I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I'd give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity.  

There are those who hold the gift of deep understanding expressed with a simplicity of being. Even a brief conversation with such a person feels like a blessing of sorts.  This is the work of a good counselor or therapist, a spiritual leader or guru, or a friend.  This is also the place a good parent aims when she needs to be firm but loving.  

With good intentions, many parents try to use long explanations with their children, hoping that they will better understand the limits being set--and therefore accept them.  While an older child usually has the capacity to digest and work with the longer explanation, chances are good that what the younger child needs is clarity.  But clarity doesn't have to be cold and uncaring!  It is a beautiful thing to watch a loving parent communicate a boundary in a way that is brief, crystal clear and fully loving.  In fact, it is beautiful to watch anyone whose being and intentions are so clear that they are communicated fully no matter what words they use.  But that is material for another blog! (Remember Ralph Waldo Emmerson, who said, "Who you are speaks so loudy I cannot hear what you are saying."?)  

My point is that there is a simplicity on the other side of complexity in which the short and sweet communicates full understanding.

However, not all short (or even sweet) answers feel like a blessing.  The answer will not resonnate if the person answering isn't present--if she is answering without really hearing.  When someone speaks without actually listening to us and digesting the question at hand, the answer feels like a dismissal--no matter what the words.

If there was ever a life condition that requires us to live in the direction of mindful responding, being a parent is one.  Have you ever tried to answer your child while you are distracted, for example, reading something else or working on the computer?

"Mom."  

"Yes, PK."

"Mom."

"Yes, PK."

MOM!"  Even though you appear to be answering, your child will continue to try to get your attention until you finally turn away from whatever you are distracted by and look him in the eyes.   Then, whatever answer you have to give--yes, no, or maybe, will be heard and accepted differently than if you answer without actually connecting with your child.  I'm not saying that your child will like the "No," but if you give it unthinkingly, it will almost certainly be a bomb, whereas if your child can tell that you actually care about his question, it has a chance to strike a different chord.

Children are like little EKG and EEG machines.  They can feel what you mean--literally.  The length of the answer probably matters less than the energy it's infused with.  

This principle applies almost everywhere from medicine to international peace negotiations.  We sometimes have to hold firm to a principle or give advice that seems hard-nosed, but if we can deliver our message with respect for who the other is and where he or she stands, acceptance and understanding just might follow.  

Try it sometime--at home or at work or with a friend.  The next time you have something hard to say, don't go to the extreme of blowing up or to the other extreme of backing down and saying nothing.  And don't take the "false middle road" of too many words.  Take a breath.  Plant your feet into the ground.  Feel love and compassion for yourself and the other person in your heart.  Imagine that your throat is a pipeline up from your heart, so that your words can express what is true for you and what you respect in the other.  (You might even want to put one hand on your heart and one over your throat to feel those energy centers and their connection.)  And then, visualize yourself speaking clearly, speaking from the heart.  Activate your strength of heart and your softness of heart all at once.  That is, your courage and your receptivity, your yang and yin, your fire and water, all at once.  And then, and only then, go speak to the other person.  Doing this is a form of meditation and a form of power most of us don't recognize or realize we have.  We think power comes only through harsh tones or rapid action.  But there is boldness in knowing your heart and speaking your piece--short and sweet.  Not sticky sweet, but the kind that comes from the the place where real compassion lives.  

This is true compassion.  Not "idiot compassion" where you can only say or do what you think the other person wants.  True compassion holds what is best for you and the other person in mind and heart--and acts on it.

This is the simplicity on the other side of complexity, and I'm spending my lifetime practicing and refining it.    

Mental constipation.  What a perfect image for slightly mistaken interpretation of what meditation is supposed to do for us.  We've been told we're supposed to slow down, let thoughts go, and tune into spirit.  We are supposed to BE, not to DO, and for the vast majority of people, this is the right prescription.  We ache for that little bit of peace and space inside our brains.  However, if we end up, instead, with a brain crammed with ideas and vague fears, we feel cheated, as though we signed up for an advanced course in insight that turned out to be a dud.  Or we assume that we're "doing meditation wrong,"  that somehow real meditation is supposed to clear our mind and give us right answers.  Being stuck with mental constipation, we may feel even more cut off from a sense of purpose than when we started on our path.  

Don't get me wrong.  I am a huge believer in bringing contemplation into our lives, where the speed of consumption and communication seem to be catching up to the speed of lightning.  It's just that we've jumped in--hook, line, and sinker, into the language of meditation and mindfulness (How many times a day do you see a commercial product called Om-this, Zen-that?) without a lot of training in the actual practice and its unfolding stages.  

Although meditation can be simple, it is valuable to have a road map, a guide to help with whatever comes up because it turns out that having a powerful intellect can make the experience worse, until, that is, we have a little practical instruction.  In the end, although some may disagree with me on this, I believe the human intellect may be the most powerful agent of all in transforming our lives.  The brain is informed by the heart, which acts as an organ of neuro-hormonal-electrical wisdom, sending signals upward regarding our surroundings, our emotional and intuitive responses, and our physical state of being.  It turns out that research has shown that heart responds to the environment by producing hormones and electrical signals that travel to the brain and are "interpreted" there.  Through cognitive work, our brain's analysis can help us see how and why we are stuck, and then we can practice changing our behaviors. But before we can get to using our brain-heart loop  in transforming our understanding of life, self and universe, there are some layers of learning to traverse. Until we learn to use our emotional-analytical capacities wisely...

There we are, sitting on our cushion--or subway seat, trying to be mindful about a current issue in our life, when, a fear or bad memory comes up, and in no time at all, we find ourselves with a thousand reasonable (and unreasonable) thoughts circling round in a loop of obsessive, internal ruminations.   Instead of contemplating wisely, we get overwhelmed.  We are yanked into a paralyzing web that takes us further and further from clarity. Our mind gets wrapped up tight and voila...a full-on bout of Mental Constipation!  It's a phenomenon just as painful and literally unproductive as the intestinal variety.  We wonder...."How did this happen?  I was taking time out for clarity. Is this meditation really even good for me? Maybe I should try hypnosis.  Or a massage. Or a mental laxative, like a drink."

Happily, mental constipation can be resolved once you dissolve a misperception about the meaning of leading a "spiritual life."  People fairly new to the spiritual path often view meditation as a way to cultivate perfect responses to life and all its challenges.  They think they'll run away, far up onto the mountain top, where they can sit...for years...and figure it all out...and then maybe, once they are clear and impervious to live's rudeness and disappointments, they'll return to exercise their wisdom and compassion.  Or, if they are realistic enough to know they can't run away, they are still looking for meditation to magically and thoroughly transform them, turning them into someone who always knows the right thing to do. (Okay, we all probably want THIS, too, but here is where you can correct a misperception that may be holding you back.)

