Barefoot bliss

Sweet summer has arrived.  Whether it be rituals of vacation on changes in schedule from no school or a easier commute, summer often brings a welcomed feeling of ease and fun.

This quick post is dedicated to bottling that feeling and making the summer feel as long as its rival that starts with a W and ends with a happy farewell.   By my observation, kids have it right.  Shoes seem to put a damper on a lot of things, be it river wading, running through fresh cut grass or when the summer heat sets in to your social calendar.

Sure, as adults, we’re more aware of threats to bare feet, but you can always wash your feet after picking up some extras and so long as you watch where you step, the rewards will often outweigh the risks.  So knock your own socks off by allowing your feet the freedom to connect directly with the earth.

Indoors for a while?  Channel your inner kid, feel the peace of the cool tile or nice rug beneath your feet. This simple access to something neat, something different and something humbling (when grounding yourself through your very feet), can impact your  moment and even your day.  So take a moment and allow your feet (and very directly, your soul), the chance at a kid encounter.  #ShoesOffThisSummer.

Breathe into it

The cold is not cool.  I have even gone so far as to say I hate the cold.  I’m just naturally a cold person; even when I’m warm, my hands and feet are usually cold.  I’d take a hot over cold in any circumstance.

Enter the coldest winter we’ve had in (what feels like) my entire life, my increased awareness that I’m much more sensitive to cold than I was last year, and the fact that I’m a business owner and well, “snow days” don’t exist when I’m the only one who should risk driving to open the tea shop that will, ahhh, sweet salvation, warm others in a snow storm.  I’m sincerely glad I can offer this but man, do I wish the snow would just pick another place to torment.

If I could migrate south for the winter I totally would.

Finding time to reflect on my disdain for winter isn’t hard when all I want to do is stay in doors.  Then I realize: do I really want to gain 10lbs just because it’s winter and running is impossible (is there a word that describes ‘further from impossible’)?  Do I want to let winter win and steal 4 months of real LIVING from me?  HECK NO!  I’ve already wasted more energy than I’m proud to admit whining about a subject I have little control over (okay, I actually have no control over).

I throw on my gear, go outside and took two steps from the comforts of my warm home…and it happened.  I took a deep breath in and it cooled my insides.  I felt it in my lungs, I felt it in my heat, maybe even my stomach.  Even with my slight preference for warmth, it was neat to feel such a sensation throughout my thoracic cavity, and somehow, I don’t feel as cold on the outside. The very next thought was of gratitude – thank goodness I have this breath to enjoy.  And that warmed me more.  I began walking down the street, taking in the winter night.  Thank you, Universe, you gave me a crystal clear night to journey into my breath on.  Cue the shooting star. Soon I realized I had been walking for several blocks with no agenda other than breathing and feeling.

No surprise next, I began to warm a bit more because I was moving and taking deep breaths.  And thinking.  A lot of thinking.  Some would argue it was the distraction. I say it was me actually leaning into winter.  I armed myself with a little perspective and suddenly I felt differently.  Granted, my mind does still appreciate just how cold it is and tells my body to recoil a bit but just in time for it to also send good warm thoughts to homeless people and animals… but I realize, this reaction is far from the complaining that was so easy to do.  And even in the most uninviting conditions, I’m greeting winter a little differently now.

My partner used to love the cold – loved to sled, pick up snowballs with his bare hands, go for hikes on snow covered hills.  Now that he’s older (and a few pounds lighter), he regularly joins in commiserating with me about how darn cold it is.  Just this week I was able to help his perspective a bit by reminding him that winter can actually be a beautiful thing.  I asked what he loves to do when it’s nice outside.  He said walk around Old Town.  I grabbed my coat and said ‘Let’s go.’  And a walk in the 20 degree nighttime temperature is what we did and while it wasn’t as exhilarating as it has been when the weather is prime, it was exactly what he needed to have himself a nice time with our 4th favorite season.

Changing States

Changing our day doesn’t require changing our scenery (though that often helps, too!).  A simple scan of the body when doing any activity will help determine where you are and a simple read of this post will help you sort out how to nudge your self and your body back to balance.

Quickly check – what muscles are engaged right now.  Is your foot taught, or is your diaphragm or shoulders engaged?  Even when we think we’re resting we oftentimes are not and it isn’t until we tell ourselves to relax a specific muscle, do we actually do it (flashback to your first guided savasana – the resting pose at the end of a good yoga class).

To change your state, practice reorienting yourself with your parasympathetic nervous system (the under-appreciated system that’s associated with decreased heart rate and pain perception, increased restful sleep, and deep breathing.

