Mindfulness – Page 4 – Restorative Life

Reality is settling in

I’m going to keep this as brief as possible because I know that we are all totally inundated with both information and emotions. For many of us, definitely for me, things got really real this week. After focusing so much initial energy and drastically shifting our lives according to social distancing and shelter in place guidelines, this week things have slowed down and started to settle. At first there was a novelty to it all and amidst the surge of adrenaline, we amused ourselves with memes and images of our new and novel quarantined lives. As the novelty dissolved and reality settled in, it has felt really uncomfortable. As I wrote last week, we just went through the seasonal change of the equinox that symbolizes transition. Transitions are always challenging, but none of us chose this one and we are all in it together. We can handle the discomfort of sore muscles because we are training to run a marathon or endure being confined in a small space for hours with lack of sleep and bad food to arrive at a new destination. We are willing to go through a lot in pursuit of a goal or destination. This feels different because it is different.

While it’s relatively straightforward attending to physical needs and hygiene like washing hands, eating fresh foods, getting plenty of sleep and movement, and so on; we must also remember emotional and spiritual hygiene. At a time when there is so much intense energy swirling around our homes and our communities, it’s more important than ever to take deep breaths and stay grounded. I tend to focus on the positive and look for the silver linings, but this week that hasn’t come so easily and I’ve just had to feel everything. There is sadness due to the cancelation of weddings, graduations, vacations, and other celebrations. I’ve felt angry because I don’t want my life to be changing like this; I liked it just the way it was a couple of weeks ago. I’m concerned for all the suffering and the doctors and nurses who are completely overwhelmed. There are the collective emotions of worry and fear amidst daily uncertainty and frequently changing situations from place to place. On top of all that, I have been judging myself for lack of productivity and not feeling especially motivated.

At the recommendation of a close friend, I started listening to Brené Brown’s new podcast. She is a pillar of wisdom and she has an incredible ability to articulate heavy and challenging topics with both practicality and humor. If it hasn’t been on your radar yet, I extend that recommendation to everyone to turn off the social media and the news for a few minutes and take in her message to us all. (Listen to the Podcast here.) She reminds us that what we are experiencing now is temporary and also that it’s important to understand that everyone in the family will have different ways of processing everything and different levels of energy every day. It’s important to have the language for everyone’s needs to be heard and for everyone to get the rest they need. It is normal that we all feel out of sorts right now and it’s especially necessary to recognize that and support one another. Some of our previous household routines are no longer appropriate. Our own daily rhythms are going through a period of revision and will continue to do so as long as we all remain home together.

In order to maintain my mental and emotional wellness, I have made daily meditation and yoga practice an absolute priority. Afternoon naps are normal. I take an Epsom salt bath every night to let go of the day and calm my mind and body. I have been grateful for the early spring sunshine and for watching movies on Disney Plus which was finally released in the UK this week. I try to limit my time online and watching news and listen to music every day. This week I especially enjoyed The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Björk, and George Gershwin. While I prefer to write little notes to friends and put them in the mail, I am shifting that to email since that’s the sensible to thing to do right now. And of course, family dinners are alive and well.

Thinking of you all this week. May you and your families be well and may your light shine through the difficulties and challenges.

Spring has arrived, and so has Someday

As North America and Europe and much of the world close the borders, schools, businesses, and send people to work from home, this week marked the first day of spring, the vernal equinox. The word equinox comes from latin, meaning “equal night”. It defines the 24-hour period that night and day are equal. In the spring it indicates that there will be more hours of daylight than darkness each day. (The opposite is true in the fall and for those presently in the Southern Hemisphere.) As the light returns, we often feel energetic, jubilant, and full of life. Last year, I wrote a piece called Out of Hibernation during the first week of spring as I could really feel the energy of new life and new growth ready to be expressed. This year, many of us are still left with our heads spinning after a rollercoaster week and trying to make sense of what the “new normal” will be and how long it may last.