It turns out that meditation isn't about smoothing life out at all.  In fact, the bad news is that meditation might actually make life more complicated for you--at least for a while.  You see more, feel more, notice more...and not all of it is pretty.  This goes on as we look at ourselves and at our world, and for a sensitive, contemplative person, who is already prone to looking at life's interconnectedness, it can be highly discouraging.  "If there is all this ugliness in me, all of these endless problems, and all of this tension between people, then how can I ever address it all? How can my one, little offering make a difference.  How will I ever be enough?"  Strangely, this feeling is often all-consuming in people who, by others' accounts, are highly gifted, talented folks who should have a lot to offer.  It's just that all that kindness, insight, sensitivity and intelligence is wound up in a bunch of "what if's", self-doubt, and doubt about the goodness of the world.  In these people, the desire to do good continually meets with the "reality" that "we'll never be able to fix it all and make it beautiful," and eventually, as with all chronic fights, energy is spent, and a kind of depression and mental fog sets in...and nothing looks clear at all.

And so they shut down a little--or a lot, and meditating can, sometimes, take such a person to a place of complete overwhelm.  

But it doesn't have to be that way.  In fact, one of meditation's deepest lessons is about the importance of the "good enough" beginning.  This is the tiny seed that, when planted, watered, and tended, grows into a garden of kindness, bouquets of caring and useful deeds--ways that one life can touch another.  This is how most change happens.  It is how water shapes the rock and how attention shapes the mind and how small doses of love shape a life.  

For people who wilt into overwhelm, this is the most important lesson of all.  We simply must begin and trust that the little seed is enough. After reflection, we must choose a way and get started.  We must take a tiny, but real step into life...and act on our intentions.  Of course we are allowed and encouraged to gather feedback and adjust, but begin we must.  It is the only way we can survive, really, as the alternative is to suffocate under our fears and questions.  While our bold and driven neighbors may well need to spend some time in the garden of reflection, sensitive types must learn to let meditation bring them out of hiding and into the world.  

I have found that it's even possible to find healing in taking some action whose importance or genuineness we aren't yet convinced of.  I am not big on clichés, but if you can take the cliche to the higher level, finding its actual truth rather than only its flimsy, plastic wrapping, you can "smile your way to a new feeling."  Not only is this neurologically, hormonally, and behavioristically true, it is actually testable in your life.  I do not mean pasting on some fake grin and doling out frothy truisms you don't mean.  Rather, you can actually sit down and say, "How would I handle this if I felt brave, noble, and grateful for all I have?"  "How would I handle this if I were expressing my inner, wise grandmother?"  "How would I go after this job if I believed that I were really a talented and capable (artist, or lawyer or teacher)?"

Recently I had a chance to see how simply committing to studying for one day allowed me to get beyond the fear I had of having to renew my medical boards.  I had put it off, created reasons to avoid it...on and on.  But finally, I made a pact with myself to study for one day, eight hours in sum, and somehow, in that first, small step, the whole things started to look not only possible but really worthwhile.  (I also did a little shaking and dancing exercise to create more "space" for wisdom in myself.  I'll blog about that in the future!)  Anyway, I began to look forward to making times to study, rather than fearing that my studying wouldn't be enough.  It is like that again and again in our lives, especially for those of use in whom "the perfect gets in the way of the good."  We have to remember that if we don't begin, then we can not give of ourselves, and the world misses out on the very kinds of qualities that we wish it had more of.  By holding ourselves back, hiding behind contemplation, we are not only not responding to the call of our psyche and soul, we are actually adding a bit of fear and mistrust to the world.  Without necessarily intending it, we are being selfish and short-sighted.  It is the little step which is the real act of compassion and trust.

So go out today and make a small promise to yourself to do something that brings something good and strong and kind in you out into the world.  Make it a little promise--something that you can do without calling up your sense of overwhelm.  And then...do it, and trust that it is enough for today.  If you do this everyday for the next twenty years, I promise you you'll be amazed at what has blossomed in your life.  

For many, this sounds familiar.  There is, however, a more helpful path to tuning in to that essence that "makes me me" and guides us to living as ourselves.  Personally, I do not believe in a predetermined destiny, but I do believe in the soul's journey to live out its work and co-create with the universe.  A sprinkle of the mysteries of science and spirit intersect with personal responsibility, intention, and ordinary physical forces.   Ultimately, what this means to me is that our life challenges can be summed up by the age old Serenity Prayer, which goes: "God, (insert Universe, Gaia, or whatever works for you), grant me the grace to accept those things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

We recognize the truth in these words.  It's knowing how to act on that last clause that challenges most of us.

When do we accept what is; when do we work to transform something; and when do we look for a way to let go and start afresh?  Working this one out is a lifetime process.  Witness the struggle between China and Tibet.  Even the Dalai Lama is challenged by knowing when to hold a stance for his people and when to change his stance, striving for a "higher compromise" that will ignite anger for some.  Rather than letting this lack of certainty bother us, what we can do is gather all of the universal compost that has come our way from past and present and use it to cultivate a garden, so to speak.  We can do our best with what is true for us--and trust that simple living that way will bear fruit.  And this brings me to the point where the old story falls away.  

Last week, my husband and I were on our first no-laptop vacation in several years.  While skiing along a cross country trail in the Haute Jura mountain region, I found myself reviewing, for the ten thousandth time, the issue of whether I should seek a structured job, returning to the 9-5 mechanics of seeing patients in a regular clinic under the title of holistic or integrative doctor or to set out on my own in a way that would allow me to have longer visits for mind-body approaches and depth work with the psyche.  

Although I studied first language, communication, and literature and then soaked up anthropology and the psychology of human development in college and graduate school, I made a tremendous leap into medical school when I was 28.  Health is a hobby of mine, so getting an MD is not hard to explain.  But along the way, I have on and off fought describing myself as someone who uses transpersonal psychology and uses energy, movement, story and ritual in healing.  The fact that after so many years, I only say those words in certain company and not with everyone I meet despite the fact that they describe my work well.  

So...there I am on the ski trails, when a rather ordinary voice inside my head said, "But there are thousands and thousands of people who would seek you out if you were a non-traditional MD, a psychologist, or any kind of therapist or energetic/intuitive healer or shaman.  Why are you still fighting this?"  Split second pause while I acknowledge that truth. Re-enter the voice: "The reason you chose to become an MD and still describe yourself that way is so that certain people you love or care about professionally will be supremely proud of you and completely comfortable and unthreatened by your choices.  By keeping certain aspects of yourself on the down low, you thought you could create peace, but instead, you've created a nearly 20-year process of keeping yourself from what really matters to you." End of revelation.

What!!!?  Just like that?  A plain old voice unraveling 20 years of internal entanglement?  And such a simple, uncomplicated tone?  There you have it?  It's just all done?  I thought I should write it down in case, in its utter simplicity, my mind couldn't hang on to it.  I did--on the back of a brochure.

