Poetry as Health for the Soul

Fortify your inner life -- at Here in the Bonny Glen-- about the poet Seamus Heaney.

In a recent interview, Heaney said he was often asked what the value of poetry was during times of economic recession. The answer, he explained, is that it is at just such moments of crisis that people realize that they do not live by economics alone. “If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness,” Heaney said.

...an effort to “fortify your inward side,” Heaney explained to another questioner, can act as a kind of “immune system” against material difficulties.

One of the times that Aidan went to San Francisco for a month (to treat bile duct problems) and I was with him, I found a tiny Orthodox storefront barely visible between, I think a new -age shop with crystals and dragons, and a Goth-style clothes store.

Walking in there off the busy SF street, the hush closed around me like a blanket. There was some kind of Byzantine chant playing in the background and I could smell incense. Icons were all around.

Anyway, I picked up a book called "Fine Arts as Therapy" by Constantine Cavarnos. It turned out to be a treasure, though somewhat different than what I expected when I bought it. The subtitle is "Plato's Teachings Organized and Discussed".

He says that to Plato, "music" (a broader term in Greek education that included poetry and literature as well as music proper)

"is concerned with the soul, with its care, harmonious development and purification from every defect or evil. It seeks not only to develop properly the potentialities of the soul, but also to prevent disorders or defects from arising in it, and to correct any that may be present."

also

"In their true form, the fine arts constitute an important kind of education. Their aim... is the harmonious development of man, the promotion of health of body and soul. They are intended both as ways of preventing disease or deformations of soul and body, of remedying those that have arisen, and also of developming man's higher potentialities."

That stay in San Francisco was quite stressful since I was worried about Aidan and also worried about how long they would keep him there (I remember one doctor proposing blithely in August that they keep him for another month to monitor him -- I flipped, since September was approaching and I was thinking about my poor kids at home with their dad and the school year starting!)

I took up my old hobbies of calligraphy -- mostly of poetry, prayers and scripture -- and origami during that time, and also made a habit of nature study out in the courtyard in the middle of the hospital. My father sent me tapes of classical music (Vivaldi, Corelli, Mozart, etc) and Aidan and I listened to them over and over again, along with a tape of Irish harp music. The music not only soothed Aidan and myself, but it was surprising what an impact it made upon the doctors and nurses who were constantly entering the room. They usually slowed down and became just slightly more ceremonious and one nurse once breathed a sigh of relief and said "this room is SO relaxing to come into!"

I think these fine arts, poetry and music among them, provide the contemplative space that a soul needs to flourish and become itself -- so often especially when times are hard it's easy to compress our spirit into a tiny compartment so we can more conveniently go about the day. Having that peculiar combination of endless time and high stress at the hospital taught me the lesson about the therapeutic importance of the things of the spirit.

Wednesday Weigh -- a day late again

Down 5 pounds in all, 2 last week. This is slow progress, but unlike former days I'm really trying to avoid counting calories. ... instead get into some better habits. Those better habits would be..... thinking before I eat, sticking to three meals plus 1-2 snacks per day, trying to balance out every meal with a protein, a carb, a vegetable and a good fat. When I've overdone it on carbs, maybe eaten a couple of cookies, I sometimes cut back on the carb element of the next meal.

Still exercising from 4 to 6 miles on the stationary bike per day. Last week I went 35 miles in total, bringing the cumulative total up to 175 miles. I've experimented with scaling up the difficulty level on the exercise bike but so far remain about on Level 7 -- I managed Level 10 one day but could only keep it up for 20 minutes.

I'm reading two books about health -- one is The Schwarzbein Principle II -- The Transition, a dime library rack bring-home. It is not a "diet book" precisely but a book about the relationship between healthy living and healthy metabolism. The author is an endocrinologist and sees things through the perspective of unbalanced hormones. There are two articles online by the author: The Transition and Timing is Everything that sum up her view on this. Here's her website. Her thesis is that poor nutrition and lifestyle habits can damage hormone production and that it takes time to restore normal function. So for a while after making healthier lifestyle changes you can actually feel worse than you did before and even gain weight for a while as your body repairs. Basically you are detoxing.

But in the long run, this can result in real changes that help you slow down the accelerated aging that results from insulin, adrenaline, cortisol, and serotonin balances that are out of whack (to name a few of the elements she mentioned, though insulin and adrenaline appear to be the biggies -- adrenaline releases cortisol and serotonin? I'm out of my depth there). And once you have made the lifestyle changes permanent, and your hormonal production has repaired, you will naturally lose the extra weight without a big push to control calories.

Her actual recommendations are solid, and quite standard:

• A whole foods diet balanced between PVCF -- protein, veggie, whole-carb and essential fats -- and moderate exercise and adequate sleep.
• birth control pills mess up your system horribly -- she recommends you avoid them altogether if you can. (I've never used them, but have read much research about the effects on a female body).
  
• Extreme exercise also stresses your system and can lead to exercise addiction and chronic adrenal overload.
  
• So does "crisis addiction" (running from one high adrenaline activity to the next) and so does chronic stress.
• meditation and rest time are recommended to balance out the inevitable stressors of life.
  
• Most people do better, she says, by eating 3 moderate meals and 2 light snacks rather than filling their stomachs at breakfast lunch and dinner and fasting in between.
  
• NO DIETING, ever. She dislikes dieting a lot and thinks people who cut calories drastically only make their health worse. They go from eating and living unhealthily and gaining weight, to trying to lose weight which puts even more stress on their bodies, especially if they are trying to go low-fat (usually means high carb and does bad things to your insulin). Usually you end up with the rebounding effect, where the person ends up gaining back the weight plus more, but even the ones who "succeed" on this sort of regimen end up with issues like intense carb cravings, blood sugar swings, muscle weakness, irritability,hair loss, etc. Basically they are just as unhealthy except "thin", so the world doesn't give them as hard a time.
  
• No shortcuts. She says that sometimes continuing your artificial stimulants (like your habitual cup of coffee or sugary snack) and anti-depressants can help with the transition so you don't get hit with too much turmoil at once. But the goal is to wean away when you can.
• Sometimes, not always, hormone replacement therapy can be necessary (under the close supervision of a qualified medical specialist, etc).
  

So the main recommendations are thoroughly conservative. The focus is not on the emotional conditions of bad eating and living, but rather, on the medical aspects of reducing these things to rebuild health. So I feel safe following the principles even while not knowing personally if the medical aspect of it is altogether sound or not.

What I'm getting out of the book is mostly side insights. Like, for instance, something I rarely see in this kind of book -- that you can be "thin" and eating all natural food and exercising a lot and be very unhealthy, tired and depressed. She says that depriving yourself of food, and over-exercising, can rev up your adrenaline, but at a cost when it happens in the long term. I don't know anything about the science of this, but it would explain how I "escalate" too much and feel a kind of energy which I sense is unhealthy, too hectic, and then I pay later on.

