Health & Vitality - My Ongoing Search

Perhaps you have heard of the forgiveness prayer called Ho'oponopono.  It is often repeated like a mantra using the following phrases.  I love you.  I'm sorry.  Please forgive me.  Thank you.  I have also seen the phrases used in a different order.  Perhaps it does not matter. The term, which may seem more complicated than it is, derives from the Hawaiian word Pono, meaning to be right with yourself, to have a deep sense of congruence.  It originated with Huna, an ancient Hawaiian discipline of energy, healing and consciousness.  Hawaiian psychologist Matt James said in a Psychology Today post, "Out of our ability to be Pono with ourselves flows our ability to forgive others.  This is the process Hawaiians call Ho'oponopono."  James researched the practice for his PhD, validating the activity and how individuals benefit by doing it within their own minds. Originally, it was a public act of reconciliation, but currently is more...

I don't normally read The New Yorker magazine, but a copy was left in our lobby and my husband picked it up.  In it, there was an interesting article about aging.  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has an Age Lab.  It's purpose is to develop new technologies, products and services for the growing potential market of aging people. Because of increasing longevity, we can now expect to live one third of our adult life over the age of 65.  If you make it to 65, you have a 50% chance of living to 85, a period of 8000 days. Perhaps surprisingly, at least to those of us who do not yet need assistive devices, the aging market is resistant to buying items which remind us that we are old.  For example, the personal alarm/emergency response devices for summoning help has been considered a marketing failure.  Most people don't want one, and those have them seldom use them, even when needed.  They are like wearing a sign saying "I'm Old!". So, The Age...

This year, Canada released a new Food Guide.  In the dietary guidelines, the importance of cooking and food preparation using nutritious foods is promoted.  One of the significant changes in the guide is, that protein choices should come more often from legumes, nuts, seeds and soy in addition to the traditional categories of fish, poultry, meat, eggs and dairy.  The protein coming from legumes, nuts, seeds and soy is called plant-based protein. Because of the new emphasis on plant-based protein, the food industry is taking advantage of the recommendation by labeling many processed food products as plant-based. Food labels are perceived as highly credible by most consumers.  In recent years, labels of natural and organic have been used to target the health conscious shopper.  Now, Plant-Based is being added to marketing to this sector. Health Canada acknowledges that Canadians spend about 30% of their food budget on processed foods, for reasons of convenie...

'Misunderstanding, not being heard, and missing key information due to poor listening are at the crux of societal ills.'  So says Rebecca Shafir, author of The Zen of Listening. I will readily admit that good listening skills have not come easily to me.  Growing up in a big noisy family and having traditional Catholic schooling, the main listening training was for following commands. Our main reasons for listening are, to get information, to gain understanding, to learn and for enjoyment.  However, it has been found that most of us only remember between 25 - 50% of what we hear.  The typical barriers to effective listening include things like:  being distracted, acting on autopilot, being focused on our own agenda or experiences, and mentally judging and reacting while listening.  Listening is affected by both outer distraction and inner mental turbulence. When I was in university, in my occupational therapy program, I learned more about active listen...

Have you ever noticed the difference in energy when you are in the midst of a dense forest?  It can feel quite magical.  I've had the opportunity to hike in an ancient rain forest on Vancouver Island several years ago, and experienced this. People who devote their time and energy to studying and caring for trees, like Peter Wohlleben, the German forester who wrote The Hidden Life of Trees:  What They Feel, How They Communicate, can tell us more about that feeling.  He used personal language in his book to appeal to readers and to foster interest in what might seem a dry scientific topic.  It seems to have worked, given the popularity of the book. Scientific studies confirm that trees are not competitive loners but, are cooperative and interdependent.  The action takes place below ground, where root tips of trees join with fungal filaments to create a communication network.  Through it, they share water and nutrients, but also send distress signals ...

