Archives for 2011

Have you ever gotten in your car, arrived at your destination but had no recollection of the drive and how you got there? It surprises you and kind of scares you. Who was driving that car? This is the subconscious mind taking over the steering wheel.

My writing is often like this. I write every morning.  I am an ongoing student of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Every morning you write 3 pages. Stream of consciousness. No judgement. Whatever you write is what you’re supposed to write and sometimes I’ve written over and over again “I can’t think of anything to say today” or “I got up at 5:30 and brushed my teeth, then fed the cats, etc…” The point here is that I had never thought of writing as meditation.  But this is what I can tell you: when I write my morning pages my day is calmer, better, smoother. When I write the outside world is turned off for a bit.

When I write, it’s just me, breathing in and breathing out and most of the time stuff just comes out, like my hand and pen are a vehicle without a driver. In fact, several times I’ve looked up and 30 minutes have flown by with no concept of time.

Mind you, most of what I write will never see the light of day but each time I write, I also get an inkling of what I’m supposed to share. As I write my morning pages, snippets, flashes and thoughts about meditation just keep floating to the surface which is why I’ve shared more about meditation recently than other health and stress relieving tips. It will be interesting to see what comes next!

She wakes with a smile on her face, welcoming the day. She is grateful for the day and excited about how it will unfold. Every day there is always something to look forward to; there is always something to learn. She knows what she likes and she is confident with her choices.

She chooses her clothes for the day with confidence and enthusiasm as she’s ready for her day to begin. She chooses a black top, perhaps a little too light for the chilly weather and black and white flowered pants that nicely compliment her top and figure. Without hesitation, she chooses lime green and hot pink socks. In spite of the snow, she chooses her favorite shoes, leopard print peep toe flats with the little black bows and now she is ready to embrace whatever the day has to offer.

Her smile is radiant. She is not afraid of what others might say. She is confident in her choices and her decisions. Is she color blind? Is she a fashion disaster? Is she a confident 21^st century woman who is powerful and feminine and doesn’t care who judges her taste?

No, her name is Greta and she is 2 today. Oh, that we all could embrace each day with such unbridled joy and enthusiasm and with a smile.

Easy Stress Relieving Tip: Just Smile

Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that our expressions intensify our feelings. Smiling helps you relax. Smiling has been proven to decrease muscle tension, mental stress and blood pressure and to increase the production of endorphins which are the happy neurotransmitters. Even if you aren’t happy, simply using the smile muscles will put you in a better mood. Those smile muscles are part of how the brain elevates mood.

If you don’t have a two year old to smile at, just smile anyway. Happy Birthday Greta. Love Mimi

The news is the site is renamed www.intentionalhealthnews.com

The dash in Intentional-Health was inconvenient for me and others and made it hard to find. I do thank all of you who did find me and for your comments. They are greatly appreciated. www.intentional-health.net will continue to link to this site for a year if you’ve bookmarked it.

Intention – a course of action that one intends to follow, an aim that guides action, an objective. Synonyms: purpose, end, goal, objective. Intent implies more deliberateness than some of the other synonyms.

Intention has become one of those 21^st century (some may call new-agey) words like manifest, abundance, hold space, synchronicity that are becoming more common in everyday language. Just Google intention and intentional health and you’ll get about 66 million hits.

One of my first posts was called What’s in a Name? Is it a good or a bad thing that the name Intentional Health is used by many to describe their work? How will anyone find me? Well, the thing that’s so amazing about intention and all those other words like manifest and synchronicity is that the people who are supposed to find me, Margy, are going to find me. So, the name Intentional Health will stay the same because I still believe that good health and wellness are as much about your intention to be well i.e. knowing what you want as about what pill you take or what exotic fruit you drink.

Just focusing on the body/the physical aspect of health I don’t believe is enough. Intention adds some of the mind/spirit stuff that I believe is needed for healing and balance.

So, Intentional Health it is.

Mine is probably a little bit of both.

A Maze has a beginning and an end but along the way there are lots of wrong turns and dead ends. Even when you do get to the end and you almost always will whether by sheer determination or by asking for help, you are often exhausted, confused and turned around. You are off balance. Mazes, like most of our daily lives, are linear and left brained.

