Mind Body Heart

Death, Dying, and Degeneration

2012-01-23T11:33:00.001-08:00

In the 9th grade we had to do an oral presentation in English class on a topic of our choice. My English teacher may have re-thought the freedom in the assignment after I stood at the front of the class for 10 min and talked about death.I thought death was fascinating, probably much like how I thought ghosts, UFOs, clairvoyance, the dream world, and other like phenomenon were fascinating thing to consider, although in hindsight, I am surprised I wasn’t referred to the school counselor. I remember feeling quite comfortable up there talking about death. I really don’t think it occurred to me that this may have been an odd topic to present on. I wasn’t trying to be rebellious or confrontational (despite what some people may think, knowing me now). I don’t remember any conversations that were sparked as a result of my presentation, which probably disappointed me. I don’t even remember my teacher saying anything to me at all. Perhaps our relationship with death is so unhealthy that everyone just ignored me and my presentation rather than engaging me in a conversation about it. Perhaps this was one of the many places where I learned how to NOT talk about death. I certainly didn’t grow up in a home environment or a culture where this topic was discussed, which may have partially been due to circumstances. My family, on both sides has evolved with longevity genes. Three of my four grandparents are still alive and I grew up with them all until I was 25 when my grandmother died of cancer. I met most of my great grandparents and, astonishingly, even my great-great-grandmother who lived just past her 103 birthday - that’s my grandfather’s grandmother!!Where I did experience death was with my many pets. During the course of my childhood I lost 3 budgies, 2 gerbils, many goldfish, and my dog Buffy who lived for 18 and a half years. I cried a lot over my first budgie (Joey, because I had spent a lot of time with him while he sat on my shoulder and I went about my day.) And I was completely devastating when Buffy died 2 months after I moved away from Winnipeg. I was sure she lasted so long because I loved her so much and then died of a depression when I left.I also experienced many suicides, mostly from an arm-length and within a 6-month period when I was in junior high school. First, my next-door neighbor, the father of two young boys, killed himself, followed by their mother 5 months later. I remember when they pulled her out of the pool and I saw her grey leg sticking out. I was scared to sleep outside in our backyard-gazebo for a long time after that fearing I would see her ghost. During that time period my elementary school BFF’s mother was found in the river after jumping to her death and a girl I played ringette with, her father killed himself in the garage with the car running. But I never talked about how any of these made me feel. At least not in any conventional manner.In hindsight, this string of deaths may have prompted my 9th-grade oral presentation on the subject and therefore, likely served as my attempt at understanding and discussion on the subject. Some 22 years later, I am still seeking understanding and discussion. For the past few months, on several occasions, I have woken up in the middle of the dark night to experience a profound energy inside me fearing my own death. I have equated this to a panic attack, where people experience a sudden onset of anxiety and often fear they are going to die. Except my panic wasn’t just that I was going to die then and there, but in fact, was a further intellectualization that at some point, in the future, I was going to die and THAT scared me. What exactly am I afraid of? When I was a kid I use to worry that death would feel like one of those sleepless nights where you lie there awake, bored, just waiting and waiting for nothing, time just dragging on. That seemed like an awful fate. When I think about my fear of death now, I think that what I am actually afraid of is ceasing to exist and, essentially, of losing this mind with which I so heavily identify.This insight has come from my studies and practice in yoga and Buddhism - a practice and philosophy that involves unidentifying with the mind and all of its fabrications (including memories of the past and expectations of the future) and instead aligning with the present moment, with immediate sensations, and with life as it is actually occurring. And, not surprisingly, this also scares me. I am in love with my ideas and all the concoctions of my mind. I take pride in my thinking, the sense of me, and my false sense of control. I am quite attached to my mind, in fact. So death, from how I understand it biologically at least, will likely be a dissolving of this sense of me as I return to the atmosphere as molecules that will re-form as some other earthly or universal construction. I will decompose and be returned to nature, most literally, without mind, without a sense of me. I remember when I was a kid trying to understand the concept of heaven and struggling with the anthropomorphism of it. I kept grappling with how I, as me, could just move up there into supreme bliss and perfection. I figured I would need to be someone quite different than who I felt to be now in order to enter a place where all worldly and human worries didn’t follow. How could that peacefulness exist unless I radically changed form, I wondered. It just didn’t make sense to me. My neuroscience studies have largely corroborated this confusion over such logistics. The process of coming to understand, accept, and even appreciate death is not easy, particularly in a society that typically avoids dealing with it, in a way, I would argue, is quite unhealthy. Our healthcare systems (including traditional, alternative, and complementary) devote a significant amount of time and energy to prolonging life, curing or preventing diseases, and resurrecting people. We, societally and personally, exert a significant amount of energy attempting to avoid death - an inevitable feature of living. THIS is a form of suffering - an attachment to something (i.e., life) that will inevitably pass or change. This is one of the four noble truth put forth by the Buddha: The nature of suffering is attachment. Perhaps, a better way of reducing human suffering is through altering our mental relationship with our physical body, rather than perpetuating an attachment to it. I know I am going to die. This is one thing we can all rest assured about. I will stop breathing, my heart will stop beating, and my body will decompose. My lover will experience the same fate as will my parents, the rest of my family, my friends, my dog, and my cat. This truth has stood the test of time as far as we can tell. Death is actually quite known, not unknown, in many ways. The task for me, is to explore the depths of my relationship with death, my mind, and my sense of me, so I can find peacefulness with this long before I die, rather than expecting it to be waiting for me upon my death. By doing so - by detaching from false perceptions - I will surely live a better, more peaceful, life now. A few weekends ago I was in Halifax for a friend’s mom’s funeral. It was actually the first church funeral that I had attended. While driving there, alone, I got a bit nervous as to what formalities I should know or would be expected to know. I got nervous about being in a situation that may be highly uncomfortable. As I drove it occurred to me that this was an opportunity not just to participate in a ritual but to actually bare witness to the life of someone who had returned to nature and to bare witness to the beautiful people in her life who were mourning her loss. It was also an opportunity for me to bare witness to my own experience with death and to embrace an opportunity to continue to explore death, just as eagerly as I have explored birth.I know my own personal allocation of time has been quite lop-sided favoring topics on birth, growth, and development over death and dying and I suspect I am not alone. I can’t help but wonder how many people would show up for a lecture on “preparing for death” compared to those who engage in prenatally classes. I can’t help but wonder how many people hire or become a death coach compared to a Doula. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I started planning my own funeral with the same energy that I am planning my wedding and a family. For me, this topic needs to be opened up again because I feel like I have been ignoring it. I want to have conversations about death, dying, and degeneration with the same vigor as I engage in conversations of birth, growth, and development in all capacities. For someone like me who spends a significant amount of time on the latter issues, I think it’s only fair, appropriate, and necessary to devote similar energy to the former in order to better understand nature, life, and balance.

This Year I Resolve to Go Insane

2012-01-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

I woke up on January 1st and thought about this coming year and what I wanted to it to mean to me, what I was going to do, and what I wanted to achieve. I also thought about my role as a life coach and whether I should write something. The thought of writing a New Year’s Resolution was so cliche that is nauseated me. And then the question “What scares me the most?” popped into my head. Good question, I thought! In 2011 I had a few pivotal moments that helped propel me in my authentic direction. For one, I let go of my fear of going insane. This fear has haunted for me as long as I could remember. It gained momentum in undergrad when I began formally study psychology and neuroscience and started to actually understand the intricacies of going insane. I remember asking my psych friends to alert me if I ever exhibited signs of frontal-lobe damage (i.e., signs like disinhibition, impaired decision-making and executive functioning, confabulation, impulsivity....). As I list those now I am flooded with examples of frontal-lobe damage in my life. :) But I digress...I worried about having a brain tumor that would impair my ability to be sane. I worried about developing schizophrenia. I worried about hearing voices. I worried about seeing things. In many ways, these worries were in complete contradiction to my childhood desire to see ghosts, to partake in paranormal phenomenon, to develop secret powers and to be able to fly. Ok, true enough, these desires still resonate within me. :)Hence the fear of going insane.Or... perhaps more appropriately, being perceived as going insane. Can we ever really know the difference? Even with all of my neuroscience background, I have yet to know for sure whether someone to whom God speaks is actually delusional or attuned to something the rest of us are not. The limitations of science prevent us from knowing for sure, in actuality. Neurologist Ramachandra speaks brilliantly about this on TED.com.But one highly of 2011 was that something flipped. Somewhere I let go of that fear. Somehow it made a whole lot more sense to me that IF my natural tendency was, in fact, to go insane, either because of some neurological change, fundamental psychological “defect”, or for some other unexplainable reason, who was I to stand in my own (biological or genetic) way? In fact, I wondered about what amount of energy it would take to resist such a fate and, better question, if I had the energy to do so. Would the allostatic load and physiological stress associated with resistance be too much for me to eventually handle. I know from personal experience and from my scientific study of stress that stress can be quite devastating and high levels of it could actually lead to some psychotic states. Oh the irony that would be! But on the other hand, what if I just let go and let myself fall and be my true self? What might arise? Perhaps my crazy ideas and crazy projects and crazy rants might all of a sudden find solid ground and manifest into something not crazy but something quite the opposite. When I saw it as those two alternatives the answer was clear. I had to proceed in the direction that feared me the most. And if my fate was to go insane, well so be it. Perhaps this would be a happy, peaceful insanity that felt totally authentic. That’s a great fall-back plan if I didn’t end up brilliantly revered because of my great ideas. A win-win situation in my crazy mind.So... as I started 2012 I asked myself that same question “what scares me the most?”. The answer was clear: to keep looking, acting, being, feeling, and/or potentially being perceived as crazy! Yesterday I was talking over email with another wonderful being about her fear. Our fears are so personal that they can define us, just like thoughts tend to do when we believe them. We create mountains out of fears and then they paralyze us and keep us from moving in directions that may be wonderful and natural for us. In the email, I mentioned how I started this year by vowing to continue in the direction of what feared me. I said “Remaining in my comfort zone, although comfortable, is really not going to help me grow. So that's the direction I will proceed. Wanna join me? :)” She agreed. So now there are two of us. Anyone else wanna join us? What better way to spend 2012, the year that some of us fear being the end of the world. ;)Anyone who wants to support my craziness can view a congregation of my craziness at www.mandyland.ca. All crazy comments are welcomed.

The Power of the Mind

2011-12-01T11:10:00.001-08:00

While sitting in the Porter lounge, waiting for my flight to Halifax to teach about the Power of the Mind for my life coaching course, I start reading the Globe and Mail and am reminded of several things. First, most saliently, I am reminded of the article I read the other day about the torture of children in Syria. The author described a 13-year old boy who was beaten to death, a 14-year old boy who another main witnessed being raped in front of his father - a male witness who was raped right after, and a 2-year old girl who was shot to death so that she wouldn’t grow up to be a demonstrator said the killer. This story, rightfully so, still lingers in my mind and in my heart.While reading the Globe and Mail I become privy to many other compelling and disturbing stories... the mortgage debt that seems to be lifting... the storming of the British embassy in Tehran... the court case where two medical doctors from Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto are pleading to take a 60-year old man off life support while his family disagrees... the poverty in Attawapiskat... a polygamous man charged with murder his first wife and 3 teenage daughters by drowning them in a car... that eBay and Amazon have pop-up stores for the holidays... (ok this last one may only be disturbing to me as a person who rejects Christmalism (or Capitalmas, whichever you prefer) - had to plug an opinion here! ;)I can’t help but notice how my body reacts to all of this. Nauseous, rage - I can feel the blood rushing through my veins, my heart is beating, my eyes are scrunching, tension grows in my head, my shoulders lift up in defense, and feelings of helplessness, which manifests like paralysis. These stories are not just lingering in my mind, they are in my body. I have incorporated them. THIS is the power of the mind - to turn a good mood into a bad mood and vice versa almost instantaneously. The power of the mind is so strong that it can dictate wellness, happiness, sadness, suffering... These stories are leaving footprints in our brain and in the rest of our body. This is why many wellness and stress-management coaches are quick to recommend not watching the news before trying to go to bed or while trying to relax. These topics are not relaxing. They are energizing and arousing. They produce the physiological responses associated with anger, rage, frustration, irritation.One heart-wrenching story is enough to mobilize us and get us helping out and better serving others with our time then great! But sadly, they can also leave us feeling helpless. A heart-wrenching stories can cause us to wander away from the feeling... from one story to the next. Devouring tid bit by tid bit. As the stories continue to leave footprints on our body we can begin to shut down. The power of the mind is such that it WILL shut down, shut out, and disconnect with the body when it is too much. In very extreme, and very rare, cases (like severe abuse) this can result is dissociative identity disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder). But imagine it’s a gradient. It probably is. The question is, do we mobilize or paralyze ourselves with our thoughts and with our wandering mind? Our mind can give us strength when otherwise there is none and it can weaken us at times when we need to fight. It can lift cars from babies and let us hang on for our life but it can also cause pain to feel worse and hinder our ability to overcome disease. It can help us survive the pain of broken limps and being attacked by animals but it can also cause us to crumble from a mere personal attack. It can be our best friend and our worth enemy.This is the power of the mind. This is an example of the mind-body connection and the mind-body disconnection that we hear of so often. What we give energy to, will strengthen. I am also reminded of why I don’t read the paper or watch the news. Getting myself paralyzed doesn’t seem like the best way for me to get things done and to help out. I need to remain mobile, fluid, and of sound mind and to chose my mind’s activity wisely in a way that does good. This takes practice.If you liked this, you may want to read an oldie: Shoulder's Back, Open Heart

The Plunger is My Teacher

2011-10-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

At any given moment, there is an opportunity in front of me to practice what I preach... to practice openness, oneness, compassion, empathy, non-judgment, acceptance & letting go, loving kindness, self-awareness... I don’t need to go find some guru in India, a wise woman on a mountain top, or to some class, albeit they can be incredibly valuable. “Teachers” are actually all around me in many expected and not-so expected forms, but, ultimately they are illuminated by my own desire to learn. Today, for example, my teacher presented itself in the form of a plunger.I was in the kitchen at CSI and noticed that the sink was not draining. I asked one of the community animators who was standing right there if there was something around to pour down the drain. As I was speaking, I thought “are their actually non-toxic ways to do this?” knowing that CSI would not have harsh chemicals. As I was finishing my thought, she said “Ya, there’s a plunger right over there in the corner.” Clearly seeing me stunned she offered an explanation that I later learned she also needed. “Ya, it’s a plunger just for the sink, not for the toilet. It never occurred to me either that a plunger could be used in the sink, until this same thing happened to me a few weeks ago.”Still in shock I started to plunge. As the suction popped up and down and eventually freed the block, so too was my mind free of yet another unconscious way of thinking. What I (and possibly you too) learned growing up was that plungers were for toilets and draino was for sinks. No wonder it is so hard for us to break free of old habits that are inevitably killing our poor earth!In fact, in the past 72 hours, I can think of several incidents where I had the opportunity to learn deeply about myself, my habits, my patterns, and the virtues I mentioned above. For example: During a conversation with a participant in my weekend course, I see how instead of worrying about the need to share a fob key to go the bathroom or about the cramped space quarters during yoga, I see them as an opportunity create a sense of community... of oneness, rather than being an inconvenience. The space is my teacher. My dog Jett is tricked by a plastic rat on a lawn decorated for Hallowe’en and I laugh. This reminds me of the power of simple pleasures and I immediately am reminded that there is no seeking of spirituality but that my spirit is right here at home. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, friendships, my career... these are all just different paths that lead me to this feeling right now. I don’t actually have to go far. Jett is my teacher.Monday morning, I feel out of shape because I haven’t been to the gym for several days. I decide to go for a 10K run in under 60 minutes, despite not doing that long of us run in months. My body is sore the next day. My body is my teacher.I set my alarm for a half hour before Mike typically wakes up so that I can get back into my morning yoga routine only before mine goes off HIS goes off! At first I think I slept in. Then I realize he decided to wake up early to get some work done. I am frustrated. Then I laugh sincerely. Instead of being attached to a particular way that I wanted my morning to go, I feel fluid with the letting go of expectations. Mike’s decision to wake up early is my teacher.I’m sitting here at R2 coffee shop on Queen West, considering staying here instead of going to yoga AT THIS VERY MOMENT and the guy who works here asks me if he can take a picture of me with their new orange latte beside my computer for promotional material... and that I get the latte after for free! AH! NO!!! This is a test! My teacher is TESTING ME!! I have already had a macchiato... and a coffee... I can’t possibly have another caffeinated item. And I am on a no-glucose diet prescribed by my Naturopath. Shit!! I can’t accept this. I am reminded about my unconscious tendency to accept free shit. In fact, I was tested back in 2008, articulated this in a note, but never posted it. Clearly, I hadn’t learned. I reluctantly offer it up to the girl next to me, who laughs as she accepts it. :( Free espresso drinks at coffee shops my teachers... not the gold star I hoped it was. At any given moment, I can open my mind, body, and heart to breathe in the wonderful life experiences all around me and to know that my teacher is always with me and can manifests into many interesting forms. It’s mostly fun, sometimes confusing, can be annoying, but always exactly what I need!And the note I never posted about Free to Refuse:I recently made a commitment to say no to all drinks and snacks during my in-flight travels and to not purchase anything in the airport, bringing my own local, organic food in my own reusable packaging. This effort is in response to my awareness of how I contribute to the garbage and destruction of this world and of my own body by engaging in mindless, unplanned, and unhealthy meals – for me and the earth. The plastic cup I used to accept with my water on the plane nullifies the water bottle I carry around otherwise. My conviction seemed rather secure as I started this trip. But then the universe so cleverly tested my desire to reduce my footprint on this earth against my Ukranian tendency to want free things when the flight attendant offered me a free meal as part of the upgrade to business class I received to compensate for an earlier inconvenience. Admittedly, I have always enjoyed “free things” without consideration for the impact on the earth. Free things are inherently not free at all. The freeness of items is free only to the extent that we ignore the price that some thing or some one else pays for it to be free to me. Cheap clothes from sweatshops in China, hardly come at no cost, for example. There is nothing truly free about any of this. For me, declining free things is freeing my heart and soul from these unconscious tendencies to hurt the earth and my body. The awareness to decline provides me with space between action and thought so that I can continue to proceed as mindfully as possible in any given moment. Free to refuse is freedom from unconscious habits. Freedom from unconscious habits is freedom.

Serious Conversation with the Universe

2011-10-12T10:54:00.001-07:00

Mandy: Fuck you! WTF do you want from me? Your job description is not clear. I need more details. What kind of organization are you running here?

Universe: Thank you for your interest in our services. We welcome your feedback and will ensure a response to your concern within 24 hrs of receipt. Thank you.

Mandy: FUCK YOU!! I’m annoyed. I’m confused. I don’t know what you want me to do. Just tell me and stop with the cryptic messages. I’m trying to listen and you’re playing games. I can’t understand and need you to explain to me in another way.

Universe: Thank you for your interest in our services. We realize that your concern may be of urgent nature and assure you that we doing our best to serve you. If this is an emergency, please press 0 to speak with a representative.

Mandy: Are you serious???? I have been on hold for a long time!!! ZERO FUCK!

Universe: Please hold.

Background music plays....

Universe Representative: This is a Universe representative, how can I help you?

Mandy: I NEED TO TALK TO THE FUCKING UNIVERSE? NOT IT’S FUCKING REPRESENTATIVE. This is a serious matter!!

Universe Representative: I appreciate your frustration with the universe’s services. I assure you that I will do my best to address your concern and work with you toward a mutually satisfactory solution.

Mandy: I DON’T WANT TO WORK WITH YOU. I WANT TO SPEAK DIRECTLY WITH THE FUCKING UNIVERSE. I’VE HAD ENOUGH. I WANT MY CONCERN TO BE ADDRESSED AT THE TOP. Please, I’ve been very patient. [starting to whine] I’m sorry for yelling. I’m just frustrated and feel that I really need to communicate with the source. Can you understand my situation and please help me? I have been a loyal consumer for over 15 years!

Universe Representative: We appreciate your loyalty. Let me see what I can do.

Background music plays...

Universe: Hello Mandy. I hear you’re frustrated and need to talk to me. You know that I’m very busy but I can appreciate your frustration. I don’t always make this journey easy, necessarily. What is it that you need help with?

Mandy: [whining] I don’t understand! I don’t know what you want me to do. I need your help and I need it clearly explained and defined. Is that too much to ask?

Universe: I think you know the answer to that.

Mandy: No, I don’t. I don’t have any answers. You do. You are the one in control here. I’m just a pawn in the whole production. You have to tell me what to do! I’m tired and frustrated and can’t see straight.

Universe: Think about what you’re saying. If someone came to you with this frustration. What would you do? Would you give them the answers?

Mandy: Fuck you! I don’t need your philosophical mumble jumble. I need answers.

Universe: Where do you think those answers are?

Mandy: FUCK YOU! They are in me but they come from you. So you can just tell me and avoid all this confusion.

Universe: Mandy, seriously, do you think my intention is to hurt you? I’m here to support you and to provide you with what you need. If my actions aren’t clear then it’s up to you to figure out why what you have been provided with does not work with what your expectations were. What I provide is part of your bigger plan, your destiny that you cannot see with your limited neural scope. You are not equipped to see how this all unfolds. What your job is, is to feel your path... feel the direction you are to go and to follow it. Sometimes what you follow, your expectations, sends you on a path that is based on deceptions of your mind and brain and of what society expects of you. But that may not be right for you. What I provide is the reality of your true path, not what fits expectations. Do you trust that what I am offering you is for your own good? That it is part of harmonious plan?

Mandy: yes, normally, but not when you throw me curve balls. Where do I go? How do I change my expectations?

Universe: Perhaps you need to start with examining your expectations and where they come from and how you are trying to fulfill them. Perhaps your vision is not clear. Perhaps you are giving me mixed signals about what it is that you feel in your heart. Perhaps you need to determine what it is that you feel, without a doubt, is part of your path. Perhaps, at that point, when you feel it with absolute confidence and certainty, you and I will be on the same page. And perhaps, at that point, this whole experience won’t be so confusing and you and I will be able to see eye to eye. Perhaps, at that point, what I provide for you will be understood and you will know how to incorporate these gifts into your path.