It makes me more resolved to do this the right way. For example, I've really been resisting my natural tendency to keep increasing the exercise and start cutting back on my calories. It's difficult for me to focus instead on habits, but it seems to be doing some good that way.

The other book is called "Put Your Life On a Diet" but it isn't really a diet book. It's about a man who lives in a 140 square foot house. He chose to give up space in order to simplify his life. He rides his bike to work, lives off the electricity and water grid, etc. , except that he has a gym membership and visits the laundromat -- he pays for community resources rather than private ones. In the process he lost 100 pounds and he draws parallels between his own weight loss, the weight loss of having less "stuff" to burden him, and the ecological footprint he is making which is much less than it was. He composts almost all his trash because he never buys packaged food, etc. Interesting. I think it's true that "stuff" and all the work and thought that it takes to manage it often makes your mind feel weighed down and bloated just like eating too much of the wrong sorts of foods weighs down your body.

Wednesday Weigh -- a bit late again

Up 1 pound this week. So down 3 pounds with 9 to go to meet my goal.

I was actually up 2 pounds this Wednesday, but I though it had something to do with the time of the month so I decided to try again today. I have been eating pretty well and exercising daily, so I know that if I keep it up, there won't be the wild blood sugar swings that usually sabotage my fitness level.

About the exercise: it is mostly still cycling on the stationary bike, usually for 30 minutes a day. One day I dropped to 20 minutes. I tried 35 minutes one day but it was still too much. I have gone up one level of intensity on my cycle, though. I am at 145 miles on my "walk" to Rivendell (see sidebar). They say you can substitute biking or swimming for walking so that's what I'm doing.

I finished Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams and couldn't find any other fiction I wanted to read right at the moment so I am reading through Kieron's Ambleside books and trying to narrate mentally in order to get an idea of what I am putting him through : ). Yesterday I read Robinson Crusoe and today I read George Washington's World. When you're exercising it's better to find something light enough to keep your attention while not causing your mind to get strained, since you are already working physically. At least this is what is working for me right now.

Some people listen to tapes while exercising but for me, listening is more difficult than reading and I can't do it while I'm trying to exercise. Maybe when I get to a better level of fitness I'll be able to, but not right now.

So far I haven't been counting calories or really trying to eat particularly lightly. I wanted to see if I could lose weight without doing those things. The evidence isn't fully in yet. I'm hovering about 3 pounds down from my starting weight, give or take a pound or two. So I'll try it that way for about another week and then if my weight's not moving, or if it's moving the wrong way, I'll try to consciously cut down a bit in portions. Meanwhile as long as there's still snow on the ground and the house is generally freezing me at about 62 degrees I don't really mind that extra 10 pounds so much. When spring comes I'm sure I'll be more motivated, but right now I am wearing too many sweaters for a little extra flesh to matter all that much.

Tasting and Swallowing

Catching up a bit on my blog reading (I'm trying to stay off the internet more during Lent) -- I liked these two blogs about food (actually, three, I guess):

revelation on the gluttony front by bearing blog.... about what Aquinas called nimis, I think. The etymology of gluttony is from "gluttire" meaning "to swallow".

Taste and See -- at Childlight USA -- it's really about education, but also about food. I liked the connection. Charlotte Mason talked a lot about the parallels. Here's the whole list of Aquinas's aspects of gluttony, if you want to relate them to eating real food or the educational equivalent:

• Praepropere - eating too soon
• Laute - eating too expensively
• Nimis - eating too much
• Ardenter - eating too eagerly
• Studiose - eating too daintily
• Forente - eating too fervently

I could apply those to some of the mistakes teachers make in educating children. Ignoring readiness, educational clutter, forcing too much information, not allowing enough access to real knowledge, and imposing too much influence on the children by means of personality, mediating the material, or rewards.

The positive corollaries: quality of knowledge, deliberation and restraint in teaching, variety and breadth, and "whole" simplicity. That would be similar goals for eating, too: good quality, moderate quantities, variety, and wholeness/simplicity of preparation, at least for the most part.

Wednesday Weigh -- a day late

Down 4 pounds since I started, 1 pound since last week.

I am exercising almost every day for 30 minutes and am up to 105 miles on the Walk to Rivendell (see sidebar). I'll probably stay at 30 minutes for quite a while now and just work on increasing difficulty level if it gets too easy. But right now it's just about challenging enough. I'm continuing to notice differences in energy level and strength so it is easy to continue now.

Reading Shadows of Ecstasy -- what a title, but it's a Charles Williams novel. I save novel reading for my exercise time and that works really well!

(You know, I mentioned last week that I'm not that good at starting new habits, but when I have started one I'm fairly good at keeping up a rate of increase. My problem is that I tend to escalate until I get overloaded and stop all together. I am aware that most likely this will happen again and so am trying to think of safeguards against it. So that is my mental health project right now).

Wednesday Weigh -- a few hours early

What if you're a women, and you don't smoke, and you drink quite a bit of coffee AND tea? Nice to hear good news about my habits for a change! HT: Bearing Blog

But I'm still almost resolved to significantly limit my coffee drinking (consumption seems too detached a word) for this Lent.

This post from Bearing Blog, forget moderation and embrace the unnatural...., about induced exercise, really made me think, especially this:

"I'm just going to eat moderately" or "I'm just going to move more in my daily activities" -- these are linked, and here's why: If weight is at all stable, we are already moving and eating "moderately." ....We are pretty good at "moderation." What we aren't so good at is knocking ourselves off balance in the direction we want to go.

So. How do you knock yourself off balance? You do something artificial, foreign, and shocking to the system. If we're talking about eating, you make sure you eat less energy by measuring and controlling intake. And if we're talking about movement, you introduce deliberate, controlled movement. You "have a workout." You induce exercise.

At first, I wasn't sure if I agreed. I read a book that said that introverts tend not to like to exercise much. Certainly I'm exhibit A in the case. If I don't like to exercise, then why should I torture myself? I also remember John Senior talking about how he hated to see a person "working out" when in the good old days it was not a planned-out "I'll go for my 20 minute power walk at 12:35" but a natural part of life.

However...however.

That bit about going off balance did ring. I like "knocking ourselves off balance in the direction we want to go" -- that actually describes things like walking quite well, and it also is exactly how I feel when good things are happening in my life. That I'm disoriented, but moving the right way.

I remember when we first got Aidan out of the hospital. He had to take 14 meds per day and there was this big procedure of measuring them all out in little syringes. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, measuring liquid into syringes according to a medication chart, but at the time it seemed enormously complicated to me. Enormous amounts of effort and attention had to be expended just to draw the right amount of medication up and affirm accuracy. I would even show them to my husband and read them off the med chart while he made sure I'd gotten them right. Well, guess what. I got where I could draw out a medication from memory, tap out the air bubbles and insert it into a G-tube as easily as if I had done it since kindergarten. I had to, so I did it. It was a good thing; it meant that Aidan could come home and be with his family.

When you are learning to do something different, of course it won't feel balanced right away. It will involve your whole self. It will seem, yes, unnatural to the self you are at present. But that doesn't mean it won't be good and do you good.

