Sometimes you have to pay attention to what shows up again and again in a short period of time.

For me recently, that’s been the Four Agreements (and the later addition of the 5th Agreement).

They are outlined below. I’m not adding anything to them, other than to say they are simple, practical, and intuitive. They are also the hardest agreements you’ll ever attempt to keep.

But keep at it.

The Five Agreements

Be Impeccable with your Word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Be Skeptical but Learn to Listen

Be responsible for every choice you make in your life. This is your life; it’s nobody else’s life, and you will find that it’s nobody else’s business what you do with your life.

Mark and Angel Hack Life wrote a piece around this time last year about bad habits that hold people back. Given the fact that it is still cruising around the internet, it obviously has struck more than a few chords.

As I read through the list of 20, which included points like ‘Chasing after those who don’t want to be caught’, ‘Letting everyone else make decisions for you’, and ‘Constantly mulling over past hardships’, I not only thought about which ones applied to me, but which ones used to apply to me.

I realized this list was a great tool to see both where you currently find yourself, and also how far you’ve come. I think this is something many of us fail to do very often – and give ourselves credit – as we continually strive forward.

Looking Back

Through running my own business, I’ve certainly learned not to expect life – or anything that you take on which is worth something to you – will be easy. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the possibility of flow – but I think it’s unfortunate when people quit things simply because they aren’t “flowing”. Often, you need to put in quite a bit of effort before the effervescent flow kicks in.

Another arena I used to unfortunately often fall into was chasing after those who don’t want to be caught. You can think of this in the romantic sense (that’s where my mind went first), or the friend sense, or work sense. It can be true for all three. Again, persistance is important, but up until a point. We must realize that sometimes who we think is the right person to help us with our work, or be our partner, is actually the wrong one. We hinder ourselves with and through the chase. It’s a fine line between being committed and trying to push something that isn’t meant to happen, and the wisdom to know the difference comes with time and practice.

As for denying personal responsibility, I was caught in this one for a long time. Now, I often chuckle when people I know tell me “not to be so hard on myself” when I call myself out for not making the choice that is best for my mind, body, and soul. They see it as being harsh and that I should cut myself some slack; while I appreciate the sentiment, I see it as taking responsibility for my actions, and noticing what happens when I decided to take the easy way out, or when I start to fall into blaming someone else. It isn’t being critical of myself or my decisions – it’s being honest so that I can hopefully make a better choice for myself in the future.

I think this area is one that most of us need work on – and must continue to work on for the rest of our lives. It’s almost always easier to lay the blame elsewhere. But you can spend your whole life doing that, and I promise you won’t get to where you want to go.

Heading Forward

Then there are the areas I still need some deep work on, such as discrediting yourself for everything you aren’t. This one comes up a lot for me for not being ‘further along’ on my path than I feel I should be – a stronger writer, a more versatile dance teacher, a well-rounded health counselor, a completely balanced person. There are more than a few moments spent in this pitfall world, though I tend to catch myself better than I used to. It still is hard to get away from these thoughts.

Even though I generally think of myself as a positive person, I catch myself focusing on the negative more than I’d like. This has also been a big part of my personality since I was a child, and it’s taken a great deal of work to not constantly get sucked in by the negative things going on in the world. My anxiety also kicks in when I perceive myself as doing something wrong, and I can spiral into that meaning all is lost in a particular situation. Truth is, it’s rare that all is lost, and we can almost always change a negative to a positive. We can also accept perceived negatives as a natural part of the whole, aspects that make us strive to work and re-work a situation to make it stronger and better.

Finally, a meditation worth doing everyday (for me at least, but I’m guessing for a lot of other people, too) is releasing things you need to let go of. This one goes without saying, really – holding onto people, work, habits, thoughts that no longer serve only keep us locked up in our own prison. The art of letting go is not something easily explained or detailed, but it is work worth doing.

Check out the list of 20 Bad Habits Holding Good People Back to see where you are, and also how far you’ve come.

Photo: CarbonNYC

There are tons of things that we believe without really knowing whether or not they are true. The monster’s name is Frankenstein (it’s actually the creator’s last name). Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence Day (nope, though I’m guessing most college kids don’t care either way). Gore never actually said he invented the internet (though he definitely thinks he invented Wikileaks).

