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What are you up against today? (with life hacks)

May 20, 2017 26 Comments

And what if it doesn’t matter?

I recorded this video this morning, on day seven since I got sick with a big respiratory thing (pneumonia, bronchitis, who knows?). I still feel weak, and woozy, and tired. That’s why I’m keeping this post short and sweet; don’t have much energy to speak of yet. [Read more…]

26 Comments Filed Under: healing, life hacks, self-love, wellness

Oil pulling — a resource for your holistic business strategy

April 22, 2015 22 Comments

Heal your mouth and brighten your smile by swishing oil around your mouth every morning.

Put your best smile forward in your business.

As I said in the post where I shared my tooth powder recipe, good health and exquisite self-care is such an important part of every smart woman’s holistic business strategy.

Oil PullingHere’s another in my occasional series of health and wellness tips that I use and that I am so happy to share with you!

The claim that oil pulling would whiten my teeth grabbed me.

Because of course. Vanity has propelled me to begin many of my wellness practices. I don’t mind. Left to my own devices, I am so lazy. If vanity can get me to create new healthier habits, I’ll take it!

I chose to use unrefined virgin coconut oil, even though sesame oil is the most traditional (the idea of sesame oil makes me gag, but that’s just me). A tablespoon in the morning first thing (before brushing or drinking or eating), and then ten minutes or more of swishing it around in my mouth. Here’s the article that got me started, in case you want to read more.

Here’s what I noticed first: After a few months of almost daily oil pulling I noticed that the color of my teeth was brighter, with less staining (and I drink gunpowder green tea every day, so this is definitely a thing!).

And then! A few months later, I realized that the deep and scary constant pain deep under a molar was gone. Gone! This has made me a convert for life. I have no clue about any of the other health claims connected to oil pulling, but if they are true, I guess I will happily find out!

Then I added the charcoal and now it’s working even better!

This article crossed my feed one day about four months ago. Adding activated charcoal makes perfect sense — I already use it in my homemade tooth powder (recipe here).

black oilHere’s my recipe

  • Soften a jar full of virgin unrefined coconut oil. You can do this in a double boiler. Me, I’m lazy and I’m okay with using my microwave. It takes a couple of minutes on low power to soften. For a container, I use a pint canning jar.
  • Add a tablespoon or two of activated charcoal to the oil while it’s still soft. Warning! Warning! I can’t emphasize the messiness of activated charcoal enough. When I used to open capsules, I learned to do so over the sink and even then the cleanup was challenging — it gets everywhere! Now I buy my charcoal in bulk, and when I open the container a cloud of granulated black powder gets released. Before I wised up, I was cleaning black powder out of the cracks in my blond bamboo floor for weeks. Now I add the charcoal to my oil pulling mixture and my toothpowder outside of my house!
  • I am going to add some organic lemon and chamomile oils to my mixture (I was just reminded about this in Elizabeth’s article).
  • Keep at room temperature. It will harden, but I seem to be able to stick a spoon in it, even on cold mornings.

And here’s my method

  • On awakening, get a tablespoon of the oil into your mouth. You want to do this before brushing, or eating, or drinking anything. Clean-up tip. I wipe the spoon down with a paper towel because the gunk clings to the spoon.
  • Spend about ten or so minutes swishing the oil around in your mouth. Gently.
  • Spit it out. Anywhere but down a drain. Remember it will harden again — could clog your pipes! I spit into a plastic bag in the trash and make sure the bag stays upright.
  • Brush your teeth. Enjoy your day. Smile big!

Tell me what you think.

Did I leave anything out? Have you tried oil pulling?

Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments. Blessed be!

22 Comments Filed Under: healing, life hacks, wellness

Living your best life — wisdom from my health journey

February 18, 2015 20 Comments

Three wellness practices to help you live your best life…

…and show up for your business resourced and ready to go.

This is the first in a series of occasional articles in which I’ll share practices, recipes, and more from my vast wellness toolbag. My health journey has been a big invitation for me to be more and more present to the choices I make. Maybe something I share will be useful to you. You don’t know unless you try. So, bubbeleh, try.