We’ve been sent home from work, school, and had to cancel celebrations and vacation plans. University students have moved back home and we are told not to visit our elderly loved ones. It feels strange enough already and we are worried because there is so much uncertainty, but the timing is in contradiction to our usual tendencies during this time of year. We are being told to hibernate and isolate when what we really want to do is break free from the darkness into the daylight; and it feels surreal and unnatural.

In many cultures, the spring equinox marks the beginning of a new year. That makes a lot of sense. The springtime is full of new life after all. The warmth and light from the sun provide important life energy that allows rapid growth. Even in the context of defining a lifetime by seasons, it all begins in the spring; the birth, the growth, the maturation. The seed in the ground sprouts and develops. Traditions of spring cleaning takes place around the world as homes are cleaned of the old to make space for the new life and new routines to come. It’s a time for planting and for connecting. Spring represents coming out of the cocoon, new birth and fertility and is symbolized with eggs and bunnies and blossoms.

While it has initially felt very disorienting for the movement in our lives to have come to such an abrupt halt, there are opportunities here too for each on of us. Life can feel like we are on a hamster wheel and we are doing all kinds of things and ticking the boxes, but aren’t really going anywhere. We say things like, “Someday, I’m going to…” or “If I weren’t so busy, I would…” play more music, learn a language, read more books, exercise everyday, write a book, meditate, organize the photos, make art…” Fill in the blank of whatever is true for you. While there are many essential workers who are steadfastly working to save lives, and provide support to communities in a variety of ways, many others are simply home, off the hamster wheel, waiting and watching as news unfolds each day. In some ways, it suddenly seems that without the daily commute and other things that fill our days, we have at least a portion of that time that we’ve been dreaming of to do the things that we really want to be doing. Someday may have arrived, but we must to be conscious enough to notice it.

Technology is a double-edged sword in this situation. It allows for many educational pursuits during this period of isolation and the ability to remain connected with family and friends. It is also a massive, endless distraction. How many hours/days would you like back having spent too much time online and on social media or being spoon-fed Netflix episodes? In order to take advantage of this opportunity, we must be mindful and practice with discipline. Start with just one thing at a time and build on that. Plant that one seed and nurture it. Make that new activity or pursuit a priority. New growths are fragile and require special attention. As I’ve written previously about habits, once new routines are established, they are able to continue to develop more automatically.

There is a powerful seasonal energy during the equinox period. So much so that ancient monuments such as Stonehenge in England and the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza in Mexico have special portals within the structure to mark the transition. This weekend is a great time to turn off the devices for a few minutes or few hours and take some time and space to harness that energy into something special that will enhance your life and create positive growth during this otherwise challenging global period.

Be Well and Get your Nutrients

As I was revising this week’s originally planned post, the global spread of the coronavirus accelerated, and it was declared a pandemic. I found myself relieved to be on a flight returning back home to London amidst flurries of flight cancellations as countries began to close their borders. As I write this, my oldest daughter, along with countless other students in the U.S. and around the world, is packing her apartment to return home from college as classes have been canceled and the remainder of the semester will be completed online.

Nothing feels normal right now and there’s a sense of unease all around. The uncertainty of the situation over the next few weeks is uncomfortable. While there’s an urgency to be well in our bodies, we must remember that full wellness incorporates the body, mind, and spirit. Much of the spread of the virus is out of our individual control, but that doesn’t mean that we must be out of control as well. Remember, that it’s not what happens to us that matters most, but how we react to what happens.

This is a great time to increase restorative practices to combat the anxious energies that are swirling about. Practice taking deep breaths, take a bath, shut off all devices and read a good book (nothing too apocalyptic!), go for a long walk, pray or meditate, do a home spa day, write in a journal or write a letter to a friend, or release energy and have fun with music and dance. The days are getting longer and new life is bursting out everywhere, take a moment to notice the small changes each day. Look for the hidden gifts in the new and unexpected change of pace, they are most certainly there.

