Author Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

About MaryAnn Reynolds

I practice advanced bodywork in Austin, TX, specializing in Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief.

Strawberry, pomegranate, and cacao breakfast smoothie

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Inspired by Patrice’s mango-cacao drink that she gave me a taste of on Friday (very yummy), today I made myself a fruit smoothie for breakfast.

I usually make green smoothies without fruit, so this is a special treat. I’ve felt in need of some self-nurturing. A bout of self-acceptance arose in the last couple of days that was a bit hard on my ego. Yesterday I had a sore throat, which seems to happen when “I” feel “under attack”. Unusual for me, I took a nap to give my immune system more resources and let my unconscious mind/inner healer do some amazing work. Today I’m better but still feeling the need to pull inward.

I happened to have a container of organic strawberries. I picked out the darkest, softest ones (more than half), pulled the stems off, washed them well, and added them to a can of 100% coconut water in my blender.

Strawberries are one of those produce items that are good to always buy organic. Every year, they are near the top of the Environmental Working Group’s list of the Dirty Dozen fruits and veggies.

(You can now download EWG’s Dirty Dozen app for your smart phone or iPad here. It’s free. No more wondering if it’s safe to buy nonorganic when you’re at the grocery or farmer’s market! I buy organic produce when it’s available. If organic is not available, I buy nonorganic if it’s on EWG’s Clean 15 list of produce. If not, I find something else that’s safe to eat.)

Also, more soapbox coming. Just because it’s sold at a farmer’s market doesn’t mean it’s organic. The majority of sellers that I’ve seen in the Austin area farmer’s markets are not organic-certified growers. Seek out organic growers and buy from them. You’ll encourage the rest to switch over.

Better yet, grow some of your own produce yourself. If you haven’t gardened before, it’s easy to start with herbs in pots. Next, try mixing in some greens like chard, kale, and collards into a nontoxic flower bed. Square foot gardening takes more effort to get started, but it’s really a fun way to garden and very low maintenance after your first planting.

Note: This applies to American readers. I presume that international readers have something like organic certification for growers. Not sure whether the EWG lists apply outside the U.S.???

Okay, soapbox off.

To the coconut water and strawberries, I added about 3 tablespoons of organic raw cacao nibs.

Then I put in a tablespoon or two of flax-seed meal, shelled hemp seeds, chia seeds, and maca powder.

Can’t forget a thumb-size chunk of peeled ginger. This is not an exact science here, more experimenting in the kitchen, which is much, much more fun once you learn basic principles than following a recipe exactly. But following recipes is how you learn.

Then I added about 3 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses. In Austin, you can get it at Fiesta and Phoenicia Bakery, stores that carry Middle Eastern brands. I use the Cortas brand, a product of Lebanon containing only natural pomegranate juice concentrate.

After adding all these ingredients, I ran my blender for a couple of minutes on the highest setting to really pulverize the cacao. When I can afford a VitaMix ($450-650 new), I’ll get one and wonder, I’m sure, how I ever managed to live without it. A VitaMix will pulverize the cacao quickly.

It was so delicious, it was hard not to drink it all in one sitting, but I managed to save some for tomorrow morning. Strawberries, cacao, and pomegranate make a great menage a trois!

What got you started meditating? Here’s my story. What’s yours?

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Clare commented on my recent post about meditation that she enjoys becoming still and present but wonders how to convince others.

I’m not sure what convinces people that meditation is a good thing. Plenty of people do meditate, and now I’m curious about the initial catalyst. (Because none of this have been doing this our entire lives, I’ll bet!)

I’ll share my story, and I invite you to share yours, either in the comments or via email. If you email me (mareynolds27 at gmail dot com), be sure to let me know what name or initials you want me to use if I get enough responses to summarize in a future post.

I started five years ago after a relationship ended. Even though I knew it was right to end the relationship — the other person had stopped relating to me in a way I enjoyed and had become someone I no longer knew (either that, or my eyes fully opened for the first time) — I still wanted to escape from the emotional pain of ending a relationship I had put a lot of myself into.

