Category Archives: happiness

Massage school classwork over; internship starting

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This morning I finished my classwork (except for a couple of makeup classes) at The Lauterstein-Conway School of Massage.

I’ve been in the fastest-paced program available, called “the intensive”. My class started on June 27, 2011, and has now completed 450 hours of training. My 50-hour internship in the school’s student clinic starts on Thursday.

If you are in Austin and would like a $35 student massage from me, click this link to view my December internship schedule. You can also just call the clinic at 512-453-2830 and ask when I’m working and not booked. (Please note that these massages are in demand, and the clinic tends to book several weeks in advance. I’m doing 20 massages in December, 28 in January, and 2 in February, if all goes according to plan, so call soon.)

I want to thank those family members and friends who have let me practice on you during my training. I appreciate your patience and willingness (okay, I didn’t have to twist any arms), and I hope my practice benefitted you and enhanced your well-being. Actually, I hope you loved my touch. I’ve worked on about 25 of you outside of school, generally for longer than an hour, and several of you more than once. Thank you.

I’d also love to thank my classmates. Our class held together pretty well, with not too many drop-outs. We started with 28 and ended with approximately 22. It’s been a pleasure knowing you and working on and with you and receiving your work. I’ve worked on most of you multiple times. Thank you! I’d like to stay in touch.

I’ve greatly enjoyed my teachers at TLC, the apropos nickname for The Lauterstein-Conway school. Your personalities are so vivid, I’ve thought that someone should write a sit-com pilot set at a massage school and pitch it to Hollywood — and much hilarity ensues! Thank you for choosing to practice and teach massage, and for teaching me so much.

I’ve learned a lot about anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology — and I’ve really just begun a lifelong love. I’ve learned the basics of Swedish and sports and deep massage and Shiatsu, BMTs, ROMs, stretches, pressure points, and more. All have made their way into my work. In addition, I learned about business, ethics, energy work, clinical protocols, and so much more it’s hard to even remember at this moment.

I also want to acknowledge Awareness, in which you, I, and all of Creation exists, and recognize its internal guidance to this right-for-me livelihood and so many other things that are right in my life.

I want to especially acknowledge two people who work on me, Bo Boatright and Peach, as being instrumental in encouraging me to do healing work.

Bo asked me to work on him when he was injured. I only had reiki training at the time and had hardly used it, and that was all I could do, but I stayed with him and let the energy pour through. He recognized the quality of my touch and my heart connection, and I am finding that others recognize that too. Thank you for dancing with me, Bo.

Peace has been the best role model ever for a learned, very skilled healer and teacher and a happy free spirit who does life her own unique way, and it seems to be working out extremely well for her. We’ve come such a long way together over the past few years in terms of health, relating, and getting my qi flowing well. Thank you for dancing with me, Peach!

Sometimes I don’t know if I’m dreaming or awake. Is living the dream the same as being truly awake? Today I’m going for dreaming and awake.

Many different flavors of joy

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Today’s post centers on a quotation I received this morning via email from Tricycle magazine’s Daily Dharma subscription service. I subscribe to several of these — The Universe, Tricycle Daily Dharma, and Ocean of Dharma are the main ones, and I’m currently testing one for my Enneagram type that I’ll write about later.

I enjoy opening my inbox in the morning and finding words of wisdom.

This is what I found this morning:

Joy has many different flavors. It might overflow from us in song or dance, or it might gently arise as a smile or a sense of inner fullness. Joy is not something we have to manufacture. It is already in us when we come into the world, as we can see in the natural delight and exuberance of a healthy baby. We need only release the layers of contraction and fear that keep us from it.

The author is James Baraz in Lighten Up! 

Joy. I seem to be in a groove in my life in which I often experience joy. It’s delightful and welcome.

