Feeding the Flower

One of my favorite parables is that of the tiny flower - a small bud that struggles to strive and grow amidst the opposite pulls of the sun and the earth. The tiny flower fights and fights, until it finally breaks free from the earth, only to lose all of it's petals and wilt back to the ground. You might think that the story ends there - a typical tragedy of sorts - but what happens next is beautiful. The petals around the base of the flower bring nutrients back to the earth and the sun cries tears, which water the plant back to health. The tiny flower grows tall and is happy. 

As I explore this new moon in my life, I continue to think about what new activities to add to my calendar. Besides re-immersing myself in my coaching certification, I want to add a few scheduled classes, and ensure that our weekly date night stays put. But I am reminded quickly that an overcrowded calendar can have an effect like the sun and the earth - they pull us in opposite directions and can leave us wilted and burnt out. And, more importantly, they leave little room for the activities that nurture and feed us, recharging our batteries so that we can continue to operate well.

Building a health routine is all about figuring out what feeds your flower, and making sure to incorporate this soul food on a regular basis. These acts of self-care can take many forms. It can be as simple as carving out an extra thirty minutes to consciously prepare a meal for yourself or as complicated as turning down a night out in lieu of a gym class or respite. Whatever it entails, the act of incorporating such tasks into your schedule should be a conscious and deliberate one. It is helpful to truly tap into what your body and mind are telling you, and pause to consider the space between what you want and what you need.  

Admittedly, it's not always easy to take the first step towards nurturing your roots when all you want to do is be out there in the world. Self-care can be a quiet and personal thing. But the most challenging part of building a new routine is just getting started. The tiny flower had to fight to get those first nutrients and to claim its space, but it eventually started to feel better. It grew, and it soared. Here are a few tips for finding what works for you.

Tips for Introducing a Health Routine

• Tap into your experiences to determine what you need. Sometimes it's as easy as intuitively knowing that your body needs a break or you want to shed a few pounds. But oftentimes, it can be difficult to truly listen and understand your needs. In this case, consider the ratios. What did you experience last time you did something, and how did it make you feel? If the bad outweighs the good, consider introducing nixing that activity for one that nourishes instead of stresses. 

• Start small. You can't run a marathon without a pair of shoes. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself when introducing a new activity. Make the goal Specific (like identifying where to buy shoes), Measurable (such as determining the key points in your process that you can track success against), Achievable (realistic steps in your plan), Reasonable (your expectations in being able to identify where to buy the shoes) and Time-Specific (the time you allot yourself to buy shoes). Being direct about your goals will help you take them down piece by piece and prevent you from making mountains out of molehills.

• Be flexible. Get creative. Some weeks my self-care looks a lot like a spa vacation. At other busy times it could look like a long walk and a podcast instead or an extra five minutes of washing my face. Be flexible in your routine, but don't let that become a detractor in your success. Be creative in thinking up contingency plans in advance each week. If you have to work late and can't go for a run, research a workout video ahead of time to do in your living room.

The key to building a successful health routine is investing the time and energy in making your well-being a priority.  A little can go a long way. So what is it that feeds your flower? 

Happy weekend...

It's been a weird week back here in Boston, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend of staying local and really enjoying that extra hour of sleep. I'm also working on getting back to sharing some posts about our time away in Peru, thoughts on self-care routines for the fall and a few of the delicious recipes that we've been cooking since returning home. In the meantime, here are a few things that are on my radar:

• Taking in the most glorious sounds with Spotify's playlist "The Most Beautiful Songs in the World." They're the perfect tunes for a quiet candlelit evening or a moment in solitude.
• Making my way through Voracious, Cara Nicoletti's awesome set of recipes inspired by life and literary stories.
• Shedding my summer skin and embracing fall thanks to SunPotion's Wildcrafted Shea Butter. It's a thick concoction, but after warming the butter between your hands and giving a good massage, it's truly nourishing and has helped me steer clear of any fall itchies. 
• And finally, two parts of wonderful poems on grief from Mary Oliver that, when juxtaposed, have been greatly on my mind this week:

“Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.”

— ("The Uses of Sorrow")

“And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.”

— ("A Pretty Song")

Weekly Words: "And Now it's October"

"the golden hour of the clock of the year. Everything that can run
to fruit has already done so: round apples, oval plums, bottom-heavy
pears, black walnuts and hickory nuts annealed in their shells,
the woodchuck with his overcoat of fat. Flowers that were once bright
as a box of crayons are now seed heads and thistle down. All the feathery
grasses shine in the slanted light. It’s time to bring in the lawn chairs
and wind chimes, time to draw the drapes against the wind, time to hunker
down. Summer’s fruits are preserved in syrup, but nothing can stopper time.
No way to seal it in wax or amber; it slides though our hands like a rope
of silk. At night, the moon’s restless searchlight sweeps across the sky."

- Barbara Crooker

On Love, Unions, and Adventure

We are now a little less than three weeks out from our wedding day, and while everything people told us about the final days has been a bit true, I continue to try and stay as grounded and present to the experience as possible. 

And so, in honor of our love (in this exact moment in time), our union (in bringing together our families and spirits to celebrate), and the adventure (that we're about to embark on in our honeymoon and in life), I am stepping away until late next month. A few of my favorite thoughts and words on partnership, love, and unity are below. Have a great month, and see you on the other side!

