Yesterday, you got the skinny (no pun intended, well maybe a really bad one) on the Support aspect of our tri-system SPR™

Ready for the Push side of SPR™?

Push

·         Power: Get in there, just do it, calmly burst into
·         Pace: Gather breath, gather pace
·         Pick-up: Push yourself toward the end of the workout by picking up speed and intensity briefly

Many might dread the second aspect of SPR™ because when thinking about pushing anything, the first picture to people’s minds is: “I will have to exert all this force for a very long time!”  The task becomes daunting and feels impossible. What is missing is physiological understanding of the body and how it builds. The body responds highly to variation in workouts.

 Anything extended, regardless of the force often does the opposite of what one desires. Over time doing the same thing at the same pace could cause you to either not see any results for all that effort you put in or even worse: Working out could set you up to gain weight if there is no variation in your routine particularly at low intensities.

Okay, push—let me show you an authentic look at what is deeply embedded in the P aspect of SPR™:  (P1) Power – burst force (intensity) + (P2) Pace – (gathering awareness; ease into It; rest) + (P3) Pick-up (burst with the aim of shortly moving into slowing down or ceasing versus moving into pacing) =  Variation, periodization. One is not pushing the whole time.

What is beneficial about SPR™ is that there is no time associated with it! One’s effectiveness comes about because embedded is an overall quality approach to pacing and variation. When one runs, there is activity prior and following that enables that runner to do so. SPR™ simply helps you remember there is system—beautiful symphony—to what we do. Example: If one wants to run, run a business, run an errand, run a carpet, there are things one has to do to prep (Support), move into the task (Push) and replenish energies (Recover):

·         Run: (S) Drink water, stretch (P) Run ( R) Walk, stretch

·         Business: (S) Blueprints (P) in Operation (R) Recovering expenditures

·         Errands: (S) To-do List (P) Completing errand ( R) Relaxing at home

Someone once beautifully told me as I was making preparations for my new roommate: “Painting is mostly prep”. This is another highlight regarding the wonderful reflective experience of thinking in SPR™ for pretty much all of what we do.  We look and see someone painting and think there’s nothing to it. There is system to pretty much everything. Things do not just show up. What a delightful concert of efforts!

Look at the process for cleaning carpet. It includes running your fingers through it at one point. Cool real estate article on breaking our largest and most daunting tasks to its elements, addressing pieces at a time.

How To Run An Carpet Cleaning Business Using A Tiny Amount Money Today by Real Estate Blog
 

Back to the Push side.

Interesting fact: It turns out that low intensity aerobic exercise is bad for your heart and lungs—by bad I mean causing them to shrink!

PACE® stands for: Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion. (www.alsearsmd.tuv)

“By increasing the intensity and varying the duration of each interval according to the PACE program, your heart and lungs get the right challenge they need to transform and stay fit and strong well into old age.” (www.alsearsmd.tuv)

This is in part backed up by the seminal research study the Havard Health Professionals Study done a few years back (2002), which finds that men who participated in high intensity exercises such as training with weights, walking briskly and/or running significantly reduced their risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) as compared t men who did not do those FORMS of exercise—not men who did not exercise. (*The results appear in the October 23, 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.)

This is huge and more fuel for the Push in SPR™ fire. We need to place intensity-based exercises or methods of exercising (coupled with short rest/recovery periods) somewhere in our workout routines.

Frank Hu, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who co-authored the study with Mihaela Tanasescu, a former graduate student at HSPH, said of the findings:

"What's new here is that we can see which exercises and intensity levels have the greatest benefit to reducing the risk of heart disease. Weight training had been thought to be beneficial but we now can see for certain that is. The best way for men to reduce the risk of CHD is to increase the amount they exercise, increase the intensity level of the exercise and add weight training to their exercise program."

The most optimal workout is one that has variation built in at high levels of intensity coupled with “rest” periods—for example, using the “random” or “hill” feature on a treadmill while also at 5 – 7 minute intervals increasing the speed or resistance level one notch. The “random” and “hill” features insert varying speeds and/or resistance leves into the workout, which allow one to recover at a brief lower speed or resistance level while revving up into higher speeds or resistance levels.

Lifting weights, again, has had the poor misconception that it is all push and nothing but the push. This is not true. What is genius and so instantaneously effective about weight lifting is that resting is done on this ratio—15: 30 or 30: 1—15 reps and rest for 30 seconds or 30 reps and rest for 1 minute.

That is for intense workouts—meaning you are trying to pack in a complete workout while being cut for time. We all know those guys at the gym whose rest periods consist of staring blankly or talking to their neighbor with wild hands. Well, this is okay, so long as in 90 seconds or 2 minutes you return back to your set.

We see muscle men and womyn pumping iron on television as this quick blitz of an activity. Just go to your local gym and do not even step past the front entrance. What you will see is many people walking around within the free weight area and only few actually pumping iron. Why? They are not just walking around in narcissistic splendor looking at their bod at various mirror angles. They are resting—a key part of building quality muscle.

