Category Archives: Health and Wellness

Did You Get an “Hour” with People you Care About Today?

January 30, 2015 By in Friendships, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As you might have learned from this blog, I love learning about ways to life-hack. Specifically, facts and numbers about how to make my life better. As you can probably guess, I’m subscribed to way too many blogs/newsletters/fan pages of self-help/life-coach gurus and thinkers. I recently got an email with a link to an article by Deepak Chopra titled “Social Media and Your Personal Growth.” The article is worth a read; it’s basically about how to form more meaningful and deep connections when using social media. I was particularly interested in this:

“Psychologists point out that being connected in a positive way for at least one hour a day with people you care about is one key to happiness.”

Do you normally get your hour of this time? I have recently. Today I did, at least. I had a great phone conversation and I felt happy and connected. This “hour” doesn’t have to be in person – you can spend your hour on the phone, or engaged in a video chat, or perhaps just even gchatting online.

It’s fascinating to me that we’re constantly told by doctors and the media that we should exercise a certain amount each day, and eat 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day…But no one talks about setting an exact parameter about social connectivity. So I’d like to propose – get your hour with a close friend(s) a day!

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Do You Journal? The Surprising Health Benefits

January 24, 2015 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , 2 Comments

I’ll admit it – I always thought ‘journaling’ was kind of cheesy and ineffective. I imagined that if I did journal regularly, I’d have lots of entries beginning with “Dear Diary…” and going on to detail boring day-to-day exploits including the pizza I consumed and which Netflix show I watched that night.  I have journaled occasionally, and I have several books filled with my entries dating back to junior high school. Most of these entries are about boys – the boys I liked, the boys I dated and why those boys I dated were being so damn hard-to-decipher. Since I’ve been in a serious long-term relationship, I haven’t journaled as much. In fact, the current notebook I use has entries that date back to 2008, so clearly I haven’t been journaling much. But I do experience a lot of day-to-day anxiety about things in my life: my career, friendships, moving to a new city – all good subjects to journal about.

After reading this article, Writing Your Way to Happiness, in the NY Times, I really felt like it was time I journaled more. The article was the “most emailed article” on the NY Times website for about a week, so clearly people are excited about this research. Basically, the gist of the study is that if you write about your problems, you can more easily tackle them, which leads to better overall health. Essentially, the study is saying that if you write about your problems, you can more easily “edit” the problems in your life.

Here’s a quote from the article that encapsulates the study well:

Much of the work on expressive writing has been led by James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas. In one of his experiments, college students were asked to write for 15 minutes a day about an important personal issue or superficial topics. Afterward, the students who wrote about personal issues had fewer illnesses and visits to the student health center.

“The idea here is getting people to come to terms with who they are, where they want to go,” said Dr. Pennebaker. “I think of expressive writing as a life course correction.” – Tara Parker-Pope

Maybe there’s something about purging your thoughts onto paper that helps. Like a mental detox. Or maybe it’s being able to get a new perspective on your problems that helps you make more effective choices.

What If I Lived Nowhere?

January 24, 2015 By in Career, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Detroit Auto Show is going well…I’m more than halfway through working it. When I return from the show, I’ll have 2 days off in New York and then will leave again for a 10 day show in Philadelphia. When I return from that, I’ll leave again for a 10+ day show in Chicago…and so on and so forth.

I travel a lot for work. I work as a professional speaker and product specialist at tradeshows, conventions and auto shows. I used to think I’d simply book work in New York, and then that expanded to simply booking work in the Northeast, then the East coast, then the entirety of America, and then I even began to occasionally book international work.

The blog I used to write before this one was a blog about travel. I enjoyed traveling for work and sharing tips and tricks about how to travel easier, smoother, and cheaper. Travel is so innately built into my life- I can’t really do my job without it- that it has also accidentally become a major part of my identity.

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So after my ex-boyfriend and I broke up last summer, I thought about living nowhere. It seemed like the absolute right thing for me to do at the absolute right time. It seemed to fit perfectly with who I am. I’m away from home so much anyway that it seemed pointless to pay rent every month. And I even considered blogging about my future nomadic living experience. I actually see a lot of travel bloggers of all ages living nowhere- they put their stuff in storage and just travel for a year or more. Sometimes it’s simply cheaper for them to travel the world than to stay in their city and pay the exorbitant rent prices (cough NYC cough SF cough).