I have two favorite memories of being in natural water.  The first is on the river where our family cottage was located.  I was maybe age 12 or so.  Something I loved doing was, getting up before everyone else, slipping on my bathing suit and going to the dock.  First, I would appreciate the quiet stillness of the water in the early morning.  Then, I delighted in diving in, feeling the smooth flow of the water slide over me while I swam out to the anchored raft.  I'd pull myself up and sit there in solitude for a bit, maybe feel the early warmth of the sun, before swimming back to join the bustle of family activity for the day. There was something sacred and holy about that experience for me.  Hence, it is etched in my mind and still brings forth a sense of calm and serenity when I remember it. I learned to swim in that river.  We did not go to swimming lessons as kids.  We just got tossed around in the river by siblings and it was a matt...

If, like me, you happen to be a frequent health and wellness online event subscriber, you will have noticed in the past few years a lot of interviews and documentaries which critique the Western Medicine approach to many ailments.  The most controversial series have probably been the ones about how to beat or treat cancer. This is a hot topic, because just about all of us know someone who is in cancer treatment, or maybe you have had that diagnosis yourself.  Statistics now tell us, because of the dramatic increase in cancer prevalence in the past fifty years or so, it is no longer a matter of whether cancer will be detected in your body, but when.  Currently, one in two men can expect this in their lifetime, and one in three women. Many people take a stand firmly on one side of the fence or the other in terms of treatment options.  There are those who are fully believing in and relying upon the traditional approach of surgery, chemo or radiation.  Also, the...

An article I read this morning brought me again to a dilemma I experience a lot around this blog theme of health and vitality.  It was describing how science has evolved in the last couple of centuries to embrace different levels of understanding, but how our global culture still operates mainly from the perspective of science from a couple of centuries ago. Everybody is somewhat familiar with Newtonian principles which look at life, the environment and the universe in a mechanistic way.  We've learned a lot from scientists taking things apart into smaller and smaller components and studying how they interact.  This created the belief in determinism, that we can predict how something will behave by knowing all its parts.  For the most part, that's how a lot of us, including me, look at health and health care for example.  We identify what the 'broken' components are in a body system and we try to fix them by replacing them or overriding them, either by taking ...

This was the focus for a monthly meditation I participate in online, through an organization called Heart Math Institute.  Compassionate latitude was a term I had not heard before.  But first, a little background about the institute.  It was formed in 1991 by a group of scientists, researchers and educators who were interested in developing practical tools to reduce stress and increase peace.  Their research shows that what they call adding heart to daily activities and connections produces measurable benefits to our own and others' well-being.  It harmonizes resistance between our mind and heart, creating coherence. The monthly meditation is offered through one of their free services called the Global Coherence Initiative.  It unites people in heart-focused care and intention to facilitate a shift in global consciousness toward balance, cooperation and peace.  They offer a recorded guided meditation each month on the day of the full moon.  Each...

Further to yesterday's post about changing programmed beliefs, here is another perspective about tuning in to innate wisdom.  This relates to engaging in mindful practices to open our awareness.  This teaching is courtesy of the Wisdom Heart community, which has been mentioned in previous posts. The soul, or the seat of our personal identity, is always broadcasting wisdom to us, but we need to attune our mind to it, like tuning a radio to a station.  The perspective of many spiritual and wisdom traditions is, that there is a radiant presence in all of us, and that life is guided by this.  Life forms itself so we can receive guidance about what we seek, in whatever form we can receive it.  This is not always comfortable. Our guidance may come to us through a negative experience of the effect of those subconscious, habitual programs or patterns mentioned yesterday.  Life experiences, both small and big, bring us to crossroads or choice points.  It is...

Dr. Bruce Lipton is a cell biologist.  During experiments that he conducted with stem cells in 1967, he discovered that changes in the culture medium in the petrie dish resulted in the formation of different cells.  The original cells were all genetically the same.  The culture medium altered their expression when they divided and multiplied.  The big finding from this was, that instead of only the gene determining the outcome, it was the environment. This finding overturns the belief that we are merely victims of our genes.  He called this different belief about gene expression the science of epigenetics.  At the cellular level in our bodies, we respond to the culture medium of the  blood.  The blood contains chemical signals which are both internally and externally mediated.  I've referred to epigenetics before, in relation to expression of physical health conditions, and how much we can influence health through nutrition, for example....