I couldn’t find a way to escape. Alcohol, smoking, busy-ness, socializing, travel — none of that helped. Each morning I woke up with a heart that felt raw and vulnerable.

After a few weeks of this, it occurred to me one day that I had nothing to lose if I just sat with the pain, fully facing it. I didn’t believe it could have gotten worse.

I  sat myself down cross-legged on a pillow on the floor and surrendered to what I was feeling. I brought my attention to my heart center and felt into it. I let the pain just be what it was, not wanting to be in denial about it, not wanting to make it into anything else. I actually had some curiosity about moving toward it instead of away from it.

I wasn’t swallowed up, overwhelmed, decimated, annihilated, or engulfed. I felt hurt and vulnerable in my heart center, yes. And I realized that there was more to me than that. I was bigger than the pain. But who was I?

That was the hook. Who actually was I? I began sitting to find an answer to that question.

What set you on this path?

Why meditators are happier

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A very interesting article that fits in well with this blog, Eat, Smoke, Meditate: Why Your Brain Cares How You Cope was published recently in Forbes, the business magazine — an unlikely place for an article about meditation but a good sign, meaning that this kind of information is reaching the conservative mainstream business audience.

The article, by health writer Alice G. Walton, states that for millenia people have turned to different activities to cope with life’s stresses: going for a walk, taking a deep breath, eating, drinking, smoking, praying, taking drugs, running, meditating.

She adds that most people would agree that the mind’s annoying chatter is a major source of unhappiness. It’s the obsessing, worrying, drifting, fearful mind that creates feelings of unhappiness. (We meditators know it as monkey mind.)

This internal chatter and the unpleasant emotions that accompany its thoughts are really what people are trying to get away from. A Harvard study done last year confirmed that mind wandering and unhappiness are clearly connected. That study found that when people are awake, their minds are wandering about half the time.

Another study found that mind wandering is linked to a network of brain cells called the default mode network (DMN for short). This network is only active when we are flitting from one life-worry to the next.

Meditation is about quieting the mind, facing, and then relinquishing those unhappy, stress-inducing thoughts.

New research from Yale has found that the DMN in experienced meditators is markedly less linked to other regions of the brain. And…when the brain’s “me centers” (areas governing thoughts about the self, such as the DMN) are activated, meditators also activated brain areas for self-monitoring and cognitive control.

They did this automatically, even when not being told to do anything in particular.

This implies that experienced meditators habitually monitor their thoughts and control them — a skill learned during meditation. When the mind wanders — when meditating and at other times — experienced meditators bring it back to the present moment.

Could this be the primary benefit of meditation, that you learn to monitor and control your thoughts, and therefore you feel happier?

The article suggests that meditators actually create a new default mode that is more present-centered and less “me”-centered.

The writer wonders whether happiness is really about shifting our tendency away from focusing on ourselves. Another study found that in praying nuns and meditating monks, brain areas for concentration and attention became activated, while areas that govern how a person relates to the world deactivated.

The author states that this suggests that the focus becomes less on the person being a distinct entity from the external world and more on the connection between the person and the external world.

Separation and oneness, away from and toward. Aha!

The article continues, stating that other tools to relieve stress like cigarettes, food, or alcohol actually end up making the users unhappier. Addictions create negative feedback loops that include craving and relief, followed by craving and relief, et cetera.

She concludes:

 Addressing the process itself with other methods (like meditation), which allow you to ride out the craving/unhappiness by attending to it and accepting it, and then letting it go, has been more successful, because it actually breaks the cycle rather than masks it.

Healing bruised, sprained toes

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A friend called me last night, said she had injured her toes, wondered if I could help.

Of course, I said yes, come on over. While she was driving to my place, I got the massage table ready, with a round bolster for her knees and half bolster for her heels or ankles to rest on, to keep her toes elevated.

Got an ice pack out of the freezer and wrapped it in a kitchen towel.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 10.25.32 PMI checked my collection of Young Living essential oils and immediately pulled out the PanAway. I looked in the Essential Oils Desk Reference to see what else might be helpful. My friend had said she thought her toes were bruised and sprained but not broken. I didn’t have geranium, helichrysum, or German chamomile on hand, any of which would have helped, but I did have lavender, peppermint, and wintergreen.