After thinking this way, I decided I would try it. I had spent January doing "stealth exercise" of the kind described....more nicely as "natural exercise". ..... going up stairs extra times, playing a bit more with the kids. And that was good. I think it did help get me moving enough to take that first step back onto the exercise bike.

But this February I got back on the bike (with a book to help with the boredom of cycling in place). I made up my mind to advance SLOWLY, so I increased my frequencies and durations of cycling, very slowly, like this:

• Week 1 -- three times a week for ten minutes (plus a couple of "stealth exercises" like shoveling the driveway for a while)
• Week 2 -- four times a week for 15 minutes.
• Week 3 -- four times a week for 20 minutes.
• now, Week 4 -- I'm up to 25 minutes, so far.
  

And guess what? Yesterday morning I was vacuuming and actually enjoying moving around. And today I was sawing kindling and actually having fun working. I haven't gotten as tired in the afternoons, and when I bought some jellybeans at the local market to commemorate the final days of Ordinary Time, I could only eat a quarter of them. I didn't feel like finishing them and getting that weak low-blood-sugar feeling.

I haven't really been counting calories or anything, so the change is more about the exercise than anything else, I think. Oh, and perhaps it's a good time to mention that my weigh-in (a bit early) shows me -1 from last week.

So I guess I'll continue. The next thing I have to watch out for, if past experience is any indication, is my tendency to get obsessive, because I am really not a moderate person. If you charted almost anything in my life you would see it start from less than zero and rise steadily until it gets above the goal, and then start spiralling downwards again.

I just figured out that I probably form a habit of increase. In other words, I am trying to get to a certain point on a line, so I start progressing at a steady upward climb, say a 2/1 slope. But my mind seems to think my goal is a constant 2/1 slope even when I've reached the point where I should level off. Then of course I get to where it's too much and so I approximate the goal by overcompensating upwards, then downwards, then upwards.

So I'm not really a moderate. I'm immoderate even in my good habits. Maybe it's a simple logistical problem though and now that I'm aware of it I can fix it. That would be nice.

Wednesday Weighing

I was googling for a Wednesday Weight meme and found this one which I like. It is 2 stay at home moms who have some weight to lose and are keeping a public record for support and accountability. You can leave your name in their Mr Linky. For me -- basically once a week I am going to try to record my weight loss or gain and try to reflect on what is causing the problems or successes. Though I am talking about weighing in I am thinking more in terms of working on various goals and habits and listing them out so I can reflect on them once a week. I don't technically have a lot of weight to lose but I hate the carelessness of just consuming junk all day. And I am up 13 pounds from my goal weight. So I want to try to get back down to the normal by early June. You can see my ticker with the details at the bottom of the page.

FOOD:

The week before this week was a bad portion control week, and on Sunday I had gone up 4 pounds. But today the weigh-in was relatively good news. I was down 3 pounds from that high, so almost back to where I was a couple of weeks ago. My main challenge -- once I have a bit of processed flour and sugar in my system, my hunger signals become utterly, utterly unreliable. But during the winter especially I just crave carbs. I'm going with that but trying to eat more whole grains and fruits and limit the simple carbohydrates. For the past three days I've done OK with that. I'm also trying to stay with 3 meals and a snack rather than grazing all day. I am counting this as Day 7 even though it took me the first 4 days to actually get into the swing of it and like I said, on Day 4 I had actually gained weight.

EXERCISE:

I am trying to exercise lightly several times a week. This means usually 20 minutes of medium level cycling on the stationary bike while I read a book. Sometimes I go for a walk or shovel or do something equivalent. I started off with 10 minutes 3 times a week a couple of weeks ago, and am now up to 20 minutes 4 times a week. The next step up will be 30 minutes, 4 times a week and then I'll probably stay there but raise the difficulty level of the bike (not too much though because I hate vigorous exercise). My Rivendell Challenge is on the sidebar. So far this month I've gone about 38 miles. On the bike a mile takes a bit less than 5 minutes at the speed I go.

VITAMINS and FRUITS/VEGETABLES

Consistent with the vitamins and stepped up on fruits and vegetables this week.

Now the two other things I want to start being better about:

COFFEE

For Lent I want to back off pretty drastically on coffee so it's probably a good idea to start tapering now. I'm trying to increase my fondness for tea since I think warm drinks are almost essential in winter for people with poor circulation.

INTERNET

I'm just going to try an "internet diet", just like the portion control with food. I found this Internet Addiction questionnaire. Want to try it? Even when I was as severe as I could be honestly in answering the questions I could barely get above 50 which puts me barely in the area of needing to question whether the internet was having a detrimental effect on my life. If I answer more conservatively I am in the safe zone. Still, obviously I'd rather not even be in the yellow alert area, so it's time to try some internet "weighing-in". For this week I'm going to just try to be more conscious of how often and for how long I get on the internet (it's so darn easy to log on with DSL and the laptop sitting so cheerfully right in the middle of everything). Then I'll see where to go from there.

Do you really care about this? Sorry, folks. Putting these things out here helps me keep track and remind myself -- it looks deadly boring to me when I read over it but I know I like looking at other peoples' resolutions and those help inspire me so in that spirit I might as well put this up : ).

More on February Focus

When I weighed myself just before Christmas I was still at my target weight. A month later I was up 12 pounds -- yikes! You can see it on the bottom of my blog in chart form. I don't think I need to mention that I really like food. When I'm not focusing on maintaining, that is what happens, and it doesn't take long at all. So I guess it's time to focus again.

In order to get started on a refocusing, I usually try to read a diet book or two. It doesn't matter too much if it's a piece of junk or a good one. Most often, I can find them on the library sale rack for a dime. Even the bad ones have a couple of good insights and I've read enough of them to have a good idea of which parts are junk science and which parts are just not for me, ie they won't work with my physiology or my type of approach to life.

The one I had around the house this time was The South Beach Diet. Here's a review. It was written by a cardiologist who found that the low-fat, high carb diets planned for heart patients was usually ineffective. He researched and found that many overweight people have a pre-diabetic condition that can lead to both diabetes and heart disease. Simple, processed high glyemic carbs make your blood sugar fluctuate wildly and in the process your body can develop insulin resistance. Blood sugar fluctuations also lead to the kind of intense cravings that can become habitual and part of one's life and lead to binging on more carbs..... a vicious cycle. So the diet is based on cutting the high glycemic carbs in three stages -- a more extreme stage at first and then slowly adding "good carbs" back in as your body tolerates it. It is a bit like the Atkin's Diet except that because it is used with cardiology patients it avoids animal fats and emphasizes "good fats".