Live your best lifeWe choose all the time.

  • You choose what you eat and how much.
  • You choose the content of what you read and what you watch.
  • You choose how you spend your time.
  • You choose how you move your body, and for how long.
  • You choose the people in your life.

It’s your choice what you do with every minute of your precious life. Fill each moment with the things and the people you love and cherish. Change yourself and by doing so, watch how it ripples out. You will change your family, your clients, your friends, your community. You will change the world.

Today I’m sharing with you three game-changing practices (okay, two practices and one recipe) that can help you maintain fitness and flexibility and a positive outlook.

Make time every day for self-care.

Put it in your schedule.

The only way to sustain a self-care practice is to actually put it in your schedule. (You do use a calendar, right? If you don’t, we should talk. Seriously.) When you elevate self-care to a commitment, and put it in your calendar, you are much more likely to be a Yes to your own precious self.

I have made a big shift here. Since my health crisis last year, I now begin my workday at 10:30, three hours after I get up. I use those three hours for a bath, my daily walk, my tai chi practice, my lifting and yoga workouts, my art journal, time in the garden, and whatever kitchen activities might be on the agenda. Sometimes I invite a friend along to walk with me. Sometimes I connect by phone with a friend. Sometimes I get a massage.

To make up for my later workday starts, some days I work a bit later, and I often work on one of the weekend days. Totally worth it!

You may not be ready for three hours a day of self-care time. But I know you’re ready for some time every day to honor your body and your sacred self. Give yourself this gift.

Walk for 30-ish minutes a day.

Honestly, it can be that simple.

I started this practice last autumn, when I began to wonder if I would ever get my strength back after the two hospitalizations and the long weeks on the couch or in bed processing serious infection and medications through my body. I started by walking around the block. Or maybe just to the corner and back. But I kept at it daily. Now I average 25–35 minutes each day. I walk in my gritty urban neighborhood most days, and love the wide streets and big sky available to me just a few blocks away. Some days I get in my car and drive to the bay. Some days I walk by Lake Merritt. Some rare and precious days I actually walk in the redwoods or at the seashore.

I love that my phone tracks my movements, tells me how long I walked, how many steps I took, how many stairs I’ve climbed. Many people say that 10,000 steps is ideal; others say that a 30-minute daily walk will prolong your life. I’m not near the 10,000, and I don’t know how often I will make that number of steps, but I am near the 30-minute mark nearly every day, and that is such a gift to my body!

It’s said that your body is not yours, that’s it’s just borrowed. That at the end of your life, you have to leave it behind. Treat it with care, yo. It’s precious. Treat it generously and impeccably, so that it will serve you well.

Nourish your gut with bone broth.

Vegetarians get to skip this one (although I know some vegetarians who make this one exception).

I’ve been a daily drinker of bone broth for quite a while, and have really perfected my recipe. I’ve had a serious chronic digestive situation for over three years, and bone broth is one of the first remedies suggested to me. It’s healing, and strengthening, and delicious.

I use three vinegars, because why not? I use brown vinegar (brown because there’s molasses added; this should be available in Asian markets, I get mine at Berkeley Bowl), raw apple cider vinegar, and kombucha vinegar that I make (if you’re a brewer, let a batch of kombucha overbrew by a week or so and you will have vinegar!). You can do a fine job with just the raw cider vinegar. The vinegars help extract all the goodness from the bones.

Quantities of everything depend on the size of your soup pot. I buy 3–5 pounds of bones, I use a spaghetti pot for my broth, and I end up with three quart-size canning jars of broth when I’m done. Your mileage will vary.