Here are some ways joy has shown up for me recently:

  • Singing along with remastered Beatles songs in my car brings me joy.
  • Responding to an invitation to improvise my movements to music (aka dancing ecstatically); to seek a groove, release it, and find  another groove; continually discover the balances between ease and stamina, attention inward and attention outward, and staying in one place and circulating through the space; of connecting with others and choosing how much to engage; lying in a circle on the floor afterward in silent community.
  • Laughing with a certain friend whose laughter is loud, full, wild, and raucous. Her laugh makes me laugh.
  • Taking two road trips with dear friends recently. Road trips engender good conversation while barreling down the highway and exploring the destination.
  • Making chicken soup for my visiting grandchild who had a fever and sore throat and being comfortably together sharing our lives while it cooked.
  • Attending a house blessing for my friend who is bringing her aged parents to live with her until they pass or need more assistance, and literally filling the house with didgeridoo and rainstick and human sounds, filling every room, closet, and space with our presence and love and joy, decorating altars, and inviting our parents and grandparents, living or dead, and others with similar caretaking responsibilities to benefit from our work together.
  • Massaging people, experiencing the difference between before and after, and knowing I made a difference.
  • Waking to the sound of rain on the roof of my trailer.
  • Having Mango curl up on my chest and purr and put his “hand” on my face when I visit, knowing that my friends who gave him a home love us both. Yeah, kitty reiki!
  • Experiencing a long close embrace with someone special, breathing joy.

Being present and allowing life to unfold as it will inevitably brings moments of joy in some way, shape, or form. Letting joy go when it’s over instead of trying to hold onto it invites it back.

May your day hold many moments of joy, and may you savor each one fully, and let it go.

Getting over trauma and moving on with your life: some core questions

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I was revising the About Me page of my blog recently, the page where I tell you guys that I’ve mostly recovered from PTSD.

It occurred to me that if I shared a little more about that, it might be very, very useful to someone. PTSD is becoming more common, unfortunately.

What I’m coming to understand now is that it’s not so much what you specifically do to recover, although some ways of healing work better than others.

The bottom line is that you have to want to heal in order to heal. And nothing outside of you can get that wanting for you. It has to come from within, that desire to heal. You begin intending to heal, and healing begins to show up, and from then on, it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. It may be one step forward, 9/10th of a step back, but the spiral has begun.

Others can influence you to expand in that direction, though. For instance, believing it’s possible to heal. Some traumatized people are not in an environment where they hear that message. Sometimes everyone else has been traumatized, and no one has any resources to help. Some people have erected internal defenses that protect them from really hearing that message because suffering has become such a part of their identity that giving it up might leave a frightening void. Who would you be without your story? How can you intend to heal if you don’t believe it’s possible? 

Sometimes just knowing that another person has done it can make it possible for you. I can just encourage you to know that it’s possible to recover, to explore and discover, and use joy and expansion as navigation tools. Use your brain, too. 

What would it take for you to believe that recovering from trauma is possible for you? 

Honeys, so this is the thing about healing from trauma or loss: At some point, you realize that you’ve given enough of your life to suffering about that past event, and you’re still alive and likely have a good number of years left. What do you want for yourself? What do you really want? 

You can ask yourself these key questions:

  • Who would I be if that hadn’t happened to me? For sure, I’d be a lesser person if I had not suffered. At the same time, I grieve because it took me so long to get over it, to even know that I had PTSD and that I even could get over it. I cannot get those lost years of my life back, which makes my life now so much more meaningful. In the years I have left, I intend to make up for the lost time and be as happy and alive and myself as I can be. And, it is worthwhile to imagine your life if you hadn’t been sidetracked by trauma. What would you have gone on to do? I imagine that if I had really had the courage and confidence to develop my skills when I was a young woman, I might have gone to New York and worked in publishing and writing. So…guess what? I’ve worked in publishing and writing not in New York, and blogging was unimaginable back then. In some strange way, experiencing trauma did not derail my life as completely as I thought.
  • What gifts has your suffering brought? Although everyone’s story of suffering is different from mine, I do have a clue about how hard life can be, and it gives me a lot of compassion for people’s suffering, from war, famine, natural disaster, genocide, the many cruelties and tragedies that we all know exist and that some of us have experienced up close and personal — and the way these terrible events can influence beliefs about oneself, one’s fellow humans, and life in general, beliefs that can perpetuate the suffering, sometimes for generations.
  • How has your suffering shaped you? Knowing that one of the worst things that can happen — if you haven’t read About me, the brutal murder of my young sister when I was a child myself at a time when no one knew anything about PTSD — has already happened has helped me to have more courage. I spent years waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then one day I realized it probably never would. And…if it does, guess what? I have experience with trauma and now know so much better how to move through and beyond it.
  • If you choose not to have PTSD, where do you go from there? I recall a day after I had been diagnosed with PTSD, when I realized I didn’t like having it one bit. I actually was pretty clueless about it then. It was like being diagnosed with any incurable condition. I remember thinking to myself in a very surly manner that I want to beat the shit out of PTSD with a baseball bat. I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t want it! The mainstream psychiatric thinking (i.e., Judith Herman, DSM) back then, a mere 10 years ago, was that PTSD was incurable. Once you have it, you always do. Well, a lot has changed — notably, the work of Peter Levine and David Berceli showing that trauma resides in the body and can be released, and brain wave researchers finding signature brain wave patterns for PTSD that can be changed with brainwave optimization. I had to accept that the PTSD was in me, not outside of me, and if I were going to beat the shit out of it, I’d have to beat myself up! And I didn’t want to beat myself up in any way any more — which left me with this option: I’d need to somehow become sane and healthy. I gave up focusing on anyone but myself. I stopped blaming (including myself), and I put my heart and mind and body and spirit into examining and changing and updating my identity and map of reality. Not that that’s ever done and fixed. Now, I’m not immune to trauma. No truly alive person could be because being truly alive means being vulnerable. But I believe I could move through it now and not become stuck there, which is what PTSD is. Stuckness. Developing flexibility is the antidote.
  • What unknown joys await you? Yeah, I know. If you’ve experienced trauma, you may not be able to imagine them now, but they do lie waiting for you to want to experience them. You can just make a space for them now, and sooner or later, they will show up — maybe in your dreams at first, and then in your waking life. For me now, many of my joys are about relating to other people and connecting with them and loving them as deeply and unconditionally as I am able, being appreciated and recognized and accepted for who I am, and being able to use my gifts and talents to be of service in this world.