Since I’m thirty, it seemed a bit late to start such a major lifestyle change (complete nomad seemed more of a twenties thing to do), but I was ready for some major changes. It seemed like the right time to live nowhere if I was going to live nowhere.

A few of my coworkers at tradeshows/auto shows were already living the nomadic lifestyle and just traveled from show to show without having any kind of home base. They would occasionally crash on friends’ couches and/or with their parents between shows. Or they’d use their numerous hotel points to practically live at the Hilton or the Marriott. It sounded like a fascinating, yet exhausting, life.

Yet after careful consideration, the exhausting part of it led me in search of a nice, peaceful apartment in New York to call home. Some soul searching lead me to the realization that the glamour of living nowhere didn’t hold a candle to a space that’s all mine.

And I thought about something one of my friends said as I had been weighing my options: “you call living nowhere the ‘nomadic lifestyle’ but some just call it ‘homeless.”

Touché.

I love my new little Queens apartment and cannot be happier. Even though I have to pay rent for it every month. Even though I’m not there right now. Just knowing I have a place to call home lends weight to my otherwise very up in the air lifestyle.

Sometimes something may seem like the absolute right thing to do at the absolute right time. But it may not actually be the right thing at all.

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Finally…an all-natural deodorant that works!

January 6, 2015 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

I used to eat a lot of junk food. In high school, I remember eating greasy pizza for lunch and then having a “snack” of a McDonald’s burger and fries. My desire to change my eating habits stemmed from a superficial goal of wanting to lose weight. But as I ate better, I discovered I felt better and the habit was re-inforced. Now that I’m a much healthier eater, I’m trying to tackle other areas of my health.

On my journey to live healthier and happier in my thirties, I’ve decided that I’m going to try to use all-natural products, products that don’t contain those dreaded parabens and toxic chemicals. Too often I forget that our skin is our largest organ, and absorbs those products we slather on ourselves.

I won’t replace all my products at once, because I am grad student after all. I’m simply starting by switching each product out for an all-natural one once I’ve used up my old drug store brand. My first product swap: deodorant. From what I’ve read, this is perhaps one of the most toxic of all the beauty products out there. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) Most deodorants contain aluminum that has been linked to various diseases and 2) Your underarm skin is incredibly sensitive and nearly 100% of what you put on this area is absorbed into your blood stream.

Over the years, I’ve tried lots of different all-natural deodorants – from Tom’s of Maine to that weird crystal stick. None of them worked for me; the scent always ended up fading away and leaving me with an au natural fragrance that I wasn’t too thrilled with. But I can finally say that I’ve found one that works.

I saw this new product by a brand called Refyll in a market near my house in LA, and something about the display drew me in. Perhaps it was the ads with store testimonials that said “This actually works!” I also asked the cashier what she thought, and she backed the ad up, “It actually works!” I also love the scents, they smell earthy and vaguely masculine.

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It was $12.50, and yes, perhaps that’s a bit indulgent for deodorant, I’m hoping it lasts at least two months  and I love knowing exactly what is going into my body. (And just so you know, this is not a sponsored post.)

Growing Up and Aging Anxiety

January 3, 2015 By in Career, Health and Wellness Tags: , 12 Comments

I’m not ashamed to admit that my favorite magazines are Real Simple and O Magazine.  They’re inspiring and have good recipes and life hacking/efficiency ideas to boot. (Am I a middle aged woman at heart? Perhaps.) While I miss the days of Jane and Sassy, most “women’s” magazines now kind of suck. Instead of creating content for the readers, the writers in beauty editorial seem to work for the PR departments of major beauty brands who push them to advertise their products.

Anyway, I came across a quote I loved in January’s issue of O Magazine (the one with the very clearly photoshopped image of a lion and Oprah on the cover.) There’s a great article by writer Amy Maclin titled  “Educating Amy,” about her experiences with self-help seminars and programs. In the article she talks about the aging anxiety she experienced in her 40s. There was one line that deeply resonated with me. She writes,“I still hadn’t grown up, and yet I was growing old.” 

Have you ever felt that way? I have! I mean, I’m only 32, but I still feel at times like I’m either A) an insecure teenager, B) A wildly optimistic kid, C) an overly cerebral college junior, D) None of the above but clearly not a bonafide ‘adult.’

