just jump in!

This summer, when we were in Nova Scotia, I realized how important it is for me to be around water. I grew up in a part of Canada that is surrounded by water. I learned to swim in the ocean. I learned to skate on a pond. And I learned to paddle a canoe on a lake. All within walking distance of my childhood home. And at the end of our street was an oceanside park where I would go and look out to sea whenever I was stressed-out. When my husband and I visit our hometown province, we now stay at my in-laws' cottage on a beautiful lake in the centre of the province - and our kids think of it as their second home. This summer my mother-in-law started calling my daughter a mermaid cause she was constantly in the water, which is what I was like as a kid. And of course my first thought was, "I 'need' the mermaid charm!" (even though people think it looks like the mermaid from Starbucks). But first I would "need" to figure out a way to "earn" it. I remembered how much I enjoyed swimming in the lake too, so I decided I needed to be in the water more - it's therapeutic for me.

 

So I decided to just jump in and give it a try! I set myself a goal for September, to try one different water fitness activity every week for four weeks. The first one was aqua yoga which was A M A Z I N G! It was in a small pool with warm water and dim lights - we even did the corpse pose at the end, lying on pool noodles. Then I tried a Friday morning class, where I was the only person under 60, but it was a great workout, without too much impact, and I discovered that I love stretching in the water. I tried a weekend TMC (Total Muscle Conditioning) class which was very tough; but I could work at my own pace. And the best part is that nobody except the intructor can see what you are - or are NOT - doing under water. And finally today I tried a Wednesday morning class and discovered what you do with those foam "dumbells" - and how challenging they could be! I think I will be feeling the effects in my arms tomorrow! So, mission accomplished! Gradually trying just one new activity a week, without expecting to go three days a week right off the bat, made it feel manageable. And, as always, earning a Pandora charm was a good motvation. Now I plan to continue doing the Wed and Fri morning classes, as well as the Sunday afternoon aquayoga. I even have some friends who will join me, which REALLY helps with exercise adhernce. Next up is an eight-week challenge to earn some faceted muranos and a few more charms for my "Gifs from the Sea" bracelet. Anyone care to join me?

like kissing your sister?

One of the things that is central to my health is a healthy marriage and emotional support from my husband.  So I wanted to share a bracelet that represents my marriage.

My husband and I met in September 1982 when we were both frosh at Mount Allison University.  We each had a boyfriend and girlfriend but we went to some semi-formal dances together – as “just friends.”  In our third year we dated but broke up when Mike said that kissing me was like kissing his sister!  Years later he explained that at the time he didn’t understand how he could feel so close to someone – have them feel like family – but also be attracted to them.  His 20-something-year-old brain couldn’t contend with those conflicting emotions.  I remember at the time telling a friend that I believed we were meant for each other, and that we would get back together if we both ended up in the same place at the same time.  Sure enough, when I got a job in Ottawa after graduating with my second degree, I called Mike and asked if he knew of a place to live, and as fate would have it, one of his roommates had just moved out.  It was not long before we were more than “just roommates,” and moved into our own apartment that summer, 23 years ago.  The charms on my “Always and Forever” bracelet tell the rest of the story. Each charm represents an important reminder of what keeps us happy and keeps our marriage healthy.

treasured hearts

The last five years have been very difficult with my health, in addition to grieving the loss of both my mother and father, and battling an eating disorder and depression.  This retired genesis dangle can be seen to represent the womb with a growing fetus, and for me it is very significant. This is the beginning of my “Treasured Hearts” bracelet.

 

 

In 2009 I started to experience uterine hemorrhaging so severe that it was incapacitating.  It was very isolating for me and I was not getting any exercise, both of which wreak havoc with depression.  This went on for two years and my iron got lower and lower, I got weaker and weaker, and more and more tired, while my fitness level and mood kept falling.  I could barely walk up the most gentle slope.

 

After two years of procedures, including ultrasounds and numerous biopsies, it was discovered that I had developed a condition, similar to endometriosis, where the lining of the uterus grows INTO the wall of the uterus, causing pain and severe bleeding.