More than anything, you lovely guys and gals, remember that varied intensity is key to seeing results—sneak in a push—and that the ruby’s in the resting.

Dear, readers, please excuse the delay.  The last few days have been both character building and character realization. Much more on that in posts to come. For now, I want to get back to my promise: A week about you! You wanted specific tips? Here is a quick look into my workout routine and how to SPR™ your way to the results you want. This may excite you: Eat more protein, and extremely low carb diets slow down your metabolism! Just a couple of peeks into today’s post.  Happy reading.

As shared last Wednesday, SPR™ stands for Support—Push—Recover ™.   Below, there are a couple of ways to build the Support aspect. What follows is a look at my workout routine. Let me see if you can locate the SPR™ in my workout.

SUPPORT
·         Subtle: Surrounding Environment (Kitchen cabinets, friends, music, home space, affirmations, mentality) *Also included is what you eat
·         Stretch:  Yoga, Lemba movement therapy, full body stretching  (neck, shoulders, arms, back, quads, hamstrings, calves, feet)
·         Still: Setting intention, pausing, meditation, visualizing a successful workout

(S 1) Subtle

Diet (The Food You Select) – Tips from Fitness Rx for Women Magazine: The Scientific Approach to Health and Fitness.

·         The article “High-Protein Diets Reduce Stress of Intense Training” cited a study featured in the Medicine Science Sports Exercise Journal (43: 598-607. 2011) done by the University of Birmingham (UK). It shared consuming extra protein (3 grams per kilogram of body weight per day) decreased both emotional and psychological stress associated with intense workouts or training periods. This was comparative to normal diets.

·         Ok, let’s face it—we all are not doing intense training and, thus, there is some limitation the application of this study. Yet, what I think still can extend to us regular Joe and Jane Schmos is that while getting back into a workout routine or sustaining a high impact workout routine, we must eat more protein than what was typical in pervious diets.

·         Well, then one might go further and say that this is confirmation for a painfully low carb diet. Not quite. A study by the University of Oklahoma in Nutrition (27: 659-665, 2011) finds that extremely low-carbohydrate diets are effective for promoting weight loss for three – six months, but their long-term effect remains questionable. Researchers found mice on extremely low carbs diets developing resistance to growth hormone in the liver. This has important effects for fat, carbohydrate and protein metabolism in adults. Athletes, according to the article, need a robust growth hormone to metabolism to increase muscle mass and minimize body fat. (Article: Extremely Low Carbohydrate Diets Interfere with Growth Hormone Metabolism)

·         Moral of the story: Balance is needed. Whether you have been pumping iron or just getting back onto the elliptical, you will need to eat more protein than what was previous in your normal diet. Further, only do spurts of low carb dieting not longer than 3-6 months.

Mentality

·         On my 8/12/11 post, I share the astounding effects of how a choose-to versus a have-to attitude could powerful deplete or replenish. It asked to question which activities were positive power producing versus negative (depleting) power producing. Our mentality heading into uncharted territory or a new workout plan can either give us the much needed boost to charge forward or shoot us in the foot before the whistle blows. Let’s get our mentality in shape before we begin!

·         The article “Is There an Elephant in the Room”  in Philly Fit Magazine shares that we must get the elephant out of the room to begin an effective and healthy change toward wellness. Author Julie Fuimano speaks on avoidance and denial—how we dance around issues because we are either too busy, don’t think that it’s serious or don’t know how to handle it. (I personally think it is more of the latter.)

·         What I enjoyed about this article was that the author understood issues under wellness as related to tempers, relationships with your kids, defensiveness, body image, physical health and the list goes on.

·         Solution: Jule Fuimano suggests the first approach is to start becoming aware of how you feel; in what situations do things feel uncomfortable or you feel like you have no space. Look for areas in your life, she suggests, where you feel you are not free to do, think or be who you want to be.

·         It is almost as if she read my blog post because the next line quotes: “As an adult—a mature adult—you are free to choose. And if you are not [feeling] free to choose, chances are there’s an elephant in the room.”

·         Our brain is master at hiding things from us for one reasons or another. We must not be timid in our search for what’s ailing us, for what we rather relegate to the deepest corners of our mind. Start with how you are feeling. This place is golden and guide.

Shayna SheNess Israel’s Personal Upper Body Quick Morning Workout

In this personal workout regimen, my reference is the gym. As we go on, I’ll have home alternatives. Here’s what I do to get a lean collarbone, strong back and core, sexy clavicle and high definition shoulders and arms. Let me see if you can locate the SPR™ in my routine:

1.       Stretch: Downward facing dog asana (yoga position) and targeted stretches for quads, calves, feet and hamstrings (yoga and dance based). Hold each stretch 12 – 15 seconds and breathe steadily. Sometimes, I will push and hold a stretch position for 15 – 20 seconds.

2.       Baseline: Running 3 – 5 miles for 25 minutes – 45 minutes  (Treadmill)

3.       Stretch: Downward facing dog asana (yoga position) and targeted arm stretches (yoga and dance based). Hold each stretch 12 – 15 seconds and breathe steadily. Sometimes, I will push and hold a stretch position for 15 – 20 seconds.

