suffering, that I wanted to learn how to help others find this in themselves, too.

But, going to school to study Chinese Medicine did not teach me that. Some of my most experienced teachers used their knowledge like a cudgel. They described Chinese Medicine practitioners as being either spiritual masters or complete frauds, and as a student, I knew I wasn’t in the spiritual master category. So that left… hmmm…. This was probably a technique to get us to study really hard, but it left no space for going through the learning process with dignity. Until I became a spiritual master, I would be shit according to this world view. And the beauty of wholeness and the simplicity of health that drew me to this field was absent from this world. And Chinese medicine for me became corrupted by a few egoists. Just another place to feel incomplete and inadequate. So sad for us all, and so unnecessary.

Insecure people with a bit of knowledge can be real tyrants. I want to grow my knowledge, but I am afraid that if I do what it takes to do that seriously, I may become one of those tyrants.

I’m trying to re-discover the truth and beauty that inspired me so many years ago so that I can find the right path again. These days I study to take my California acupuncture exam, and I face this great resistance to the material, and the rigor it demands. Maybe wanting to fall in love with it again is just another avoidance technique. I am a skilled procrastinator. But, if I’m going to work towards a goal, I want it to be a goal that I believe in. I really do want to become a healer, meaning someone who helps people find their own wholeness and helps evoke their healing power. I feel this most strongly when a loved one is in pain. I want to do real healing work with great results.

Still, I’m resistant to learning to be great at my profession because I don’t want to become an ass hole. I want to deepen and expand my skills without being one of the practitioners who is blinded by their own greatness and begins thinking that they, the practitioner, are doing the healing. Am I strong enough to handle being great at what I do?

I wonder how the few people who manage to be great at something and to keep themselves and their role in perspective do it?

Confessions of a quitter

2009-04-18T07:12:00.003-07:00

I have an irritating habit of theorizing about the problems of “society.” Who knows what that means? All of us? Fox news? “The masses?” Everyone except me? I don’t know what I think I mean, but I’ve just realized something painfully obvious. When I complain about “society,” I’m complaining about me without realizing it.

Here’s one of my old favorites about “society.” I love witnessing virtuosic skill, those people who make things look so easy and natural. Then, when I try something a few of times and I feel clumsy, I get frustrated and I think, “this just isn’t my thing.” From a challenging recipe to a language or a sport or a BLOG, when I fail, I do something else. When the novelty wears off and the fruits of the labor have yet to even bud (because the seeds haven't even had time to sprout), I get bored and do something else, which is to say, I quit.

I began to notice this last week. I’ve been riding my bike about every other day for 3 weeks now, because I’m trying to get used to the saddle before a long bike ride we’re doing in a couple of weeks. I have a tendency to not ride and not ride, and then try a 20-30 mile ride, which is manageable to my cardiovascular fitness, but not to my backside. Then I’m too sore to even think about riding for at least a week. So lately, I’ve been embracing this incredibly manageable goal. Ridiculously short rides more regularly, gradually increasing. I’ve been noticing that I feel so comfortable on my bike! People don’t really forget how to ride, but I never thought about how nice it would be to improve, and how practicing regularly would pretty much guarantee improvement (at my level). Duh. I can be so dense.

I'll make general observations like, “people won’t do things just for fun, if they’re not instantly good at something they give up, and they claim that they’ve tried that already.” Yeah, people DO do that. Especially me.

That persistence in the face of adversity that I so admire, that I find so lacking in "society," -- I have none of that. Or, I should say, I don't bother to call it up out of myself when something gets hard. But I don't officially quit. I just get "busy" trying something else. "Yeah, Chinese is interesting, but I'm just so busy."

So my radar is up, gentle reader, and the next mention I make of “Society” will send a jolt of self-awareness through my central nervous system so powerful, that it may induce me to quit my bitchin’. A girl can dream, can't she?

Meet my inner critic. I call him Edmund.