Then I remembered the speech of JK Rowling as she addressed new graduates at Harvard:  No matter what your early life experience..."there is an expiry date on blaming your parents"--or anyone else, I might add, for your choices.  How perfectly rational! How true! And when we get right down to it, we might say that others in our lives are usually doing their best to support us, from wherever they stand.  It is not their fault if they do not know how to support you perfectly.  That's a lot to ask--of anyone.  In the end, all we can really do is take the best they had to offer us and use it on our path.   

For me, it was the tremendous grip of my inner pleaser and not my parents or teachers or friends who chose my destiny.  Once I had it in my brain that there was a "highest and best" way to please them, it seems I could let no other voice--not even my own, convince me that I had the freedom to do what I wanted.  

Holy Toledo! This is not the first time I've had the recognition that we are each free, really free, to come alive to who it is we really are.  But last night, it was like I had stood in front of the guru or gotten a good spinal adjustment, where the one stubborn, hold-out vertebrae finally wiggles into place, and the whole vertebral column realigns itself and information is once again able to flow, unimpeded, through the intelligence network of the body.  I could finally see how horribly afraid I had been to be my most vulnerable, and thus most exquisitely unique, real, and even powerful self.  But if you want to unfold and offer your best, there is just no other way than to "channel yourself," which is my summation of the great Martha Graham's words on keeping the channel to your gifts open--no matter whether you even deem them good and worthy.  They are your gifts, and they must be used in order to matter.  Every other path exhausts you without replentishing your energy.  But to be boldly and honestly in pursuit of acting as yourself?  This takes energy and, at the same time, fills you up, heart first.  Brother Stendahl Rast once said, "The cure for fatigue is not rest.  It is wholeheartedness."

And this brings me up to last night, when leading up to Kathleen Slattery Moschkau's interview with Ken Robinson, she quoted Christopher McDougell, author of Born to Run, who blogged that he had just realized "that he had never been brave enough to be afraid."  He'd never been bold enough to do things that really scared him, tested his limits, exposed him to failure.  

Many of us can take criticism at a distance.  It's fear that we might do something to disappoint or upset or disturb someone we love that sends us scuttling under the rug.  

This is the Open Secret that the 12th Century poet Rumi (and modern teachers like Elizabeth Lesser) talk about--the fear we all share yet hold under a lid for fear of discovery.  We fear we are broken, weak, incapable, or undeserving.  Some handle it with brazen (if puffed up) confidence.  Others do a better job of seeing that they, too, belong to the human race.  I think they trust that their fears and shortcomings aren't too different that those of other people, and this is a gift--a gift many sit on the meditation cushion or in therapists' office years in order to realize.  And some of us...well, we internalize, adjust, cope nicely, think we've handled it...until one day, somewhere out on a ski trail, we realize that we've succeeded in cutting ourselves right off from what is most true and most precious about life--our expression of Self--quirks, bumps, missteps, sincerity, rough courage, untapped strength, unusual beauty and all.  

So...there you have it.  As of today, I am doing something about the false hurdles between me and my passion for spending more time helping people with their interiors.  My first step is telling all of you about it.

Whatever your dream is, whatever false distractions you've created to convince yourself it would be better, safer, or necessary to do what you know doesn't bring you alive...gather up your little nuggets of courage and begin. Contrary to popular belief, not all meaningful change has to start with a flair, a big splash into your new life.  A small, honest step will do. Believe me, and anyone who has passed this way, a small sincere step is the beginning of the real trail leading home.  Imagine for a moment that you can become very small, and let yourself remove the world you carry on your shoulders.  See your little self with kind eyes.  Acknowledge in your heart the way you have struggled to make your world whole, struggled to keep it together.  Where you have fallen short, forgive yourself.  You, like your parents, were only doing your best.  Now, scoop yourself up into the palms of your hands, and there, blow on the little ember of your life.  It is that little flame that matters.  It lights the way to the one next step in front of you. 

If you don't know what you are reaching for, just breathe, and notice whatever small sensation pulses in your chest.  It can take some time and exploration to know the shape of your dreams.  While you are waiting, clean your artistst's brushes, get the canvas ready and the art room clean for when you do return to, or enter for the first time, that place where you can see the shape of your artists fire.  Keep the bellows blowing and take some small action, each day, to get to know yourself.  There is no other way.  You cannot begin with someone else's dreams.

If you are lost, an excellent beginning is to get a notebook and simply write, every morning, three (or so) pages with all your thoughts--unedited.  You may think that nothing of import is coming through this exercise, but believe me (and Julia Cameron, who first communicated so clearly about the importance of the morning pages,) you will start to find the lost corners of your soul if you begin.  

Please pass this story on.  I don't know of a single human being whose life isn't touched by figuring this out.  And like the hundredth monkey, the more of us who decide to come alive, the more people there will be who can courageously make the same decision.

Deepak Chopra often says that the cure for insomnia is to live a dynamic day. There is nothing more dynamic than living as yourself. 

I can understand that feeling.  But I also believe, right down to the bottom of my soul, that it's based on both a misunderstanding of the plan and a deeper misunderstanding, or simple lack of experience, with what a "good death" if there is such a thing--and I believe their is, might look like for everyone involved.  

Our culture, over the last many decades, as we have had more advances in medicine and more ways to control certain aspects of and even extend our lives, has becomes more and more removed from a process that used to be a natural part of every family's life.  Relatives died.  Often at home.  Extended care during periods of chronic illness, too, used to happen more at home--with doctors and nurses and other therapists making real house calls.  When I went into medicine, this aspect of really entering a family's life at crucial periods is what drew me.  It still happens in a few practices around our nation.  I just had dinner with a recently retired, 77 year-old family physician in Connecticut who saw 40 patients a day and made regular house calls.  His warm face and rosy cheeks lit up as he told me how he knew which patients would probably do best--those whose families cooked for them, brought them their favorite blanket or pillow, or just held their hand and hold stories.  The other patients, he said, needed him more.  Those with no one to support them through illness. 

I, too, was able to do house calls while I was a resident in Family Medicine at the UW-Madison, and when I started my practice, I continued to have a few patients who needed and welcomed these visits.  In some places, like in the small town of family I once lived with in southern Germany, or in the little town my husband once got sick in in southeastern France, doctors make house calls regularly, bringing necessary medicines and herbal remedies.  My husband's bill for a one-hour "hotel visit" in France 6 years ago was $25 dollars.  All of this is just plain good medicine.  When you get to know a patient in a personal context, over time, your medical judgement improves and so does the healing relationship.

