I’m Going To Settle

That’s right, I’ve decided it’s time to settle. And I’m so happy. That word has such negative connotations, settling – like it means accepting less. And for me, it does mean settling for less, but in a good way! In fact, at the risk of being dramatic, it’s changing my life, this settling. This year has been the most stressful of my life with a major debilitating illness, a 400 mile move with children who struggled with it, financial stress, and then the unexpected death of my mother just two days after she left our house at Christmas. It has been awful. Plus I work, I have acupuncture practices in two different states, and run I a home, am raising two boys and two young energetic big dogs, I was stressed! So much so that it started to impact my parenting, and that’s always where I draw my line. Or maybe where it’s so obvious how badly I’ve been treating myself that I finally see it. A few  weeks of watching my stress and short temper effect my kids and I thought something has to change!! But what? I can’t just never clean my house or do laundry or exercise the dogs or help the boys with their homework or go to work or………you know how it is, the list goes on. So what did I do? I read the word “settle” somewhere, in passing, and it was like a lightening bolt. That’s It! I thought. I needed to teach my mind to settle. Like muddy water in a pond all churned up my mind was chaos. My reality is busy. My mind was chaos. So that even on a rare day where I had a little free time, I still felt totally frenetic and swamped, even if I wasn’t. Because my mind was always in overdrive. I didn’t know how to settle down. How to let my mind settle, let the pool of water settle, let all the junk flying around in the water settle, let my breathing settle. Settle. For some reason this word has helped me enormously. I have meditated on and off for 20 years, but even that sometimes feels like an effort, “Clear the mind” – but sometimes I can’t. But settle, that I could do. I started sitting for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 in the afternoon. This is what’s recommended in Transcendental Meditation, about which I know nothing, but I decided that sounded reasonable. Long enough to make a difference but not a ridiculous thing to ask a busy working mother, like an hour morning and night. 20 minutes I could do. And I have. And the results were instant. I mean instant. No struggling to get meditation “right”, no wondering if my mind was clear enough, my inner voice quiet enough or positive enough. I had no agenda. I just let my mind settle. Tried to empty my mind, but if thoughts wandered in and out, that was fine too, I’d just ask them to be quiet, like patrons joining a violin concert a few minutes late. Just keep your voices down little thoughts and you can stay too.

Whatever it was about that word, it has shifted me. I instantly, that first night, slept through the night for the first time in months. And this week when I’ve woken and instantly gone into my default mode these days – panic – I just tell myself kindly to settle. And next thing I know I’ve gone back to sleep (this is a major development for an insomniac). And I feel as if I had so much more time in my day. That’s the strangest part. I don’t. But I felt all this room to get through my day more peacefully rather than rushing and short tempered and always feeling like I didn’t have enough time. My life on the outside didn’t get less hectic, but my life on the inside did, and so there was all this quiet space that hadn’t been there before and it changed everything about my day. So there it is. Really I am settling for less. Less stress, less chaos, less pressure inflicted on myself by myself, less worry. I see my mind as a cloudy pool of muddy water and I let the silt settle to the bottom, let my mind be clear and wow, it’s beautiful when that happens. I was instantly kinder, more patient with my children, and happier. Just happier, which is always a good thing. So there it is. It’s time to settle. Nothing wrong with settling for less 🙂

Fall is here! Enjoy the Beauty, and Boost Your Immunity!

My favorite time of year is officially here! Autumn. Beautiful dry New England days, chilly and sunny at the same time. Life slowing down a bit as we prepare to go inward for the coming cold months. In Chinese Medicine health is attained by staying in tune with nature. We are, after all, animals. Part of nature. Though that’s easy to forget these days. So as fall arrives, allow your life to change in small ways in step with the new season. The frenetic (very Yang) time of Summer has passed. Fall is a time to slow our pace, get back in a rhythm and routine. That said, autumn is still a time of activity in one way, it is a time of harvesting what we’ve sown. What projects begun at the start of the year are starting to bear fruit? What projects will benefit from some more time and contemplation in the long evenings of winter ahead? Let your pace slow as Fall arrives. Let your body rhythm slow. Let your breathing slow. Let the big outward expansion of your energy start to contract. The time of action is passing and the time of stillness, nurturing and regaining strength is coming.

 

Let your diet also reflect the changes. In New England this is the time for wonderful fresh apples, vegetables like cabbage and kale and squash and pumpkins (or is that technically a fruit?) and root vegetables like onions and turnips. Savor the flavors and abundance of fall. Eating in rhythm with local foods is so important to health and vitality.

 

And finally, store some of that abundance up in your body. Boost your immunity to deal with the coming season of viruses. I’m not a fan of hand sanitizers. I don’t go around my home, like on the commercials, spraying lysol on my sons’ toys as soon as they are done playing with them. Our bodies are meant to be fighting germs. Ironically, that fight is an important part of staying healthy. The key is to have a strong immune system. There are wonderful Chinese herbs for this (Huang Qi, Dong Gui, Ginseng to name a few), and there are wonderful pediatric formulas too like Lung Qi Jr for kids with frequent colds and coughs (available from BluePoppy.com, or from me!) Eating well is of course key to staying strong, as is moderate, though not extreme, exercise. And lots of rest.

 

So let’s celebrate the season of settling back into the home, of slowing our pace, of enjoying bright colors on the trees and comforting warm meals and let’s prepare our bodies and our spirits for the time of year that is about quieting down, looking inward and nurturing ourselves.

 

Happy Equinox!