Maybe the answer to this aging anxiety is that we need to shift our ideas of what “growing up” means. Or maybe there’s really no such thing as “growing up” at all.

Here’s to Consistently Improving in 2015!

January 1, 2015 By in Career, Health and Wellness Tags: , Leave a comment

Happy New Year! I hope your first day of 2015 felt like the start to an auspicious year. Today I relaxed with my dude and watched some of my favorite TV shows, worked a bit on some projects, and also fit in a hike in Rustic Canyon here in LA. This was where, after huffing and puffing my way up a series of stairs, I discovered that I am ridiculously unfit and clearly need to add cardio to my New Year’s resolutions.

Whatever your personal hopes for the New Year may be, I want you to go easy on yourself. Big changes happen with tiny steps. I believe that we undervalue tiny changes. When we see people transform their lives on shows like The Biggest Loser or Extreme Makeover, the transformations happen in these huge “all or nothing” ways. We’re bombarded with the message that if our life changes aren’t big and sweeping, then they aren’t going to be effective.

But that’s a crock of sh**! Even five minutes a day of a new habit adds up. I became a writer through 20 minutes of writing a day. Years ago, I remember telling Laura I was going to devote myself to 20 minutes a day of putting words on a page. I did it. And honestly, I got a TON DONE. Way more than I ever thought. That’s how I wrote my first major play.

Now I write a lot more than that, but even more important – I write nearly every day. Whether it’s more outlining than actual writing, I’m usually at work on some project. Even writing for this blog counts. But it all began with 20 minutes a day.

And even 20 minutes can be a lot. So why not start with 5 minutes a day of whatever it is you want to accomplish? Establishing a new habit is very much about creating mental (or actual physical) muscle memory. It’s also about consistency. Doing something everyday is way more important than doing it intensively once in a awhile.

So here’s to tiny changes! Or, as Richard Dreyfuss’ character says in the comedy classic “What About Bob,” Baby Steps...

How Do You Really Want To Feel?

December 31, 2014 By in Friendships, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I just want to start this off by saying Happy New Years Eve! Thanks so much for reading and being part of this! We appreciate it immensely and we can’t wait to hang out here with all you guys in 2015!!

So, I’ve been thinking about resolutions for awhile and what they really mean. I covered my financial ones in the last post, but I have some different resolutions I want to share with you here.

Two weeks ago, my workload finally started to lighten up and my holiday time off began. This should have been a time for celebration, but instead it provoked a time of anxiety. This always happens to me- I somehow thought my thirties would start off differently, but they didn’t. My to do list filled up quickly with all the items I hadn’t been able to do because I’d been working out of town. All the major projects (write my one woman show, learn to code HTML, take 6 new classes, find new sources of income, see every friend I’ve been wanting to see plus family, etc) I’d been thinking about came to the forefront and made their way onto my to do list. Plus, there were all the little to-do items like clean the apartment, get laundry done, make more to-do lists, and other small things that still take up time.

At the peak of my anxiety, my roommate casually asked me how I was doing. I told her that I should be doing great, because I have all this time off, but instead I was just worrying more about all the random things I “have” to do. My nerves were fraying when they should be resting.

My roommate told me that she used to get anxious about things like that, but a few years ago, she started concentrating on how she wanted to feel instead. She picked four feelings that she was really after, including feeling alive and abundant. When she started getting anxious or obsessed with to do lists, she went back to her feeling list. Was she feeling alive? If she wasn’t, she simply concentrated on her breathing. When you’re really concentrating on your breathing, you truly have to begin feeling alive- breathing is the literal definition of being alive! It’s at least a great start.

When she was feeling down, she remembered how she wanted to feel abundant. So she made lists of thing she was grateful for and good things that had happened during the day- they could be as small as ‘my apartment is warm. I’m so happy to have my coffee today.’ There’s always something that can make you feel abundant. Most of us live in first world countries- true abundance!

So I’ve stolen her idea (well, she generously gave it to me.) She even said I could use the feelings she chose. So I took ‘abundant’ for myself and you can too if you like. This year, my goal is to go back to the feelings I want to feel even if I’m feeling blah or anxious. Even when I haven’t done it for awhile. Even when I’ve forgotten for weeks. I don’t have to stay down- I can choose to feel differently.