4.       Lateral Raises Weight Machine (Shoulders, Deltoids): Two – three sets of 15 – 30 reps and 30 seconds – 1 minute resting (I do targeted arm stretches while in rest position). I use 30lbs weights because, although I can lift more, my goal is to look lean and not bulky.

5.       Pec Deck Weight Machine (Chest, Pectoralis Major): Three – four sets of 15 – 30 reps and 30 seconds – 1 minute resting (I do targeted chest stretches while in rest position). I use 30lbs weights.

6.       Chest Press Weight Machine (Chest, Pectoralis Major): Two – three sets of 15 – 30 reps and 30 seconds – 1 minute resting (I do targeted arm stretches while in rest position). I use 30lbs weights

7.       Tricep Weight Machines: Three – four sets of 15 – 30 reps and 30 seconds – 1 minute resting (I do targeted arm stretches while in rest position)

8.       Back Lifts Free Weight 25lbs: Two – three sets of 15 – 30 reps and 30 seconds – 1 minute resting (I stretch by touching my toes while in rest position). I use a single 25lbs weight

9.       60 Second Hold (Abs Option 1): I do the 60 second hold pictured above (60 seconds with front abs facing the ground, 30 seconds with each side ab facing the ground).

10.   Bicycle Crunches (Abs Option 2): Bicycle crunches (100x) where one alternates crunches in an isolated fashion moving side to side touching elbows to knees.  When I get to 100, I push myself to do 5 or 10 more.

11.   Stretch: Downward facing dog asana (yoga position) and targeted arm stretches (yoga and dance based). Hold each stretch 12 – 15 seconds and breathe steadily. Sometimes, I will push and hold a stretch position for 15 – 20 seconds.

 The secret is out: Support, Push and Recover ™.

In blogging, my aim is to share amongst witnesses the trials, triumphs and intersections of healing all over as I transform (now once) chaotic spheres of my life toward greater balance.  Yet, of equal importance is my intention for this blog to be a clear place for resource sharing. For the next few blog posts, tips such as workout strategies, nutritional advice, skin care secrets and grounding exercises will be presented in more salient form with sparse storytelling.

Why?

A desire for dynamic exchange. While many have expressed in writing and in person how they have enjoyed the blog and reading the personal tales, there have been also many requests for specific tips, plans and personal training. I want the blog to also speak to the needs of its readers.

Your wish is my command.

The Support, Push and Recover ™ challenge is a  framework with which to approach any workout routine for optimal results that I have founded.  The tenets of SPR ™ are below and will be explained in greater detail tomorrow.

Support

·         Subtle: Surrounding Environment (Kitchen cabinets, friends, music, home space, affirmations, mentality)
·         Stretch:  Yoga, Lemba movement therapy, full body stretching  (neck, shoulders, arms, back, quads, hamstrings, calves, feet)
·         Still: Setting intention, pausing, meditation, visualizing a successful workshop

Push

·         Power: Get in there, just do it, calmly burst into
·         Pace: Gather breath, gather pace
·         Pick-up: Push yourself toward the end of the workout by picking up speed and intensity briefly

Recover

·         Reduce: Gather breath, incrementally slow
·         Relax: Shake, stretch, breathe deeply, walk, sauna
·         Repair: Hot/warm salt and essential oil bath, Juice Plus+ acupuncture, massage, SLEEP

Below is an introduction to what will be covered in tomorrow’s blog on the key to a workout that gets results.

·         Finally get the clarity on high-protein diets versus complex carb based diets and their impact on one’s workout (Fitness Rx for Women)

·         Getting  mentally fit as the support aspect of SPR ™ (Philly Fit Magazine)

·         Learn the difference between flushing and fasting and when to engage in either (African Holistic Health)

·         Reducing oxidative stress by increasing intake of fruits and vegetables (Juice Plus+  Recipe for Better Health as Simple as 1-2-3)

·         Personal secrets

·         And more!

Tune in Thursday (8/18) morning!

The majesty in adopting a “choose-to” versus a “have-to” attitude is illuminating. 

Today, I’m meeting with my mastermind group—a regular gathering of focused individuals who support the acquisition of each member’s visions and goals. (Read More: http://www.thesuccessalliance.com/)

As our assignment for this month, each member was to read and jot down notes on The  Power of Focus by the two fellows from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series—Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen—and Les Hewitt. 

On page 216—one could miss it if she is not careful—there is a brief passage and exercise titled “Embrace Your Greatest POWER” on the power-producing ability of shifting from a have-to to a choose-to approach.

It reads:

 1. Make a list of six things that you have to absolutely get done, that must be completed in the next three months. (Examples from book: Reorganize and clean my office, pay taxes or have a heart-to-heart talk with my sixteen-year-old son.)

 2.  Make two columns: Have-to’s and Feelings

3.  List those “must be completed” items in the have-to column and next to them record your feelings around them. (Use feeling  words: Upset, worried, joyful, frustrating, sad, powerful, loving, thankful)

 4.   Review your list and PUT A LINE THROUGH EACH TASK. Cross it off your list!

 The authors share that there is no such thing as have-to. 

