Read these books!

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I read a lot.

Let me clarify that. I don’t read as much as a few other people read, or as much as I read in the past, but I am a reader. I’ve been an avid reader from a young age, at times indiscriminate but now much more discerning.

It’s that Buddhist saying: “Don’t waste time.” If a book doesn’t hook me early on, I set it aside and try later. It doesn’t mean it’s not good. It just means it’s not relevant enough to what I need to learn in that moment to make the effort feel alive. Energy flows where attention goes. If there’s no energy there, why bother?

The following is a list of books I read in 2010,  plan to read in 2011 (plan, not commit), read before 2010 (and mentioned on this blog) that have shaped my world, and reference books that I dip into but will probably not read cover to cover. Links are included to the books’ pages on Amazon.com; if you buy a book from clicking a link here, I’ll get a very small financial reward — which I appreciate, because blogging takes time.

I’ve mentioned a few of the 2010 books prominently, namely, The Open-Focus Brain, A Symphony in the Brain, Buddha’s Brain, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process, and What Really Matters. You can do a search for those posts and read what I wrote if you want.

Books read in 2010

Buddha, by Karen Armstrong

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson

The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, by T.K.V. Desikachar

Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings, by A.G. Mohan with Ganesh Mohan

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body, by Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins

Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, by Judith Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.

The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times, by David Bercelli

Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath

A Symphony in the Brain, by Jim Robbins

The Web That Has No Weaver, by Ted J. Kaptchuk

What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America, by Tony Schwartz

Yoga Sutras, translated by Kofi Busia (PDF file)

2011 Reading List

The 4-Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss

Access Your Brain’s Joy Center: The Free Soul Method, by Pete A. Sanders Jr.

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain

Beliefs: Pathways to Health & Well-Being, by Robert Dilts, Tim Hallbom, and Suzi Smith

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell

Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold, by Krishna Das

The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga: The Authoritative Presentation Based on 30 Years of Direct Study Under the Legendary Yoga Teacher Krishnamacharya, by Srivatsa Ramaswami

Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness, by Evan Finer

Emotional Intelligence 2.0, by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

Nourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine, by Lonny S. Jarrett

Transforming #1, by Ron Smothermon, M.D.

Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion, by Diane Eshin Rizzo

Yoga Body: Origins of Modern Posture Yoga, by Mark Singleton

Influential books from my past

The complete works of Carlos Castaneda, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Dune, by Frank Herbert

Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti

The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul, by Sandra Maitri

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences, by Peter A. Levine

The Healing Triad: Your Liver…Your Lifeline, by Jack Tips

Reference books

Light on Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar

Poems New and Collected, by Wislawa Szymborska

The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, by Cyndi Dale

Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, by B.K.S. Iyengar

The evolution of the word “wellness”

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Back in April, the New York Times Magazine published an article in the series On Language on the word wellness.

Since that is what I’m going for here with this blog, I thought I’d summarize and share.

In 1979, wellness was not a word you’d hear every day. Today it is. My former workplace had a wellness committee and a wellness room.

Wellness is considered an antonym (opposite) to the word “illness,” and it’s been traced back to the 1650s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Wellness is a relatively new way, in the western world view, of looking at health.

The wellness movement really began after World War II. The preamble to the World Health Organization’s 1948 constitution states:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

The author, Howard Dunn, went on to develop his ideas and publish a book, High-Level Wellness, in 1961. He defined high-level wellness as:

an integrated method of functioning, which is oriented toward maximizing the potential of which the individual is capable

The book languished, ahead of its time. In 1972, a medical student picked up the book at a clearance sale and found its ideas inspiring. In 1975, he opened the Wellness Resource Center in Mill Valley, CA. He was constantly having to spell the word over the phone, it was so uncommon! Prevention magazine spread the word about the center, and eventually 60 Minutes did a segment on the center. The Times says:

The center promoted self-directed approaches to well-being as an alternative to the traditional illness-oriented care of physicians.

