Katy on Wellbeing

Juicy Fun 2010 - part II

In the last post, I summarized what some of my friends are doing, or planning to do to make this year more juicy, fun, vibrant, and alive than last year.  Here is my own list.  It may not be necessary to do everything, all the time, but I bet it'll be fun to try!

This year, I desire to:

Physical

• Live deeper in my body purely for the pleasure of it (vs. for medical reasons or because "I should exercise").  At a minimum, belly dance classes and a 90 minute massage every month.
• Get strong again.
• Go kayaking.
  
• Wear bright, colorful, fun clothes -- oranges!  greens!  patterns!

Creative

• Write, write, write.
  
• Carry my camera everywhere.  And take a class on imaginative photoshopping.
• Dust off and resume my knitting project (a big, soft, purple scarf).
  
• Develop and teach my new Management Consulting MBA course at Ivey.
  
• Do more crafty things -- beading, painting, etc.

Social

• Say "YES" to more invitations, especially ones involving different people and unusual activities.
  
• Fall in love.  Big love.
• Get to know my friends and family in a deeper, more open-hearted way.
  

Experiential and Intellectual

• Attend workshops that interest me.  Richard Bartlett on Matrix Energetics in Fort Lauderdale in February.  SARK on creativity etc at Hollyhock in September.
  
• Actually read the Economist magazine that arrives at my home every week.  Generally stretch my reading in terms of breadth and depth.  Explore pet passions -- archeology, zoology, mythology.  Fascinate myself!
  
• Do a big cross-country road-trip.  Perhaps out east to the Maritimes, or down the west coast from Vancouver to San Diego.

Just reading over this list gives me a happy hum of anticipation.  Because I know I'm standing up for myself imaginatively, and making the creation of a joyful, juicy life a priority.  And even on the grayest and chilliest of January days, I have plenty to look forward to!

What are YOU going to do??

Juicy Fun 2010

Not that I have anything against "I'm going to get in shape / lose 20 lbs / be more productive" type of new year's resolutions.  Goodness knows, I always have a bunch myself.  But it's cold, damp and January.  What I really need is inspiration! 

What I really want to know is what people are doing to ensure that 2010 is more FUN than 2009. So I sent the following question out to some of my friends: "What do you plan to do (or what have you already starting doing) to make this year more FUN, RICH, INTERESTING, VIBRANT, JUICY and JOYFUL than last year?"  And here are their responses:

Being Creative

• Emphasize the creative.  For me it's sewing, knitting, needlepoint -- all with unique, one of a kind products in mind.  I give them to my local charity, hoping that someone shares my pleasure in the product, for a balance of form and function.
• I'm going to try new things!  Not just go to the movies every 10 minutes.  I'm going to check out the theater and explore the city.  Get out of my usual habits and comfort zone.
• I'm opening the pathway to joy!  I'm in the midst of a MAJOR paper purge with all of the things I pulled from storage from my 3-1/2 years in NYC as a writer.  My intention is to let go of the past so I can take hold of my future by living in the present.  Simplifying to enjoy my life.  Clearing space for all my good to flow in.

Getting Out and About

• A long time ago, my wife and I decided we'd take our elder daughter to Paris when she turned 10.  I won't be the last man in love with her to take her to Paris, but I will be the first.  Now it has turned into a family trip.  So .... fun: plane trip .... rich: the Mona Lisa .... vibrant: strolling along the Champs d'Elysees .... juicy: picnic of baguette and cheese in the gardens of Versailles .... joyful: seeing the faces of all my girls as they look over Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
  
• I am excited to reconnect with the magic that is the Pacific Ocean.  Exploring tide pools, birdwatching, seeing otters and porpoises play and whales migrate.  I find the ocean soothing and it's constantly changing, so you never have the same experience twice.  Amazing!
• I plan to travel to Belize and snorkel with my kids and hubbie, ride my bike from Perth to Kingston with a group of powerful women, and spend quality time with family and friends.
  
• I'm attending new events, charities, and meetings for both social and business reasons.  I was asked to be on the board of a start-up company by someone I met at Duke in November.  The board includes people from leading companies such as Google, as well as leading e-commerce technology firms.
  