Mandy: so I have to trust that what happens is always for the best and not resist it but rather embrace it and re-calibrate accordingly, assuming that this is simply another road sign.

Universe: Yes, Mandy.

Mandy: But practically speaking, how do I deal with my lack of confidence in the situation, my questions that I should turn back and do things differently.

Universe: If you turned back now, what would you do?

Mandy: I don’t know! That’s the problem. That’s the confusion.

Universe: If you kept going, if you saw what I gave you as space to explore, what would you do?

Mandy: That’s easy. I would keep doing what I’m doing. I love it. I believe I am on to something.

Universe: No comment.

Mandy: Fuck you. I hate losing. :)

QT

2011-06-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

If you’ve noticed, I rarely write about my personal relationship, mostly because I feel like that’s an area that I am least “expert” at. Career-wise, general life happiness, education, business development, personal development... many of these things I feel like I have a good handle on. Even my friendships and professional relationships, I am very proud of! But when it comes to my personal-romantic relationship I shy away from offering too many insights. I do have a few principles that I rely on, for example: 1) I don’t settle, 2) I’m as open as possible even with things that are hard to say and hear and expect the same in return, 3) I haven’t dated anyone who I didn’t value enough to want to be friends with afterwards. But other than that, I haven’t come up with much else, largely because when I look around -- and I HAVE looked around -- I am challenged to find “love mentors”. With divorced parents, mostly divorced aunts and uncles, and several friends who were divorced before they were 30, it’s hard to find good examples of tried and true keys to successful relationships.

So how does one learn how to be in a relationship? I don’t actually know... Fortunately, I am in a relationship with someone who embraces opportunities to communicate, probably even more so than I do, who values openness, and who wants to work through challenges. This makes the learning curve manageable! For that I am deeply thankful. As a result, we have discovered that a key element to maintaining the strength of our relationship is finding time to connect and REconnect. We have noticed that when we don’t spend enough time together, low and behold, we lose ourselves in our own individuality. We are both passionate about our career development and have the tendency to over indulge in ourselves and our own personal pursuits. For me, this was actually a strategy that I developed in my 20s, during a dysfunctional relationship that spilled over from my early teenage years. When that relationship was too stressful and I, in hindsight, felt stuck, I poured myself into my studies and my budding career as a scientist/academic. In fact, I think that’s how I ended up with a PhD!

My recent challenge has been to recognize when this strategy takes over, in this now very functional, healthy, and loving relationship I am in. I can easily find stimulation and excitement within the activity of my own mind, indulging in my own ideas and my passion-driven career. In fact, I have many times thought that the key to my own success would be to remain single for the rest of my life and focus entirely on my career. For some, this IS their path. But is this for me?

Well, I think it is whatever I decided!

This past weekend, Mike and I were fortunate enough to have 2 full, consecutive days together, which hasn’t happened since last December, some 4 1/2 months ago! Because of circumstances we got ourselves into, this was our path for the past few months. This past weekend was a celebration of having come through it! We got through this because we communicated along the journey, tried to remain aware and conscious, and trusted in our love. And when we felt disconnected, we knew that it was because we hadn’t spent quality time together, or worse, were spending more time with our computers some 10 feet away from each other!

This past weekend we REconnected! As a result, the following Monday was a reminder of the honeymoon phase we have experienced many times in the past. This Monday I remembered that spending time with someone who I love is one of the most nourishing, exciting, and powerful activities that I do. This Monday I missed him, just like I did after that very first weekend we spent entirely together, wandering around Halifax without any sort of plan, enjoying the simplicity of being together as new love birds do. This Monday morning I was back in the honeymoon phase and all that I needed to get here was QT!

One day I may become a relationship expert. One day I may have a list of principles for how to maintain a healthy relationship with someone you love. One day I may have a book or deliver a workshop. Until then, I will remind myself of my 4th principle:

Spend Quality Time Together!!!

Finding Flow

2011-05-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the Porter lounge this morning, grabbed my ipod, and tried to connect to the wireless. I was eager to check facebook to see if anyone had commented on the note I posted last night on Education.

When I couldn’t connect, so I decided to sit back, relax, and enjoy my espresso. As I did so, I noticed the thoughts in my mind. They weren’t scattered or bothersome. In fact, they were delightful and soothing. They weren’t even really in the form of words. They were ideas percolating, as I like to call the process. One by one they would rise up to the top and then sift back down only to rise up again a little richer than the time before. The curriculum for a new course I was developing inadvertently was percolating.

I boarded the plane shortly after and realized that my ideas had been brewed and wanted to be poured out on this page. So I let them. They came out as flow charts with arrows, bulleted word lists, phrase snippets, dates scribbled in the corner, and even a list of people whom I wanted to take part.

This pouring-out didn’t last long. Maybe about 20 minutes and then I hit the wall. I noticed my pen wasn’t moving any more. There were a few jerky movements, some left-overs tried to make their way out my fingers but no thoughts that were really that good. The pot was empty and I would need to brew another to keep going.

I know this feeling well. It’s the feeling of having lost my productive stride. It’s the feeling of idling and of knowing that any more idle time would be a complete waste of time, filled with frustrations. It feels stagnant, rather than peaceful and joyful. It feels like a struggle to bring something forward.

I often experience these two very different forms of idling. The first is a time for me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show without knowing the ending or having any expectations. It’s a time to trust my mind to do its thing and let ideas enrich. Percolating-idling is a time when my ideas sort themselves out. They are permitted to roam around and bump into each other and form new relationships that could not otherwise be enforced. It is a breeding ground for creativity. It is a time when my inner critic (that seems to exist in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is out for the night and the kids are having a party.

The second form of idling is wasted time, polluting the air as frustrations build up. It is a warning sign that the party is over, when the critic came home to remind me about living with rules and logistics. My right and left hemispheres are battling it out for dominance. The right is not yet ready to let go of its passion-filled ideas but the left is eager to take over and keep things moving in a nice linear fashion. It is a time that the critic says, “ok you’re done. Move on. You’re all dried up. Keep this line moving forward”. That part, I thank and obey.

My key to my productivity is to know the difference and act accordingly. I don’t force things to come out and know they take time. Much of my work can’t be forced - designing experiments, writing, curriculum development, business model generation, preparation of oral presentations, event planning.... these are all creative processes for me and in many ways I am at their whim. My job is to recognize flow.

And when one thing isn’t flowing... I recognize it and move on to something different - often a previously stagnant project. Often times, what was previously stagnant is now flowing because time, perspective, energy, air quality or whatever is now different.

This is MY key to productivity: finding flow. When I consider my successes in life both big and small, in education, in career, in sport, in idea generation, etc. they all happened when I found flow and didn’t force what was not meant to be.

Thoughts on Education

2011-02-02T18:03:00.001-08:00

About a year and a half ago, within about a 3-month period, several people independently referred to me as an “entrepreneur”. One person even asked me if I came from a lineage of entrepreneurs. I immediately responded with ‘no’... but then it occurred to me, shortly after, that in fact I had! My grandfather and his brother were both innovators and inventors with great ideas. One of them was a millionaire who owned several high-rises in Toronto, back in the day. The other is my grandfather, who despite his great ideas, continues to sit comfortably on his modest nest derived from years of hard, diligent work, none of which involved anything radical or risky.

Yesterday, I was at a start-up peer networking circle lead by Executive Director of the Centre for Social Innovation (Toronto), Tanya Surman. She started CSI ~7 years ago. A hunch that it would turn into something really great kept her going for the first 4 years without any income.

There were 25 people at this meeting, many of whom were just like me in various forms. Many were unsure of business model generations, marketing plans, branding, etc. Many were unsure of whether they wanted to be non-profit, for profit, or some merger of the two. Many were on the bleeding edge, pioneering social innovation without a guide or clear path.

I spoke about my start-up business, beginning by describing my academic background and how, while doing my post-doc research fellowship, I entered into a business relationship with a naturopathic-doctor friend who wanted to start a multidisciplinary health clinic. I talked about how after several years I realized that I was not meant to be in health, but rather, in education. I talked about how I design curriculum related to self-awareness, personal development, life skills, finding our passion, and ultimately, happiness and authenticity. I talked about my course that combines neuroscience, psychology, mindfulness, yoga, and meditation in order to do this. I didn’t get to talk about how passionate I was about education, thinking, learning, and exploring.

I loved my university experience. It was an amazing gift. I was the first in my family to attend university and was relatively ignorant to the whole university culture. I remember my first year of undergrad not understanding why my professors were to be called Dr. So-and-so. Doctors where the people in white coats at the health clinics and hospitals, as far as I knew. Soon it made sense and it even cleared up a long-term confusion as to why my high-school principal was called Dr. Green! Sincere ignorance.

I loved my university experience but I didn’t always learn what I did in conventional ways of lecture-based and reading. I had a different style.

I learned about memory in the brain because, while volunteering in a lab during my second year university, I gave choline to pregnant rat moms in their drinking water. Choline is a precursor (i.e., building block) for the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, which is associated with memory and Alzheimer’s disease. At different times after the offspring were born, we observed how well the offspring remembered their way around a maze. I also got to see with my own eyes how memory developed with age: The really young rats were totally incompetent at remembering their way but the “teenage” rats were certainly able to. I also got to see that giving testosterone to female rats made them remember better and removing the testes of the males made them worse.
 I also didn’t learn about how women were vastly underrepresented in sciences or how they typically had different ways of visualizing molecules from any sociology or social psychology class. I learned about this because I was a research assistant on a multi-disciplinary project in which we were examining these effects and ways to foster women’s success in science. I learned partially because I interviewed and studied women in science.

I also learned more about the mind from a 10-day silent meditation retreat, more about human behaviour by working in retail customer-service, and more about interpersonal relationships by playing team sports than I did in any one of my psychology degrees.

And I didn’t learn any business skills in my 15 years in university. I had a great mentor who taught me how to value my skills, services, expertise, and time! I learned much of what I know in non-formal, hands-on, experience-based ways. This is what I aim to facilitate in others - an idea that is not entirely unfounded.

Great minds argue that our current education system is failing many people. Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is one of those people. He argues that our current education system (elementary - secondary school) is designed to foster the development of academics primarily in the mathematics and sciences, but that all kids are not meant to be scientists and mathematicians. He refers to the brilliance of Gillian Lynne, choreography of Cats, who was destined toward being labelled as a child with a learning disability back in the 30s until the psychologist realized that she would be better off in dance school. He was correct. Today, Robinson argues, she would have been put on Ritalin and told to be quiet.

Robinson’s arguments are not all theorectical. For example, Tinker School by Gever Tulley is a great example of Robinson’s philosophy in practice. Also in existence is the Montessori school system, which is “a method of seeing children as they really are and of creating environments which foster the fulfillment of their highest potential - spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual - as members of a family, the world community and the Cosmos.” Similarly, Toronto New School “encourages students to be themselves and recognizes that instruction is only effective when it can be attached to meaningful experiences.” And I recently came across Alpha II Alternative School where “there are no tests, no grades, and no report cards. Students, in consultation with teachers and other community members, define their personal goals for education in creating portfolios of work that is meaningful to them. These portfolios become the body of work that defines student growth and exploration of ideas, revealing clearly each student's individual passions for learning.” Sounds like my vision of “Mandyland university” where students, in consultation with professors/mentors, determine when the student has learned enough to be awarded his or her degree. :)

Many people are considering and employing alternative education models. A friend of mine who, herself, has a master’s degree in counseling, chose to home-school her children. She is now a proud parent of a 12-year old business owner, a 10-year old university physics wiz, and a 5-year old sports nut! Just imagine learning about economics because you own a business at the age of 12? Or having the capacity to study university physics textbooks and understand string theory when your peers are memorizing multiplication tables. Or becoming the next Haley Wickenhauser, not because your hockey-fanatic parent forced you to but because it was just within your genes to do so. That same friend owns a restaurant with her husband. One of the sous-chefs is a 15-year old home-schooled boy who is learning the culinary ropes as part of his education. Imagine NOT wasting your parents $40K on a science degree only later to find out you’re miserably educated.

I believe that the education system needs a change, not a reform necessarily, but an additional form. The current model is great for some people. Many of my friends excelled in academia by being formally taught in the secondary and post-secondary system. Many of them are doing extremely well running their own laboratories with full-time tenure-track faculty appointments at excellent Canadian universities. It would be a disservice to our society to hold them back. They are creating a form of knowledge that is helpful to us all. But perhaps they were being held back by being forced to take classes with peers who were not meant to be in the traditional academic setting, peers who were not intellectual peers at all. Perhaps these same professor friends of mine are also being held back by being forced to teach to university students who do not have the aptitude to thrive in university and need to be spoon-fed the information in order to appease the parents who forced them down that path in the first place. Perhaps those friends of mine needed to be learning university-level physics in grade school and were not given the opportunity under the current model.

Some of us need something different. I wasn’t failing most of my classes in grade 10 because I was stupid. I was failing because I had a different learning style that no one encouraged. I learned by talking with people, including my peers, and hearing their thoughts, wisdom, and opinions. And instead of being encouraged to talk more, I got slammed for it. With one of my grade-10 teachers in particular, I lost one percent off my final grade every time I spoke, resulting in an F. I didn’t get an F in math, I got an F in sitting quiet. Throughout elementary and secondary school, I would get bad grades with the comment of “talks too much in class, needs to focus more”. Thank goodness Ritalin wasn’t mainstream yet and that my parents didn’t care enough about grades to force me to conform. But I do wonder what kind of head-start I would have had in my life had I not wasted time learning in the conventional way but rather in an environment that encouraged creativity, novelty, and thinking for myself... and talking-listening!

This is the type of learning environment I aim to encourage. One that speaks to the individual needs. One that allows individuals to use their own experiences as a form of learning and to trust that they have the capacity to use their brains wisely and intelligently, however that manifests for them. I recently told my university students not to accept the theories of other great thinkers with blind faith. I said that these theorists were once just like them... people who were not famous for their intellect. And maybe, just maybe, there was a budding theorist in the class right now who has great ideas and may be the next great thinker of our time! Many of them appreciated this possibility.

I’m passionate about novel ways of learning and interacting with the world. I am passionate about cultivating enough self-awareness so that each of us can know for ourselves what skills and talents we carry with us and to capitalize on these uniquenesses. This is the philosophy that guides me in whatever it is that I’m doing. Perhaps you too feel this, and not just in your mind, but in you heart. If so, join the club.

Apprenticeships at Mandyland University are currently in development. ;)

Open Eyes, Open Heart

2011-01-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago in my life-coaching course I presented a TED talk by Daniel Coleman, a psychologist, who among many things, studies and teaches compassion. He spoke of a study they did at a theology college with young priests. The priests were given instructions to prepare a sermon on ‘compassion’ or some other topic (I can’t remember what it was) and then told them that the sermon was to be delivered in another building. The researchers also varied whether the priests would be rushed to get there or had enough time. Then, along all of their paths to deliver the sermon, was a man hunched over, clearly in need of assistance. What the researchers were interested in knowing was whether the topic of the sermon influenced whether they priests stopped to help the man. Interestingly it did not. MORE interesting, is that what DID matter was whether the priests were in a rush or not: Those who were in a rush failed to stop whereas those who were not in a rush stopped, regardless of whether they had compassion on their minds or not.

Does this mean that rushing makes us less compassionate beings? No... but it does suggest that rushing around and being stuck in our heads thinking about what we are about to do makes us less able to respond to our environment. Some might call this ‘not being present’. In other words, we are not aware of what is going on now, at this present moment. We become blind to what is around us when we tune out information from our physical senses (like our eyes and ears) and tune into the thoughts in our brains.

The discussion that emerged in the course regarding compassion changed how I was “sensing” my environment. It changed my brain’s readiness to see my surroundings. The evening following the discussion, I was at the Halifax airport along with thousands of other people delayed by the winter storms. Many people had been there for over 12 hours waiting and hoping to get out. At one point I was walking toward the bathroom and noticed this little old lady pushing a wheel chair as she walked behind it, all alone. Normally, I would have kept walking because I was A) rushing and/or B) didn’t want the hassle of getting stuck in a conversation and not knowing what to say. Tonight, I decided to slow down my pace and ask her how long she had been waiting. She told me that she was coming back from BC on her way up to Sydney, NS. Wow, that’s a long trip I said! That’s a far trek for someone of her age, I thought. She told me that she was walking around to keep her circulation going. The conversation wasn’t that long and ended when I heard an announcement about my flight and had to go. She looked me in the eyes and said “Thank you for stopping”. My heart melted. I said “Thanks for the conversation!” and walked away.

Two days ago I was walking down to the subway while a woman with her stroller was getting on the upward escalator. Her 4-year old daughter missed the first step and was at the edge watching her mom move away from her. The mom was holding the stroller tight to keep it from falling backward and could not come back for her daughter. The little girl started screaming in panic as her mom moved further and further away. The mom was yelling back at her with a similar panic to “jump on!” I could feel the panic in everyone... I quickly ran to the little girl and held out my hand for her to grab. She didn’t even look at me out of fear of losing her fixation on her mom, but did grab on to my hand. We stepped on the escalator together and she was soon reunited with her mom. A quick thanks was uttered by the mom as I ran back down to catch my train.

Stopping to help someone along the way requires awareness and also confidence - a confidence to step outside of ourselves into a unknown situation. Stopping to help someone requires us to take action. Many of us feel this need to take action and direct it into many volunteering positions that we hold. We spend a lot of our time volunteering for the causes closest to our heart or seeking volunteering opportunities in order to fulfill that call to action. Those are all great uses of our time, but if we are doing these just like the priests who were rushing to deliver their sermons on compassion, then we are missing important opportunities right in our very path. Opportunities to volunteer ourselves and our compassion.

In addition to doing “volunteering” on Thursday evenings and signing up for volunteer positions at our next AGM we can volunteer our services every day of our lives by opening our hearts and our eyes to those in need of compassion along our paths. I guarantee those opportunities exist. I also guarantee that we will continue to miss opportunities because, we are not perfect. This morning I missed a great opportunity to offer compassion. Initially, when I recognized this missed opportunity, it made me mad at myself for being so selfish. But after considering the ways that I should have helped, I decided to turn my compassion inward and not be so hard on myself. I could have, should have, would have, but I didn’t. And so I write.... as a reminder to me to open my eyes and heart once again.

Dear Mandy

2010-12-07T09:30:00.001-08:00

Dear Mandy,

I’m worried that you will forget me. I’m worried that you will forget where you are going and why you are doing what you are doing. I’m worried that you could get off track and get caught up in that real life that you resist today. So I am writing to you as a reminder, just in case any of that happens. A reminder that will bring you back to an earlier way that you thought, just in case that matters in the future. Please read this on November 5th, 2015, just to check in. This will likely be your best birthday gift!

Let me first remind you of what you are doing, at this moment in life. You are building a community of like-minded, like-spirited, like-hearted people. In fact, you have done this in many forms but about 2 years ago you dove right into building. You followed your inner wisdom and began to create a community, and a business model as a result. As this business grows you are bringing more and more people together and, in fact, right into your business. You are not selfish with your ideas and value other peoples good ideas. You value the efforts of others and are more than willing to share and combine your ideas with others for a greater good. What you are doing is NOT about ownership. It is about community and you are willing to risk everything in your pursuit of a greater awareness and happiness for all.

You don’t want to be doing this alone. You want others to be part of it and you are letting others in, sometimes prematurely, sometimes perfectly timed. But you are being honest about those who you can and cannot work with. Nothing is worth a toxic relationship but your life is worth the beautiful, supportive, and loving ones. Fortunately, you have many of the latter around you. You have succeeded at this personally and now you are succeeding at this professional. I don’t even think I need to remind you of this. You know the benefits of good energy and the devastation of negative energy.

You want your community to grow and grow and to become a place where others can find their passions and use their talents. You firmly believe that everyone has the potential to live a happy life. Some of us get that opportunity and some of us do not but you are going to do your best to provide a space for more and more people to do so.

The actual space where this is happening is obscure, at present. But may take many forms. The space you are creating is the space between hearts. What you are striving for is to give people your fullest and warmest attention as often as possible. You will need to be reminded of this, often. This is a challenge for many people, yourself included. When you do pay attention, you deeply love connecting with other souls. You love looking into people and seeing their beauty despite the facades we all inevitably put on. Another challenge to many, but you are skilled at this. And when you aren’t mindful of this, you tend to judge. For you, judgment is an unsophisticated way of attempting to understand, but if you take the time to truly understand, you won’t judge. You will love instead.

Amanda means love, worthy of love. You have forgotten this in the past and it shocked you when you woke up from that broken heart. You were given the name of love for a reason. At the very least, it is to remind you of your heart, to follow it in this life, and to open it up to others. It has never lead you astray. You know that. And following your heart is so much easier than trying to figure out what you should and should not do. You know the answers. Do I need to remind you of this? I doubt it.

This is a reminder, Mandy, of who you are and where you are going, not physically, but spiritually and intuitively. I hope that you have not forgotten your way, but if you have then thankfully you were smart enough in 2010 to write a letter for yourself for 5 years ahead. Let the brilliance you today when you came up with this idea resonate in you again now as you read this. You ARE brilliant. You brilliantly create this mechanisms to keep yourself on track. Why do you worry so much?

Another thing to remember, because you have forgotten this in the past too:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve this world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us - it’s in everyone! And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. ~ Marianne Willliamson.

One last thing: I want to remind you of your gift of openness. Surely you are still using it. I can’t image you regressing in this department. Openness is a foundation of what you are doing. You are open with your ideas and if someone else steals them you know they were not yours in the first place. You are open with your intentions and as a result you create trust among those around you. You are open with your life experiences and as a result people feel more free to open up themselves and strive less for unattainable perfection. This reminds me, are you still pretending? Are you still pretending to be interested in the corporate world? Are you still pretending to be financially successful? Why don’t you just admit that you don’t value money the same way others do and that what you truly value are relationships, openness, community, and fulfillment? These are priceless and in that department you are rich. But financially, you have always struggled. And are you still pretending to have straight hair? Because you don’t. You haven’t since you hit puberty and it just seems to be getting less and less straight the more you resist it, wouldn’t you say? And are you still pretending that your hair is dark brown and not going grey? I won’t even ask if you’re still wearing make-up, but surely I hope you are wearing less, not more! Ok... enough, I know. You know that I like a good laugh and being able to make myself laugh twice with one idea is, truly, brilliant, in my mind! :) Ah, the beauty of knowing myself.