Then someone started a national conference on wellness, and it became both an academic topic and prestigious. The Berkeley Wellness Letter dissociated wellness from the perception of flaky hedonism in neighboring Marin County, and with a million subscribers, the word gained credibility.

Some people still ridiculed the word until the 1990s, when it became an everyday word.

I like this word a lot. (I also like well-being.) As a baby boomer, it’s exciting to be part of this paradigm change, from a focus on illness to a focus on wellness. We are lucky these days to live in a society that offers both kinds of medicine.

It does still seem that the traditional western paradigm still has a huge hold on the public’s imagination about health care. Otherwise (in my opinion), wellness practices would be taught in homes and schools from an early age — practices like eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and exercise, and general awareness to be able to address problems as they emerge.

Add in occasional massage, monthly acupuncture, yoga, and meditation, and we’d have a healthy society. We would of course keep western medicine for when there were no alternatives!

What would that be like?

Thank you! 2010 review, changes for 2011

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I want to sincerely thank you for reading my blog. Some of you are regular readers, some occasional, and some stumble on blog posts through search engines.

However you got here in 2010, thanks for reading.

My year of sitting daily has drawn to a close. I won’t say it was 100 percent successful, because I didn’t sit every day, as I had intended. But in another way, it was very successful! Meditation has become part of my near-daily life. It’s not just the time I spend on the cushion, either. I find myself more and more having the courage to really be present as I go about my daily life — to myself and I hope more to others.

I really knew my meditation endeavor had succeeded when I sat on my zafu one day recently and realized that sitting on the cushion and taking that first breath had become an anchor for bringing my awareness completely into the present moment.

I couldn’t have imagined that happening at the beginning of the year.

2010 Blog Stats

Comparing minds want to know: What’s the data on your year of blogging?

  • I had 3,910 views of posts and pages on my blog in 2010. Back in the summer, I hoped aloud that I could reach 3,000 views by the end of the year. Well, you exceeded my expectations! I reached that goal on November 14. Thank you!
  • Back in January 2010, I averaged 6 views per day, with a total of 181 for the month.
  • In December 2010, 21 viewers per day on average visited my blog, adding up to 658 for the month.

Top 10 Hits

The top ten original blog posts by number of views for 2010 were (drum roll, please!):

  1. Trauma releasing exercises
  2. Cranio-sacral therapy, brain waves
  3. Book review: Buddha’s Brain
  4. Holotropic breathwork compared to trauma releasing exercises
  5. Buddha’s Brain: supplements for brain health
  6. Pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain — side effects of living
  7. 12 states of attention
  8. Cleansing the colon, liver, and gallbladder
  9. Trauma release heavy heart
  10. The three centers of intelligence: working with my gut, heart, and head

New Blog Name

Since my year of experimenting has ended and I want to keep blogging, I decided to rename this blog and change its purpose. The new name, The Well: bodymindheartspirit, reflects my interest in a variety of topics related to wellness, well-being, and wholeness (as you can see from the top 10 posts listed above), and my desire to connect to the Source as a well of nourishment both in living my life and writing for this blog.

You can expect more blog posts written by guest writers (let me know if you’re interested in contributing) and fewer poems (intellectual property rights are important for poets — if you like a poet, please buy his or her books and CDs). A new look is also in the works.

Thank you, and I hope you’ll stick around.

Article: Why meditation may help you live longer

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People who meditated for six hours a day (!) for three months were found to have more of an enzyme that can mitigate or perhaps even stop cell aging.

So it’s entirely possible according to scientists that meditation extends people’s life spans. Meditators know it probably does.

I’m pretty sure yoga does too, just judging by the long lives of people who devoted most of their lives to yoga, such as T. Krishnamacharya, K. Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, B.K.S. Iyengar (still living). All lived to see 90, some more than 100.

So how does it work?

So how does meditation affect the machinery of cellular reproduction? Probably by reducing stress, research suggests. Severe psychological stress — particularly early in life and in the absence of social support — has been linked with poorer health, increasing risk for heart disease, stroke and some cancers. This is likely due to the negative effects of high levels of stress hormones on the brain and body. By reducing stress hormones, perhaps meditation contributes to healthier telomeres.