There are certainly plenty of commonly held health beliefs that aren’t true. I’m not getting into the vaccine/autism debate here, but I’m certainly up for getting rid of nutritional theories that keep people from accessing better health.

Here are a few of the big ones I’m often told that I’m hoping will exit from most of the population’s consciousness sometime in our lifetime:

Salt raises your blood pressure and is bad for those with hypertension.

I hear this one ALL THE TIME. Poor salt. Like your natural counterpart, eggs, you got vilified by a system that often falls to mention the part of you that is necessary for survival.

Okay, people, sodium isn’t the issue. David Wolfe even believes salt is anti-estrogen and anti-cortisol (both very good things). Most people would think it’s pro-cortisol and inflammatory – and yes, regular table salt is both of these things. But there’s a huge difference between table salt and sea or Himilayan salt. HUGE.

Table salt ingredients: Sodium Chloride, Potassium iodide, Glucose (that’s sugar, folks), Calcium silicate
Natural Mineral content: sodium, chloride (iodide is added)

Sea salt ingredients: Sea salt (some sea salts may differ. Check labels to see if there are additives.)
Natural Mineral content (untreated salt): chloride, sodium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium, potassium, bicarbonate, bromide, borate, strontium

Himalayan salt ingredients: Himalayan sea salt
Mineral content: sodium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, iron, and 77 other minerals and trace elements.

Yes, the type of salt matters, especially when most of us suffer from mineral deficiencies. Along with being a natural mineral supplement, these minerals help to buffer and balance the effect of sodium in the body (similar to how fiber slows the uptake of sugar when you eat an apple vs. when you drink apple juice), particularly potassium. Wolfe also believes sea salt and water can stop an allergy attack immediately.

Cholesterol causes heart attacks/heart disease.

This one gets to me the most because no matter how much I explain to people it’s not true, they look at me with complete disbelief. I’ll let an MD explain it, since people seem to trust them more than nutritionists:

“Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before…The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated. Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.” (for a more detailed explanation, check out Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease)

What causes inflammation? Stress, sugar, refined foods, caffeine, alcohol, over-consumption of vegetable fats such as canola, soybean, corn, and sunflower while under-consuming quality fats from fish, flax seed, and grass-fed beef, cigarettes, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxins in the environment. If you need more info and facts, such as “75% of people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol” and “Older patients with lower cholesterol have higher risks of death than those with higher cholesterol”, check out Dr. Mark Hyman’s article Why Cholesterol May Not Be the Cause Of Heart Disease.

Supplements don’t work at all or will completely make up for your nutritional deficiencies.

Supplements seem to have the Lance Armstrong-syndrome. They’re either abhorred, or without a shadow of a doubt the best thing since the first piece of bread smothered with Nutella.

What I say to the people who claim they don’t work in the least and can be dangerous: if they don’t work in the least, how can they be dangerous? What I say to people who think they can take supplements to make up for a crappy diet and excessive drinking: they are called SUPPLEMENTS. They add-on-to, don’t take-the-place-of.

There. Now you know they are neither an angel or the devil. Oh, and please, know where your supplements come from. Quality supplement companies list where they get their raw materials. Just like anything else, you can’t make something good from crap.

Homeopathy is bunk, nonsense, quackery, insert-demeaning-adjective-here.

This one bothers me just about as much as the cholesterol one. Just because we can’t explain something within the context of our own world view doesn’t mean it’s not valid. Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda could also fit into this category, though both of these have had more “clinical research” that “proves” they work recently than poor little homeopathy.

It doesn’t seem to matter that many people will say it’s worked for them – since there is no ‘science’ to back it up, it’s worthless. ‘Placebo affect’ gets thrown around a lot (to which I say, “who cares? If something makes you feel better, does it matter exactly how it makes you feel better? Do you realize how much of pharmaceutical medication works due to the fact that people believe it works?), along with ‘how could it possibly work with such a small amount of the substance in the medicine?’ (for those who don’t know what homeopathy is, it’s basically a highly diluted version of a sickness, along the lines of a vaccine), to which I say, “Do you understand how acupuncture works?”

Two things:

1. Forgive the trite idiom, but you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. That’s exactly what we are doing when we plunk our better-than-anything-that’s-ever-been-created-because-white-men-developed-it-instead-of-colored-people scientific method on non-Western medical approaches. You can’t run an application configured for Windows on a Mac. Same goes for homeopathy, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda – you can’t explain them (and to a certain extent, study them) through an allopathic lens, one that doesn’t believe in an energetic field that impacts our health.