This is a lead in, in a way, to what can happen in a hospital, extended care facility, or hospice program, when the patient, family members, and a dedicated health care team come together to talk about wishes at the end of life.  Standard hospitals succeed, to varying degrees, in handling these conversations and assisting in valuable decision-making.  I was lucky enough to work with many pulmonologists, oncologists, and critical care intensivists during my training years, who were skilled in handling the procedures and tests which would be done to extend life, and yet, many of them were also willing to come to a patient's room or schedule a family conference to discuss whether the tests and procedures had a real chance of leading to a meaningful extension of life. Unfortunately, I've also been a part of medical teams and events in the life of family members and friends where this didn't happen well, gracefully, or at all.  And it is excruciating.  It is made worse when the family hasn't discussed ahead of time, with their loved one, what he or she might have wanted.  It is hard enough to have to carry out difficult decisions at the end of life.  It is torture when you just don't know what your loved one would have wanted.  You couple grief with doubt, and the space inside you that holds the pain seems bottomless.

I remember vividly a week when I was on call as the junior resident (the intern) in the medical intensive care unit.  An elderly gentleman had come in, unconscious, with an illness no one could fully explain.  The week prior, he had been a vital, 93-year-old, mowing his lawn, keeping his own house up after the death of his wife, mourning her loss, but still able to enjoy his children, grandchildren, and long-time neighbors.  He was one of those quiet pillars of the little community near where I grew up.  Then...in the blink of an eye, over the course of a day or two, he got weak, confused, and finally dropped into unconsciousness.  The scans didn't show a stroke or aneurism.  The EKG and enzymes didn't show a heart attack.  He had no known cancers.  He didn't seem infected.  It was a mystery what had taken this robust man down.  

His daughter was the first family member I met, and she was soon joined by several of her siblings, some from close-by, and some from across the nation.  It was clear that they were basically a close, amiable family, each with a personal tie to their dad.  Yet, by day two or three, there was clear tension mounting.  Most of the relatives who had been there from the start, who had seen the string of x-rays, scans, blood draws--and more blood draws when the first tests came up empty, the constant adjustments of the respirator (because he increasingly lost the ability to breathe on his own), and then the tremulous jerks medicated and partially subdued with opiates and other drugs, was starting to say, "Enough. Enough. Whatever shred of consciousness our father has, let's not disturb it further with more tests that seem to go nowhere.  If we had real hope of finding an answer and waking him up, we'd do it.  We'd go along with the tests.  But we don't, and we have to accept that and let him go without such a struggle."  But there was another group of relatives, led by a more vocal brother, who just couldn't stomach that answer.  In his mind, his dad had been healthy and capable beyond expectations for his years, and whatever it was that had occurred had to be better named and understood before he'd be willing to give up.  He was not belligerent, and in this case, I did not get the feeling that his opinions came from a sense of overwhelming guilt, which is sometimes the case.  When a family member has either been estranged or simply unable because of time or distance to participate much in the life or care of a relative, he or she is often overcome with a sense of loss and guilt so great that the only way of dealing with it is to turn it into a vigorous fight, a protest and a demand that everything, absolutely everything medically possible be done for their loved one.  Perhaps then, thought the extensive and heroic efforts at the end of life, this person believes their own heart and mind might rest.

But this was not the case with this man.  He had been able to be present as best he could in his dad's life with some regularity, and the quality of their contact had been solid.  Not perfect, but solid. I sensed grief, but not overwhelming guilt in his words.  And I also sensed a reasonable, rational question, "Have we done enough?  Dad was a fighter.  Are we fighting hard enough on his behalf?"  

There were good doctors on this patient's team.  Conversations had been had.  Tests had been explained.  The lack of real data on just how good, how likely or not to lead to an answer or to an extension of life the procedures were had been explained.  There were trends, educated and experienced guesses, but no promises.  And no one inside of the father/grandfather's consciousness to tell them what, exactly he wanted.  

Every time I entered the room for a couple of days, I noticed my own chest tightened.  I watched all the kids alternately holding their dad's hands and then lapsing in and out of discussion, in and out of debate over what would be best.  Then back to strained silence.  I wanted so badly to have an answer for them, a real statistic to guide them, a crystal ball to know, directly, what their dad would have wished.  Finally, late one afternoon, I simply said the only thing I could think of, having observed them all together for those days.  With my own heart racing, I simply said, "I can see how hard all of this is for you.  I wish I had an answer.  Even though I don't, it sure seems to me that if I were your dad, I'd be touched by how much all of you care about him, by the fact that you each feel so deeply about honoring his life that you would even have this argument.  I think he would see that what each of you feels is your own way of saying that his life and the quality of it mattered to you."  I felt a embarrassed, even uncomfortable in the silent moment that followed, not knowing whether I had offended them or confused them or just stepped in where I wasn't needed.  But then someone breathed, and someone else began to cry, and a third family member gave me a nod, as if to say, "Thanks.  We get it."  I think I noticed that the circle of family, which had spread itself out around the room, occupying different territories, leaning in a little more toward each other and toward their dad.  A few got next to the bed again, putting a hand on a leg or an arm or the forehead of their dad.

Not much more happened for the next few hours, but late that night, while I was standing by, the father, who had been unconscious now for about 5 days, sat up, opened his eyes, reached out his hand for the daughter who was nearest by, and said, "I love you, Honey."  And then he closed his eyes and went back into a coma that he never came out of.  After a new wave of tears and awe and then some more silence, the family started talking with one other.  In the morning, they told me their decision was to stop with the tests and to gently, carefully, stop some of the medicines and machines that were keeping their dad going--pumping his heart and breathing for him.  Sometimes this process can last a long time.  It is not always easy, but the nurses in this case were excellent, telling the family what they were doing, what to expect, and encouraging them to talk to him, sharing their feelings and their "blessings" for him to let go if it was time.  I remember a young grandson who was having a really hard time with himself.  He didn't want to be there.  He didn't want not to be there.  A wonderful nurse told him that he might tell his grandfather about something he was grateful for, something they had done together, something he would remember always in his heart.  The boy did, tearfullly, and after he got it out, he was better able to stand there, and give his grandpa's hand a squeeze.  We don't know for sure if this registered in the consciousness of his grandfather, but it's a distinct possibility, given all we know about the personal reports and neural activity of people who have come close to the edge of death and then recovered.  

In this case, almost as soon as the respirator was stopped and the next morphine dose was given, their dad's heart stopped, too, and with as much dignity as he had seemed to live, he let go.  Gently, peacefully, with the whole family present.  

I do not know if things would have been different had we done more for him, medically.  Honestly, I do not think that that is what that family thinks about when they think of their dad's and his life and death.  I think their grief is ever-present and real, just as their gratitude that they had a day of peaceful presence with him before he let go.  I like to think that each family member who shared something in that time got to rest a little easier through that sense of acknowledgement of what this man meant to them.  From my own experience of being with my family members and friends during and after the death of a loved one, the chance to share a space together, to hold together the mystery and tenderness of what life has meant and what one takes with them into death are profound.  They are, in my opinion, what allow us to go on, to live without paralyzing fear of death before one has done what they needed to, made peace with the people and events of their lives. 