Stress is the enemy.

Read the article from Time magazine’s Healthland blog here.

Living through the time of in-between

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I’m feeling some vulnerability in my heart chakra on this morning of the last day of 2011. It feels open and a little bit raw and unprotected.

I’m just moving with it.

Mentally I associate the feeling with the big transition I’m in, from being an employee with a full-time job taking up a huge amount of time, to … something else. The something else is all in the future — selling my house, buying a vintage trailer and getting it set up and moving into it. Those are huge. Then there’s the question of learning and future livelihood.

Emotionally, I’m feeling a charge about future finances, about moving from a steady, predictable, generous paycheck into new ways of earning and relating to money.

Will I need to get another job before my house sells? I don’t know! And if so, doing what? I can expand my yoga teaching and NLP coaching (which I would do for free anyway, except reciprocity is part of it). What else will people pay me to do that I enjoy doing? I don’t know.

So much is unknown! It’s hard for a fear-based Enneagram type like me (5 with a 4 wing) who loves the certainty of “knowing”  to stay centered in the present moment instead of feeling anxiety about the unknown future.

So I’m meeting my karma here, facing it fully.

Yet isn’t it all unknown, really? Haven’t we all been surprised by external events…or by some previously unknown part of ourselves making itself known?

To live in this in-between time as best I can, I’m committing to doing a lot of daily energy work, both moving and still, verbal and nonverbal.

  • Tapping Away Pain (like EFT)
  • yoga
  • sitting
  • Reiki
  • pranayama
  • chi gong

I can do all of these as needed, from morning until bedtime.

Whatever I know to get centered and connected to the Source, I’ll do it as often as I can.

21 days of Reiki self-treatment

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I finished my 21 days on Monday and kept going, but didn’t remember to count until today!

What I got out of it:

  • The preparation is the most fun for me! Anchoring myself to the center of the earth and the center of the cosmos, then bringing earth energy up through the soles of my feet until I’m full and bringing heaven energy down through the crown of my head until I’m full, then letting them swirl and mingle — wow, yummy.
  • My friend Glenda Raver, a Reiki master, gave me some pointers on self-treatment. If what I wrote above differs from what I originally wrote about preparing for a session, it’s because of Glenda’s good advice.
  • Reiki theory has it that no matter where you put your hands, the energy goes where it’s needed most. What I noticed was that when my hands were at a place that seemed to need more energy, I could feel more energy flowing in, mostly through my feet but sometimes through my crown. There’s definitely a current, and it fluctuates.
  • I’ve been sensitive to the energy in my feet for some time. Doing this helped me gain sensitivity in my hands, especially my fingertips and palms.
  • I probably overdid it on my head. Instead of just putting my hands over my eyes, ears, crown, and back of my head, I added in the sides of my head, and one hand on the back and the other on my forehead. It was like I couldn’t get enough energy into my head!
  • I also added places to put my hands where I know my body needs it, like the left sacroiliac joint.
  • I do feel much more detoxed from the stress of my former job.
  • I forget exactly when, but at some point in the 21 days, I began using the distance symbol to share my Reiki treatments with Katherine Daniel, who’s been undergoing chemo and radiation (and felt so good she pulled out her port a day or two early!).
  • I have no idea how I’d be doing if I hadn’t done the Reiki, but I think it’s like meditation and yoga. Reiki adds to my vitality, resilience, and equanimity. Over the 21 days, my house was broken into and laptop and DVD player stolen among other stuff, and unavoidably I ran over something that resulted in my car needing to have work done, all the while having my house shown to prospective buyers, celebrating the holidays, and waiting to hear whether a TV show selected my house for beautifying (they didn’t choose me). Honestly, I think I would feel a lot more nerve-wracked if I hadn’t been doing Reiki.