Nutrition matters. As long as your able to, continue to eat fresh vegetables as your main source of nutrition. Those who are malnourished are most vulnerable to being infected with any kind of virus. As you may be preparing for the most severe social isolation measures, consider stocking the most nutritious food possible. High consumption of processed foods is linked to reduced immunity, so stick to the most simple options. If you have a dark cool place to store them, root vegetables so last for a while, so it’s good to have plenty of those to have fresh food to add to your meals as long as possible. Buy dry beans to soak and prepare yourself for highest nutritional content. Best options for pantry include: nuts, nut butters, canned tomatoes, artichokes, tuna, salmon, anchovies, olives, coconut milk, olive oil, and of course if you have a freezer, you can include frozen vegetables and plenty of high quality fish, poultry and meat readily available. Be careful of sugar. If you want to have something sweet on hand, dried fruits and dark chocolate are good options to be consumed in moderation. Sugar (including alcohol) feeds most viruses, so if you consume a lot of sugar, you are creating an inviting environment that will be most susceptible to contracting the virus.

For a final practical note, vitamin C, zinc, and vitamin D3 have been shown to be most effective to bolster the immune system for increased response in combating viral threats.

May you and your families be well. Take a deep breath, get plenty of rest, and keep your bodies, minds, and spirits nourished.

I wrote a lot of letters in college and that was a good thing

A few years ago my best friend gifted me all the letters that I had written to her since we had started exchanging letters our freshman year in college. I had also saved all of the letters that she had written to me. I stored them in a box in the garage. We had both stayed in California for school. I went to UC Davis near Sacramento and she went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on the central coast. Separated by 300 miles or five hour drive felt like a world apart. On top of that, we rarely made phone calls because it was too expensive on a student budget. And of course, there was no email, no Internet, none of the instant messaging and kaleidoscope of communication options that we have today. We didn’t even have computers. (gasp!!)

The semester that we graduated in 1994, we were told that in the course of our lives things would change a lot and that life would be completely different in ways we couldn’t even imagine. Oh, what truth that was.

That box of letters sat in my house for a while before I was ready to open it and relive those youthful days that swung like a pendulum from wild and carefree some weeks to tumultuous and anxiety provoking in others. When I finally did dive in, I was flooded with emotions and memories, some good, some having best forgotten. The walk down memory lane didn’t end with the one box. I excavated to uncover all of the letters that had been written to me to see what else there was to discover. What struck the most me looking back more than a quarter century was just how different life was then and how writing letters easily and organically fit into daily life.

The first thing I noticed was that I wrote letters because I was broke. Even though we lived in the same state, those calls added up fast. And don’t think that 19 year girls would possibly able talk to their BFF for “a quick chat”, it had to be a full session, all or nothing. We had to share every detail of every experience, especially regarding the guys we were interested in and going out with. Many letters included some version of: “I totally want to talk to you but I can’t afford it this week, so I’m writing a letter instead.” I would then go into a full stream of telling my latest stories as if I were going to burst if I didn’t share them with someone. Not just someone, but someone who understood why those stories were important to me. I spared nothing because I wanted to be sure she totally understood my experience and I hoped we would be able to talk about it eventually.

Another pattern that was apparent was that I wrote because I felt depressed. It’s hard to imagine now, but back in the early 1990s we all had plenty of spare time and sometimes being away from home felt lonely. The letter would start with “I’m so depressed, I’m listening to Morrissey right now. Every time it finishes, I rewind the tape and listen again.” Or “I’ve been depressed all week, my life is a mess.” Then I would write out all of my doubts and fears and insecurities. At the end of these missives, I would usually apologize for such a depressing letter, but I felt so much better because it was all released. Even in a letter that wouldn’t be received for a few days, I felt heard and connected. It was a private letter and it was safe to write down intimate thoughts without an ounce of worry that anyone other than my friend would see them.

Such expression of depression is interesting because I’m not typically a depressed type person, but in these letters, it was ok to say I was depressed in that moment. I acknowledged feeling really down in the dumps. Being able to write about it in the confidence of someone close to me helped a lot with clarity and moving through the challenges along the way. The same effect can happen with journaling in terms of self-expression; however the connection to the other person is very powerful and was evident when I had the privilege of reading those letters that I had written so many years ago. It’s hard to imagine now how to even articulate feeling depressed because it’s so associated with severe depression, but then it was normal vernacular.