None of us like it, yet, it seems to be a frequent visitor in our lives.  When we have suffered a severe pain or trauma, we might say we would not wish it on our worst enemy.  On another day, when we feel wronged, we might wish the offender a much worse experience. So much of our lives seems to be about avoiding or recovering from suffering.  Our incessant search for happiness may mainly be a detour around suffering. If it never really feels worthwhile to suffer, what is the value in it?  According to Rabbi Steve Leder, author of More Beautiful Than Before - How Suffering Transforms Us, it teaches us humility among other things.  If we've thought we can do everything on our own, we find out that we actually need others.  It shows us clearly who really matters and who does not. Experiencing our own suffering gives us an appreciation for what others have been through, perhaps making us kinder and more empathetic.  Suffering also shows us what we ca...

What thoughts come to mind when you see or hear the words, old people?  Do you think 'over the hill, declining, decrepit, confused'?  If so, you would not be far off the cultural consensus, based on social science research about collective biases regarding seniors and the elderly.  Biases clearly exist, especially about what seniors should and should not be able to do.  Our culture portrays that we should all be very afraid of getting old. Alongside that information, consider this recently reported statistic from the International Council on Active Aging.  The world population now has more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five years.  One might assume that the increase of seniors in the general population would lead to a rise in grey power and influence.  It seems we should not automatically expect this. Physical health and mortality of baby boomers is improving over the previous generation.  Men can now expect to live outside a...

This is a term I had not heard before.  It was used in a presentation I listened to about creating healthier food habits.  Food integrity refers to your relationship with food and living by the beliefs, values and desires you have developed around food. The two presenters came from opposite ends of the spectrum, in terms of how they had managed food in the past.  One was raised by very health conscious parents.  He always did, and still does, enjoy healthy food.  The other was someone who described herself as a food addict.  She had previously been obese, until she learned about the psychology of eating, changed her habits and learned how to overcome her addiction. Despite their different backgrounds, both presenters now share similar values and beliefs around food.  Both believe that food is the foundation of our health or our disease, depending on the choices we make.  Food is also a connection to life and community.  Food integrity can...

No, not your cellphone;  the ones in your body. You may remember drawing a diagram for science class in elementary school.  It showed what was inside a cell.  One of the important items was an organelle called the mitochondrion. We learned that it was the furnace or battery of the cell, producing energy. Contrary to what I thought as a school kid, that there was just one of these batteries in each cell, it turns out they occur in different concentrations in various tissues in every cell except red blood cells.  They do provide most of the cell energy for many different metabolic purposes, and they need oxygen, glucose and fat to do this. The way they produce this energy is via the Krebs cycle, which any of you organic chemistry buffs can feel free to regale us about, a big jump from elementary school to university classes.  Aside from energy production, mitochondria serve many other cell functions.  So what?  Don't the cells just do their jobs au...

I'm still working my way through the book called Flow, which I referred to briefly in a previous post.  The section I read recently, was examining what factors allow people to transform seemingly bleak conditions into a joyful way of living. In our Western culture, we tend to be taught to focus on achieving and maintaining happiness.  This usually refers to achieving different levels of reward, by meeting societal expectations and standards.  Success is held in high esteem and failure is generally frowned upon.  If we can't meet expectations, there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. Most people learn over time, that circumstances of hardship and difficulty can also have their rewards.  However, in general, we are somewhat addicted to the notion that life should provide us with favorable, rather than unfavorable conditions.  Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, calls this a positive obstacle.  That's because when we have a tunnel vision expectati...

Some people claim to never dream, or at least not to have any memory of doing so.  I used to dream a lot.  Then, in recent years, as my sleep has deteriorated, dreaming happens less often. Our brain waves go through different stages as we move from an awake to a sleeping and, then a dreaming state.  Beta waves occur during wakefulness.  Alpha waves occur during awake relaxation.  Theta waves occur during the early stages of sleep when the muscles and eyes relax and the heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature fall.  Delta waves occur during the deepest sleep.  It is most difficult to be awakened during this slow wave sleep, and people may feel groggy or disoriented after being woken from this stage. REM sleep, coming after Delta, is when active dreaming takes place.  It is a stage where the brain is active, but the body is very relaxed, even temporarily paralyzed.  During the night, the slow wave and REM sleep cycles alternate, wit...