When good health care is at work, a little space is made for these experiences.  Of course, good health care also means a wise and honest look at the value of further medical procedures, and these decisions will not always be easy.  My husband's grandfather had a coronary bypass at age 92, and lo and behold, he has done tremendously well.  With the care of his family, he lost 30 pounds by eating a better diet and walking.  He's always been a regular and generous community volunteer, and with his new vessels, he's been able to do even more without his chest pain.  He is, perhaps, exceptional in his personal motivation and capacity for recovery and generativity.  Some family members have said to me, "Under Obama's health care proposal, his bypass wouldn't have been possible.  His care would have been rationed, and statistically, Dad wouldn't have been a good risk.  We all would have missed these years."

My response is really three fold.  If this were true, I would personally have to empathize with them.  No one, but no one, would ever want to feel that their personal chances of meaningful recovery would be cut off by medical shortages.  But I believe that this is not necessarily what good, "evidence-based" and "efficacy-driven" health care is driving for.  Ultimately, I believe Obama's plan intends to empower doctors and families to make good decisions together, based on medical trends, personal values, AND differences in personal circumstances.  In the case of my "grandfather-in-law," he had several positive predictive factors going for him.  He had little other disease, excellent family support, a history of high motivation and community involvement, and (and this is a very interesting and), he would have predicted himself that he'd do well with the procedure.  When I worked for Dean Ornish, MD, we found that the factor that had the highest predictive value in how well a person did in our lifestyle change program was not how old they were, how sick, how bad the cholesterol or chest pain.  It was the answer to a simple question, "How well do you THINK you will do in this program."  Those who answered that they would do well, by in large, and with strong statistical significance, did well! That is the kind of thing that can be quantified and used by hospital and health care teams to decide who gets care.  Should it be the only factor? No.  But, if it is statistically significant and readily "knowable," then Yes, it should be included in the decision-making.  

There are now thousands and thousands of stories and data points that exist about spending trends, quality of life, and personal meaning and peace for relatives and patients when appropriate decisions and support are given surrounding serious illness at the end of life.  The LIFE PANALS Keith Olbermann so eloquently refers to in his special edition of Countdown on Wednesday Feb 24 can help mediate that.  And our government can help ensure that such groups of guiding agents are ready and available for families who need them.  My hope and call to action would be that we use the best of our technology, the best of our statistical pattern recognition, and the best of our personal capacity to connect, listen, ask questions of each other, and to use sickness and even death not as a fearsome process to shut us off from ourselves and eachother but to better honor the meaning of life.  I believe that this will be one of the most meaningful things any of us can do to live our lives with less of the crazed race to do everything possible in life to deny our own vulnerability and aging.  

My own grandmother, who, through all the stories of life, love, loss and resilience she taught me, asked our family to throw a tea party for her when she died, to get out her best dishes and tell our best stories and to laugh, even in the midst of any tears.  We did this, wholeheartedly, releasing a hundred pink (her favorite color) balloons into the air at her funeral.  But without the conversations initiated in our family and encouraged by some of her doctors, we never would have known that this was the celebration she wanted and the celebration we needed.  Now this memory, and the twinkle in her eyes, are as fully emblazoned in my mind as any of the hard days of her decline, and I can laugh a little as I wonder if I, too, will be an eccentric old lady one day who laughs and cries easily and gets to say the most outrageous things with impunity.  And I can hope that through my own honesty about death, I can draw anyone I love closer to me and help them get just a little more comfortable with this unavoidable passage in life.

These are just the reflections of a 41-year-old whose had, so far, a pretty good life, and whose experienced, so far, just a little bit of the face of death.  I'll write again when life has taught me more.  But from where I sit now--doctor, family member, friend, and person with some living to do, I think I'll vote for the Life Panels.

Perhaps this explains why we, as a nation on average, still have "fatophobia."  We can't seem to get the "fat is bad" myth out of our heads despite a good deal of new publicity surrounding the healing effects of certain oils.  I still hear people talking generally about the virtues of a low-fat diet, and many gasp when I tell them that I regularly eat a half of an avocado with a meal, that I actually lost weight about 12 years ago when I increased the percentage of certain oils in my diet, and that, these days, I've included organic coconut oil as a regular part of my eating.  

Don't get me wrong.  I cut my professional teeth in the early 1990s working for Dean Ornish, MD, whose work I still greatly admire, right in the middle of the no-fat and low-fat craze, and in his program, I watched many grateful people with heart disease dramatically reduce their arterial clogging and many of their symptoms on his extremely low-fat (10%), vegetarian diet.  (What is less widely known is that his program also included training in meditation, moderate exercise, yoga, and required participation in group support, all of which might have played an integral role in the improved health outcomes his program has consistently produced.) 

Dr. Ornish's work still stands as a testament to the value of examining the role of fat in the diet, and I would aree that for a person consuming large quantities of "bad fats," namely the artificially hydrogenated trans fats that keep our cookies edible on shelves for 75 years plus, overall reducing fats would be likely to produce real health benefits.  To hear highlights of his work, check out his interview on the Kathleen Show or go pick up one of his books, Starting with Reversing Heart Disease and ending with Love and Survival!  

However, research currently points to an extremely important role for healthful fats, which can do everything from actually lowering inflammation (in the skin, the arteries, and joints, for example) to lowering total cholesterol levels while increasing the good lipids (HDL).  Healthful oils improve cognitive functioning and mood, reduce blood sugar levels in people with diabetes, and some of them just might increase, yes INCREASE metabolism.  In other words, not getting enough of the healing oils and fats might actually make it harder for you to lose weight, harder to reduce heart disease, harder to have healthy joints or smooth, clear skin, and even harder to maintain a balanced mood or a good memory.  How about that for a list of reasons to get interested in the oils you consume?

Of course, there is still the question of how much.  In relative terms, most of us can probably consume approximately 30% of our daily calories from healthful fats.  (If you eat 2000 calories a day, that's 600 kcals of oil, or just shy of 70 grams, which is roughly 5 Tbsp of olive oil.  Pretty impressive, right?)   And while I am generous in my encouragement for people to get good fats, I am equally clear in my directions to stay away from the other kinds.  I have very few absolute food rules, but one of them is that if a package says "cottonseed oil," I just don't eat it--unless I am truly desperate, like I was on call at the hospital. (I won't get into the irony of having health-ruining snacks at the hospital.  Fodder for another blog...)

Anyway...what are the good fats?  The one most widely available is olive oil.  Get organic, first cold pressed.  It's more expensive, but worth the investment.  In general, almost all oils retain more of their healthful properties when not heated to high temperatures, but some are reasonably stable for low to moderate cooking (like sauteing veggies). Olive oil, an omega 9 fatty-acid, is one of these.  Other oils you can use for low-moderate heat cooking include organic coconut oil, a medium-chain triglyceride which is readily metabolized  and which is slightly sweet in asian dishes and baking.  Avocado oil is safe to very high heats, and sesame oil, too, has a high smoke point, but unless you can find organic, it may be low quality.  Canola oil is a tough case.  Manufactured to be safe for baking, it still comes largely from Genetically Modified sources and might be linked to respiratory illnesses, although we need significantly more research before this can be confirmed.  In general, I'm not buying it until more data are in.

