NEW WEBSITE & BLOG LOCATION!!

Hello!  Thanks to everyone who's ever visited this site to see my blogs, and especially those who've provided comments and feedback.  I've recently created a new website that will also serve as the home for my ongoing blog posts.  If you visit my new site and subscribe on the blog page, you will automatically receive new posts in your email inbox.  So I hope you will take a moment to set yourself up!

Here are the specifics:
New site:  www.NikiPappasWellness.com
Blog page where you can subscribe:  www.NikiPappasWellness.com/Blog/

Thanks for your continued interest and support!

Warmly,
Niki

Let Go, Let It Go, Let Them Go!

I first thought to write a blog on this topic several weeks ago, and it was going to be called “Letting Go At Yoga”.  I’d just had my favorite yoga class of the week; it’s called Vin/Yin and it includes about 45 minutes of hot vinyasa flow followed by 30 minutes of long-hold gravity-driven yin poses.  As we pulled back and down into child’s pose to rest before transitioning to yin that day, I started to cry.  No one knew, since my face was pressed into my mat.  I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I realized I was simply letting go, and I welcomed it.  My tears lasted a few minutes and mingled with my sweat, and I eventually toweled off my face, had some water, and went on to savor the rest of the class.  Yoga is so amazing and sort of paradoxical – practicing can provide a welcome escape from one’s immediate thoughts and concerns (the “monkey brain”) while simultaneously enabling discovery and unintentional insight.    

 

I thought of a card that I came across a few years ago while at Joseph Beth searching for a birthday card for someone.  I still have it propped up in my window and I’m looking at it right now.  The image is shown below and I love it.  To me, it is about letting go – letting beauty and pain in, and also letting the beauty and pain of ourselves out.  I’m a pretty tightly wound person, pretty high achieving, pretty intense.  When I cried in yoga, I had the thought that I’ve been beating myself up with the question “What should I do?” with regard to work, relationships, planning my future, the whole catastrophe.  And instead the alternative questions “Who am I now?”  “Who have I always been?” were bubbling into my consciousness.  And I thought, perhaps those are the questions that could drive my answers, instead of externally driven “shoulds”. 

 

I’ll keep working on all that!  In the meantime, I wanted to write about the importance of finding ways in our lives to let go.  I believe that we can let go in infinite ways, at multiple levels.  We can be stimulated physically, emotionally, spiritually; we can exert ourselves with extreme exercise, we can place ourselves in the presence of natural or manmade beauty, we can spend time with people we love or we find inspiring because of their words or music.  The important thing is to find what works for you, and make time to do it, with self-compassion and patience. 

 

“Let it go” refers more to actions and events.  We all have done and said things we regret, or NOT done and said things we wish we had.  The more present and mindful we are, the less frequently this happens, but when it does, I feel it’s important to make a decision about what to do – nothing, apologize, reconsider, amend, offer – and then do that thing (or nothing) and then let it go.  Learn from mistakes and grow forward.  “Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth,” is the advice given to Elizabeth Gilbert by a friend in her wonderful memoir Eat Pray Love, as she struggles with how to end a toxic marriage and find her way forward.  That advice will never be wrong.

 

“Let them go” is particularly meaningful to me at the moment.  If you happen to follow me on Facebook, you will know that my sons have been on a road trip from Cincinnati to Los Angeles for the past several days.  They left 7/1 and they’ll arrive in LA the evening of 7/4.  Alex will begin a pre-grad school summer internship in Clinical Psychology at UCLA and Zach will fly home 7/5 to be here for a handful of weeks before heading back to LA himself to begin his second year at USC.  It is so hard to let them go, and so important to do so, isn’t it?  I had a wonderful walk this afternoon during which I listened to the TED Radio Hour on NPR (awesome show) and Guy Raz was interviewing the so-eloquent Andrew Solomon on the topic of parenting.  Mr. Solomon cited a British psychoanalyst named Rozsika Parker who describes motherhood as sailing between “the Scylla of intrusiveness and the Charybdis of neglect”.  The expression can be more mundanely rephrased as “between a rock and a hard place” or “the lesser of two evils” but invoking immortal and irresistible monsters of Greek mythology and Homer’s Odyssey is so much more colorful!  Just wish they didn’t have to be female momsters – I mean monsters!

 

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Pray-Love-Everything-Indonesia/dp/0143038419

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=335316881&m=336924063&live=1

WALK MORE, WALK BETTER!