I’m going to continue doing Reiki on myself daily and begin doing Reiki on others. I will keep using the distance symbol for Katherine until she tells me not to, and for Lisa Kurtz, a fellow Appamada Zen practitioner who was in a really bad car accident and has much recovery ahead of her.

Now Let’s Play (NLP)

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Some of you know that I have training in NLP (practitioner, master practitioner, and training assistant, to be specific). Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to practice NLP on fellow trainees, friends, colleagues, and the occasional client.

I have had so much fun doing NLP that it’s time to let the world know I’m ready to share this amazing work with others!

This post is for those who would like to know more about NLP, which stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming, and which is very popular now in Europe, Asia, and South America even as it continues to grow in the U.S.

What is NLP?

That is a question that no two NLPers will answer alike, mainly because it’s a large body of work with many applications. It was begun in the 1970s when the founders decided to model the excellent performance of three well-known, successful therapists — Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Milton Erickson, who were able to get results that no one else could at that time — and it grew out of what they learned.

Since then many people have studied NLP, applied it, contributed to it, and expanded it — once you learn the basics, it allows for improvisation, which keeps it alive and relevant.

Here are some of the definitions I’ve heard:

  • NLP is the science of subjective experience
  • NLP is the technology of achievement
  • NLP is modern-day shamanism

This is my favorite:

  • NLP is what works

NLP has influenced conscious languaging, EMDR for trauma recovery, EFT and other energy psychology techniques, psychotherapy, sales and marketing, achieving goals, and recovery from phobias, traumas, and allergies.

The whole idea that people are primarily visual, auditory, or kinesthetic? That comes from NLP.

The Key NLP Skill

It is noticing what is, or calibration in NLP lingo.

Noticing what is. Life as it is. Pure Zen.

One of the first NLP skills taught is noticing people’s eye movements when they’re speaking and recognizing that they are showing you something about what their internal experience is. If their eyes are looking up while answering a question or telling a story, it’s highly likely they’re actually seeing an internal image. Ask them for verification.

This can help you deepen your rapport with others, and it can help them access consciously material that previously has been unconscious.

NLP Coaching

When I do an NLP coaching session with someone, I listen to what they want and ask questions. I match their needs to my toolbox, and we work and play together, noticing what gets results.

Since I began training in NLP, I’ve gradually concluded that what NLP does best is help people get unstuck. This generally makes it easier to heal the past, have access to more of their own resources, and have a brighter future with more possibilities.

Sometimes all it takes is one visit.

Contact me if you are feeling stuck in some area of your life! Reasonable, negotiable rates.

Other NLP Resources in Central Texas

The person who I took my practitioner, master practitioner, and evolutionary NLP training with is Tom Best of Best Resources/Texas Institute of NLP.

I’ve also taken both introductory and advanced NLP courses from Keith Fail and Katie Raver at NLP Resources Austin. Keith is also an excellent coach and now assists Tom Best in the practitioner and master practitioner training.

The Austin NLP Meetup meets every fourth Tuesday, with a subgroup interested in hypnosis meeting every second Tuesday. Join the Austin NLP meetup to get information and reminders. (Full disclosure: I’m the program director.)

Linaka Joy provides NLP coaching services from her home base in San Antonio and also runs the new San Antonio NLP Meetup. Her website is called JoyTech.

When meditating triggers presence, like Pavlov’s dog #reverb10

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Brene Brown, whose TED Talk I blogged about the other day after discovering Alan Steinborn’s recommendation on Facebook, does this thing on Twitter that she explains here on her blog. She calls it #Reverb10 and describes it as:

an online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead.

As I understand it, it’s a group initiative. Thirty-one writers post prompts for writing and reflection on Twitter using the hashtag #reverb10. Brene is one of the writers. Anyone can get on Twitter, search for #reverb10, and respond.

Because not everyone is on Twitter, Brene has graciously made space on her blog where people can respond in the comments (with more than 140 characters!) to any or all prompts, and/or leave a link to their blog.

This is social networking at its most awesome!

Here is Brene Brown’s prompt for Dec. 27:

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

Click the link above to check out Brene’s response to her own question, and those of many others.