• I have a list of the best restaurants in what will be my new city.  Every month, I will go to one of those restaurants, and also to a cultural event.  I will also find a reading group and a writing group (both things I already do).  And I hope to dip my toes in the Caribbean .... we're thinking in March ....
• I'm going to make a list of all the adventures I want to have, and when I might do them, and start going down the list.  In 2010 I want to sky-dive!  Every time I see someone jumping out of a plane, I want to do it myself.  I also want to get back to the sports I do for fun, like ju-jitsu.

Cherishing Friends and Family

• We are going to do a family triathalon, maybe several -- train together, tri together, share the moment and the fun
• Finding a really unique gift for our baby brother's 40th birthday -- something that really says 1970 (not bell-bottoms!)
  
• Spending time with my family, enjoying my new job, good meals with friends, and some camping will probably do it for me this year!
  
• Cherishing relationships with our Sister Goddess Group and family, as well as those who are supportive of my goals in building my business.

Flirting, and More

• Tonight at dinner with a girlfriend, I decided to censor myself less with men.  Like our waiter, who I thought was really handsome.  When he asked us what we wanted for dessert, what I wanted to say was, "I'll have a slice of YOU.  With a little chocolate sauce, please."  Of course, I didn't.  But I did get a little flirtier with him, and I'm pretty sure I got "the look" a few times.  Hmmm.  Yep.  I'm gonna start living dangerously and saying whatever comes to mind when I'm around attractive men. Propriety be damned.
• I'm going to resume flirting with my husband, and keeping him juicy.  It's amazing to me that I always need to take the lead and maintain the positive tone at home, but it's worth it, since whenever I stop things get very stale.
• As a single woman now 38 years old, I have always subjected myself to this invisible pressure about what love and my life "should" look like and how that would unfold.  I've decided to give up that pressure for 2010 (and beyond).  So I plan to say YES to love where I find it, or where it finds me!  What I mean is welcoming ALL kinds of love into my life, making more time for friends, family, myself, and not pushing that all out of the way to hold space for something I don't even know what it looks like yet!  I've decided to experiment with the idea that as romantic love comes to me, all that other love is the soil it needs to grow into the kind of relationship I really desire.

Taking Special Care of Themselves

• My long-time modus operandi has been to reach for food or drink as a means of temporary relief or escape, but I am so tired of the way it makes me feel!  This year I am committed to exploring options that make me feel good instead of choosing the comfort and numbing and safety of what I know so well.  E.g. taking time out to exercise during the day then coming back refreshed, taking a break from caffeine and sugar.  I am so excited to see how these new choices create expansion in all areas of my life as I become more present, positive and have more energy.
• I need to pay attention to staying juicy.  I'm going to schedule a pleasure event weekly, which is a radical move for me.  The event might be a massage, or spending some time shopping for clothes, since I like to wear interesting, flattering things, but I never have time to look around for them.
• This year I am committed to equilibrium in all things.  Balance brings more pleasure in all areas, and requires a commitment to SELF which is something that I've been unwilling or too lazy to achieve.  I trust that as I become more comfortable with this process, I won't feel hesitant to say that my choice is for SELF and not simply for balance!
  
• One thing I plan to do is buy a new wardrobe.  I've started shopping, and buying new things to wear to the gym, and reorganizing my closet and drawers.  I saw some great things at St. John and Saks.  I visited Alice's Hair on thursday and had my hair cut and colored.  She did a great job.  I'm indulging in my gym membership 4-7x/week and eating healthy.
• I am using all those terrific Estee Lauder products on my face, taking care of my skin.  I think I see a difference already!
  

Thank you very much to everyone who responded so thoughtfully and generously to my question!!  If you're reading this, I want to hear from you too.  Let's create a great big list of inspiring ideas for a fun, juicy, ALIVE year!  A list we can refer back to when things get dull.  This post is turning into a book, so I'll stop here.  In the next post, I'll say what I'm planning to do!

(Hey, I want to give credit where due.  I created the collage in the pic, but that marvelous photo of the little girl with all the hula hoops is by Dennis Mosner.)

