Yes, sadly, those were my own words.
Uttered as I caught a glimpse of myself in my husband’s photos of our magnificent hike in the Maui rainforest. We’d come upon a waterfall spilling into pristine waters below and couldn’t resist going in. But rather than seeing the magic of what was all around us or the completely relaxed posture I stood in (like no one was looking, like I really was…
Yikes.
Slow can feel dangerous.
I’ll give you a hint:
When we go slow we feel. When we feel we hurt. When we hurt we may not know what to do.
So instead we go fast. Bypassing the hurt. Staying busy, achieving, climbing the ladder, collecting evidence of our worthiness, numbing what we don’t want to feel.
But here’s the rub:
No pain, no joy. We have to go slow to feel. And we…
Remember my mantra?
Show up.
Go slow.
Pay attention.
Going slow leads to Presence.
And Presence is the absolute, non-negotiable key to claiming a healing life.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
Not for me!
But I’ve got power tools to help me.
Journal writing. Yes, I’ve been keeping some kind of diary my entire life. But as a young ‘un in my early thirties I started…
Show up.
Go slow.
Pay attention.
My mantra for healing.
The mantra that saved me.
I’m not a slow girl by nature, and I’m stubborn, so I’ve come about my mantra (and healing) the hard way.
Going fast helped me get a lot done and acquire the many attributes of what I thought was a successful life. For many years I worked hard to develop myself as a mom, a physician, and a…
A slogan boldly displayed on the entry wall of Evolve Juicery and Kitchen, our new healthy meal service and fresh smoothie/juice kitchen in Iowa City.
And I love it! It’s perfect.
“Eat like you love yourself.”
Because it ALL comes down to self-love, doesn’t it? Every single choice we make, at every moment in time, forever.
And it’s where all the rest begins.
Our clear, vibrant,…
We just can’t help ourselves, can we?
We know we’re here for a purpose. We feel the fire in our bellies. We want better, more meaningful, more connected lives. We want to be our best and do our best in the world.
So in this cool, dark, quiet space of winter, standing at the precipice (and promise) of a new year, we take pause. We take stock. We consider our dreams. What can we do to make…
You know what I’m talking about here, right?
Those words and sentences so carefully crafted. Precious containers for our deepest yearnings. Our hopes, dreams, and desires. Crafted and spoken (or written) with prayerful, reverent, earnest intention and energy.
So why don’t they work?
I’ve worked with affirmations and prayers my entire life. Organically, fueled by necessity and…
Not my words. These are the words of Stephen Cobert, host of The Late Show and creator of the iconic Stephen Cobert Show.
He was asked the question, “what do you do to stay hopeful?”
His reply was:
Despair is just hubris.
Because you think you know what’s going to happen.
As Gandalf says, “Not even the wise know all ends.”
I haven’t been able to get…
Healing gets tricky.
Because our minds are tricky. You know, how they serve both survival and wisdom?
How they see just enough of a situation to instantaneously conjure the worst-case-scenario? Or lure us into seeing just what we want and expect to see?
While, at other times, amazing us with mind-blowing assessments of the deeper truth of things.
All in one mind!
And that’s what makes healing…
I’m writing you this week from one of the most polluted places in the world.
You guessed it—Northern California.
Emissions from the Camp Fire fires accumulated downstream in the San Francisco bay area, reaching record levels exceeding the most polluted cities on the planet.
Experiencing this level of toxicity has been profoundly eye opening about the human cost of uncontrolled pollution and…
I like to use Thanksgiving as a time to beef up my daily practice of gratitude.
It’s been looking like this lately…
I’m grumpy and annoyed to be displaced from my kitchen and living spaces (two months now!) while new flooring, lighting, and paint go in. The rest of the house is cluttered, dusty, and I can’t find anything!
But I get to do this. I get a new floor, gorgeous lighting and new wall…
We get the truth of body-mind-spirit integration, don’t we?
But in our rush to get to the bliss and awe we forget about the work we have to do first. Right?
I think it starts with the body.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I don’t eat well, or skimp on sleep, or slack off—or push myself mercilessly—it’s hard to access bliss and awe.
That comes with the discipline and vigilance of self-care.
When I…
Do you ever think about how it’s possible to dare to hope and believe in a better future AND stay honest about your feelings as they are right now (which may be a soup of misery!)?
It’s a paradox!
On the one hand, we want to hold onto faith that our possibilities are endless, and our potential infinite. We want to drive that faith with the kinetic energy of hope. To make things…
I saw this powerful quote the other day:
Self-love is a subversive act.
In trying to find who said it (I think it was Brene Brown), I came across this:
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
-Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light (1988)
Nailed it. Both of them.
This is our trouble with self-care. It’s what I work…
Yah, I know, I know, Word and Google don’t like “feet-brain” connection. They insist on “foot-brain” connection!
But they’re wrong.
It’s not foot. Not for most of us. It’s feet. We have two feet and our brain relates to two feet. I stand firm. Feet-brain connection it is!
The best way to strengthen and enliven your feet, and increase the sensory information they send your brain to support you,…
Ever checked out the pain reliever isle at the grocery story? Seen the many shelves of Ibuprofen bottles lined up in all shapes and sizes? Labels promising to relieve practically everything that ails you?
Ibuprofen, part of a family of pain-relieving drugs known as “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory” drugs (NSAIDS), is the staple go-to pain and inflammation remedy in most American households, and…
Did you know that our feet give rise to nearly half of all sensory information transmitted to our brains?
Wow.
And this feet-to-brain relationship leads to powerful things (that make us powerful), like:
That’s right. Our feet strengthen us in our center. When activated, the feet-brain connection has the…