Serendipitously, a friend just emailed me this Native American quote:

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

These are just some thoughts I wanted to share with you guys today. I imagine I will have more thoughts on this topic, so please stay tuned. And of course, your feedback and comments are welcome.

What if the human species became really good at recovering from trauma and even preventing it when possible? What kind of world might we live in?

The Yoga of Protest. | elephant journal

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The Yoga of Protest. | elephant journal.

Here’s a yogic take on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Excerpt:

In the midst of all this muddle, a yogic concept called ananda popped into my head. Ananda is Sanskrit; it is one of the highest purposes of Anusara Yoga, and can be translated as deep joy, deep expressiveness, or bliss. It can also be understood as “loving acceptance of what is.”

It hurts to think about practicing this idea in relation to what the Occupy Wall Street protesters are pointing at. It hurts to think about lovingly accepting the deep dysfunction and suffering that is occurring in this world. If I imagine doing that, my heart feels like it might stretch and break. Yet it is what the mystics call for us to do, to love what is hurting us, to empathize with our torturers. Not blindly, naively or passively, but powerfully, radiantly and compassionately.

All of us, 99% and 1%, need to be loved. We need to be seen in our wholeness. Our suffering, yes, our greatness.

The Economics of Happiness | Project Syndicate

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The Economics of Happiness – Jeffrey D. Sachs – Project Syndicate.

A professor of economics from Columbia University reports on a conference in Bhutan to check on how well “Gross National Happiness” as a measure of the collective well-being of nations compares to Gross National Product.

All agreed that it was more important to pursue happiness than income. How to do it? They came up with five conclusions.

Monkey tea

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A little fun Saturday morning in my new kitchen, making myself a cup of yerba mate. Found the monkey tea brewer at Wheatsville Coop in Austin, Texas.

I like monkeys.

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A reader asks about self-actualizing

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I received an email from a reader who found my blog inspirational and shared her story about the pull of coming alive. I in turn feel very inspired and want to share publicly
and answer some questions she poses, because if she is wondering, others are too. (I replied personally as well.)

This is the path of self-actualization. It’s the same thing as coming alive.