Happy Birthday My Beloved Mandy

Sincerely,
Mandy

"I'm a mathematician"

2010-10-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine, who has a couple of neuroscience degrees and who currently works as the office manager of a University History Department used to refer to herself as a “mathematician”. We would argue as to whether it was legitimate to say that without a degree behind her name. Her claim was that she loved numbers and loved playing with numbers and THAT qualified her as a mathematician.

A ‘mathematician’ is “an expert in or student of mathematics”. A ‘student’ is “a person who take an interest in a particular subject”.

As I sit here, having gone through a tremendously long to-do list and feeling less accomplished and productive than when I first started, I began to reflect upon this apparent discrepancy from the norm. If I don’t feel productive having DONE so much, when DO I feel productive? The truth is that I feel most productive when I am thinking, pondering, reflecting, creating, synthesizing, idealizing, problem solving, hypothesizing, etc. – all activities that involve ‘thinking’. So by the same logic as my mathematician friend, I am a “thinker”.

A thinker is “a person who thinks deeply and seriously, a person with highly developed intellectual powers, especially one whose profession involving intellectual activity.” E.g., a scientist or an academic.

Our culture has offered us an array of possibilities for becoming educated, certified, licensed, registered… but these labels should not supersede that which we ultimately believe ourselves to be. We may, in fact, be writers, artists, thinkers, mathematicians, athletes, teachers, healthcare providers… regardless of the education-inflated labels our society favors. Alternatively, we may be none of the labels under which we exist.

So my question is, What are you? What are you through and through, deep within, perhaps even innately or karmacally? And how much attention are you giving to that part of you? Is it possible that the more aligned that part of you is with your daily activities, the happier and more satisfied you are?

For me, getting my PhD was one of the routes by which the thinker in me was allowed to express itself. Getting my PhD was NOT an avenue for me to blindly call myself a thinker or an intellect or to hide behind those letters demanding to be known for what that label represents.

I see many people struggling to find their career… but those same people are struggling with finding the right label and all the work and prestige that comes (or fails to come) with those labels. My suggestion is always the same: What do you love to do? When do you feel most productive? Most in the moment? Most swept away and without any awareness of time? Those answers will guide you in the right direction.

NOW I feel productive.

When in Doubt

2010-06-09T03:28:00.001-07:00

listen to Alanis! :) not what you expected to read? What's YOUR "Alanis"?

I sit down at the coffee shop, ready to start working. I can hear many conversations around me. Today, this is too much. Other days it’s ok. So I pull out my earbuds and plug into my computer. I open up ITunes and start my Alanis Morrissette play list. Within milliseconds, I’m in another world. My best guess is that I’m in my heart, in my soul. I can still think and can still feel my body but both are at ease. I can feel the emotions of this experience. And I feel incredibly powerful, as if no one can sway me off course. It reminds me of a great quote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. – Marianne Williamson

The world is my oyster. I wonder why I don’t invoke this experience more often. Everything is so much simpler, clearer, easier, when it’s coming from my soul.

When in doubt... do whatever makes your heart sing. If not the brilliance of Alanis Morrissette, then something else. Only you know what that is.

The Power of Now

2010-04-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

I’m re-reading one of the books I assigned for the next weekend of my life coaching course. Ok, I admit, I’m reading one of the books – for the first time. I’ve skimmed it like I do with most things. I don’t understanding how people have time to read so much. There’s too much out there – good stuff and crap. Although I don’t read a whole lot I do collect many books. I hesitate to go into books stores in fear of walking out with an armful like I did last week. All for my collection that I admire often, but rarely read. Who can focus that long?

But I digress…

I’m reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

The Power of Now is about our wondering mind and our identification with its activities – our mind’s activities. Yes, a mind that is not us. A mind that is different from our true inner sense of being. A mind that is playing havoc with our emotions and the false reality in which we live.

The more the dysfunction of the human mind plays itself out on the world stage, the greater the number of people who realize the urgent need for a radical change in human consciousness if humanity is not to destroy both itself and the planet. This need, as well as readiness in millions of people for arising of a new consciousness, is the context within which the “success” of The Power of Now must be seen and understood. p.XV (preface)

Our minds are interesting, fun, exciting, and enticing. At least mine is for me. And oh how I love how it works inside my brain! I know the reason I don’t read… I can’t get through more than a couple of pages of something that I’m interested in without having some kind of brilliant idea of a workshop I could do or how to use a quote or what to write about. My mind is so full of ideas that it doesn’t want to hear anyone else’s!

But I need to read this book in time for the course in May!

And so I read and stumble upon this:
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. p.14

Then I hear in my head:
I’m thirsty. I should go get a drink.

I come back. Ready to read some more now that I got my drink.

I come to this:
You believe that you ARE your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over. p.16

I hear:
Oh, I should check to see how my back-up plan is going on my computer. I don’t want to lose any of those files when I install my new operating system.

I come back, sit down, and read:
The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: Learn to disidentify from your mind. p.21

Shit! I forgot to email my mom that file! Better do that now before I forget again. I’m so forgetful!

Done! Back to reading…

Your mind is an instrument, a tool. p.21

I wonder what Mike is up to right now. I miss him. I should text him.

It is there to be used for specific tasks, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is repetitive and useless. p.21

So true! Is that my phone beeping? Oh, it’s about to die. I should go charge it up.

The simple reason why the majority of scientists are not creative is not because they don’t know how to think but because they don’t know how to stop thinking! p.24

So true! I’ve thought that before in a slightly different way. This really confirms why I left science. It’s not for me. Although I love research it was really too restrictive. It didn’t nurture my creativity. It didn’t allow me to use my very free mind. But I do miss the people. I really miss the community of like-minded people. That’s why I should keep working on my plan to form my OWN university with free-thinkers. Get back to the roots! Where’s that notebook of mine. I gotta write this down!

If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth. p.26

What a great quote! I can use this for my revised lecture on Ways of Knowing on the 18th. Shit! Did I advertise for that? Damn I can’t remember. I need an assistant to keep my shit straight. My mom would be great! But she would probably get annoyed with me and it would be hard on our relationships. Shit, did I email her that file?? I should go check!

The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with the past and the future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. p.34

I have to read that twice.

I’m not sure I agree with the use of commas in that sentence. An old boyfriend and I broke up over our inability to agree on how commas should be used. He thought they were overused and I thought they were often underused to the point where I could hardly read some material because of incompetent comma usage. He’s in Toronto now. It will be nice to see him and argue over this again when I move there. Speaking of Toronto, I need to call that guy about the quote. I should do that now before I forget.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to the past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. p.35

Oh that’s good! I’m thirsty… wow! How funny is it how my mind distracts me from this book! It’s like it knows that reading it will be bad for it and destroy it. Like when I try to meditate and so many odds and ends pop up in my mind. Or in yoga when I get distracted by the fuzz on my mat rather than paying attention to my body. My mind is so funny! All of our minds are so damn funny! They are so in control! I should write a note about this!

☺

*pages 1 through 34 occurred over the course of 6 days.

Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price

2010-04-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

March Break

2010-04-07T08:58:00.001-07:00

I’m sitting in a local coffee shop during “March break” when I over hear a mother say to a friend “Do you see the difference in her this week? She’s so alive and alert! School is so exhausting!”

Really?! SCHOOL is so exhausting? Or is it the fact that you get her up at 6 am to leave the house by 7 am so she can spend almost 2 hours in daycare or pre-school before heading into the classroom where there is no more gym or art and I think recess is gone now too? Or is it because you have her in hockey and gymnastic on Mondays and Wednesdays and on Tuesdays and Thursdays you have her going to Piano lessons? And then on the weekends she has play dates and if she’s lucky she gets to see her father at least one day during the week and one day on the weekend? Or is it because she’s constantly worried about the right sunscreen for her skin type and whether she needs her sunglasses today or not? Or is it because you talk to her like an adult and expect her to understand adult-like concepts and to make “the right decision” even though her frontal lobe is not that developed yet? Or is it because she is forced to keep quiet and sit still and color within the lines and do her homework and get As and to consider her future and start saving her allowance and ‘A’s for university? Or is it because she’s Asian and looks around at mostly non-Asians around her and wonders how she got to be here? Or is it because the TV is too loud and has more advertisements running through it than god quality content of anything useful and she is constantly being distracted from BEING with all of that and other white noise? Or is it because she can’t eat that food because it might have nuts in it or that food because it has gluten in it or that food because it is too processed or that food because it’s not organic? Or is it because all she wants to do is be a child and not wake up at 6am but instead enjoy her early morning dreams of sunshine and field of flowers and ponies and chocolate cake full of gluten.

Enjoy March Break… cuz on Monday you’ll hit the ground running again and won’t get to rest until… summer science camp and volleyball and soccer camp and French camp and educational vacations to historical places that are better experienced than read about and soccer and baseball practice on Mondays and Wednesdays and swimming on Tuesday and Thursdays…

Sorry… to those who I just offended. However, rather than getting defensive, consider this a letter to myself for if/when I have kids and need to be reminded of what really IS important.

Hanging up my clothes to dry

2010-04-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "We all know that change is hard. Much research suggest that learning new tricks, adopting new behaviors, or breaking old habits may be harder than we even realize and that most attempts at change, whether by individuals or organizations, fail. It turns out that self-discipline is usually insufficient when it comes to fulfilling our commitments, even those we know are good for us - which is why most New Year's Resolutions fail. In their book The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz provide a different way of thinking about change: they suggest that instead of focusing on cultivating self-discipline as a means toward change, we need to introduce rituals. According to Loehr and Schwartz, "Building rituals requires defining very precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times-motivated by deeply held values"...." from the book Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD.

A few minutes after reading I made my way to the washing machine to remove my wet clothes and throw them in the basket. I began setting up my drying wrack and removed my roommates clothes that are still hanging all around the house in the spots where I am now going to hang my clothes. I look around knowing that it isn't going to look clean and tidy around here for awhile, and it hasn't for some time now.

As I was doing my ritual I began to reminisce about how when I first started doing my laundry routine I was always so frustrated because hanging up my clothes was standing in the way of me doing other fun and important things. I remember how I continued to do it purely for the sake of the environment, knowing how much energy I was saving and that I was doing my little part. I kept thinking about this as I peacefully and joyfully hung my clothes planning out the pattern on the drying rack so as not to leave extra rungs in the middle of wet clothes that would be a challenge to get to later on - part of the trials and tribulations of developing this new ritual.

Now, I routinely engage in this behaviour - a behaviour that has been incorporated into my repertoire of "doing good for the environment" behaviors. Maybe now I can consider what else to add to my list now that this one feels so easy. I really do need to shake that flat ironing my hair business...

My Mind is Not My Own

2010-02-04T16:01:00.001-08:00

Awhile back, I wrote a note entitled I Hate Cats, in which I explained how I came to realize that my belief, or thought, that I hated cats was an inherited one that I acquired from my father, passed down from my paternal grandfather.

Last night, I was walking home in the cold – a dry cold in which the sidewalks were crisp, creaky, white, and hard compared to a typical Halifax coastal wet cold in which slush floods the walkways. As I was walking I realized how much I was enjoying this prairie-like cold (I can hear the gasps among those of you who has ever listened to me complain ad nausea about the cold).

Growing up in Winnipeg never really allowed me to appreciate the cold. In Winnipeg, we hate the cold. In fact, in Winnipeg, we tend to hate Winnipeg and it is often not until we leave that we can find true appreciation for all that it has to offer.

Growing up in Winnipeg meant that I inherited Winnipeg’s beliefs – such as, we all hate Winnipeg and it’s winters – much like the thought that I hated cats.

Growing up in Winnipeg reminds me that my mind is not my own.

I wasn’t born with my thoughts, particularly not those that dominate my current language-centric existence. My early thoughts were more likely instinctual drives rather than language-driven thoughts. All thoughts have a home within the brain. A brain that is very plastic. The brain, and by extension our self, is born ready to change, adapt, learn, modify, prune, grow, and interact. The brain acquires thoughts from the environment. The brain is even so powerful that it will acquire false thoughts just to maintain its needs for social conformity, or rather, surrender to its fear of social isolation.

A classic study demonstrated this nicely in the 1950’s*. Men were recruited to be part of a psychology experiment and upon arrival were told that their task was to decide which of two lines were comparable in length. A line was presented on one card and three lines of varying lengths were presented on the second card, with one line clearly being the correct answer.

A simple task… until the only true subject of the experiment is forced to give his answer after 7 accomplices to the experiment give a clearly INCORRECT answer in the subject’s presence. The question was, what would the subject answer? Surprisingly, the man followed suit and verbalized the same incorrect answer among his peers, despite believing a different answer to be true, as revealed later upon being interviewed.

This scenario was repeated several times with many subjects, many times having the same result: When presented with a group thought or belief that is inconsistent with our own, we tend to compromise our own belief for the sake of social conformity. We tend to question our own belief or thought in exchange for the group’s.

This reminds me that my mind is not my own.

So… I leave you with this question, a question that I pose over and over again to many clients, particularly those who should on themselves:

Who’s thought is that?

Who thinks we SHOULD be a doctor when we want to be an artist? Who thinks we should be a mother when we want to be a scientist? Who thinks we should take care of our family’s financial needs when we want to be home care-giving? Who thinks we should be skinnier, prettier, faster, smarter, etc. when we are not? Who thinks we should not sleep in past 9am? Who thinks that our house should be spotless? Who thinks that we should stop crying and be a man or a big girl? Who thinks it’s bad to express our accomplishments?

Who’s thoughts are these?

With New Eyes

2009-12-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

I’m not one to use quotes and never really have been and rarely am I blown to pieces by the power of someone else's words presented in the form of a quote. But the other day I was preparing some promo material for a natural eyesight improvement workshop that I’m hosting and thought a quote would be nice. I googgled something like “vision quote” and found this: The Real Voyage of Discovery Lies Not In Seeking New Landscapes but in Seeing with New Eyes by Marcel Proust.

A few days later, I was reading one of my 8 new books, which itself is funny to anyone who knows that I typically avoid reading. I was reading the one entitled Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns when I came across this very same quote – a fascinating coincidence in my eyes and likely in any of yours who share my interest in coincidental occurrences.

The first time I interacted with this quote, I regurgitated it into promotional material with very little reflection, mostly because I pride myself with exploring new perspectives somewhat as a way of life so the quote didn’t apply to me. I have never felt the need or the desire to run off to foreign lands except when I’ve been invited there as part of my other interests. Traveling for the sake of traveling has never appealed to me. For me, my exploration has come in to play in many other ways, like through science, formal and information education both learning and teaching, interacting with other humans and other animals, studying and practicing meditation and yoga, etc. all of which have constituted destinations along my voyage of discovery. Clearly, I already see with new eyes.

But for some reason this quote came to me twice in 2 weeks. The second time, it caused me to begin this note… regurgitating it again, throwing it out there to you as if I didn’t need it and you did. However, when my interaction with the quote did not invoke in me what it was supposed to, the quote elegantly presented itself yet again, popping off the page on which I typed. It came through my own writing as if to say “Hello? Is anyone listening? Maybe there is something else to see, some new insight that holds a new answer that you seek, if only your eyes embarked on a new journey. If only you could see what you cannot see.”

As I considered my own oblivion I began to see what holds me back - patterns, repetitions of the same, comfort zones, the brain’s thirst to simplify and automate… these are all part and parcel to having a brain that thrives for efficiency. But at some point we are able to step out of these patterns, habits of the mind, and routines, to do things differently. And then we are able to see with new eyes and embrace new opportunities that we couldn’t otherwise see.

As I consider this last year, this last decade, I consider not only where I have been but equally important where I am, where I am going, and with which eyes I trek forward so that I can let go of patterns that don’t serve me and be open to experiences that will.

Upcoming Workshops:
Plan a Great 2010: Visioning and Goal-Setting Workshop
By Dr. Amanda Wintink
Tuesday, Jan 5th, 2010

20/20 Course: Improve Your Eyesight Naturally
by Jennifer Poplar
Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Rushing

2009-12-08T17:18:00.001-08:00

I started out my day today knowing that I was bound to be rushing. I had to wake up by 7:30, start walking the dog by 8, get to the clinic by 9:30 to teach yoga in the morning, then quickly get downtown to teach one of my regular classes at noon, then get home to walk the dog again, then get back to the clinic to see clients till 8pm, then get home to walk the dog again and eat dinner by 9pm.

My tendency typically is to rush through days like these, and in fact, my tendency is to simply rush through life. I remember cashiers often saying to me “slow down” as I would fumble through my wallet for loose change trying not to hold up the line. When I bike, I’m always racing. If someone happens to pass me I find myself madly trying to catch up as if to prove the point that I CAN go faster! And when there’s no one else, I’m still racing – only these times it’s against time.

Before I set out for my first dog walk today, the words “change your thoughts, change your world” popped into my head after reading them in a recently submitted statement of interest to my life coach training program.

Yup, I agree with them, to an extent. Notwithstanding the circumstances that are clearly not optimal, when they are, in fact, awful, discouraging, demoralizing, dehumanizing, and all the like, there are circumstances where this logic applies convincingly. Here, change your world, change your thoughts.

But we know that the brain works in a bidirectional fashion with our thoughts and behaviours. Change your behaviours, change your brain. Equally, change your thoughts, change your brain. Thoughts are a product of our mind and can alter our mind.

Ergo

Change your world to not rushing, change your thoughts about rushing.
Change your thoughts to not rushing, change your world.

And so I did.

I set out this morning with the intention to NOT rush. When I was walking Jett, I was walking Jett. I wasn’t waking Jett quickly so I get to my yoga class. When I was biking to yoga, I was biking and enjoying the beautiful sunny, albeit cold, day. When I was at yoga for 50+, I was at yoga for 50+ not at yoga for the government a few hours later. When I was biking home to walk Jett again, I was biking home, not rushing to get home. I even had the inspiration to stop, along the way and introduce myself to a local book owner who I recently contacted via email, because I was not rushing. When I was walking Jett for the second time, I was walking Jett for the second time, not the third time that I was due for in several hours. And then when I got to the clinic I was there, ready to see clients and hadn’t already arrived in my mind 2 or 3 hours earlier.

Admittedly, I had one known moment of weakness. While walking from the bus stop to the clinic for the second time, I felt my head walking faster than my body, much further ahead than the rest of me. I politely invited it to return to walk with me, to walk nicely above my shoulders, which were above my hips, which are above my feet, all aligned as they should be, nothing going faster than the other.

So the day that was bound to have me rushing, instead, allowed me to enjoy a beautiful sunny day, seeing new houses I hadn’t noticed before, meeting new people, and engaging in more enjoyable walks. The activities, arguably, where exactly the same as they would have been had I been rushing. The difference? I wasn’t rushing. And therefore, I wasn’t rushing.

Positive Feedback

2009-11-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to see something from a different perspective. Having done several degrees in Psychology, I understood the concept of positive reinforcement and all of B.F. Skinner’s work. In a very simple way I understood it as such (feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to relive intro psych): Positive reinforcement is about increasing the likelihood of a behaviour by providing a rewarding stimulus. So for example, if I want my dog Jett to sit in the future, I will reward her sitting now with a treat. That should reinforce sitting and increase the likelihood that she will sit in the future. Comparatively, negative reinforcement is also strengthening the likelihood of a behaviour but this time, it is by removing a negative or unwanted circumstance. For example, if stretching or doing yoga (the behaviour) reduces tension in my body (the unwanted circumstance), then the likelihood of doing yoga is increased by the removal of the unwanted tension. Negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment, which is different in that punishment is an attempt to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour. So for example, if I yell and scream at someone to stop something, I’m trying to decrease the likelihood that that person will do that same thing again. And for completeness, there is also extinction, which is ignoring an undesirable behaviour in order to reduce its likelihood of continuing in the future. So when Jett barks and I don’t want her to, my best bet is to ignore, rather than reward, that behaviour so it will extinguish. In this situation, reward can come from merely paying attention to her.

Positive feedback is latent in much of our expectations these days at work, in sport, in relationships, etc. Positive feedback is the idea that we receive good, positive words of encouragement to support our good habits, choices, actions, thoughts, decisions etc, and increase the likelihood that we will continue to do these things.

I didn’t get this concept. Not until about a year and a half ago. Not while I worked as the mental skills trainer or assistant coach for the Dalhousie Women’s Hockey team. Not while I spent 4 years captaining/coordinating a competitive women’s ultimate Frisbee team. Not while I was supervising a dozen undergraduate students’ research. Not when I started working as a Life Coach. Not for the first 32 years of my life.

Not only did I not get this, I thought I was providing positive feedback and to be honest, didn’t get what people were always “whining” about. I thought the fact that I was giving advice on how to be better was positive feedback. I thought that the fact that I was helping people improve and get rid of the negative things about themselves for the sake of being better was positive feedback. I thought that every time I wanted to change myself into something better that I was invoking positive feedback. People around me would ask for positive feedback all the time and I thought I was delivering it.

I was wrong. I was wrong because I failed to acknowledge that people need a good foundation of knowledge of what they are good at. Unfortunately, many people don’t have this. This is also known as “lack of self-esteem”. And even those of us who pride ourselves with a good dose of confidence, lack self-esteem somewhere.

Ideally, we could embrace our good qualities: What we do well, why we are good, and what we like about ourselves. If we have no security in these things we are not firmly grounded. Our foundation is shaky. And these good qualities are liable to get washed away or extinguished during the change and then we end up floating around like lose leaves from the trees in autumn, ready to wither away.

I learned about positive feedback at my yoga teacher training. I learned a lot at that training, more about psychology and the mind than I thought I had left to learn. As each of us teachers-to-be did our practice teach I had many many critiques floating around in my head (of myself and others). “She should do this better. That wasn’t very good. She really needs to learn how to do that. She should try this next time.” And then we got to the same point we did with every teacher where we each offered one positive comment about what we felt our peer did well in his/her demo class. The head teachers offered “potential improvement points” along with their positive feedback and even then I was shocked at all the things they “missed”! Finally, by the end of the 15 of us to-be-teachers presenting ourselves in front of the group to be critiqued, I understood what we were doing. I understood, for the very first time, Positive Feedback.