I decided to stick with the big gun, PanAway, a blend that includes helichrysum, wintergreen, clove, and peppermint. Continue reading →

Energizing morning beverage: green tea, yerba mate, lemon juice, ginger

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Lately in the mornings, I’ve been making myself a cup of tea that has been incredibly energizing. I feel like I have the energy of someone half my age, which would be…under 30. This morning I was literally jumping at ecstatic dance!

Here’s how to make it:

Boil some filtered water and turn off the heat.

Into a tea ball or strainer, add about a teaspoon of loose green tea leaves. You could use a tea bag of green tea if that’s all you have, but be warned: the tea that goes into tea bags is of vastly inferior quality compared to loose tea.

Add anywhere from a pinch to a quarter teaspoon of yerba mate. Too much can give heart palpitations, so more is not better. Start with a pinch and add more if you have no unpleasant side effects.

Put the tea ball into a cup and fill the cup with hot water.

Add about a teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice or other citrus juice.

Add 1 or 2 slices of fresh ginger root, about as thick as a nickel.

Let steep for about 3 minutes. Remove tea ball.

You could add stevia or honey if you like, but I find the astringent taste refreshing. You can also pour it over ice for a refreshing cool beverage.

Health benefits

  • Green tea is a powerhouse for health. It contains catechins, which are antioxidants that scavenge the body for free radicals and destroy them.  The catechins also protect the skin from DNA damage from UV light. Green tea’s EGCG kills cells showing abnormal growth rates — like cancer cells. It lowers the absorption rate of cholesterol from food and increases the rate cholesterol is excreted, so it improves cardiovascular health. Its theanine boosts the activity of T cells, enhancing the immune system. It assists in weight loss by stimulating the metabolism while dissolving triglycerides.
  • Adding lemon juice to green tea boosts the amount of catechins that are absorbed, supercharging it. Green tea alone is already pretty supercharged, so this combo is super-supercharged! By itself, lemon juice has dozens of beneficial properties: it is alkalizing, improves digestion and elimination, cuts phlegm, purifies the blood, improves the skin, lowers blood pressure, aids in weight loss, and more.
  • Yerba mate provides provides energy without the negative side effects of caffeine. Its theobromine (also found in cacao) relaxes the blood vessels, lowering blood pressure. It stimulates the immune system. It also promotes weight loss by decreasing hunger pangs and stimulating the metabolism.
  • Ginger induces the death of cancer cells. It improves digestion, relieves gastro-intestinal distress, is anti-inflammatory and pain relieving. Like the other ingredients, it is stimulating and energizing.

It’s amazing to me that with just a morning cup of lemon ginger green tea mate, I can do so much for my health while I increase my energy for the day. 


Suggestions to relieve insomnia and get to sleep

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A couple of months ago, I blogged about some exciting new research about insomnia. It seems that when we lie awake at night, unable to fall asleep, it’s because our brains are overheating. They tend to generate more warmth during the day and cool down at night.

So something happens that moves us out of this biorhythm and into the minor hell of insomnia (or major, if it goes on long enough). When you would like to be sleeping, the monkey mind grabs onto thoughts and won’t let go — generating heat in the brain and preventing sleep.

The researcher experimented with a cooling cap. It seemed to me that there were alternatives that were much simpler and more accessible.

Disidentify with your thoughts

First of all, disidentifying with your thoughts is a useful skill anyone can learn with a little practice. Thinking is what the mind does. It serves a purpose. It is not inherently bad.

The question is whether thinking is appropriate when you want to be sleeping. There’s thinking, and then there’s mind-running-amok.

To disidentify with those thoughts, you simply choose to focus your attention on your breath, or on sounds, sensations, rhythms, your weight against the sheets and pillow, a chakra, your whole body, a state of wonder, an image — find something that works for you. (All this stuff is happening all the time. “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans,” right?)