For 2015 I’ve chosen to feel present, abundant, joyous, and radiant. It’s a lot to bite off at once, I know. But I will concentrate on one at a time.

I know it’s hard. I know it doesn’t always work- sometimes sad and anxious feelings take over, and that’s okay. It’s good even. Let them in! But you don’t have to make them permanent guests. Go ahead and choose abundance!

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How Much Sleep Should a 30-Something Get?

December 30, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , Leave a comment

Remember a while back when I shared that I purchased a Jawbone Up? Well, after a few weeks of wearing it (on and off), I’ve found it’s pretty awesome. It’s a wrist bracelet that tracks my steps per day and the amount of sleep I get, breaking it down into “light” versus “deep” sleep. More than anything, I’m fascinated by the amount of sleep I get. For me, sleep is invaluable. It’s a huge health priority for me and I know that I only function well with 7-9 hours of sleep a night.

Here’s what the sleep graph on Jawbone Up looks like. (And no, I don’t sleep 10 hours a night regularly! This was one of my post-flight, jet-lag nights of sleep. But man, a night of 10 hours sleep feels really good.)

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What’s cool about Jawbone Up is that they give you little facts about how you compare to other people in your same demographic. I’m not sure if you can read the text in the above right image, but it says that I get “1 hr 20min more Sound sleep than other women in their 30s. They average 3 hr 13min of Sound sleep per night.” But that was not an average night for me. Usually, I average about 7 and a half hours a night. It was cool to see how that particular night of sleep compares to other women my age.

So how much sleep should a 30-something get? Looks like the scientific advice is 7-9 hours per night, according to this article on Slate. In addition, I’ve read that you should try and learn how to fall asleep within 30 minutes of laying down. Not sure exactly how one goes about doing that, but creating a sleep ritual is a nice idea.

To happy and healthy sleeping in 2015!

Not Feeling It During the Holidays

December 24, 2014 By in Grab Bag, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Every year around the holidays, I wonder why I’m not “feeling it” the way I used to. Even though I’m now thirty, I find myself doing the same thing I did during the holidays as a teenager, and all throughout my twenties- trying to pull up an old feeling. You know that feeling. It’s that “magical holiday feeling”…remember it?

It’s an old memory now. Maybe I used to have it when I looked at the sky and was positive Santa was about to come. I guess I was awaiting something special…feeling that anticipatory glow. It came from expecting presents to appear out of nowhere…that wonderful moment of waking up and knowing something special has arrived…the feeling of barely being able to wait a moment longer. Now the closest feeling I have to that is when I open my email inbox after a long time of not checking it.

No, that’s sad. There are definitely times when I eagerly await something better than email.

But during the holidays, I guess I don’t know how to get that anticipatory excitement back the same way it used to be. So I performed my holiday traditions as usual- I got out my holiday stuff.

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My holiday soap

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My holiday socks

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My holiday owl tea mug. Yes, this is holiday related.

I lit my holiday candles and filled my room with pine smell. I made pumpkin everything. I played my Indie Holiday tunes Pandora station.

And I felt happy. I love all my little holiday traditions.

But I still didn’t get that old feeling back that I wanted so badly. So I sulked, vaguely disappointed. Every year I’ve sulked, feeling my special holiday feeling was just a hairs breadth out of reach.

And then I remembered something actors say to me all the time when I direct them in plays. They say, “Laura, I’m just not feeling it.”

And you know what I say back? I say “It doesn’t matter if you’re not feeling it! You’re not always going to feel it! Do the scene anyway! Just go with it!” I usually say this in a nice way, of course.

So with that in mind, I took a walk in Woodside at night during the first holiday season of my thirties.

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And I laughed.

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And I looked. And looked again.

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And I felt something mild, and silly, and light. A subtle feeling. Older in a different way. Something like peace. Possibly hope.

The old feeling was gone. It had been gone for a long time.

And that was okay.

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If I looked closely it had been replaced.

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Happy holidays to all of you. Let in anything you’re feeling right now. It’s okay.

Horror of the Day

December 21, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

I’ve lost my tolerance for scary movies. When I was a kid, I used to laugh at friends who covered their eyes when zombies popped out of closets. I was fascinated by the psycho clown that lived in the sewer system. Haunted hotels were intriguing to me, as was time traveling pursued by monsters, or ghostly hitchhikers, or possessed televisions and children of the corn.

