At least turn down your brain

Tired? Having worked for years helping people with a professional method that helps them manage stress, emotion and their effects on the body, I’ve seen a lot of tired folks. Often it isn’t a major crisis that brings them but merely the toll of normal daily life. Our days in this modern world are filled with messages from every direction, “Feel guilty”, “Feel afraid”, “Feel inadequate”. Even with a fairly strong belief in our selves and intellectual clarity about life’s realities, the emotional toll can be great. Add, then, something out of the ordinary. Let us become a victim of crime, take a financial hit, loose someone in our lives, receive a diagnosis of serious illness or experience some other seeming “low blow”. The effects on our minds and bodies can be unexpected. Traditional psychological methods may try to help us “work through our issues” on a psychological level. What happens, though, to the toll on our mind-body mechanism while we are trying to analyze our conflicts, modify our unhealthy behaviors or reframe how we are perceiving things?

Modern folks have come to understand the importance of keeping their bodies in shape in order for physical resilience and health. We now know enough about the mind to clearly say that we must “keep it in shape” as well for our emotional health and intellectual effectiveness. Because, though, the mind is intrinsically tied to the healthy functioning of the body, keeping our minds in shape daily is critically important for the health of the body.

Even the toll of average daily life can be great enough to mandate our learning a powerful method of training our brains and working to practice that brain training every day. That is what I have helped people do. An effective method of brain training goes far beyond relaxation, it gives you the ability to actually diminish the eruptions of emotions in your body.

If that is not possible, we must consider the importance to both our emotional and physical health of at least “turning down” the activity of our brains daily.

Consider yoga
Learn a meditation routine
Take a hot bath or use the hot tub to relax muscles (relaxation helps quiet the mind)
Take time for the sauna or steam room at the gym
Keep a good novel handy (turn to it instead of the loop of thoughts)
Take time again for painting if that has been a release
Give yourself time for quiet moments with your favorite music

Do something that takes your mind away from the endless loop of “thought created emotions”. It’s critical for a healthy life.

Why?

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a sweet young man in his early 20’s who moved with his hearing-impaired mother from Ethiopia and Sudan to America. For six years he has held the job of concierge at the retirement center at which I taught a class. Impressively, he was attending Seattle Central Community College and he loved the challenge of his courses. I've had the pleasure of chatting with him many times about his life and ambitions. His smile was genuine, and his sense of humor lightened many moments for the center’s residents. What further impressed me was his excitement about life’s possibilities. His goal was to attend the University of Washington. He had the grades, obviously the work ethic and even some scholarships. He continued to work to earn further money needed. I was looking forward to congratulating him on graduating with his AA degree this weekend. I knew how proud he was and could only imagine how proud his mother must be.

Instead of enjoying a celebration of his accomplishment, he lies unconscious in extremely critical condition in a Harborview Intensive Care Unit. Walking down a sidewalk after leaving his Beacon Hill apartment the other evening, he was jumped and attacked by 6 men who beat and kicked him to unconsciousness from which he has not recovered. It was a random attack, the purpose robbery. They have taken more than ever could be imagined. I so hope they have not taken everything.

Mini Garlic Cheeseburgers

My husband made mini garlic cheeseburgers for dinner this evening. They would make great hors d oeuvres for meat loving friends.

Mini Garlic Cheeseburgers

Ingredients:
1 large hamburger patty per person
Johnny's Seasoning Salt (or salt and pepper)
1 French bread baguette (about 3' round), sliced
Slices of your favorite cheese
Tomato slices
Dilled gherkins
Hot pepper chilis (we like Mezzetta Brand)
Garlic butter for the baguette slices
Catsup
Mayonnaise

Instructions:
Mix some mayonnaise into some catsup for dipping sauce. Slice tomatoes. Season and broil the burgers. When they are done, top each with a cheese slice and when cheese melts, cut each patty into quarters. While the meat is cooking, top the baguette slices with garlic butter. After removing the meat, toast the bread under the broiler. When the baguette slices are toasted, place a dab of mayonnaise on each one and top with a quarter of a patty of meat. Serve with tomato slices, gherkins, peppers, dipping sauce and French fries (Hank put frozen fries under the broiler) green salad or macaroni salad would be good for lighter fare.

Books

I love book TV, it’s my indulgence on weekend mornings. Like a print newspaper, it exposes me to information that I would not normally have sought. This morning Johan Van Overtveldt author of “Bernanke’s Test” is discussing the economic situation in America and it’s impact around the world. He is amazingly knowledgeable but his intelligence has another more important dimension. Like Antonio Damasio in the field of neurophysiology, he is simply and clearly spoken on a complex subject. Economics is a subject that has most of us confounded, frustrated and about which most speakers make our minds trail off amidst a barrage of numbers and acronyms. I’ve come away from his talk/interview curious about a book on the subject of economics, even tempted to look at it. If my book budget was unlimited and I had a Kindle electronic book reader I really believe I would have downloaded his book after the show.

