Days 97- 93: Gratitude Digest

Wow, I didn't make it very far towards my goal to blog every day before I fell off the wagon! It's almost been a week since I last wrote and I'm beginning to wonder if I should have tried to be more realistic, as life seems to be taking on a more rapid pace as we step into the second half of summer.

I have been taking the time to reflect on my sources of gratitude every day, even if I haven't taken the time to make it to an actual computer to get it all down. I also feel silly so much of the time, knowing that I'm sharing this primarily for me, as I don't expect others to necessarily read my ramblings. But it's about holding myself accountable, to really find new reasons to reflect and be grateful every day, and for some reason, putting it out there for the public to see helps me do that.

So here, I'm transcribing my different thankfulness-es from the chicken-scratch notes I wrote in my various journals and daily planners for the past few days. Hopefully I can be better moving forward!

My Father-in-law, Larry, and Mother-in-law, Bev

Day 97 (Friday): Okay, this might sound silly - but as I was pulling my sparkling-clean, piping hot dishes out of the dishwasher in the morning, I had a rush of gratitude. Yeah, it's wonderful to have a dishwasher that works after years of subpar dishwashing experiences, but more than that, I'm grateful to my in-laws, Bev and Larry, who were thoughtful enough to salvage it for us from a home they were doing work on, drag it all the way to Minneapolis, take out our old, gross one, and install it for us, for free. Every single time I put a dish in that dishwasher, I'll remember that my in-laws are the kind of people who are willing to install appliances for their loved ones when they drop in for a visit. That's pretty inspiring to me - I also hope to be the type of person whose joy comes from helping the people I love.

Day 96 (Saturday): Summer - and it's already half-over! Travis and I sat outside and played Scrabble by the fire as we watched a rare blue moon rise over our neighborhood. This is my favorite time of year, when the crickets are chirping and the flowers are already starting to look a little rough-around-the-edges. It feels like the part of the party where the dancing is dying down and everyone settles in for genuine conversation.

A very mysterious moonlit game of scrabble

Day 95 (Sunday): Minneapolis - I'm sure I could write volumes about why I am grateful for Minneapolis, but today Travis and I took advantage of one of the city's coolest summertime traditions - Open Streets. There have been a few different Open Streets in various locations across the city already this year, which are basically block parties that go on for many blocks. The streets are closed off to all but foot and bicycle traffic, and a temporary marketplace of food trucks, vendors, activists, and entertainers take over. I walked 6 miles and very nearly kissed the front stoop of my house when I got home! Me and Bartleby were both exhausted after a day-long walk in the sun.

Day 94 (Monday): Quiet - I know that this time of peace and quiet is short-lived, but it is wonderful to just sit in the morning with the windows open, listening to the cicadas as I plan my week.

Day 93 (Tuesday): Singing - I finally finished my last vocal bits for the Lovely Dark album, and I was so grateful that my voice is still going strong, even with a little baby nestled up against my lungs! When I perform, it's the closest I ever really get to that Zen feeling, that sense that I'm experiencing the very heart of a moment, and everything else just kind of moves around me. It's important for me to remember to keep finding opportunities to sing in front of people, to never lose that, even as it gets harder to find opportunities.

And that brings us (almost) up to date!

Day 98 - Sun Salutations

I'm 25 weeks along and FINALLY have a bit of a belly to show. I feel like my body has changed massively in the last few weeks, even though I haven't "popped" yet and have yet to have a stranger comment on my pregnancy. Our little one (we call her "Little Foot") has been kicking a lot, and supposedly these next couple weeks are supposed to be her most active time. She is big enough to make her presence known, but not so crowded that she can't still enjoy some freedom to move around. 

I took this picture in an attempt to capture my post-yoga glow. The lighting is a bit wonky, so I ended up with more glow than maybe I wanted, but I am grateful that I am 25 weeks and can still complete an hour of yoga (with modifications). Sun salutations are getting harder (planks!), and with my center of gravity always changing, balancing postures are starting to require more concentration. 

Here's what I'm loving today - this prenatal yoga video from www.DoYogaWithMe.com:

https://www.doyogawithme.com/content/prenatal-modified-flow

Day 99: I'm Grateful for Planned Parenthood

I feel like I need to put this out there. I'm not ashamed of being pro-choice, although I understand it's a sensitive issue for a lot of people. You don't have to agree with me, but I hope you will at least read and try to understand my position.

I think the most common misconception about people who are pro-choice is that we all see abortion as a solution to a problem, when in fact, most of us view it as a symptom of a much larger problem - and a necessary evil. I would love to live in a world where the need for abortion didn't exist. But in order for that kind of world to exist, we need to support programs exactly like Planned Parenthood, programs that use most of their funding to provide judgement-free healthcare to people who need it the most.