I still struggle with positive feedback. I forget that people like to hear it. I forget that I even like to hear it. For many reasons, I learned that critiquing, or rather criticizing, myself was the way to become “better” and that’s how I stayed functioning despite years of formal psychology education. I’m sure this way of functioning contributed to my achievements but now I’m more sure that this way of functioning was in fact impeding me from even greater achievements.

Exercise, the Brain, and Emotional Wellness

2009-10-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

Exercise, the Brain, and Emotional Wellness
By Dr. Amanda Wintink, PhD (Neuroscience & Psychology)
Originally Printed in Optimyz Magazine, October/November 2009 issue
http://www.optimyz.ca/index.php

Why do we feel so good after exercising? You’ve probably heard of, or maybe experienced, a runner’s high, which happens when the brain’s natural “feel good” chemicals (endorphins) are active. In fact, exercising has many benefits like enhanced learning, memory, and anti-depressant effects. These cognitive and emotional benefits of exercise seem to be a result of an increase in cell growth in the brain.

Briefly, exercise enhances cognition in children, young adults, and aging adult. For example, exercise improves children’s intelligence scores, learning performance, measures of reasoning, vocabulary, memory, reading skills, and reduces inattentiveness, etc. Similar results were found in young adults. In ageing adults, exercise improves working memory, reasoning, vocabulary, and reaction time. One study also found better brain functioning and greater brain volume in aged adults who were exercising compared to their sedentary counterparts.

Much of the benefits of exercise, both cognitive and emotional, appear to happen through changes in a particular area of the brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is most known for its role in learning and memory. We first came to know of this phenomenon over 50 years ago when a patient with epilepsy was surgically removed of his entire hippocampus to try to stop the seizures. Following the surgery, the patient formed virtually no new memories proving the hippocampus to be important in memory.

About 15 years ago, this area of the brain became very popular because researchers started to accept evidence for cell growth in the adult brain, called neurogenesis – ending a scientific dogma that adult brain cells could not regenerate.

The ability of the brain to “regrow” has vast implications for brain repair following disease or damage and brain enhancement, all of which could affect many valued human traits like learning, memory, and emotional wellness. We now know a lot about neurogenesis including that it does enhance learning and memory and that when neurogenesis is prevented in the hippocampus learning and memory is impaired. Interestingly, the strongest promoter of neurogenesis is exercise!

The hippocampus is one of a few areas of the brain where neurogenesis occurs. The hippocampus also houses lots of different receptors that are used by many natural chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain. For example, it houses corticosteroid receptors – receptors that respond to stress hormones. Too much stress actually destroys part of the hippocampus, which helps explain why our memory is worse after periods of severe stress.

The hippocampus also houses serotonin receptors – receptors that respond to the brain’s natural anti-depressant neurotransmitter ‘serotonin’. Conventional medicine uses of SSRIs, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, to keep serotonin floating around making it more likely to hit its receptors. An excess of serotonin enhances neurogenesis, which creates a sense of emotional wellness.

Exercise also enhances neurogenesis, which, not surprisingly, also creates a sense of emotional wellness. In fact, exercise has also proven to be as effective as common anti-depressants (i.e., SSRIs like fluoxetine) in reducing the symptoms of depression, which explains why many doctors are prescribing a healthy dose of regular exercise!

If exercise hasn’t already proven to be a wonder drug in your mind, chew on this: Exercise protects the brain against stroke, promotes recovery following brain damage, reduces the cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, and has numerous other general health benefits that you are already well aware of. This list is long and growing.

So… Enjoy your workout… and your neurogenesis!

Brain Gains | Special Feature: Brain Gains | CBC News: The National

2009-10-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

Brain Gains | Special Feature: Brain Gains | CBC News: The National

Rules for Success

2009-10-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

I receive regular emails from the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning, which mostly apply to teaching in the academic setting. The one that came today was entitled “Rules for Success”. I stole the titles, slightly re-worded them to be more general, and wrote my own description of them. They are as follows:

Rule 1: Know Yourself
Too often we look at the situation, job, relationship, whatever it is that we are trying to succeed at and expect it to change so that we can succeed or be happy when in fact, if we know ourselves well enough we can place ourselves in the right environment, job, relationship, etc. in which we will surely to succeed. Our situation should nurture own ability to succeed rather than us manipulating the situation to promote our success. If we place ourselves in nurturing environments, jobs, relationships it requires a lot less energy compared to counterparts where we have to exert a lot of energy to make it work for us. Knowing ourselves allows us to intelligently choose that environment for success.

Rule 2: Know What Is Expected of You and Deliver It
We must become aware of the expectations of us and know enough about ourselves to know whether we can deliver it. If we abide by #1, delivering those expectations will be simple.

Rule 3: Further Your Organizations Missions
On the surface this looks like we just have to bye into the organization with which we are and to further its missions. However, below that surface we can see that this is about community and cultivating like mindedness so we can thrive in the like energies. If we know ourselves well enough, we have placed ourselves in environments that will lead to success and further our organization’s missions will be relatively easy, just like Rule #2.

Rule 4: Never Lie
To ourselves, first and foremost. I think this rule was meant to be taken more literally; however, I don’t really like this rule as stated. I prefer Be as Honest as you Can because the truth is we lie all the time, but sometimes we don’t have the strength to act any differently. If we can be honest with that fact, the fact that we can’t always be 100% truthful, then we aren’t really lying anymore. We are being honest. So try to be honest and see where it gets you. In the end, you’ll be happier and won’t worry that someone will catch on to your lie. And you can focus your energy on success rather than defense.

Rule 5: Respect Everyone
No matter who, what, when, where, why, and how. Everyone deserves respect. Every person was once an innocent child, some of whom have been wronged by life or society. We all know how it feels to be disrespected. It makes us feel shitty and it definitely does not contribute to our success even if we work with vengeance. It cannot be good for our souls to send bad, disrespectful energy out into the world. And if that doesn’t convince you then just know that the most unassuming and unsuspecting individual you disrespect could be a millionaire waiting to invest in a kind soul that’s not you.

Rule 6: Pick Your Battles
As someone who only came to know her voice in undergrad, I almost seemed to make up for lost time. Over the years, and after too many debates gone sour, too many burned bridges, and too many words that couldn’t be taken back, I to pick my battles. For those who have yet to learn how to battle, it’s about knowing which are those you need to pick. It’s about standing up for what you truly believe to be worthwhile. Learn how to if you don’t already know. But regardless, pick those battles. This relates to #1. Do you see how?

Rule 7: Own Your Mistakes
This is a hard one to practice but when done gracefully it earns us a ton of respect. Mistakes do much more than reveal our imperfections and inadequacies. They reveal the fact that we are human – something we try to ignore by avoiding the mistakes we inevitable make.

Inspired by:

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu
TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(sm) eMAIL NEWSLETTER
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php
Sponsored by
Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning
http://ctl.stanford.edu

Become a Life Coach
Training Begins in January
Click here for details.

FUCK!

2009-10-15T19:19:00.001-07:00

was the subject line in an email I received today from a friend who was feeling dragged down by the energy of those around her. My response was this: Fuck them anyway! You are an amazing person with so much love and compassion to give. Don’t waste your beautiful energy on getting caught up in it. Honor them and their journey but believe in your own beauty and worth. They steal your energy like people steal the beauty of a picked flower instead of leaving it to bloom for the next one who passes by. They don’t know how to let your beauty be there for the whole world to experience. They want it for themselves. They don’t know better.

There are people around us who are jealous, envious, negative, and thirsty for attention because they can’t find it in themselves. These people drag us down and make us lose sight of our own richness and beauty. When we engage with these people in their way, we become these people. We feed their fire. We positively reinforce their negative actions. And we aren’t helping. We help by finding compassion for them. We help by honoring them and their journey, nonetheless. We help by remembering that if they knew better, they would act better. We help by staying firmly grounded in the nourishing earth, not being “picked”, remaining beautiful for all.

We are all here together on this earth: Spiritual beings trying to be human.

Back on Track

2009-09-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

Living out of a suitcase for the past 3 and a half weeks really supported my slow decline away from my “rules”. So for September 1st, I’m going back to the following.

1. Eat free-range meat.
I recently read something about how a ¼ of all domestic dogs in N.A. will receive Christmas gifts this year while the majority of pigs will be slaughtered inhumanely to be our ham for that very same day. We are a disgusting society. I don’t even have to “exclaim” that. It’s a new given. Rationale for vegetarianism aside, we cannot continue to eat meat the way we do. The majority of animals that are not free-range and are not humanely treated are essentially tortured.
After spending 4.5 years in a lab that studied the effects of stress, I have seen how the bodies of rats begin to deteriorate from their stressful experience. Their coats looked dull and ungroomed, they lose muscle mass, and they look frail and sickly. Our rats stressful experience involved small restraint enclosures for several hours a day, much the same as what chickens and pigs experience prior to our consumption.
Eating free-range meat can be challenging but much less so than a few years ago. The local market (Local Source Market) around the corner from me sells such meat, and at least two great restaurants in Halifax (Wooden Monkey and Jane’s on the Commons) serve it up. More are popping up… in Wpg Fresh Café has this territory.

RULE: Only eat free-range meat. Eat like a vegetarian when at a restaurant that does not serve free-range meat. Ask if it is free-range beforehand to promote your desire for it to be served. Inquire about all animal products and their treatment pre-death.

2. Eat chocolate only on the first day of the month.
Back in 1999 I started this routine whereby each month I eliminated something bad in my diet – sugar, potato chips, chocolate, etc. Since August 31st, 1999, I have not eaten a potato chip – although in 2003 Pete and Paul tried to get me to put one on my tongue... side note. The chocolate thing was a little more difficult to maintain. I’ve tried several times and came to a happy medium of “once a month”. I began to slip when I made dark chocolate an exception to that, justifying my actions with the claimed anti-oxidant health benefits.

RULE: No milk chocoloate bars. Dark chocolate once a month. Chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake is allowed, mostly because I have enough control to eat them in moderation. Chocolate tofu pie at the Wooden Monkey is also ok.

3. Buy ethical clothing.
This is a more recently rule that I’m working on implementing. I think it’s self-explanatory.

RULE: buy from at least one of the following categories: 1) Locally-made, 2) fair-trade made, 3) made from renewable resource (like bamboo), 4) made without chemicals (like organic cotton), or 5) buy second-hand.

This means no Lulu Lemon, no Winners, and pretty much no malls. Generally, I avoid malls anyway, so I can re-invoke that rule under the umbrella of this rule! And I have refrained from getting my yoga teacher discount for LuluLemon to avoid temptation. Bhavana is a better place to go, with a local owner who I know and appreciate.

4. Live like I’m poor.
When Mike and I first started dating we tried to support each other as a couple who “lived this we were poor”. All this means is that we don’t go out to eat (often), we make our lunches instead of buying them, and we don’t purchase ridiculousness – like knick-knacks! It also involves rules like taking the bus and biking rather than cabing or using a car. This is great for the pocket book and great for the much need environment. It’s a pretty simple rule. It requires an examination of one’s strength of conviction because too often we are enticed to go out for dinner or to do something that requires more money than this rule allows. The other day, while Mike and I were lounging at T Café in Toronto, we were reveling in our luxurious life that was very much NOT living like we were poor. Our grilled cranberry-tea-marinated [assumed NON-FREE-RANGE] chicken, preceded by asiago chips with mango salsa, topped with a cold lychee herbal tea was a testament to our recent ride down the slippery slope.

RULE: LIFE LIKE I’M POOR. I still have student debt. I’m not rich!

5. Do yoga regularly.
Last august I returned to Halifax after the completion of my yoga teacher training to at least 20-min of daily yoga. My yoga practice has been a continued life lesson on treating my body with respect (see Body Monologues). Although I continue this practice while I run and play ultimate, it’s not the same. I miss it. It’s my meditation and mindfulness. Having returned home to Halifax, leaving Mike in Toronto for school, I commit to re-invoking that important aspect of myself.

RULE: Do yoga regularly. I know this goes against SMART goals because it’s not specific or easily measurable but I just need to remember it as such: DO YOGA REGULARLY.

6. Reduce cheese consumption.
If there’s anything in this world that is my nemesis it’s probably cheese. Any flavor, any form. It’s my demise. Nachos in the summer. Cheese cake for dessert. It’s all the same and it tastes so good. The problem is that it’s a lot of dairy for this human body that was likely not designed to consume dairy well into our adult years. If it were, why aren’t we still breastfeeding? Social norms would be much different if our health depended on it. In-moderation is a good theoretical rule but what exactly is moderation? Once a week? Once a month? Too much thinking for me. I could invoke the “first day of the month rule” like chocolate or something like the “15th day of the month” just to give me something to look forward to after chocolate. The jury is out on this one. I think the rule that has worked the best is “no cheese by itself”. I can put it on sandwiches and nachos but it has to be less than 50% of the product. I do think this rule should be coupled with “reduce Nacho consumption”.

RULE: Cheese is not to be trusted alone.

7. Reduce coffee consumption.
Done. I don’t mind decaf and I love green tea lattes. The only problem is that I don’t like Starbucks and there are fewer and fewer others who continue to offer matcha green tea lattes. Oh the dilemma. Regardless, this is a simple rule that I just need to remember when I frequent the coffee houses in Halifax as my workspace!

Rule: Choose wisely.

8. Drink as much alcohol as I can. Just kidding.

9. Practice meditation regularly.
To be honest, I resist this one a lot. Despite having felt the most calm, relaxed, and clear-minded of my entire life following my first and only 10-day silent meditation retreat, I still resist the quietness. The truth is that I’m addicted to my thoughts. I think I’m brilliant half the time and am tortured by my nagging negative thoughts at other times. It’s a wonderful abusive relationship of co-dependence. Right now, my mind is in control.

The rule: Meditate for 2 min a day. Just get my damn butt down there and settle. 2 min a day!! Is that too much to ask for? If I can’t spare 2 min of quietness a day then I’m WAY more delusional that I thought. THIS WILL BE DIFFICULT and according to SMART goals, not realistic!

10. Call my friends and family more regularly.
Sad as it is, with Mike gone off to Toronto till May, I should manage to have more time to reconnect with friends and family.

Rule: Just Do It! Stop thinking about it.

Knick-Knacks

2009-08-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

After teaching yoga at the mall, I decided to walk around in search of a needed clock. I found myself in some store called The English Butler, looking for a clock. I happened upon these cute little wooden words that said things like ‘peace’ and ‘love’ and ‘dream’. I thought “how fitting for my Life Coaching office and our Yoga studio”. I rummaged through to find all the right words for those two spaces. I was so pleased with my finds! The nice girl packaged them up, thanked me, and wished me a good day. What a pleasant experience, I thought and felt as I left the store.

Not minutes later after leaving the store, I was hit with what seemed like an invisible brick wall, stopping me dead in my tracks. WTF?! (sorry for the language, but this is a real story and that’s what I said) I looked down at my bag and saw that I was carrying a bag full of knick-knacks! Knick-knacks = garbage, junk, ridiculousness, non-essentials… And here I was walking away with a whole lot of it! Wait. They are nice, simple, tasteful, and very appropriate for the purpose. They are accents, not knick-knacks. OMG! No, they ARE knick-knacks! I can’t fool myself. I just bought a bunch of knick-knacks!! I’m sure my grandmother justified every one of her knick-knacks as well. Of course they were probably beautiful, tasteful, elegant, and so on back in 1950 but are they now???? No! And where are they, better yet, where are they going? To the landfill, pond off to someone else, “recycled” at the local thrift store. Ya right! It’s garbage, all of it. Once we buy it, it’s our responsibility. We must accept that we have contributed to the garbage of this world, yet again!

Ok, fair enough, maybe it’s not all garbage. Arguably, it is, but I’ll appreciate that all of us have garbage, some in the form of knick-knacks, some in the forms of straightening irons, 50 frisbees, cell phones, clothes, etc. At the end of the day, or at the end of the era, if it’s left unable to degrade naturally, it’s garbage.

So the kicker in all this? That the biggest word that I bought, the one that’s 3 inches tall when the others are 1 inch tall, the one that caught my eye before all others, the one I thought was perfect for my Life Coaching office: SIMPLIFY. How sad.

As a rule, I avoid malls. They are a death trap for consumeraholics (i.e., people who are addicted, or prone, to consuming too many material goods – I just made this word up) and a disgrace to nature. Anti-simplified. I figured I would venture off into the mall in search of my clock. Safe enough, I thought. I’m looking for a clock and nothing else. Wrong. I’ll just stick to my rule: AVOID MALLS (and box stores and the like) AT ALL COSTS!

So the real kicker here? Upon returning to my office with my knick-knacks, I realized that the one clock that I did have, that I carried with me to teach yoga at the mall because the other one broke, the one that’s from my office, I actually left at the mall. So now I’m clockless in my office with a bunch of knick-knacks one glaring at me saying SIMPLIFY on my bookshelf. :)

If it makes you happy and you love it, why are you not doing it?

2009-08-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'm incredibly idealistic and frankly, I hope I die this way. I use to believe that love conquered all and that love made the world go 'round. I lost touch with that a bit as I "matured" but I'm trying to reconnect with it again. Because LOVE is all that we have. It's the only real and unreal thing in this world. Love is compassion, joy, kindness, deep passion, beauty, truth, connection... If we aren't doing what we love, if we aren't living in love, we aren't living, we aren't love, we can't find or give love.

I've always been pretty happy, generally speaking (yes, I've had many moments of despair too). I've been extremely fortunate to OFTEN be doing exactly what I want to be doing. I can count on one hand the number of times I did NOT want to go into "work" or go to school. I can't even relate to those of us who feel that way daily or weekly. I generally LOVE what I'm doing and LOVE the people I associate with, and LOVE this life of mine. It's been a pleasure and will continue to be. It's exciting and full ox experiencing including those that leave my taking leaps of faith and those that block my path. In hindsight, I love them all! Instead of regret, appreciation.

So when it comes to reasons for why any one of us is unable to fulfill or find their dreams, it honestly baffles me. I know that there are practicalities and real-life circumstances but I still don't get why every one of us is not striving for the (virtually) perfect career/job, relationship, or life. IT EXISTS! I know this, intuitively and through experience. I'm, right now, living a virtually perfect life. No I don't have much money, I still have debt, I get stressed, and I don't have my career in full swing but it's not about those goals, it's about this journey right here. The long-term goals are trivial. They get accomplished by living in this moment and enjoying it for what it's worth. It's what's happening right now that matters most.

So those of us who are killing ourselves with jobs, relationships, or lives that don't nourish their soul. I ask why? What is our excuse - not reason? And is this fact going to be our excuse for our entire existence? If so, we're bound to repeat it, life after life, until we get it correct. Our soul is thirsty to be doing what it wants nothing more than to do. Our soul is calling out to us every moment. Are we listening? What's our excuse - not reason?

STOP THE INSANITY. It is insane, as I see it. This world is insane for thinking any differently than we should be doing what we love.

Stop with the excuses, stop with the practicality, stop with the real-life circumstances. If we fail to honor our own self we will have no one to blame but our self. Not our parents, not society, not our peers. No one else is in control of our destiny other than our self.

If it makes us happy, if we love it, if we live for it, why the hell is it not consuming us? Not enough money? Whatever. Not enough energy? Nonsense. Not enough time? Please! No support? Hogwash! EXCUSES!! We all have very powerful brains that can overcome anyone of these obstacles - these excuses.

Everything we need for a happy existence, a purpose to our life, a rewarding journey, is right here in front of us! Seriously, right there. Do you see it? LOOK HARDER!

Argue with me if you will but in the end, it's only ourselves who we are hurting. I don't want to hear any more excuses. If this note irritates you, throw it back at yourself, not me. I don't care about your excuses. Just do what you love, the rest will take care if itself. And if it doesn't, you're living in love, so what else REALLY matters?

The frustration is only about you to the extent that you and your actions reflect back at me.

Trivial Moment

2009-07-12T19:15:00.001-07:00

We’re driving from Halifax to Boston, 14 of us girls and 19 from the guys’ team. We’ve hit our last stop before arriving at our hotel around 9:30 pm. Kelsey, a rookie from the guy’s team, pulls out his guitar. It draws me away from an intellectual game and into the energy of all those around me who are singing and enjoying the oneness and the closeness of the music the binds us in this moment.

I look around at all of these people like I have done in the past many times, appreciating this unique relationship that’s found only in the camaraderie of sports, at least for me. Some of these people I’ve known for 7 years, some of them I just met today. In any case, as I look around, I am overwhelmed with a feeling of comfort, safety, and a trust that these people care about me, even if only because we’ve shared some wins and loses over the years, and are driving to do the same thing this weekend. I look around at the people with whom I have shared celebrations of love and matrimony. I look around at the people with whom I have offered and received support during times of sadness and loss.

The music is still playing, the signing is getting louder, and my heart is ready to burst in this beautiful moment. I know that many of us will think back to moments like these years from now while speaking of “the good ole times”.

Two of our teammates are stuck in airports unable to get to our hotel. We’re disappointed for them because we have each felt that loss of being teamless, whether because we were unable to get there or because our real lives took precedent. The apparent trivialness of our adventures is obvious to most of us, but it does not keep us away. Why would you drive 15 hours on a bus to go play in a tournament, especially without a real chance of winning? Why would you go climb Macchu Picchu? Why would you visit the ruins in Italy or the cathedrals in France? Why would you watch TV? Why would you work just to play? No adventure is any more or less trivial than the other. We chose to immerse ourselves in sport, in intensity, in physical elitism, and for many of us, as a way to remove ourselves from our intellectual elitism that otherwise dominates, or even plagues, our existence.

Why else? Because, among the craziness of our real lives, meetings, bills to pay, and to-do lists, we find ourselves committed to each other and to the community we’ve become. Individuals come and go from this community year after year but the sustenance of the community remains unscathed by time, waiting for any newcomer with open arms and greeting returning veterans wholeheartedly.