Sometime slightly after college, I started to have nightmares following a scary movie binge. I became worried about pale dead hands reaching out from under a bed to grab my leg. I checked the bathtub and closet to make sure they were empty before going to sleep. Hotels, places I consider my home almost half the year, started to make me look twice around corners- I thought of bloody twins beckoning from the ends of long hallways: ‘come and play with us.’

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So I stopped watching scary movies. Letting these types of films into my psyche always seems to cause lasting fear (at least for a few days). I’ve been abstaining for years. Even when previews for horror films enter my sight, I attempt to look away, and especially to cover my ears. I’ve found that the sound is actually the scariest part of a movie- not the visual, as you’d expect.

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Once I started avoiding those movies, I became less scared in general. I was no longer very worried about dark hallways or creaky hotels or desolate alleyways. I mean, I have a healthy sense of danger avoidance, but thoughts of ghosts, monsters, and serial killers with chainsaws enter my mind much less often. Although I know it’s healthy to face your fears, I think there are times you can avoid them entirely. Yes, scary feelings are to be faced, but scary movies are absolutely avoidable. In fact, I’ve faced my scary feelings by cutting scary movies out of my life. I think that counts.

It’s sometimes hard to know what we should let into our minds and what we should keep out.  Last night, I watched the pilot of a new show, Penny Dreadful, not realizing that it was a horror show. I wasn’t really scared in the moment, so I kept watching. But last night I woke up from a dream about someone cutting out my stomach and watching turtles hatch and crawl out of it. Yeah, I don’t really need dreams like that in my life.

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Coping With Uncertainty Anxiety

December 19, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , 2 Comments

Ever have the feeling like every aspect of your life is in flux? Well, I do now. It’s completely off-putting, especially for someone like me, who craves stability. The truth is, uncertainty is stressful and more than that, it’s uncomfortable. And who likes to be uncomfortable?

For me, the major uncertainties in my life right now revolve around issues like: whether or not I should stay in LA after I graduate even though I’m not liking it here, whether or not screenwriting/TV writing is definitely the career path I want to keep pursuing, and how can I make meaningful friendships in LA and continue to build friendships back home. These are major issues, but there are many more personal issues lurking in the shadows.

I don’t have answers but I do have some tips for when you experience uncertainty anxiety.

1. Embrace It

Allow all that uncertainty come into your life, and let it take a seat on your couch next to you. Living with the discomfort allows you to see that it’s tolerable. You will survive being uncomfortable.

2. Keep Moving 

Don’t let the uncertainty paralyze you. Make choices, and don’t be afraid of the idea that some decisions are “wrong.” Decisions are never really “right” or “wrong” but just choices.

3. Remember You Won’t Always Feel Uncertain 

You’ll never feel the same way you do now in six months. It’s a strong statement, I know, but I believe it’s true and it’s helped me a countless number of times to get through difficult situations. We are ever changing, and how we feel today is no predictor of how we’ll feel tomorrow. So yes, you may feel uncertain now, but it’s a fleeting feeling.

I hope this is somewhat helpful for you. I would love any more tips or advice, if you’ve got em!

When I See A Starbucks Red Cup, I Go There

December 18, 2014 By in Friendships, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

I was thinking the other day of what Jane said about beverages. She was writing about ways to save money in your thirties and she mentioned that her major indulgences were beverages of all kinds. A glass of wine or fancy coffee here or there can add up, but they truly brought moments of happiness, so it was difficult to reconcile stopping them to save money.

As we sat sipping margaritas one day, another good friend of mine who follows the blog brought up that same beverage conundrum Jane wrote about. “I love my nice coffees or glasses of wine or margaritas. These little things make me so happy… I like saving money but I’d lose so much happiness now if I deprived myself of occasional nice drinks.”

And random acts of drinkable kindness do indeed bring me joy as well. Here we are in winter, and the need for cheer runs strong. Whenever it’s cold outside and I see a red Starbucks cup, my Pavlovian-trained mind snaps into action, and I feel the strongest urge for the happiest latte. I not only want to go into Starbucks, but I want to buy the sweetest, warmest, most holiday cheer themed beverage that I can hold in my chilled fingers. Better yet, if that drink was bottomless and refilled automatically, I could hold it all day as a warm fixture of my waking hours.