2009-04-07T20:32:00.001-07:00

There are times when I’m simply bursting with ideas and observations, when I want to sort out events or feelings, or write down things to remember forever, even though I know I’ll never come back and read them. Those are the times when my words really flow, because the editors in my mind don’t have time to keep up. I wish I could take my whole inner editorial staff out for a couple of drinks, and make friends with them. If they knew me and where I was coming from, if they had some sympathy for my point of view, I don’t think they’d be so harsh. They might loosen up and have some fun, or at least, be more constructive with their feedback.

I’ve never thought of befriending these entities before – these inner voices from years ago and who knows where. Perhaps I should pour a little glass of brandy as an offering to my critic before I write or set about doing my work – maybe my critic would become a muse.

This would be a dramatic transition. Right now, my main inner critic is definitely a rather portly man. Not rough around the edges like Lou Grant, either, but a real snob. Basil, the dramatic critic character in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows is about right. And this muse I want to bring forth with offerings of brandy is more of a mother goddess type. So, this is a doozey of a transformation I’m proposing. I don’t think an instant transformation a la “nutty professor” would be convincing, so I’m imagining a gradual shift.

With continued practice, which my portly male inner critic – let’s call him Edmund – informs me I am constitutionally incapable of (that’s his opinion), perhaps my Edmund incarnation would soften and begin wearing brightly colored shirts. From here, his creased trousers might give way to some casual khakis, and eventually golf pants, or perhaps cruise wear. When I can picture him in loose, raw linen drawstring pants and “mandals” (man sandles), I’ll know that I can win this, and eventually I’ll be able to rehabilitate the insufferable Edmund, and have him undergo the gender re-assignment process that would help my mother goddess muse emerge.

If I were Edmund, I would seriously consider cooperating with this plan, because all of my others involved eliminating him from my inner editorial staff, not rehabilitating him. Of course, he doesn’t think I have the authority or nerve to fire him. We’ll see…

The peanut gallery

2009-04-06T15:33:00.001-07:00

So, does anyone else wonder what this blog is for? Because to be honest, I’m a little confused about it. I don’t see anything about Chinese Medicine, which is my thing, after all, and worse, it’s so serious, and so freaking earnest. I think it’s time to shake things up and find the fun in this experiment, and hopefully post here more often.

Let’s start with a confession. It’s true that I seem like I’d be a very nice and dutiful student, the sort who would have several sharpened pencils on hand, but that wasn’t the whole story while I was in school, and I spent a lot of years in school. In reality, I had an obedient and earnest exterior, but it hid a seemingly inexhaustible supply of inappropriate observations and comments, and many of them would kind of puff out, under my breath, so only the folks who sat right next to me knew this part of me, for better or worse.

I would rather spend time with inappropriate comment making Eliza than earnest Eliza, though I am sure that there are those who prefer the “normal” seeming version of me. You know – the nice girl. The one you met towards the beginning of coffee hour at church. Yeah – the fucking minister’s wife! I can get a little tired of her.

I can’t tell a joke to save my life, except for my “interrupting cow” knock-knock joke, and I don’t quite have the timing of that one down yet. But sometimes, there’s a great and hilarious moment when I can see the beautiful ridiculousness of the human struggle in an instant. And then, puff, unexpected and inappropriate comment. I want to stop editing those out, because I love those moments. They give me room to breathe and smile and love our flaws and our idiosyncrasies, love our insane attempts to control the uncontrollable, and to deny the obvious. We are incredible creatures, and I feel more like dancing with that reality than ruining it with too much thought.

The new name of this blog is “Under your breath,” because I kind of like it. Your comments are most welcome!

The impatience of the “montage” mindset

2009-04-04T19:42:00.003-07:00

Sometimes I wonder how all the TV I watched while I was growing up effected who I am now.

I particularly wonder about this when I am faced with a big project that will take ongoing focus and a lot of commitment and hard work. I don’t have a great track record with self directed big projects – I do a lot better when I’m accountable to some sort of authority, and the threat of “getting in trouble” or letting someone down spurs me through each stage of a project.

