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Jun 14

Fleeting Perspective

I heard an NPR segment earlier this week featuring Suleika Jaouad, the author of the New York Times Well blog column, “Life Interrupted.” Two years ago, at the age of 22, Suleika was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia; she is now cancer free. In the segment (you can read the transcript here), she talks about how it feels to “re-start” her life…or as she calls it, her “new different” (versus “new normal”). One quote really stuck out as I listened to her interview:

“I’ll never go so far to call cancer a gift. It’s a really terrible disease. But like any life-interrupted moment, there are silver linings. And I feel like in the past year, for the first time – I like this expression – that I’ve been able to make my mess my message. And I’ve taken a lot of joy in that. I feel like I have a better sense of who I am and who I want to be and what’s important to me. And I’m very grateful to have that newfound awareness now. I feel incredibly appreciative of my friends and my family. I try very hard to find meaning in the work that I do. And that emphasis and finding purpose has made me a happier person, I think, overall.”

Stories like Suleika’s abound…people going through an intense experience that changes the way they think about their life…about life in general. Every time I come across one of those stories, or see someone or something that puts life into perspective, I’m overcome with a deeper sense of awareness and gratitude for all the good and all the challenges life brings along…for all the screaming moments and all the chubby-handed hugs…for the fog and the sunshine…for the slow runs and the faster ones…for the easy conversations and the tough ones…for all of it.

But all too often, this feeling is fleeting – giving way to sweating the small stuff and taking things for granted. As I think about this, I’d love any ideas about what helps you keep an eye on the big picture…

What helps you keep things in perspective? Do you have any daily practices that help you remember that everything we experience in life is relative?

Jun 13

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If Our Daily Lives Were More Like Summer Camp…

…we’d bond more quickly and more deeply.

…we’d make new friends + treasure the old.

…exercise would be a lifestyle, not a scheduled activity.

…we’d sing more often and not worry about being out of tune.

…meals wouldn’t be eaten alone.

…we’d write and read more letters.

…the sun would warm our backs.

…even the fiercest competition would still be friendly.

…we’d be ourselves.

…money wouldn’t cross our minds.

…we’d make stuff.

…we’d notice the stars in the sky.

…giving and getting “warm fuzzies” would happen every day.

…we’d hug more.

…we’d sleep soundly through the night.

…we’d look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.

What’s one thing you can do to make tomorrow feel a little more like summer camp? Tis the season…

Photo by Natalie Lucier, via Flickr Creative Commons.

Jun 12

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Girl Meets Cheese

photo by quinn.anya, via flickr creative commons

Some friends invited us to join them for a special event at the San Francisco Cheese School last night: a Wisconsin versus California face-off (IRRESISTABLE). There were four rounds (all paired with beer, of course), and each one included two pieces of cheese – one from Wisconsin and one from California. It was up to us – a mighty crowd of 26 – to decide which state produces the very best cheese.

The cheese was totally delicious…but what I want to note in this post (since waxing poetic about cheese and beer is a weird thing to do on blog about well-being) is how amazing it was to LEARN ABOUT SOMETHING NEW. As grown ups (well, at least in my experience as a grown up), it’s so easy to get stuck in the ruts of daily life and forget that there are whole worlds out there waiting to be discovered. Last night we learned about a world in which people spend a lifetime perfecting recipes and adjusting temperatures and caring for their herds…a world in which a Wisconsin cheesemaker only goes into his cave NAKED for fear of contaminating the aging cheese…and a world where a guy who believed in the power of cooperative grocery stores grew into a famous cheese dude.

Absent of phones and computers, and surrounded by tastes, smells and sounds that kept us in the moment, my brains was able to focus last night, and I settled into the cheesemonger’s rich stories the way I remember sinking into the chapter books my parents used to read…and the way my own kids settle into the stories we read today. This event was a great reminder of the value of shifting away from our normal rhythms and the power of opening our minds to new and foreign ideas. Just as we need to mix up our physical workouts, we need to mix up what we put into our brains….and how it gets there. As someone who finds the physical challenges more natural to take on than the mental ones, this was two hours well spent. I left with an inspired mind…and yes…a full tummy too.

And for the record, according to my palate, Wisconsin won. Here were my favorite cheeses in each flight:

Bleu Mont Dairy Cheddar (Wisconsin)
Dante Sheep’s Milk Cheese, produced by Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Co-op (Wisconsin)
Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk (California)
Roelli Cheese Dunbarton Blue (Wisconsin)

When was the last time you learned something new? What did you learn, and how did it feel?

