living the practice…part 2

At the end of our days of trekking, I turned to Kat and said, “I’m so looking forward to this boat ride.”  She kindly asked, “have you ever rafted?”  When I answered no, she explained it wasn’t going to be a boat ride, and that we had to actually do the paddling on this raft.  I didn’t know that!  I had visions of a boat ride after all that walking and climbing, with the opportunity to take great pictures.

Jigmet wouldn’t go into any detail about why he wasn’t rafting with us, but was firm about this being something he was not interested in doing.  He went with us to the launch spot, where we saw there were two rafts going out at the same time.  I was dressed in my loose, comfy pants, a long-sleeve white T-shirt, and my cotton canvas hiking hat to protect me from the sun.  The first thing we were told was, go put on your gear…gear, who knew!   Wet suits, life jackets, and helmets were laid out on the river beach for us.  I asked one of the raft-guys if I should just tuck my pants into the wet suit, and he answered without looking up, “Take them off!”  I did, but decided to keep my T-shirt on so my arms wouldn’t get sunburned.

There was a young couple from NYC who we met briefly on the trek also doing the rafting.  They were in our raft, along with three young, sweet and giggly Polish women, a helper, and the guide.   Another great surprise to me was that we were actually to sit on the SIDE of the raft and not on those things in the raft that I thought were seats. The guide gave us 5-minutes of instruction about the paddling commands he would give.  I asked the question, “what happens if I drop my paddle?”  He looked me straight in the face and said, “DON’T drop your paddle.”  Then explained if anyone happened to “pop out of the raft”,  (WHAT?!?!)  he would throw this life-line that was attached to the raft.  If you couldn’t get the life-line, to simply lie back on your life jacket, it will support you, stick your legs straight out in front of you, and point your feet in the direction the water is flowing.  He went on to reassure us there was a short kayak with a rescue man who would be traveling with the two rafts to save anyone if it came to that, and how to hold onto the kayak in case this happened.  I listened carefully, but these directions were clearly NOT something I was going to need.  There was NO WAY I was going to ‘pop out’ of the raft into this glacier fed, freezing, fast-moving Zanscar River!

We waved goodbye to Jigmet, who was riding in the jeep with our gear, and would meet us at the end of the three-hour raft trip.

The other raft launching with us was all men, with one woman; we were mostly women with Mac, the guy from NY, and the two raft guys.  The ‘power raft’, as I called them, thought it was so much fun to bring their raft close enough to use their paddles to splash us with the freezing cold water.   We screamed, they laughed, and then the water got wild and crazy again and we had to pay attention and do some serious paddling.  The sun was shining, the sky was clear blue, the river was wide, and fast-moving, and the gorge was beautiful when there was a brief moment to actually have a look at it.  I wished I could be taking pictures.

About half-way into our journey, there was a huge, jagged rock formation in the river that triggered the thought, ‘what if we hit that damn thing!’   The guide was masterful with his commands and we managed to safely navigate around it.   Just past it, we were in some serious churning white water.  Paddling like crazy, the next thing I knew, I got slammed on the side by Kat who was on the opposite side of the raft.  A moment later I was in the water!  The raft completely capsized dumping all 9 of us into the water!   My first thought was, ‘oh fuck, I’m in this freezing river!’  I got out from underneath the raft.  When my head was above water, I heard terrible screaming but couldn’t tell what was going on with anyone.  I thought of Kat.  The next thought was, ‘what did he say to do?’  I did exactly as he said, laid back and indeed I was floating, no struggle…put my legs up and out in front of me with my feet going in the direction of the river’s flow.   There was no question about what direction it was going; I was being pulled fast and furious.  I had the thought, ‘oh, I hope my sneakers don’t get ruined.’ (!)  Of course, being a person who follows directions well, I didn’t let go of my paddle and  laid it across my chest as I was pulled down the river.  I kept saying to myself, ‘I’m OK.  I’m in the water, its freezing cold, and I’m OK.  Stay right here in THIS moment, I’m OK right now.’  I absolutely knew I was OK in each moment.

Suddenly, I felt someone grab my arm, I turned my head to see the terrified face of one of the Polish women, she screamed at me, “I have two small children!  I can’t die here!”  I yelled at her, “Look at my face…look at me!  Now let go of my arm and take my hand.”  I held her hand, kept eye contact, then told her to lie back like I was doing, legs up, feet out in front, and relax.  I said, “I’m OK and you’re OK!   You’ll be rescued.  Just relax, breathe in and now breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, and now let go of my hand.”  Some minutes later another Polish woman grabbed me and we did the same thing.

I had no sense of time or where anyone else was; I focused only on this moment.  Freezing and aggressively being pulled by the river, the kayak rescue angel suddenly appeared in front of me.  He told me to grab the handle on the front of the kayak, wrap my legs around the nose of it, and then look at his face.  He asked, “Are you OK?”  I started laughing and said, “Yes, I’m OK.  Are you OK?  What about the others?”  He said I was the last one and that everyone was safe.  He told me he got me last because I wasn’t struggling.  It had been more than 10 minutes that I was in the water.