The music continues to play, the memories of team moments past flood into my mind. I remember so many end-of-season tears – foreseeing how that this year’s team will never again be recapitulated just like every time in the past. But year after year, the energy of the community draws me back. I’m drawn into the energy of me, as part of this team, this community, forgetting myself as an individual.

The tears are ready to roll down my cheeks but I resist. I’ll save them for the end of the year, when I grieve another season come and gone. Instead, I sit here writing, with Pete peaking over my shoulder, being reminded of why I am here. Why I am on this bus driving 15 hours to play in a tournament that is as trivial as new shoes, skinny jeans, or even these very words. And I’ll do it again and again, torturing myself with sadness of things to end and nourishing my spirit with moments like these, which are much more than few and far in between.

We’re almost at our hotel. The music is ending with excitement that we are finally here.
I continue to feel the safety and comfort and love of this community, among these people, many of whose paths I might otherwise have not crossed had it not been for teams like these. I continue to feel this moment. And in this moment, I am connected with ALL of the beautiful moments of my life and I see that the ones I cherish the most are those that appear, on paper, to be so trivial.

I want to die. To end this misery. To end this life.

2009-06-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

I want to go to sleep and never wake up.
I want this to end.
I can't take this any more.
I have no more will to fight.
It's too much.

On many occasions I hear these words or something very similar. It’s a struggle at first to let these words out. They are shameful and scary and, if said out loud, might invoke a sense of reality, a sense of “oh no, I can’t take them back now. They must be true!” These words are loaded with fear. Fear in she who says them and fear in he who hears them. When others say these words, we shy away from them because we don’t know what to do with them. We aren’t sure of how to handle their energy. When others say these words, it reminds us of our own despair, our own depressions, our own feelings are worthlessness and hopelessness. It reminds us of a similar place inside of our own heart that we fear, that we can’t acknowledge, and that we are ashamed of. Among our friends and family, these words are alarm bells and will invoke immediate panic. We know this, so we keep these words to ourselves. We feel the discomfort of these words even when we just read a title. We may even be scared as we read right now wondering where the writer is going. When we hear these words, we consider our own mortality and that is scary.

The other day, someone I know admitted being tired of her “work”, her path, her journey. She was tired of fighting and struggling to be a better person, to be healed, to be well. I asked her “what would be the easiest thing for you to do right now? The thing that would take no energy?” She said “go to sleep”. Then she continued to speak about wanting to die, and ending this life, and ending this misery. I didn’t flinch. I never do. I listened, openly, happily able to provide the space for a person to speak of these miseries, these thoughts that plague our existence, these thoughts that we are all so ashamed of. I’m so happy that this ONE person has a place, the space, to divulge this collective secret. She went on and on about how awful she feels, how she can’t tell anyone about these feelings because they get scared. I let her finish. And then when she was done I asked “How do you feel now?” Tears of despair turned into tears of laughter. “Lighter,” she said, “the pain in my chest is gone.” We started to laugh together. There were no conditions attached to the space I provided. There were no judgments. I saw her as a human, just like me, having thoughts that I’ve had in the past, thoughts I know many people have or are having right now. I remember a time about 8 years ago when I was so devastated, so low, that I called a help line just to hear someone who didn’t know me but who I knew could keep me from doing anything irrational until the irrationality passed. I remember a time about 10 years ago when I sat in my room in St. Catharines, and cried for hours before my last exam, the day before I was able to head home to Winnipeg. Somehow I misjudgment my rations of energy that would get me through the term. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and never wake up even though I was so close to being home. I remember a time when my heart was broken. In one split second, I lost everything. My relationship. My future. My hope. My desire. My faith in love. My self. My interest in life. I was dying and wanted to go away and never come back, to sleep and never wake. I remember so many times in my life when I have felt those words, let those words exist inside me, own me. I also remember letting them go. Admitting them. Releasing them and the energy that accompanied them. I also remember welcoming the energy of those words into my heart. In grade 8 I did a presentation on death – I talked about all the different ways people can die. How awkward it must have been to be the teacher or the students in my class. I invited death in, greeted it, got to know it, befriended it. I continue to do that by writing this right now. And because of that, I have been able to listen to my dying grandmother speak of her despair and desire to end her life while others encouraged her to “be positive”, while others could not invite the darkness of death inside to be transformed. My grandmother was able to speak of her true emotions, freely, without judgment or invoking any alarm bells. Because I have invited it in with curiosity I am able to sit here today, listening to others, while I offer space, not fear, as they speak those shameful words. And when they see that I don’t flinch, when they see that they have not burdened me, they feel light. They feel the letting go of the guards of pretense that keep perfect, sane, and well adjusted to the insanity of this world. When I don’t flinch, I invite in the energy that can destroy us. When I don’t flinch, I invite in a peacefulness that comes in no other way.

Expectations of Perfection

2009-06-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

I was sifting through unpublished notes craving something to do and came across this one. It was perfectly timed for me to read... it satisfied a different craving - a craving to be perfect. I love it when even my own words remind ME of some greater wisdom as if there is something or someone different speaking! :)

***
I’m frequently asked by my clients about how to develop self-esteem. I usually fluster through an answer without offering anything concrete. I know there are many “how to” books on building self-esteem but I struggle with suggesting them because sustainable self-esteem requires a great deal of mindfulness. Cultivating sustainable self-esteem inevitably involves dismantling our expectation of perfection that lives in our mind and in our society.

Much of our self-esteem is a product of our mind. If we think we are stupid it is because someone told us that we are or because somewhere we developed an expectation of what smart is, and we do not live up to that expectation. If we think we are ugly it is because someone told us that we are or because somewhere we developed an expectation of what beauty is, and we do not live up to that expectation. If we think we are an awful and cruel person, it is because someone told us that we are or because somewhere we developed an expectation of what a nice person is, and we do not live up to that expectation. These expectations and experiences cloud our vision.

Sustainable self-esteem comes from looking deeply into who we are and acknowledging everything that is present: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the nothingness. At first we develop a sense of what we like about ourselves and what we dislike about ourselves, attaching ourselves to that which we like and avoiding that which we dislike. We can fool ourselves in two ways, either by believing that everything we like about ourselves IS us and nothing more or by believing that everything we dislike about ourselves IS us and nothing more, and that these qualities that we like or dislike are permanent. The reality is that our good and our bad is not permanent. It comes and goes just like everything else in nature. When we forget this, and are confronted with a weakened state, the bad comes flooding in relentlessly and we completely loose sight of all our good or we wallow in self-pity of the bad. We are defeated, deflated, and devastated either way. For some of us the weakened state feels more like a trait and we never or rarely see the inflated self. We have low self-esteem. The sustainability begins to emerge when we acknowledge this neither the inflated and the deflated selves are real and move toward accepting it both the good and the bad along with the other good, bad, ugly, and nothingness. Then slowly, we begin to dismantle the expectation of perfection that exists in our mind.

Acceptance is an important part of the process to develop a realistic and sustainable self-esteem. If we move too quickly after acknowledging what we dislike about ourselves (our weaknesses) by immediately turning toward overcoming our weaknesses we fail to appreciate the beauty of our imperfection. Failing to appreciate our beauty leaves us liable to perpetuate our expectation of perfection, effectively hindering our own self-esteem efforts. Acceptance involves spending time in that awkward period in which we are aware of our imperfection but are not working to overcome it. Self-esteem naturally emerges when we appreciate that very beauty of our imperfection and accept the imperfections as “us” for that moment, and we let go of being anyone different than who we are at that moment.

Practical Guide to Self-Esteem Development:
(try not to read through this exercise first. try it in sequence as described)

1. Take a piece of paper
2. Separate it into 2 columns: Likes and Dislikes
3. Write down 3 things that you can think of that you like about yourself in the “Likes” column and 3 things that you can think of that you dislike/hate about yourself in the “Dislikes” column.
4. Notice how you feel about your “Likes” column.
5. Notice how you feel about your “Dislikes” column.
*these columns are good for developing self-awareness

6. On the backside of the paper write a heading “3 things that I want to change about myself” and then fill in your list.
7. Notice how you feel about your list.

8. Scratch out the heading “3 things that I want to change about myself” and write overtop “expectations of perfection”.
9. Notice how you feel about your list.

10. Scratch out the heading “expectations of perfection” and write overtop “reminders that I’m human”.
11. Notice how you feel about your list.

12. Repeat this weekly until #10 brings a smile to your face.

Dollar stores should be illegal

2009-05-19T18:07:00.001-07:00

and so should Salisbury Houses, Perkin’s/Denny’s, Tim Horton’s, styrofoam, buying a new cell phone before the other old breaks, plastic bags, hot dogs, cheese whiz, oranges and bananas in Canada, anything made in China, corn syrup, aspartame, deep fryers, microwaves, people who own dogs but can’t take care of them, cats – (just kidding see note on I hate cats), pesticides to maintain a nice lush green lawn in suburbia…

Our brain is designed to receive, process, and distribute information efficiently. As a result, we grow up learning to adapt to our environment and to take in relevant information that will help us survive. At some point, we grow into an adult and have to ask, then decide, what is right for me? Moving away from Winnipeg probably helped me figure out the answers to that question quicker than had I stayed in my same life, although merely going to University –particularly University of Winnipeg that prides itself on diversity – was very helpful in that department. Moving away from Winnipeg also allowed me a bit more freedom to try on new identities while still having the security of the identity that existed back in Winnipeg. The downfall of this process, of not evolving in the environment of my upbringing, is that is when I come home, to Winnipeg, I experience culture shock – fast-food restaurants, non-organic foods, dairy, wheat, non-free range, refined sugars, plastics, waste, big box stores where there use to be green space… examples of a life that I no longer live. In many ways I am forced to relive a life when I was less conscious and less aware of my actions on my environment, my body, myself, and less able to understand what was right for me. I can only imagine that it’s similar to what I remember my friend Emma saying about coming back to Canada after being in Kenya and being shocked by all the food on the shelves in the grocery stores, albeit to a much lesser degree.

The culture shock of coming home, to Winnipeg, to my old life, has affected me for the past few years but it’s not until today that I realized, by being able to name it as such, that I have been experiencing ‘culture shock’. How odd to think that this can happen in “my own backyard” – thanks Flo. ☺

So as I sit here on the plane flying from Winnipeg to Vancouver to find myself in a dear-friend’s wedding and visit with friends who are very unlikely to shock me in any culturish way, I vow to remember for the next time that I visit Winnipeg to: 1) Go buy my flax seed oil, rice milk, almond butter, and spinach for my morning smoothie as soon as I get into the city so I can start the day off with cultural familiarity, 2) take 2 deep breaths each morning before making use of that yoga mat that I dragged from Halifax, and 3) express my needs sincerely and respectfully while being mindful of the part of me that IS (still) the very culture (e.g., straightening irons, tanning, daily starbucks for the past 5 days, airplane travel, etc.) that I am trying to change.

Beautiful Tears

2009-05-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

Another title that speaks for itself...

Dedicated to all of us who have ever forgotten to see the beauty in our tears however the chose to show themselves.

You

2009-05-12T09:27:00.002-07:00

Below is the text that coincides with a lecture I did today for the Red Tent, a fundraising event in support of the Marguarite Centre for women recovering for abuse and addiction. 19 people bought tickets for $160 to come to Balance. They received a yoga class, a service of choice, and a lifestyle lecture. All the proceeds from ticket sales and other sponsorships go toward the centre. Today, we raised over $60K. Quite appropriately, I spoke about:

You

What are your reactions to this word, this title?
Uncomfortable…Confused…Scared….Excited…

The purpose of this is to remind you of you! When was the last time you spent time with just you? When was the last time you honored yourself, your mind, your body, your spirit? When was the last time you got mad at yourself for not doing enough work, having a disorganized house, not being a great mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, wife, etc? We so quick to jump on ourselves for all the reasons that we are not perfect but rarely do we honor all of the wonderful and amazing things about ourselves. Why is it so hard to see the amazing beauty in ourselves?

We began this journey (life) with all of our glory – the prescription to be a certain way, a perfect manifestation of nature. But all of this beauty gets hidden away and protected by a shell that develops from the expectations around us. We forget who we are. We forget what’s at our core, our essence. In order to get to the core and see the beauty of ourselves, we have to remove the shell, chipping away at it slowly but diligently by exploring these concepts.
• Compassion
• Self-Knowledge
• Truth
• Inspiration
• Wisdom
• Courage
• Trust

EXERCISE: THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF
Take 3 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of paper. Write down as many things as you can think of that you don’t like about yourself. Look at the list. Let it resonate inside of you. How does it make you feel? Awful? They are full of expectations, often unrealistic ones. They make us feel hopeless. They highlight our imperfections of today and create a foundation for living in the future of “should be”. These expectations are damaging to today’s existence. They are ruining our ability to be here now, in this moment of reality. The reality is that these beliefs, thoughts, and actions are detrimental to our spirit. They are hurtful. They are worse than sticks and stones. They are negative energy. Biologically, negativity worsens our chance of surviving a serious illness like cancer. Positive thinking betters our chances. Both western and eastern medicines acknowledge this.

PERSONAL STORY: ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
I had this epiphaneous moment when I was doing my yoga teacher training. I was sitting in a seated forward bend trying to touch my toes. I couldn’t reach them with a straight back because of pain in my hips from past sports injuries, excessive running, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I was sitting there on the floor among all of my fellow students ready to burst into tears because I hated my body so much for not being able to bend the way I wanted. I held those negative feelings inside till the next morning and then like a light bulb I had a realization: I am living in an abusing relationship, and I was the abuser and the victim. I felt how damaging my thoughts of my mind were to myself, to my spirit, and to my body.

With our biased eyes, these thoughts don’t immediately seem damaging. But I guarantee you that they are. My thought seemed fairly harmless. I simply wanted my body to be different than it was, to perform better than it had been. Compare this to when we function on little-to-no sleep or on little-to-no food when we’re overworked or stressed. We’re expecting ourselves to perform what we cannot achieve. There are many times when we are in an abusive relationship with ourselves. Every time we push ourselves without compassion to be faster, smarter, thinner, prettier, cleaner, everything to everyone, we are hurting ourselves. We are trying to be our expectations rather than living in the beauty of what and who we are.

BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND
So what we really need to do is become our own best friend! If you were your own best friend, how would you react to yourself right now seeing those items that you don’t like about yourself. Look at those thoughts with eyes of a best friend, not your own eyes. Talk to yourself like a best friend.

“Mandy, don’t be so hard on yourself. Your body does a lot of great things for you. It’s healthy in a lot of ways. It has allowed you to play sports and be active. Maybe you just need to be a little softer with yourself. Try not to be so hard. How can you possibly ask yourself to bend farther when it’s just not possible? One day you might get there, but you aren’t there right now. It doesn’t mean you’re any lesser of a person. Thank your body for how much it CAN bend!”

When we start to see ourselves as being our own best friend, we begin to invoke compassion. We catch ourselves been the abuser and being abused.

BELIEFS
Where did these beliefs come from in the first place? The belief that I should bend farther and if I can’t I deserve to be scolded. The beliefs that we should be something or should do something or can’t do something and shouldn’t do something? Where did we get these ideas that fuel the expectations that we have of ourselves, particularly those that are detrimental and harm our wellbeing? They come from everything around us including, our parents, teachers, sibling, how our parents treat our siblings, our peers, our culture, magazines, TV, etc. Where do you think women get the idea that they are suppose to look a certain way? Not because the average woman is 5”8, size 0, with D-cup breasts. But because this expectation has been fabricated by external forces and we have chosen to accept it into our own belief system. Peer pressure is not something that we left behind in high school. It’s all around us. Every time we attempt to keep up with the Jones’ we fall victim to peer pressure and loose ourselves in the process. Sometimes peer pressure influences positive change, but anytime it is done unconsciously, it’s unsustainable. We have accepted these beliefs that make up our mind innocently and naively. We have to question our beliefs because our beliefs dictate our expectations, and ultimately our own happiness.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN BELIEFS
What if I told you right now, that you have the choice as to whether you want accept what’s on those pieces of paper or to reject it and say, no way! That’s not helping my spirit. That’s not chicken soup for my soul! The real question is, Do you want to hold on to your current beliefs? Do you accept the beliefs that dictate the expectations that allow you to dislike yourself, similar to what’s on your piece of paper? Or do you reject them and say, I’m in charge here, I reject these beliefs so I can be happy with who I am today, now, at present. Can you choose your own beliefs? If so, or even if you curious about it, then grab your piece of paper and crumple it up thoroughly. Keep crumpling it up until you let go of that belief! You don’t need that baggage!! It weighs you down and does not serve your best interest! It’s holding you back from your beauty. It’s hiding your true self. If I haven’t convinced that this is what you need to do then try to convince ME that you are entitled to this belief. Maybe you are. But I have yet to find something who is able to convince me that a negative belief is helping them be a better person in this world. Even if the believe is “I am an awful person or I should be a better person” it’s full of damaging negative energy and fails to honor our true self, our beauty.

PRACTICE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Those thoughts, and other negative ones, are going to come back again and again. I won’t kid you into thinking that they are gone now just because you crumpled up a piece of paper. These beliefs have been a part of you for a long time. Many of them consumed you when you were a child or flourished in you at the very influential time of puberty. The goal is to acknowledge them whenever they present themselves, again and again. When they poke their head out, you say “no way, I don’t buy into your messages any more. I am becoming me! I am choosing me over you and your expectations!”

CREATING SPACE
When we start to acknowledge the process of letting go of the negativity, we start to see the extra space in our brain and our mind – space and time that we can now devote to other things that aren’t negative thoughts. Instead, we can focus on what we like about ourselves, the realities of who we are, and what’s great about us. This does not come easily for most of us and requires practice and perseverance. Who has ever had that dreadful interview or essay question “What are your strengths?” and stumbled over it? Yes, it’s a hard one. Tell me, what are you strengths. Right now, out loud! It’s one thing to actually think it, which is difficult enough as it is, but it is a whole other thing to say it out loud, and another thing to confess it in front of others! Observe how difficult it can be. Put aside the thought that it’s bragging or boastful and try the exercise to humor me and yourself. The idea that it’s wrong or inappropriate to present the good in ourselves is just another hindering belief that we have not yet examined and, consequently, not let go of.

EXERCISE: INVOKING YOUR SPIRIT
Think back to a time when you felt really good about yourself, maybe you earned an award, you did something really brilliant, you helped someone in need, you mad a great achievement, or something or someone made you feel special. I don’t care what, just find something no matter how buried it is in that crazy brain. It’s there, I promise. Keep looking till you find something. Then find another one… This is a process of inspiration. It is a process of remembering the good inside of us, invoking our spirit.

BRAIN FILTERS
What’s going on here? I’m capitalizing upon how our brain works. The brain is an amazing information processing unit. It is constantly taking in a ton of information, much of which is well below our level of consciousness. The brain is highly adapted to filter information, it retains information that it deems important and filters out information that it deems unnecessary. It also works on the principle of like breeds like. The brain is highly efficient and gathers its efficiency capacity by working in synchrony. So when negative thoughts are predominant, negative networks are activated. When positive thoughts are predominant, then positive networks are activated. The art of positive thinking is in fact a science!

SEEING CLEARLY
The more we move through our unconscious beliefs and conditions, we start to ask ourselves, what do I stand for? What do I like to do? What am I all about? How am I? Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? We start to see ourselves, our true self, more clearly. As we continue to ask questions, we start to realize that the answers to all of our questions are right there inside of us. Buried beneath the rubble of expectations. As we break down the expectations, we are left with finding out who we really are and trying to understand our essence of being. This leaves us with the hard work of finding the beliefs we do accept, the ones that feel right for us. Getting to know ourselves is much like getting to know another person, especially if we are like many others in this world who put everyone else and everyone else’s needs ahead of our own. Like any best friend, we want to be open and honest with ourselves and learn and understand the true nature of who we are, what motivates us. What’s our source of energy. The path toward happiness starts with self-knowledge. This process can sometimes feel selfish.

SELFCARISH
I was recently conducting a seminar on stress management and we came up with the term Selfcarish, not selfish as a result of people resisting the idea of taking care of themselves. They argued, as participants often do, that it’s too selfish to take care of themselves before others. Selfcarish implies that we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of the others around us. If we don’t have enough fuel in our reserve to take care of ourselves, how can we fool ourselves into taking good care of others? We have a biological need to survive and there are mechanisms in our body that help our survival, including proper energy renewal. If we neglect our sleep, our nourishment, our breath, then we haven’t stored enough energy to take care of ourselves, never mind others. However, if we take care of ourselves, nourishing ourselves, then we end up with enough energy to take better care of those around us, like our partners, our children, our ageing parents, our friends, and more important, our new best friend. When we take care of ourselves, we can more efficiently take care of others. We are our own foundation and this needs to take precedent over everything else otherwise we will not survive. A wonderful analogy is the air mask in an airplane that we are told to secure on ourselves in the even of an emergency before assisting anyone else. Even if a child is beside us, we have to secure our own mask. If we fail to do so, we risk not getting enough oxygen to our brain and not thinking clearly, or worse, passing out, risking both of our lives. If we don’t have enough fuel in the take, oxygen in our body, we can’t assist others.

NOURISING YOUR BODY AND SPIRIT
As we engage in the self-knowledge process, we happen upon questions like, What makes me feel yummy inside? What gives me joy, pleasure. What keeps me alive, energized? Once we start to acknowledge what makes us feel good, we find ourselves being driven to keep doing it. From the basics of sleep to the self-actualization of careers, we energize and nourish our body and our spirit with our choices. Nourishment comes in many forms: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

PERSONAL STORY: SMILING
One thing that makes me feel yummy inside is smiling at people. It’s also serves as a good reminder of how distracted I am from my true self, my spirit. Because when I feel awful inside, when I’m stressed and consumed by my thoughts that I look fat in these clothes and that I should be doing more work than I am? I forget to smile. All of my energy is directed at my negative consuming thoughts and I forget to connect with the people around me. I become the example of individuality that is destroying our world. I become me vs. them. However, when I’m smiling at others it makes me feel happy to connect with others finding a common ground with everyone with the simplicity of a smile. It’s also a reflection of my presence. If I continue to do this, I continue to feel my spirit inside, my beauty, and my love. I’m not talking about surface yummy things either like what alcohol, drugs, and shopping can do but real honest goodness. Those other pseudo-yummies are just distractions, the easy way out. They cover up the hard, rewarding working of enjoying and nourishing ourselves.