Beyond these oils that you can use for cooking, there are many oils that are tremendously nutritious if used raw.  These include the very fragile flax seed oil, hemp seed oil, and other nut oils like walnut or pumpkin seed.  If you want to use these oils in a warmed dish, try this hint:  Start the dish cooking in a bit of vegetable broth or chicken stock (mixed with a bit of olive oil if necessary) to keep things moist.  When you are near the end, drizzle on these wonderful but fragile oils so you can get the flavor but not ruin their health-giving properties with cooking.  

Finally, we've all heard about fish oils and their healing affects on arteries, cholesterol levels, and even brain function in newborns and aging adult alike.  The jury is really out on the best sources, as we know that the oils directly from fish like salmon, tuna, and sardines are easiest to absorb compared to absorption from most capsule-based formulas (again, the alchemy of the oil in relationship to the whole food may be important.)  Yet, it isn't always easy or environmentally sustainable to have regular intake of certain kinds of endangered fish.  The mercury content is equally worrisome for capsules that do not list any sort of distillation or purification process.  This has been a real source of "eater's paralysis" for me.  I want to have fish oil.  I don't want to pollute my body or be the cause of a fish's disappearance.  For now, I am limiting my fish buying to sources of salmon and other non-steak fish wild-caught from Alaskan or northern Pacific waters and to certain Scottish and Norwegian farm-raised fish not fed grains or kept in horrifically over-crowded pens.  (Who would want to eat a fish that was swimming in copious fish waste?  Yuck!)  For detailed guidelines, check out the EPA's site: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advice/   Moreover, I'm not opposed to the capsules, and according to recent consumer reports, Swanson's is one of the most reliable and cheapest sources of mercury-free supplements.

Finally, what about saturated and trans fats?  Well...here's the scoop.  Saturated fats, such as those found in animal fat and others, like coconut oil, which are all solid at room temperature, have gotten a pretty bad rap in the past.  Some of the reasons for the bad rap were right on.  These fats do provide lots of calories, and when we stopped working so hard in our farm fields and doing manual chores around home over the last century, but kept (or increased) our consumption of meat, we gained weight and got heart disease.  This is pretty clear. On the other hand, I believe that we will continue to find that they way we now raise much of our meat contributes to the harmfulness of the fat our meat contains.  On antibiotics and growth hormones, not to mention ingesting the other things we spray on our grains and grasses, it seems likely that the animals we eat would be storing stuff we don't want or need in their fat cells, and this could be making us fatter and sicker--with higher incidences of childhood obesity, antibiotic resistance, and hormone disorders.  I keep saying "could" because the science is so preliminary and there are so terribly many factors to consider that large-scale studies are still coming out with weak or possibly indirect effects.

On the other hand, my personal and professional opinion is that if you can get ahold of meat from healthier sources, for example organic, grass-fed beef or chickens that are actually allowed to walk around outside and eat from the farm fields where cows have roamed, the animal is much less likely to have built up and stored unwanted toxic by-products in their fat cells, and hence, we are likely to benefit more from them.  A specific example is conjugated linoleic acid, a substance possibly related to reduced incidence of many cancers as well as reduced heart disease and improved weight control, is found mostly in the fat of cows raised on real grass. [Zulet MA, Marti A, Parra MD, Martínez JA, September 2005. "Inflammation and conjugated linoleic acid: mechanisms of action and implications for human health". J. Physiol. Biochem. 61 (3): 483–94.]  Likewise, with organic virgin coconut oil, there is some possibility that it's anti-inflammatory and anit-oxidant properties and ready digestibility will mean that moderate amounts are actually good for health, especially in lowering dangerous cholesterol levels and protecting good cholesterol. [Nevin KG, Rajamohan T.Beneficial effects of virgin coconut oil on lipid parameters and in vitro LDL oxidation. Clin Biochem. 2004 Sep;37(9):830-5.]

What is best of all, some evidence suggests that eating a moderate amount of healthful oils significantly reduces overall blood sugar levels, even in people with diabetes.  This is real news.  Personally, as I mentioned above, I used to fight cravings for sugary and bready-type snacks throughout the day.  Part of getting over that was purely the psychological understanding that I was feeding emotions and not hunger.  But the second part was actually changing my diet to include more, not less, oil--of the healthful kind.  I eat more oil now and just don't fight my weight.

I hope this inspires you to make a few changes and enjoy the benefits (tastes, healthier bodies, better brains and all) of this essential part of our diet.  

Now...repeat 16 times!

It strikes me that for many of us, our "self-work" becomes a full time job and overtakes some of the rest of the naturalness of life.  I know because I have long been a "professional evolver," one who is in constant analysis of myself and what this or that situation in life has taught me.  It's taught me a lot, but when I get too stuck in "how to heal and perfect my own nature," I become a white bread and mayonaise, boring, stiff version of my colorful, goofy, tender, insecure self--the one who's a real human being.

What's wrong with this, you might ask?  Well...on the one hand, nothing.  A certain degree of self-awareness, question-asking, and desire to explore ways to feel better are necessary to our health.  A dose of confidence and a sense of a plan can be a lifeline.  However, there is a WAY of taking up these pursuits that becomes, well...a bit cloying, dull, completely annoying to others and so automatic in our own lives that we forget about the fun of immediacy in life, of simply being our messy, incomplete, quirkily imperfect selves--capable of laughing at all of this in ourselves and in others.  No society or person has succeeded in ironing out all their kinks and insecurities, and part of the fun (and ease) in life come in realizing that no amount of peace and balance in our lives can take away our unique personalities--whether you are a monk or a stand-up comedian.

What I mean is that there is a certain "cultivated carelessness" about life that can be entirely attractive in those who express it.  For example, one of my favorite people in the world is my friend and mentor Allyn Roberts, PhD, a now semi-retired psychologist from Madison, WI.  His background first in chemistry, then in anthropology, and later in clinical psychology and spiritual traditions of the world places him firmly on the grounds of those who care about quality of life and believe that education, goals, reflection, and therapeutic practices matter.  At the same time, his collection of life stories belie a certain willingness to let go of the reigns and stumble into important lessons, whether it was the time he became a vegetarian for a month in order to make a senior monk, Gesha Sopa, feel comfortable, only to learn that the monk himself believed there was something important to learn from "doing as the Romans do," i.e. ordering a steak while he was experiencing America.  Or there was the time when he took his children to India to visit the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, and the Dalai Lama spilled the tea he was pouring, immediately putting everyone at ease with his jovial nature.  He has also had to "turn down the culturally appropriate invitation," as in the time when he had to gracefully but firmly decline an arranged marriage with the daughter of an island chief while he was on an anthropologically oriented exploration years ago in the south pacific ocean.  Or there was the time when his friendly nature combined with a stuck car on a snowy day accidentally led him to become the owner of a castle of sorts, all while he was still a young psychologist with only a few dollars to rub together.  