I just got back from a walk.  Like so many others, I’m walking more, whether that means taking a strenuous “workout walk” as I did today, or just making it a point to add steps throughout my day – walking up and down the stairs in my house for any old reason, strolling to the mailbox instead of stopping as I drive in or out, or parking further away from my destination.  There’s no doubt that walking is beneficial for our physical and psychological health, as supported by research and experience.   More is better.    

However, sometimes walking hurts.  We get stiff afterward, our feet hurt, we feel sciatic pain, or worse.  I’ve experienced symptoms like these for sure.  So I was intrigued to come across two news items over the past week or so that focused on walking quality and posture.  The first was an NPR story about Esther Gokhale who, having endured back surgery for a herniated disk and later faced another painful surgery, decided to travel around the world studying cultures where there are low rates of reported back pain.  Ms. Gokhale, an acupuncturist, visited remote mountain locations in Ecuador, tiny fishing towns in Portugal and remote villages of West Africa, and she watched people.  The main thing she noticed was a difference in spinal posture between the populations with little back pain and Americans, who suffer a lot.  Modern Americans tend to have an S-shaped spine (left image), curving in at the top and back out at the bottom.  She hypothesizes that being overweight and having generally weak core muscles exacerbate this tendency for a large portion of our population.  In contrast, the indigenous populations she observed had more of a J-shaped spine (right image), straighter from neck to lower back and then curving out at the buttocks.  People with this posture hold their heads straight and high and their shoulders back.  Imagine regal posture and you’ll get the idea.  I just walked around my office with a book on my head to practice!   

Ms. Gokhale has now written a book and consults with clients in Palo Alto, where she is known as the “posture guru”.  Several of her top tips are shown below, and you can apply them while sitting, standing, or (of course) walking:

1.       Do a shoulder roll:  Lift your shoulders up and let them relax back and open, so that your arms are able to rotate outward and your palms forward.  This will be familiar to anyone who practices yoga and it feels great to open your chest this way.

2.       Lengthen your spine:  Take a deep breath in and grow tall, then try to maintain that height as you exhale.  This really activates and strengthens your abdominal muscles.

3.       Squeeze your glutes as you walk:  Just get up and try this.  Ms. Gokhale says its best to target the gluteus medius muscles here, which are higher up on your buttocks.

4.       Don’t put your chin up:  When your spine is tall and your head high, your chin will dip down slightly as you look straight ahead.  Again, try it and feel how nice it is to have a long back of your neck! 

A link to the full article is provided below.  I’m standing on my treadmill desk at the moment writing this, feeling into all of these recommendations and visualizing my spine from the neck down.  I find it helpful to really ground my feet and visualize my spine in a J shape to bring myself into line. 

The second article I read was in one of my favorite blogs, Well + Good, and it’s about a Shiatsu massage practitioner named Shandoah Goldman who wanted to help her clients find lasting relief from their pain and stiffness.  Many of them loved their treatments with her, but their aches and pains quickly came back after they left their appointments.  Ms. Goldman works in New York City, where walking is a significant part of daily life for many, and she began to suspect that her clients might be causing themselves unintentional discomfort with their normal stride.  Now she offers private sessions and walking-and-alignment workshops to mainly get her clients to loosen up in the hips as they walk.  She recommends holding the pelvis in its natural slightly swayback position and to hold the head “defiantly high”.  Ms. Goldman does reassure her clients that they will still be able to avoid eye contact with others (in true NY fashion), by focusing their gaze further away and beyond those they are encountering.  That tip is optional (how about smiling?), but in general, her stride and postural recommendations feel consistent with the J spinal shape preference described above.  A link to this article is shown below as well. 

So…  no matter where you are right now, roll your shoulders up and back and take a deep breath in and out.  I promise it will feel good down from your head down to your toes.  And the next time you have the opportunity to take a walk, visualize that J spine, tighten those cheeks, hold your head high, and stride regally into your future! 

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/08/412314701/lost-posture-why-indigenous-cultures-dont-have-back-pain

http://wellandgood.com/2015/06/08/why-your-walk-might-be-the-least-healthy-thing-about-you/

My Favorite Gigs

I haven’t had a full-time work gig for quite a while now, not since I left my more-than-full-time job in marketing research at the end of 2010.  Since then, I’ve had independent contractor and part-time gigs in research and in health coaching, as well as maintaining my own private coaching practice.  These paid gigs are critical to my survival and fulfilling in many other ways too, but today I worked a couple of the unpaid gigs that give me the most satisfaction of all.  I played piano for groups of residents at two assisted living communities here in Cincinnati, one called Bridgeway Pointe that caters to men and women of all ages and the other a home for retired Franciscan sisters.  I have a third that I play for regularly too – a somewhat more upscale facility called The Kenwood that is located on a hillside overlooking downtown and that has a lovely baby grand in the music room – a huge bonus for me!  I try to schedule it so that I do the first two back-to-back on a weekday afternoon (usually Wednesday) and the other on the Saturday afternoon before or after that Wednesday.  That way I can work up a program for all three, perform it, and then have a little bit of a breather before getting serious about the next month’s program development and practice. 