Anyway, I'm glad this was the book I happened to have on the shelf because going low-carb has always been the most effective way for me to get back into good patterns. I found out about low-carb eating when I had 25 extra pounds to lose three years ago and it worked well for me. He recommends two weeks for the strict almost-no-carb part; I haven't been able to do it for that long without feeling like I'm being poisoned slowly, but some people can go even longer than two weeks. Once I have detoxed from the carbs, I generally don't even feel very hungry and it's easy for me to eat more vegetables, which ordinarily I am not very motivated to eat because simple carbs are way easier and more accessible. My energy level goes up. I get more motivated to exercise and move myself around. It's all good. It's hard to make the decision to start though. That's why I usually get prepared by reading a diet book, then I start writing -- keeping a simple journal helps me immensely.

There are a couple of blogs that are to do with weight issues that I really like -- one is Mrs Darling's "Dieting is Not a Piece of Cake". She had 100 pounds to lose and has lost almost half of it! She has other blogs listed on her sidebar and you can comment on her blog sharing your own weight loss victories and she will post your losses, so it has that social support/ accountability aspect as well. I also like the bearing blog. ..... it's not only about weight loss, but she has written very thoroughly about her weight loss of 40 pounds and her present maintenance. She keeps charts just like I do so I don't feel so OCD about it any more.

January Challenge -- end of month

So how did I do?

I think I totally owned the Two Desserts a Day challenge. That's sort of my super-power. ... dessert eating.

On the rest of it.... I see I phrased it carefully enough so that it would be hard to totally flop.

1. Exercise. ...incidentally during daily life and in occasional longer duration activities.
2. Healthy Eating. Go back to norm of few simple carbs and fruits or vegetables at most meals.
3. Hydration Goal. Drink more tea as replacement for coffee.
4. Do A Bit Extra Sometimes. ... get out there and engage with the world somehow in an active way (I need reminding to do this : )).
5. Personal Care Routine -- vitamins, teeth etc.

I actually did way better on this than I thought. Hooray!

My worst fall-through was #2.

I think I learned something. If I have a "positive" challenge it works better for me than a "restrictive" one. In other words, most of these were things I needed a simple reminder for. My problem was that I would just forget to do them, so having the challenge helped keep them closer to the top of my Think List.

On the other hand, when my inner self senses "you're going to try to take something away from me, aren't you?" the challenge doesn't work -- in fact, you could almost say it works inversely. I probably did worse on the food thing than I would have without the challenge.

So I'm thinking that maybe for these restrictive things I need a "Method" or a "Plan" not a challenge. Though I'm not an engineering type, this type of thing seems to be my preferred mode of approach. Since I happen to get gratification out of organization, I think that ends up being a psychological PLUS for me that makes up for the perceived deprivation -- or at least, gets me over that initial inertia to the point where eating less is a habit enjoyable for its own sake.

Just thinking!

January Challenge -- a couple more thoughts

You already know about my January Challenge inspired by the Lean but not Mean blog of Catholic moms trying to improve their health and fitness level.

In conjunction with that, I am really enjoying Jen at Conversion Diary's Saint Diet series. It gives me some spiritual mind-food to digest while I'm trying to restore the balance in my own health life back to "ordinary time". She makes the point that

there are ways you can structure your lifestyle to make it more conducive to holiness.

She points out that eating habits can change your mood and your response to grace quite drastically. And I love this reflection on the daily schedule of the Missionaries of Charity.

Stephanie has been commenting about seasons in response to several of my posts -- how, basically, there is "a time to feast, a time to fast", a waxing and waning, in most things. I have noticed that my health habits naturally follow the liturgical year and the calendar year to some extent, and have decided that there is nothing wrong with this in itself.... nothing that says that orderliness has to be uniformity. I used to picture order as a sort of industrial "dynamo" model but have learned it's something more subtle and rhythmic than that.

My carb intake, for example, is higher during the winter holidays. It's partly because it is colder outside (and we set the thermostat to 60 degrees which is a way to burn off some fuel in itself!), and partly because of ready availability, and partly, legitimately, because celebration times are customarily marked with more luxurious foods. I've realized that though carbs can affect my mood and energy level, the effect is two-sided. On one hand, I get a sort of euphoria and relaxation which is nice once in a while, and on the other hand, I have energy lows and am in danger of sugar crashes if I don't keep the food coming in. So it "works" for me at times when relaxation is good and appropriate and the food is there.

Obviously this isn't a good life-time strategy, though -- constant infusions of food and "down time" -- so once the holidays are over, I usually challenge myself to notch back down into the ordinary season habits of life. This is working for me now because I am maintaining a healthy weight rather than trying to lose weight. In the past, when I was actively trying to lose weight, I had to be a little more proactive about the restrictions, and I could imagine becoming more proactive again if (1) advanced age ends up playing havoc with my metabolism or (2) I get to where I couldn't transition from the Feast seasons to Ordinary Time at least somewhat gracefully.... it used to be that way and it could get that way again easily.

A re-summary of my Challenge here, so I can memorize it as a sort of examen (I used to put these things over at my household blog but I'm trying to integrate).

1. Exercise. ...incidentally during daily life and in occasional longer duration activities.
2. Healthy Eating. Go back to norm of few simple carbs and fruits or vegetables at most meals.
3. Hydration Goal. Drink more tea as replacement for coffee.
4. Do A Bit Extra Sometimes. ... get out there and engage with the world somehow in an active way (I need reminding to do this : )).
5. Personal Care Routine -- vitamins, teeth etc.

How I've been doing on those:

• Slightly more incidental activity.
• Eating more regular meals and more vegetables.
• I drank some tea : )
• I played with Paddy and Aidan yesterday.
• I totally forgot the vitamins though I did brush my teeth... I hope and trust.

I expect there will be a transition as we get back to normal life on Monday, to be able to maintain vigilance over these things more carefully. We'll see. And I promise I won't update on the challenge every day. If I do get obsessive about daily recording I will move that over to House and Hold, which is standing idle right now.

Sierra Minutiae

My brother-in-law made a drink called Atholl Brose and handed it out in bottles to the family clan. It's pretty good, at least I think so, at least the slightly-over-half of me that is Scottish. I think it's a bit like mead.

You make it like this (at least the individual portions -- he must have multiplied it):

Ingredients:

• 3 rounded tablespoons of medium oatmeal
• 2 tablespoons heather honey
• Scotch whisky

Method:
The oatmeal is prepared by putting it into a basin and mixing with cold water until the consistency is that of a thick paste. Leave for half an hour and then put through a fine strainer, pressing with a wooden spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Throw away the oatmeal and use the creamy liquor from the oatmeal for the brose.

Mix four dessert spoonfuls of pure honey and four sherry glassfuls of the prepared oatmeal and stir well. (Purists insist on a silver spoon for stirring!) Put into a quart bottle and fill with malt whisky; shake before serving.

Ha ha, now where is my claymore?


Clare did a Pygmalion photo shoot today, with Liam; Kieron took most of the pictures, I took some; they are here. We had a lot of fun. I took this photo of Clare uploading photos; it turned out soft focus because of the light, but I thought it was cute -- the basket, the old-fashioned flower girl clothes, and the laptop.

I wish there more than just two more proper days of the holiday -- on Monday, Sean goes back to school, and though Liam has one more week, he has to start buckling down to get things done before he takes the train ride back.