My pregnancy has not been easy. I am one of those not-so-lucky mommas-to-be whose nausea did not let up at the beginning of the second trimester "like it's supposed to," and a minor complication has meant that I early on, I had some scary moments when the future of my baby was uncertain. I am grateful that my work schedule is flexible and that I have been able to lean on my husband's support - both emotionally and financially - during the rougher times. Aside from the nausea, I know that I am so blessed, because if I was a financially-strapped single woman who relied on an hourly wage, I honestly don't know what I would have done. There are days where (on doctor's orders) I couldn't stand, much less work. But what has made it worthwhile is the knowledge that I want this baby. The idea of someone being forced to go through a difficult pregnancy, if that was not the case, is heartbreaking to me.

Our country has some great programs to help out women who are struggling through pregnancies they didn't plan or can't afford (Planned Parenthood being one of them), but it's just not enough - especially if, like me, a woman is put on bed-rest and can't work. And what about after the baby is born? To honestly say you are truly "pro-life," you must be willing to vote for and openly support programs that will help that baby and his/her momma all his/her life, not just until birth - programs like welfare, WIC, better education, and medicare, just to name a few. Until we live in a society where those things exist, I can't be anything but pro-choice. I can't take away that option from anyone.

It's funny that I first developed my strong views on this issue as a psychology student at a Catholic college, when I was first introduced to the tenet of "do no harm." Am I 100% morally okay with the idea of terminating a pregnancy? Maybe I'm not. But I do believe that our duty is first to the woman who will suffer far more if she is put through an unwanted pregnancy, to the thousands of children who are already alive and struggling with hunger or waiting for adoption, to those who are putting themselves at risk because they don't have access to medical care or a proper education. Planned Parenthood serves these people, which is why I am grateful for them.

100 Days of Gratitude: The Little Things

Yesterday, I realized that - if all goes according to plan - I have roughly 100 days left of my pregnancy. It's crazy to think that there is such a finite number of days left of life as I've come to know it. That is, a life of "whatever, whenever." Whenever lunchtimes. Whenever wake-ups. Whatever I want to do, Whenever I want to do it, with relatively few limitations or obligations.

I asked my friends on Facebook what they would do if they knew that 100 days was all that stood between them and parenthood, and here are some of my favorite answers:

• Sleep (this was the most common one)
• Casually curse without guilt
• Have a shower with no one else in the bathroom
• Eat candy in the open
• Put on a horror movie and leave the room
• Have a quiet dinner

It's easy to see, based on the answers, that the simplest, littlest things are what you miss of your childless life when you become a parent. I've decided to count down my remaining days by embracing these little things: peace, quiet, and horror movies. Adult conversations in quiet restaurants. Uninterrupted sleep and baths. And time allowed for more spiritual pursuits: meditation, yoga, gratitude, journaling. To hold myself accountable, I'm going to try to do a gratitude-related post a day for my remaining 100 days - even if it's just a picture.

Today, I picked tomatoes. When your head is abuzz with activity and you lose all track of time, the garden will remind you that the days are still passing. Suddenly, the bean vines have outgrown their trellis, the peas and lettuce are already well past their prime, and the weeds have gotten so big you can actually see them peeking over the top of the fence when you pull up in the driveway. Honestly, my garden this year is a mess compared with last year, when I wasn't coping with pregnancy symptoms and was able to be more vigilant. Even though the weather has been ideal - hot and steamy for two solid months now - problems run amok quickly when you garden like I do, square-foot style, with plants literally growing on top of each other. My tomatoes look scraggly and are hosting some kind of pest, but there are still plenty of gorgeous fruits to pick - probably more than I will know what to do with. I haven't seen a single zucchini yet, and my pepper plants are literally lost in the midst of cucumber vines and tomatillos.

I filled my basket with goodies today, the grass warm under my feet, the air heavy and thick beneath an overcast sky. I took a moment to reflect back to over 100 days ago when I first planted my tomato seedlings indoors, totally preoccupied with the week-old secret that I'd be having a baby just in time for when I typically scramble to get in the last harvest of green tomatoes, in the first week of November. If I could slow down time, would I want to? I'm not sure I can answer that question yet.

3 Natural Cleansers to Purify from the Outside-In

We're in a decade where "green" and "eco-friendly" are buzzwords, and this makes me brilliantly happy. If wanting to live free of toxic chemicals is cool, consider me Miles Davis (no infringement intended, old lady from Billy Madison!). My routine is determined by two fundamental principles that dominate my life: I hate waste, and I am damn picky about what I allow to be used in my home. This is especially true for the surfaces I use to prepare my food, the blankets on which I sleep, and the things that I put on my body.