 

At the same time that all this was happening I developed a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) – a blood clot – and had to immediately go on blood thinners. It was pretty scary because a blood clot can travel to your lungs, heart or brain.  And the reason people get blood clots, usually, is bed rest, surgery, a broken bone, or cancer – and since I hadn’t had a broken bone or surgery they had to investigate cancer.  And of course having hemorrhaging and being on blood thinners was a bad combo.
 

It turns out that the DVT was due to an autoimmune condition, similar to Lupus, which increases the risk of blood clots in both veins and arteries – so I will be on blood thinners indefinitely.  This condition is one of the causes of multiple miscarriages in some women, and with it I would not be able to have children.  Luckily I already have 11-year-old boy-girl twins and was quite content to stop there.  So this genesis dangle for me represents my gratitude for my “girlie parts”!  Gratitude for coming through these health challenges with all my parts intact, even if I am done with them, thank you very much.  And of course gratitude to this “belly” which allowed me to carry my two “treasured hearts” for 38 weeks!

A fresh start in a New Year

Gong Hey Fat Choy! “Wishing you a prosperous New Year.”  I know, I know, I am a little early for Chinese New Year (Feb 10).  But I am celebrating the fact that we are free of debt! Yup you read it correctly NO MORE DEBT!!

My husband and I worked very hard, together, over the last 5 years, to pay off ALL of our debts. I’ve been saving this charm since I bought it on the Pandora’s Angels page because I knew that this “unforgettable moment” was coming up at the end of December.  And I thought that this accomplishment warranted a charm – of course!  Financial problems were a huge issue in my mother’s marriage, and hence in my childhood and beyond.  So I am very happy – no proud – to put this charm on my love and marriage bracelet to signify that “we are financially responsible.”  We did it – together!

This charm called the “hong bao” is like the Pandora “money bags” charm with the Chinese character for “blessings and good fortune” or “abundance.”  The term “hong bao”, meaning “red packet”, refers to the Chinese tradition of adults giving children little red paper envelopes filled with money.  According to the China Folklore Society the original meaning of the envelope ritual is a New Year blessing passed from the old to the young, and the “lucky money” inside a hong bao can ward off evil spirits and maintain children in peace and safety for a whole year.  It seems appropriate to have this charm on my RED “Always and Forever” bracelet because the red colour of the hong bao envelopes symbolizes good luck, and the giving of money signifies a fresh start in the New Year.

With our debts paid off we are making a fresh start, celebrating our ability to “maintain our children in peace and safety,” and welcoming good fortune and abundance.

My children go to a multicultural urban school and have learned a song that they sing for Chinese New Year.  So when I say Gong Hey Fat Choy, I am sending New Year’s blessings to all my friends and family, and also sending (as the children’s song explains), “wishes of happiness… longevity… good marriages... and prosperity.”

 

Like many Pandora fans, I have a marriage/relationship bracelet. We had red roses at our wedding, so my “Always and Forever” bracelet centres around red/coral, hearts and roses. I have the new Black Friday present charm on this bracelet to remind me of the first gift my husband gave me when we started dating – a bottle of Neutrogena shampoo! I was so shocked! I said, “You bought me SHAMPOO?!!”... In his defence he said it was expensive, and maybe I wouldn’t buy it for myself. He said I had gone on and on about it, saying how well it could clean your hair if you use a lot of products in your hair, how nice my hair felt when it was clean, etc., etc.

We have learned a LOT about each other in the 20+ years we have been together (we met 30 years ago). He NOW knows that I am a very extroverted person and I think out loud – and I “go on and on” about lots of things! But my husband is a very introverted person, and for him to talk about something with such enthusiasm it would have to be very important.

When we started living together, we would react to each other like, “why would you DO things like that?” or, “what were you thinking?” But shortly after this gift-giving fiasco, we took a workshop about personality types using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and we read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” – both of which were VERY enlightening. They allowed us to learn to love and understand – and accept – each other… the way we are.

Last Christmas my husband gave me a present with a little tag saying, “We need a new tradition for Christmas.” When I un-wrapped it – you guessed it – it was a bottle of Neutrogena shampoo.