Notice that your thoughts are often about something that’s neither here nor now — they’re in the past or future. Bring your attention into the present moment. What are you actually experiencing?

Your mind may interrupt, but as you continue to focus on your present experience, it will interrupt less and less often, and you will fall asleep.

Also, notice whether that thing your monkey mind won’t let go of is something you have any control over. If you can’t influence it, give it up. Trickster is having fun with you. Just plain let go and hand it over to God, the Universe, Spirit (GUS will take care of it). Now go to sleep.

If you can influence it, unless it’s truly life-or-death, sleep on it and see what option comes to mind when you wake in the morning. In other words, pose the question “How can I influence this for the good of all involved?” Let your unconscious mind work and play with the situation while your conscious mind takes the restful break of sleep. When you wake, notice what comes to mind.

You may want to do some journaling.

Drink some cool, clear water

Drink a glass, or half a glass if your bladder wakes you up early, of water that is between room temperature and cool. Ice isn’t necessary — some people believe that ice is too cooling and not good for the human digestive system’s operations. After all, the human race has done pretty well without iced drinks for millenia upon millenia.

Take a mouthful of cool water, close your mouth, hold it for a bit, and then swallow.

You can also put a cool compress of a wrung-out washcloth on your forehead. Do both!

And, while you’re doing these things, think about the cowboy song Cool, Clear Water while you do this! Let water represent the sleep you want to experience.

Here’s a video of the original by the Sons of the Pioneers. Maybe you have a favorite version.

Yawn and open your mouth when you lie down to sleep

Since it’s currently believed that the purpose of yawning is to cool the overheated brain, yawn several times when you are ready to go to sleep.

Also, you can open your mouth just wide enough to let air (cooler than your body, of course) circulate in your oral cavity and cool the adjacent brain. Try parting your teeth half a finger-width.

Continue to breathe through your nose, not your mouth, unless you have nasal congestion.

Use acupressure to reduce heat

I shared this with my bodyworker/acupuncturist Patrice Sullivan, who got excited and shared with me some of the pressure points that reduce heat, because in Chinese medicine’s understanding of health, the body can get out of balance and have too much heat — and of course this can affect the brain.

Press into pressure points with a fingertip or pencil eraser to stimulate them, unblock meridians, and release heat. Press briefly and see what happens. Then try pressing steadily for 30 second to 2 minutes.

The list below includes the poetic names of the points for fun. You may want to google each point to view a graphic with more precision about the location.

  • Gallbladder 42 and 43, Earth Fivefold Convergence and Clamped Stream, are on the foot between the fourth and fifth metatarsals.
  • Liver 2, Moving Between, is on the top of the foot between the first and second toes before the webbing starts.
  • Gallbladder 34, Yang Hill Spring, is outside the knee, in a depression just below the head of the fibula (smaller lower leg bone) toward the front.
  • Heart 7, Spirit Gate, is on the hand on the crease of the wrist closest to the hand, in line with the ring finger.
  • Large Intestine 11, Crooked Pond, is located at the end of the outer elbow crease.
  • Governing Vessel 20, Hundred Convergences, is at the crown of the head.

Report back so others may benefit

I’d love to be wrong about this, but in my opinion, Big Science is probably not going to fund research on simple, effective ways to relieve insomnia unless they can make money off it by selling you something they’ve patented. So it’s up to us to figure out what works and let others know.

Please feel free to try any or all of these methods to relieve insomnia and please report back on what worked and didn’t work for you in the comments for this post.

Thank you.

The acrobat and the meditator

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Here is today’s quote from Tricycle Daily Dharma, to which I subscribe.

We are so used to projecting our attention out into the world around us, it is a noticeable shift when we face inward and feel the subtle swaying of the head on the shoulders, along with all the muscular microcompensations keeping our body centered in gravity. The acrobat, like the meditator, is bringing conscious awareness to a process that is always occurring but is generally overlooked, which is a vital first step to learning anything valuable about ourselves.

Andrew Olendzki, “Keep Your Balance” (my bolding)

Might as well say “the yogi” rather than “the acrobat”.