2. Who’s got big money? Let’s say it together – P-H-A-R-M-A-C-E-U-T-I-C-A-L-S! Who’s paying for most of the studies on pharmaceutical drugs? PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG COMPANIES! Who is deeply linked to the FDA? THOSE SAME DRUG COMPANIES! Who doesn’t have big money to compete? ANY ALTERNATIVE HEALTH APPROACHES!

Oh, and whoops, there are studies looking at the efficacy of homeopathic remedies (many more in Europe). Here are just a couple: The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials (“Homeopathy had a significant effect beyond placebo”, basically debunking the Lancet study saying homeopathy was bunk). Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: a 6-year, university-hospital outpatient observational study. Homeopathic medical practice: long-term results of a cohort study with 3981 patients.

And yes, I’ve used it often, and it’s been damn powerful. I detest when people tell me I must have spontaneously healed from the many different ailments I had, because homeopathy doesn’t work. Unless you’ve worked with a homeopathic doctor to determine what remedies you need and found it useless, please refrain from saying anything else negative about it.

Check back soon for more health beliefs to get rid of.

I just spent two lovely days by myself in a cabin in the woods. Fire roaring, nap taking, deer watching, listening to the quiet (and recognizing how many sounds are a part of the quiet).

Of course, a couple more days would have been lovely to finish the books I was reading, to do more planning. But I came out with my list of affirmations for the year, which I wanted to share with you, hopefully to inspire you to write your own.

Affirmations can be a powerful and steady rock. The ones you see below are simple, yes – but I spent quite a bit of time thinking about and crafting them so as to put my best energy forward for how I would like to be this year. These affirmations are less about striving for something I don’t have, and rather having more of an appreciation for what I do.

Can you really create your life the way you want it to look this year? Why not at least try?

2013 Affirmations

1) I am loved – by my partner, my friends, my family, my community, the Universe, and most importantly, myself.

2) I am successful in my work, easily paying all my bills and other necessities, while also being able to save.

3) I am healthy in my mind, body, and spirit. I continuously breathe out the anxiety and stress that enter my life while breathing in peace.

4) All food and drink that I consume has a therapeutic effect on me since I take the time to enjoy each fully.

5) I feel joy in both working my work and playing my play.

6) I live in a healthy environment that supports my well being physically, emotionally, and energetically.

7) I accept myself fully for who I am, and let go of worrying about what other people think of me.

8) I know when to keep working, and when to stop. I know when to keep relaxing, and when to stop.

9) I understand and respect the intricacy of balance.

10) I do my best to stick to a schedule while also honoring my need to jet off with inspiration.

11) I follow my intuition first and foremost, even when it goes against my desires.

Process to write out your affirmations:

Take some time to think about the larger concerns or issues in your life. Some quiet time is necessary, or you won’t get clear. But even 15 minutes at a cafe will do if that’s all the time and space you have.

Write a simple list first, such as money, relationships, career, fitness

Put the list to the side for a day or so, and let it percolate. Come back to it and write down the ideas that have come to you about each category (feel free to write them down as they come up throughout the day).

Re-reading what you’ve written, take the most important ideas from each category and write them out as a current state-of-being (i.e. “I am”, “I feel”, instead of “I will” “I hope”).

Keep your list down to no more than 12.

Post them in a place you can see them often, whether that’s on your computer, or hanging up at your desk, or on a piece of paper near your bed. I recommend making them stand out in some way so that you don’t forget to look at them (bold colors or background), and re-print them every 3 months in a different font or color.

The biggest issue for most people is keeping steady on their deeper desires and purposes for their life. Use this list to come back to yours.

Photo: Dana Moos

Yep, I’m a holistic health and nutrition gal that certainly likes her yummy (and unique) cocktail every now and again. What better time is there to imbibe than during the holidays? Other than the fact that it’s just about impossible not to.

To celebrate Thanksgiving – and all those other holidays that come after it up until New Years – here are some cocktails of the slightly healthier variety. I also mention a little side aperitif or ‘dessert’ that can help with those wee pesky morning afters.

Enjoy!