INTELLIGENCE & WISDOM
The human body is very intelligent and gives us direction all the time on how to nourish itself. It’s so intelligent that it knows how to reproduce itself – amazing!! Scientists have spent years and money trying to mimic this beautiful biological process yet still having much trouble perfecting it the way nature does. We do it naturally. Our body knows what’s good for us. It knows when it needs to drink and to eat unless we deprive it and alter our brain. It knows how to love and pick a suitable mate with the help of pheromones. It knows how to do what’s natural. It holds he truth of our existence, our genetic prescription for how to go through life. It’s even intelligent enough to be modified by nature in order to ensure it’s best chance at survival. The intelligence in our body is to honored. It knows when we have self-defeating thoughts. It responds feeling sick, just like when other animals feel sick from the poisons in plants they mistakenly eat. Our negative thoughts are poison, they are toxic. Our body knows when we push it to extremes, and when we self-inflict stress. The body reacts to our mind’s thoughts with emotions. Emotions give us intelligent knowledge about what is good and not good for our spirit. The body is a vessel of intelligence holding the wisdom of our spirit. The beauty and simplicity of all this is that we are the wisdom. It’s not something different from us. It is us, not just within us. We are wisdom. We are walking wisdom. We came into the world this way!

FOLLOW THE WISE ONE
As we become our own best friend we start to see our own wisdom, we start to rely on it, we start to trust it. We start to follow it. Let it guide you toward your perfect life, your perfect job, your perfect marriage, your perfect you. Everything you are was done perfectly. Now, is the time to get back on your path, not the path of your parents, friends, children, culture, media. Now is the time to live your dreams, to embrace you, and to BE you. You have all the knowledge and wisdom inside of you that can guide you through your life. The challenge is to chose to follow it.

If I told you that you could do anything that you wanted, what would you do? ANYTHING!! Has the same thing come up over and over again in slightly different forms? Is it a sincere representation of the wisdom of you? If so, what’s stopping you from doing it? What beliefs are you holding on to that you need to understand and then let go of. Your body and your spirit will not steer you wrong. You may have lessons to learn along the way but you will not be steered wrong.

DO NOT FALL BACK ASLEEP
So I ask you again, Who are you? What are you? How are you? Where are you? When are you? Why are you? You have to keep asking these questions over and over again. Constantly looking for subtle changes in the answers and you change with the process. Once you give up on this curiosity, you fall back asleep.

COURAGE
As we go through this process we have to be ready to go through, not around, not underneath, not over the top. We have to go right through the middle, through the niddy griddy. We will challenge ourselves more than we ever have in our life. We will do the work that no one else can do. But the fruits of our labor are priceless. We become our own best friend. As we do this, we do so valiantly, with the utmost courage. This process is not easy, but it’s more rewarding than any other process you’ll go through. Seek support with like-minded individuals. We are not meant to do any of this alone. We are social beings. But often we confuse this truth thinking that we are to become dependent on others for our happiness. The only one who dictates our happiness is our self, our spirit, our biology, and our mind.

YOUR GIFTS
If you chose to ignore the inevitable, the truth of who we are and what gifts we have to offer this world, the inevitable will come back to you again and again, over and over until you listen. It will show up in sadness, depression, frustration, “poor me”, physical illness, and many many other forms. Ask yourself, What are my gifts? What am I meant to do in this world? Don’t try to figure out your lifetime of work unless you’ve been practicing being you for some time. Start simple. Start with something right here, right now. If you’ve been stressed for years and need a break then find a break wherever you can. Ten minutes today, 15 tomorrow, 30 the day after, eventually you’ll have rejuvenated during the process and the breaks will not be an effort. They will find their way to you with ease. If you’ve been waiting for the perfect moment then capture the moment that exists right here, right now. If you have this tickle inside to try something new and exiting then do it, right here, right now. If you want to speak then speak. If you want to cry then cry. If you want laugh then laugh. If you want to run then run. If you want to enjoy peace and quiet then enjoy peace and quiet. Honor the truth inside of yourself right now, starting today with whatever it is that is the easiest. It’s not necessarily something grandiose. Becoming our own best friend is hard work but it’s easy and can be fun. All of this is really simple, with enough practice. If it starts to feel complicated, back off, you’ve gone in the wrong direction. The practice begins by giving yourself the gift of honor. When you honor yourself often enough, your will start to give back – to you, to others, to this world! You will start to give back using the gifts with which you were born. Embrace the inevitable.

BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND
If you take nothing else out of these words but one thing, take the concept of becoming your own best friend. If you commit to that simple tasks of becoming our own best friend, all of the other pieces will inevitably fall into place. Don’t over complicate life, just be your own best friend, someone who will care for you, love you, nurture you, and be there with you for the rest of your life.

Recovering Stress-aholic

2009-05-12T09:27:00.001-07:00

I haven't written the words for this note yet, but I came up with the title, as is often the case. The title might just speak for itself. In the meantime, I'm going to yoga to help with my recovery, followed by spending time with my dearest friend (me!) at a coffee shop.

I wish all of you other stress-aholics and whatever-aholics a beautiful day. It's sunny in Halifax. If that's not inspirational then I don't know what is!

:)

I hate cats

2009-05-12T09:26:00.001-07:00

Cats are annoying. Cats are nocturnal yet we humans try to fit them into our diurnal lifestyle. As such, when we are trying to sleep we expect cats to be sleeping, but often times they are more interested in that string that’s hanging from a coat, climbing up the side of a couch, or pouncing on our chests. When we are awake cats are either walking around flaunting their ass in our face, hissing, scratching, or just generally being aloof. If they happen to like being around people, and therefore have actually been domesticated, they typically whine, walk all over the papers and books that you’re reading from or over the computer on which you are typing. They generally want your attention on their own time and are quite happy to ignore your at any other time that does not suit their needs. On the outside of our walls, there are by-laws that keep cats out of each other’s gardens, sandboxes, trees, etc. Clearly, there is a large population of people who equally think cats are annoying and generally hate them.

What’s interesting about this to me, particularly with respect to the title of this note, is that I grew believing that I hated cats. I believed in all of these annoying tendencies that come along with cats, and then some. It didn’t really strike me as odd for some time that “hating cats” was quite contrary to my general love for animals. At some point when I was a child, I wanted to become a vet. I used to nurse little birds that flew into our front window or fell out of their nest in the spring back to health. I would go out LOOKING for stray animals – everything but cats of course. Not too long ago, coincident with coming to acquire my own cat into my home, I started to realize that I didn’t really hate cats. I agreed to get the cat because I thought it would be a good pet for our dog, Sophie. In fact, I didn’t really know what cats were really all about. I didn’t have any appreciation for them. I spent 2 years in Ontario living with cats and “tolerating” them. I did start to observe my cat, Pickles, much more intently, particularly in terms of how it related to the dog. The more I got to KNOW the cat, the more I started to really appreciate it. Cats are quite independent, incredibly inquisitive, and much more agile and have much more dexterity than dogs do.

But regardless of all the reasons that one CAN like, or even LOVE, cats, what’s interesting is how I came to hate but this one single species. I was forced to finally admit that I didn’t hate cats. This felt more like a surrender than a change in belief. I was forced to admit that in fact, I might actually LIKE cats, just as much as I like every other animal that I can think of. I was also forced to admit that my long-standing conviction that I hated cats was not mine. It was my father’s. Just as we inherit genes, behaviours, tendencies, and money, so do we inherit beliefs. With such an incredible realization that was almost blatantly obvious for my entire life up to that point, it behooves me to look more deeply into EVERY other commonly held belief of mine, especially given that I pride myself with self-study, self-observation, and self-awareness. As I consider my beliefs, I am forced to consider the source of each belief… be it my father, my mother, my friends, my mentors, my culture, or simply and complexly my own mind’s accumulation of a 33 years of hearing to the beliefs presented before me, consciously and unconsciously.

Peacefully Alone

2009-04-24T04:32:00.001-07:00

If you've ever lived alone, traveled alone, or otherwise been truly alone then you've probably experienced the loneliness of having no one to come home to, no one to ensure you safely arrive, no one to account for you or your actions, no one else being responsible for you. You were solely responsible. There is an associated feeling of independence and calmness of having no one else to be responsible for and no one else responsible for us. We are solely responsible for our selves. We are the sole proprietors of our life.

As I got off the bus tonight at 9:10pm at the corner of North and Robie, I felt it - peacefully alone. I knew I was coming home to no one (human). Mike was out and if I didn't show up, he wouldn't notice me missing until some time later, and even then it would take some time to really invoke true alarm. As I walked through the unexpectedly warm air toward our apartment, I continued to feel peacefully alone. It reminded me of my many walks home in Ontario when I was living far away from anyone who really knew me when I felt sadly alone and the many walks home from the lab late at night when I was doing my PhD when I felt independently alone. Each of these times helped solidify the knowledge that I am solely responsible for me, my life, my body, my mind, my spirit, my soul. There is no one else in this world who has earned the right to care about me as much as I do, biologically or emotionally. I can love and be loved but ultimately, my life is mine to do with what I can, to flourish or to perish.

The freedom associated with feeling peacefully alone is incredibly powerful. It reminds me of my own inner strength and at the very same time it reminds me of my own inner weakness. I have neither the ability to survive on my own nor is it sustainable to depend on someone else entirely. Yet somehow, by caring for myself, I find a wholeness, a peaceful oneness within myself and with all of existence.

Clean Up Your Mental Clutter

2009-03-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

Clean up your mental clutter! It’s getting in the way of more creative and productive thinking, like thinking about that dream home or contemplating your career move. Or what about that book you want to write or that art class you want to take. Or the world hunger or world peace issue you’re going to solve. All of those beautiful and amazingly brilliant ideas that you have are been buried away under mental clutter! Clean it up this spring when you do all of your other cleansing:
• Clear up any loose ends – anything that’s been hanging around your to-do list for too long needs to go.
• Pay outstanding bills as soon as you can. Do it now just to experience a small amount of freedom from “owing”.
• Make that phone call that you’ve been putting off. You’ve probably spent 10x more mental energy avoiding it than it would have taken to make the call.
• Ditch the mental notes! Write down those mental sticky notes on to real paper and stop carrying them around. It uses up valuable hard drive space in your brain!
• Put away your clothes, books, papers, dishes etc. – anything that’s physical clutter. If you have physical clutter around you and you’re able to see it that information registers in your brain as “to do!”. That creates mental clutter.
• Reframe that negative thought that you can’t, shouldn’t, or aren’t. You can, should, and are amazing, beautiful, and intelligent – find out how that’s true for you! Don’t ask me, ask yourself!
• Get rid of the “should list”. That’s worse than the to-do list for mental clutter! ‘Shoulds’ are often our mind’s accumulation of what everyone ELSE wants us to do, say, or be, and it uses an enormous amount of mental energy. Imagine, all the damaging thoughts floating around your mind if you are working toward something that is not natural for you.
• Avoiding a potential confrontation? Yup, you’ve got to deal with that one too. It’s weighing on your mind and, yes, that creates mental clutter. The more time you spend thinking of how to avoid a confrontation or not dealing with it effectively, the less time you have to think about your dream homes and vacations.

Clean up your mental clutter so you can experience the birds singing, the crisp spring air, the sun rising earlier and earlier and setting later and later, and so much more. Then take a deep breath and embrace the refreshing cleanse! Complement it with a tall glass of lemonade sweetened with maple syrup!

Education

2009-03-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

"The world is that way, deceptive, the deceiving politicians, the money-minded... If you are not properly education you'll just slip into it. So what do you think is education? Is it to help you fit into the mechanism of the present order, or disorder, of things? Or do you think it should be something else? Is you education helping you to be intelligent? Surely education is not merely to give you knowledge, but also to give you the capacity to look at the world objectively. The function of education is to help you face the world in a totally different intelligent way. When you have that seed, and it is flowering here, then you will keep it going all of your life. But if this doesn't operate, then the world will destroy you. The world makes you what it wants you to be: a cunning animal." J. Krishnamurti

I don't care whether we are in studying at university, acquiring a trade, learning about humanity while working in retail, or understanding our capacity to survive despair. Education is all around us and most of it is free. The universities come from a heritage of good intentions but they are failing to do what is needed. They are failing to inspire us to learn, to be curious, to self-educate, to use our mind. Oprah is a better prof than many of those at our universities! We have this amazing capacity to be wise yet we fail to use it. Why? Because we are afraid and we are seeking external teachers to guide us and give us the knowledge we are thirsty for. The curiosity that will guide is all that we need. The curiosity is inherent inside of us. If you know it, follow it. Trust it. Be true to it. If you don't know it, look deeper. There IS something that you are curious about whether it's how the brain works, why nice people are nice, what makes the sky blue, what's going on over there in South East Asia, or why the hell is everyone ELSE so incompetent. Curiosity is the sort of education for which we receive no diploma! Curiosity allows us to go deeper. That IS education!

Colon Hydrotherapy

2009-03-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a colonic treatment. I haven't had one in a few months and it was great to get one. I felt incredibly light and refreshed and clean after! It's an amazing feeling of detoxification just knowing that toxins have been removed from my system, from my colon. My grandmother was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2000 and in less than a year she passed away. That experience became a major impetus in guiding me toward healthier eating habits, consisting mostly of more organic foods whenever possible. Since then, I have become a lot more knowledgeable about health eating - there's a lot more to know than just eat organic! I choose free range meats because after working in an animal lab researching stress, I have seen the horrible things that stress hormones do to an animal. I don't want to consume an chicken that has been stressed by living with 5 others in a pen the size of my toilet. I don't want to put that energy out into the universe and I don't want any more toxic stress hormones in my body. My liver has enough to deal with after being on the birth control pill for too long and taking chronic corticosteroids to help my eczema and to help my lab animal allergies (what irony that lab animals tend to pose as allergens for lab workers!) and choronic anti-histamine usage to also alleviate the latter. I've also spent many years popping Ibuprofen to IGNORE the pain that I was experiencing while playing sports or being dehydrated because I didn't drink enough water. Long story short: this posses a toxic load on my body. That, in addition to the cheeze whiz, fruit loops, and Uncle Ben's minute rice I ate growing up! I'm almost sick just thinking about it! And the million and one other toxins we encounter each day of our life in our shower, our water bottles, our teeth, our cell phones and wireless X, Y, and Z. Just imagine...

So I got a colonic treatment. I get one every once in awhile, less often than I should granted. But that's not enough. I don't take Ibuprofen any more - I drink water and I do yoga. I don't take corticosteroids or anti-histamines - I watch my diet and support my liver with glutathione and other anti-oxidants (thanks to my naturopathic doctor's advice). I don't take the birth control pill and I try to relax to keep those stress hormones down (yes, this is a tough one!). I use our infrared sauna to detoxify. I reduce my toxic load as much as I can. Coincidently, yoga also increases glutathione!

This is natural health care. This is holistic health. This is how I support my mind, body, and spirit to live a healthier life.

For more information on colonics click here.
For more information on Detox come to our free seminar by Dr. Sherisse O'Leary on Tuesday, March 24th at 7pm.
For more information on Stress, come to MY free seminar on Tuesday, March 24th, at 6pm.
For more information on Yoga and Detoxing, come to our workshop with Amanda McCarthy on Saturday, April 18th.
For more information visit us here!

3 Beliefs

2009-03-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

• BE OPEN! HIDE NOTHING.
My ultimate hope is that I can walk this world with 100% openness, which would include crying in front of others when I feel weak, accepting criticism without defense, acknowledging my own limits, speaking my truth at all times, and even material things like not wearing make-up, not straightening my hair, and hiding nothing financially. That’s a pretty huge goal, possibly unattainable, but the process of striving for that goal has allowed me to consider my own comfort zones and to expand those zones wheneve possible. I know I try to hide many of my weaknesses because I don’t always have the strength to let them be. More specifically, I rarely let people see me at my weakest point when tears are ready to fall and I don’t know what’s about to come out. I also know that I’m as open as I can be today and that I am getting more and more open with each moment. So the idea of “Be Open! Hide Nothing” is a process unfolding moment by moment rather than a statement, at least for me, at this point in my history.

• TRUST THE UNIVERSE!

• FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

Preparing for an Interview on Me

2009-03-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

The other day I got a phone call from the editor of OptiMYz magazine (David Holt) who I was working with for the cover story entitled The Power of You. He is a very intelligent man with lots of curiosity and great enthusiastic energy. He’s incredibly open in his ability to tell stories, teach, and listen – all of which seem to happen sincerely, honestly, and with integrity. He told me about when he was fully living in within his own power and everything was happening so effortlessly. With his inspirational energy I can only imagine that he quickly attracts like-passionate people into his life who inevitably support and propel his ideas. He also spoke about how quickly his plate filled – a common scheduling problem for passionately driven people like David! When I first met him several months ago he seemed fascinated by my eclectic background of psychology, neuroscience, life coaching, yoga, meditation, athletics, and holistic health, which seemed to prompt him to contact me about this cover story. He then decided that he was going to interview me for the story. When he asked me, I was ecstatic! In quickly envisioned my preparation process. I scribbled down several notes and in my master to-do list I included “think of potential interview questions”. I managed to find some time within the next few days to jot down a stream-of-consciousness list of points to remember and possible interview questions. I even found myself writing out some of the answers to the questions or otherwise getting lost in my mental answers and consumed be… me! I came up with the following questions to use for preparation. If you want to read the answers you can click on any one of them (coming shortly). In the meantime, feel free to reflect upon yourself!

• What are 3 points that I want to ensure that the reader gets?
• What’s the purpose of my life?
• What’s my source of motivation?
• How do I pick myself up when I get down?
• What’s my relationship with my body? Describe my struggle with body image and how to deal with it.
• What part of Balance do I struggle with most? How do I know when I’m out of Balance?
• Who’s been most inspirational to me?
• What do I do to relax?
• What experiences have been my best and my worst?

The Sunday evening after David asked me for the interview, I found myself at my Krishnamurti study group with Robert from the Yoga Loft – a group that I had happened to mention to David. He ended up coming to the group being interested in attending after having read Krishnamurti in his teenage years. At some point near the beginning of the group I found myself thinking “I hope I say something intelligent and insightful” in order to impress David and so that he could follow up on it during the interview. I was probably consumed by these thoughts for about 5 minutes or so. Then sometime later, I began to see the ridiculousness of my thinking. And then, I began to see the ridiculousness of most of my thoughts around this whole interview preparation! I realized the ridiculousness and contradiction to everything I believe and preach by “preparing” for this interview:
• BE OPEN! HIDE NOTHING.
• TRUST THE UNIVERSE!
• FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

Essentially, I was preparing to BE rather than letting myself BE. How ridiculous is the idea that I had any intention of needing to prepare for an interview on me just so that my ideas were heard. Granted, if I were giving a lecture or workshop or seminar on a particular topic, then by all means, I could prepare. And I understand fully that many people find it useful to prepare for interviews, especially on oneself. However, preparing for this interview would stand in complete contradiction to my beliefs, as listed above. What could I possibly need to prepare!? If I have any hopes of being completely open in this world, if I have an intentions of being as open as I possibly can at any given moment, what could I possibly need to prepare?! If I have any faith in the reality of this universe, in the true nature of events and the natural unfolding of each moment, moment by moment, what could I possibly need to prepare?! If I am to be what I am during this interview, and to continue to be lead by my heart and all that it gets me into what could I possibly need to prepare?!

I got a good laugh out of this realization. I stopped the ridiculousness and arrived at the interview as openly as I could having prepared nothing past that realization excited for any question that could emerge. Fortunately, David and Max (Brennan, owners of OptiMYz) are amazingly open and passionate and so it was quite easy to follow suit with them around!

The article is supposed to come out in the April addition of OptiMYz.

Speed Dating... Speed Mentoring?

2009-03-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

I found the event below in my inbox today from the University of Winnipeg Alumni. It is a unique Speed Mentoring event, based on the popular speed dating that is growing in popularity in our culture. I like the idea of getting through people quick and learning how to get to the core of what we are looking for and absorb as much as we can as quickly as we can. It makes sense in our society. But it does not make sense in the grand scheme of things. Seriously, why are we forcing ourselves to go so quick? Ultimately, this is not serving us. It is doing more harm than good. Our bodies and our environment cannot handle this pass. We are the source of our own stress. There is no one left to blame but the very minds that created these sorts of strategies. Enjoy if you like, but be forewarned: You, your mind, and all that your mind is holding on to from past experiences are the source of your own stress. Choose your activities consciously! I am not advising in any way, just offering each us the opportunity to consider our actions...

Share your experience and knowledge with students!
The University of Winnipeg Alumni Association and The University of Winnipeg Students Association are co-hosting a unique speed-mentoring event:

Thursday, March 19, 2009
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Bulman Centre Mezzanine (enter at Spence Street and go down stairway on left or take the elevator to level M)

We're looking for experienced professionals from a variety of fields, such as business, education, government, health care, finance and entrepreneurship to volunteer as mentors. By participating, you can help today's students plan their career paths by simply sharing your knowledge and experience.

To register as a mentor or for more information:

Phone: 204.988.7118
Email: alumni@uwinnipeg.ca

To love or to loath

2009-02-15T12:45:00.001-08:00

Some of us love the day and insist on being loved on this day. Some of us pretty much demand flowers, dates, candy, chocolate, breakfast in bed, etc. from our partners. Receiving these gifts are bittersweet if we are, in fact, demanding any of this. Some of us love this day because we feel entitled to demand attention and "love". Some of us love this day because it presents an excuse to express the love we already express throughout the year with a little more energy and flare to our friends, family, and of course, our special someone. There is also a group among us who loath this day with so much energy that it almost consumes our entire existence on this day and on the days leading up to it and perhaps even following it, especially when we see notes pop up the next day and were hoping it was gone for another 364 days! We loath it for several reasons including a complete dislike of the commercialization of, and capitalization upon, a raw emotion that really should be expressed each and every moment, not just on February 14th. Some of us loath this day because we feel alone and are envious of all those who are not suffering like we are.

