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…]
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.
Here’s another in my occasional series of health and wellness tips that I use and that I am so happy to share with you!
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!
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).
Here’s my recipeLet me know what you’re thinking in the comments. Blessed be!
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.
We choose all the time.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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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?
I’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 making ghee last night. From pastured butter, so beautiful!
I’d love to know what you’re grateful for today, gorgeous! Please chime in in the comments below.
I learned Hug the Midline from a Pilates teacherHug 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!
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.
“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” —Lao Tzu
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!
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!
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.