AppleJack Hot Cider

Ingredients:
Applejack brandy
All kinds of mulling spices, including but not limited to:
Cloves
Star Anise
black peppercorns
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Ginger
Water to taste

Preparation:

Whole spices are best, and give you the most bang for your health buck. Combine all ingredients in saucepan and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Serve in heatproof glass.

Side: Coconut water mixed with fresh filtered water after you finish drinking, and another cup first thing in the morning.

Healthy Eggnog

Photo: Dinner Series

Ingredients:
4 cups coconut milk
6 tablespoons honey
8 egg yolks
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Rum, brandy, or whiskey, or a small combination of the 3 (to taste)

Warm the coconut milk and honey on the stove. Beat egg yolks with vanilla extract. Add half of coconut milk mixture to egg yolks and stir. Add back into remaining coconut milk and stir. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until egg nog thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Stir in cinnamon and nutmeg. Allow to cool to room temperature, then add liquor. Cover and refrigerate three hours before serving.

Side: Four capsules of a good probiotic supplement.

Peppermint Cosmo

(credit: Self.com)

Ingredients:
1 cup pomegranate juice
Juice of 1 lime
4 oz vodka
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
8 ice cubes
8 mini candy canes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Preparation:
Combine juices, vodka, peppermint and 1/2 cup water in a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into 8 shot glasses. Garnish with candy canes and mint.

Side: One packet of Emergen-C before drinking, and one when you are done.

Mulled Wine

Photo: chatirygirl

Ingredients:
1.5 liter bottle of dry red wine
Zest from 1 lemon
Zest from 1 orange
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon cloves
1/2 tablespoon ginger
1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
Honey, agave nectar, orange or apple juice to taste
Orange slices or cinnamon sticks for garnish
Optional: A touch of Brandy or desert wine

Preparation:
Pour wine into large saucepan and cook over low heat for a few minutes. Add lemon and orange zest to the wine. Throw whole spices into the pan, or use a tea satchel if you are using ground spices. Brew the mixture for 30 minutes, taste, then brew an additional 15 if flavors haven’t fully come together yet. Add sweetener of your choice to taste, then pour the wine through a strainer and serve in heatproof glasses. Garnish each glass with a sliced orange or cinnamon stick.

Side: Sugar-free electrolyte replenisher, such as Ultima, the MOMENT you are finished drinking. Drink an extra glass of water after you finish the drink mix.

Hot Toddy

(recipe credit: Fit Sugar)

Photo: Bekathwia

Ingredients:
1 1/2 ounces of brandy, scotch, or bourbon
7 ounces hot water
3/4 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 star anise, cinnamon stick, or 3-5 cloves
1-2 thin slices of lemon for garnish

Preparation:

In a heatproof glass, stir together bourbon, hot water, honey, lemon juice, and spices. Garnish with lemon slices.

Side: Drink peppermint, ginger, or rooibos tea (or a combination of the three) with lemon juice added after you finish consuming alcohol. All are hydrating.

Gingerbread Martini

(credit: Simply Simple Syrup)

Ingredients:
1/2 oz Simply Simple Ginger Vanilla (made with Stevia)
1/2 oz Hazelnut Liqueur
1 oz Vodka
1 Cinnamon Stick

In a mixing glass with ice add Simply Simple Ginger Vanilla, Hazelnut Liqueur and vodka. Stir. Pour into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a slice of apple. or cinnamon stick.

Side: Do the probiotics and electrolytes. Or probiotics and Emergen-C. Or probiotics and coconut water. You’re getting the picture here.

If you like the “sides” I offer here to help you stave off those grumbling hangovers, check out how to stay fit and fabulous this holiday season for more tips.

Photo: CarbonNYC

As we come down off the insanity that was the Presidential (and other) election(s), it’s time to start thinking about what’s next.

What’s next for us individually, as a country that is divided, as a world that is inextricably linked like never before? There are so many questions on the horizon that it feels virtually impossible to see an outcome.

There are a lot of doom and gloom predictions. Trust me, I read about them every single day (isn’t that what news is, anyway?). It’s certainly hard to stay positive when you keep up with what is going on. But most of us want to know what is going on, so we choose to keep reading or watching.

Thing is, this reading and watching and commenting and time in front of the computer and diminished human connection and forcibly different ideas is doing a number on, I would venture to say, most of us. We’ve already seen rates of depression rise in a devastating manner for our kids over the last half a century. According to Psychology Today:

“Five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.” (I added the bold font.)