What we have is choice and return— for example, choosing to plant apple trees and simply yielding apples. This is Newton’s third law of motion:  To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
 
When I share this, it is most remarkably received by the students I work with in my prison art workshops. I look at the teens and share,“And you are aware, probably more than most, that one truly has the option not to do something she is told she has to do.”

On the feelings side, the majority of the have-to’s for the general public is negative or leaning on that side of the continuum. This approach produces
negative energy that has a draining effect. We are giving ourselves the plug. We are leasing our power out to energies and attitudes that deplete us. 

I repeat: This approach produces negative energy that has a draining effect. We are giving ourselves the plug.

My prison students get this. Some of them have been bucking at this negative drainage for a while. Some of them have been feeling confined to structures that continually tell them what they have to do without inquiring as to what they want or choose to do. 

They get it. Now we can move to higher levels of thinking and processing. I go to the next stage of the three and a half page exercise:

1.  Make a list of six things that you absolutely choose to get or want to get done in the next three months. (Examples from book: Plan a special anniversary, launch a new product, start guitar lessons.)

2.  Make two columns: Choose-to’s and Feelings

3.  List those “choose-to” items and next to them record your feelings around them. (Use feeling words: Upset, worried, joyful, frustrating, sad, powerful, loving, thankful)

 4.  Review your list. What is typical is an increase in positive feeling words.

 All of this boils down to capacity.  Activities that produce general feelings of positivity produce energy that feeds not feeds on! We not only digest what we take in externally.  We create our own storehouse of energy, nourishment and fuel. 
 
Let’s power up!

I am more than speaking of this on a metaphysical level. Biologically, we all know that there are energy producing reactions and bacteria that we within create. We have learned that we can cause ourselves to hyperventilate through internal stimuli and that our brain does not know the difference. 
 
For example, whether fear is produced by an outside force or internal one, our brain receives it in the same region. Fear will illicit—irrespective of its
origin—the brain’s response to produce more adrenaline and cortisol.  

(Fun fact: Adrenaline gives a boost and cortisol sustains that boost keeping one alert and vigilant if the fear producing stimuli persists well into a few hours.)

We are huge agents in producing and harnessing the energy we intake. 

It hits home here for me. Really early this morning, I almost relapsed into my anxiety- produced paralysis regarding preparing for an event. While stretching, which I have learned to do while feeling disquieted, this phrase rose: 
         
-   This is not the nightmare I am making it out to be but the dream for which I have longed. I have chosen to do this.
 
I immediately soothed and regained composure, so much so that I reveled in the thought of helping to set up the film, seeing the audience’s reaction, breaking down chairs, trading posts and talking about why our board does what it does when we do not have to.

The above is a perfect example of how a choose-to attitude saves, restores and produces positive energy.
 
By viewing my volunteer activities as something I had to do and feeling burdened or melancholy about it, almost obscured the fact that I actually enjoy what I do! 
 
I have dreamed about womyn organizing, pulling resources, gathering and holding space for others to partake.  What richness there is in a dream realized. 

I almost missed this blaring fact. The womyn I work with are a dream come
true.

Now, toward a practicality end: Thinking beyond ourselves, there are things that others want with whom we are connected or things organizations want to do with which we are associated that do not necessarily intersect with what we choose to do.

If this occurs, give the task to someone else. Delegate!  That task may be positive-power producing for him/her. No need to drain your energy when you can reserve and provide opportunity for another to find enjoyment.

Choose-to approaches do not simplistically land in what one feels like or doesn’t feel like doing. The approach, for it to be effective, has to align with your guiding principles, visions, goals and energy levels. 

While the line between have-to and choose-to can get murky, the overwhelming—or as the author’s call it—Mega Point, is that we must as changemakers be better stewards of our energy and increase that which is positive energy producing for us--that which allows us to realize our dreams.


For today’s mastermind group session, I have found the piece that I will highlight after reading  The Power of Focus:  Most of the visions we are yearning for are not in the making but before us. Our attitude or approach can rob energies from awareness of this restorative truth.

I choose to see. 

I thoroughly enjoy workplace celebrations—retirements, birthdays, departures and awards. We break the day, conspire to purchase gifts and knickknacks while the honored staff blows her nose in the bathroom and pause to acknowledge one another as entities beyond our prescribed and neat roles. Fantastic!

What gets tough is negotiating celebration foods with one’s wellness plan—particularly if one has issues with over and emotional eating.

Last week I had cake. Not a problem. I repeat: Not a problem.

Last week I had cake; ate half of my staff member’s thank-you cake by picking at thin slice after thin slice. I kept dodging the inscription so that when she returned the next day, she would at least see thank you and her name. Few hours later, the remnants were a “thank” and an eaten into “you”.

This happened on the last of four consecutive days of five-hour workshops with 45 local Delaware County high school students on career exploration and college prep.