I was pulled into the raft, relieved and shaking.  The guide said sternly, “OK, now everyone start paddling”.  We all looked at each other, stunned, grateful to be alive and to see everyone unharmed…we paddled for about 10 minutes, freezing and shaking. When it was possible to safely pull us over,  they did, and we climbed out onto a small beach surrounded by giant boulders where I plopped, half sitting on a rock.   Immediately, someone came up to me, ripped off my helmet, my life-jacket, unzipped the wet suit, and told me to get the wet T-shirt off.  I was shaking so badly I couldn’t speak or stand, I assume a combination of near hypothermia and shock.  When I could move, we all began to hug each other, and each person began telling their version of what happened to them.  I was told by someone in the ‘power raft’ that I was caught in a whirlpool and was spinning around.  I had no idea of this.  Jigmet was there with the jeep, visibly shaken, having witnessed the raft capsize.   He later told us the last time a raft capsized, the guide got caught in a whirlpool and drowned.

After about a half an hour, the guides told us we could either go in the jeep, or get back in the rafts to finish the trip.  “Are you kidding?”  They assured us this next part of the river wouldn’t be so wild.  One by one we each climbed back into our rafts and paddled together for another hour or so to our destination.

Looking back at this experience, I was so grateful to recognize how the practice in my daily life shows up in the most unexpected ways and situations.   Where in your life do you see/feel all that you’ve learned and practice on your sober journey has become an integral part of who you are?

with much gratitude and peace…

living the practice…part 1

Kat and I, with our guide, Jigmet, were driven about 90 minutes outside of Leh, Ladakh, to begin our trek in the Himalayan Mountains. I met Kat, a young woman from NYC, 3 months previously at the women’s AA meeting in Pune. We were both excited to begin this part of our synchronistic journey which seemed to fall effortlessly into place.

Our enthusiasm luckily outweighed our ill-prepared,unprofessional ‘gear’…Kat with her heavy, law school back-pack and old running shoes; me in my $12 boy’s sneakers I bought in Pune, and a cheap nylon pack from the old market. We were in the spirit of ‘us and the mountain’!  The jeep pulled away, we peed  behind a tree, and filled our stainless water bottles from the river. Her steri-pen made it possible to sanitize the water and we were good to begin the climb.

Up the rocky terrain, higher and higher, the river snaked further and further below us. We were thankful it was a cloudy day.  Jigmet went ahead and we quietly followed with our footsteps the only sound in the silence of the steep, high rock gorge. It quickly became apparent  it was essential to keep my eyes on the path, so narrow in spots that only one foot at a time could touch down. Slippery shale covered much of the path as we climbed, reminding me if I  ’gawked around’ it could result in a slide or step off the side into the gorge basin, now quite far below. As I placed my foot on the path, my mantra became,‘one intentional step at a time’.  I was truly living in the present moment.

Momentarily breaking our focus, Jigmet would turn around, look us in the eye, and ask, “are you OK?”, checking to see how we were handling the altitude.   He slowed up to point out things like the herd of blue sheep,  across the gorge on the opposite stone wall…an auspicious siting on a trek.  Or the family of marmets chasing and playing with each other, or the great black yak with the tremendous curling horns.

Watching my foot steps in the gray powder, stones, and shale,  I suddenly noticed I was stepping on pink flower petals.  To my surprise, I looked up to see a large, pink, blooming bush growing out of  a gray rock wall.   After a couple of hours, it began to rain, and we stopped to put on our nylon parkas…we were a little prepared!  Then it was seriously raining with big thunder and lightning.  Two days before we left for the trek, the town of Leh was closed down in honor of the local people and tourists who were killed a year ago when an unseasonal, flash downpour occurred, causing great flooding, rock-slides, and loss of many lives.  We kept walking.   Hours later, when we reached our first home-stay, Jigmet told us  thunder in the mountains is very dangerous as the vibration can cause a rock avalanche.   We were grateful to arrive only wet and tired.  The home-stays are small, simple Ladakhi homes that families open to trekkers for a modest meal and a mat to spend the night.  We washed our face and brushed our teeth in the cold water between the few houses in this small village, then slept like the dead in the warmth and safety of this kind family.

A fresh layer of snow was on the mountain tops when we woke in the morning.  By now I loved young Jigmet, a 24-year-old Ladakhi who grew up in these mountains, and knew and revered the trails and the people along the way.   Over cups of weak tea, sitting on our mats in the home-stay, he openly shared about his family life, his hopes and dreams.   I trusted him absolutely.  Kat and I, with more than a 30 year age difference, were on a similar wave-length, shared a deep appreciation for life in general, our adventure in particular, and had mini-meetings while waiting for our evening meals.