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Starbucks does a great job with their red winter cups- they’re a signal to my psyche that something nice is in the air. I mean, it’s definitely really good branding, and I won’t deny that they’ve trained people well…but I just let myself fall for it. The advent of the holiday cups invites time for ease, comfort, and celebration during a cold and occasionally stressful time of year. Getting myself an occasional holiday red cup coffee from Starbucks transports me to a cozy state of mind.

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I fight so many habits in my life, and I’m always trying to make the “right” food, money, and job decisions. Having a coffee or a glass of wine or even a smoothie or sparkling water with a friend is an indulgence I’m willing to embrace. A happy red cup of coffee can leave me transported. As long as they’re not in total excess, small indulgences can be bonds shared with others or with yourself. As much as I talk about how I love to save money, certain sweet moments of now I don’t want to save for later.

Also, this article was not sponsored by Starbucks. I wish.

The Never Empty Inbox

December 13, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Thousands of emails had piled up in my inbox while I turned the other way, hoping they’d disappear on their own. Literally thousands…3,508 to be exact, spread evenly over my 3 email categories in gmail.

“How did I let it get this bad?” I thought.

The emails got unwieldy because I hadn’t wanted to read all of them the moment they arrived, but there were a bunch of articles I one day wanted to get to and read. “One day,” I thought, “I’ll have all this extra free time and I’ll want to read some of these fascinating articles.”

When I was in LA last week, I brought my computer and followed Jane to her job at the library. “I’m going to use this time to delete all my emails,” I said. And I did just that, sitting next to her deleting while she worked. In about an hour and a half, I’d gotten the emails down to 2,508..or somewhere around there.

Another hour later, and I’d gotten smarter and unsubscribed from a bunch of mailing lists…”maybe this will stop the craziness next time,” I thought. Some of the lists were hard to unsubscribe from…but most actually had a pretty clear unsubscribe button on the bottom of their emails. “I should have done this sooner.”

When I got back from LA, I still had over 1000 emails. I felt overwhelmed…was I going to have to go through all of it and find the good articles while deleting the bad? The anxiety deepened, and in one fell swoop, I did something I’ve never done before. I checked all the emails in every category and pressed ‘archive.’

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Suddenly everything vanished. I had an empty inbox and lots of time. And my anxiety was gone.

 

I didn’t miss the articles. I wasn’t nostalgic for the clutter. All I saw was an empty inbox and lots of peaceful time ahead. I felt the same way as when I moved and gave away 13 garbage bags full of stuff- I felt happy for more space and I never missed the belongings. Why did I ever have all that stuff to begin with?

Take the plunge.

Real Happiness Begins at Age 33?

December 5, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

In four months, I’ll be turning 33. And apparently, I have a lot to look forward to, according to a study by Friends Reunited, a British social networking site. In the 2012 study, 70% of respondents over the age of 40 claimed they were not truly happy until they reached age 33.

One of the study’s authors, psychologist Donna Dawson, explains the findings this way:

“The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naiveté and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth…By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a ‘can do’ spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. I definitely feel like I’ve been more confident in my abilities in the past few years than I was in my twenties. And overall, I just like myself better. I don’t put much stock in if other people like me or not. Because if they don’t like me, most of the time, I don’t like them either. It just seems to work out that way. And realizing that is liberating.

Another recent study (also, British – those Brits must love these happiness studies!) done by The Huffington Post UK Lifestyle and YouGov found that the average person doesn’t achieve ‘true contentment’ until age 38. The study asked 2,000 Brits between ages 18-80 and took into account the respondents’ contentment with relationships, family, friends, and jobs.

So if you’re reading this post and stuck in a early thirties crisis, hopefully you can take a little comfort and relief in these studies.

Is Love Really Everywhere?

November 21, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that I’m newly into meditation. It’s somewhat daunting and somewhat the best thing I’ve ever discovered.

Jane and I have both been following Deepak Chopra and Oprah’s 21 day free mediation challenge, but before that, I’d discovered a podcast I love called ‘Learn to Meditate.’ It’s created by the Meditation Society of Australia, and I highly recommend downloading it (it’s free!) if you like meditation or want to try it out.

I have trouble sitting still without a guided meditation to help me, and the podcasts are amazing and extremely straightforward, if not somewhat above my normal comprehension level.