I lost it—composure. I pulled out the all-natural Breyer’s ice cream, went to the top of the microwave and devoured my staff member’s going-away, vanilla-frosted chocolate cake from Genuardi’s 

 My stress management routines were no match for the crashing that landed on the fourth day after all the students had left.

Workplace wellness is a different beast than wellness in the safe haven of one's home. At home, I have my wellness tapes, cedarwood Japanese incense and only fruits, vegetables and whole grains in the fridge. Add that to only having water, tea and cherry juice to drink. I couldn’t go wrong even if I wanted to there. At work, however, it is a battlefield.

There are going to be work lunches, coffee and sweets and farewell parties at our offices. We have to become squirrels and stash away healthy alternatives as our go-to when times get rough. Stash in desk draws, work refrigerators, closets, cabinets and the list goes on.

Stashing healthy alternatives at work usually does not cross our minds because we think of only buying food for our private lives. Well, the private and public are connected and will spill into each other. We must support our wellness everywhere. I would even argue we must have greater vigilence in the workplace due to the fact that it is where most of our stressors lie.

On a second note: Really, eating cake and ice cream at any celebration is not an issue in and of itself. Usually, with food, the issues lie not whether it has too many fatty contents or carbs but in what we bring to it.

My mom is teaching me this over again.

We echo back to each other that nothing is in insolation. All comes from somewhere, is connected to something.

Last night, while parked in Center City, plugged in my earphones and returned my mother’s call. In listening to my latest wellness stories, she recounted a litany of questions:

1. Do you eat when you’re not hungry? (YES!)
2. Do you go on eating binges for no apparent reason? (I go on autopilot while eating and often do not remember what my food taste like.)
3. Do you have feelings of guilt and remorse after overeating? (I tried to hide the cake in my office’s refrigerator.)
4. Do you give too much time and thought to food? (I think about food every hour.)
5. Do you look forward with pleasure and anticipation to the time when you can eat alone? (I sneak into my office’s kitchen, leaning on the counter with my back to the entrance and grab a pretzel or Tootsie roll when no one is paying attention.)
6. Do you plan these secret binges ahead of time? (I do.)
(Questions from a list of 15 by Overeaters Anonymous: www.oa.org)

And the list goes on. I replied yes to all of the above.

My mother followed essentially with, “me, too.”

Nothing is in isolation. As my mother struggles with anxiety, I struggle with anxiety. As I struggle with overeating, she struggles with overeating. Our struggles have been passed down.

How do we break generational bondage? How do we disrupt these patterns of disharmony?

We start by calling the kettle black.

You cannot fight what you do not identify. Otherwise you could be chasing the winds looking for water.

By eating cake, I did not tarnish my increasingly healthy diet. With all the fruits and vegetables I intake thanks to Juice Plus+, my body has become an efficient toxin-eliminating machine that processes out the occasional poor dietary choice I make in less than a day. A slice or two of cake and ice cream would not even show up on any measure of my body also due to working out every day for at least 30 minutes.

Cake is a food not the issue.

Every other night my mom and I talk about wellness and a group that she introduced me to: Overeaters Anonymous.

In elementary school or high school or college or as a young professional, the day my mom and I could talk frankly about weight, wellness and being whole could not arrive soon enough.

Anxiety runs deep in our family. We have for generations used food to medicate. Call the issue what it is to its face—an issue—something in need of addressing.

Eating half of that cake and a third of the ice cream made the following stark for me: Although I have adopted a healthier lifestyle through working out and supporting my body with more fruits and vegetable via Juice Plus+, I have left a realm untouched: Anxiety.

In this society, mental illness, depression and anxiety are stigmatized. It is something we sweep under rugs and, thus, do not handle in healthy ways. I have known for years that I have issues with anxiety and paralysis. I have not dealt with it well. The dis-ease will appear on the surface. In this case, it was through food.

Food is my wellness barometer. What is yours? I know my progression to wellness by how fast I eat, when I eat, what I eat, with whom I eat and where I eat. What is your wellness barometer?

I am still in the dark about and have a long way to go regarding unpacking why I over and emotionally eat. What feels reassuring is that I know my disorder has a stem. I have a buddy to take this journey with me: Mom. 

Next Monday, I am attending the Overeaters Anonymous meeting with my mom in New York. She invited me.

More than inviting me to a support group, my mother has taken a scissors to our generational pattern and instructed me to keep cutting.  

I have found having carrots or stress balls around for when you are feeling axious is really helpful! Here is why: The below video explain how stress balls relieve tension.

Get one for your office desk fast!

This weekend, I hit the road to Cape Cod. The destination was not the journey.

Friday, was a whirlwind of a day. I had to attend a student’s sentencing hearing at the Criminal Justice Center. I had to submit my personal statement to one of my recommenders at Kinko’s. I forgot my luggage. Didn’t notice.

Six and a half hours, heading north, all I-95, over and over, like chanting, I pondered, “Why am I willing to ride almost seven hours to Massachusetts for a day and a half to a couple of homes on the Cape?”

All that came was: I will know when I arrive.

Driving a steady route with the windows down and Country 92.5FM blaring, letting go of text messages, emails and internet projects, I felt as if I were washing my feet, hands and heart--almost like one does before prayer or entering sacred energies.