The next day was the ‘big climb’ to a point called GondaLa Pass, at 16,000 ft.   The guidebook says, ‘this is a trek for the experienced and hardy’…I obviously didn’t see that before we signed on!   My cheap sneakers didn’t give me one blister, and my body felt good and strong.  I was ready!

We began at an elevation so high the clouds covered the tops of the peaks in front of us.  The climb was steep, slow and steady.   We were surrounded by a brilliant blue sky, with a special moment of spotting two eagles soaring together between mountain tops.   The terrain was more open, with the trail wide enough in many places to keep my head up and enjoy the show.  Great majestic mountain ranges woven with wide ribbons of bright purple and green rock, jagged rock towers touching the cerulean sky, giant boulders splotched with orange algae, an entire side of a mountain with pure white rock, the rich textures changing with the light and shadows presented unparalleled art.  One foot in front of the other…

Along the trail, were stacks of stones, forming balanced towers, in honor of reaching another ‘milestone’ on the journey.   We wordlessly bent down to find the appropriate stone to carefully add to this homage to the spirits of the sky and mountains; this Buddhist recognition of balance and patience.  I called them ‘blessing stones’ and would offer gratitude for whatever came to mind in that moment.  Kat told me each of her stones represented a prayer for a meaningful person in her life.

We had the great pleasure of crossing paths a couple of times with the Tibetan pony man.   He told us of being a small child when his parents and older siblings fled their homeland and walked for months through the Himalayan Mountains to arrive in their new home, Ladakh, in northern India.  He’s a few years younger than me, and has spent his life traveling with a herd of pack-ponies carrying supplies from one part of the mountains to another.  Hanging from a dirty, silk scarf slung around his neck, he wears a silver embossed tin containing prayers the Dalai Lama gave him.  It rests against his heart.  He told me he’s never taken it off.  The brass pony bells alerted they were behind us on the trail, then after passing us, gradually grew fainter, then silenced as they moved further up the trail.  In a moment of ‘what if ‘, I decided if something happened to Jigmet, we could just follow the trail of pony poop to find our way.  Always need to have a survival plan…

The steep climb became very intense with the necessity for each step to be  slow and conscious…meditative.  Looking ahead at the distance still to climb felt absolutely daunting.   Over and over again,  I reminded myself to stay right here, right now in this moment.  Put one foot in front of the other, step by step.  In order to keep my energy in my body, with each conscious step forward, I would honor a person in my life who died, or who I know would never have this opportunity…this step is for Dad, this is for Georgette, for Rajan, for Julie, for Michael, for Eddy, and on and on and on.  It was remarkable how many people were actually there with me in that solitary climb.  My heart beat was so rapid, even when I stopped for some time, it was never able to return to a resting place.   I focused on each precious inhalation, and exhalation, breathing in courage and strength, exhaling any fear and doubt.  In those moments of stopping, I would turn around and be awe-struck by the magnificence, the vast boundlessness, and the recognition of the distance we’d come, one step at a time.  It reminded me how important and helpful ‘looking back’ can be.   Arms hanging at my sides, I opened my hands wide, palms in a receiving position, and visualized immense strength and energy streaming into my hands, into my body, into my very being, from these ancient, majestic mountains, from the obvious pervasive spirit surrounding me.  Of the ka-zillion stones I saw, stepped on or over, one particular one would catch my attention and I would carry it for its powerful energy, and then my other hand would want one.   The body/mind always trying to create balance.  Intense focus, trusting my body/mind, and a power greater than myself, this climb was the closest thing to the labor-childbirth process that I’ve experienced.  Reaching the peak was pure joy and utter bliss!  Re-birth of self, at age 61, on this indescribable mountain top.  Jigmet built a small stone tower in our honor…

The following day, I discovered the descent presents its own challenges.  My mind definitely wrote a story about down hill being the easier softer way, but my hips and knees had another story to tell.   Navigating those gravel paths, too narrow for goats, was a real work out.  We made it to the top, so had no doubt we could navigate pretty much anything that was in front of us!  We experienced the limitlessness in each of us…

Stay tuned for ‘living the practice’…part 2,  for the rafting story.

Peace and blessings…

lightness of life…

It is with an old, familiar feeling of trepidation that I come back to this page, and quite frankly to myself, through this process of exploring what it means to be a sober person/woman. I just re-read my last post from January and was reminded that I can be open and honest, clearly express myself, share my sober journey, and hopefully carry a message of truth. I give myself permission to be here with you again…

I went off to India just after the new year to dodge the winter-bullet, which turned out to be quite a BIG one this year, to have the time to write, and be in this country I’ve come to love and regard as another place I call home. It was my intention to continue working on my book project during that time. I was so enthralled with the sweetness of this country where I’m reminded it’s really a good thing to move slowly, to take an hour to sit and watch the river, to take long walks, or bike rides, to meet with friends to share a meal, talk about life, and to laugh. The only writing I did was to post India updates on Facebook. One of the things I’ve learned over the years, and certainly by spending time in India, is that what I plan and what actually happens can be very different scenarios, and that whatever happens is just what should happen.