Perhaps what impresses me the most is that Allyn has studied meditation, practiced many forms of therapy, modified his diet over the years, and taught hundreds of people, if not thousands, to apply certain principles of psychological healing in their lives, but...and this is a tremendously important BUT--he sticks to none of it too rigidly.  He lets his psychological techniques go when they don't apply, he eats pie and chocolate cake fairly regularly, and on many days (perhaps even most) he would count reading the newspaper or watching a little TV to "check in on how we're doing as a species" to be rather important as an investigative and reflective exercise.  He can do both without losing hope and without getting preachy.  He counts a good walk to work or through the arboretum as his meditation, rather than formally sitting on the cushion.  He laughs easily and never speaks in platitudes.  He is never "annoyingly positive," although one always feels a certain hopeful okayness when with him.

There is something delightfully freeing about his lack of dogma and lack of rigor regarding any particular "healing strategies."  Now, he can, in part, get away with this seeming lack of a plan because at his foundation, he IS pretty okay.  Of course, there are times in all of our lives when dramatic illness or catastrophic circumstances require that we buckle up and get serious about our healing.  There are times to say, "I simply MUST sit down to meditate daily or do my daily yoga or go to my AA meeting--or take my medicine."  Sometimes these routines of healing can literally save our lives.  But some people, like Allyn, demonstrate that there are ways to happiness that do not include stuffing our day with exercises but rather participating in its unfolding.

I don't know about you, but I find myself, far too often, responding to myself or to someone else in my life with these pre-digested strategies for wellness when the best medicine might be simply to go out and live fully and robustly, noticing the many dimensions of life and filtering a little less of ourselves.   Seeking the "proper experiences," whether the best meditation training, the most inspiring yoga class, is not the right prescription for happiness if we've failed to use it to give us flexibility in life.  

Check out psychologist/researcher Dan Gilbert, PhD for his book, Stumbling On Happiness.  All of our struggles to make the right decisions in life may have very little to do with how happy we are.  Happiness, it turns out, might come more from our smallest ways of perceiving and making evaluations.  Furthermore, read some of the books by neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall, namely The Last Self-Help Book You Will Ever Need, or Awe: The Delights and Dangers of Our Eleventh Emotion)

This may sound a little hap-hazard, and in fact, I do not mean to disparage the many phenomenal healing traditions and states of mind that have been well-applied to many lives.  Rather, in up-coming posts, I will explore a "map for living" which can help you identify particular stages of life when you may need more structure and self-awareness and others when you would do best to let them go for awhile.  

I'll start to have these up in the next few days.  But for now, all you professional self-helpers, go out there and observe some of the most "natually happy" and easy people to be around and see if you can feel what I'm talking about when I say that they exude a certain freedom and trust about the basic process of living that overrides any particular belief in the power of a strategy.

But with a bit of grace on our side, we made it through security just in time to learn that the plane was delayed anyway.  Aaahhh.  Let the relaxation begin.   I pulled out my book, "80 Hommes Pour Changer Le Monde," (80 Men to Change the World---by my translation, recommended to me by a friend from Belgium) to try to get my Francophonic juices flowing again after 20 years of infrequent use.  I soon let my mind wander to old memories of simple, good food and conversation around a host of dinner tables when I had first spent time in Switzerland and France, and later in Germany and Norway, tracking down my family roots.

Most importantly, the whole experience of racing around, stressing so that I could relax, got me thinking about simplicity and commitment to a process so that life doesn't have to come down to a series of last minute, chaotic chases and decisions.  Lately, I've been noticing that these chaotic times are not rare in my life. I often "hang out" in limbo, semi-committed to more than one option, thinking life will point me to the "right choice" if I just wait for the neon sign.  When that sign doesn't appear, I get stressed, thinking I've missed the signal from the universe and then go through a little scramble to make one of the options happen.  

Although I might like to think there are magically right choices leading to the golden door of happiness, some of the latest research on happiness seems to suggest that the big decisions in our life have very little to do with our happiness.  Rather, people are about as happy (or as unhappy) a year after something extraordinarily good or bad happens to them as they were before the event.  To me, this means that the time we spend stressing over which choice will take us where we want to go could really be spent enjoying the process of being wherever we are.  (You know--"Love the One You're With!")  Maybe corny, but likely true, according to Dan Gilbert, PhD of Harvard. It is the later--some quality in our being, and not the former--striving to make right moves, that seems to dictate our overall happiness quotient.

So, it was only fitting that our entire trip was sprinkled with moments of simple grace, like hiking up a mountain on snowshoes to have a fondue dinner, or sleeping in a hostel without towels, but arising to have the most delightful innkeeper make breakfast for us, or skiing round beautifully groomed ski trails with sprightly people over 75 skating along next to us, or finally...accidentally finding ourselves in conversation at breakfast with the partner of a great piano player, Abdel Rahman el Bacha, of Lebanese and French origin, who was to play a concert of Ravel works that night at the University.  I had seen him, with his salt-and-pepper hair and quietly dignified, gentle manner, getting some tea just as we entered the room, but by the time we sat down with our plates full of cheese, yoghurt, and pain-au-chocolat, he was gone.  A pretty, young woman, his traveling partner and soul mate, we supposed, began to speak to us, sharing the details of the concert and of his tremendous presence while playing.  No flair or fancy airs cultivated just to please an audience.  Just the pure love of the music.  

So...we found the hall and walked in, only to find that this woman from breakfast, Suzanne, had arranged for us to have tickets gratis.  We sat down, and with the same quiet grace he had in the breakfast room, Abdel Rahman el Bacha walked on stage, took his seat, and opened to allow the river of music flow from his soul through his fingers, as though he were channeling Ravel himself, or perhaps channeling the great Gods and Godesses of all music.  He was to tender, soft, and yet so alive--firm, clear, committed to the beauty of the pieces he wished to share.  I felt simply carried away, and I knew instantly and personally why music is healing, how it entrains the heart and makes us feel free to dance, to feel, to cry and to laugh...to feel within and beyond the boundaries of our skin.  Here music crossed the borders of time and language.  

Earlier that morning, Suzanne had told us that Abdel Rahman doesn't often perform in the US because a publicist once told him that he would have to change his name--that he would have little luck with a name that sounded like a terrorist's!  I flashed on that comment briefly, as this simple, sincere-seeming man seemed to hold our common history and art in his hands.  And I felt anger flash inside me.  Anger at the ways in which the smallness of our minds can get in the way of beauty, keeping it sequestered in a cave, keeping the most beautiful of souls on a leash.  And then, with a few more river-like sweeps of Abdel Rahman's hands, I realized that the opposite was also happening, that despite this proclamation or pragmatic warning of the publicist, here we were, a few hundred of us, gathered from around the world, some of us through utter synchronicity, to witness this great gift that came from this man's dedication and clarity about his work in the world.  