And here is my response.

My most joyful ordinary moment is about something that I became aware of recently, and to understand it, I need to share a little background for new readers.

I started this blog as a year-long project to help myself develop the habit of meditating for 30 minutes daily. I’d meditated for several years, but not consistently. I’d do okay for a couple of weeks, then get derailed (sometimes for another couple of weeks).

I knew meditation had all kinds of beneficial side effects, and I wondered:

If I could put a little (or a lot) more effort into meditating every day, how would my life change?

Well, I failed. I did not meditate every day. I could not meditate with a stuffy nose (mouth breathing just doesn’t get it for me).

I also went through a period of rebellion a few months into the year. I was laying this demand on myself, and it felt burdensome. I rebelled, took a break, plunged inward with questions, and came back wanting to do it, recommitted.

I also had a sort of breakdown/spiritual awakening in November that resulted in me quitting my day job after six years. I was so distressed, I couldn’t sit. A lot of things in my life came to a head. I had planned to leave my job at the end of May in order to start acupuncture school in July, but circumstances actually made it the perfect time to leave (and my gut said I had to, besides).

Other than that, oh, and la-di-dah, a few days of just pure laziness, I have meditated daily in 2010.

End of background.

My most joyful ordinary moment came a week or so ago when I realized that as soon as I sat down on my meditation cushion and took a breath, that I was there. In the present moment. It felt like all considerations of the past and future just dropped away, leaving just the moment and the breath and the quiet bliss.

I am now like Pavlov’s dog, only instead of a bell triggering salivation, sitting on a meditation cushion triggers presence.

I created that in 2010.

This will go to Twitter, and I’ll comment on her blog as well. She’s giving away copies of both of her books and her DVD! I wouldn’t mind having those at all!

I love this project!

10 ways to be more present

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We all experience not being present — spacing out during a conversation, not remembering the drive home, thinking about work problems during dinner, eating mindlessly, worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, bashing ourselves over some mistake.

To be present is to be aware of the present moment, to be here now, in Ram Dass’ words. This is where life really happens. The past is over, and the future never arrives. The present is all we really have.

Unclouded by the baggage of the past and clear of worry about the future, the present moment has sparkle to it, life. You have more fun. You feel more grateful. You listen more deeply, and your conversations are better. By doing one thing at a time and doing it well, you get more satisfaction from your work. You enjoy life more.

Being present is a skill that most anyone can learn, practice, and master. I’ve definitely gotten better at it, and as with any skill, there’s room for refinement.

I’ve practiced yoga, NLP, the 12 states of attention, peripheral walking, and meditation over the last few years. All of these practices have helped bring me more into the present moment, and over time, I’ve gotten better at it. Not coincidentally, I have more joy in my life.

Here are some of my favorite ways to live in the present moment. For many of these ways, it doesn’t matter where you are. You could be on hold, in line, at a red light, in an elevator, sitting at your desk, or exercising.

  1. When you wake up in the morning, really check in with your body. How does it feel? Stretch, wiggle, move, and get centered.
  2. Notice your breath. Which parts of your body move when you breathe? How does inhaling feel different from exhaling?
  3. Close your eyes and reopen them. What do you see? Close your eyes and reopen them again. What do you notice now that you didn’t notice before?
  4. Notice how many sounds you can hear. Include the sounds you usually filter out.
  5. Feel a part of your body. Could be the soles of your feet, the palms of your hands, the top of your head. Just give it your full attention for 30 seconds.
  6. Eat slowly and mindfully. Don’t do anything else. Just eat and pay attention to the chewing, the tastes and textures, the swallowing.
  7. Notice whether you have an internal dialogue going on. Listen in! What are they/you saying?
  8. When you walk, notice your walking. Do your right and left legs feel the same? What about your feet? Are you holding yourself stiffly anywhere? Just notice.
  9. If an emotion arises, notice it. Where in your body do you feel it? Does it move around or change? How long does it last? What’s the name of this emotion?
  10. Notice when your attention has moved to the past or the future. Does the past or future feel different from the present? Is it useful at this moment to be in the past or future? When you’re ready, kindly and gently bring yourself back to the present moment.