Many home cleansers contain bleach, which has a lot of purported links to illness, not only when ingested but inhaled. Intuitively, I was turned off by traditional cleansers by how they irritated my skin when I would get some on my hands. According to traditional Chinese medicine principles, the lungs share an intimate connection with the skin. If it was doing that to my skin, what was it doing to my insides when I inhaled it, or if it got on my food? However, the price of those green cleaners was certainly prohibitive. Luckily, I've come to learn that most of the fancy, green cleaning products you buy at the co-op can be replaced with one of two things (or a mixture of both): vinegar and baking soda. 

To break it down, a giant plastic jug of vinegar and a container of baking soda will set you back about $6.00 (more if you want to spring for the organic stuff, but I usually just go with the cheapest I can find, since I won't be eating it). And oh! The wonderful things you can make with these two simple ingredients. Plus, you can whip up a new batch in the same container every time, rather than throwing away packaging each time you run out!

Orange Enzyme Countertop Cleanser

My husband is probably sick of me following him around like a vulture whenever I see him peeling an orange or a grapefruit. "You better not throw away that peel!" I'll exclaim. Every peel goes into making a new batch of my countertop cleanser. I don't know the exact science behind it, but the citrus peels make it work more effectively than vinegar and water alone.

Here's how you do it:

- Get a jar

- Fill it with orange (or lemon, lime, any citrus will do) peels 

- Cover the orange peels with white vinegar (I keep adding new peels to the jar and topping it off with vinegar until it's full)

- Let soak for at least 2 weeks

- Strain off the orange peels - the vinegar will be orange-colored and smelling wonderfully citrusy

- Measure out one part infused vinegar to two parts water. I usually eyeball it as I add it to the bottle. 

- Add essential oils - I usually add a few drops of orange and ginger oil, which leaves it smelling vaguely like ginger-ale, refreshing and not vinegary at all

Antibacterial Tub Scrub

Here's how you do it:

- Combine a cup of baking soda, a teaspoon natural dishwashing detergent, and enough warm water to form a paste. Mix in a couple drops of antibacterial essential oil, like Tea Tree, Thyme, Eucalyptus, or Rosemary. I like a mixture of lemon and thyme myself.

- Use a stiff brush to scrub your tub (I start with a dry tub and spray a little vinegar or Orange Enzyme Countertop Cleanser on it as I go)

Totally Natural Clog-Busting Drain-No

Here's how you do it:

- Set a teapot on the stove to boil (you'll use it later)

- If you have a slow drain, start by using one of those tools to pull out as much gunk as you can. (However, it's better to do this routinely to avoid the build-up in the first place).

- Pour a cup of dry baking soda right into the drain

- Pour a cup of table salt in next

- Pour in a cup of vinegar and pretend your tub is a fizzing volcano you made in 5th grade science class

- Let it work its magic for 10 minutes (it may not go down right away)

- Pour in boiling water from the tea-kettle

- Plunge and repeat if necessary. Or call a plumber if the situation looks really bad. 

What is this crazy "cupping" thing, anyway?

Unless you are a patient or practitioner of Chinese medicine, chances are, your knowledge of cupping doesn't extend far beyond, "that's the thing that made those weird bruises on that one celebrity's back." Now, why the heck would anyone want to engage in an activity that leaves them sporting bruises that make them look like they lost a fight with a sea-monster?

If you don't know anything about cupping, I can understand why you would think it's yet another new-age craze. However, cupping is as old as acupuncture and even less esoteric. It is, quite simply, a massage technique. Here are some of your frequently-asked cupping questions, answered. 

• What does it do? In short, it makes you feel good. Cupping uses suction rather than pressure to relax the soft tissue, releasing nerves and deeper connective tissue. In everyday terms, it "breaks up knots," or areas of tension, the same way a deep-tissue massage would. It allows the practitioner (me) to target very specific areas of tension and discomfort. It also increases circulation of blood and lymph to the area, which encourages healing.

• Why the bruises? Cupping creates a tight suction, and although I hate to use the analogy, there's really no better way to say it - it's like hickey. Small blood vessels on the surface may burst from the pressure created by the cup, but this is harmless and the marks go away in a week or so. In my own observation, people who have a lot of pain and stiffness in an area tend to get darker bruises than those with milder pain, but there's not really a great scientific explanation for why that's so. I've seen pictures online of people covered in bruises, and in my own practice I have never, ever performed a cupping session that has incorporated more than six cups at once. Usually, the more extreme methods of cupping are used in Asia.