I wrote letters because I was bored. Some days, I didn’t want to to study, my roommate was at work or whatever and I just wanted something to do; so I would write a letter. The boredom letters were more factual talking about the weather or my class schedule the following week. I would tell where I was in that specific moment and why I’m alone writing a letter, pretty mundane stuff really. At the end of those particular letters, I always had a plan for what I was going to go next such as, “Well, I’m off to the record store now, I hope they have the new album. Talk to you later.” Sitting down and writing a brief letter resolved my boredom and I carried on with my day.

Probably the most surprising discovery in terms of comparison to what life is like now was that some letters mentioned plans for an upcoming visit. I can remember that we really did do that. “I’m gonna leave after lunch on Friday and should get there by 6.” We planned visits to each other BY POST! And that wasn’t actually that long ago really – I’m not that old. It was possible that we might not even talk by phone before that trip, but I knew she would expect me; I had written and told her after all. Of course, we would have planned trips over a sequence of letters, but I never worried that she may not have gotten the message or anything else. If she wasn’t going to be there, she would simply leave a note at the door and I would wait for her or meet her at a designated place. This didn’t happen often between the two of us, but it did happen. I can’t even imagine doing something like that now? Sending a letter in the mail to a friend or relative telling the date and time of arrival for a visit later in the month. Yep, it’s all there in the letters.

Finally, and something I had completely forgotten; in the years right after college, we wrote letters from everywhere and to anywhere in the world. When we did our Eurorail trip for 10 weeks, we received letters from loved ones in various locations. Even when backpacking in rural Mexico and Guatemala or other far-off places, we sent and received mail! An actual letter in hand that someone took the time to write to us and write our names on the envelope arrived in all kinds of exotic places. We sent letters to any city addressed with the name and labeled Poste Restante to stay in touch with each other. Then, when arriving at a new place, we would go straight to the post office to see if there was mail waiting. The trips would be pre-planned enough that we always knew where to send the next letter. It was such fun to receive those letters and then write a response and update on our travels. Those letters were fuel for the soul.

Oh how times have changed. What do we do nowadays when we’re bored or broke or feeling depressed? Social media and a million other digital distractions so readily fill in the gaps. Modern technology is actually incredible and we’re able talk and video-chat across continents and often for free. My friend and I do still write letters, snail mail between California and London, although it’s much less often; and it takes much longer than it used to despite everything else being much faster. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen as a matter of our usual routines either. Sitting down to write a letter is something we have to “fit” into our busy lives. And while we are in the age of communication and information, our experiences will be remembered very differently when looking back in another twenty-five years. Instead of a special box in the garage or the corner of the closet, it is all memorialized in the cloud (which as far as I know partially exists somewhere in Tennessee). I treasure those letters and the extraordinary friendship of safety and trust, shared joys and shared heartbreaks, that developed as we wrote them and they traveled across the miles.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable

(4th in series of working towards achieving New Year’s resolutions. This series will be posted the last week of each month as we work our way through 2020 all together.)

“Comfort kills ambition. Get uncomfortable and get used to it in your pursuit of your goals and dreams.” -Robert Kiyosaki

Here we are at the end of February and we get a bonus day this year too! For those like me who are keeping track, February 29 will mark 16% of year complete, one-sixth of the 2020 pie. The last week of the month is a great time to pause and reflect on progress made so far this year working towards our big goals, those New Year’s Resolutions.

Are you continuing on the march forward your goals? Have you had a setback? What has been successful? What has been a challenge? Do you want to continue with the same goal or do you want to consider a revised goal? Has it been easy? Hard? Have you already achieved the goal and need a new goal? Allow yourself a few minutes to consider these questions, and revise and upgrade the plan.

And one more question. Have you felt uncomfortable yet? How do you handle discomfort? It’s an important part of the process. Remember that quote from last month: “If you only walk on sunny days, you will never reach your destination.” -Paolo Coelho?