Holding Haiti in Our Hearts

When we see a disaster like the one befalling the people of Haiti, we feel terrible and we want to help.  Many readers will already have made a donation to help ease the suffering.  But it is easy to become numbed to the tragedy by the barrage of horrific images in the news and the sheer foreignness of the place.  I asked my good friend Kathleen Moynihan to write this post because she is not numb.  Kathleen has visited Haiti many times, and raised money for, worked alongside, and enjoyed the hospitality of the Haitian people.  She has volunteered to return for three months to help with the rebuilding, but in the meantime is watching with the rest of us as this catastrophe unfolds among people she knows and loves.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The news and pictures from Haiti are heartbreaking!  The people of Haiti are truly the poorest of the poor and I cannot imagine how they will be able to survive and recover from this latest tragedy, the earthquake that has totally destroyed what little they had. 

The poverty in Haiti is overwhelming. . . worse than you can imagine.  There are so many people . . . people who often have no food to eat or clean water to drink. . .children who don’t have clothes to wear. . . and there is garbage everywhere. . . and no sanitation facilities.  I have seen commentators on TV talk about what will happen as time passes when the people don’t have running water, or electricity, or sewers and I think to myself, “but they didn’t have any of those before the earthquake”.

I have been to Haiti many times.  To see the extreme poverty firsthand brings a whole new reality to what it means to be poor and the challenges that the poor face every day, just to survive.  You see the faces of the children and their haunting eyes that give you a glimpse into what it is like to wonder if you will have food to eat or a house to sleep in.  Most children can only dream of going to school.  The smells of poverty are terrible and are something that you don’t easily forget.  I can only imagine how bad the smell has become with so many bodies lining the roads and trapped in the wreckage of the collapsed buildings.

The people of Haiti are the nicest and most faithful people and they are filled with hope.  Even in their own adversity they are always willing to help each other and share whatever they have.  They believe strongly in God and have an incredible amount of dignity.  You can see this in the images on TV.  There has been no rioting in Port au Prince and everyone is peaceful, even after  days without any aid following the earthquake.  They do their best to make do with what they have in a graceful way, and they continue to pray to God.

I always try to look at the good in everything and believe that things often happen for a reason, but it is hard to do that in this situation.  I can only hope that this tragedy has finally brought the world’s attention on the extreme poverty in Haiti.  I hope that the good people of this world will respond and help the poor of Haiti rebuild their country with the infrastructure we take for granted.  I hope the good people of this world will help the people of Haiti develop their agricultural resources and economy so they can have clean water to drink and food to eat ... and schools and jobs so they can become self-sufficient and don’t have to rely on aid to survive.

Please keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers and donate to organizations that will provide the aid that is needed.  If you don't know where to donate, I would recommend Food for the Poor.  They have a large presence in Haiti and will get food and water, as well as building supplies, to the people.  Food for the Poor will ensure that all your donations will get to the people who need it most.

Much love and many blessings,

Kathleen

 

Free Ebooks Galore!!

Books have always been essential to my wellbeing.  Perhaps it's surprising that I haven't blogged about them more.  But the flow of books in and out of my life is like the flow of air in and out of my lungs -- such a natural part of me that it's easy to take for granted until there is some sort of disruption.  My disruption arrived last week, in the form of a Sony Pocket Reader.  And here is the best part so far: FREE BOOKS!!! 

I knew that the Sony device gave access to free books, which could be found through Google Book Search.  But the reality of that was somewhat disappointing.  Overwhelming volume and tons of irrelevant crap to pick through en route to any interesting "public domain" book.  So imagine my delight when last night I found Many Books.  Fantastic site!!!  Extremely well organized (by author, title, genre, language, etc.), it also allows you to search by series, popular downloads, or recommendations.  Books are easily downloadable in 24 different formats to suit a mind-boggling variety of applications and devices.  Here you will find everything from the Bobbsey Twins to the Kama Sutra, from Rabindranath Tagore to Georgette Heyer.

For parents whose kids received electronic readers over the holidays, and are looking to populate them without taking out a second mortgage, I found many dearly beloved books from my childhood.  The Anne of Green Gables series.  The What Katy Did series.  Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Princess and Secret Garden.  Black Beauty. 

I've also been stocking up on Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Arthur Conan Doyle.  Many Books' most popular downloads list includes The Art of War by Sun Tzu, The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Alice in Wonderland, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button!  And I love that you can also find a list of the series they carry -- Sherlock Holmes, Scarlet Pimpernel, Tarzan .....