I left feeling as though this man probably could have had any number of great careers--as a singer like his mother, a composer like his father, or maybe a history teacher or diplomat or even a guru of some kind given his meditative focus, but he chose piano, and it was beautiful.  And despite poor publicity and whatever other obstacles he encountered throughout life--his music has thrived and reached us--we unlikely visitors to a music hall in Lausanne. He reminded me of the wonderful quote from Howard Thurman when asked by a young man about the "right path" to take in life.  He said, "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 

I felt a lifted up, humbled and inspired by the dedication I witnessed that night, and I also don't believe in wasting a good synchronicity.   So...I thought I'd tell you about how one chaotic start to a vacation could lead to a night of sheer beauty based in part on one man's choice to come alive. Perhaps we'll all go out and find such endings to a few more of our journeys.

You can see him at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0JVXWYxUZY

Here is a simple technique I learned from meditation teacher and psychologist Jack Kornfield, PhD.  It's called the Loving Kindness Meditation, and it is an extremely good antidote to feeling hard on ourselves and angry with others. Every time I do this little meditation, I end up feeling as though I am suspended somewhere above the earth, looking down at all of us, seeing how we are each trying so hard just to make it.  It often makes me a little teary, and corny as it might sound, I find this experience to be completely heart-warming.  I forgive the guy who cut me off.  I imagine he has a family waiting desperately for him to get home.  I forgive our leaders, remembering how horribly hard it must be to sit on the hot seat juggling a million agendas.  And most of all, I forgive myself...for the hundred little ways that I might have hurt someone without even knowing it, or certainly without intending it.  More than that, I forgive myself for hurting me.  I recognize that I was just doing my best and that I have more to learn--just like everyone else.

Of course, following compassion must come a commitment to work for what is right, good and useful in each of us, but believe me, we can't get to that commitment without the compassion.  It's like the old saying that an overweight person cannot lose weight until she learns to love herself.  Well, the truth is, that overweight person CAN lose weight without that inner okayness, but generally, the weight will come back or the lack of inner ease will show up in another way--a different defense.  To reach any of our goals, we have to take an honest and accepting look at what is.  Once we're there, the creative energy is finally set free.

So...start here.  You might want to make a small intention to try this four-line meditation every morning and evening for five minutes and see what happens.  Just sit quietly and comfortably as possible.  Close you eyes if you like, and softly repeat in your own head or aloud:  

May I be filled with loving kindness.

May I be well.

May I be peaceful and at ease.

May I be happy.

You may insert "you" or "we", but I usually begin with "I"--it's where my healing begins.

Let me know what you think, and...for more inspiration, check out Jack Kornfield's books:  

• After the Ecstacy, the Laundry  (How can you not love a guy who can come up with a title like that!?)
• A Path With Heart
• Wise Heart

He is a warm, compassionate, and wise story-teller you won't want to miss.  I would start with either of the top two for a good introduction, and for a deeper look at Buddhist psychology, go to Wise Heart.

As Dr. Ayala recommends, use plenty of fresh herbs and spices whenever you can to bring out even more flavor plus add to the nutritional value of foods.  I grow little pots of rosemary, thyme, and yes, often parsley and sage.  If anyone asks me for my favorite herbs, I tell them to think of any combination from the Simon and Garfunkel classic and they'll do just fine.  Add some garlic and high quality, organic, first cold press extra virgin olive oil, and you can make anything from eggs to sweet potatoes to cauliflower taste fantastic!  

Special health notes:  The changes in color, texture, and taste of sea salt and pink Himalayan salt come from various minerals (magnesium, manganese, iodine, potassium, calcium, and zinc to name some common ones) that are not processed out of the salt.  The additional flavor may help you get by with less, although it is still easy to sprinkle on more than you need.  Aim for 1500 to 2300 mg/day, or on the low side of that for anyone who is hypertensive and/or sensitive to salt.  

In the past, I charged a flat fee ranging from $100/hr to hundreds of dollars depending on the service and the setting, plus I did some pro bono work.  However, I have recently decided to adopt the "co-creative charging" system one of my mentors had always used wherein the price for a consult is what YOU (the patient) make an hour or, if you do not earn money, then you can pay me with what you feel your time is worth per hour or what the session is worth to you.  This way, we both feel a shared investment in the process.  

Moreover, while I do not bill insurance, I do provide bills with codes so that patients can get reimbursed.

So, at least for now, co-creative charging is my little compromise.  I work alone and would rather spend my time with patients rather than following up on insurance.  And yet, I believe that people should be able to get some use out of their insurance.  Beyond that, I believe that basic health care should be offered as a universal policy, so I don't feel that my charging high prices across the board serves the community well.  Somehow, I feel a basic "rightness" in this co-creative approach.

The History of Co-Creative Charging--a little story for anyone interested

After much reflection, I decided on this system after remembering my first visit with Willow Harth, the teacher and therapist who has, over the last 11 years, given me so much understanding of my own development, needs, and strengths.  I came to her office on Good Friday (one of the few days I had off as a medical resident), considering myself lucky to have reached her on such short notice.  I sat down and shared my story.  Time passed.  She took notes and offered reflections.  Soon we realized that many hours had passed, and it was well past time for dinner.  Suddenly, horrified, I said, "You took an entire day to be with me.  I must owe you, like--a thousand dollars!"  

She smiled and looked down at her notes for a minute.  "Well," she said, "you are a medical resident, working round the clock some days.  That must mean that you earn about $5/hour.  I think that you should pay me $25."

I almost fell off the couch.  I hadn't known such generosity was possible, especially for a service so valuable.  I think I might have cried, and I think I paid her a little more than that, but I don't remember by how much.  

Now, Willow had made certain decisions about the value of money in her life that meant that she was prepared to live with the consequences of earning, on occasion, $25 dollars for a whole day's work.  With certain clients she earned significantly more, and I'm pretty sure she has sometimes worked for free, if that's what the situation warranted.  As the years passed, and our relationship changed, our therapeutic visits became less frequent and I payed her more for them.  Eventually, our time turned into a friendship not involving money.  

I have always wanted to repay her kindness and the enduring wisdom she gave me by working the same way in the world, so as of Feb 6, 2010, I am placing co-creative charging as my new guide post.  I'm not sure how it will work, and I'm pretty sure some won't like me not telling them how much they owe.  But...I want to see where it takes me--and us.

I am blessed to enjoy writing, and perhaps one day soon I'll finish my first book, with another to follow, and that will (probably) make money in the world.  I am also blessed to have a husband who believes in me and these crazy experiments like "co-creative charging."  Of course, I'm using "crazy" in the best sense of the word.  Running our lives according to everyone else's standards often leads us to feel stuck and removed from the exhilaration of finding out if something you believe in can really work.  

So...off I go into a soulful experiment to test the boundaries of how we define value in our relationships.  Perhaps one day I'll write again to tell you how it's going.