I wonder about the TV because, when I’m planning or working on a project like this, I fantasize about just having a good montage instead of studying. I think, in a montage I could just sit here looking focused and weary for a moment, surrounded by my books. Then I could take off the glasses that I don’t have (but they would make me look more serious) and I could rub my eyes and turn back to my books with noble resolve. Then, maybe I’d fall asleep on my books. Then, I’d arrive at my exam and sit there, focusing intently for a few more moments. Finally, the test results would arrive and I’d open the envelope with nervous anticipation, and maybe hug an attractive loved one in celebration before collapsing, exhausted, into a big comfy chair. That could take under 2 minutes on a TV show.

And for some reason, I feel like that makes the work harder. Some bit of my mind expects to achieve something meaningful and ambitious in just a few dramatic minutes. How silly.

These days, I’m making a conscious effort to remind myself of how good it feels to work hard to achieve something. When I show up and do my work, I congratulate myself sincerely. This is a big step, because I used to think things like “it’s about time you got off your butt and took care of this, you lazy jerk.”

It’s painfully obvious that if I show up to work, only to admonish myself for not having already done it, I’m not going to look forward to showing up. I don’t know where this habit of self-abuse came from, but I don’t think that’s what’s most important. I know how I want to face my projects, and I’m going to spend my energy working on that. No more emotional scar forensics for Eliza, no sir. I’m going to try to starve the beast of my resistance and put my energy towards creating what I do want.

Or, maybe I should just watch more Jim Jarmusch movies and re-calibrate my perception of how long things should take.

The People's Republic of Portland

2008-07-29T07:49:00.009-07:00

Recently, when I moved from Denver to Santa Barbara, I took a slight detour and visited Portland, Oregon, where I lived for many years. I love that town, and don’t get to go there often enough to ease into gradual changes. One visit, there will be a gaping hole next to the building where my mother lives, and the next time I come, there’s a huge condo complex there. The city is changing and developing quite a bit, and some of the changes have been very hopeful. This "Share the Road" license plate was something I noticed for the first time this trip (I erased the license plate number out of a sense of patriotic paranoia).

Two visits ago, my husband and I noticed new, highly visible bike lane extensions called “bike boxes” at many intersections. These are designed to reduce accidents caused by cars turning right without being aware of bikes traveling straight ahead in the bike lane. Looking at the bike boxes, I felt like riding a bike across town would feel like a safe option. In the late 90s and early '00s when I lived there, I would pour over the bike route map trying to find some route that wasn't ridiculously circuitous, to get by main areas of town, trying to get around the places where the green "designated bike route" lines on the map would end and the red "hazardous for cyclists" routes were the only option. I think a relatively timid person like myself who would like to ride more but feels threatened by traffic would be more inclined to ride given safety measures like the bike boxes.

During my visit this month, I noticed parking spaces converted into bike parking on Belmont Avenue. The picture below shows a space about 3 car parking spaces long, and there is another area just like it at the other end of the block.

I think this is a very exciting trend, and as my visit continued, I noticed how many more cyclists there seemed to be than I remembered. It was pretty cool, until dusk when I noticed how many cyclists didn’t have any lights on their bikes, but were riding as if they had the absolute right of way. As a motorist, that was pretty stressful. I think it takes time to work the kinks out of shifts like this one, and the mutual rights and responsibilities of motorists and cyclists will find balance as mutual awareness develops.

It is so good to see a community starting to build infrastructure which will allow a significant part of the population to live more sustainably. In Chengdu, the main city in the Sichuan province of China, the “ring roads” which are a series of concentric main roads circling the city have a divided outer lane for bicycles, most of which is the width of the width of two regular car lanes. Chengdu is a city with a population of 11 million, and when I visited in 2002, the bike traffic was incredibly thick. The photo to the right was taken in Shanghai and shows the beautiful effect of a sea of bike ponchos -- during my visit, most Chinese bike riders would wear these when it rained.