(sigh)

I am learning Flash.... using this ActionScript 3.0 Game Programmer's University -- and I finished my first lesson today. Fun!

I did the first day of my January Challenge -- and did all right, not great. It will be easier when the candy and honey oatmeal liquors are gone.

Kevin and the teenagers have been watching Errol Flynn movies the past few days -- Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk.

Did I say that I wish there were more days of holiday left? Christmas isn't officially over until Epiphany. But maybe Paddy will be better off with less screen time and sugar so readily available.

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. -- Henry Higgins.

Lean but Not Mean January Challenge

Cindy and the girls at Lean but not Mean have a January Challenge going on. If you join, here is what you do:

think of goals that you think you can do for a month.

and here is how you do it:

Create a new post with your goals. They can be whatever you want them to be.... small, huge, in between. They always say to make specific goals, but if something like 'being mindful' works for you, the do it. Honestly I think this is all about habits. So if you just want to pick one habit and work on it, that is great, too.

My history with challenges and resolutions is that (1) I never succeed in keeping them to the letter (2) I do better with them than I do without them : ). So here goes, I'm going to list mine.

1. Exercise. On their blog I confessed my abhorrence of exercise. I truly hate physical effort. I do like hiking very much but it takes a big piece out of my day that could be used for playing Geo Challenge or messing around with curriculum. So that is what I am dealing with. I'm going to try to put extra exercise in my day ("sneaky exercise") and I'm going to go for a walk or go on the exercise bike at least once or twice a week. There, that's modest enough, I think.

2. Healthy Eating. Well, I'm just about psychologically ready to stop eating holiday food and go back to normal. I just need a boost. ... Cindy has a 1400 calorie diet. I kept a food journal for a while and I feel at my best when I am at about 1500-1600 calories. I don't keep careful track, but I do have a general sense. So that's the goal. I also feel physically better when I limit carbs and almost completely cut the simple carbs. A side benefit is that when I'm limiting the carbs I have more appetite for fruits and vegetables. I have found that out by experience. So that's the eating goal.

3. Hydration Goal. Go for tea sometimes instead of coffee. I usually actually do OK on drinking water.

4. Do A Bit Extra Sometimes. This is a category to loosely fit all the other things I'd like to try sometimes but that would just drag down my goal list if I put them in as everyday things. So try some healthy things like weight-lifting, extra stretching, going somewhere different, playing with the little ones, doing a vigorous job like shoveling the deck, making a new healthy dish, buying a new type of vegetable at the store -- that kind of thing.

5. Daily LIfe Be better about my vitamins, fish oil and teeth brushing. I always rush through these at the end of the day if I do them at all.

I'll let you know how it works! Thank you Cindy, Leonie and Rachel who answered my question about exercise so sympathetically : ).

The Faculties of Past, Present and Future

Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem.
Accipe memoriam, intellectum, atque voluntatem omnem.
Quidquid habeo vel possideo mihi largitus es; id tibi totum restituo, ac tuae prorsus voluntati trado gubernandum.
Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dones, et dives sum satis, hec aliud quidquam ultra posco.

This is St Ignatius's "Suscipe" in Latin. Fr Hardon says that it is better read in Latin because of the nuances of some of the words, that can't quite be translated into English. I would not know.

In English, it goes like this:

Receive, O Lord, all my liberty.
Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.
Whatsoever I have or hold, You have given me;
I give it all back to You and surrender it wholly to be governed by your will.
Give me only your love and your grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.'

It is only found in the last week of the Spiritual Exercises, but I had come across it in a prayer booklet years back when we were with Aidan in San Francisco waiting for his transplant, and I memorized it during the long afternoons in the NICU, and have been saying it after communion ever since. So it was like an old friend when I met up with it.

Fr Hardon has an interesting reflection on the "memory, understanding and will" part of the prayer.

"Take" ...means surrendering everything over which we have voluntary control. These are mainly the three faculties of our soul: the memory, the understanding, and the will. ...if we are truly sincere in sacrificing our freedom to God, we are implicitly giving him dominion over the three highest possessions we have:

• our memory of the past;
• our understanding of the present;
• our will with its desires and hopes and loves for the future.

• 
  

Why did this strike me? I think it's because of the connection of the three main faculties of the mind with the processes of Time. I had never thought about it that way before, but memory, understanding and will are our specifically human ways of dealing with the sequential aspects of this great mystery. They are what make us able to transcend what we share in common with animals -- our instincts and conditioning -- and to some extent choose freely what we are to think of and do in light of these things. Augustine says, in Book XI of the Confessions:

Permit me, Lord, to seek further. O my hope, let not my purpose be confounded. For if times past and to come be, I would know where they be. Which yet if I cannot, yet I know, wherever they be, they are not there as future, or past, but present. For if there also they be future, they are not yet there; if there also they be past, they are no longer there. Wheresoever then is whatsoever is, it is only as present.

Although when past facts are related, there are drawn out of the memory, not the things themselves which are past, but words which, conceived by the images of the things, they, in passing, have through the senses left as traces in the mind. Thus my childhood, which now is not, is in time past, which now is not: but now when I recall its image, and tell of it, I behold it in the present, because it is still in my memory.

Whether there be a like cause of foretelling things to come also; that of things which as yet are not, the images may be perceived before, already existing, I confess, O my God, I know not. This indeed I know, that we generally think before on our future actions, and that that forethinking is present, but the action whereof we forethink is not yet, because it is to come. Which, when we have set upon, and have begun to do what we were forethinking, then shall that action be; because then it is no longer future, but present.

Daniel Siegel, in The Developing Mind, says much the same thing -- that our (explicit) memories aren't fixed, but are present representations of our past experience. Every time we recall something, we basically recast it in our present moment. The content of the memory may be something past, but the actual "recollection" is something occurring in our present. This is why, if I understand his complicated prose correctly, a coherent "narrative" of the past -- even a troubled past -- can help us restore our present and affect our futures.

A key sign of a troubled understanding of past problems (and a fairly accurate predictor of troubled relationships with one's children) is the coherence of a narrative about the past. (see Adult Attachment Interview). In other words, the main predictor of shaky attachment with one's children according to attachment theory is not so much a troubled background per se, but the way one has processed it and brought it into the present. "Earned security" is the term for the state of adults with troubled family history who have come to the point where they can remember and recount their past history with some kind of coherent perspective, without either dismissiveness ("everything was fine, but I don't really remember details") or intrusion of present into past ("she always favored my brother.... just last week she took HIS kids to Disneyland, she never does anything nice for ME and my kids..").

There is much more to it than this, obviously. But the part I wanted to bring out is that by understanding (by means of processing and narrating) our past better we can better understand our present and future. It is interesting, and reminds me a bit of Oscar Wilde's insight, though he is talking about personal sin and not past "issues" inflicted on oneself by other people:

Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past.' Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do.

