“We starve, look at one another…Walking.. in our winter coats…Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the SUN shine IN!” ~ lyrics from the musical Hair

Today is a good day… in fact, today is a GREAT day!

It’s unseasonably warm and the sunlight is pouring down like the rain we in Chicago have had so much of.  This for me makes all the difference.

A friend of mine once commented, watching me skip across the lawn on the first sunny day after 9 straight days of downpour, “WOW, you really are solar powered, aren’t you?”  And yesterday, one of my favorite baristas at Starbucks noted, “You’re like a flower, always turning your face to the sun.”

It’s true; I am.  I blossom in the summer and feel as if I begin to wilt as the days grow shorter and winter looms.  In the past few years, I’ve noticed that fall brings with it a sense of impending doom as I slowly feel the brightness of my personality slip into hibernation.

This year is no different- actually, if anything, this year it’s worse.

Perhaps it’s the fact that we here in Chicago only got about 6 weeks of “real” summer before the cool days began again.  Maybe it’s my body memory of what seemed like an endless stretch of gray from Halloween to 4^th of July last year…

In the past, in order to combat my winter blues, I’ve upped my exercise, watched my diet, increased my water intake, taken melatonin, and purchased a light therapy box – sitting in front of it daily, like a plant under grow lights.  Last winter, against my more rational judgment, I broke down and went tanning once a week.  All of these things have helped, but nothing has ever completely dispelled the sense that a great weight was dragging me down or the urge to go to bed and not get up again until spring.

All I know is that I’m not interested in living like that again.  So I’ve done more research…

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects more than 6% of the population, with people in northern climates 7 times more likely to be diagnosed than those in the south.  Three quarters of those affected are women.

According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms include:

• Depressed mood
• Irritability
• Hopelessness
• Anxiety
• Loss of energy
• Social withdrawal
• Oversleeping (feeling like you want to hibernate)
• Loss of interest in activities you normally enjoy
• Appetite changes, especially a craving for foods high in carbohydrates such as pastas, rice, bread and cereal
• Weight gain
• Difficulty concentrating and processing information

Sound familiar?

In the past few years, some scientists have linked the growing number of SAD sufferers with a high rate of vitamin D deficiency.  With the very real threat of sun cancer, very few of us spend enough time in the sun without heavy duty sun screen which not only blocks the cancer causing rays but also prohibits our bodies from creating D naturally.

According to a very well sited wikipedia article, “Vitamin D deficiency results in impaired bone mineralization and leads to bone softening diseases, rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and possibly contributes to osteoporosis…  Vitamin D malnutrition may also be linked to an increased susceptibility to several chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, tuberculosis, cancer, periodontal disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, seasonal affective disorder , peripheral artery disease, cognitive impairment which includes memory loss and foggy brain, and several autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes. There is an association between low vitamin D levels and Parkinson’s disease, but whether Parkinson’s causes low vitamin D levels, or whether low vitamin D levels play a role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease has not been established.”

(other great information about the D deficiency epidemic can be found here and about D’s potential role in preventing Swine Flu here)

In addition, new research suggests that D may be crucial in both cancer & cardio vascular disease prevention.

YIKES

So armed with all this research, I took myself off to the store.  Now, there’s also a lot of information out there from some very reputable sources that suggests that the current daily recommended dosage of vitamin d may not be anywhere close to sufficient for healthy living, never mind correcting deficiency.  I settled on a dosage that I felt comfortable with and went for it…

And, within a couple of days, I felt better.

I was leery, of course.  Perhaps it was just a placebo effect?  But it’s been several weeks now and I continue to feel bright and sunny on the inside even when the weather is cloudy and gray.  And best of all, I don’t feel dragged down… the spring is back in my step; I’m interested in being social, and I feel like I’ve got new buds on me – hopefully enough to keep my me-ness blossoming through the winter months.

That internal sunshine, that sense of lightness, that sense of being grounded in who you really are instead of being at the mercy of the season…. it’s worth the research, worth consulting your primary care physician (which of course we recommend that you do), worth the trip to the store.

“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo

“A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I am continually fascinated by the “discovery” of practical, real life wisdom in religious traditions that we in Western Culture have rejected. More and more often, in this post-technological age, we are reconnecting and recovering an understanding – on a body level – of the value of various rites.

In the case of a dedicated Sabbath, I think we lost the connection to the why. Going to church and visiting with family and neighbors had become a “have to” and we were going through the motions without those actions having meaning. So when the stores started to be open, and we had to go to work, it seemed like an opportunity to put a little more cash in our pockets and move away from religious institutions that no longer worked for us.