Here is another perspective on yesterday's topic.  Originally, I had thought to combine them, but it would have made too long a post. Charles Eisenstein, a teacher, speaker and writer, who I also think of as a philosopher of cultural change, wrote a great article about understanding the power of our actions.  In it, he addresses the notion that doing things on a small scale makes doing them on a big scale possible. This is the principle of  'morphic resonance' which comes from biologist Rupert Sheldrake.  It means that something happening in one place, induces it happening elsewhere.  This reminds me of the 100th monkey story, where after a critical number is achieved, the rest of the species, in locations far away, achieve the skill. Eisenstein challenges us to reconsider the idea of cause and effect regarding making our mark in the world.  While we may tend to think that some service we provide or action that we do only has general meaning when it i...

Michael Bungay Stanier is a business coach and writer who has a website called Box of Crayons.  Great name right?  I'm on his email list for his social media posts about ways to do more great work, which is basically his tagline.  Periodically, he does little YouTube videos, which are quirky but informative, asking pointed questions.  These, as it turns out, are not just related to business teams, but can be considered generally in life. I made notes of the five questions he asked in a recent video titled How to Make Your Mark.  Maybe you would also be interested in considering them for whatever stage of life or role you find yourself in. 1)  What are you good at, that excites you and also leaves you energized? Great question, right?  This could apply to someone looking for a potential income stream skill, a volunteer position or a hobby.  Essentially, the coaching behind it is that we're more likely to make a memorable impression by doing s...

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring is the season of the liver.  According to Donna Eden's book, Energy Medicine, spring is assertive and embodies the power of new life, which comes from the energy accumulating below ground in the winter, bursting forth. You may have heard before, that the liver is associated with the emotion of anger, but not that anger is it's stress response, and assertiveness is it's non-stressed response.  When the rhythm is out of balance, the stress emotion is more likely to be expressed.  It can become so pervasive that you do not recognize the distortion.  It just is what it is. From another energy perspective, the liver is located in the area of the third chakra, the solar plexus.  It is our center of personal power.  Emotionally, it seems to correlate that, when we feel a strong sense of personal power we are assertive, and when we do not we feel irritated or angry. There are actually energetic strategies for addressing...

It's a major gatekeeper for the body, filtering all toxins and foreign substances from the blood, breaking them down and excreting them.  It's your liver, the biggest internal organ in your body.  The liver is one of the main organ targets of spring digestive cleanses.  It deals with waste products produced internally from your metabolism, and also with toxins that come into you from outside, via your food and your environment. This organ has hundreds of jobs, many of which have to do with digestion.  The enzymes it produces help break down the food you place in your stomach.  Molecules from digestion are released through your gut into your blood.  The blood then goes back through the liver to be filtered. Excess glucose not used by the body is stored in the liver in the form of glycogen.  Bile used in breaking down of dietary fat, is created in the liver and stored in the gall bladder.  The liver manages fat levels in the blood, and also help...

Well, I still have not started spring cleaning.  Who knows whether it will even happen this year?  Instead, it may just be a case of cleaning something, like windows, blinds or cupboards, when I can no longer tolerate their appearance.  That's the kind of task I might pursue on a day where I get an unexpected gift of time, and can throw myself into a frenzy of cleaning for a couple of hours. I received such a gift of time today, with a change in schedule.  However, rather than cleaning, I decided, since it was laundry day and clothes were already on my mind, to go through my closets and dresser.  I've been meaning to do this for awhile. As I've written about before, I was kindly given a lot of new to me clothes from friends in the past year.  While I did do a lot of sorting and selecting when I first received them, I still have had a lot of items in my closets. For me, this is a task that definitely requires being in the right frame of mind, since it ...