Whether we love or loath this day, today is a day where we can examine our relationships, starting first with our relationship with Valentine's Day itself. How we greet it and celebrate it is an opportunity for self-reflection just as is any relationship in which we find ourselves - reflecting upon the energy that we emit to the people and world around us as a result in this relationship. Upon reflection, we are given the gift of awareness and allowed to proceed in this relationship consciously, choosing to continue to emit this energy as is or to soften or purify this energy in some way.

Valentine's Day also presents an opportunity for us to consider the most important relationship in our life. We can reflect upon this relationship and determine how pure, kind, loving, and compassionate we are with the most important person in our life. We can consider how we greet this individual every morning, how we celebrate his/her existence, how we interact with him or her when we are happy, angry, or distant. We can consider how we care for this person’s needs. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to honor, respect, and love this person with our entire heart. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to remind ourselves that this most important person is in fact our self, the very individual reading these words, the very individual who is with you your entire life, the very individual who has the most to lose when we make bad decisions, do not practice self care, and chose to ignore your desires and passions.

If you did not know that the person most important to you is, in fact, you then I encourage you to re-read the previous paragraph with this new knowledge allowing time for reflection. Upon reflection, we are given the gift of awareness and allowed to proceed in this relationship consciously, choosing to continue to emit the same energy as always or to soften and purify this energy in some way.

Moksha Yoga

2009-02-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning intending to go to Yoga with Robert (Level 1) and then stay for his Freestyle class, so that I could do 3 hours of yoga. I have not yet done this, outside of my yoga teacher training, and felt like I needed to ramp it up. Partially because I want to examine those upper limits of my edge, and partially because some of my students (e.g., GMo) are surpassing me in their abilities! ☺ I left the house in time for the 7:45 am class and a stop at Smith’s Bakery before to use the internet to send off a time-sensitive. However, the internet was not working (or didn’t exist, not really sure which). So I was forced downtown to find internet. I ended up at Smiling Goat, an organic coffee shop that I hadn’t been to in awhile. I was reminded of the contemporary relaxed atmosphere with a ton of natural light coming in!

En route downtown I decided that I was going to go to Hot Yoga at Moksha. I’ve only done it one other time, on my birthday, for a treat. For a girl who believes she was meant to have been born in the tropics, hot yoga IS a treat. You walk into the room at it is already warm even in shorts and a tank top. You immediately start to feel yourself starting to break a sweat. Today, hot yoga was the best option for yoga. I have been fighting a cold and already enjoyed the infrared sauna at Balance as an opportunity to sweat and detox, hoping to rid myself of my cold. So why not combine the detox of a sauna with yoga? That’s essentially what hot yoga is. Personally, I don’t find hot yoga particularly physically challenging in terms of physical strengthening. I much prefer Robert’s Kripalu-Ashtanga mix, which is what I strive to teach myself (e.g., Mindful Yoga or Boot Camp Yoga), albeit with much less experience than Robert. Moksha, for me, about sweating and warmth and I was very happy to enjoy it today. It reminded me of my favorite ultimate tournament in Boston in 2006 when it was a scorching sunny 38 degrees and we played 5 games in one day from 9 am till 7pm with nothing but 2 hrs of a break – dangerous, yet, but for me, heat and sweater are performance enhancing. It also reminds me of similar experiences growing up in Winnipeg with scorching hot summer soccer games in 40 degree weather (that’s PLUS 40, not negative – we go to both extremes in fact!).

Moksha yoga today ended with savasana, as any yoga practitioner would expect; however, it was much less satisfying than I have come to expect as both a student and a teacher. At Moksha, you’re allowed to come out of savasana at your own will – great in many regards but not for the hyper-stressed humans that plague our continent. For those who know no better, savasana is endured, but for those who have come to appreciate it, it is a sanctuary – a place where we finally give ourselves permission to relax. In fact, I often ask my students to give themselves permission to relaxe because it is such a foreign concept for many of us. After resting in savasana for about 90 seconds, I started to hear the first person leave, then another, and another. The experience was much less than relaxing, admittedly because of my own inability to let those distractions go. I sympathize with those individuals who were not able to stay for more than a few minutes. I remember a time when I laid in savasana with my eyes open not really understanding the purpose of the posture or the experience. Hoewever, there must also rest some responsibility on the teacher, the class, or the studio to maintain the integrity of savasana a little more than what they are at Moksha. I think. On the one hand, just offering yoga in any capacity is promoting yoga whether or not there is savasana. And if students are able to concentrate their minds for any portion of the practice, be it in savasana or any other posture, then kudos! That’s probably more than they were able to before starting yoga. I also acknowledge that yoga has been completely bastardized in the West, likely to the dismay of many yogis and yoginis in the East. But in the West’s defense, every little bit helps and starts to promote the yoga life. I was impressed when I heard that Yoga Loft’s Seth Daley said to my friend Lindsay while she was working at Lulu Lemon that even Lulu Lemon can be a good thing for spirits by provoking the tiniest little yoga spark in us. Even if one’s yoga experience begins with walking through the door of Lulu Lemon, it’s provoking that yoga desire in all of us. So Kudos to you Lulu for making our butts look better and for igniting our yoga light! Regardless, I still argue for the preservation of savasana. At the very least, I was personally able to continue to enjoy it for however long I chose today at Moksha. I stayed there till the very end, after everyone had left. I even stayed until after all the yoga mats were gone (people leave them to dry out while they shower). I laid on my back for awhile. Then I laid on my front. I imagined that I was laying on the beach in the sun. I laid there for probably 15 minutes, appreciating the opportunity to NOT be waiting in line with 20 other women for the 2 showers, fighting to use the mirror to put on make-up, and generally, not being in other women’s way or having women be in my way. The 60-minute class ended up being a great 2-hr tropical snapshot in this Halifax winter. And to top it all off, I walked out to another Prairie-like blue sky and sun, which has graced our presence in Halifax more often than not this winter!

Following My Heart not My Mind

2009-01-25T17:18:00.000-08:00

A post from Sept 2008 on Facebook:

There will be some big decisions for me to make in the next year, in fact, there will always be some big decisions to make in my life every few years. It is part of my nature to explore new boundaries regularly. In order to grow, I must explore my edge, and test the limits of my own (and other people’s) comfort zone.

Navigating through life requires a fine balance between following one’s heart and abiding by the logic instilled in one’s mind. The heart – sometimes known as intuition, god, dharma, etc. – leads with passion and can invoke a sense of fear and overwhelm as if we have no control over our self, over our mind. Despair is invoked when the heart knows that the self will not follow. The heart is ruled by ancient wisdom and ultimately, cannot fail to lead us properly. The mind, in contrast, leads from an accumulation of information received from the environment, including parents, society, partners, to-do lists – formulating a set of “shoulds” and “should nots”. The mind is ruled by knowledge. Existing with two leaders – the heart and the mind – can create conflict as the two fail to appreciate each other’s language and abilities. The conflict manifests itself as an inability to make decisions, at all or easily. Managing this conflict requires an honoring and balancing of each leader’s strengths, beginning with acknowledgement of the extent to which each is present in any given decision.

The trick of separating a page into two columns of “Pros” and “Cons” is useful for activating the mind and its leadership by knowledge. Separating the page into Heartfelt and Mindthoughts* begins to balance the two. Within the mindthoughts column include all the practical limits and rules by which you need to live your life in your given society. This column then serves as an amalgamation of your pros and cons knowledge. Within the heartfelt column include that which is felt to be true, with all your heart, passionately. This may not help you today, in this decision, but if you trust that you are cultivating the skills necessary for a life-long journey of decisions, you will find your decisions come more easily.

As I prepare for my big decisions, I go valiantly, trusting my heart and trusting that the universe will offer me all the knowledge necessary for my mind to understand. Eventually, my mind will bow down to my heart, acknowledging its supporting role. Eventually, my mind will settle into being led.

*Yes, this is a term that I just coined. I’m a psychologist, and that’s what psychologists do, they make up terms attempting to capture what language simply cannot capture.

Torn

2009-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had my first official energy therapy session. I met it with deep anticipation, particularly after a coincidental encounter the day before with a Reiki Master massage therapist. After the massage, he asked if he could scan my Chakras and I agreed with intrigue. I have never had my chakras tested even though one of our naturopaths do it. I was curious about my chakras but by the end, I felt like a complete energetic mess! The only chakra that was spinning at all was my throat chakra (not surprisingly given that I’m rather free with my speech) while all other chakras were in complete disarray. The experience itself was intellectually very stimulating but energetically it was confusing – I felt like I had so much work to do on myself but had no idea where to start.

Consequently, I came to my scheduled energy therapy session the next day with little hope rather than the excitement with which I had felt previously. I conveyed this to the therapist but she re-assured me that I was ok and that chakras can be affected by many stimuli, including routine traffic. She asked me many questions and the focus soon narrowed onto my hips – not any past lives that I originally intended to inquire about. But rather, on the pain and troubles in my hips. I have had physical pain in my hips for about 5 years. I had tight IT bands and bursitis during the last year of varsity hockey at Dalhousie. It started the summer before when I started playing ultimate Frisbee. The pain was so horrible that summer that I could not sit for more than one minute on the plastic patio furniture that lined the downtown streets of Halifax in the summer without fidgeting from agony.

This pain morphed several times in later years but I do not recall any of it before that summer. That summer was the summer of pain, but interestingly, the summer was also a time when I was conflicted – emotionally torn between two guys. At that time it seemed of ultimate importance that I decide which of the two was the one with who I was destined to be. My future appeared – to me at the time – to hinge on this decision. I even sought out the guidance of a psychic from Little Mysteries, a local bookstore, when seemed clear that I could not otherwise resolve this conflict. At some point the pain morphed but into something more elusive and broad and was aggravated by lonely walks home from the ultimate field – a time when I felt separated from my ultimate community, as I described in an earlier posting.

Another distinct manifestation of the pain in my hips arose this past summer. I remembered one walk home from ultimate in particular when I was in excruciating pain. Mike was away and I was walking home with our roommate/friend Kryz. I was half-heeled over with sharp pains radiating up the muscles of my anogenital region(literally the region between the anus and the genitals). I felt like I was splitting apart starting at the bottom of my pelvic floor – tearing at the seams. Torn emotionally by an important decision looming in my head – to follow my love to Toronto or to continue to follow my heart in Halifax.

During my energy therapy session, I was asked several questions leading back to a pivotal point when my parents were divorced. A time when I was just hitting puberty and my family was splitting. My therapist began draining stagnant energy from my legs and then she focused on my root chakra – my security, my home base, my family, my stability, my roots. The root chakra is at the base of the pelvic region “encased” by the hips. My therapist worked to energetically suture my hips and to facilitate healing from my torn past – a past that was further aggravated by splits, separations, and tearing at the seems. We visualized – my roots firmly planted in the soil, my family and my whole tribe, and my secure home base. I was to continue to do so on my own, sewing my seeds for growth. I was told I would experience pain after this work. I did. I equated this pain to the kind of pain one feels when one’s dislocated shoulder must be placed back in its socket!

Energy therapy, admittedly, is a mystery to me although I use the term "energy" quite confidently. I believe in energy because I experience it. I feel it when people emit negative energy. I feel it when I emit negative energy. I feel it when someone drains me of my energy. I feel it when there is a tension between two people. I feel that there is an energy that exists around us that can sometimes manifest as love. I know that negative energy is toxic and that the energy gets toxic when it is stored and accumulates inside our body. I know that negative energy needs to be released from the mind, the body, and the spirit so that the three can unite freely and be one. I know that when positive energy IS released from the mind, the body, and the spirit, there is beauty.

The mystery of energy still exists for me. Part of me wants to keep this mystery alive. Sometimes we lose something beautiful in pursuit of deeper understanding. Whether I come to a deep understanding of energy is the product of particular moments. In the meantime, I am excited to suture where I have torn – energetically, emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, and intuitively.

My Heart Be

2009-01-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

I received an email response from one of my teachers, Jody Myers, with whom I trained to become a certified yoga teacher. I had emailed her to tell her how excited I was about a new class I started at the clinic. I was describing how my verbal cues are getting so much better that I barely did any physical demonstrations, a tactic I like to employ in order to offer a more internal experience for my students. I talked about how much I have been resonating with my mentor Robert’s wisdom and how I am participating in his new study group. She responded with this “You are an intellectual, a heart person and a kinaesthetic person - you could teach any way you like....just teach naturally..and find your own way to authentically express yourself in this world.” An intellectual, a heart person, and a kinesthetic person – a brilliant way of saying ‘mind-body-spirit’ or in my preferred terminology, mind-body-heart. For the rest of the day, I reflected upon the balance required among all three. For me, at this time in my life, my intellectual side dominates – likely because it was suppressed when I was young and failing most of my high school classes. ☺ Mike and I call this dominance of intellect or tendency toward engaging thought ‘intellectual masturbation’ because it really is a matter of seeking intense stimulation despite all else. There are many times when my thoughts are orgasmic. I have often felt that I could entertain myself for hours if stuck in the woods alone. And I find my own jokes hilarious, which is great because I always have constant entertainment. As my mind dominates, my body is neglected. I avoid exercising and often it takes so much effort to pull myself away from my thoughts even to go to an ultimate (Frisbee) practice, do yoga, or even just move my body after hours of thought, all of which I know I enjoy once I get my body moving. Honoring my body in all ways is something that I am proud to be working on. My heart sometimes is forced to bow down to my head as it too is neglected in times of intense intellectual masturbation. At times, my heart is confused by my mind when the thoughts are not pleasant. It is these times that I feel confused and unable to make a decision. Ultimately, my best decisions are felt, not thought. My heart has been guiding me most of my life. I remember earlier times when I was brought to tears at the mere thought of dolphins jumping through the beautiful ocean and my hopes of being a marine biologist (which in some form is still part of my 40-year plan!). I remember earlier times when I was brought to tears at the thoughts of how complex the brain was and how excited I was to study it. Although my heart has been damaged in the past when my parents divorced, or when I moved from Winnipeg, or ended a relationship, I am open to the repair. Ultimately, it know, feel, and sense that it is the balance of all three – mind, body, heart – that is necessary for that true balance. And the journey of getting there is in itself rewarding. It’s a practice.

Jody also offered me another wise quote that resonated with me "Kripalu Yoga speaks directly to the heart, and then flows out to work with the body. Most other forms start with the body and extend to the heart. This is a powerful twist. With Kripalu Yoga, there is an immediate acceptance of individuality, and an inherent permission to move the body as guided from within. With this approach, truly big things can happen on the mat." - Kim Ellner

And then later that day I found myself on my mat, doing yoga in Mike’s class. I felt tears coming to me nearing the end of the closing postures. This often happens when I am deep within feeling the release of tension in areas of my body that are injured or tightly bound and have been for years. The tears serve as an emotional release and are completely uncontrolled, paralleling the release in physical tension. Every time it happens it is beautiful and welcomed. I found my way down into savasana for relaxation. Not long after, someone’s cell phone began to ring. With the first ring my mind went, “Whose phone is that? I can’t believe they didn’t turn it off. Are they going to turn it off or leave it? What would I do? I can see not turning it off because then you would have to acknowledge to everyone that it’s your phone and it’s probably more disruptive to go get the phone at this point. I wonder how they are feeling?” With the second ring my mind settled as I remembered where I was again and I began to embrace the ring into my experience and felt the beautiful sounds of the phone softly ringing in my ears and in my entire body. With the third ring, I felt the entire experience extend beyond my body into my whole being, my spirit. My heart ached as I was welcomed back into my experience of savasana. Two tears ran down my cheek. I continued to lay there feeling my heart be.

Science

2009-01-10T19:31:00.000-08:00

I was on the bus (again) riding to the clinic to teach yoga. As I sat down a wave of scents ran up my nose and within milliseconds I was immediately brought back to my grade 12 trip to Paris. The smell was gone within seconds but the feeling of Paris lingered for several moments. And then my mind wondered onto the neuroscience of my experience.

Smell is received through chemoreceptors, in through the olfactory nerves and from there is transmitted to many brain areas including the olfactory cortex and eventually is projected to limbic areas of the brain. The limbic system is known for its role in memory and emotionality, particularly areas like the hippocampus and amygdala. Smell can in fact invoke intense emotional memory, most likely because of this connection with the limbic system. Smell, just like all the other senses, is an example of information transmitted from one receiver to another. Hearing involves soundwaves or frequencies resonating in the cochlea, which is then transmitted via fluid vibrations into electrical information to the brain resulting in our eventual perception of things like words. Taste is a chemical message received on our taste receptors (sour, salty, sweet, bitter, and more recently unami) and transmitted to our brain. Touch is transduced through mechanoreceptors that respond to pressure, generally on this skin. Sight begins as wavelengths hitting our photoreceptors in our retina. These wavelengths must match up with the photoreceptors specifically designed to ‘catch’ the wavelength, which is why we are unable to see ultraviolet and infrared. The visual signal is eventually transmitted to the cortex of our brain where it is interpreted and matched with previous experience. Interestingly, there are actually brain areas that are specifically designed to perceive stimuli like lines and movement* and when those areas are damaged, we lose those perceptions.

These traditional senses have long been taught as the 5 senses but many others have entered the neuroscience curriculum as primary senses even since my time as an undergraduate student, including proprioception (sense of balance), thermoception (sense of temperature), nocioception (sense of pain), kinesthesia (sense of joint movement), magnetoception (sense of magnetic forces – my good friend Neil can talk about this ad nausea). We could even go so far as to say that we have a primary sense of time, a sense of daylight, and I would even argue for a sense of insight or intuition – which is in fact studies scientifically, albeit one that is often ignored and dwindles in a lose-it-or-lose-it fashion much like the rest of the brain! The addition of these other primary senses, and any debate surrounding their validity, demonstrates that the scientific truth that provides their foundation is equivocal, which begs the question, what is science if not the truth?

As a scientist, I have seen knowledge or “truth” change many times, even in my limited time on the bench. I was once inspired by a lecture at the Society of Neuroscience on the history of memory by James McGaugh, and came away not with new knowledge of memory per se but with an appreciation that everything changes. Even what we know today, knew yesterday, and will come to know tomorrow changes. And so as much as I respect and appreciate the scientific process, I am aware enough to appreciate its limitations. Science is a systematic or methodological investigation of phenomena through observation and experimentation. In my opinion, science is a way of knowing that has almost become analogous with “clinical trial” or “studies with control groups”. However, this is not an accurate representation of science. Science comes from the Latin word scientia meaning ‘knowledge’ or ‘having knowledge’. Some definitions restrict science to “the state of knowing”. Science, then, is not limited by our ability to capture knowledge. This ultimate knowledge, the nature of how things really are, is science. In fact, we may begin to consider nature (all that exists in the physical world) itself as purely scientific. As my wonderful evidence-based naturopathic colleague Dr. Rosalyn Hayman, ND articulated so passionately at our recent team meeting “nature is science” and continued to convey her understanding of the intelligence of nature to be an ultimate example of science.

Effectively, science is an all-encompassing knowledge base of how things really are, which is not limited to our relative knowledge (i.e., that which we know now) but rather is accepted as the absolute knowledge or absolute truth (i.e., that which really is). Science is, in fact, limitless and has only recently been bound by our incredible dependency on technological advances. It is the scientists (the seekers of knowledge) and the scientific methodology that are limited.

I came to science as someone who was deeply interested in and passionate about the mysteries of this world. As a child I enjoyed unsolved mysteries, particularly those that seemed to defy “reality” like people vanishing into thin air, UFOs, ghosts, and other paranormal phenomena. This deep interest eventually lead me into several degrees in psychology and some in neuroscience, ultimately earning me the title of “Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience and Psychology”. I have enjoyed my time as a conventional scientist but I assure you that I am equally enjoying my return to my life as an “alternative scientist”, where I study but not by convention. What is true will always be out there elusively, or more realistically, in here, in our very own example of nature that we live with our entire lives. The truth of our entire existence is right here in front of us and in us. And our current scientific methods are not yet sophisticated enough to be able to tell me that the laws of nature that exist in me and define my existence are not detectable, or “able to be sensed” by my very own mind or body. Maybe this detection is intuition. Maybe it is a culmination of information transmitted by olfactory (smell), optic (vision), and auditory (sound) neurons. Maybe it is a sense that has not yet been transduced to a truth. Whatever it is, I am connected to it and I enjoy being a scientist exploring it.

*For an interesting read on neuropsychological cases of altered perception consult the brilliant author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, in which he describes tales of seeing voices and neurodegenerative color blindness as two example.

Being Tagged in a Photo

2009-01-04T10:18:00.001-08:00

I was recently tagged in a facebook photo. I always get excited to see what the photo is, often, admittedly, because I’m hoping that I will look good. This particular photo was tagged by someone who I haven’t seen in years, so my initial reaction was somewhat apprehensive thinking something along the lines of “oh god, what will it be?” hoping it wasn’t something crazy from when my party alter-ego Candy came out to play! ☺ I clicked on the facebook notification that directed me to the photo. At first, I couldn’t see myself and then I noticed that I was the one standing there in this thin body with my nicely defined abdominal and arm muscles exposed. Once I noticed “me” I was flooded with emotions of sadness, defeat, disgust – and not with my former self, but with my current self because I no longer looked like that. I stared at this photo for probably about 20 minutes, trying to get a sense of reality – I looked so good there! I was so disciplined with my fitness regime! Why do I no longer look like this? What’s wrong with me?

I carried around these emotions for much of the day letting myself be punished for no longer looking like that. I kept going back to that photo over and over again trying to understand how I am here now in this mind and body and was there before in that mind and body.

The emotions slowly lessened in intensity, which provided me with the space to evaluate this whole experience. I actually began to think about my state of mind at the time when I looked like that. I remembered several key points. 1. I was in physical pain. I was playing a lot of ultimate (Frisbee) without warming up (because I was working too much and didn’t have “time” for that). I would walk home from the fields in absolute pain hunched over half way because my low back and hips were so tight I could not even walk upright. And then I would wake up early the next morning and go for a run – ignoring and further aggravating my pain. I would come home nauseous but pleased at having ran my intended distance or time. 2. I was also in emotional pain. I had finished my PhD and was working too much in a post-doctoral position that I didn’t like. I was also dealing with finding a new niche in my ultimate community after having ended a relationship with someone from that community. I was feeling isolated from a world that was both my competitive and social outlets.