In adults, anxiety disorders and depression are expected to continue to rise.

Life may often feel like an uphill battle, even for those of us who are ‘doing all the right things’. Sometimes, trying to ‘do all the right things’ makes it even harder, because an extra layer of guilt shows up when we think we are not doing quite enough.

Recently over at Confronting Love, my friend Carlo posted a piece about witnessing a good friend deal with clinical depression. This is a friend who, on the outside, “appeared to have it all together and in fact was great at spreading happiness. She has coping tools: meditation, yoga, techniques learned through counseling. She has a deep spiritual practice and is a lover of nature and all beings. Despite all of this though, when she spirals into a depression she becomes hopeless and would rather just disappear off the face of the earth.”

In a culture where we aren’t ever supposed to give up and believe there is always a way if we work hard enough (these ideas may even be partly biological), it’s hard to allow that no matter what positive steps we take, for some of us, there are certain things that may always be the way they are. And they aren’t positive. And they don’t go away with affirmations. Or the right diet. The best combination of supplements. Or medication.

Some of us may contend with mental illness our entire lives. Unfortunately, our society doesn’t allow for the truth that there’s not always an answer.

Navigating the Abyss

As a holistic health coach, I often see clearly what other people need to shift in their life in order to feel better. I understand that refined foods and sugar and GMOs affects gut permeability, and that our gut is filled with neurotransmitters, and that 90 percent of the fibers in the vagus nerve carry information from the gut to the brain, all of which means our moods are impacted by food in much bigger ways than most of us realize. I know that movement is often the missing ‘prescription’ when it comes to depression. I can tell plenty of tales of how meditation is the only real way to disconnect from the constant flow of stress and anxiety in our lives.

Yes, there is work that people have to do to feel better. There’s no way around the fact that a great deal of our diseases, including mental illness, are inextricably linked to these everyday parts of life.

But…still. There is that section of people who are doing it all right. Who go above and beyond to craft their lives in a way that feeds balance and not over-doing everything. Who try as hard as they possibly can, and still are stuck.

I love the piece In Praise of Zoloft, which was written by a friend and colleague who was in my Holistic Health Masters program with me. Sometimes, you do all you can, and it doesn’t take away that underlying anxiety, or pain, or sadness. It’s good to remember that even the best of the spiritual heavyweights like Carolyn Myss or Louise Hay or nutritionists like Donna Gates can lay the guilt on people too much, implying they aren’t doing enough if they ‘succumb’ to antidepressants. If we are doing our work, why aren’t we allowed to try anything that can help? Enough with the guilt trips.

Deep Tracks

Sometimes, there are tracks that run so deep, that to even find them is virtually impossible, much less throw a roadblock in their way. I have experienced a constant low-level anxiety for as far back as I can remember that manifests as social anxiety, or a frustration that spills over when I spend too much time with others, or that feeling of overwhelm and despair when I’m trying to handle too many things.

I’ve worked hard over the years at overcoming this anxiety, and have made strides I never knew were possible. I can explain my trappings to anyone who asks, how my personality plays out, what I need to avoid and what I need to do. Yet a sliver of the track is still embedded, and I find myself dealing once again with those slowly built-up explosions, though they may happen less often and feel less extreme. But what would it be like to live without some level of anxiousness creeping in every day?

I think that being human means we have to be open to changing the things we need to, allowing for things to change us, and accepting the things we cannot change. We all find ourselves somewhere on these lines of happiness and sadness, stress and anxiety, extremeness and balance. Being truly honest with yourself, and your influences – whether that’s being a world where drowning your issues in alcohol is accepted, or adhering to an overly strict diet because others say it’s the only healthy way – to see the truth of what the coping mechanisms mean, is the only way to heal. Otherwise you’ll always be looking out there for the answer, and disregarding what your real truth might be.

I’m not sure it was just a coincidence that we ended up going to Savannah on Halloween. I might have needed to be there then, with the long pieces of Spanish moss hanging from the towering oak trees looking like decrepit, curled fingers in the light of the flickering gas lamps.

Savannah just feels haunted.

But it wasn’t so much the feeling of being frightened, but more the sense of time past that hangs in the air. At moments I felt I was in the mid-1800s, gazing at Victorian homes with a dark twinge to both their interior and exterior. At other times, I imagined I was caught in New Orleans in the early 1900s, a jazz trumpet about to play as revelers stood on the second story of a house enclosed by a wrought-iron balcony.