Over these past months, another thing I’ve come to recognize as true is that there are times when we need to do some ‘heavy lifting’, emotionally and/or physically, in order to experience the lightness of life. Half-way through my 6-week stay in India, while winter was raging back in the states, I was quite sure I want to side-step serious winter weather moving forward. Now that my daughters are in college I can shift my priorities and live with a new definition of purpose, doing what feels meaningful and useful. I know I don’t need to accomplish or achieve to do this. What feels important to me now is to live simply, with intention, and notice beauty while moving through each day with grace, and ease. It seemed perfectly clear it was now time for me to find a year-round place to return to in India and then head back to the states to simplify my life here in order to create a two-country lifestyle.

Thus began my heavy lifting. It required tapping into my asset/defect of great organizational skills, the rush of a risk-taking, and the ability to kick into high gear. You know what I mean…compulsive behavior! In three weeks, with unending help from my friends, I managed to find and outfit a great apartment that matched my specifications, open a bank account, get a signed lease…not as easy as one might imagine, and transfer funds. Stepping off backward from a 4-foot high platform and breaking my wrist two days before leaving India seemed like bad news. It turned out to be just what I needed. I was forced to be more conscious and aware of literally everything I did in the process of returning, finding a smaller apartment here, selling and giving away half my stuff, packing and then moving. I needed to ask for help and dear friends showed up at every turn. I had the opportunity to realize how adaptable we each are, to feel an immense appreciation for two arms, legs, eyes, and ears that function well, and to experience another level of compassion for people who live with serious disabilities daily.

After a few months of intense doing, I’m now settled in a simplified living space here along with the one in India. My daughters and I will travel there in a couple of weeks when they finish their college year and we can all enjoy a long, slow exhalation. I woke this morning with the thought, ‘I’m in the lightness of life.’

Where are you today in your life process? Are you in a place of heavy lifting or maybe in that place of lightness? If it feels heavy for you now, know there are people around who are willing to listen, walk with you, and even hold open a door…the lightness is in doing the next right thing, being true to yourself, and the connection with our godliness and others.

the F word…

At an early age it seemed natural for me to live behind the armor of bravado or invisibility, and to side-step the vulnerability of feeling.   Alcohol and drugs became a welcome relief.

In early sobriety, I needed remedial education in the subject of FEELINGS to learn how to identify these unspeakable things that I spent my ‘previous lifetime’ trying to avoid, numb, push-down, deny, sooth, and medicate away. The process of living without a substance quickly presented the reality that I now had to recognize feelings, get to know what to call them, and then learn how to deal with them as a sober person. Huge!   A tall-order for this alcoholic-addict!

My sponsor, Sandra, lead me through a painful for both of us process to discern what I was feeling. She would patiently ask questions to help me ‘fish’ for a word that might describe what I was possibly feeling, such as, “Are you feeling sad?” “Did you feel angry?” “Do you feel hurt by that?”   Was that disappointing for you?  I honestly didn’t know how to answer those questions.   What I knew was I felt like a two-year old!   With support and guidance, I could recognize and identify a feeling.   I began learning healthy, appropriate tools and techniques to handle the full range of feelings that are part of the human experience.

Talking to a trusted, safe person about situations that cause me to feel stress or anxiety helps. Through yoga and meditation, I learned how to handle stress and anxiety by focusing on my breath and being present. Any stressful/anxiety driven situation results from thinking about something in the future or something that has already happened and is over and done with. When I can simply be in THIS moment I can see and feel everything is OK and trust I can handle whatever I’m projecting about if and when I need to.

I began a meditation practice. This doesn’t eliminate or stop thoughts, but allows me the opportunity to watch the mind, notice thought after thought as the mind produces them, and make the choice to not get involved in the thought in that moment.  When I can be present in the stillness, I am able to experience the thoughts as impermanent…knowing they come and then they go.

It’s not the situation or person that causes me stress it’s my thoughts about it. My thoughts are my responsibility and I can do something about them. I learned to question thoughts to find if they are actually true. I find over and over again that most of the painful, stressful, fear-based, sad, hurtful, anxiety producing thoughts are not true, but based on a story I’m rehashing from the past or projecting about the future. Freedom and peace are found in truth and in the present moment.

As human beings we have the capacity to feel a range of feelings from pure, utter joy to heartbreaking grief and sadness. We learn from each other that it’s safe to feel, that we can survive our feelings, and that feelings aren’t facts. They come and they go, they visit us. We suffer when we choose to live in the story of the feeling rather than processing it in a safe, true, healthy way.

How do you manage your thoughts and feelings? What tools and techniques enable you to move through them with some grace and ease?

light.darkness.birth.death…

The Winter Solstice, as the darkest day moves into longer days of light, on the same day as the Full Moon and total Lunar Eclipse, while we celebrate birth and life itself, the ending of one year, and the beginning of another.     