Chengdu, like all Chinese cities, also has expansive bike parking areas, many with attendants, all over the place.

I've seen big bike parking lots in the states - most of them on college campuses - but nothing that compares with China or even Italy. We have so much room to grow here, but it was great to see the tangible changes in Portland, which is known for excellent urban planning, strong community involvement and progressive values. I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read, "The People's Republic of Portland." And it does feel like a town run by the people and for the people. Hey, haven't I heard that somewhere before?

On a personal level, I’m looking at these tangible changes as a reminder both metaphorically and literally to build structures that support the changes I want to see. It gives me hope.

Humans do fascinating things...

2008-07-10T07:00:00.002-07:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Nobody's goin' nowhere. . .

2008-07-08T08:10:00.001-07:00

On July 3, I completed a teacher training intensive at the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, and just before Richard Freeman distributed our “diplomas,” he reminded us: “these signify nothing.”

While some might find that announcement a tad bit deflating, I enjoyed it. I love the frequent reminders that, in any given yoga pose, you don’t get raptured up or automatically enter samadhi when your body crosses some arbitrary “finish line.” Grabbing your toe in triangle pose (in an ashtanga class) is nice: it presents the opportunity to emphasize the internal rotation of the front leg, and create some more dynamic charge. Right now, though, I can’t do that without “selling out,” and compromising the alignment of my hips and from there, the real juice of my version of the pose. None of the poses have a “finish line.” In fact, reaching a point where I start feeling puffed up about achieving some more advanced detail takes me farther away from that meditative presence that constitutes actually doing yoga.

It has been such a pleasure, and a wonderful re-education, to practice in a studio with this ethos. It frees me to try things out with curiosity and a sense of adventure, not worrying that failed attempts will reflect on my intrinsic value as a person. It reminds me to maintain my presence in the very simplest poses, which are surprisingly rich and full of possibility.

It’s taken me so long to realize that just being present in any moment brings with it such a different quality than does my everyday, distracted state of mind. It’s as if any given moment has the potential to be experienced as sublime. I have the idea, but realizing that ability is another story, possibly to be realized many lifetimes hence, if I am very lucky! If I can just remember the idea more often, that will be interesting.

Transitions, transformations

2008-07-06T07:51:00.007-07:00

There are so many little moments in life where things change so that we will never be the same person again. Our relationships will shift, even just a little, and there is no going back to that idealized “way things were.” Some of these moments are obvious -- moving away from home, getting married, or having a child. Nothing will ever be the same. We could choose not to make these specific changes in an attempt to preserve the beauty of the way things are or once were, but we all know that doesn’t work. We’d end up like Miss Havisham, isolated in a decaying dream world. Most of the time, I see great beauty in this impermanence: things that are alive, rot. They transform into something else, again and again. The sweetness of summer fruit can be so sublime when it has almost crossed the invisible line between ripeness and rotting.

The time is ripe for change in my life, as my husband and I prepare our dog, cats and belongings for our migration to Santa Barbara. It is so sad to leave behind colleagues, mentors, patients, and friends, but leaving has also helped me appreciate the sweetness of our time here.

Denver has seen the maturation of our golden retriever Willow, who has shown me all around our neighborhood, and who will dearly miss Shadow, her dog boyfriend across the street. Shadow is, truth be told, really dreamy -- tall, dark and handsome, with piercing eyes, like a movie star. Try as she might to play it cool, she can’t pass by his front porch without betraying her feelings for him. And he’s in to her, too.

We’ve met so many remarkable people here -- friends, co-workers, patients, congregants, and neighbors. Even leaving those incidental relationships, no longer seeing the people I run into in the course of my daily routine, is surprisingly poignant.

My experiences at the Yoga Workshop in Boulder have helped me learn about so much more than a physical yoga practice. The teachers and students have taught me lessons in patience, determination, and attentiveness to things as they are. These are lessons that apply to all areas of life, and I am so grateful to that community for being an embodiment of a spirit of welcoming and acceptance in a context that brings me face to face with so many insecurities and fears. That simple room and the people who bring it to life are a treasure.