The darkness of Savannah is underlined by its homes built on top of slave or Jewish or Civil War graveyards; they say that every time a new house is built, more human remains are unearthed while setting the foundation. Sanitoriums and orphanages caught fire; mafiosos shot bullets into the movie house; yellow fever cleared out large swaths of the city.

Intense spirits remain.

We stayed in a historical bed and breakfast right in the middle of downtown – the Ballastone Inn. Just blocks from the river district on one side, and a block from the large town cemetery on the other, we were able to experience the perks of a gorgeous and idyllic setting previously enjoyed by the likes of Robert Redford and Matt Damon, while feeling the European homeyness and comfort of laid-back afternoon tea, evening hors d’oeuvres and port, a grand breakfast and most importantly, a nice big tub:

This B&B setting gave me a perfect excuse to exercise the ‘Kelvin’ setting on Instagram. It captured my feeling about this city – and the Inn in which we stayed – almost completely:

The entrance to the Ballastone Inn, from the view of the front desk, sets the mood perfectly.

The bar in one of the parlor rooms, where you can order a beer or wine with your 6pm hors d’oeuvres, or wait for a sip of brandy or port the B&B offers around 7:30pm. You can also feel hazy with a time you haven’t experienced – and if you’re really lucky, see the ghost of Sarah Anderson.

Tag found by Matt on the beach at Tybee Island. Inscription notes that the person who is wearing this upon their death will be saved from eternal damnation.

A view from the tub. Just in between those slits, large branches stood starkly in the middle of the Oglethorpe Ave. split, peering at me in our 4th floor room and kindly offering wisps of Spanish moss.

Fireplace in the front parlor, where we enjoyed omelettes, potatoes, steel-cut oatmeal, baked apples, fruit cups, biscuits (for him), GF bread (for me), OJ, and coffee (black for him, cream for me) over the course of our two breakfasts there.

The scene of the breakfast consumption.

The keys that opened the room to the chocolate that went perfectly with the wine consumed in the tub with tangerine bath bubbles and whirlpool jets.

A reminder that time ticks forward, even in a city that sits heavily in its past.

Photo: Jason Wharam

When I was dragging myself around the house the other morning in a state of malaise, I remembered how often I was told as a kid, “You’re too sensitive.”

I was literally so sensitive that when a game of hitting each other hard in the upper arm (one I didn’t play, by the way) became popular, I had bruises the size of fists just below my shoulder. I bruised easily. When I showed others what their ‘fun’ little game had spawned, they said, “You’re too sensitive.”

So yes, it wasn’t just a description of my emotional being. It was a description of my physical make-up, too. I was sensitive to words hurled at me (or thoughts interpreted via body language) and my body was sensitive to even small forms of trauma. I always left those moments feeling deeply how wrong I was in some way I couldn’t decipher, other than the fact that I needed to toughen up.

It’s a distinctly patriarchal belief that sensitivity, in any form, is bad. Ultimately, I think men suffer more for this belief, but it is still more obviously thrust upon and used against women at any given moment. ‘Women can’t lead because they’re too emotional’ (my absolute favorite is when a woman espouses this nonsense). ‘When women act crazy, they drive their men away’ (which only promotes shutting down communication completely and shutting women up). ‘Women’s decision-making process is clouded by hormones’. ‘She’s just acting that way because it’s that time of the month.’ Ugh.

On the flip side, this same mentality is used to push women toward certain roles, and to make them feel bad if for some reason they don’t fit neatly into them. ‘Women naturally want children and do better at child rearing.’ ‘I thought all women liked to clean?’ (I actually had a professor in my Masters program say this to me when I mentioned it wasn’t my forte and something I struggled to do. This guy was supposed to be a new-age therapist?). ‘Studies show that girls are naturally better at Language and boys better at Math and Science’ (which is just not true at all). Don’t even get me started on the whole ‘running the household’ thing.

But beyond the damage that women supposedly being the more emotional sex does inside the home and the workplace, I want to talk about the damage that looking at being emotional or sensitive as bad does to all of us.

Getting Over It

Photo: whatmegsaid

I see just as many of my women friends putting down other people for being too emotional as my male friends do (and I can certainly fall into that category at times). Emotions are messy. They are hard to handle, whether they are ours or someone else’s. There’s no clear way to systematize them. In short, being sensitive is like being a ticking time bomb.