Perhaps to connect Wilde's idea better with Siegel's attachment theories the word "metanoia" comes in handy. Metanoia literally means "change of mind" -- it can imply repentance per se but also a sort of more general restoration/change of attitude about things that are dragging one down or locking one in and are perhaps a cause for one's present failings and misdeeds, or at least a contributing factor.

Metanoia in the context of theological discussion, where it is used often, is usually interpreted to mean repentance. However, some people argue that the word should be interpreted more literally to denote changing one's mind, in the sense of embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns (an interpretation which is compatible with the denotative meaning of repentance but replaces its negative connotation with a positive one, focusing on the superior state being approached rather than the inferior prior state being departed from.)

In the context of rhetoric, metanoia is a rhetorical device used to retract a statement just made, and then state it in a better way.

I don't think the theological notion of "repentance" is quite as negative as the Wikipedia entry makes it sound for the purposes of contrast. Etymologically speaking, "repentance" means "re- thinking"; most of the saints encouraged one to employ sorrow and regret for the past as a stepping stone of humility and receptiveness to grace, in order to recast the present and future. Getting bogged down in remorse is contrary to the restoration and renewal aspects of "metanoia". In fact, in some ways this bogging-down in past shame, anger and fear is exactly what keeps us from getting somewhere better. King David said:

"Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me!"

Daniel Siegel says that "shame" is often a problem with people who are bogged down by their pasts. He defines "shame" as something that has been laid down below the foundations of the rational mind, that often doesn't have a just reason. For example, a child may have been brought up to feel "shame" for needing affection or comfort. Siegel has another word for the just sense of guilt and regret we ought to have when we've done something to harm someone or ourselves, but nevertheless he proposes acknowledging the failing and bringing it to the surface of one's mind in order to deal with it and move on. In fact, probably one of the most difficult aspects of a troubled childhood is that it is difficult to perceive what is real guilt and what is "shame" imposed in early childhood, where one's memories are buried under the conscious surface of one's mind.

Siegel is talking from a scientific, secular-psychological perspective, but the parallels are interesting to me. If something is true, it is going to be true across the board.

A bigger subject than I meant to take on at first! I am no theologian, nor a psychoanalyst (obviously!) so these are just things I'm processing in my mind right now.

mystery in the mundane

I already linked to Elizabeth's posts on intentionality in housekeeping.

Here are some more that are in the same train of thought for me.

• A Noble Chore from High Desert Home
• Eating Mindfully from Rachel at Lean but Not Mean.

The first is about laundry among other things, and the second is about healthy living, but they overlap to me in thought process (admittedly, my thought processes can be rather free-associative at times).


Susan at High Desert Home mentioned Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and 'Woman's Work' by Kathleen Norris. The link is to a review which says:

Here, she takes a much more specific topic: how are the menial tasks of life —the tasks we don’t educate our children to do, those little jobs that we think of as work for other, less fortunate people’s children, the daily chores often considered “women’s work— islands of holiness, just like the Daily Office might be.

......

Norris makes clear that she doesn’t think that these tasks should define or confine us, but that they should not simply be disregarded as “menial” but looked at as a small but no less important part of our stewardship of the world, our recognition of God and the holy residing in almost every thing, our participation in what Jews call the tikkun olam, the fixing of the world.

Yes, I know the photo does not show the "mundane" -- but I thought it was lovely (daughter gets the credit) and shows how different things look in a different perspective -- a thought I want to remember in connection with these "islands of holiness!" Chari, do you recognize the scene?

Let Them Eat Cake

I just finished reading Let Them Eat Cake The Case Against Controlling What Your Children Eat and I thought I would quickly write out some thoughts. It was a bit different than I expected it to be.

The main points seem to be:

• There are many variety of kids -- if your child is on the high end or low end of the percentile charts, it doesn't mean he has to go on a diet or start having half n half in his breakfast cereal. A more or less consistent growth curve is more important to keep an eye on.
• Children between the ages of 2 and 11 aren't really growing that fast relative to their baby and teenage years, so what seems like "hardly eating anything" is probably pretty normal.
• Stay watchful and pay attention to providing a range of healthy food choices, but don't have a fearful, angry attitude about food and the child's eating patterns. Above all, most food issues are not worth battles and tension.
• Children under age two should NOT have their fat intake reduced; this could be dangerous for the growing brain and body.
  
• Most of the additives in food have been thoroughly tested, are better than the historical alternatives (mold and spoilage on food) and don't really change the behavior or health status of most people. The book does discuss some additives like MSG which some people don't tolerate well and which shouldn't be eaten by pregnant women.
• Even children who are obese often don't grow up to be obese adults (about 30 percent carrythrough, the book reports). A poor self-image often outlasts childhood plumpness so unless the child wants to do something about his body size, it's probably better not to put him on a reducing diet or make any foods "forbidden". Rather, it's better to look at the "big picture" and put the richer foods in a proper context, with a variety of healthy foods served and various fun physical activities engaged in.
  

This actually reminds me of much of the advice I've read in many standard diet or nutrition books (I like to read those for inspiration at intervals). Especially, the emotional component in eating has been taken more seriously in recent years. Food is an important and legitimate component in almost all celebrations across cultures. Almost every culture, the book remarks, uses sweet food as an expression of celebration. Babies' first food is sweet and fatty. So there is nothing wrong per se with sweet and fatty food.

But quarrels and power struggles over eating can often lead to the "bad" kind of emotional eating in adulthood. The book includes a brief discussion of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, saying that part of the problem sometimes is unrealistic expectations of what weight and eating should be about. It recommends that the parents rather than spend their energy in negative restrictions, rather expand the child's options and have a variety of healthy snacks and foods in the home and make meals an enjoyable relationship-building time rather than a battleground.

If this book's recommendations can be compared to style of homeschooling it is close to what I already do, I think.

By the way, there are some fascinating "unschooling as a Catholic" discussions in the RL archives -- I have linked to the list that comes up in the RL search engine. Look especially at the ones that have several pages.

navigating for the long haul

In August, I wrote a couple of times about feeling burned out and tired. I even talked to a couple of friends about it, and one of those friends brought it to the Real Learning board. It turned out, not surprisingly, that a lot of other people shared the same feelings.

I think part of it for me, anyway, was simple exhaustion combined with stress. I know that in our different ways my friends and I had had very challenging summers.

I think that also, when you've been homeschooling for, say, 15 years and you know you most likely, God willing, will have perhaps 15 more to come, you don't have the adrenalin that you have when you're closer to the starting line or the finishing line. You're in that middle stretch. I know that when I am working out (or trying, anyway!) I dread the middle stretch. It's like the road from Sacramento to Redding! (if you don't ever travel up the Californian I-5, substitute whatever makes sense to your geographical location).

You don't have all the visions/illusions that you started off with, and though you have a few satisfying retrospectives to think about, you also have plenty of ongoing concerns and anxieties. Whether small or large, these often are enough to act like leaden weights, or like a subtle nutritional deficit. (in midlife it's not uncommon to have a few of those, too).