In short, I feel like I've just stumbled into Aladdin's Cave, or the Leonidas chocolate factory.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to Matthew McClintock who runs the site.  It makes me wonder what else is out there.  Are there other fantastic sites for free ebooks?  Well apparently so, and here's a list!

Any awesome sites you want to share?  Any book gems you have found?  To my surprise, the device itself is almost incidental -- the real fun is in the treasure hunt!!

 

Digesting our Experience

Yesterday was my first day back to "normal life" after an extended holiday period.  Though I was full of good ideas for how to make 2010 even more fabulous than the year before, the best I could do was go to the gym then spend the afternoon lying on my couch reading The Economist.  This morning, I sat poised to write my first blog post in months, but nothing would come.  I felt blocked.  Like a river clogged with branches and leaves.  The image was a perfect one, because it showed the solution as well as the problem.  I needed to begin dismantling the debris that was blocking the flow.  I needed to digest the backlog of recent experiences, to make room for new ones to come in.

Just as we digest our food, we must digest our life experience in order for it to move harmoniously through us, nourishing us then making way for more.  Otherwise it stagnates, taking up permanent, dulling residence in our bodies, closets, thought patterns and habits.  So how do we "digest" our experiences?  Through ACKNOWLEDGMENT.  Pleasure revolutionary Regena Thomashauer (aka Mama Gena) explains it like this:

"Acknowledgment works in a similar way to chewing and swallowing.  If you are eating dinner, you have to chew and swallow your mouthful before you can have another.  When you acknowledge, you consume, or chew and swallow, the wonderful bite you just received, and you are ready for the next one.  No chewing and swallowing, and there will be no next bite -- your mouth is only so big."

Though rarely described in these terms, practices for acknowledgment or digestion are found in many creative and spiritual traditions.  Here are a few that are simple, but deeply powerful:

1. Morning Pages.  This was the tool I used this morning.  Popularized by Julia Cameron in her Artists Way and subsequent books, this involves three 8-1/2 x 11" pages of long-hand writing each day, just spitting out whatever stuff comes to mind.  Yes, long-hand.  Yes, every morning.  And what comes to mind?  Scraps of your life: what you did yesterday; how you feel about something; a worry; a hope; an idea.  For lots more on morning pages, follow this link, then click on Download The Basic Tools PDF.

2. Bragging and Gratitude.  I learned these from Mama Gena.  Both provide a systematic way of reviewing and releasing your experience with appreciation.  Bragging is the practice of listing and sharing things that are going well for you, or that you have done that you are proud of.  E.g., I brag that after I crashed my car last week (yes, I did), I jumped on the train instead and visited my friends anyway.  I brag I signed up for some workshops that look interesting in Florida in February.  I brag I'm blogging again.  Gratitude is listing and sharing the things you are grateful for.  E.g., I am grateful I walked away unharmed from the crash, and they can fix my car.  I am grateful for all the friends I saw last week.  I am grateful for my family / friends / chiropractor, etc.  It's wonderful if you can share these practices daily with friends or family, or a like-minded community.  Or why not post regularly on GratitudeLog.com?

3. Vipassana Meditation.  In this practice, the meditator sits quietly and observes anything that arises -- bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc. -- but does not engage with them.  She does not begin thinking about them, but instead simply notes and releases them, allowing them to float away.  And so on with the next thing that arises, and the next.  This type of meditation is meant to provide insight into the activities of our minds, and teach the experience of impermanence.  But the byproduct is that, when practiced over time, it uses the lightest of acknowledgments to clear our life experiences and give us glimpses of the great still realm beyond.

One thing that years of yoga has taught me is that our bodies quite literally hold emotions and experiences.  In any big, week-long yoga workshop, you will always see someone crying.  I've found myself in tears folded over in a forward bend, and hanging backwards in wheel.  What happens is that during the deep, systematic stretching of yoga, parts of our bodies that were holding experience open up and release them, with the accompanying surge of emotion.  Though it does not acknowledge experience intellectually like the practices above, yoga is very good at helping us digest and release it from our physical bodies.  Prolonged, steady exercise like walking, running, and swimming can have a similar effect.  The combination of movement, deep breathing, and a relaxed mind allow us to start letting go of the branches and leaves, the memories and emotions and logistics.  And this letting go, this digestion, opens us up once again to the fresh and the new.

How do you digest?