 

I’ve played piano since I was a very little girl – my mom had my brother and me at the piano as soon as we were able to sit still for more than a few minutes!  And she taught us both until we were about junior-high age; then we graduated to lessons with an amazing music professor at North Dakota State University, where our dad was on the Chemistry faculty.  My brother Paul went on to become a professional musician and entertainer, still working steadily on cruise ships that go all over the world.  I went on to embrace different interests and priorities, career- and family-wise.  My piano playing ebbed and flowed over the years but mainly ebbed until those priorities shifted to allow me the time and space in my brain and heart to take it up again.  I took a year or two of classical lessons and a scant year of jazz piano lessons (such a different language!!!), and eventually an opportunity presented itself to play for one of the assisted living communities mentioned above.  The additional contacts and opportunities came through a women’s networking group a year later, and I am so grateful for them all. 

 

It makes such a difference to me to be able to practice with a goal in mind – a program to think about and plan, and people to play for.  It also is wonderful to practice at home for someone who appreciates my playing.   So, as I was driving home this afternoon after playing for the retired nuns and the Bridgeway Pointe residents, I was just glowing inside.  I felt great and I knew that I had brightened the days of about 25 wonderful people whose days aren’t always that bright.  I’ve been volunteering for four full years now, and during that time residents have come to rely on wheelchairs and oxygen tanks.  Their posture has weakened and their awareness dimmed, and sometimes, of course, they pass away.  I can be sitting in my living room practicing alone and get all teary from a piece of music – when I’m playing for my residents, I often have to pause and take a calming breath, so that I don’t break down.   

 

What keeps it light is the lack of inhibition and slight craziness of the environments in these homes – and I write that with fondness and affection.  Here is a list of what happened just today at my two performances:

1)      As usual, residents kept coming in and jostling around with their wheelchairs and aides for the first 20 minutes of our 40-minute time;

2)      One resident wore a pink hooded sweatshirt despite the heat, and then when I glanced up while playing, I noticed that while the hood was down, she was scrunching it up with her hands to cover her ears – yikes!

3)      Loud guffaws erupted from one gentleman throughout the performance, for no apparent reason

4)      Alex the therapy dog (a fluffy and friendly Bichon) and his owner entered and started walking around the room visiting audience members during the Tchaikovsky

5)      One nun fell sound asleep (love this!)

6)      I heard a heartfelt story from another nun about her childhood; she said she’d not remembered that story until just today, though she’s told it to me many times (sometimes lost memories are a gift – one is then able to remember them again and again?)

7)      Sadly, a couple of my “regulars” looked very out of it today, one in particular seemed so much smaller than last month, in stature and presence/energy

8)      Happily, it was M’s birthday and she had a bright balloon tied to her wheelchair and a special guest visitor whom she was so proud to introduce to me

9)      As always, they so sweetly applauded and asked after my children and when I was coming next time

 

I can’t end before mentioning a certain woman whom I’ve not seen for a while, but I will never forget the first time she came to one of my little concerts.  She came in a little late, in a wheelchair and with an aide, and when the aide introduced her she said nothing, just looked startled and was quite shaky.  However, the aide said that she had performed as an opera singer in her earlier years, and when I began playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata a few minutes later, she began singing the melody in a clear, haunting voice.  I have tears streaming down my face now, remembering it.

 

I have a lot of reasons for not wanting to again commit myself to an all-consuming job; surely one of the best ones is that I need to allot a meaningful amount of my time to practicing for performing these monthly piano gigs – for the dear residents’ sake, and for my own. 

 

 

WELLNESS 1-2-3

Most of the important things in life aren’t at all simple, so when something comes along that is, I believe it’s worth sharing.  After I read the article referred to in #2 below a couple days ago, it struck me that daily wellness can be as simple as 1-2-3.  I’d like to offer this simple 1-2-3 plan to you today, to support your wellness journey!

1 – Do ONE Thing at a Time.  We may pride ourselves on our multitasking abilities – and fellow women, I’m talking to you! – but guess what?  Multitasking is a myth!  Studies of our brains in action show that we are capable of focusing on only one cognitive task at a time.  Our attempts to do two things at once are actually about “task switching”, and we’re not nearly as efficient or effective as we think we are.  In a recent Forbes article, Dr. JoAnn Deak states that in the short term, multitasking doubles the amount of time it takes us to complete a task and usually doubles our mistake rate, or worse.  Other research suggests that task switching reduces our productivity by up to 40%.  Not good! 