All these things probably contributed to my "blues". The days have been going better, and the answer seemed to lie here, in what I wrote in my first "blue" post:

I remember praying for JOY in living out my vocation. And I found myself actually finding that joy. The daily details of house-maintenance, of spending time with my kids, of maintaining that pregnancy, became sources of deep joy for me. ....(once I embraced them)

Embracing indicates a sort of active receptiveness, an opening to possible vulnerability, but at the same time an act of strength. Sustaining is a nice word too. It seems to go with "embrace" as a sort of sign of life and love and a choice to nourish and come closer, rather than back off and detach.

It is a balance that is taking a fair bit of focus, but it is worth it. To truly embrace, you have to be there in heart and spirit. ... not fretting over the past or worrying about the future.

And when you are embracing, you might as well acknowledge there will sometimes be that "pointy chin." If you have a special needs child, you have probably already read this article: Holland Schmolland and no doubt, found parts of it both to agree and disagree with according to your own experience. This is the part I remembered best from reading it several years ago:

"In Schmolland, ...... you can show affection by giving a “pointy chin.” A “pointy chin” is when you act like you are going to hug someone and just when you are really close, you jam your chin into the other person’s shoulder. For the person giving the “pointy chin” this feels really good, for the receiver not so much – but you get used to it."

I think this part stuck in my mind partly because my special child at the time seemed to show affection by taking a bit of your skin between his fingernails and twisting! But also, it stayed in my mind because it was so much a type of something that seems to happen so much in life. There is always a bit of surprise, even humiliation and discomfort, in so many occasions of embracing what life brings. You can only laugh, and acknowledge it, and accept the good in it .... or not. Sometimes I don't. But recently I've been trying, and it has brought a certain amount of satisfaction -- and even, moments of joy and contentment. Deo Gratias!

Embracing the Real Things

Kim wrote about the joy in everyday things. She linked to this article. It resonated with me because I have been thinking about a very difficult time in my life just about exactly five years ago. At the time, I was pregnant with #7, who was a very high risk pregnancy. I was on an experimental protocol that involved day-long stays in the hospital, an hour away, once a week. Our medically fragile Aidan was having some medical problems that no one could figure out. ... his liver function numbers were way off, he was falling off his growth curve and he eventually turned deep yellow, just around the time Paddy was born. We were worried about him, as well as about his unborn sibling. My oldest was homeschooling high school and I had two middle schoolers and two grade schoolers in addition.

I would not say this period of my life was enjoyable or that I always handled the stress well. But somehow, I remember praying for JOY in living out my vocation. And I found myself actually finding that joy. The daily details of house-maintenance, of spending time with my kids, of maintaining that pregnancy, became sources of deep joy for me. Perhaps it was because I didn't take it for granted; I was very aware that it might not last. And perhaps it was grace; God giving me a gift I needed at the time.

So I have been wondering how to regain and preserve that joy during these "easier" times in my life. .... I've been having trouble shaking off a case of the blues. I know that this is an ordinary after-the-fact reaction to stress, and we did have some stress this summer with our medical issues and the displacements that resulted, but I would like to try to work past it.

So I like what Kim writes:

"My days can be demanding and occasionally boring and sometimes downright bizarre. Life with small children and teenagers is like that. : ) For all its challenges it is real, however. It is sustaining. It is what life is made of, if you are fortunate enough to have a home and lots of people to share it with, and learning to embrace that has made a huge difference."

Embracing is a nice word. Embracing indicates a sort of active receptiveness, an opening to possible vulnerability, but at the same time an act of strength. Sustaining is a nice word too. It seems to go with "embrace" as a sort of sign of life and love and a choice to nourish and come closer, rather than back off and detach.

(Sorry to write a sort of "blue", nothing post -- I've been trying to just shake it off, but find that when I don't post about what's really going on, I don't post at all -- which is what has been happening).

One Minute Fitness?

I recently read The One Minute Manager Gets Fit ( HT: Lazy Organizer -- I read about the One Minute Manager at her site and then just browsed the library for the books they had). I couldn't decide whether to blog about the book here or at my other blog, but finally decided it fit better over here.

This was the first of three One Minute Manager books I've read. They are easy reads, all with the same "parable" format -- that is, they are told in story form, with narrative and dialogue. Important points are written in large form on a single page, like this:

----------------------

It's not the Stress in Your Life
But How You Deal with It That Counts

------------------------------------

(That's just an example -- I sent the book back already)

The idea in this book is that the One Minute Manager has become so successful that his work/life balance has become disrupted. (The new version of the book is called The One Minute Manager Balances Work and Life). He has gained 50 pounds and isn't getting enough exercise, and isn't spending enough time with his family.

He is in danger of burnout. Burnout results when stress produces strain. Stress in life isn't the problem -- there can be good stress. That's why in the stress checklists, good things like a new baby or personal success count as stresses too. If you don't have enough stress, you are in danger of "rustout". The OMM defines "strain" as the negative effects of stressors.

There are four moderators to stress according to the book:

• Autonomy : Control over your life, choices.
• Connectedness : Your support system and family/community ties, feeling of being a valued member
• Perspective: Your understanding of the "big picture" in your life; direction, purpose, passion.
• Tone: How you feel about your physical appearance, your energy level and general personal habits.

The book focuses on the Tone part, but makes the point that there is a domino effect -- if you aren't taking care of yourself, you won't feel good about how you look and behave. This will negatively affect your autonomy -- your sense of control over your life; and possibly throw your sense of connectedness and perspective out of whack too. (here are some Mental Health ideas to cope with stress)

To help you decide if you have a healthy lifestyle or not, there is a "Professor's Dozen" checklist that looks a bit like this Executive Health one (without all the details about doctors' visits).

Oh, here's one of those one page messages in the book:
----------------------
More than ever before,
Health is the Outcome
of the Way You Choose to Live Your Life
---------------------------
(you get the picture)

Once the One Minute Manager realizes that his personal life has taken a backseat to his work life, he resolves to get fit. This is how he does it:

• He makes goals -- to lose that 50 pounds -- and to exercise for 45 minutes, 5 times a week.
• He also sets median goals -- wayposts along the way, like the 20 pound goal.
• He decides upon a way to measure his progress -- exercise and weight loss charts.
• He gets his family/support system involved.

He also attends a session where there are some group activities to illustrate the concepts that:

• CHANGE is difficult and feels awkward at first.
• It's easy to return to default mode when the goals are met (so you have to plan a maintenance system for the future)
• It's smart to make yourself aware of how you will perceive the disadvantages of the changes, and also focus on the advantages. For example, exercising might take time and planning and an initial output of energy. ... those would be the disadvantages. But it will improve energy in the longterm, and burn calories -- and might be fun -- those would be the advantages.
  

The levels of change are:

• Knowledge (finding out the facts -- this is usually the easiest part -- you just read a book or article or find out that X eating habit is unhealthy)
• Attitude (how you feel about the knowledge -- many people know smoking is bad for them but don't want to quit because the disadvantages are felt more strongly than the advantages).
• Behavior (what you do as a result of how you feel)

(This reminds me a lot of the traditional Catholic divisions of intellect, emotion and will. Prudence is the decision and action of the will as a result of knowledge. Charlotte Mason also talks about this extensively).