• How do you do it? I practice traditional glass cupping (aka, fire or "flash" cupping) because I frankly haven't been able to find a better substitute. This is the ancient method and, although it requires a certain amount of finesse, newer products with a pump just don't seem to work as well. I start by pinching an alcohol swab between a pair of tweezers, and then I light it on fire. I quickly swirl the flaming swab around inside the cup to consume all the oxygen, creating suction. Then, I gently but swiftly apply the cup to the area I want to treat. The cup shouldn't be hot - the fire is for creating the seal only, and not for applying heat. Then, I typically move the cup along the skin to massage a larger area, but sometimes I leave the cup in place, or apply more cups.

• What does it feel like? Cupping doesn't hurt - I think massage hurts more! The tight seal can feel a bit like having someone push their fist into your muscle, rather than a pulling or sucking sensation. It feels like pressure. I've never had a patient complain that cupping is uncomfortable, but if the seal is too strong, I can adjust the suction easily to a person's preference.

• Can I try it? You most certainly can! Typically, I use cupping as an adjunct therapy and not as a substitute for needles. However, if you mention specifically that you'd like to incorporate cupping into your treatment in addition to acupuncture or as part of a needle-free treatment, I can certainly do that. It works best for people that have back pain or tension. Applying cups to bony places (or people!) can be more difficult.

Sign up today, and type "cupping" into the notes section to make sure that cupping is included in your treatment!

The bruising shown here is more typical of what a to expect after a treatment.

13 Ghosts : My own experience with acupuncture and anxiety

There are 13 special acupuncture points indicated for treating mental and mood disorders, known as the 13 Ghost Points. Although I know it's probably not lending a lot of credence to our profession to refer to them in this way, I feel like I can relate to the name. When you're suffering from a disease like depression, you can certainly start to feel like a ghost of yourself, that something has taken hold of you that's very difficult to free yourself from.

"Can acupuncture help me with my mood?" This is a question I hear all the time, and as an acupuncturist specializing in mental wellness, my answer is an emphatic "yes!" I can say this because I have read the studies. I have witnessed the changes in my own patients. But most importantly, I have experienced them firsthand.

I've struggled with anxiety all my life. I come from a long, storied history of "nervous nellies" and "worry worts," and, even as a child, I remember working myself up into an anxious frenzy and losing sleep about homework assignments the same way my parents undoubtedly worried about paying bills and meeting deadlines at work (I like to joke that I was the only first-grader with crow's feet). As I approached adulthood, I tried my best to "change my attitude," laboring under the assumption that my constant anxiety was a personality flaw instead of a physical problem. I hated the way it made me irritable and less able to be present in my own life. Even though I knew that things were good, I felt a nameless apprehension. In a way, my anxiety was like a ghost always hiding around the next corner, impossible to see, but a creepy presence that was always felt, no matter how often people reminded me nothing was wrong.

One of the advantages of being an acupuncture student is being able to receive treatments for free. I found that acupuncture left me feeling calmer and more centered in a way that meditation never could. And, I found that acupuncture drew me back into my body, so to speak. I feel like other people with anxiety can probably relate - you feel so caught up in your own head that you forget you have any connection to the physical world at all. Your anxiety is so consuming it can seem like it's all you are.

But perhaps, more profound than the relief I received from the treatments were the lessons that I learned about the the union of mind and body. Western medicine has tended to overlook this connection, whereas Chinese medicine sees the body and mind as more than just connected - they are one and the same. You really can't be physically well and mentally ill, simultaneously. Mental illness is often a sign that something in the body is misaligned, and conversely, many illnesses of the body are linked to our mental states. As we come to better understand the effect that stress can have on our body from a scientific perspective, it seems like modern medicine is finally catching up to this idea.

Armed with this knowledge, I felt less embarrassed about my anxiety and started to view it as an actual physical problem with physical solutions. I made some lifestyle adjustments, took herbs and supplements, and received regular acupuncture. The change was gradual, yet profound - it was like a fog lifted off my life and I could see the world as it truly was. I knew that I had turned a corner two years ago, when I was able to remain cheerful and lighthearted even when our Minnesota winter "ran long," and we had snow falling in May. What would once have left me dispirited was somehow novel and beautiful. I was able to truly feel the way I'd always wanted to - not just looking, but living on the bright side of life.

Interested in learning more about how you can improve your mood with acupuncture? Sign up for my e-newsletter and get my free eBook, "From Burnout to Balance in 5 Simple Steps."