Today, more than 30 years later, I think we are beginning to see what we’ve been missing. To have one day in our busy weeks when we can connect to our deeper selves and nature, when we can tend to our community, and make contact once again with the larger picture now seems an unbelievable luxury. It seems a luxury – but what it really is is a necessity. We crave it like our body craves oxygen – we don’t expect the car to keep going if we never fill the gas tank, and yet we push ourselves to do just that.

I’m not advocating that everyone go back to church – our ways of reconnecting and recharging are as beautiful and varied as we are as beings. For some, organized religion works, for others God/Goddess/The Universe/whatever can be found in watching the dance of light on water, listening to the strains of a far off saxophone, tasting the perfect pumpkin ice cream, running, dancing, laughing…

What I am suggesting is that we make some time on a regular basis to recover our smiles, tend to our emotional/spiritual flowers, and reconnect with JOY!

Happy Sabbath!

I recently spent some time thinking aloud with a group of very creative people in an attempt to come up with some tactics to help busy, care-giving people find balance in their lives.  In discussion, we had to acknowledge that all the equilibrium-achieving methodologies in the world won’t  help if the people who need them don’t feel they can take the time to use them… we needed to find a way to give people permission to take care of themselves.

And then it hit me – one of those bolt-out-of-the-blue, Cosmic Ah-Ha, life defining moments… the only person who can give any us permission is….. OURSELF!!!!!

Yeah… I know…

DUH

What can I say, sometimes the most earth shattering realizations are the most obvious…

On the other hand, how many of us are acting in the world as if we have permission to be anything and do anything we want?  When was the last time you gave yourself permission to take a nap, eat the last piece of pie, get a massage, SAY NO when you really feel it…. not to mention take a risk, try something new, be bold, act on your intuition?

Really, TRULY, as psychologist and educator William Glasser teaches, there is no external locus of control – there is nothing outside of ourselves that can make us do or not do anything so long as we are willing to give ourselves permission and accept the consequences…

And the consequences of self care are a greater sense of well being, renewed energy, fresh perspectives, a zest for life, better relationships….

Yup, I can accept that.  : )

“We need to give ourselves permission to act out our dreams and visions, not look for more sensations, more phenomena, but live our strongest dreams – even if it takes a lifetime.” ~Vijali Hamilton

“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are.” ~Rachel Naomi Remen

I love this quote; I think it speaks to what our work here at Holistic Health Practice is all about…. and it reminds me of a story:

Upon observing the finished statue of David, an awed patron asked Michelangelo how he had managed to get that perfect male form out of the marble.  Michelangelo looked confused, but replied, “I just took away everything that WASN’T David.”

I’m pretty clear that most likely, nothing of the kind ever took place – but I love this story anyway.  It drives home that, in striving for personal growth, we’re not looking for an elusive intangible something that will make our lives meaningful; we’re looking for what we already have.  Becoming the wise, beautiful, amazing creatures we are meant to be is simply a case of surrendering all the survival tactics we’ve adopted and all the various personas we’ve pasted on, leaving nothing but what is really, truly, authentically US.

Kinda like stripping the linoleum off the kitchen floor and finding gorgeous hardwood underneath… ; )

As HHP Founder Kurt Hill likes to say, “we’re already there waiting for ourselves to show up.”

For me, it’s a relief… being me is what I was born to do – and while it’s scary at times (and I certainly don’t do it perfectly) – it still takes a whole lot less energy to be me than to try to be anyone else…

It’s not about being better; it’s about being.

“Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that’s been our unifying cry, ‘More light.’  Sunlight.  Torchlight.  Candlelight.  Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators.  Big floods for the night games at Soldier’s Field.  Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we’re supposed to be asleep.  Light is more than watts and footcandles.  Light is metaphor.  Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light.”  ~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

Welcome to the Holistic Life, Holistic Health Practice’s Blog!

We enter into cyber space just after the clocks have turned back for fall, a time when already our hours of daylight have shortened and we have finally accepted- however unhappily- that they will grow shorter still.  What better time to launch our blog aimed at bringing a little psycho-spiritual warmth and enlightenment to everyday life?!

We look forward to becoming a part of your daily routine, to being a shot of self care, holistic thinking, and inspirational musings in the midst of the bustle of your busy existence… we hope you’ll find us just right for those moments when you need to step back into the bigger picture!

It has been said before, but it bears repeating yet again.  It is our honor, our privilege, and our purpose to carry a light through the dark nights of the soul that are inevitable in our human existence.  And in doing so we are gifted with greater illumination of our own path.

Thank you for letting us be a part of your life and for setting off on this adventure with us!