This made me wonder if the electronic readers will have people actually reading more. Ultimately, I will get one. I think a lot of times I am not reading because I don’t have a good book on hand. Often, I come across descriptions of books in magazines, newspapers and from friends. They seem interesting, like something I’d enjoy reading, then I forget about them, or lose the scrap of paper on which I’d jotted down the title. I don’t make it to the bookstore or library in time. (Side note: I have a strange relationship with libraries. I’ve probably paid for an electronic book reader with all the library fines I’ve paid. I’ve never minded, though, I’ve considered library fines and the rare parking fine I’ve gotten as my contribution to local civic coffers.)

So, this morning, I’ve given myself another good point for my building list of justifications for buying an electronic book reader. And, if you are curious but intimidated about learning more about the economic maze in which the world seems to find itself, I recommend checking out Overveldt's book, Bernanke's Test.

Nearby Iris

Memorial Day

Growing up, a lilac bush sat at the corner of our garage. The fragrance of lilacs always brings back a significant memory from my childhood. Each year, Mom would gather armfuls of lilacs to take out to the graves on Decoration Day (It wasn't called Memorial Day until 1968.)

It was something my family did. It was the only time of the year I remember visiting graves. There were two cemetaries we visited, one out the Lewiston Highway where there were the graves of my sister Linda, who died at birth, Dad’s parents, his sister Dorothy, his uncle Frank and some cousins. The other was in Albion, a small town nearby.

I especially remember the Albion cemetery. It was on, what seemed to me, a lonely hillside. It was old. Many of the graves seemed abandoned and the dates on them were from the 1800’s. Folks from my Dad’s family, uncles, aunts and cousins, were buried there. We would park on a narrow, winding dirt road that led part way up to the hilltop, gather the containers of lilacs and walk the rest of the way. I remember feeling an awareness of lives that had been lived fully before I was ever born. It was one of the first memories I have of personalizing history. Who were these people? What had they felt? What joys had they experienced; what tragedies?

We would quietly find the gravestones, dust dirt and leaves away and place the fragrant lilacs. Mom would explain the relationships between the names etched in the stones. I remember the sun shining and always a slight wind blowing there. I remember having a sense of my relationship to history. They were moments of my childhood in which the obsession with “I” began to fall away.

Mega Mansions & Trailer Parks

The engine of a plane is the backdrop of this moment. I live on an international airport with floatplanes leaving and arriving throughout each day, rain or shine. A number are private planes ferrying folks to their island homes in the San Juans. Cruising through the islands you see mega mansions on cliffs. Nice but complicated. I can’t imagine living in a huge dwelling. Boat living for twenty years does not have me longing for more space. In fact, if I moved, what would appeal would be something small and unusual. A loftish type existence sounds fun. Some place I could decorate interestingly, uniquely, with odd flare. I’m totally fascinated by vintage Air Stream trailers that people have gutted and turned into retro-fantastic dwellings. There are a few trailer parks around the world filled with these creations that are rented out motel-style. I’d love to have the luxury to redo one. Why not, a retro Air Stream near an ocean beach somewhere, or as an office?

As an undergraduate, I lived in a trailer in an actual trailer park that sat just off campus. I bought it for $1200. It was cheap digs and fun living. The “park” was inhabited by struggling students and a couple of resident older folks to whom we turned for sage advice or how-to stuff. I wish I’d taken pictures but don’t think I have even one. It was an evolutionary and “heady” time for me, just out of a divorce, back in college, discovering feminism and my intellect. With just a bicycle for transportation and then my first “solely owned” car, a VW Bug I got around just fine. A while back I found the website of a store I used to frequent and sent them a note about my memories of that time.

1974 to 1976 … Wow! A magical time in Moscow for me and many others. I lived in a small trailer at the base of the university and traveled by bicycle. Back in college after a divorce in my mid 20s, my passion and time were given to the also emerging University of Idaho Women's Center with Corky Bush, Trynn Speisman, et al. And, my mind was expanding philosophically and politically.

I came across your website accidentally while searching writer's guidelines (I've been a writer and psychotherapist for many years). I stopped and smiled. I have to share that a pleasant and powerful sensory memory kept returning 30 years later every time I entered the Puget Sound Consumer Cooperative here in Seattle, until it recently went upscale, alas. That memory was of The Good Food Store. They say the brain's hippocampus pairs emotion and long-term memory. Being on my own in 1974, discovering my sense of self and the impact I could have on social issues was so exhilarating. I read Our Bodies Ourselves and Diet For A Small Planet. I debated feminist issues and took whole foods cooking classes.

I've carried with me a recipe I learned in those classes during my time attempting the vegetarian life. I make it periodically (because I love it and also because it brings back good memories). Its taste and smells always take me back to Moscow and feminism and bicycles and warm soup enjoyed over engaging conversations.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

Ingredients
5-6 cups water
2 cups split peas
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup pearled barley or rice
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. dill seed
1/4 tsp. each sweet basil, oregano, mustard powder, celery flakes and black pepper
1 moderate handful toasted sesame seeds

Instructions
Bring water to rapid boil. Add split peas and salt. Let boil 3 minutes or until soft but still intact. Add barley, spices and onion; continue to cook. After about 1/2 hour, add sesame seeds. (If untoasted, stir in a frying pan on stove top using high heat till they start to turn golden.) While simmering the soup be sure that heat is on medium or lower all the time; too high a heat will destroy the vitamins. Soup is done when peas are dissolved and grain is soft.