As I described earlier in Body Monologue, I am working on developing a positive relationship with my body. This experience of torturing myself with thoughts of wanting to look a different way is not productive and is ridiculous but the reality is that these thoughts still plague me on occasion, although they do so with less intensity as I listen with more compassion. Part of developing this new relationship involves honoring whatever comes up and yesterday, grieving for a past me came up. I didn’t like how I was feeling but I continued to be with it, rather than running away – somewhat literally! As a result, I also began to realize how looking a certain way in the past came with a tremendous amount physical and emotional pain, pain that I’m not interested in attracting any more. When I run now, I do so compassionately, paying as much attention to my physical body as I can in order to nurture it and let is rest if it needs to. The only way I know how to nurture and be compassionate with myself is to listen openly so that I can hear when something needs to change. Listening has also helped me realize my own patterns of nature. My reality is that in the winter I retreat, hibernate of sorts, and, essentially, am “lazier”. My reality is also that I adore the summer – the heat, the sun, the long days. I will wake up early to go for a beautiful run with Jett just to enjoy the silence and nature. I am much more alive. For whatever reason, this is my natural pattern, as it presents itself to me. So be it. Now, when I run, I MUST remind myself of what I am running for, which is in fact for the purpose of running itself and to feel my body strengthening and conditioning and so I can feel alive, not to run away from any emotional pain or into any physical pain.

Content with Being Content

2009-01-03T11:40:00.001-08:00

Are you content with being content? Or are you liable to awake in the future to the knowledge that you are not and meet that knowledge with feelings of depression, regret, unrest, or drive to recapture your youth?

Or are you following your dreams right now? Sensing your inspiration fully? Unable to accept being content with contentment?

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May the Universe Bring You All that You Require

2009-01-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

and may you be open enough to receive it.

I just received the that inspiration as a text message from my wonderful tulip buddy Charles.

There are answers, teachers, truth, knowledge all around us in familiar and unfamiliar forms. We may look at a snow drift and see a slippery slope and realize we need to be careful. We may see the shadow of a house and see that we need to step into the light to make real change. We may overhear a mother say to her child "you can do it" and we feel our own potential bursting inside. We may get advice from a friend and come away with a sense of support. We may put on our coat and understand our own nature of self-protection. Or we may have a conversation that takes on a completely different direction and be reminded of a past we thought we overcame.

The opportunities for us to live in the spirit of our own intuition, our own guidance, is right here, with us at all time. We are intimately connected with our self, each other, and the entire universe. We may pay attention to any element of the universe to accept its offerings to fulfill our needs. Just go. Just trust.

May the universe bring you all that you require and may you see as much of it as you can this year, this day, this hour, this moment.

Thanks for the wish Carly!

Whatever Sinks Your Boat

2008-12-28T14:42:00.000-08:00

I was sitting at the kitchen table with Mike talking about life in old age. I was wondering about how I might feel nearing the end of my life once deemed myself as “accomplished”, having done everything I intended to do – namely having become famous. ☺ It occurred to me that I might be quite depressed because at some point at the end of my life I would have no goal for the future, no thing for which I strive, no journal of ideas, no list of future experiments or projects that I just can’t get to right now, and would have exhausted my “what I’ll do when I retire” list. At some point I would actually have to settle into having no goal for the future. At some point I may have nothing more to want and nothing yet to achieve. And that this could be quite depressing.

In fact, many people do feel unsettled or depressed after some big accomplishment (e.g., finishing a degree, getting married, securing “the” job) particularly when they are driven by the energy of the goal throughout the journey and cannot settle until a new goal is found. Often times we attach ourselves to our goals – we become addicted to them and the future that they represent. The attachment to our goals represents our inability to settle in the present and consequently we constantly striving toward the future – some accomplishment, some achievement, some better time than now. Goal-oriented people can be highly productive in society; however, it can come at a cost of our own personal wellbeing. When our lives are completely consumed with the ideas, thoughts, goals, plans etc. of the future we miss out on the beauty of our existence right now. For some of us, that’s a scary place – a place that represents inactivity, boredom, blah. This addiction with the future manifests in many creative ways in us. For some of us, it manifests in our “seeking” behaviour – seeking adventure, stimulation, to truth, knowledge, happiness, personal development, salvation. For some of us, it manifests in lack of commitment – failing to commit in our relationship, our job, our city, our country.

I continued to ramble on to Mike about the potential misery of my future because, of course, I will get to a point where I will have achieved my goals. The rewarding journey will come to an end. I will BE without a goal or a future, literally. As some people look back with regret about all of which they failed to accomplish, I will be depressed by having nothing to look forward to. At that moment Mike looked at me and said so simply, “Whatever sinks your boat”. As the clever words rolled off his tongue I was once again defeated by the very wisdom that energizes me as I was reminded of my own addiction to my mind, my thoughts, my ideas, my goals – the same energy that “floats my boat” has the power to sink it! Quod me nutrit me destruit. Every time that I engage in my thoughts, my ideas, my mind’s activity, I invoke equally the opportunity to both nourish and destroy myself – the truth that continues to manifest itself in everything that I do.

What nourishment is liable to destroy you? What destruction is the key to your own nourishment? What fear is the truth expected of you? What capacity is impeding you?
What gift is killing you?

The Truth In Nature

2008-12-27T19:39:00.001-08:00

There is something soothing to just observe what is going on in the present moment. I find myself in that space frequently when I’m with my animals, either at home when I’m watching Jett and Pickles interact – and I’m absolutely enthralled with dog-cat interactions! – or when I’m out watching Jett interact with other dogs or with nature itself. I could lose myself watching animals being.

Animals represent a truth in nature. They simply exist with the biology with which they were born. They expect no more and use all of their skills to the fullest (when not impeded by human behavior and expectations).

My animals are my teachers.

They are simple, kind, playful, loving, real. I can only wish in my wildest dreams to approach a truth like the one that they represent. They are wise beyond belief just like nature. They follow the laws of nature perfectly because they are uncomplicated by the sophisticated mind that plagues our human existence. We struggle with using our natural “god-given” skills to their fullest potential in search of security – financial, social, personal. Our nature predisposes us to some particular path in this life – be it an athlete, a politician, a teacher, a doctor, a janitor, a beggar, a medical intuitive, whatever it may be*. It may not be what we hope for or expect or what our parents hope for and expect but there IS a natural place for us in this world. Dogs, animals, understand this law, this truth in nature. Why don’t we?

What is your truth? What is the truth of your biological existence? Are you naturally tall or short? Fat or skinny? Smart or dumb? Male or female? Gay or straight? Artistic or musical? Dying to speak up? Trapped in a relationship that you know is not you? Ignoring a talent that may not be practical but might give you more joy than you’ll know what to do with? Regretting a path that lingers in your mind still?

What is your truth? And why are you not honoring?

*just because you may be one of those things, it does not mean that you are predisposed to it. Don’t take for granted that you HAVE followed your truth biological destiny unless you have examined it fully.

Lessons from the past

2008-12-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

The more aware we become of how we exist in this life, the more we are able to properly place ourselves in situations that serve us, rather than inhibit our natural talents. The lessons from the past are there to guide us into the future. "Letting go" is often misunderstood to refer to the event itself, when in fact it simply refers to the negative energy associated with the event. When we let go of the negative energy of the past while still remaining aware of how the events affected us the lesson emerges and we become positively energize for the future. To let go, we must go through with eyes wide open and then the true value of the lesson emerges as we experience our life in a new way. In this way we learn from the past, rather than hide from it and inevitably we halt a negative pattern.

Food for thought:
1. What was my "theme" for 2008?
2. Is this theme different or the same as previous years?
3. What drained my energy in 2008?
4. What gave me energy in 2008?
5. What can I leave in 2008 and what can I take to 2009?
6. What am I holding on to?

Workshop on this topic:
Tuesday, December 30th at 6:30
for more details

Etcetera

2008-12-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

Etcetera

We are ALL searching for some kind of happiness, ease, freedom, fame, security, worth, awareness, knowledge, help, epiphany, guidance, direction, reminder, enhancement, satisfaction, passion, filler for the void, purpose in life, etc. We could never exhaust this list because there are infinite definitions of this same intention.

The underlying nature of this intention is the same for us all. We are actually seeking to be – free, one, complete, wise, loved, true, real, aware, etc. Some traditions, philosophies, belief systems, etc. call this wisdom God, soul, spirit, etc. Some call this the Buddha nature, inner self, witness, observer, etc. Some call this dream, inner child, passion, etc. Some call this universal energy, unconditional love, compassion, yin-yang, life force, Prana, mysticism, wicca, mother earth, etc. It’s all the same. We are all attempting to get [t]here, whether we do that through religion, personal development, science and academia, world travel, literature, art, nature, etc. Every creation (human, animal, plant, mineral, etc.) in this world is an expression of that inner nature, God, dharma, love, path, etc. The etcetera is as infinite as our capacity to think.

As I continue to struggle with my efforts for ever-inclusive language I find my list getting longer and longer and my awareness expanding. My once rejected word ‘god’ has now taken on a new and improved beauty transformed as I explored other “ways of knowing”. Now, when I speak of ‘god’ to those for whom that term makes the most sense, I do so sincerely knowing that ultimately, we are all taking about the same thing whether we call it spirit, energy, inner self, ultimate truth, god, etc. When I use the words energy, universe, purpose in life, love, heart, etc. I use them inclusively recognizing that certain words feel right for me and offer them to others simply as my personal understanding.

The holiday season is an opportune time to nurture our understanding that we are all trying to be human as best that we can with what we were given biologically and environmentally. This season is an opportune time to expand ‘etcetera’ as a small step toward inclusiveness and a return to oneness. Take time to sincerely consider how the way you understand some element of this world, universe, human nature, spirituality, religion, etc. may in fact be rooted in the same underlying truth as someone who understands the same element through different means. Believe, even for a moment, that the truth as you know it is exactly the same as the truth as someone else knows it, limited only by definitions, categories, labels, language and languaging, etc.

Next time you use your language, try adding “or” with at least one other term that you can accept as being an equal and then actually believe it to be equal.

When Clarity Emerges

2008-12-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

The answer is simple: When your heart tells you that you’re done, right, ok, better, ready, whatever is when the answer emerges. Your heart speaks to you very loudly but your mind gets in the way often. This is why you spin endlessly out of control and get consumed by your own thoughts - the reason I recognize this so clearly is because I know that pattern. I struggle with it a lot and was contemplating it this morning. Historically, I wrack my brain trying to "find the answer" when in fact the answer is often right there in front of me. It's often the answer that I don't want to be true – the answer that I want to ignore because I don't have a paradigm into which to incorporate the answer. For months I went through a dilemma of whether to stay or go. My mind was metaphorically going back and forth and then, with such beauty, grace, and wisdom clarity emerged! The struggle was actually the answer: GOING BACK AND FORTH! Literally, traveling back and forth was the answer to a dilemma of whether to leave or stay in Halifax.

I got quite a bit of clarity on this metaphorical answer when I was preparing for a workshop on Clarity for my Career/Life Transitions monthly drop-in workshop. I was creating an exercise to invite people to explore their patterns of clarity and lack of clarity. I invite you to do the same.

When are you clear?
What does clear feel like?
How do you know when you are clear?
How do you know when you are unclear?
What does it feel like?
What is always present when you are clear and what is always present when you are unclear?
What purpose does YOUR lack of clarity serve?
What have you learned from your lack of clarity in the past?

I had already come to the decision of going back and forth but the beauty was in the reminder of how the universe offers its wisdom. For me, the way the universe speaks is as breathtaking as any other piece of nature like the Atlantic Ocean or the prairie sky. We are all one and we all have the capacity to listen to how nature speaks whether it does so through our heart, our friends, the energy and environment around us, god, the wind, etc. When clarity emerges, we have just finished listening.

The reality is, whatever it is with which you are struggling likely isn't that difficult of a decision in theory. If you trust yourself, the answer is clear and right there in front of you, around you, in you. If you don't trust yourself, ask yourself why not? What are you afraid of? Destroy that fear and then clarity will emerge. In theory... you already know everything. In practice, we all need to develop our capacity to listen. Ask then listen.

Dedication: Chaz

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Fresh Perspective

2008-10-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting in the Superstore with my computer and a coffee in the second-floor eatery. I’m here because it’s across the street from where I work and I stopped here to get some pre-work work done before I go in. And there’s no other coffee place that’s on my way. The coffee I’m drinking is not fair trade organic, which is not my preference. The locale is in a grocery store, which is not my preference. The people are not similarly-minded coffee-shop goers, which is not my preference. However, despite this, there is something refreshing about being here in this new environment. Sometimes we need to put ourselves in different places in order to gain a fresh perspective. Sometimes our familiar surroundings keep us from looking outside of ourselves because nothing novel is calling to us. Familiarity comforts us. It keeps us within our own mind, self-stimulating. Until there is something novel, we remain there. External novelty alerts our brains to the world outside of our own mind. Novelty invokes physical changes in our brains. It is part of our survival mechanism. Without novelty our brain would not be able to react to changes and dangers in our world. Novelty is important for survival and important for seeing things that we weren’t previously alerted to.

What subtle nuances might you be missing if comforted by familiarity? What insights could be gained by changing your world ever so slightly? What could you see that you didn’t otherwise see? I challenge you to find your fresh perspective by altering one thing in your external world and letting the novelty of the situation guide you toward a fresh perspective.

for those who question or are questioned

2008-10-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

The problem.
I’m sorry if you don’t understand my methods. I sorry if what I’m doing and how I’m navigating through life doesn’t fit with convention as you know it. But I’m not going to stop and it might even get worse. I’m at a point where I can’t turn back. I want to test the limits of my own faith. I want to test my possible delusions.

Why?
I have an energy inside me that won’t settle and it’s guiding me in my life (thanks to my mom for that inheritance). Inevitably, as I listen to this energy I disappoint people. This energy, or intuition as I also call it, is the only thing that feels natural to follow. The rules of the world, practicality, money, none of those things are my driving force. There is a problem in the developed world and I’m not happy with it. There is tremendous mental suffering. People are dying because of it. People are walking around wanting to die because of it. People are living without even knowing they are living and hoping they can just escape from living. People are ruining the world because we have this craving to DO rather than to BE. The unsettled feeling of suffering is the source of our craving – our craving to escape from our pain: mental, physical, emotional, intellectual, even spiritual. We cannot just sit with our own emptiness. Try it! Next time you have a craving. Just sit there, explore all the sensations that make it up. Explore the mind, the body, the spirit. Most of us don’t even know what that means. We have no concept of how to do that or that to do that even exists as a concept or an option. Maybe you have a craving for sweets or starches. Maybe you have a craving to feel full or empty. Maybe your craving is to buy something, or gamble, or smoke, or do drugs – prescribed or elicit. Maybe you have a craving to end your life. These are all the same cravings, perhaps only differing on degree of harm to the physical body. I have a role in all this. I have been curious about the mind for as long as I have known (thanks to my father for that inheritance). How is it that this suffering arises? How can we ease it? How do we know things, remember things, think things, create things, understand things. The mind is very complex and with all my years of study, it’s only been revealed to be more complex. I started in Psychology, and although that sounds conventional, consider my upbringing. No one before me in my family completed a university degree. Where did I find support and encouragement? Sure, my family encouraged me and supported me financially, but without a clear understanding of the journey on which I was embarking. How could they possibly understand what I was doing? So ultimately, my drive came from inside. I was never told to go to university. I went because I was following my intuition to learn about the mind. To follow this energy, I moved away very reluctantly – some of you will remember me crying as I drove away and my dad remembers me crying all the way to Sudbury! I left my family, my friends, my dog, my boyfriend, my sports, my life, never to come back. I left a life that for the most part was satisfactory. I grieved heavily. During the process I suffered tremendous despair. I was too low to even be suicidal, I had no energy to even consider a way out. I was clinically depressed. I didn’t shower, I didn’t eat and then I ate too much, I cried every moment that I could. I was paralyzed at times by the depth of my own sadness and attachment for what I once was and had. Where did the strength to persevere come from? That very same energy that I follow today. Perhaps it was all preparation for the limits I will continue to test throughout my life. I then moved to Halifax, this time happy to leave where I was. Then, I quit it all (science, academia, convention, expectations)... jumped ship and decided to start my own new career as a life coach – ridiculous! And here I am, working as a Life Coach and a Yoga and Meditation teacher. What is a life coach? Who really knows? I just use the terms so people can book in with me and I can try to teach them some stuff about mental suffering, the source of it, and how to deal with it. Why yoga? Because it’s been a spiritual practice that continues to help me connect with my body and to develop a new healthier relationship with it so it can trust my guidance and I can trust its. It is the encasing for this energy that I follow and for a long time I have abused it with overworking, stress, fasting, purging, physical assaults, and verbal insults. Why meditation? Because when I went on my silent 10-day meditation retreat it was literally mind blowing! It was as much a study of the mind as the 11 years I studied psychology and neuroscience. And above all, I left feeling the most peaceful I have felt since likely the moment before I was born. The clarity with which I left significantly altered the path I was on and my approach to teaching people about mental suffering, the source of it, and how to deal with it. It was a nice confirmation of my journey through understanding and knowing. It was a nice confirmation that the only way out of this suffering is right through the middle of it! Try it yourself. Next time you feel overwhelmed by emotions to the point where you don’t know what to do with yourself, sit there, be quiet, and observe. As simple as it sounds, it’s incredibly tough and people need lots of support while attempting to do so… people who are seeking to ease their suffering – suffering from the craving of sugar to the craving of death.

Where am I now?
Not really sure. I’m here, BEing as often as is available to me. I’m following that same old energy that I have been since I was a kid. Since I see myself continually progressing and developing I have to assume it has served me well so far. For those who consider financial success an indicator of being “ok” or “good” then I clearly don’t fit the criteria. And so a challenge for me is letting go of society’s expectations for what my path and life should look like. A challenge for me is letting go of doing what I think is wrong and standing up for what I believe to be right, according to how it naturally feels to me. In the process, I think I’m willing to lose a lot… money, love, family, pets, society’s acceptance, respect, a roof over my head, shoes, my hair straightener, my life. The attachment to all of these things (including our own physical body) is a source of our suffering. If I continue to define myself by what society respects then I will perpetuate the very same unconscious suffering that I’m seeking to ease and befriend.

What I ask?
For those who question my decisions, my life, my path, your support would be greatly appreciated but I recognize that your understanding is needed first. I recognize that it is my job to give you as many opportunities to facilitate this understanding as I possibly can. And so I commit to continuing on my journey of being as open as possible and continuing to work on easing my defensiveness when my decisions, life, path is challenged. Please ask anything you want of me. I will give you my honesty as best as I can.

To my family: Thank you eternally for the support you have provided me with thus far. Ironically, you have given me the strength to follow my heart. This strength will help me clarify and justify the next leg of my journey to you in order to maintain your support and respect.

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Choosing a path

2008-10-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

There are two paths presented to us. To the left is the path with many road signs that remind us of who we are trying to be. Many people on this path are cheering us on and encouraging us to be a certain way by convention, tradition, and accepted ways. This path requires little thought. Our job on this path is to walk and not think, to be unconscious of the very path we are on. At some point we might start to think or notice that this path we are on is a little bumpy. Then we notice there are potholes and many obstacles and perhaps we even notice that the words the people are using to encourage us along this path don’t really make sense to us, they don’t really apply to us. They seem foreign. This path begins to feel a little awkward and unsettling. Then, we get a glimpse of another path, over to the right. We can’t see the path very well and it looks a bit scary. It’s dark and we don’t see any people on the sides encouraging us and we can’t see the same kind of road signs. We can’t see the surface of the road either and so we don’t know if it’s bumpy or smooth. Curiously, we keep looking at that path and then comparing it to our path. What’s over there? We wonder. The path to the right is unpaved by previous pedestrians yet uncannily smooth by nature. There are even many road signs but they take different form that what we are use to. There are also many voices encouraging us along the way over there, but the bodies they come from are different than what we know. In fact, the path to the right is our birthright. It’s the smooth road for which we yearn our entire lives until we find it. What’s over there is happiness and peace. What’s over there is our true self walking alone waiting for our consciousness to join it. This new path brings simplicity and ease the longer we follow it.

Is there something luring you off your current path and enticing you to the one to the right? Is there something tempting you to take a leap of faith? Is there some rule by which you lived that you no longer wish to live by? Is there some voice calling out to you to follow that other path? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then I ask you, what’s stopping you from trying the path to the right? And whatever that is that is stopping you, is it worth risking finding your happiness and peace? If you are already on the path to the right then, Congratulations! I am another voice reminding you that you are going in the right direction and encouraging you to keep going! Enjoy!

Follow the Heart

2008-10-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

In September 2007, I took a huge leap of faith and quit my science/research position at Dalhousie to pursue the “ridiculous” notion of becoming a Life Coach. I've been training for about 15 years to be an independent scientist in neuroscience and psychology. But for some strange reason, the thought of being a life coach at Balance Naturopathic Health Centre was appealing. Was the decision impulsive? Quite the contrary. I had been working part-time as the life coach for almost a year at that point. Was this decision wrong? Never! Even if I fail, the decision was right!

The idea of leaving science (and my career) is still incredibly scary. I can still bring up feelings of panic when I think about how my life as a scientist is somewhat over. It's nearly impossible to get back into it without having published anything lately. And the financial set-back is even scarier. I still don't make as much as I did on my piddly Post-Doc salary (which itself was vastly under what someone of 12 years of post-secondary education should make).

So why did I do this crazy thing? One reason. I followed my heart. This is what I am supposed to be doing right now. This is what feels right in my heart. My heart has never steered me wrong. My heart entered me into undergraduate university. My heart keeps my playing sport. My heart has showed me incredible romantic relationships and brings incredible friendships into my life. My heart and I communicate often. I trust my heart with all my.... heart. My heart trusts that I will listen because I always do - eventually. I have never betrayed my heart.

Explore your heart. Come to know your heart. Ask it questions. Tell it you trust it and love it and will honor it. And then ACTUALLY do that! Take a small leap of faith guided by your heart. I promise you that your heart will not steer you wrong. Your heart knows you better than anyone and it will be true to you!