Last leg of the trip on the Mid-Cape Highway, gave it a tiny bit more gas as exhaustion struck me and the need to rest rose. I was 20 minutes away.

Slowing down into the drive way, I look up and see the stars littered--like a Philadelphia city street--across the sky. The little girl astrologer, of course, when she slows, grounds herself in the new angles of the constellations.

They greeted me: “Is that Shayna?”

A chorus of responses:

--“Yeah, I think”

-- “Oh, she didn’t give us a call before Bourne Bridge”

-- “Yup, it’s her. She just pulled in.”

The last response to follow provided with crystal clarity the answer to my earlier chanting:

-- “Can I get your bags?”

My friends are beautiful people. Yes, they laughed insanely at me leaving my PACKED luggage back on my couch in Pennsylvania. I shared what kind of Friday I had. They were sweet and offered me tons of clothes and toiletries.

I was here because I left my bag--because I was that tired.

Forgetting something as huge as your luggage highlighted a phrase that I often use: Something has to give.


Artists, activists and young professionals often move not with but in spite of their bodies. We get little sleep, bankrupt our diet, contort our bodies onto couches, work 12 - 16 hour days and drink power drinks and too much coffee.

On top of this, we hurt and become exhausted by the injustices we too often encounter in our work, which adds a multitude of stressors to our self-destructive landscape. Something has to give. It cannot be us.

We are important as willing bodies on the leading edge of progressive change in this world. We are needed. We need our bodies; we need our spirits. We need to be well.

This is why we gathered at the Cape, my friends and I. Yes, we were having a regional planning meeting to convene a larger national gathering of youth artists and activists in November. Yet, we were committed to doing it not via conference call or meeting at a local café. We made space and way to get to a relaxing environment, took care of our bodies and reminded each other that we are loved and are love.


What taking care of business looked like this weekend:

*Eating fresh food from home gardens
*Showering outside near blooming summer flowers
*Watching "The One Percent"
*Swimming on a private beach
*Lying in hammocks
*Making the shell of a website
*Good wine
*Pointing out constellations
*Solidifying our vision statement
*Sitting by the fire
*Listening to Blues
*Reading
*Sharing our work, our fronts

We spend so much time in resistance. This weekend was about being in the flow--the forces of this earth. For example, it was seen in the ways we splashed around but all without saying one word turned and faced inland so that we could ride with and not against the violent waves at
high tide.

We were suspended in the hammock and seemed to release it all. We saw the Milkway and pondered the greatness of the worlds around us. We ate directly from the Earth and gave thanks. We were in the flow. There is something incredibly healing about letting yourself be washed over by these both gentle and terrifying forces.

Here we let go.

Here we were the most creative we had ever been in crafting a new project.

Here we were most ourselves--our whole, healthy, present, powerful selves.


I charge all artists and activists to have “Re-charger Weekends,” where you gather a focused group of friends, committed to making art or finishing a collective project and to treat each others' bodies and spirits well. The latter is not an afterthought but must be a focal part of the agenda.

Here is a great article on the dire importance of getting away from it all.

It begins: "There is more to life than increasing its speed"--Gandhi

Viva Vacation: The Importance of 'Getting Away from It All'

Coming back from Toronto, at the gate, a friend met me. Not literally, mind you. Touching down in the morning after a thirteen hour plus ride (got stuck at customs for two hours), I found myself choosing not to go home. I went to a local café and set up shop until my afternoon jam session with a friend began.

Home that day would have been triggering. In my first post, I shared my goal in this blog is to:

"Share my own personal journeys with transforming chaotic spheres of my life (multiple commitments, poor diet, disembodiment and sparse home care) through building health and wellness deep within," (7/18/11).

In flashing red lights: “Sparse Home Care. Sparse Home Care” and the laborious work ahead to transform both my internal and external home after months (maybe years) of neglect must have been ringing at a subconscious level. I knew if I went home, I would become unhappy with what I saw, feel like a failure and fall into slight paralysis.

Encountering, during my trip to our northern neighbor, the awe-inspiring way people have worked to create space and home for themselves really made stark how poorly I was making space for myself. My sadness around this was not immediately known to me on a conscious level; something in me did not want to go home—not yet.

I bought cherries (in season!) and spinach to share with my jamming artist friend. They were expensive, but I wanted us to enjoy and eat well. There was another layer: I ate them every day while on mini-vacation and had a taste for them similar to a taste for smooth transition—smooth landing.

Artist friend and I talked about chosen families and how meeting—friends, family, soul growers, lovers, etc—are miracles.  In the universe of infinite possibilities, for two people to deeply encounter one another—who as it turns grew up near each other the whole of our youth without knowing— is miraculous.

This was so important for me—one who wanted to spend the rest of 2011 traveling to find similar kin across borders, for I believed my current destination barren.

With crystal profundity, I opened my eyes to the marvel of meeting—to the marvel of whom I met. This was not up in the sky somewhere—or north of the U.S. Those that ground us, that are kin (chosen or otherwise) to us, that help us make home and place on this plane are abundant and before us.