A Labyrinth, on the other hand, has no twists, turns or wrong ways. It is a journey to the center and back. There is one way in and one way out. While some of the turns take you away from the center, the experience is calming, rhythmic, right brained and yes, meditative. You can not get lost. When you get to the end you feel relaxed and quiet. You are balanced.

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol of wholeness dating back 3500 years. Walking a labyrinth is a unique experience and often a healing experience. Whether it’s relief from emotional or physical pain or you are just looking for a way to relax, reduce stress, quiet your mind or even for some insight on a matter of concern, a labyrinth walk  may just do the trick.

It is interesting that the medical community is always asking for “proof” for double blind placebo studies to see if traditional healing methods “work” yet many hospitals have labyrinths in their gardens for their patients and staff because it’s calming, because it reduces stress, because “I just feel better” even though there is no “proof”. To learn more about  labyrinths or to find a labyrinth to walk, please click above (not to the right) on Articles.

Years before Dr. Oz wrote his book You, The Owners Manual (2005) (which I haven’t read) I attended a work shop about taking responsibility for and owning your health. Bottom line: You invest in a 401K or an IRA for your future financial health but what are you doing now for your future physical health because what good is all your money if you’re sick and miserable, in pain, totally stressed out and not having much fun? So here’s the question. What am I doing every day to build/maintain my health or to destroy it? Think OWNERS. Oxygen (clean air/breathing properly), Water (volume/quality), Nutrition (real food/supplements), Energy (exercise/meditation – yes, meditation actually builds energy), Relaxation (meditation/yoga/reading), S(sleep/stress reduction). Some friends think I’m crazy for where I spend my time/energy and resources but I think Thomas Jefferson had it right in 1826 when he wrote, “Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object”.

You hear this all the time, how good it is for you, how it will reduce your stress, your blood pressure but sometimes just thinking about it increases your stress because you just don’t have time, you don’t know how, your mind wanders, you can’t sit still. So try this: Walk. Just walk. Around your neighborhood, your block or just around your yard in a circle at least twice. No cell phone, no ipod, no kids, no dog, no destination, no purpose other than just to walk. Notice a tree, a bush, a bench. Does it look different the second time around? The busier you are, the more you need to do this: just walk, even for just 5 minutes. You’ll be amazed at how much you notice when you are not rushing or have a cell phone in your hand.

Years ago I read that the single most important thing you can do for your health is meditate. I took it upon myself to buy books on how to meditate, to learn about it. Mind you, I never did it, just read about it, thinking I needed to know all this information before I tried it.

Forget the books, just walk. And when the days are warmer, do it barefoot. The journey is the point here, not the destination. This is meditation.

Adelle Davis, nutritionist and author, and considered by many to be “the Mother of Nutrition” wrote in 1947, “As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce diseases in yourself.” My mother was a devotee of Adelle Davis and made yogurt in the 1950’s long before any commercial yogurt was a gleam in any manufacturers eye.  Rather than resolutions at this time of the year, which in my case are always doomed to failure, I like to make choices and changes to build health and they almost always include trying new things.  I ‘m going to add more fermented foods to my diet. First on the list is Kombucha and even finding a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast which sounds, looks and feels disgusting but what the heck, it’s all about trying new things) to make my own. Fascinating and funny article by Kristin Hinman in Washington Post Food Section on December 28th about Kombucha. What choices and changes have you decided to make this New Year?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/28/AR2010122801689.html

As the holidays draw to a close, the new year begins and life gets back to normal, whatever that is, with kids heading back to school and full work weeks resuming, I think about the meals shared with friends and family as well as my some of my hopes for the new year. For me, the nourishment from sharing our meals with friends and family is as important as the nourishment from the meal itself. I think the following quote sums it up quite well.

“When we invite friends (and family) for a meal, we do much more than offer them food for their bodies. We offer friendship, fellowship, good conversation, intimacy and closeness. When we say, “Help yourself, …take some more…don’t be shy…have another glass”, we offer our guests not only our food and our drink but also ourselves. A spiritual bond grows and we become food and drink for one another. ”Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen (1997).