The body’s sympathetic nervous system (think: fight or flight) is brilliant and serves to keep us alive in times of stress, but after prolonged engaged sympathetic responses, the body becomes fatigued, the immune system depleted, irritability, depression, distractions, elevated blood sugar and weight gain are known to follow.

Ok, I know how to take deep breaths.  How do I physically engage my parasympathetic system?

Enter (or re-enter) Yoga:

• Need to feel centered? Do seated/lying down postures.
• Stressed about a difficult conversation? Do chest openers (this also works to energize yourself)
• Need to get over some emotional heavies? Do hip openers and restorative poses 
• In search of patience?  Forward bends to the rescue:
• Seeking strength? Any standing or warrior pose will do: 
• Need a good cleanse? Do any matter of twists:

Sure, it’s hard to change your state of mind permanently, but you can keep health problems associated with heightened bodily stress at bay…and optimize your emotional health as well.  And bit by bit, we can change our state without changing our scenery.

Peace is within reach and is only a stretch a way.  This gentle reminder is brought to you by the sisters of House of Steep and Mind Your Body Oasis. 

Renewal

Spring is nearly here.  A beautiful time to lose yourself in many things, not just projects from renewed energy.  It’s a great time to invest in your well-being both emotionally and spiritually.  So while you’re carrying away with cleaning out closets and donating clothes, make sure you reserve energy for spending time with good friends or reinvesting in a relationship that serves you well.

Here are just a few reasons why.

1. Daily affection (from friends, pets or family…anyone you have a relationship really) may boost levels of the calming hormone oxytocin.  Plus, a few belly laughs can improve blood-vessel function which helps blood pressure.  Nature’s natural health enhancer.
2. Nearly 75% of adults admit they don’t take the right steps to prevent themselves from feeling stressed out according to a recent survey conducted by the American Psychological Association.  Luckily for us all, studies suggest that lifting our spirits may be as easy as:

• Sticking with a routine – rituals create a sense of calm.  Helps feel a sense of control in an unpredictable world (it also helps to prepare for, welcome and embrace change, too!)
• Eating to your happiness.  Avoid trans fats, which can affect mental well-being by triggering inflammatory changes that have been linked to depression. Steer clear or limit to 2 grams a day, avoid foods made with partially hydrogenated oil.  On this note, try eating just fruits and veggies (raw, ideally) for a week and see how you feel.  I bet your body and your mind will be light and energized.  So brilliant how the earth provides for us, we just have to allow it!
• Getting your O3’s.  Omega 3 supplement takers were 20% less anxious during a stressful period than those not taking their Fish Oil supplements daily, according to an Ohio State University study.  Experts believe that healthy fat may buffer against stress-related inflammation.
  
• Listening to your breath – it will tell you something.  Breathing deeply and listening to soft music can be as relaxing as getting a massage.  If your breath is shallow and fast, you’re going to feel stressed and anxious.  Slow your breathing and your heart and mind will calm too.  You can try this yourself.  After a work out, lie on your stomach on a yoga mat. With one ear on the ground, take a deep breath in and hear your heart rate slow with each deep breath.  Recognizing how much influence your breath has over your systems, tune into your breath regularly and be sure to take deep breaths, even when you’re not stressed.
• Feeding your gut.  It is the source of our intuition and our health.  By taking care of our digestive tract, we are taking care of our overall health.  Beyond this, probiotics (healthy bacteria) can actually lower levels of the stress hormone corticosterone and have a direct effect on moods and anxiety.  Research suggests that nerves transmit messages from the microorganisms in the gut to the mind, influencing brain chemistry and further connecting the mind with the body.  We rely on our gut instinct to tell us yes or no in any given situation.. and we should rely on this Yuck or Yum decision making compass more often.  It of course makes great sense to feed our “second brains” well with the fuel it needs = simple probiotics.

I heard recently that dwelling in the positive increases resilience.  That feigning joy can induce joy.  Try this sometime.   List specific times in your life you’ve felt great.  What are the details.  Once you have 10-20, a pattern will emerge.

Photo by Amy Drumm

Hello, happiness

Photo by Amy Drumm

Who needs a new year or a new week to start fresh?  Not you.  Every day, every breath, is a gift and a chance to change your attitude, your outlook, and your destiny.  Starting this moment, welcome change.  Welcome happiness.

Release your burden or whatever prevented a forward momentum and invite a new perspective or new opportunity.   Make peace with it and love it for the way it once served you but no longer does.  The next window will open and will serve you deeper thanks to the burden who helped you strengthen and widen your eyes and your heart.  Make room for your future and all it’s beautiful choices.