At the same time, it’s also about living fully. It’s about riding the edges of life, instead of falling in line with where the outside world wants you to sit. It shakes things up, not in a pretty or pleasant way, but a real way. And the energy it takes to fight your emotions if you are a naturally sensitive person is absolutely exhausting.

I’m here to scream from the mountaintops, “I am a sensitive person!” Yes, I drive my boyfriend crazy at times. Yes, I have to experience episodes of what some would classify as depression (though I find the more I accept my sensitivity, the shorter those episodes). Yes, my sensitivities sometimes cloud my judgement.

But it also makes me a damn good teacher and coach because I can empathize with what most people go through in their own world of struggles. It makes me work on myself to craft a stronger me, to question my thoughts and motivations, to accept those moments where I just need to be in it. Being a sensitive person means I am connected – to myself and the world at large, and I care deeply about both. Being sensitive makes me look at my life with a keen and focused eye most of the time, in order to see if I’m going too far in a direction that’s not healthy for me.

I continue to learn that when I give myself the room to mope around when my body is screaming ‘don’t do anything at all‘, that I bounce back better and clearer. I realize that sitting with my sensitivities allows me to see them for what they are, rather than see them as everything. This allows me to move more freely through life, instead of being hindered by some unseen forces.

So if you are a person who has been told your whole life that you are too damn sensitive, I invite you to stand up right now and say, “Hell yeah I am. And that’s exactly why I rock as much as I do.”

Now you’re showing your strength.

Photo: Visual Artist Frank Bonilla

It’s easier to look around and feel completely and totally out of control rather than in it.

A ridiculously negative Presidential campaign in the United States. An environment that continues to be degraded even though we know we are past the point of no return. A work ‘ethic’ that has us running ourselves straight into the ground. A goliath company that has already ruined a good chunk our food supply and continues to make us a sicker nation.

Less jobs, less pay. A completely unstable worldwide economy. Reality TV coming down to Honey Boo Boo (really, Learning Channel?).

Some people say that every generation feels like things are crazier than they have ever been before. This may be the first time that’s true. And that all the generations agree it’s true.

Put aside that most of us have more than enough and just can’t see that. (See poster below.) There is a lot of frenzied energy all over the place these days. We need concrete ways to deal with it. Here are a few places to start:

1. Listen to your gut. More than ever, it’s important for you to trust yourself and your first instincts. Case in point – I just got strung along for several weeks by the owner of a place where I planned on doing a dance show, only for it to fall apart. The guy was horrible about getting back to me, but every time I was about to pull out, he’d return my email, acting as if the show was on. From the get-go, I felt uneasy and generally disrespected, but I listened to other people who knew him and said he was just flaky, or that this is just how it goes booking shows.

Never again. I let him waste both of our time, along with the time, focus, and marketing ability for the ladies in my dance group. If I had listened to my intuition from the get-go, we’d already be set at another venue that appreciates us and we’d have sold a bunch of tickets. Lesson learned.

2. Do What Feeds Your Soul. I feel like I say this all the time, but it continues to need to be stated. In times of chaos, it’s important that you work to fulfill your inner-most desires in this life, because you are never guaranteed anything – not enough time, a stable economy, or a supportive environment. Man, I wish it was different, but it isn’t, so it’s best to accept the instability of it all and start moving on your dreams.

3. Seek Your Own Truth. Never take anything you hear at face value. Be open to listening to others, but follow what feels right to you, even when that pisses other people off. Be willing to do your homework on a subject before following others, even if you respect them immensely. Forgive others. Forgive yourself. Check your moral compass and if you are following it. Make the better choice, even when it’s harder.

For me that means eating a delectable gluten-free goody when I really want one, but not when I want to just escape doing something or the emotional space I’m in (my gut tells me the difference); paying my dancers even when I barely make any money myself (I refuse to perpetuate the “well, I didn’t make any money when I was in student troops, so my students have to go through working up the ranks too”. This is a microcosm of EXACTLY what is wrong with the world, and I must be the change I want to see in the world). It means going to take a nap or to listen to meditation music even when I ‘should’ be working. It means holding myself accountable to get things done when I say I’m going to.

What does seeking your own truth mean to you?