Notice that these exercises are based on simple curiosity about what your actual experience is.

When you’ve done each one of these several times, you can begin to create new habits to help you be more present.

  • When you hear a phone ring, bring your attention to your breath.
  • When you walk through a doorway, notice you’re walking into a new space.
  • When you see a flower, really see it. (Smell it too.)

Try being more present for a day, week, month, a season, or a year. What might that do for your life?

If you like this post, please click Like. Thanks!

My heroes of 2010

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I want to acknowledge some people who are heroes of mine in 2010.

My daughter Lela Reynolds graduated from nursing school earlier this month. She is a single mom raising a child with some special needs. That child is now 10. Since Hannah was very young, Lela has been working and going to college. She went to school full-time the last two years. Nursing school is tough, people. She hit the books, did the work, learned the knowledge.

Soon she will take her licensing exam to become an RN. This career suits her well. She likes being useful, is resourceful in a crisis, and is fascinated by humans and health. I think she will work well in settings like hospitals, and she has a couple of employers interested in hiring her. They’ll be lucky to have her.

I am very proud of her, and she did it mostly by herself, with just a little help from me. Way to go, Lela!

Anna Carroll is an amazingly resilient woman I know who discovered she had breast cancer this year. She combined Western and alternative medicine and is nearly done with treatment. I saw her last weekend, and she’s looking good. Anna has a well-developed and creative ability to tap into whatever resources she needs.

Katherine Daniel is another friend undergoing cancer treatment. She kept quiet about it at first and then created a healing circle of friends to provide a supportive community. She’s nearly done with Phase 1, the radiation and chemo.

Both of you, blessings on your journeys. Cancer is a tough one, and you’ve risen to the occasion. Kudos on creating what you need, and I send you my wishes for full and complete well-being.

Abby Lentz is a nationally recognized yoga teacher who lives here in Austin. She created Heavyweight Yoga (aka Heartfelt Yoga) and has made two videos, Yoga for the Body You Have Today and Change the Image of Yoga.

If you have ever considered that large-bodied people couldn’t possibly do yoga, I invite you to watch her videos.

I appreciate Abby for getting the word out — yoga is not just for the young and already fit. It is beneficial for everyone.

I also have great admiration for my cousin Heather and her husband Michael Mazza. They are the parents of six children. They provide an inexhaustible supply of love and direction and leadership for their brood. Watching them with their children in a restaurant is amazing. The kids are well-behaved and friendly, and Heather and Michael enjoy themselves as well. Well done.

I’ve asked friends on Facebook about their heroes for 2010. Glenda says her sister Annie got off her cancer medicine, and that is really GREAT! Yay, Annie!

Katie mentions Linaka Joy for all her explorations and triumphs with health this year. I second that! (My friend Linaka has been a quiet hero, not tooting her own horn but showing us her changed self.) She has changed the way she relates to food, lost weight, and along with the pounds, become lighter in spirit! This year she founded the San Antonio NLP meetup, taking more of a leadership role in the central Texas NLP community. You rock, Linaka! This work will go far.

Katie also considers her cousin Madison a real hero “for the fantastic way she has handled her best friend (who’s also a teenager) having a baby. She stayed upbeat and supportive and used it as a way to strengthen their friendship, despite lots of criticism all around.”

I also want to recognize Barbara Diane Beeler, a fellow blogger and friend, who lost over 60 pounds and is no longer considered obese. She wrote about it in her post Letting Go of Obesity and Regaining a Life. Diane, good going.

Last but not least, I want to mention Gretchen Wegner’s mother, who taught her two-and-a-half-year-old grandson two yoga poses to make diaper changes go well: downward facing dog and bridge pose. Yogis, you get it. Gretchen posted this on Facebook; I haven’t met her mother. I must say, Gretchen, your mom is brilliant! I love that kind of resourcefulness!

Now, who did I omit?