Clearly there’s a downside to multitasking, but the good news is that there’s such an upside to monotasking!  We perform, feel, and just are so much better when we focus – our eyes, our attention, our time, our energy, our love.  I suggest to my clients that they mindfully “sink in” to whatever they’re doing, for greater effectiveness, efficiency, and most importantly, enjoyment.

 

2 – Walk TWO Minutes of Every Sedentary Hour.  A recent study reported in the NYT Well blog links “gentle walking” for just 2 minutes per hour with a 33% reduction in mortality.  Respondents in this large-scale longitudinal study wore fitness trackers to measure their movement, and the researchers measured death rates 3-4 years later, thereby discovering this strong association.  What better reason to get up from your chair on at least an hourly basis and take a little walk?  You will give your body and your mind a break, and your pause can serve as a transition from one task to the next (in service of goal #1 above!).  Of course, intense exercise provides incremental physiological and psychological benefits, so please continue to include it in your routine as well! 

 

3 – Eat Fruits & Veggies THREE Times a Day.  There’s no better dietary advice than to eat more fruits and vegetables.  I like the simplicity of including produce with every meal – for example, luscious berries at breakfast, a crunchy salad and an apple at lunch, and any one or two of hundreds of veggie possibilities at dinner, whether sautéed, steamed, or even spiralized.  Fruits and vegetables provide a multitude of vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber, and they have been shown to protect against various types of cancer and reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.  They are truly the best medicine, and bring color, texture, and delicious flavor to every meal.  Bon appétit!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2014/11/26/the-myth-of-multitasking-and-what-it-means-for-learning/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/a-2-minute-walk-may-counter-the-harms-of-sitting/

 

What is Real?

I was pulled over by the police this afternoon. Well, not exactly pulled over because I was walking along the sidewalk at the time. More specifically, I was walking home from Kroger on Wasson with two plastic bags holding kale, swiss chard, berries, and a baguette; I’d stopped at the store at the end of a lovely hour-long walk up and down and around my Hyde Park/Oakley neighborhood listening with rapt attention to my current book club book on Audible, the gorgeous And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. It had been such a special and happy weekend – my best friend from high school had visited and we’d enjoyed hours & hours catching up, two fabulous downtown dinners, a couple of nice walks, and I’d hosted a very successful party featuring her and the clothing line for which she’s recently become a consultant. I had taken her to the airport earlier in the day and was enjoying my walk before I planned to make myself a quiet dinner at home and get to bed early. That was MY reality. 

However, according to the policeman who suddenly swerved his car in front of me to block oncoming traffic, I fit the description of someone who’d been reported for panhandling in Hyde Park Square:  I was female, 50-ish, 5’ 2” (I’m actually 5’ 6”, thank you very much!), and “wearing dark clothing” – just like approximately two-thirds of the population on any given day. There ensued about 15 minutes of interrogation, the arrival of two more officers in their own cars for a total of three cars and three policemen, and my utter confusion and disbelief, which of course meant that I started to cry.  “Had I been panhandling?” “Did I have a receipt for those groceries?” I answered Yes but then was barked at to not reach into my pocket for it because “I can’t see inside your pocket!” “What’s your Social Security Number? Your birthdate? Your address?” After the second officer went back into his car and confirmed that I was who I was, or at least lived where I said I did – because I didn’t have my wallet with me, just my keys and a little cash for my groceries, and of course my phone and earphones to listen to my story – they told me I was free to go.  Throughout the process, there were also a lot of statements by the officer asking me to confirm (presumably for the record – were we being recorded?) that he had not used profanity with me, that he had not drawn his firearm, that he had not made me get down on the ground, and didn’t I see that they are just doing their job, responding appropriately to a call? That since I “matched the description” and was in the general vicinity of Hyde Park Square, that it was all reasonable and sensible and even right? I just stood there shaking and crying and trying not to put my hands in my pockets or move in some other unacceptable way.

There was really no apology; I was just eventually told that I was free to go. As I walked the rest of the way home with my head down, my mind and heart were flooded with thoughts and feelings.  I felt catapulted into a parallel reality – one that as a privileged white woman I previously had just heard and read and even ranted about. What would it be like to be a young African-American man who is automatically viewed with suspicion and fear, and often treated totally unfairly and much much worse? What would it be like to be his mother or sister? I hated that our world is the way that it is. But I couldn’t really relate. After today I feel I’ve been granted a glimpse into that reality, and I knew I wanted to talk about it with people who care about me, and to write about it. 