Through the writing process this past year, along with settling into my life with all three daughters now in college, I found more time in stillness and silence.  One clear recognition that came to me during these expansive moments is about birth, babies in particular, and who I am.  Years of meditation, my first journey to India and sitting with Dolano, my immersion in Byron Katie’s Work, and various teachings of Zen masters  lead me to the recognition of ‘who I am’.     The simple and  profound knowing we’re not the body, not the mind, but pure essence, existential alive nothingness, is quite apparent in a newborn baby.  We sense the miraculous in their presence.  This soul, spirit, essence arrives in the vehicle of a tiny body-mind, as a whole, complete awe-inspiring, perfect, luminous being.   

Then right from the start, other’s thoughts, feelings, and actions become part of the life experience.  So added to this pure essence, this luminous being, is some love, tenderness, attention, affection, fear, expectation, guilt, shame, inadequacy, neglect, anger, pain, suffering.  And, we continue growing, adding our own thoughts, feelings and actions to the mix.   

We grow up and reach some level of responsible adulthood.  For some of us, that seems to be only possible with the aid of a substance; drugs, alcohol, food, indiscriminate sexual experiences, gambling, excessive busyness, achieving, or consuming.   Those of us who see the light by living long enough in the darkness, a living sort of death, then choose another path.  This path begins by dropping the substance and doing whatever work we can to reconnect with the same pure essence, spirit, that we began this journey.   This is the work, isn’t it.  From inside out, we begin to slowly recognize and dismantle the once protective armor, walls, masks, and veils which leads us back to Truth, where we find glimmers of the luminous essence of  who we are. 

 Many people have spoken about what an incredible experience it is to be a grandparent.  Listening as a client described her tender relationship with her grandchildren with such pure love and joy; it became clear to me that  grandchildren come into our lives at the stage of our lives when we’re looking at our accomplishments of the years gone by, at the body-mind aging and it’s limitations, and question what this short time of a lifetime has really been about.  We are free to show up with these new souls  without the  fear and responsibility the comes with parenting, and simply be present with pure, unconditional love for this new being, for life itself.  The celebration of any new life is a reminder to return to who we are, that pure essence, spirit; it’s especially poignant as we come closer to the time of leaving these body-minds we journeyed in.   

Sitting here finishing this piece, I glance out  the window into the pitch dark sky… not surprised to see the darkness pierced by the brilliant light of the nearly-full moon.  It’s really all a circle, isn’t it.

In the spirit of the season,  I honor this auspicious time by bowing to divine order, the earth, and all beings…

Om Shanthi ~

jumping for joy…

I was less than happy to see  snow flurries flying through the cold, gray sky yesterday with the forecast for the rest of the week in the 30′s.  Of course, it’s a natural thing to expect here in December in the northeastern part of the US.  I continue to struggle with the reality of dark at 5pm, leaf-less trees, abounding shades of gray and brown, and particularly my refusal  to get outside and do my two-mile daily walk.  It’s just too cold and dreary!  If you identify with any of this so far, please read further; I have a solution at least for parts of this cold, dark dilemma… 

My brother introduced me to the rebounder a dozen or so years ago; it  is one of those small trampolines that sits about a foot off the floor.  Jumping, running, walking in place for 15 or 20 minutes on this thing has the same aerobic effects on the body as 45 minutes on the treadmill.  It’s 40″ in diameter and can be propped against a wall when not in use, or the legs fold flat and it can slid under a bed. 

Mine is now propped against my wall in my office/workroom…I simply roll it over to the middle of the room, put on some great Krishna Das chanting music or anything else that has a good rhythmic beat and for 20-30 minutes,do what I call, jumping for joy.  It really is a great dreary, cold day substitute for those walks I love and need and just can’t enjoy in below 40 degree weather. 

Here are the benefits you can expect from using the rebounder:

Helps fight fatigue: Rebounding tones the glandular system to increase the output of the thyroid gland, the pituitary and the adrenals — which all help to restore energy.

Strengthens the heart: Rebounding strengthens the heart.
Increasing the G force will cause greater contraction. The involved muscles work harder and get stronger.

Nourishes the heart: By strengthening the heart muscle, rebounding allows the resting heart to beat less often. Each beat becomes more powerful and sends out a greater surge of blood around the body to nourish its 75 trillion cells.

Improves circulation: Rebounding encourages collateral circulation — the formation of new branch blood vessels that distribute blood to the heart. This is helpful when there is a lack of nutrition to the tissues as a result of impairment of the main blood flow.

Reduces blood pressure: Rebounding boosts muscle tone of the middle arterial muscles which acts as a buffer during high stress periods.

Aids muscle training: Muscle training from rebounding also helps return blood pressure to normal levels more quickly after acute stress.

Lowers cholesterol: Rebounding has proven to help lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Fights heart disease: Rebounding holds off the incidence of cardiovascular disease.

Boosts red blood cells: Rebounding increases the functional activity of the red bone marrow in the production of red blood cells. The red blood cells carry oxygen and nutrients to the tissues of the body and also help remove carbon dioxide from them.