From what I’ve read and understand, the very simple act of shifting one’s attention from “out there” to “in here” actually changes one’s brainwaves from beta state to alpha, from stressed to more relaxed.

So you can try this right now, if you like. You’re reading this blog post, which is an “out there” experience.

Read the following sentence, do what it says, and notice how your experience changes:

Bring your attention to the space between your eyes.

What happened when you did that? Did your breathing change? Did your sense of pleasure change? What else did you notice?

It could be your left pinkie finger or the top of your head or the soles of your feet or the center of your belly. Anywhere on or in your body suffices.

It’s not about how far you can back-bend, it’s about harnessing your attention within, which is, as Olendzki says above, “a vital first step to learning anything valuable about ourselves.”

 

Cleansing time

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Each fall and spring following the equinox is a great time to do the colon/parasite cleanse. I blogged about it last fall with complete instructions.

I’ve just put Paracidin/Paratosin on my grocery list. People’s Pharmacy in Austin carries it, and you can get it online and in supplement/health food stores and compounding pharmacies in many places. Be sure to get it from Premier Research Labs — there are other supplements with similar names that are different. Here’s what it looks like.

Back when I wrote the original post, I followed the colon/parasite cleanse with the liver/gallbladder flush, but when I did the latter in the spring of 2011, I had no more green stones of hardened bile to loosen and release. Yay! It took three years of cleansing two nights in a row, fall and spring, for that to happen.

Our livers are not capable of processing cooked oils.

I may do that cleanse again in about 3 years. It’s hard to completely avoid tortilla chips and other foods cooked in oil, although I see that stores now carry mayonnaise made with olive oil (uncooked) rather than canola (cooked), and that’s a good thing.

I still do the colon/parasite cleanse each fall and spring. There’s no end to doing that. Parasites are part of our lives. In fact, I read a recent article that posited that “we” are actually composed more of non-human micro-organisms than we are of our own human tissue. That’s a fascinating and kind of creepy topic for another day!

This parasite cleanse works on the entire gastrointestinal tract. Besides cleansing the colon and pulling toxins from its walls, it rids the liver, pancreas, and spleen of parasites, specifically liver flukes. (I know. It sounds disgusting, doesn’t it?)

Our organs are vital to our health, so much so that organ failure often leads to death or disability, yet we probably never voluntarily think about them until they give us or someone close to us problems. Here’s a way to give them some love and support before they give you problems.

—

Update in November 2013: Just came off a month of colon cleansing, followed by two nights of the liver/gallbladder flush. The last time I did the flush and actually eliminated hardened bile from those organs was three years ago. I was curious to learn whether my body had formed any more  bile stones in those three years.

It had. I eliminated a dozen or so stones after the first night and none the second night.

So it seems to me that it’s good to do the flush every two to three years, even after you’ve gotten clear, if you even occasionally eat foods with cooked oils in them.

I know I ate tortilla chips, fried okra, the occasional sweet potato fries. I sauteed fish and fried eggs in coconut oil, and I’m sure there are more foods that I’m not remembering right now.

The discomfort of the epsom salt was worth it, because after the second morning, I felt euphoric! The liver and GB are associated with anger in Chinese medicine, so it makes sense that flushing them of stones would enhance emotional well-being.

Equinox

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Twice a year there’s a 24-hour period when the day and the night are of equal length. These are the equinoxes, spring and fall. Today is the fall equinox for 2011.

These two days are pauses in the changing of the seasons. You might as well put everything on hold, at least for a bit, and just breathe in some balance.

I like the idea of using these days to pause and rest from all the striving, trying, making progress (or not), moving toward goals, moving away from whatever. I can give today the direction of center.

If you’d like to play along, just pretend that you have arrived at your destination in this lifetime, and just now, at this moment, imagine that you have become the person you want to be.

Okay, now do it. Breathe in your arrival, settle into that, and exhale.

What does that feel like? Did it shift anything for you?

Tears came into my eyes when I first thought that thought earlier today. It literally gave me pause. So much striving, so much struggle. It’s been hard sometimes.