Dear MaryAnn,

About a year and a half ago, I felt like I was coming alive at last. I had been laid off from corporate America, had my mornings free to be physically active, and my afternoons free to write and volunteer. I spent a summer/fall in Chile to volunteer at a non-profit, where the highlight of my time was to befriend children at a school and teach them a lesson about the “red alimentaria”… the food web… in Spanish!  I then taught kids outdoor environmental education, and then spent the summer doing labwork in Alaska (I trained as a biochemist).  But after being away from my “field” for so long, fear kicked in, and I started worrying about income source, a “career”, and so on… and as you probably already know, feeding the wolf of fear leads one down paths that don’t contribute to feeling alive!
So, thank you for your inspirational blog, which reminded me that YES, I am OK to NOT want to stay in a new job (albeit it pays $65K/year) if selling life science research projects does not make me come alive!  And NO, I’m not “wrong” to feel this way. And YES, I AM grateful for all that I have, but at the same time, I don’t need to continue doing something that I think is draining me of life versus filling me with life.
My question that I hope you can provide some insight into is, what helped you determine what type of new work and income source you could pursue that is both life-inspiring and supports your needs?  I noticed the image of the trailer… when I taught kids for 5 months in Redding, CA, I learned that a trailer costs $8000, which would pay for itself in a year vs the $750/mo I am now spending in rent in the SF Bay Area.  Did you find a solution to reducing living expenses so that you were free to pursue work and activities that truly fulfilled you?

Thank you again for your inspiring words, and may you continue to live courageously! : )
-B
PS  Btw, I’m 33 soon to be 34 in June, no debt, some savings, and a bit on the conservative side…. though that is all relative b/c none of my friends have taken career breaks to travel and live/work non-career jobs like I did this past almost 2 yrs. But at the same time, I have not picked up and relocated to a new city jobless the way some folks whom I’ve met in my travels have.  Thanks again!  I’m thinking about training to be an environmental science teacher…. or a Breema practitioner (I actually only just learned about Breema but it sounds great!).

Well, I feel flattered and honored to hear from such an amazing person who received some inspiration from my blog. I have no doubt that B is on the path of really coming alive!

The path of self-actualization isn’t for everyone. Most people find it easier and much more comfortable to take that “path of least resistance” and stick with the corporate job, the 8-5, the insurance and benefits, the known.

There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what is right for you right now. It’s just that throughout history, some people have listened within to an urge to seek more life out of their life — to see the world, to pioneer something, to take a risk, to call their time their own, to be of service, to express themselves, to be their own boss, to listen to their body, to get to know themselves at a deeper level.

B’s first question asks what helped me determine the type of new work and income source I could pursue that is life-inspiring and can support my needs.

My answer is that I’m still figuring that out, but my new criteria for work is no longer just a paycheck, benefits, the potential for advancement. I want to do the kind of work that is so aligned with who I am and what I love doing that I would do it even if I didn’t get paid (and actually getting paid and making a decent living is icing on the cake).

I want to spend my time doing what I want to do, not what someone else wants me to do. I want to follow my interests, fascinations, and passions. Or else why did God give them to me???

That seems to pretty much translate into becoming self-employed and to practicing some kind of profession. It’s starting to take shape and will combine several of my interests and allow me to pursue others. What I can tell you now is that it involves me working with others on improving their well-being, and getting results.

I should also mention that having my hand analyzed by Richard Unger of the International Institute of Hand Analysis helped me open my mind years ago to the possibility of living my life differently. Darn, I forgot to tell B that.

B, hope you’re reading this. He’s based in San Francisco. Go see him.

Also, I paid attention to my dreams and discussed them with friends.

Notice what you love doing. Notice what you are attracted to. Notice what fascinates you. What do you do now that makes you happy? What are you passionate about? Love, attraction, fascination, happiness, passion — these are about emotion, energy, direction, feeling alive, satisfaction, fulfillment. 

That’s where to start. And then if you like, start thinking about how you can combine what you love in a unique way.

B’s second question is whether I found a solution to reduced living expenses so I could be free to pursue work and activities that truly fulfill me.

Yes, I did find a solution based on my situation. I sold my home of 10 years in February. I loved it, but it was too much for me to keep up with, and the mortgage obligation had become an albatross. I wanted to free up some capital to pursue a big improvement in work and lifestyle even though I didn’t know what shape it would take. 

Maybe it was the fantasy of hitting the open road and exploring this beautiful country that first got me interested in trailers. I discovered Spartan trailers and discovered a rare Carousel for sale. I hoped it would still be for sale when I closed on my house. It was, and I bought it. It felt like the Universe really wanted me to have it!

It is big enough to live in year-round, like a one-bedroom apartment that you can move, and trailer park leases run month-to-month. I began freeing myself of stuff, and without planning to, I quit my “permanent” job when my gut told me it was the only course to take. I took a contract job doing the same kind of work for 3 months, and I can do that again if I need to.

I found a nice trailer park and will soon have it moved here. Then I’ll update it and move in. My monthly housing and utility costs will be one-third of what they were. That makes a difference — I can pursue the training I want, and I can do some work from my new home.