Being uncomfortable is well, uncomfortable, but it’s actually good. It’s a sign that you are in the process of achieving something and learning something new. Yet we are surrounded my messages in marketing and in the media that we deserve things to be easy and comfortable. That’s not true. Climbing a mountain isn’t always easy, but we do it because we want the view from the top, the satisfaction of having achieved it. It starts off easy enough on the gently sloped path we are motivated and excited. Then suddenly the path is steep and getting steeper. The steps we take are smaller and require more effort, but moving is winning and we carry one on step at a time. Eventually, the the gradient levels off again and we are rewarded with breathtaking views making the effort well worth it.

Things feel uncomfortable when they are new. They feel clumsy and awkward and strange. That is only temporary; it’s guaranteed to get better once it becomes familiar. New neuropathways have to be established. I remember my first guitar lesson; my fingers didn’t want to do what they were supposed to do to play the chords. But I kept working the positions and eventually I got the hang of it; and every week it became easier and easier. When I got callouses on my fingertips, they were uncomfortable; but I was pleased because they were a sign of progress.

In psychology there are the Four Stages of Competence. A simple online search will provide plenty of graphical illustrations of this concept. The four stages are:

Unconscious incompetence
Conscious incompetence
Conscious competence
Unconscious competence

Learning to drive is a perfect example. In the beginning you don’t know how much you don’t know. Once you start learning, you realize that there are a lot of things to learn to reach competence. It’s kind of exciting and scary at the same time. Then you achieve competence when you still need to be paying attention to driving, but it’s easier and more comfortable. Eventually, you are able to drive without even thinking about it, it just happens unconsciously. For many goals, we have to go through the vulnerable stages before something comes naturally.

The thing about being uncomfortable is that it requires a lot of focus just to be there. You have to consciously choose it. It’s so much easier to sit on a comfy sofa and watch another episode (or another whole season) on Netflix than go for a walk/workout, try a new recipe, go out to an exhibit, attend a class, or write the next chapter of your book. Being uncomfortable puts us in the present moment. It keeps our bodies and minds active. Unexpected things will happen in the present moment and each one is an opportunity to learn and move forward towards success. The greatest achievements and best stories come from pushing through the discomforts. The best stories we have to tell are about being uncomfortable and conquering challenges and discomforts; and in the end, those who conquer the biggest challenges are our heroes.

So get out there and get your feet wet outside of your comfort zone. It takes practice to be comfortable bring uncomfortable, but like everything else, it gets easier the more you do it.

“Do one thing everyday that scares you. Those small things that make us uncomfortable help us build courage to do the work we do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

The Days Fly By

When moving last year, I found this poem that I wrote exactly twenty years ago in February 2000. I was expecting our first child at the time. We chose not to find out the gender opting for the big announcement at the birth. It’s a girl! would be exclaimed when she arrived a few months later. She will turn 20 this year in June and it really feels like the days are flying by.

What I remember specifically about this poem is that it wasn’t written to my unborn child, even though it seems so. I was very clear about that at the time, but I couldn’t explain it. Looking back, I can see that it was primarily written to myself and somehow encapsulated my hopes and dreams and fears as we were starting our family and I would soon become a mother.

What a life full of moments and emotions and what a gift to wake up each day and LIVE.

THE DAYS FLY BY

We are all born to a world of change
Though we may never know why
We grow and learn, despair, rejoice
Wonder and laugh and cry
And the days fly by.
Some look back with little more
Than regret and a wistful sigh
Or worry away the future
Or do their best to deny
That the days fly by
Each moment in time is a
Gift that comes
And goes in the blink of an eye
We question as always
The meaning of life
And “to live” is the only reply.
So I celebrate you in the here and now
May you live as well as life will allow
And may your spirits be ever high
So they too will fly
As the days fly by.

–S. R. O’Connor, 2000

Just one day at a time

One Day at a Time – What’s your mantra?
(3^rd in series of working towards achieving New Year’s resolutions. Future additions to this series will be posted the last week of each month as we work our way through 2020 all together.)

We have come to the end of January and moving right along into February and beyond.

How’s it going? Are you on track for your goal? Great!