  • Buy marrow bones, gelatinous bones if you can get them, tendons, and a piece of inexpensive meat for the pot. The more grass-fed the better, of course.
  • Roast the meat at 425 for 25 minutes.
  • Boil a pot of water. Add sliced ginger and 1–2 T of brown vinegar. Add the bones and meat. Simmer a long time. I do 1.5–2 days.
  • Remove the bones, ginger, and meat. I keep the meat in a separate jar for adding to the broth, or I just eat it. Decant the broth filling jars halfway or a bit more. Refrigerate the jars.
  • Put the bones and ginger back in the pot with new water. This time I add 1 T cider vinegar  and 1 T kombucha vinegar and simmer again for a day or two. Get rid of the bones and ginger (this time for good), add the broth to the jars. ***If there’s a layer of solid fat at the top of the first batch, break that up so the two batches mix. Keep the fat that rises to the top until you’re ready to have that broth; it helps retard spoilage.***

I’d love to know what practices are at the top of your own best life list, and if you have any questions. Please join the conversation in the comments. I love to hear from you!

20 Comments Filed Under: healing, wellness

Leaping out of the box — the Aries New Moon calls for chutzpah

March 29, 2014 20 Comments

outsidethebox

Chutzpah

That’s Yiddish for shameless audacity, impudence, guts, boldness and temerity. Cheek, yo.

This New Moon invites you to get your chutzpah on, beautiful one!

Spring into action (boing!), take risks, stand tall, plant your flag, and go for it!

New Moon in Aries

Sunday 3/30/14
9º59′ Aries
11:45 am Pacific
2:45 pm Eastern

We are at the beginning of the new astrological year now, with the Sun and Moon in Aries, and possibilities can truly seem endless. All the intentions we have nurtured since the Solstice are fired into motion now. Aries loves to move forward, to blaze a trail, to conquer obstacles. With Mars as its ruler, Aries lights a fire under whatever may have been holding you back. Let that flame melt your fears, your resistance, your wavering commitment. Strap that jet pack on your back and light the fuse, sister!

Desire, discovery, curiosity, passion, purpose — you may feel these more strongly. I hope you do, and that you heed the call to forward motion. What do you feel passionate about? What motivates you into action? What do you want, and do you have the chutzpah to go after it?

[Read more…]

20 Comments Filed Under: chutzpah, life hacks, New Moon, wellness

Gratitude, especially when I feel like crap!

July 28, 2013 14 Comments

I’m so grateful for you tonight!

  • I’m grateful for each of you. When I’m spending most of my time indoors, when my health has me glued to the couch with my laptop, being connected to you through the interwebs fills my heart with joy, gives me peace, makes it possible for me to stay connected to what it is I’m supposed to be doing in this now moment and the next. Bless you!
  • I’m grateful for feeling well enough to get to two great rock n roll movies this week. Springsteen and I and 20 Feet from Stardom. Find them and see them if you can. In the first, so much joy seeing Bruce and Paul McCartney singing together. In the second, any time I can listen to Darlene Love and Merry Clayton is completely enriching and joy-making.
  • wordcamptshirtI’m grateful for my day at WordCamp San Francisco. I got to volunteer. I met a lot of lovely people. It was fun! Plus I got a terrific tshirt. The design you see here, nice and long (nice mini-dress length) and of course I modified the neck and sleeves.
  • I’m grateful for beginning work with a new client, a healer who wants to update her brand and website so she attracts her ideal client to her practice.
  • I’m grateful for the trust my clients put in me and for how honored I feel to be working with them.
  • I’m grateful for fresh eggs from the hens here. Looking forward to dinner.
  • gheeI’m grateful for making ghee last night. From pastured butter, so beautiful!
  • I’m grateful for taking on the 7-minute workout. Today was day eight. Even though it’s very very difficult, I love it!
  • I’m grateful for the Selfies project I started recently. I’m trying to take a self-portrait each day, or every other day, and post them to my Facebook and Instagram feeds. It’s kind of miraculous, it’s making it much easier for me to enjoy looking at my own face! What a great idea. You can see the pix on Facebook here. Keep checking, I’ll be adding more.

I’d love to know what you’re grateful for today, gorgeous! Please chime in in the comments below.