Choose to feel sunshine on a cold but light day.  Choose to hear the birds amidst the car engines.  Choose to hug your acquaintance instead of offering your professionally polished smile.  Read this DailyOm for more inspiration.

Easier said than done?  Think about your health and try getting purposeful.  Brain health relies also on emotional and spiritual health (read: happiness) as well.  Researchers at Rush University  Medical Center in Chicago found that people who have a greater sense of purpose in life — who find meaning in their daily activities and feel they’re working towards goals — had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s than those who felt more adrift.

Need more tangibles to help your happiness happen?  Find your purpose and recognize within you the eight traits of happy people:

• Self-control – doing what’s in line with your most fundamental goals.
• Grit – raw endurance, perseverance and passion that keep you going despite obstacles; doing things the long/hard way.
• Curiosity – a penchant for seeking out the new and different.
• Optimism – believing that the best may lie ahead.  Take stock in 3 things that went well and why.
• Love – close, caring relationships where the good vibes flow both ways.
• Social intelligence – picking up on gray areas and intuit the things that people don’t say out loud (i.e. being present)
• Gratefulness – fully appreciating and noticing the good in yourself and other people, and the world at large, then giving that appreciation back in spades.
• Zest – tackling life with energy, excitement, enthusiasm, eagerness

So, best to you, happy soul.  Your happy purpose is right in front of you.

Predictable peace

Photo by Amy Drumm

Once the holidays are past, then we can start to ease into a schedule.  Or something.  Someone once said to not confuse peace with predictability.  While routines are easier to manage, we are still managing to fluctuation.  Said differently, with predictability, we then allow ourselves to layer in my dynamics (like picking up an additional hobby, or catching up with an old soul friend).

Since chaos happens invariably, why not simply open to it, whatever form it takes? Then, it may not require us balancing in fluctuation if we define peace a little differently.  We ask, if you’re waiting for peace to then allow for more, are you net-positive on energy, or would you be just as happy (at peace) with yourself if you managed a few more good things despite it all?  So long as it happens with a little bit of gradual grace, we venture that you’d feel more fulfilled and abundant on the whole.

Try it with something small.  Like layer in that weekend get away.  Or that charity you’ve been avoiding for lack of time.  Or a good book.  If you define your peace differently and embrace the chaos that is, you may not find yourself at the far end of the chaos spectrum when you’re doing just the right amount with the rhythm life has offered (and you have invited).

Bigger than us

When things are absolutely beyond our control (like a tropical storm, for instance), we change our behavior.  We humbly respect the force that drives something we cannot change and we cancel plans, we reprioritize the things that aren’t necessary, and we don’t extend ourselves to our jobs or other demands because we have this gigantic, humbling thing coming towards us .

Being one of the few courageous folks to drive out in the early hours before Hurricane Sandy was expected to close in on the Washington, D.C. area, I was immediately appreciative of just how many people respected the forces that were much bigger than them. It was a nice change to see the pace on Lee Highway (Hwy 29) just outside the windows of my tea house.  There were maybe 20 cars every minute instead of the 20,000 that pass hurriedly each day.

It reminded me of the last time our mother nature forced us to slow down, settled in, and spend time with ourselves, our families, our comforts, and our peace.  It’s such a beautiful thing to see such a dramatic change in the exact same scenery that is normally bustling and full of a different kind of energy.  The energy in the pre-storm landscape was both tranquil and powerful… and I hope everyone got a chance to be embraced by such a humbling force as they were forced to disconnect from their routines and the other things that tend to distract us from…well, us.

I also hope that everyone found safety and are warm and dry in the days after this dramatic shift in our lives.  For those of us who were fortunate enough to not experience devastating effects from the storm, after our gratitude we can take this all as a lesson that perhaps we don’t need a dramatic force to cause us to slow down.  Perhaps if we were taking the approach that the world is so much bigger than us (and thus settling in for some quiet time) we wouldn’t be as affected by mother nature’s forced breaks.

Just like Sandy, a gigantic humbling force called life is coming rapidly towards us and we can absolutely take some time to respect it… every day.

Chi Connecting

You know how invigorated you feel after reconnecting with an old friend, or networking with similar-minded colleagues, or spending quality time with someone you love?  That joy comes from connecting.  It probably fuels us better than caffeine or many other stimulants.  It’s so powerful because the moments spent connecting are resonating inside you and bringing you ‘home’ within you.  Closer to something you know or enjoy.  You are likely more confident, energized and your outlook is more positive.

Try it – see how you feel after a really good connecting session.