Off track? Then it’s time to get back on. The great thing is that every time we fall, we have the opportunity to get back up again.

A few years ago, I wanted to improve my skiing abilities and I took a ski lesson. I ended up on a slope that was beyond my level. I became frozen in fear. Steep, off-piste, trees, powder, and a long way to the bottom, everything scary. I became filled with doubt; how would I manage? My instructor sensed my hesitation and the others in the group had already begun to tackle the challenge. She asked me, “Can you do 3 turns?” I thought about it, assessed the terrain immediately in front of me, and replied, “Ok, I think I can manage that.” After successfully completing those three turns, she said, “Now do three more.” And that’s how I did it, three turns at a time. Once I recovered from a fall, I got right back to it. Three turns, then three more turns. I kept that mantra with me for the rest of the day and throughout the week. Then, interestingly and to my great satisfaction, a few days later, I no longer needed that mantra and became more comfortable on the more advanced terrain.

I was able to overcome what felt insurmountable because a well-knowing instructor helped me to break it down into chunks that were possible. It is said that anxiety is rooted in feelings about the future. Most goals are too big to deal with all at once, they have to be made into manageable pieces. We must proceed one day, one hour, one minute, on step, three turns at a time all while facing in direction of the goal and moving forward in confidence. My friend Sarah Miller Histand, an online trainer from Anchorage, Alaska, encourages participants with the mantra Moving is winning. No matter the pace; when you are moving you are winning. Because what’s the alternative? Not moving; staying the same place you have been and making no progress. Sometimes, we have slow way down until we feel more comfortable and are more able to stay on course. A baby starts to stand, then toddle, then walk, and finally accelerate to run. Many times it’s simply the case of wanting too much too fast. Whether you are learning to play a musical instrument, starting a fitness routine, learning a new language, or consuming less sugar we will make progress by showing up every day, even the days when it’s clumsy and messy and we miss the mark. Remember that moving is winning.

In the book The Slight Edge, Jeff Olsen discusses how it comes down to the small choices that we make each day. We can choose to work out or not work out in one day and in that singular moment it won’t really change anything. But remember that a habit is established by doing the same thing repeatedly over and over again. So each day we have the opportunity to establish foundations for “good” or “bad” habits. Really, it’s just a gift to be able to pay attention and to hit the reset button every single day if necessary.

Olsen also elaborates on the power of time. We live in a world that values speed at all costs. Our lives are filled with hi-speed trains, wifi, express delivery, quick fixes, rapid recovery, accelerated programs, non-stop action, and it goes on and on. He uses the geological creation of the Grand Canyon as the ultimate example of the potential of time in one of his many success equations:

Consistently repeated daily actions + time = inconquerable results

It’s true. If you do the same thing every day, over time, there will be some results.

Olsen suggests to aim for a 1% improvement each day from the day before towards a specific outcome in a targeted area of your life. At the end of the week, you can expect a 7% improvement from where you started. Then the next week you start again from that new place and with the potential to increase exponentially in a way similar to compounding interest.

One month down, and 11 more to go in this big and exciting year 2020. It’s a great time to evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t so far. What’s you’re mantra? What are you aiming for this week to get closer to the goal?

Stay focused. Time is on your side and you are on your way one day and one step at a time.

It starts with a habit…

“We are creatures of habit, and leveraging our habitual tendencies is one of the best ways to develop discipline.” -Ernest Cadorin, The Arrows of Zen

Establishing a new habit or shifting a current habit is a great place to start when making changes to better our lives, but it is so much harder that is seems it should be. Why is it such a challenge? The reason is embedded in the definition itself.

A habit is defined as a “routine behaviors done on a regular basis. They are recurrent and often unconscious patterns of behavior acquired through frequent repetition”.

Our habits started off as learning something new, like driving a car. Eventually, we do it with so often that it happens on autopilot. This capacity allows the brain to focus on something else, which is mostly a good thing. The problem is that is that when have developed a habit that we no longer want, like smoking or eating sweets in the afternoon or getting angry too quickly, then it takes a lot of conscious effort to change it. We have to really pay attention.