So, it is with a heart full of gratitude for the time spent here that I move on to Santa Barbara and begin again, having been touched and changed from the experiences and relationships of the past two years. Thank you, and come visit us when you can!

Water Pharms

2008-03-14T14:24:00.003-07:00

Lately, there has been some buzz about traces of pharmaceuticals in our water supply. "...drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas -- from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky."

So, what are we taking?

"A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones."

And how do they get there?

"People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue."

It is kind of like second hand smoke, in that it reminds us that an individual decision to take a medication effects the whole web. So does supporting agriculture that relies on antibiotics, hormones and pesticides.

These topics coming to light raise such mixed feelings for me-- of course, we need to know that pharmaceuticals are effecting our environment and everyone's health. But the fear of everything being toxic in the environment, and the attendant efforts to avoid exposure to anything potentially harmful can get a bit out of hand. I'm trying to think of it as a really good motivator to help myself and my patients lead a heathy lifestyle and keep our livers and other elimination pathways functioning optimally. We are built to deal with a challenging environment, and our bodies can protect us from a certain amount of exposure.

This issue presents some scary unknowns, and it's natural to ask, "how can I avoid exposure to this threat to my health?" For some, the answer is to invest in a reverse osmosis water filter which will remove many of these chemicals, and drink that water. But is that a good solution for everyone?

Reverse osmosis water filters raise an ethical issue: they waste quite a bit of water, so if we choose to use them, we're creating an environmental impact. We choose to reduce our own exposure to toxins at the cost of increasing the toxicity of our environments. It's problematic, and it gets to the core of the original issue: our individual choices effect the web. We need to consider the impact of our choices and, for health practitioners like me, the implications of the recommendations we make to our patients.

"Reverse osmosis units sold for residential purposes offer water filtration at the cost of large quantities of waste water. For every 5 gallons of output, a typical residential reverse osmosis filter will send around 10 - 20 gallons of water down the drain although it may be captured and used for watering plants and lawns." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis)

This issue is very different from the question of eating organic foods, because organic farming nourishes the earth more than the alternative. We reduce our individual exposure to pesticides, reduce pesticide in the environment, hopefully improve the soil and possibly grow food of higher nutritional value with organics. If the food is local, pretty much everyone wins. Not so with reverse osmosis water filters.

So, these days I am making an effort to treat my body right by not loading it up with additives and chemicals or foods that irritate me, so that my body doesn't have to waste its energy defending myself from my lifestyle. I hope that I have the capacity to deal with the traces of toxins that I come into contact with everywhere. Some day, living my life will surely kill me, but until then, I don't want to live in a clean bubble at the expense of others. I want to try to make life choices that express connection with my fellow beings and solidarity with the common good. After a lifetime of feeling guilty about the amount of waste my existence produces, it's actually kind of nice to think that my little liver can conjugate some of these environmental toxins, and my body (if I take care of it) can reduce the toxicity of the environment in this tiny way.

It's important to step back and look at the interrelatedness of things, and search for some creative solutions. It's also good to remember that we people are strong enough to deal with our circumstances, be they national policies that need to be overhauled, personal habits that are taking their toll, or lurking toxins every way we turn. We are built to deal with these things.

Analysis Paralysis

2007-12-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am an avid maker of New Year’s resolutions. I love to sit down and figure out the very heart of the reasons I haven’t quite lived up to my potential, every year. When I look back on each year, I’m usually surprised at how much change has happened, and all of the various things I’ve managed to deal with and put energy into, but no matter what, there’s a sense of “I’ll do better next year.”

Lately though, my point of view is changing. I’m more content with having done enough each year, and what used to be a very self critical process is more optimistic and hopeful. Mainly, I’ve come to see the whole analytical process as an elaborate avoidance tactic. This effort to figure out the perfect solution to the struggles inherent in existing is paralyzing, at least to me. Introverts have a tendency to think things over for a long time before responding. I recognize the value in thoughtful, considered responses, but too often I see myself running out of energy before I come to action. I have notebooks full of great ideas – unused.