 

[Read more…]

14 Comments Filed Under: gratitude, healing, wellness

Hug the midline — words to live by

July 15, 2013 33 Comments

hugthemidlineI learned Hug the Midline from a Pilates teacher

Hug the Midline is a really good cue for staying connected to your core. In Pilates and Yoga (where teachers also talk about this), Hug the Midline teaches you to bring your focus to your center. It teaches you to stand tall, imagining a line drawn right down the center of your body, and drawing all your muscles and bones in, wrapping them around this line. This physical hugging adds to your balance, gives you soft, sustainable, connected strength. It’s a sensation I can tap into any time. Standing. Walking. Dancing. It really really helps my partner dancing!

When you connect to the strength of your core energy to support your body from within, you’re hugging your midline.

What a powerful image to use for the way you take a stand for yourself, not only in your body, but in your business, in your work/life balance, in your relationships, in your creative expression, in all of your life.

When you are standing tall, with the consciousness of your hugged midline, not only are you connected to the deepest core of your strength, but you are also connected to your core passion, your core mission, and your core purpose. You know your truth, you know what you really are meant to do. Standing tall, rooted to the earth, suspended from the heavens, head up, heart open. This is strength, the kind of strength that will sustain you through the days when things are difficult, challenging, not so easy. I know I have days like that, I think we all do. Makes every minute of developing this practice worthwhile.

I’d love to hear about your experience with this. Is Hug the Midline something you already work with? Is it new to you? Talk to me in the comments.

[Read more…]

33 Comments Filed Under: awareness, balance, gratitude, inspiration, wellness

Gratitude challenge week 44

November 4, 2012 1 Comment

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” —Lao Tzu

Short and sweet today, but oh so sweet!

I got struck sick, incredibly sick, on Friday, which happened to be my birthday. 48 hours of high fevers and the most insane joint pain I’ve ever experienced. No position was comfortable. Getting up or sitting down was excruciating. Finding a position that didn’t make my hips scream was impossible. And today my fever started to reduce (it’s normal now, down from over 102º). And then, in the next couple of hours, the ridiculous joint pain has relaxed its grip on me. Phew!

I have so much to be grateful for.

[Read more…]

1 Comment Filed Under: gratitude, healing, wellness

Once in a Blue Moon

August 29, 2012 13 Comments

I’m starting an experiment.

You see, I pay close attention to the cycles of the Moon. I notice energetic shifts that correspond with where we are in the Moon’s monthly journey. One example is how the Dark Moon time lends itself to introspection while the Full Moon time lends itself to more activity.

The experiment: A blogpost about each New Moon and Full Moon, right before they hit. I’m hoping you’ll find something useful in what’s going on in the heavens, something that might help you focus your own work, your planning of beginnings and endings, your intentions of when to act and when to hold off for a bit.

In each 28-day cycle of the Moon, the energy and promise of the Full Moon is one of completion and culmination, the fulfillment of whatever it is you began at the New Moon, two weeks before. Rinse and repeat.

The Full Moon is always an invitation to examine the balance (or lack of balance) in our lives between the energy represented by the Sun and the energy in opposition to that, represented by the Moon, which is big and full in the sky, reflecting the light of the Sun.

Please let me know (in the comments, in email) what’s useful in these articles, and what’s not. I promise not to get too astro-geeky on you!

[Read more…]

13 Comments Filed Under: astrology, coaching, gratitude, wellness

Gratitude Thursday 4/19

April 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

Gratitudes at night, right before bed.

I am grateful that I am healthy.

I am grateful that the people in my life who know about my gratitude practice remind me of it when I’m complaining, and that I am willing and able to stop complaining and shift to gratitude. On a dime, frequently (not always!).

I am grateful that the garden is coming alive.

I am grateful that last night when I broke a jar flooding my kitchen with a gallon of kombucha my reaction, while ridiculous, wasn’t dangerous. I didn’t get loaded, yo. I spent an hour trying on workout pants at Target (an ego-killing exercise if I ever saw one), bought nothing, not even a mop which would have been a good purchase (sticky floor). Came home and remembered, a couple of hours later, that forgiveness and love are available, even here. Only took about four hours to remember.

[Read more…]

Leave a Comment Filed Under: gardening, wellness

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