Of course all of us are always walking around in our own realities, bumping into others’ realities, and existing in the time and space of our cultural reality, and our abilities to connect our own dots and to truly connect with others drive our happiness and success. For some reason today’s experience also brought to mind The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. In this beautiful book, the Rabbit asks his friend the Skin Horse, “What is Real?” And the Skin Horse basically says it is about love. Love makes you real, and sometimes it hurts.  He says “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time.” It is worth it!

Moving Opportunities

My last post was about moving on and this one is too - quite literally since my moving date is January 7th!  In preparation for this big day I've been paring down my belongings and, in the process, realizing that there are many ways to get rid of stuff, each of which is effective in its own way.  Here's what's worked for me so far:

1) Sell it!  Half Price Books is my friend - I've been there a half dozen times to unload books and DVDs and while the cash you get is pretty minimal, it makes me happy to contribute to the amazing collection they offer in their store. If I leave with only one "new" book or movie in my hand, I consider the transaction a great success.

2) Consign it!  This option will work well for all of the Pottery Barn Teen bedroom furniture I bought my boys 10 (!) years ago and I'm happy to be creating a new space for them more suited to their current tastes. Legacies will be my partner for these and a few other furniture transactions and I'll be happy to make a little money and also benefit Cancer Support Community, the beneficiary of Legacies' proceeds.  When it comes to clothing consignment, I'm a big fan of the Snooty Fox as well as the online service Tradesy.com - check them out!

3) Donate it!  I love Goodwill drop offs - this has been best for things that might otherwise be garage sale candidates - kitchen and household items, outgrown toys, linens no longer needed.  I hope they all find new homes and satisfied users soon.

4) Use it up!  I have never liked having lots of extra stuff around, whether that's food in the fridge or pantry or household/cleaning supplies, or cosmetics and personal care stuff. But like most of us I restock or add new goodies well before I need to. So I've enjoyed approaching my pantry shelves and bathroom drawers with the goal of (re)discovery, and this has led to some interesting dinner creations, not to mention variation in my hair and skincare routines!

5) Throw it out!  Of course we all have things for which this is the best option - especially paper... Do I really need to keep my notes from Food and Beverage Cost Control, which I took at Midwest Culinary Institute four years ago?

So how have I been deciding what should stay and what should go?  Well, sometimes it's pretty obvious, as was the case with the aforementioned lecture notes; sometimes it's practical, like simply not having a place for high kitchen stools in the new house; and sometimes it's a little more complicated. My guiding principle comes from Marie Kondo, an expert declutterer and organizer featured  in the New York Times a few months ago (http://tinyurl.com/ofhs9w9).  Ms. Kondo shifts the emphasis from what to discard to what to keep, her simple yet profound decision criterion being, "Does it spark joy?"  I love this - it allows for both physical and emotional factors to drive either keeping or discarding something, which is so much more holistic and personal than "rules" about usage frequency, style quotient, or practicality.  I think that moving provides a great opportunity to consider which possessions really do spark joy whenever you use or merely walk past them, and I've tried to apply her criterion as I make my decisions.  Ms. Kondo also advocates thanking items that you do decide to say goodbye to, and I think this is a fine idea as well. Things you own are there for a reason and even if they don't serve you anymore, it is worth acknowledging your past relationship.

And finally, since today is December 31st, I want to mention my favorite New Year's ritual, which does tie into this whole theme of moving forward mindfully.  It is a More and Less list, which I first came across in Gretchen Rubin's writing about happiness.  You create it by thinking about how you have been spending your time and energy in the recent past, and considering how you might want to modify that for the future, so that you will spend More on certain current or perhaps new things, and Less on others. Candidates for your list can be thoughts, attitudes, or actions, and they can be big or small - anything goes.  When we give ourselves a bit of time to review and evaluate our current time and energy expenditure patterns, I believe that we can all come up with changes that we know deep inside would make our life better - more fulfilling, saner, healthier, happier... better for ourselves and those around us too.  A major advantage of More and Less is that it is about shifts - movements in a positive direction - rather than absolutes.  Another is the explicit inclusion of the Less side of the equation, in order to make space for your Mores.  Many resolutions fail because they are overly ambitious and often discontinuous additions to one's life, without accompanying reductions.

So with these thoughts I wish everyone a Happy New Year full of More mindful decision making, sincere appreciation, health and happiness - and maybe a little Less stuff!