Jamming artist friend and I went to eat really good Mexican at El Fuego in Philadelphia. This was unplanned. In front of us: Rice and beans, guacamole, tortilla chips, peppers, onions, salsa.

Before arriving, cutting through Rittenhouse Square, I detailed how rice and beans have always provided a feeling of home and rootedness.  And that those with a history of eating disorders will always view and experience food different than the masses. It pierces and at varying levels; thus, while our food settled me, it also was an unadorned reminder of how I interrupted and brought dis-ease to home space.

We walked back to artist friend’s place. Saw the small ways—stones on the rim of the bathtub, nesting pottery by the entrance way, affirmation books by the bedside, cloth and crystal spread—my friend made home in spite of, what my friend later revealed, a surfacing displeasure at the spatial dimensions of the place. I saw how that the place shined with my friend’s touch. I saw and believed in that moment that I could touch—my place—that way, too. 

                                    _____________________

In a car ride earlier in the day, jamming artist friend shared a poignant statement: “It takes control (discipline) to let go of control.” Striking! One has to do some work to support the letting go and letting of light.

Making the transition to both literal and metaphoric home care will need support. That is why it had been feeling so laborious.

It was not enough to do a great job eating well and conditioning my body. I have to work just as hard in conditioning my heart and spirit—to find and enact kindness unto myself—to affirm—to carve out space for my creative imagination to roam—to step out of the way so much and shine, simply shine.

I have to ground.


Full Disclosure: I did in silliness take this quiz on About.com: Are You Adequately Grounded?  http://healing.about.com/library/quiz/ground/blgroundquiz.htm

In searching for grounding techniques, I stumbled on this wonderful site. What I liked about it was that it addressed grounding in terms of ascension.

There is a general elevation occurring on multiple layers in the energetic realms right now. There are those of us who are currently ascending. Usually grounding exercises are for those who are getting introduced to energetic practices. Fewer pieces out there consider those who are and have grounded but get turned around from time to time. The following blog in its intention does that. Read around.(http://www.bigsparklylife.com/energy-update-ascension-grounding)

The following exercises are not new for me; in fact, I do them often. It was a nice little reminder nudge to fall back into the practices that I know root me. Hope you enjoy the nudge as well:

5 Tips for Ground­ing Dur­ing Ascension

(http://www.bigsparklylife.com/energy-update-ascension-grounding)

Spend time in nature: Sit­ting under an old-growth tree, work­ing in a gar­den, sit­ting on the grass and watch­ing the clouds go by are all great exam­ples of ways you can eas­ily spend time in nature and help ground your energy.

Take a sea salt bath: Sea salt helps to clear energy and bal­ance the chakras. Place some sea salt into your bath, set your inten­tion to ground your energy and then allow your­self to soak in the tub for ten min­utes or more. It’s a won­der­ful rem­edy for ungroundedness.

Eat dark leafy greens: Kale, spinach, chard and other greens con­tain min­er­als and vit­a­mins that allow the body to bet­ter cal­i­brate with the wis­dom of Mother Earth.

Take short naps: You are accli­mat­ing to a higher vibra­tion. Rest­ing gives your body, mind and spirit the oppor­tu­nity make the shifts nec­es­sary to opti­mize to the higher realms.

Jour­nal: Writ­ing is a won­der­ful way to con­nect with your expe­ri­ences, your innate wis­dom and to reflect upon your jour­ney. As such it is a pow­er­ful tool in ground­ing your energy.

Hi, All!

I will be away for the next couple of days. A post may happen if the flow opens for it.

Most likely, see you Monday when I return with all my (wellness) tales!

Pluto, the 2006 demoted and subsequently dubbed dwarf planet has not gone down without a fight; (where are we now?: Lost one; looks like 8 planets left in our solar system?) The surprises keep coming: Scientists found a fourth moon—calling it “mini-moon”—orbiting the plutoid today.

Class trip!

It was 1992. We would hop the train to the Hayden Planetarium on Central Park West. Six year old me—always insecure about my large size comparative to my classmates—adored our trips to the Natural History Museum. In nature, I could go somewhere else—far from my body (I thought).

 While Earth (rocks, plants, animals) would fascinate me, Space would captivate me; I even had a wall-length poster of the post-Star Gazer constellation map hanging directly beside my bed at which I would stare mid-afternoons or late mornings.

Sitting with my class trip buddy—the kid with whom you were commanded to hold hands in fear of being snatched and plastered on a milk carton—I would lean and gaze upward—aided by the special reclining seats at the Space Theater, this dome in my sky, wondering what it would feel like to be up there.

I was a pudgy youth. My schoolmates made this clear to me. Outside to the left of the Space Theater, after a riveting projection of the Big Bang or, I think, colliding galaxies, I saw scale convertors where you got to see how much you weighed on various celestial bodies. (Click this link to get your calculation: http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/)

Brought my class trip buddy along, who thankfully was considered a nobody-weirdo like me, and did not draw much attention when we dipped from the line to see what our lot would be in the heavens.