Facilitates oxygen: Rebounding establishes a better equilibrium between the oxygen required by the tissues and the oxygen made available.

Circulates oxygen: Rebounding circulates more oxygen to the tissues.

Increases respiration: Rebounding increases the capacity for respiration. Breathing is controlled by changes in the volume of the chest cavity brought about mainly by muscular movements of the diaphragm. Repeated rebounding exercise accomplishes more muscular movements of the diaphragm with the consequent chest expansion.

Aids muscle performance: Rebounding helps fluid move easily within the body, thus helping muscle performance and lightening the load required of the heart.

Aids lymphatic circulation: Rebounding helps lymph fluid circulate throughout the entire body – which acts as your body’s internal vacuum cleaner.

Promotes body growth: Growth of the long bones is especially stimulated by rebounding due to the stimulating effect of the pituitary gland, which produces a growth hormone.

Stimulates metabolism: Rebounding provides for a better absorption of nutrients from food intake and conditions all the body’s systems to handle energy more efficiently.

Enhances digestion and elimination processes: The gentle bounce exercise of rebounding has been exceedingly effective in returning natural, regular bowel movements to chronically constipated individuals.

Aids endurance: Rebounding expands the capacity for fuel storage, resulting in extra endurance.

Reduces obesity: Rebounding diminishes body fat, improves muscle tone, improves the efficiency with which the body burns carbohydrates, and lowers pulse rate and blood pressure.

Builds alkaline reserve: Rebounding provides an addition to the alkaline reserve of the body which may be of significance in an emergency requiring prolonged effort.

Aids peak cell function: Rebounding helps the body attain absolute potential of the cells through chemical function.
Improves coordination: Rebounding improves coordination through the transmission of more impulses and responsiveness of the muscle fibers.

Aids in muscle tone: Rebounding affords a feeling of muscular vigor from increased muscle tone. Healthy muscles are important to our sense of well-being, our grace, our coordination and energy.

Builds strength reserves: Rebounding supplies a reserve of bodily strength and physical efficiency.

Delivers muscle pain relief: Rebounding offers relief from neck and back pain, from headaches and from other pains caused by the lack of use of the various joints and muscles of the body.

Eases menstrual discomfort: Rebounding curtails the occurrence of fatigue and menstrual discomforts.

Maintains peak brain function at any age: Rebounding results in better mental performance, with keener learning processes.
Brings on better sleep: Even very light, gentle rebounding allows for better and easier relaxation and sleep.

Minimizes the numbers of colds: Rebounding helps keep the entire body with all its variable systems in tune and minimizes the number of colds, allergies, digestive disturbances and abdominal problems.

Stops premature aging: Rebounding can prevent or diminish the hardening of the arteries. By conquering this ultimate pathology, you will keep your mind alert, skin smooth, skeleton flexible, libido intact, kidneys functioning, blood circulating, liver detoxifying, enzyme systems alive, hold memory intact, and avoid all symptoms of the aging process.

I follow jumping with a yoga practice.  This helps me be out of my head and in my body, the stretching feels delicious, and this movement allows me to slow down and be present with each inhalation and exhalation.

You can find rebounders on my brother’s cool website if you want to check them out    www.evolutionhealth.com      While you’re in his site check out incredible photos of him walking the wire…

Of course, another aid to what is called SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is what my kids call the happy light, or the official name is full-spectrum lighting.   Sitting in front of this type of light helps with mood and energy levels since it’s providing similar effects as we get from the sun.  Here’s one of the sites if you want to look into this     http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/

Please let me know how you support yourself emotionally and physically in these cold, longer-dark days and in your life in general…

Namaste ~

remembering…

Due to time constraints, this post in honor of AIDS Awareness Day is coming a day late.  I know remembering and awareness are appropriate every day…

I got sober in 1981 attending meetings in my neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and across town in the Village.  About a year or so into my sobriety people in the meetings started getting sick, very sick, and dying.  This deadly disease didn’t have a name at that time; a virus that seemed to affect IV drug users and gay men.  My sober friends in their 20′s and 30′s began getting positive HIV diagnoses.

In the last few years of my active using I’d become an IV drug user and often shared needles with my gay friends; or when desperate enough, needles found on the street by my apartment, or even from the dumpster at St. Vincent’s Hospital.  My fear of getting a positive HIV diagnosis changed my life in profound ways.

Max told me about a Japanese man, Michio Kushi, who had this way of eating that would support the immune system and help the body to heal.   At that stage of the disease and new diagnoses daily, I focused  my energy on learning about this macrobiotic way of life and eating.  I completely changed my diet to a vegan, whole food one, and learned to like the taste of seaweed, how to cook with a pressure cooker, to eat seasonally, how to cook beans and tempeh, the value of organic and locally grown foods, and whatever I could about the healing effects of food on the body.   I cooked for myself and for my friends in hospital rooms with the big red ‘danger’ sign on their doors.   Along with the diet change, I immersed myself in the yoga I started practicing when I was counting sober days.  I had a daily meditation practice and became a yoga teacher.