This little present charm makes me smile every time I look at it, and will remind me, as Billy Joel sang it, “I love you just the way you are.”

just keep swimming

I am now 19 weeks symptom-free with my eating disorder - which means no bingeing, purging or restricting. My reward was the "happy fish" charm. I had a bit of a rough week last week - feeling down, discouraged, tired - so the goal was simply to remain symptom-free by telling myself, to quote Dory from Finding Nemo, "just keep swimming."

Hey Mr Grumpy Gills

when life gets you down,

you know what you got to do?

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming swimming swimming

What do we do?

We swim, swim, swim

see the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmyUkm2qlhA

walk this way - in the moment

Well, I am back to my blog. So much has happened in the long interval since my last post - mostly lots of health problems that are slowly getting themselves sorted out. But rather than try to summarize all that, I'm just going to jump right back into blogging.

Having recognized that I have an eating disorder, I have done lots of work on my issues and have now been symptom-free for a little over 4 months - no bingeing, purging or restricting. One of the things that has made a difference for me is having goals and rewards. When setting goals they say you should have SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reward-based, and Timed. So I have set weekly goals and my reward has been Pandora charms for my charm bracelet - something that I am VERY motivated to acheive.

This past week my goal was to go for a walk every day. I am having trouble with my left knee, and with physio the pain had decreased and so the physio told me to start walking, and do squats and side-lying leg raises. Our family was away for a week's vacation at our time-share so it was a good time to make some changes in my habits without all the stress of school, household chores, etc. The goal was to go outside for a walk every day (specific), didn't matter how long or how fast just go for a walk (measurable), which seemed pretty realistic (attainable) since I had two ten-year-olds who don't like to sit still for very long, I would get a charm at the end of one week (reward-based), after walking every day for exactly one week (timed).

Pandora has a new series of charms of charms called Openworks which are like filigree. The openwork charm that I chose is called "Wildflower Walk" - second from the right in the photo. A "wildflower walk" to me signifies a walk that is not a power-walk, or even a brisk walk, just a walk through the wildflowers. Of course given that it was the end of March, there were no wildflowers through which to walk, but still lots to see.

I wanted to think of walking as a meditative process. No measuring of heartrates or speed or distance. To just be present and mindful of my surroundings, and as the was the case last week, to also be present and mindful of those I was with, usually my twins.

In her book The Artist's Way, and the books following that, Julia Cameron suggests walking as one of her basic tools in her spritiual path of creativity. She says, "Walking, the simplist of tools, is among the most profound," and that when we walk, "we experience 'conscious contact' with a power greater than ourselves."

Well, we walked the path along the water's edge, with the kids stopping to throw rocks onto the thin sheets of ice on the lake, pick up sticks, or climb some rocks. We walked into town to the convenience store and the post office. We walked to the tennis court so the kids could bat some balls around. We walked some roads just to see where they went. Sometimes the kids rode their scooters, sometimes they ran ahead, sometimes we walked hand-in-hand. But every day we got out and walked.

Cameron suggests that when walking, "Almost without noticing it, we become engaged with a world larger than ourselves and our concerns." We noticed the temperature. We noticed the wind. We noticed the birds that had returned. We noticed the sound of the wind in the tall pine trees. We noticed the way the rain had carved out the sand at the beach. The walking was, as Cameron describes it, "an exercise in heightened and intensified spiritual listening."

Now that I am back in the city there will not be many fields of wildflowers - although we do get quite a collection of weeds in our garden. But the crocuses are poking out their brave heads, and daffodils are inching their way up. So my daily walks will allow me to observe the not-so-wild flowers of my neighbours' gardens. Somehow going for a daily "wildflower walk" - as I will continue to call them - is so much more appealing than just going for a walk. Maybe that is what Cameron means when she says we walk to "shift" our consciousness.

Cameron promises that, "As casual as a walk may seem, profound wisdom can be its byproduct." Spiritual seekers have always walked - whether pilgrimages, walkabouts, or vision quests. St. Augustine said "It is solved by walking." Whatever "it" is, I will continue my "wildflower walk" to help mend the mind/body split and get out of my head and into my body. And maybe fix-up my knee.