My new challenge is to see when I’m avoiding something by overanalyzing or trying to make it perfect, and then to let go.

I see others stuck in the same trap – folks who don’t begin exercising because they want to know the perfect exercise first. The perfect workout is the one you’ll actually do.

Nutritional advice, especially health claims on highly processed foods, calls up a similar tendency: “These cookies say they contain calcium and zero grams of trans fats. That sounds healthy. I’ll take 2 boxes.” Like a magician misdirecting the audience’s attention, highlighting the minutia distracts from the big picture. In the big picture, if you want a healthy choice, get the hell out of the cookie aisle and head to produce!

My favorite nutritional advice that cuts through over-analysis paralysis and this cheap illusion of analysis comes from Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan:

-Eat less, eat mostly plants. Move more.
-Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
-If a product has health claims on it, it’s probably not healthy.

My favorite healthy eating practice is to just try to put together the most colorful plate of whole foods I can. It feels much more like a joyful self expression than a disciplined and oppressive health regime.

It seems to come down to living in reality, to the best of our ability. Our information is incomplete, our perceptions are distorted, but we can be sensible, and that doesn’t have to be complicated.

Aha!

2007-11-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

During the past few weeks I've been participating in a "Building Your Own Theology" class at First Universalist Church of Denver. I've been asking myself all sorts of questions about what I hold most dear, and how to live according to those values and beliefs. It is a rich process of exploration.

Each week, a participant shares a personal experience of realization or revelation or insight, known as an "Aha! moment." Here is the narrative I shared:

I was very nervous the first time I drove to Boulder, Colorado to take a yoga class from Richard Freeman at the Yoga Workshop. Taking class from him would be like taking a voice lesson from Pavarotti. He's the best. I didn't feel worthy or advanced enough to take this class, but I decided to anyway. I was intimidated, and I was also concerned that in an effort to proove myself, I would push myself too hard.

The class was "Mysore Style," which is different from most led yoga classes in the US. Each practitioner in a Mysore class does a certain series or their own therapeutic practice at their own pace, and the instructor circulates around the room, helping people individually. I was used to this style of practice, but I feel particularly vulnerable doing Mysore style practice with a new teacher who does not know my level of practice. Assistance from the teachers often involves pushing the student deeper into a position that is already challenging.

About 45 minutes into my practice, I came to my most vulnerable pose of all: Prasarita Padottanasana C. The feet are at least 3 1/2 feet apart, depending on your height, the arms are clasped behind the back, and straightened. Then, you bend forward at the waist and your arms descend towards the floor. People in yoga books and magazines can all touch their hands to the floor above their heads.

Teachers adjust this pose a lot, perhaps because the arms are such a convenient handle to pull the practitioner deeper into the pose. The shoulders, rotated to their limit, are very vulnerable here.

So, I begin Prasarita Padottanasana C, hoping, in the crowded room, to go unnoticed. I decide to go fully into the pose, bringing my shoulders to the endpoint of their flexibility. Then, I see Richard Freeman's feet approaching. I feel a gentle but specific pressure on my sacrum which seems to open up my forward bend a bit. I decide to surrender. I don't think Richard Freeman will dislocate my shoulders. I will trust.

But, he didn't push my arms towards the floor, as I had expected. I felt him gently rock my arms from side to side, and then my shoulders seemed to melt. I sunk deeper into the pose, painlessly. Then the teacher pressed lightly on my hands and I realized they were on the floor. I had no idea they had opened so far -- the position is disorienting. I rose up from the pose wide eyed and amazed. Not that I had touched the floor, but that the end point of my shoulder flexibility that felt so real and solid a moment before had been my own voluntary creation.