The recovery community gathered closely around the sick and dying, with our own personal fears, and no judgement.  The never-ending memorial services became a painful, solemn reality.  Holding my friend Larry’s hand at Max’s service, he whispered in my ear, “I’m afraid the next one will be for me.”  His was close to ‘the next one’…

Twenty-nine years later, I am one of the lucky ones that never got that diagnosis.  I feel I have a responsibility to not only carry the message of recovery, but also to do work that empowers people to heal and care for themselves to the best of their ability through nutrition and lifestyle changes.  I also have the blessing of giving birth to and raising three competent, capable, kind, caring, beautiful daughters.  They are the next generation at risk; we talk openly not only about drugs and alcohol, but also about risky sexual behavior.

I’ve also had the opportunity to do work in rural villages in India where HIV is rampant, along with shame.  The shame of the disease keeps them in denial as the men get sick and die, the widowed women are infected, untreated, carrying the disease and passing it on to their children.  The children in those villages are now the focus for testing and treatment.

I honor those courageous people who live with HIV, some for 20+ years, I honor the sick and dying here and around the world…

But for the grace of God…I honor these dear ones I said goodbye to…Tom, Karem, Dennis, Max, Kevin, Larry, Michael, Eddie, Tom, Charles, Lindsey, Georgette.

Namaste ~

living fully…

I suppose the memorial service in the city this afternoon for an AA friend along with the recent deaths of two others bring thoughts of ‘living fully’ to mind. 

It’s not only the finality of death that triggers the wisdom of living fully for me.  I recently spent time with my sister who is quite limited in terms of physical capacity due to pervasive pain in her knees and feet along with some back issues.   Making plans involved thinking about how long we would need to stand or how far we would be walking, were there stairs to navigate  to be considered.  This was only a week for me, for her it’s how she lives at this point.   There’s the inspiring client who just finished a 10-month, grueling interferon treatment for hepatitis C and is now slowly beginning  to recognize being in the body she once knew,  with some familiar energy levels returning,  and the possibility of yoga classes again.  I witness the incredible courage of  Gail pulling into ‘her space’ in the meeting on her motorized wheel chair, knowing she just traveled more than a mile through town and traffic to get there to hear the message of recovery and will travel the same distance home afterward.  Her MS continues to progress and she now needs help to take off her jacket.  Of course, the list can go on describing people’s physical limitations whether it’s from chronic disease, injury, part of the aging process, or a combination of all the above.   The inspiration and courage to live fully in this day is right in front of me, all around us.

Where am I not living fully due to my mental limitations?  I recently recognized I am still holding onto shame from a period of ‘lostness’ in my sobriety, and am now willing to practice self-forgiveness to allow freedom from this limitation.   Am I holding back from living fully by believing some form of fear-based thoughts?  I’m not a writer so how can I  actually write a book.  If I move to that city I’ll be lonely because I don’t know anyone there.   A client begins to explore a limitation in her life,  ”I’d like to really shift in my work life, but I’ve done this for the past 12 years, I’m respected in my field, I know exactly what to expect; to shift into the unknown feels very overwhelming for me.”  

What self-induced limitations of the mind are holding you back from living fully?  Is it procrastination?  Signing up for that class you’ve been wanting to attend.  Finishing a project you started and can’t get back to.  Unable to show up for the exercise that is on the daily list, but ends up lost in your day?   Limiting beliefs that begin with I can’t?

Where are we not living fully in our spiritual life?  Do I take the time to sit still, not just once in the morning, but for periods of time throughout the day?  Three minutes of intentional stillness, mind at rest, letting go of ‘thinkingness’ makes a huge difference in my day…breathing in and breathing out, coming back to center, simply being.  There is so much joy and pleasure for the moments I take to simply notice beauty…these often become ‘haiku moments’ for me where I capture a moment of incredible ordinary beauty in nature, in the human condition with three concise lines.  Can we be present enough to feel the spirit connection by listening to another or being heard with complete, open, full attention? 

We have the opportunity to learn and practice living fully in recovery through gratitude, giving and accepting love and compassion, living in Truth, having acceptance of what is, and extending a hand when and wherever possible.

Where are you struggling today with living fully?

Namaste…

a warming soup…

Here in the northeast, the leaves are changing to beautiful shades of gold, copper, and brilliant red.  Chestnuts have already dropped to the ground with their spiny pods cracked open revealing smooth, shiny wood grain nuts…acorns crunch underfoot as I take my daily walk.   Even in the bright sunlight, under a cloudless blue sky, the air is chilly.