Jun 11

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Healing Hands

Massage has been around for thousands of years — in fact, drawings in the Egyptian Tomb of Akmanthor dating back to BC 2330 depict two men having massage work done on their hands and feet. But it took until the mid-19th century for it to become popular in the U.S. (early practice was based on learnings from a Swedish physician), and interestingly, massage wasn’t formally included as a medical offering for U.S. Olympic athletes until the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

And even today, massage (at least “medical massage”) isn’t totally mainstream. Despite having a Canadian husband who grew up thinking massage was a normal part of preventive health — especially for athletes — I often find myself avoiding it…telling myself it’s too expensive, too luxurious, too selfish, and resorting to it only after an ugly and painful problem has arisen. I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve “resorted” to having some work done both in the clinic and on my own (using a foam roller) to deal with some nagging tendon issues (peroneal + achilles). It’s amazing and has already made a big difference in terms of my muscle tension and tendon stress. And beyond the muscle benefits, any medical site will tell you that massage can help with anxiety, digestive disorders, fertility, fibromyalgia, headaches, insomnia, nerve pain, joint pain, and stress.

So if you don’t get regular massage, take a minute to think about whether it might be something you want to include as part of your broader commitment to well-being. To help answer the most basic questions, here’s a bit of advice from my cousin, Sarah Wilkinson, a massage therapist and owner of Take Time for Yourself Massage in Minneapolis:

How often do people need to get massage to experience the benefits? Everyone is different, and the answer to this questions really depends on each person’s own personal situation and what they are trying to accomplish. Someone in pain — for example jaw pain or hip pain — may come weekly for a month in order to relieve the pain; whereas someone working with stress relief may come bi-weekly or monthly.

What’s the most important question for people to ask if they’re looking for a massage therapist? A therapist/client relationship is like any other one — people need to be able to communicate with each other comfortably. The intimacy of massage means that personal referrals/word-of-mouth often work best. Once you choose someone to work with, there are a few important things to be clear about early: how much pressure you like, whether you like to talk during your sessions ,whether you like music, etc.

Any specific advice for athletes? It’s important for athletes to see a massage therapist familiar with their sport and muscle groups used. I see a lot of bikers and runners, so I’m very very familiar with the leg muscles and gluteus. For athletes, massage is a great way to help maintain their bodies so they can continue doing what they love.

What do you love about being a massage therapist? I love having a “job” that shifts people into a better state of being. I really enjoy the trust people have during their sacred time with me to just be who they are and talk about issues that are troubling them. One of my clients always tells me she does her best thinking on my table. I have the honor of working with many women on their journey to motherhood, which can be a hard time for some. Helping them is one of my favorite parts of my work. There is nothing better.

So, in Sarah’s words, think about taking some time for yourself this month (and if you’re in Minneapolis, you should go see her)!

Do you think of massage as a luxury, or core to getting and staying well? If you get massage, what do you love about it? And if you don’t, why not?

Jun 10

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Weekend Reflection: Five Things That Stuck Out

Life is full of transitions — big ones like getting married or having a child or starting a new job, and small ones like watching day turn into night and shifting from weekend to work week. These transitions are a great time to reflect — even if just for a few minutes — on what’s going well and what’s not. They’re a good time to check in about whether we’re rested or tired…energized or ambivalent…taking care of ourselves or not…and prioritizing the things that matter most. I consciously thought about these things for a few minutes as I drove to work this morning, taking stock of how the weekend went and what intentions I want to set for the week ahead. Here are some reminders I’m holding onto as the work week begins…

EXERCISE

Little Eyes Are Watching: Our 2-yr-old daughter was busily working on her own in the kitchen yesterday. I assumed she was “cooking” something in her play kitchen until she told me it was time to begin “spin class.” She told me she had water and pistachios ready in case we got hungry and thirsty, and she was ready to turn up the music and SPIN (note: she has never been to a spin class…she’s only heard me saying that I’m going to one…so her version of spin class was literally SPINNING, until I was sick and dizzy and ready to fall down). The point here is: as parents and as people…we don’t always realize how our behavior is impacting the people around us. If I had spent the weekend watching TV, my daughter likely would have organized a Downton Abbey marathon…not a spin class. Health begets health….something I posted about a few weeks ago in Cheering Us On.

FOOD

Deliciousness Can Be Easy: My mother-in-law was visiting this weekend, and she’s a great cook. What I love about her cooking sensibility is that she focuses on simplicity, and she proves that great cooking doesn’t need to be complicated. She made a beautifully seared prime rib, roasted potatoes and spinach and mango salad with seemingly minimal effort. No recipes required. I covered this idea of simple meals in an earlier post — 3-Ingredient Meals — and I love seeing it in practice. It’s a great reminder that time need not be a barrier to healthy + yummy cooking.