I left after practice, not feeling unworthy of going to the studio, and not feeling like I had proven myself there -- that didn't matter to me. I was simply excited and eager to find out what other limitations I was creating for myself. Which of my other certainties are actually illusions? What will the world look like as I let go of more and more of these mental, emotional and physical limitations?

Finding a constructive viewpoint

2007-10-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

CNN has posted a map of the US depicting the increase in the proportion of people who are obese in the US. Especially since it only spans from about 1985 to present, I was shocked at the rates of increase:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/fit.nation/obesity.map/

Obesity has become a major issue in recent years, and it is very complicated and contentious. Poverty is a major factor in obesity, as is the continually swelling portion sizes in restaurants, and the predominance of very convenient foods which are high in refined carbohydrate, high in saturated and trans fat, high in salt, low in nutrients and laced with high fructose corn syrup.

This issue is especially delicate because it is so personal. Fatness is brutally stigmatized in our culture, and recognizing the major public health problem that widespread obesity presents could worsen these prejudices.

It’s clear to me that the deck is stacked against people struggling with overweight in our culture. But that’s the “culture” created by corporations that want to sell you more and keep you confused about what is good for you. But, as human beings, we each affect our social environments as well, and create our own “micro-culture” within our homes, among our friends and co-workers, and on our blogs!

The New York Times recently published an article about a study showing that people tend to gain and loose weight in concert with other members of their social network:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/health/26fat.html?fta=y

The focus of the article is gaining, of course, but isn’t it empowering to think about the other side of the coin. When each of us decides to make more nourishing choices, we have the potential to positively influence our whole social network. Marvelous! Healthy habits as a service to our loved ones!

I don’t mean to sound like a Pollyanna – I am deeply concerned with this issue, and so many politically powerful forces seem to be working against the public good when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. Political power and marketing strongly influence our environment, determine what choices are most convenient, and remind us to use certain products, but political power does not determine absolutely the choices that we make. Some people may even find motivation to live an active, nourishing lifestyle as a radical act of refusal to swallow these corporate values. Others may find some motivation in the idea that their choices do have an impact on their social network, and taking good care of themselves is not a selfish act.

It is an important practice to look at how scientific research is presented by the media, too. “Blame your friends if you’re putting on weight” is the “hook” presented in the title of the Times article. I can see how that would sell more copies than “Your healthy choices can help your friends, too!” If we can manage to avoid being sucked in to the dramatic spins the media lens draws out in this information, we may actually learn something useful from these stories, instead of simply finding more things to be afraid of and angry about.

Broadening my horizon

2007-09-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

For most of my life, my posture has been pretty poor. I've long blamed it on being taller than my classmates as I grew up, and NOT wanting to stick out for any reason. I saw a wonderful chiropractor in Portland, Oregon for a while. Each time I came to see him, I would try especially hard to stand up straight, but to seem like it was natural -- like I wasn't putting special effort into it. I'm cool. But every time I went in he would ask, "have you forgotten how to stand?"

I tested this in the mirror at the time, and he was absolutely right. If I stood in a way that felt straight and then looked at my back sideways in a mirror, it was almost shocking. My back was totally rounded -- like my arms were attached to the front of my torso, not the side. When I adjusted myself so that my mirror image looked closer to the human side of the primate family, it felt ridiculous, like the extreme arched stance of an Olympic gymnast posing at the end of her routine. It looked normal, but it would feel so strange to walk around like that!

The other day, I was walking to the building where I worked and noticed that the clouds were particularly beautiful that morning. I lifted my head higher than normal, and I realized how large and beautiful the sky is. I noticed that I usually walk with my head lowered so that my field of vision consists of buildings and sidewalk, and when I raised my head to include about half sky, I felt like I was on a different planet. I felt like I was on a planet, not just on a street, and I was walking upright, not stooped!

It was as if the cinematographer of my point of view, who was once a sit-com director on a sound stage, had been replaced by a true artist.

This is my new practice when I walk outside, and it has a lovely calming effect on my outlook. Feeling comfortable in my body while it's upright is a great side effect