Now, take these results from your connection experience and try to connect with yourself.  Being aware each time you take a deep breath in and thinking about how that breath is filling your lungs with fresh oxygen and what that oxygen is doing to your blood, your cells that are mostly water (two oxygen molecules) and giving your brain energy to do its great work is exactly the practice of staying present.

Connecting with your breath is a way to stay close to you – your life-force – within.  Taking a moment to check on your breath – are you tense and therefore short-breathed?  What does that do to your cells, your brain, your chemical receptors?  What’s causing you to switch from the ‘flight’ mode into something more taxing in this moment?  Taking deep breaths and recognizing the nourishment happening is a great way to bring you back to your moment and place in the day you are living.

After trying this self connecting session, do you feel fueled, invigorated, and able to think clearly?  Welcome to mini meditation!  You’ve just taken a moment to be very self-aware and allow your life force to work within you.  Perhaps some clarity or creative ideas even came from this experiment.  Maybe simply a deeper love and appreciation for you.  Whatever surfaced, it’s a beautiful thing because you took the time for you to be aware of you.

Remember how you feel after you connect with yourself, just as how you are when you’ve connected with another.  It can be done in a car, on a boat, at the dentist or anywhere you feel yourself forgetting who or where you are.  Harmony is yours for the holding.

The big idea

A guy cuts you off in traffic.  Your close friend seems to have new interests that don’t involve you.  Your boss seems to be micro-managing you when all you’ve done is what he or she has asked (and then some!).  These truths will always be a reality in our world, but it’s what we do with them that can advance us in our quest for peaceful, harmonic living… or not.

The guy who cut you off, your close friend and your boss – all have one thing in common – they’re ultimately responsible for their own happiness and peace.  Chances are, if you didn’t do something to catalyze this (you should always ask so you can seek truth and not get caught up in the fantasies of wondering what really is at play), then it’s really nothing personal – they’ve just found a way to serve themselves in that moment.  Even if you feel you’ve taken good care of them and the scales are imbalanced, ask yourself when’s the last time you took care of YOURself?  Some psychologists believe when these events happen, it’s to show us that the thing that’s bothering us, is really the very thing you need to tend to within our own selves.  In fact, in Radical Forgiveness, it talks about the Universe specifically putting those events/people in your life because your soul has asked to be free from a cycle and to learn something.  And the cycle will continue until you learn to look within, embrace whatever insecurity or frustration you may have (you may not even know you have) and then, radically, these events/people will no longer be attracted to your life.

Think about it.  The feelings you get when you’re disappointed, frustrated, confused – they’re all potentially toxic if held onto for too long.  They each have their purpose to reveal more about ourselves and tendencies, but when is the last time that feeling sad, bad, sorry…for yourself has really served you?  Things happen to you or around you and it brings an effect.  If it’s not gratitude and respect, are you really moving forward? Or will this thing become a ghost and haunt you?  I think about a lady who took her road rage out on me a few weeks ago.  At the time, I was baffled, thought it was a little funny, but for some reason, it stayed in my mind for several days, enough for me to tell the story to a few friends and family.  Other than an entertaining story, all I’ve done was hang onto a negative experience?  Why?  I really can’t say for sure, but I know that it felt slightly good to tell the story from the ‘poor me’ side.

We can’t assume that we’ll live a life free of obstacles and things that hurt us – of course we will.  But the truth is there if you look for it and it really doesn’t feel so personal if you take this perspective.  These facts can’t hurt you, but your reaction to them can.  As soon as we can put this practice into place, we will be able to get on with the learning and self-awareness a lot faster (and with a lot less toxicity within).

Happy living.

Really Good Riddens

Can’t seem to let go of something that your better self knows it’s time to release?  Keep repeating the same story, so much that you are annoying yourself at how often you’ve heard the story?  It may be time to let go.  If it’s come to the point where your aware of the attachment but can’t quite detangle yourself from it, then chances are, it’s affecting your peace.

Understanding more about the thing you can’t seem to shake is the first step.  Does it represent a happy time or place?  Does it help ‘define’ your identity?  Whether it’s a gift from an old boyfriend or remnants of a stale relationship, the same detachment rules apply.

If you can get quiet enough with yourself and reflect if this ‘thing’ is serving you and your highest purpose rightfully, then it may be just a matter of renewing your love for the ‘thing.’  Easier said than done, but if you feel a genuine respect (that can’t be defined as any sort of fear or dependency) then perhaps it’s not yet time to make peace with your preoccupation.  But if anything is feeling heavier than it should, or reminds you of something greater than is within healthy means, a journey of self-respect and perspective might just be in store.

All things in the name of love and peace.