In keeping with what resonated personally from yesterday's post, regarding taking more personal responsibility for examining our beliefs, behaviors and values, I turn today to the topic of a consciousness cleanse.  My reference for this is a book written by personal development guru, Debbie Ford, called The 21 Day Consciousness Cleanse.  As she describes, it 'is a profound process for cleaning up the past, getting honest about the present and envisioning a future'.  This is a cleanse for the mind, emotions and spirit.  It is a tool for getting past the mediocrity we have settled for in our day to day life. Rather than describing the whole process, which you can read about and follow in detail from the book if you are interested, I want to touch on what Ford describes as the rules for the game or adventure, which will help us to do that more personal examination. Rule No. 1 - Unhooking from the outer world When we direct most of our energy towards things outside ...

Today, I listened to an interview about the recent decision in the U.S. about the 'Russiagate' investigation outcome.  The fascinating aspect of it was, that the doctor being interviewed, Gabor Maté, whose work I have quoted in previous posts, was talking about the psychological perspective. Some of the main points he made, were about the entire scenario being a reflection of how U.S. (and also Canadian, to be honest) society operates. Many of us were invested in a certain outcome of the investigation because of our own expectation of the truth looking a certain way.  (Maté says this has more to do with our own emotional needs than we may be aware of.) North American society, despite it's level of power and influence in the world, tends to operate from a victim mentality, always looking for an outside villain to demonize.  To be living like this, there needs to be a denial of what is going on internally, and a projection of blame on others, even though the U.S. has ...

In high school, I was on a few sports teams.  I ran middle distance in cross country racing and track and field, and I joined the volleyball team.  I did not have the natural athletic talent of the star players, but I enjoyed participating.  The highest compliment that the track and field coach could think to pay me was, that at least I was consistent.  My time in the one mile distance never improved much, but it never got worse either. It turns out that consistency has been one of my lifelong characteristics.  Because of it, I am responsible and for the most part, do what I commit to doing.  Would I have liked to come first in a race, or score the winning point in a volleyball game?  Of course, I would have.  But, I seemed to understand that was not too likely, even if I trained harder and harder.  I was satisfied with being good enough to participate. My areas of excellence were more academic, and I came to realize that I could strive har...

It seemed an interesting prospect at the start;  a box of family memorabilia from my husband's family, to sort into some kind of order.  In large part, it was photographs, but also some newspaper clippings and various printouts related to ancestry.  Almost all the photos were black and white, starting with the daguerreotypes from the 1800's up to the developed film style of more modern times.  These had been saved through four or five generations. What at first was kind of exciting, soon became rather tedious.  But, I was determined to get through at least one round, and stuck with it, in keeping with my tendency to obsess with projects.  I went through a second round today, and am more satisfied with the categories I made.  We will be passing the box on to our eldest son, who is now the keeper of the family tree.  He will actually be excited to go through everything! In this case, the majority of the items hold little meaning for me, except f...

We were fortunate to have part of the weekend away from the city, visiting family in the Kawartha region.  Two days in a row, we were able to hike in a nearby conservation area, in the ever improving spring weather.  Physical activity of any kind prolongs healthy living, so why not spend some of it out in a natural setting?  Groomed trail areas offer a variety of options for beginners through to seasoned hikers. Regular exercise strengthens muscles, tendons, cartilage and bones.  Walking on uneven surfaces improves our balance.  It also boosts our circulation and immune function, and let's not forget the positive emotional lift of being outdoors in a beautiful area with family or friends. On our first hike, we took a picnic lunch to a lakefront area.  Sitting on a bench facing the water we saw a group of six trumpeter swans fly right across our view, as well as ducks and geese.  One of the conservation area staff was set up nearby with camera an...

A book on a shelf in my home recently caught my attention.  We had had it for some time, but I had not read it.  It was no doubt one of my husband's picks, after hearing the author interviewed on public radio. The book is called 30 Lessons for Living. Rather than being like many of my self-help or health and wellness books, this one takes a different expert perspective - that of elders who have lived a long life and can speak from their experience.  Over 1000 individuals over 65 answered questions about important life lessons.  Mind you, at almost 65, I will soon be in their company.  Nevertheless, there is wisdom for me too in their experience. There are different categories of advice in the book:  marriage, career, parenting, aging well, living without regrets, choosing happiness and end of life.  For the purposes of today's post, I chose to look at the chapter on aging well, since that has particular relevance for me. A lot of us baby boomers ...