Jupiter’s was humongous;  Venus’, less but about the same number [as Earth]; Mars’—wow, now we are talking; Eureka! I found the Moon. There on the Moon,  I was something like one-fifth of my weight. "This is where I need to be--somewhere I was “normal,” I thought. (I look back wondering how did, at such a young age, I learn to live so adversarial in relationship to by body, to refer to it as this expendable other, to live outside of it.)

Clearly, this six year old picture of myself is distorted—hinged upon escaping and leaving behind this burdensome vessel—my body. Somehow by casting myself into space, I imagined I would escape not only my physical form but the other taxing elements in my early life.

To think that we can isolate or put into a vacuum, for example, eating-related pathologies or excessive weight gain from the emotional, psychological, spiritual, etc—literally by removing ourselves from Earth—from what we all over experience is misguided and also, believe it or not, mass produced.

A first grader did not in an isolated chamber develop these injurious and cancerous self-images. What signals were she receiving? From where?

This age group transitions from primarily home children to full-time school children; and, thus, they are developing new reference groups and standards and evaluation tools for learning about abilities and skills.

The effects of peers (positive/negative) and other societal forces  (positive/negative) on self-composition as a child reverberate--sometimes even until  adulthood where one finds herself no longer holding hands at the Hayden but a quarter of a century old, disembodied and still pulling the pieces together.

Interesting study on this very topic!

In terms of the media or societal influences, examples presented in the  thesis:
 
(1) YMCA health and fitness initiatives are discussed regarding how potentially harmful presenting a one-size fits all (mainstream cultural) approach that favors thinness and not necessarily health could be on a child's self-image.

(2) The impact of toys (ex. Barbies) in fostering dissatisfaction with one's body image

“My Body, My Weight: Body Perception Among African-American and Caucasian First-Graders and Their Parents,”

by Dawnavan Scott Davis, Master of Science, Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, October 2, 2003


Here's the abstract:

"Research suggests that body dissatisfaction can develop by first-grade...There was no main effect for race on child body ideal. No main effect emerged for gender on child body ideal or body satisfaction.

Only a few significant correlations emerged between child body image and parental factors.

Other factors such as mass media and peer group may be more salient in influencing body image among young children."

With temperatures in the triple digits in some places over the last couple of days, running 11:00am under a summer Sunday overcast sky was an immense relief. Started stretching at 9:00am. Sounds like I must have been this nibble yogi bouncing gazelle-like gracefully down Rutland Road in Brooklyn? Yes, that is what I would have wished, too. Reality check: My four year old niece, excited Auntie Shayna came to visit, slowed down the pace of my normal work out/stretching routine starting at 7:00am when she walked into the room where I was sleeping and asked me to play stuffed animals with her. I said,

“Yes, but only if I get to work out in a half hour.”

She so sweetly agreed.

Two hours later, after a back and forth about whether “Moosey the Moose” would save “Pinky the Unicorn” from the “I Love You Bear Troll,” I just got up and started stretching around the house. My niece followed.

No, really, by following, I mean she actually started mimicking excercise routines in my circuit around our sixth floor apartment.

-          I stretched my hamstrings on the stairs; she did leg lifts while lying on the floor (probably derived from her Riki Di creative movement dance classes).

-          I went in for the triangle side pose; she bended forward touching her toes.

-          I did an arm stretch, elbows locked; she bet me that I did not know how to do “this” [a beetle squat].

Most stark was when doing the downward-facing dog [a full-body triangle stretch], she crawled underneath me and like congruent triangles—or Russian nesting dolls—folded into me, under me, with her own four year old downward-facing dog.

While there felt something ancient about that moment with her, with her--without hesitation—contorting into the next asana (yoga pose) seamlessly—like we had done this somewhere together before—I am not one to immediately say that  proves yoga is innately familiar to my niece.

Or it can be explained by the burgeoning discourse in publications like Yoga Journal that includes writings that occasionally claim toddlers’ ability to achieve inner peace and calm by doing yoga.

For me, most poignantly is what power leading by example and genuine engagement holds.

Playing with my niece, honoring her desires, allowed her to without friction transition into what I chose to do. This genuine engagement reinforces trust channels between us that allowed her to follow me with remarkable confidence. This following will be remembered in her mind and body—opening up the stage for future introduction to daily wellness practices.

For a great article on whether yoga has the same reported effects on children as adults from one family’s story, click on the following link:

Downward-facing Dog for the Diaper Set
 “While the children didn’t seem noticeably more chilled out in the end, yoga did amuse them and introduce them to a practice they can use to de-stress when they’re older. ”

http://kidsyogaguide.com/2010/10/08/downward-facing-dog-for-the-diaper-set/

Lunchtime Bliss
@ Cebu Brooklyn (83rd & 3rd Av):

● Lunch - Warm Spinich Salad: pancetta, onions, mushrooms, crumbled Goat cheese, walnuts, herb vinaigrette 
● Cocktail - St. German Elderflower Liqueur, fresh lemon juice and gin (Martin Miller's)
● Water with lemon