It’s so nice to give myself a break and just rest in exactly who and where I am in life.

I wish you a most restful equinox.

I just wanna say “I love you,” Stevie Wonder

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The man is an American institution. I got to see him last night at the Austin City Limits festival.

Initially torn between seeing him or My Morning Jacket, my musician and producer friend Bruce Hughes advised me to go see Stevie by saying this:

His connection to the source is the fifth element.

Who can resist a recommendation like that?

I met my friend Fran Tatu there — her first ACL festival — and we hung out for some Patrice Pike and a little Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the Del McCoury Band. (I have a crush on PHJB’s tuba player, Ben Jaffe.) Earlier I’d seen Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub and some gospel acts.

Fran loved ACL, which is saying something, since she’s from New Orleans and is a long-time Jazz Fest aficionado.

Not to go too far off on a tangent here, but I love Jazz Fest. I’ve been once, pre-Katrina, and want to go again. In comparison, ACL doesn’t attract the diversity of ages and races that Jazz Fest does. I loved that if you wanted to, you could hear just jazz, just blues, or just gospel, each in its own tent with chairs to sit on, all day, every day, for 10 days.

Austin’s food scene doesn’t rival New Orleans, but there are plenty of creative offerings here, and the food at ACL is getting better and better. I love that ACL brings in the foodies who help make Austin Austin: Hope Farmers Market, Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, The Mighty Cone, Amy’s Ice Cream, The Daily Juice, Maudie’s Tex-Mex, The Salt Lick, Stubb’s BBQ, Torchy’s Tacos, and more.

I enjoyed a Green Tea with Mint and Honey from Sweet Leaf Tea and later an Energizing Kombucha from Hope Farmers Market. I had a Wahoo’s fish taco for lunch (tasty) and a bacon-wrapped sweet pepper with goat cheese from Odd Duck (wowza!).

Back to Stevie Wonder. He played song after song that I knew without even having to think about it. “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” “Superstition.” “Living for the City.” “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” “That’s What Friends Are For.” “From the Bottom of My Heart.” “Brand New Day.” “Isn’t She Lovely?”

His hit songs have become embedded in American culture since the 1970s. He and I are almost contemporaries, and so these are the songs of my adult life. So positive, so loving, so catchy.

He mentioned that he is a United Nations Ambassador for Peace. He advocates for the disabled around the world, and he takes this role seriously enough to let it influence his music. We were lucky to have him share with us a song he’s still working on, “Check On Your Love,” in which he calls on the people who advocate religious war to, well, check on their love. It incorporates some middle Eastern sounds, which we sang along to (or tried to — singing along with Stevie is hard).

He spoke of his esteem for President Obama, of his desire to have more schools than prisons, of not going back to the bad old days, and more. Right after he praised Obama early in his set, some people in front of us left. Republicans, probably.

All in all, a great set. Started late, ended late. He played and sang, bossed, created, taught, preached, shared. After it was over, I rode my bike to my car, put my bike on the car rack, visited with Katy and Robert, drove home, and stayed up until nearly 2 a.m., my head filled with Stevie Wonder songs.

None of my photos of Stevie turned out well enough to share. We were too far away, and the monitor didn’t photograph well. So sorry about that! He looks great. Happy, healthy, with no restrictions in the neck and jaw — none. He keeps it loose.

I also want to mention how much I enjoyed hearing Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub. I admire his songwriting and sound. His new band includes a lovely young blond woman with more soul in her voice than her years would suggest was possible, who was adept at drums, rhythm guitar, and keyboards as well.

This amazing talent is Trixie Whitley. She could be huge like Adele if she wanted that level of fame — and right now she’s in great company. (I overheard some guys around me praising her. When she picked up a guitar, they said they’d really fallen in love with her.) Here’s a photo of some tight, tight vocals being sung.

Daniel Lanois' Black Dub

I partook of a chair massage at Massage Rocks. I had met the owner, Jon Sullivan, just last week when he talked to my class. So nice to have that available for those of use whose bodies get weary at events like ACL. I vote for a yoga corner at next year’s ACL!