I know that I am very, very lucky to be able to do this. At the same time, I bought my house in 2000 with an eye to charm, location, and appreciation, so in a way, I created this option before I knew my life would take this turn.

Not everyone has a house to sell. I think reducing one’s living expenses is about being creative and knowing yourself, which are other aspects of coming alive. Usually housing is one’s biggest expense. You can rent a room in a house, share a house or apartment with roommates, couch surf, house-sit, buy a trailer, take work that includes room and board. You always have more resources than you think you do. If you feel stuck, seek a resourceful friend or a coach. Like you did, B, by emailing me!

Work is the area of life that can create the most happiness. See my recent post about right livelihood. We spend more waking time working than anything else, and work can have a sense of purpose and meaning to it.

Imagine what work/lifestyle is ideal for you. Dream big. Put no conditions on it. Then look at how you can get there incrementally. It’s a direction, not a destination. At each fork in the road, ask yourself, “Which is the happier choice? Which will take me closer to living the life I’m meant to live?” 

Good luck, B, and all you self-actualizers out there. I’d love to hear from you.

I’m ending this post with a quote from the Dalai Lama that helps put everything in perspective:

The Dalai Lama when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, “Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Cleansing the colon, liver, and gallbladder

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I’m in the last week of a 27-day colon/parasite cleanse, which I do spring and fall. My dear acupuncturist tells me that it’s not a question of whether you have parasites, it’s what to do about them.

This cleanse isn’t difficult. Morning and night mix 2 T of psyllium husks and 1/2 t. of bentonite clay into a half cup of water or fruit juice/water mix, stir well, and throw it down the hatch. You must follow with a large glass of water. Do this every day for the entire 27 days.

Mid-morning and mid-afternoon, take 3 capsules of Paratosin from Premier Research Labs (a herbal blend that will have you burping cloves) on an empty stomach.

Do this every day until the whole bottle of Paratosin is gone (10 days). Continue to take the psyllium and bentonite twice daily but take no Paratosin for 7 days.

On day 18, start taking a second bottle of Paratosin as directed above to rid yourself of any parasites that have hatched since the first bottle.

After 27 days, your gastrointestinal system (especially your colon walls) will be cleaned out by the psyllium husks, toxins pulled from the walls by the bentonite clay, and your liver, gallbladder, spleen, and pancreas will be clear of parasites for a while (you can get them from drinking tap water) — and then you repeat in the spring, or the next fall.

I follow this cleanse with a liver/gallbladder flush, which is much more involved. I’ve done the cleanse and the flush back to back in the spring and fall for the past three years, and I believe they play an important role in my vitality and well-being.

I’m not going to include directions here because I don’t know the contraindications — i.e., when someone shouldn’t do this. I’m just a blogger sharing a personal health practice. If you’re interested, please consult your alternative medical practitioner first.

You can also find instructions in Jack Tips’ book, The Healing Triad: Your Liver…Your Lifeline. Tips says this flush has been done since antiquity, with variations. Basically you consume certain foods to cause the liver and gallbladder to empty their contents for elimination. This flush rids both these organs of old, hardened bile pieces. They look like green stones when you pass them but float because they are made of fat.

Compared to the colon/parasite cleanse, this flush involves more prep work (eating more veggies and using pH test strips to be sure you’re alkaline, and consuming apples or apple juice or malic acid to soften the hardened bile). It’s also trickier. There may be some discomfort involved, but it is only temporary. I’ve felt great afterwards.

(By the way, anything fried in cooked vegetable seed oils contributes to the formation of hardened bile. Now, I love chips and salsa and fried okra. It’s my birthright as a Texan! Doing this flush twice a year helps me stay healthy.)

You may be wondering why anyone would want to do this. Well, to keep your organs healthy! We often have an attitude of denial in this culture about our internal organs until something goes wrong. They have vital functions that contribute to our health. Taking good care of one’s organs translates into better functioning of your body — which of course cannot be isolated from the mind, heart, and spirit.

The large intestine, liver, and gallbladder have associated meridians in traditional Chinese medicine. That means these organs have energies associated with them. The colon is associated with the emotion of grief. The liver and gallbladder are associated with the emotion of anger.

Flushing them can result in a surge of positive energy — more happiness. Can you use some of that? I sure can!