A great deal of each day passes according to our habits. Checking our phone for messages, brushing our teeth, getting dressed, putting a spoonful of sugar in the coffee, the route to work, ordering fries with the burger, browsing the news when we should be doing research online, the path through the supermarket, hanging our jacket when we get home, pouring a glass of wine while preparing dinner, and much much more.

Any of these surprise you? Pouring a glass of wine is a habit? Yep, you bet it is. After much repetition, it’s become part of your routine; it’s done without even thinking. When it comes to new habits, you are developing new neuropathways in your brain. Fortunately, you can use what it already there to assist in the shift.

In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes a Habit Loop. Once a habit has been identified, it can be broken down into a cue, a routine, and a reward.

CUE–>Routine–>Reward

For example, if you have a routine of getting a brownie for an afternoon pick-me up; then the cue is that it’s time for a break from work; the routine is going to the snack bar to buy and eat the brownie; and the reward is the dopamine hit from the sugar in the brownie. In order to successful change the habit, you must interfere with this loop starting with the cue. What if at the indicated break time you took a walk instead and get the reward of some fresh air? You will also need to assess if you are actually hungry at this time and be prepared with a healthy snack like an apple or some nuts to have at your desk upon return from the walk.

What are your habit loops and how will you disrupt them? Here are a few examples: Put your gym bag at the front door so you remember to take it with you for the day; Substitute herbal tea or sparkling water for a glass of wine on weeknights; Instead of watching tv or Netflix after dinner, read a book or take a bath in improve sleep routine; Instead of buying coffee, prepare it at home and add the money to a jar each morning.

Interestingly, a habit is also defined as “a distinctive set of clothing often worn by a religious order”. While it has historically been used in literal context, it can be used figuratively as well. In many of his books including Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and Evolve Your Mind: The Science of Changing Your Mind, Dr. Joe Dispenza explains how simple things in our daily lives subtlety evolve into major parts of our lives, even a personality can have developed as a habit. Certain behaviors and emotions move into a general mode of operation that happen unconsciously. Fortunately, we are able to change this and in the book he describes how to become the new person you desire to be. Including visualizations and meditations, essentially, you dress or habit yourself as the new person you are becoming and that itself sets into motion the process of change.

As we endeavor to change established routines and habits, we must become conscious. That means paying attention to trigger and to the habit loops that have become entrenched in our daily lives. Change the routine or the reward in the habit loop and you will change the cycle. Studies show that habits take a minimum of twenty-one days to integrate and feel more or less routine. To move into automatic mode, it will require upwards of sixty-six to over two hundred days. What are you shifting this year? Wake up every day and remind yourself, dress yourself it that new habit.

“If you do not pour water on your plant, what will happen? It will slowly wither and die. Our habits will also slowly wither and die away if we do not give them an opportunity to manifest. You need not fight to stop a habit. Just don’t give it an opportunity to repeat itself. (67)”
-Sri S. Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

New Year, BEST YOU!

Happy New Year! I hope 2020 is off to a good start for you. In July 2018 I wrote a blog post about titled, “How good are you at being yourself?” Feel free to reference that when focusing on and revising what you aim to accomplish in 2020. In terms of New Year’s Resolutions and the popular expression New Year, New You, I believe it’s important to come into resolutions from a place of acceptance and desire to make incremental improvements working towards a goal, rather than the idea that we aren’t good enough until we achieve this other potential version of ourselves. For the next few weeks, the posts will focus on how to work through challenges that arise as we are trying to make various shifts in our lives, often related to health, wellness, and vitality.

New Year, BEST You!

“If you only walk on sunny days, you will never reach your destination.”
-Paolo Coelho

We make New Year’s resolutions in order to become the best version of ourselves; a new and improved version. We begin January with a vision and declare our hopes and dreams for the New Year.

The top resolutions haven’t really changed much in the last 20 years. They include: lose weight, be more organized, save money, get in shape, quit smoking, eat a healthier diet, learn a new skill or hobby, read more, spend more time with family and friends.