MIND

Technology is Complicated: If you missed it, this New York Times essay, “How Not to be Alone” is thought-provoking as we think about the role technology plays in our lives and how it can shape our behavior. Here’s a teaser that might make you want to take five minutes to read this: “I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.” If you’re interested in the conversation about technology and well-being, here’s an earlier post about the power of unplugging.

RELATIONSHIPS

Make New Friends, but Keep the Old: We spent time with three different out of town guests over the weekend (mother-in-law, old friend from Wisconsin, and old friend from Calgary), and I was reminded how important it is to invest in lifelong relationships. I know it’s cheesy, but I’ve always loved the piece about friends in that famous Baz Luhrmann “Sunscreen” poem/song: “Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.” Both new and old friends add huge value to our lives…and seeing old ones face-to-face is an important reminder that we need both.

PURPOSE

The Power of Focus: I don’t have any weekend revelations about purpose to share — after all, it was just a weekend! But I did do a bit of thinking about focus. We went to a park Saturday that’s famous for kite-flying, and I loved getting lost in the moment while watching the colorful kits swirling in the air (similar to the Hockey Moments I covered a while ago). Our lives have the potential to be totally absorbed by distraction, making focus elusive. Jonathan Safran Foer quotes Simone Weil in the loneliness essay I mentioned above: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” This is so true…generosity to others…and to ourselves. This leads to my intention for this week…FOCUS. Less email, more making stuff. Less breadth, more depth. Less interruption, more impact.

What’s your intention for the week? And does it stem from something you did, read, heard, or realized this weekend?

Jun 7

A Proud Life

The World Needs More Love Letters published an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote I loved today:

Seeing this made me think about something I read last week that has stayed with me ever since. A blogger (Hands Free Mama) wrote a post called The Important Thing About Yelling. Here’s the part of it that deeply resonated with me:

“My oldest daughter had gotten on a stool and was reaching for something in the pantry when she accidentally dumped an entire bag of rice on the floor. As a million tiny grains pelleted the floor like rain, my child’s eyes welled up with tears. And that’s when I saw it—the fear in her eyes as she braced herself for her mother’s tirade. She’s scared of me, I thought with the most painful realization imaginable. My six-year-old child is scared of my reaction to her innocent mistake. With deep sorrow, I realized that was not the mother I wanted my children to grow up with, nor was it how I wanted to live the rest of my life.”

Like Hands Free Mama, I’ve definitely yelled at my kids. I’ve most certainly blown up at people I love. I absolutely fumed at my husband this week for forgetting one little detail about the weekly schedule. And those are not proud moments. They are massively UN-PROUD. But they ARE the moments that can lead to the biggest change. They’re the turning points…the ones that feel tough enough to make us want to start over…in a small way or in a big way.

So coming back to this quote, I love it for a few different reasons. First, I like the word pride because only each of us knows that makes us proud. It’s not about a judgement or an external view of how our lives should be. It’s just about a feeling. Our individual feeling. Second, I like that these few words are a simple reminder that we can always change, no matter what. Each of us deserves to live a life we’re proud of — whatever makes us uniquely proud — and that life can be re-defined any time we want to re-imagine it.

What in your life is making you feel proud? And where are you ready to clear the slate?

Jun 6

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Daily Progress

When my kids were babies, I remember getting to the end of the day and saying to my husband/friends/whoever would listen that I felt like I had been “busy,” but hadn’t gotten anything done. I’d look around before going to bed and see (most importantly) an amazing tiny human being….but also a pile of half-folded laundry, a stack of mail that had been opened but not dealt with, and a bunch of veggies that had been cleaned but not cut. I was trying my best to treasure the time with that amazing tiny human being and “relish the early days of motherhood” as everyone was telling me to do, but I had a nagging sense of frustration that I couldn’t ever put my finger on.

I recently came across a concept at work that helped this make sense. There’s an idea called “the progress principle,” which was popularized when a Harvard-based husband and wife team published a book called The Progress Principle: Creating Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. The core premise of the book is simple: making progress on meaningful work is one of the core things that motivate people day-to-day (similar to the “small wins” concept in goal setting). It’s not about the big “aha” or the massive breakthrough; it’s about the small steps that lead to forward progress (toward things we care about) every single day. It’s about watering the carrots so they can grow…knocking out a training run…writing a page of a book, not the whole thing…knitting the arm of the sweater…writing more of the code than you did yesterday…eating a few stalks of broccoli every day.