In light of these facts, it is important to:

• Acknowledge the difficulties,
• Visualize the advantages
  
• Make a personal commitment,
• Rally your support system,
• Set goals, and then of course,
• Carry them out. Also,
• Celebrate/Affirm your progress along the way.

The rest of the book details how the One Minute Manager does this in his own life circumstances.

My Thoughts:

The book only took about an hour or so for me to read. The reading level is simple and the narrative/dialogue style makes it easy to remember the key points. In fact, to me it evoked another book I've been reading, called Memorize the Faith (see my sidebar) which uses the medieval "locus" system to consolidate facts in your mind. The parable form the OMM books use has somewhat the same function; you follow the storyline and take in the ideas at the same time as the main character does, and share his sense of discovery. I would not call the story scintillating, but it is cheerful and smoothly written and serves the purpose for which it is written.

You can see from my notes that the ideas are based on common sense and conventional wisdom -- nothing complex or esoteric or marginal.

Other books he referenced:

Positive Addiction
Getting Physical

Spring Forward to Fitness

Some of my Real Learning friends have started a fitness blog:

Lean but not Mean

The Bookworm recently wrote a post: Mean, but not Lean~!
(Ah, another chiasmus!)

She writes:

I'm trying out exercise videos and DVDs that I can fit into my normal day. My main criteria for choosing is cost. Given that I have no idea what sort of exercise routine I would like, having not done this before, I'm trying to pick up a selection of cheap used or discounted tapes and DVDs to try out. Hence the "mean, but not lean" title of this post (the "not lean" part speaks for itself!).

I think this is a good idea.

My daughter wrote about exercising

"A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, but because he loves foils or horses or high mountains, and loves them for their own sake."

Wise advice from G.K. Chesterton! Why must people always go on special exercise plans? Why all the stress and concern about not having worked out enough that day? Why the sighs because one is bored with what they're doing, or because one simply doesn't want to work out one day?

Why not simply do something you love, and let the results come as a side effect?

SO -- so far

1. Fit exercise into your normal day.
2. Do something active that you love to do, and let fitness come as a side effect.

Any more tips? I think that while "in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" -- for over-40 moms like me, spring brings thoughts of trying to get a bit more fitness into one's life. ... or to get oneself to fit into one's clothes from last spring. Hmm, can't seem to manage a chiasmus of my own yet. Maybe I need to stretch a bit more.

Oh, one more thing!

some studies have shown that several short (10 minute) workouts per day provide many of the benefits of one longer (30 minute) workout. So for those who don't "have time" or like me get bored or lose focus during long workouts, some of these ideas may be helpful.

...a little print

I dwelt too low that any seek --
Too shy, that any blame --

When I was a child I suffered for several years from Selective Mutism . That is, though I didn't have a speech delay or any other discernible condition, I spent six years in what one of my sympathetic but frustrated teachers called "self-imposed exile". I didn't talk through the second half of elementary school all the way up to tenth grade. At home and in the neighborhood I could talk fine. At church, though, it was like school. When I say I didn't talk I mean that literally. I would nod or shake my head. That was it. I myself did not really understand what was going on and back then it was not a diagnosis. I didn't get treated, therefore, except for the normal therapy benefits of living in a functional, supportive home. And those ought not to be minimized.

It's going to sound like I am a basket of weaknesses, after my last post about anorexia. I will admit I'm weak, but at the same time God has given me a variety of natural strengths and supernatural graces. I have been through 8 natural childbirths and managed the pain and uncertainty without a problem. I've spent over a year total in the hospital caring for a severely ill infant and child. I'm strong in some ways. But I think that I have an easy time with some things that are incredibly difficult for some people, but some things that are standard operating procedure for most of the population are difficult for me.

I also think my anorexia and selective mutism sprang from the same source. I had to cope with circumstances that were beyond my personal array of coping abilities. We moved several times in several years and I seemed to get the most pathological set of early elementary teachers out there. My school years were nightmarish from my perspective. The way they taught was not the way I learned, yet they expected me to learn their way. I wanted to read and write and take walks and play musical instruments and have time alone, and they wanted me to listen and fill out worksheets and go to gyms and play games I had no interest in that usually involved flying objects and lots of noise. The cafeteria was complete bombardment. In junior high I started hiding in the bathroom in order to eat lunch. It was repulsive, but better than the alternative. Then I learned I could just skip lunch.

I was completely bored by the sequential mode of learning, and when tested I was always on the high end of the percentile range in spite of my daydreaming, because I was a classical visual spatial learner. When I was ready to learn I got the big picture right away and didn't need repetition. I could keep up in a class by spending five minutes with a book, and I didn't care about grades, so I was happy as long as the grades didn't go down to the point where the teachers and parents would get concerned. In this manner I got through 18 years of school, though I don't really count the 4.5 college years because in a college it's easier to manage the overload. Colleges give you freedom to self-manage the overload, and that was what I needed.

So selective mutism and anorexia for me were both ways to take back control in a situation where I didn't have control. When I was in 6th grade I used to babysit for parents who were both psychologists. I read their bookshelf when their kids had gone off to sleep, and one of them was about autism. I used to wish I was autistic. At that time the conventional wisdom was that autistic kids were closed off from their environment. I longed to be closed off. Every day I went to school and felt like I was being scraped by sand or sunburned -- day after day after day. Now I think the authorities recognize that autism is a more extreme reaction to the same problem I had -- sensory overload. When I discovered anorexia, it was a way to numb feeling. If you didn't eat for a long long time you would get dizzy and spaced-out. This turns out to be a sort of natural anesthetic, or maybe the anesthetizing is a byproduct of the starvation. At any rate, it worked.

I am getting carried away in detail. What I started out to say was that I got over the selective mutism, then the anorexia and depression. Long journey, but it started by coming back to my childhood Protestant faith, then to love and marriage and children, then conversion to Catholicism. I was fine for several years, but recently I have been dealing with a recurrence of the social anxiety that precipitated the other things. I am not sure why this became such a trial again. I think perhaps it was because I forgot the vigilance. I still have the condition. I just don't always manifest it. Recently, just in the last few weeks, the problems with social anxiety have subsided again. I find myself easily managing situations that used to require every coping tool I had. It is nice, but since it's such a sudden reversal I don't think it can be really due to anything I've done to help. It's like running compared to barely being able to walk. What's the deal? I don't know, but I thought I'd write it down. Elizabeth says a blog is like a journey and this is an oasis moment in my journey.

The thing is, I don't spend my life in fear and trembling. It's just when I get into public, that sometimes, without warning, I will stammer and avoid eyes and forget what I was going to say and feel like I've turned into a ship's wheel in a storm -- stiff and not sure which way it will turn next. When the wheel spins, I still know it's in God's hands, and many people are weathering more severe and unpredictable storms than this one.