With such aspiration and optimism why do we fail to achieve up to 90% of resolutions and end up making the same one again next year? Most of them have already been abandoned by early to mid-February. What about the rest of the year? The resolution was made for a new year, not a new month. Therein lies the problem. We are expecting to accomplish something big and transformative in too little time. We throw in the towel and declare we have failed even when we are making progress. Ever heard of someone bail on a new diet after successfully losing six pounds just for having eaten one piece of cake? Or quit a new exercise routine because of a business trip or a sick baby during one week?

Would you behave this way with anything else in your life? Imagine some examples: A 10-mile hike that’s meant to take all day; not there by noon, so why bother? Baking a cake; got tired of waiting for it to bake so take it out of the oven and declare that the recipe didn’t work. How about a baby learning to walk? Will she give up after the first wobbly step and fall to the ground? There are infinite examples here and while they sound completely ridiculous, that’s the tendency when it comes to New Year’s resolutions.

Here and now in 2020, I challenge you to change this pattern. How many years have you made a similar resolution to the one you made this year? How’s going so far? Taking the whole year into account, on January 18, you should expect to have reached five percent (5%). Congratulations! If you make it until February 1, that will represent nine percent (9%). Well done. So far, so good. But if you stop there, it will be another fail. If you are a fan of the popular for eighty percent (80%) rule, then stick with it until October 18. Or continue to include the whole year, knowing that the remaining twenty percent (20%) accounts for 73 days of the year which averages to about 6 days per month, and definitely allows for vacations and celebrations and plain old lousy days. That doesn’t sound so impossible, right? It’s more like a marathon than a sprint. Resolutions seek transformation and require a commitment, the long haul.

How important is your New Year’s resolution to you? Is it just a January pastime? Are you willing to work on it the entire year? What will you when you inevitably fall?

We fail at New Year’s resolutions because we don’t allow ourselves to fall.

Learn from those falls and carry on. If those resolutions don’t really matter to you, then throw in the towel and get on with your regular routines. However, If you want to achieve success with those goals and move closer to being the best most vital version of yourself, know that you will do this by achieving one percent at a time. I know you can do it!

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston S. Churchill

Adios to a decade; and thank you

It only occurred to me last week that as we come to the end of 2019, we close the entire decade. During December, I tend to get caught up in a flurry of holiday hoopla leaving end of the year reflections dangling in that somewhat suspended space between December 26 and December 30. Then suddenly it’s December 31, the last day of the year, and just like that, a new year has arrived. The end of a decade seems much bigger than the end of a year, and worthy of reflecting upon the last ten years of life.

From 2010-2019, I have been on the roller coaster of life; the biggest one, the fastest one, at times, the scariest one that takes my breath away. Have you? I’ve celebrated the highs and trudged through the lows. There were corkscrew spins, upside down sections, the loop de loop… not to forget the free falling, climbing, plunging, and sharp turns; and and of course the thrill of speed and weightlessness and then the inevitable return to the reality of gravity. Sometimes I had to hang on tight and others I threw my arms to the sky in delight.

During the past ten years, I experienced some of the deepest challenges of my life and also participated in the most extraordinary things I could ever have imagined or thought possible. I have come through at the end with broadened perspectives, new skills, new and wonderful relationships, and an expanding outlook on what is possible. I am here on the final day of 2019 filled with gratitude for the valuable lessons that I have learned along the way that I know will leave me well-equipped for the new and exciting chapters to come.

Of course, in reality, the end of each year is the end of its own decade. We are just accustomed to thinking of decades in terms of in round numbers. To be honest, there are some things that have completed the cycle and I am beyond thrilled to have this bookend of the decade and slam it shut. Other chapters have only just begun and I’m excited to continue writing those pages to discover where these new adventures will lead and brand new chapters to be opened in the new year and the new decade. I look forward to the lessons and explorations to come.

And as I will assuredly sing Auld Lang Syne with friends and family at midnight tonight, it translates to an appropriate conclusion: “Let’s share a drink to days (and decades) gone by”.

Happy New Year!