Wait, you might be wondering, isn’t taking care of a baby the ultimate example of moving forward day-to-day (after all, keeping them happy and fed and slept and alive IS definitely progress)? Of course it is, but in order to feel a sense of forward motion, you need to be focused on the daily changes, not the big milestones. Looking back, I was focused on the wrong things. I was looking for a sense of progress on tasks that didn’t matter (laundry + mail) and I was overlooking the amazing day-to-day growth of my child because I was focusing the wrong thing (the big and infrequent milestones).

I wish someone would have told me to reflect on what happened each day as a new mom. The messages I remember were about living in the present (which yes, is ideal, but very difficult to do all the time) and the big milestones. I feel like there wasn’t enough talk about the fuzzy space in between — the small, daily wins which actually help us keep going. This isn’t about a creating massive checklist or a building a super busy life…it’s simply about working hard to make progress on the things that matter to each of us, and celebrating that progress. A heightened awareness of this may help us understand why some days are happier/more energetic/more creative than others…and what we can do to make those great days happen more often.

Do you notice your mood changing on days when you make progress versus days you don’t? How do you think about the idea of progress co-existing with living in the moment?

Jun 4

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Choices

I read a friend’s blog post today about choosing happiness, and it was a great reminder that our state of mind…our way of being…is often a choice. Not always, but often (at least for those of us in the developed world where all of our basic needs are met) it’s up to us to quiet our powerful inner critics and channel our true…honest…kind…open selves. So instead of writing a post today, I strung together some words that I can use to remind myself of the choices I can make every day. Here they are…

What else would you add to the list?

Jun 3

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Strength in Numbers

A few weeks ago an old friend came over for dinner, and on the way out the door he asked if I wanted to join him for an epic cycling event he was doing the first weekend in June. Loving the idea of something epic…and totally ignoring the fact that my training schedule has been far from epic…I paid my $60, signed up, and entirely put it out of my mind until Saturday night when panic set in and I wanted with all my might to bail on the 5am wake up call and sleep in, eat bacon and eggs with my family, and read the Sunday Styles section.

I’m quite sure that the only reason I got to the starting line was because I knew my friend was going to be there. And I’m even more sure that the only reason I finished the 200km ride was because he and a bunch of his friends from SF2G (the “San Francico to Google” cycling group) encouraged me to stick with them, ever-so-patiently waiting at the bottom while I slowly white-knuckled the harrowing descents, and re-grouping at the top of each of the massive climbs. Yes, the scenery was beautiful and the challenge was invigorating, but the camaraderie made the ride. These people (literally) pulled me through a windy patch, told me what to expect as we climbed, and had a can of Coke waiting at the top of the last climb. They were optimistic and welcoming and fun…inseparable in my mind from the ride itself.

This is just one example of impact training/racing partners and groups can have. There’s tons of research supporting this idea that exercising in a group pays off. A few years ago, The Economist covered a study finding that training in a synchronized group may heighten tolerance for pain due to the simultaneous endorphin release caused by exercise and collaboration. A 2009 University of Pennsylvania study found that exercising with a partner boosts weight loss. And for people who can’t find real-life training partners, the fitness industry is going very social very quickly (I covered this a few months ago in my post “To Track or Not to Track“).

Without a doubt, training partners and groups make workouts better. They make them more fun. They make us work harder. And as was the case with me yesterday, they can even help us do things we likely couldn’t/wouldn’t do on our own. So how do we find these magical people? Here are a few simple ideas:

Find a formal group. Pick your sport and then visit a local store related to that sport (i.e., local running store or bike shop) and ask them if they lead or know of any good training groups
Create your own group. Link up with a partner or group through your gym (people who run on treadmills probably also like to run outside)
Be friendly at the finish line. Talk to the people who finish around the same time as you in races/events; if geography is in your favor, you already know you have a partner who is the same pace
Post an ad. I know this sounds like a total stalker move, but I met my favorite training partner of all time and still one of my dearest friends (see former post “Curtis Camp“) when I posted in a mother’s group in search of an early morning running partner
Just say yes. Even if you feel nervous about joining a group for a run/ride/swim/row/whatever, if someone invites you, say YES. Ignore the self-judgement (“I’m too slow for them”), and just go. Almost without a doubt, it will beat working out solo

So if you’re needing motivation, a challenge, or simple a bit more fun in your workout, the answer might be calling a friend…or a even a stranger.

Have you ever trained/raced with a friend or group who pushed you harder than you would have ever pushed yourself? How did you find that person/group, and what made it such a great fit?

Archive for

Fleeting Perspective

If Our Daily Lives Were More Like Summer Camp…

Girl Meets Cheese

Healing Hands

Weekend Reflection: Five Things That Stuck Out

A Proud Life

Daily Progress

Choices

Strength in Numbers

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