4. Make Your Own Rules. If you are doing everything I just listed above, you will essentially be making your own rules. You’ll come up against a lot of resistance from others. Really hear what others have to say, then check in with your gut once again. Start distinguishing between fear, procrastination, being swayed by others opinions, and intuition. It may take a little while to figure it out, but you will start to be able to name each. Sit with the fear, procrastination, and being swayed by others opinions and see if it shifts. Act on your intuition immediately.

5. Tune out. Turn off the computer. Turn off the cell phone. Walk in a park or the woods. Grab a glass of wine with a friend at 5pm, and go to bed by 8pm. Get a babysitter and go mill around a pumpkin patch with some hot cider. Remember that what is real surrounds your body and is not a product or a machine, but rather a person, an animal, and nature.

When everything is out of control and you feel like you are being whipped around in the chaos, get back to your body. You are allowed to withdraw from the drama and anxiety, no matter how much other people bark at you to constantly be involved. Keep your sanity, and keep your health.

Photo: aeu04117

I just read this great piece about balance over at Gaian Soul, Tarot card author Joanna Powell Colbert’s blog. The autumn equinox – when day and night are equal – arrives later this week on September 22nd, and Joanna talks about, for a lack of a more creative way of putting it, the necessity of balance in our lives:

As I was reflecting on the theme of balance, it occurred to me to turn once again to the wisdom of Mama Gaia. I noticed that there are only two days a year when everything is held in balance — at Spring Equinox and Autumn Equinox. This balance is fleeting. It doesn’t last long. Between the two points of perfect balance on the Wheel of the Year, everything is change. In the Spring, each day brings more light and we enter the time of activity and external pursuits. In the fall, the darkness gathers and we are drawn to inner reflection, quiet, and rest.

And yet, as Joanna adds, “Some say that balance is overrated, that no one ever accomplished anything great by having a balanced life.”

Her note about what many people believe is something I often ponder: what is our cultural obsession with accomplishments? And for that matter, what is some people’s obsession with balance?

I tackled the second question in my comment to Joanna’s piece:

In a culture where working hard is equated with being a worthy human being, we often forget to ask if we are happy – or maybe more important, content. Although true and constant balance between the different aspects of our beings is impossible, understanding the need for ying and yang, internal and external, and that each part plays different roles in each of us individually, is necessary for health, well-being, and as a protection against that which might ail us.

Passion is great, but not only can it burn us out, it can burn out those around us, too. When you’re constantly living externally, that not only impacts us, but it can lead to dominating and sometimes even messiah-like behavior. It is exalting the masculine and negating the feminine, which plays a huge part in where we find ourselves in the world right now. For example, a passion for using ‘alternative’ energy sources such as coal has allowed for the growth of mountaintop removal. Something stemming from a good place – trying to reduce our dependence on foreign oil – gets out of control if we don’t sit back, go inside, and think about the long-term consequences.

I naturally love to go inside, and so maybe that’s why it’s so easy for me to love this time of year. But if those who love to work more than anything don’t learn how to sit back just a little bit, the rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer won’t slow down, and the Earth won’t be able to handle the output.

Yes, I believe that most of our man-made diseases have deep roots in our obsession with constantly doing stuff (that doesn’t even have to be work, per se. Spending hours on the computer cruising around or playing video games can be just as detrimental, setting up a slow-growing petri dish in our body for illness). Yes, I believe stress is the biggest killer (along with the decisions we make under stress). And yes, I believe that we can do horrible things to our Earth in the name of passion (along with what we do to other human beings in the name of passion for patriotism, or religion, or what we believe is/should be ours).

Photo: h.koppdelaney

As for our cultural obsession with accomplishments? I think it has to do with a “I-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it” ethic that discounts the contentedness of the individual in the name of greater output for the masses. And yes, it has deep roots in why and how we believe America was founded, our rise to being a world superpower (and our desire to remain there, even though we’re sinking), and capitalism that has gotten out of control.

It’s miseducation at its finest.

I’m not saying “don’t work hard. Just sit around and listen to Nickelback all day.” Far from it (I would never recommend you listen to Nickelback). Digging inside and reflecting takes work. Journeying takes work. Meditating takes work. Soul-connection practices take work.

But they make you look at the bigger picture. They stop you from using natural resources. They calm your nervous system. They feed your soul.

Balance isn’t possible. But working toward it is.