This is a great soup to enjoy as fall turns to winter…

                                                Red Lentil Dal

 use 4 cups of red lentils – rinse in cold water, skim off foam

1 large leek – sliced

4 stalks of celery sliced

2 baked yams crumbled up

Baked butternut squash spooned out of it’s skin

cut squash in half, seed, cut into pieces that will fit in glass baking dish, add about a 1/2 inch of water to baking dish, add a good shake of ground cloves and a shake-shake of cinnamon to the water, add the squash, cover with tin foil, bake @ 400 for an hour with the yams

 optional things to add to the mix…

 sliced mushrooms

small-bite pieces of cauliflower

2 cups frozen corn

 two handfuls of grated carrots

4 cloves of garlic minced

3” pc. ginger peeled and grated

fresh ground pepper, garam masala, cumin to taste

chopped parsley or cilantro

Put lentils in large soup pot, rinse with cold water…they will foam, just keep pouring this foam off, repeat rinse until most of foam is gone…fill the pot 3/4′s full with cold water and bring to a boil…continue to skim off foam as lentils come to a boil…simmer for about 20-30 minutes…they’ll turn yellow and turn into a nice semi-thick sauce. 

 In another large soup pot, use enough oil (preferably coconut oil or olive oil) to coat the bottom of the pot…saute leeks, celery, mushrooms and cauliflower for about 5 minutes…add a good glug-glug of tamari…add the cooked lentils, baked yams,squash, carrots, corn, garlic, ginger, pepper, garam masala, cumin, chopped parsley or cilantro…stir over a low flame till all the ingredients and flavors are blended.   I often times add dissolved white miso to the broth for a creamy flavor.

This is great served with brown rice or quinoa.  You should be able to get 12-16 servings from this recipe for a large group, or you can freeze half for another meal.

                                                            Enjoy!

                   ~ use ORGANIC ingredients whenever possible ~

A media fast…

In early sobriety,  I made the decision to simply stop buying The NY Post and Daily News.  Somehow, I intuitively knew it was detrimental to my search for some semblance of peace and serenity to continue buying and reading this dramatic, horrifying, graphic newspaper reporting.    I would get a little ‘fix’  reading the headlines as I walked by newsstands, but would no longer dive headlong into the blood and guts, grisly, nitty-gritty stories.  I was able to notice a substantial decrease in the levels of my day-to-day outrage, disgust, anger, angst, and anxiety.  Since I had no TV at the time and it was pre-personal computers,  I was spared that source of negative-feeling input as well.  I gave up ingesting stories about car accidents, political spins, murders, lawsuits, and unfortunate overdose victims.   What I found was relief in reading  recovery literature and novels, going to meetings, talking to program people about living in the day, going to yoga classes to learn to be in my body and ‘out of my mind’. 

When I had my first child, I discovered daytime TV talk shows.  It was fascinating to watch people expose their pain and messiness  while I nursed my sweet baby daughter.  The media began to creep in again as  I watched the news and now read the NY Times. 

When my twins were still in high chairs, the compulsive hook  to tune in throughout the day happened with the OJ Simpson trial.  I was obsessed!  It was a fired up distraction from the day-to-day mashed beets and never-ending diaper changes.  I was literally glued to the set day and night for however many months that trial went on.  So many hours spent in this minutia that provided nothing of any value to me or those around me.  No, that’s not true.  The one thing that came from the zillion hours spent obsessively watching the trial and commentary about the trial, was all the DNA talk prompted me to have the twins tested to discover conclusively their identical status.   With no drama to hook into and chew on all day, I experienced a sense of loss after the trial.  I eventually was able to wean myself off TV since the regular news just didn’t hold that juice for me.

Fast forward to the last big election…the Obama election.  I discovered the political channels with commentators supporting my point of view.  I could tune in to MSNBC at 1pm while fixing my lunch, then again at 5pm as I began preparing dinner, and then from 7 – 9pm as I ‘relaxed’ in the evening.  Hmmmm…roughly 4 hours of anxiety producing political reporting I found myself needing to plug into Monday through Friday, and then whatever weekend morning shows that might continue the discussions.  I could feel excited and self-righteous hearing points of view I agreed with,  and angry and scornful with those other ones!  I also felt somehow more American since I was ‘participating’ in the political process simply by being so-called informed.  Just like ‘the trial’…when the election was over I was again let down, lost, bereft, with no drama to plug into daily.  Now what?   For the past two years, I tuned into those political news shows, not quite as religiously, but with enough time invested to produce shame as I owned up to it.   

Thankfully, in recovery I continue to learn with the capacity to shift after enough head-banging on the brick wall.  I’ve been unplugged now for about three weeks…a media fast.  I find I am sleeping more soundly and have less anxiety, stress and agitation.   I am reading more of the books stacked around me that inspire, provide wisdom, entertain, make me laugh, and generally feed my soul.  I’m writing more.  I have more energy.  When I prepare meals, I’m aware of the carrots I’m chopping, or how the leaves of kale feel as I’m cleaning them, the different shades of egg yolks, the bowl in my hand as I’m washing it…I’m more present to my actual life.  What a lovely gift!

What distractions, energy-suckers, negative-feeling-instigators do you have in your life that you might consider giving up to give yourself more?