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I am not actually meditating here. But I am very happy.

The first part of these meditation podcasts are always a brief overview of a topic- for example ‘desire’ or ‘fear’ or ‘letting go’ or ‘manifesting through playfulness’ or something of the sort. A speaker talks about a topic for a few minutes before the meditation starts. I love this first part almost more than I love the meditations themselves- they’re super calming and enlightening. Maybe it’s the Australian accents, but something about the opening messages put me in a calm state of mind. I usually feel the need to hear a lesson again because I really want the message to sink in.

Almost all of the meditation podcasts mention love, especially ‘unconditional love.’ I realized from the beginning and I still realize- even after listening to all 50 of the ‘Learn To Meditate’ podcasts- that I can’t exactly comprehend what unconditional love is.

I mean, I sort of get unconditional love from a dog or cat or other pet, or possibly a baby? But from a grown up human?…It’s hard to wrap my mind around that.

The podcasts recurrently talk about how love is flowing freely everywhere, and we just need to open ourselves to it. One talk mentioned that the love we give and receive from romantic relationships, friends and family is only 1% of the love that’s out there to give and receive, and 99% of love is actually everywhere else.  Yet 99% of the love most people experience in their life is from and to romantic partners, friends and family. That’s not to say that the love you get from and give to those people should be any less, but rather that there is just THAT MUCH MORE love out there. What??

How do we find this love?? Where is it? What is it? Is it divine? What is that exactly?

The podcast explained that meditation is a simple path to opening ourselves up to the love that is everywhere. But that kind of knowledge feels ungraspable…the same way that the universe expanding infinitely in all directions is ungraspable. The same way that string theory is ungraspable. If 99% of the love out there is untapped by us- love as strong as the love from and to our family, romantic partners and friends, where is this love and where does it live? Inside of us? In the sky? As a part of nature? How do we find it?

Even if I figure out the answer to any of these questions myself, I wonder if opening up to this kind of love would even be measurable, sustainable, or teachable. So I open up the floor to suggestions. Does this love baffle your mind? Do you agree that it’s out there? Have you found any of the other 99% of the love supposedly all around us? …And has it changed your life?

What’s your re-charge routine?

November 15, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Leave a comment

How do you re-energize and center yourself when your emotional batteries are low? Personally, I’m a big fan of alone time spent reading novels, watching movies and TV, and drinking a glass of wine. I guess you could call that escapist re-charging and for me, that’s phase 1. For me, this helps because alone time is an essential, non-negotiable part of my life. In case you haven’t heard this before, the prime difference between introverts and extroverts is where each get their energy. Introverts get energy from being alone, while extroverts get energy from being around people.

Phase 2 re-charging is a bit more active and involves taking care of my body. So, hitting a Pilates class or the gym and eating a healthy meal.

Phase 3 recharging is after my alone, quiet quota has been filled and I can focus on the “lifters” in my life – the people that make me feel energized, motivated, and importantly, loved. So that normally means a coffee, wine, or long-distance phone call date with a close friend. Once I’ve accomplished these three phases, my battery is juiced and I’m ready to begin again.

For some reason, I love visualizing myself as containing an internal phone battery who need to ‘charge up’  from time to time. I imagine watching the green light on my human body iPhone progress further and further to the right of the screen. While we know our phones are dying because we see that lovely percentage indicator going down, how do we know that it’s time for us to plug in and charge up? It’s so easy to keep pushing and pushing and pushing…to the neglect of ourselves. Should we have warning signs for ourselves?

I have three main red flags that mean I’m need of juicing up: when I find myself being snappy with people, I know it’s time for a re-charge because I’m not normally a snappy person. Secondly, if I find that I’m starting to see things in a consistently negative light, I know it’s time for a break. And thirdly, if I just find that I’m not finding joy in things I normally enjoy, I know it’s time to settle in and let myself relax.

The funny paradox about re-charging is that it’s not about ‘vegging out’ or totally relaxing yourself into a comatose state (though sometimes that’s both nice and needed), it’s about re-connecting to yourself. Finding your ‘zone’ as it were, finding that motivated excited self.

So, here’s a little drawing of what my battery re-charging looks like. What would yours look like?

Pardon my super dorky rendering! Never said I went to art school.

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