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us the maverick, the darling stubborn one who won’t listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force. And of course all of it, the differences and the maverick uprisings, are part of the richness of life. If you are too much like myself, what shall I learn of you, or you of me? I bring home sassafras leaves and M. looks and admires. She tells me how it feels to float in the air above the town and the harbor, and my world is sweetened by her description of those blue miles. The touch of our separate excitements is another of the gifts of our life together.”

— Mary Oliver

“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”

— Adrienne Rich

“Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

— Louis de Bernieres

Happy (long) weekend...

Happy Labor Day weekend! We're headed back up to Maine this weekend, and the forecast looks spectacular. Wishing you a wonderful long weekend of sun and summer. Here are a few things that kept me moving during an exciting and active week:

• Grooving to the classic 1976 jam "Free" by Deniece Williams and feeling instantly lit from inside. Good vibes ahead, friends.
• Enjoying one man's account of his sugar detox in Fast Company's article "How Giving Up Refined Sugar Changed My Brain," and continuing to push myself to consume all whole foods all the time.
• Trying Bon Appetit's take on Brooks Headley's burger-of-the-moment recipe. We're big on homemade vegetable patties and meatballs in this house, so I'm thrilled to add another to the repertoire.  
• Purchasing a beautifully illustrated children's book on microbes. Because I'm still obsessed. 
• And finally, a line from A.A. Milne on the gentle observation of a summer day. I hope you have a chance to meditate on the same this weekend:

"Little soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding away suddenly so that the next might have his turn"

Learning to Downshift

Even though it's the first of September, I'm still in favor of the late summer vibes that remind me to slow down and relax. But the reality is that at the beginning of every fall, I find that time seems to fly by faster and faster. Many are now back to school and college, getting ready for fall sports, studies and busy weeks. Summer Fridays are on their way out, and vacation time is quickly fading in the face of "productivity" and schedules. 

In one month, we're getting married and heading off on an exciting journey around Peru and Mexico. Tracking these final wedding tasks feel like a second career, in addition to my actual job which is buzzing with projects, strategy and planning. We have family travel and weddings every weekend over the next three weeks, and all I can think is "who has the time?"

Well, quite frankly, we all do. And I'm realizing that it's simply about finding it, and making it a priority. 

In 2010, Dan Buettner wrote an interesting book on what he deemed "The Blue Zones", five regions of the world with the highest longevity and population of centenarians. Buettner was tapped by National Geographic to travel to these locations, in areas such as the highlands of Sardinia, Okinawa, Japan, and an island off of Greece, and learn more about what contributes to their citizens' long lives.  

Buettner was recently featured in the New York Times discussing a longevity diet, which, true to American fashion was the most publicized output of what he discovered among the populations. But it was another key commonality that he wrote about that I appreciated even more: that people in the Blue Zones all shared in the ability to downshift - taking time every day to pause, de-stress and rejuvenate.   

“Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors, Adventists pray, Ikarians take a nap and Sardinians do happy hour.”

— Dan Buettner

While many of us can only wish to live to 100, it's hard to ignore the relationship between stress and aging - which we all do, regardless of fighting it, every single day. And so, these last weeks of summer are a great reminder to incorporate a bit of slow living into every day in order to give our bodies and minds a break. As expressed in Lynn Ungar's poem that I posted Friday, even when you're not busy doing, you are still  being, and that is perfectly enough.  Below are a few ways that I will be reintroducing breaks, particularly over these next few weeks, to incorporate a bit more rest into each day. 

Tips for Downshifting

• Bathe in silence. In an average week, I'm always coming or going, and my immediate inclination is to plug in - to music, podcasts or another stream of digital information. But lately I've found that silence truly is golden, and I've been unplugging from headphones, and the news, and giving my ears and mind a rest. The result? I feel calmer, a greater sense of spaciousness, and more connected to my surroundings versus my thoughts. 
•  Get up and out. Since starting a new job in May, I've found just how powerful it is to take a break from the office, and computer, during the day to clear the mind and refresh the spirit. We've also started incorporating night walks to help disconnect from media and chores in the evenings and stay connected to each other and the outdoors. On those nights, I find myself floating to sleep easier, and waking up more recharged and ready for the next day. 
• Find your place of peace. Growing up, there was a particular jetty on the Long Island Sound that was my shrine of relaxation - a place where I could go and be away from worry and completely present. When I lived in Manhattan, it was the Jacquelyn Onassis Reservoir in Central Park. On most days now, I climb a hill in our neighborhood to take pause and breathe. Whether it's a room in your home, a place in your garden or a neighborhood park, find your sanctuary - a place where you immediately feel peace simply upon arrival.   

Weekly Words: "Imagine setting it all down"

"Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the native ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: "Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through blooming."

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these."

- Lynn Ungar

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday, friends! I'm looking forward to crossing about ten things off of our wedding planning checklist this weekend, and downshifting after a quiet, yet busy week.  More on that next week. Here are a few things I've been loving this week:

• Grooving to Mac Demarco's new album, "Another One," which plays like a hazy lazy summer day.
• Paring down my beauty routine to the basics these days. The other night we hosted a dinner party, and I pulled my hair back, mixed this fragrant facial oil, this delicious balm, and a bold lipstick and felt utterly radiant. Talk about a summer glow.
• Beginning to pack for our  honeymoon and still loving this Italian honeymoon travelogue in the NYTimes. There's something that it captures about that whimsical still-drunk-on-love in the early days of marriage feeling that I love reading about. 
• And finally, a quick few lines from Mary Oliver (as always) to take us out for Friday:

"As long as you're dancing, you can
Break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just
Extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules."