The Incredible Lightness of Getting Away

Do you need a vacation, or a vacation from your vacation?

Just the anticipation of an upcoming getaway is sometimes enough to help us get through a little more of what we thought we could no longer bear. We’ll push that much harder just to get through to the long-awaited time off and trip away. We may even be willing to lose sleep to get done what needs to get done, tie up those loose ends, and make our transition back that much (hopefully) easier.

I love the anticipation of vacation, even if it’s months away. I’ll make lists of things to pack, places to go and things to do before I set off on the horizon. When I have enough time in which to do this, I enjoy the planning and slow anticipation of a carefree lifestyle and renewed outlook. But often, this ends up being a luxury I can’t really afford, with time and serenity being somewhere off in the elusive distance.

Ideally, who doesn’t plan at least somewhat for vacation? We have to plan the destination, the getting there, getting around and getting back. We might plan activities ahead of time. Are we swimsuit ready, do we have the right suitcase, who will feed the pets, will we get all our work done at the office, and will we be able to foresee and sidestep any mishaps that may arise?
Even with all of this strategizing, we feel fortunate to be able to get away, don’t we? With our busy, demanding lives, vacation at times and to some can seem just a pipe dream, however. But I will argue that not making some time to ‘get away’ – whatever that means to you – actually hurts us more in the long run.

Whatever ‘high maintenance’ qualities vacation can take on, think about the demands of our daily lives. There’s so much coming and going, preparation and expectation, consequence-handling and reacting. When one problem is solved or dissolved, we move right onto the next one. Many of us feel responsible for everything around us going smoothly while we’re being pulled in multiple directions at one time. We probably don’t feel we have much – if any – of a cushion to fall back on, whether in terms of money, support or sanity. To ‘drop it all’ for a week or so can even bring on more stress and anxiety.

But again, I argue - To question not just how we got here, but why we’re still here (in this frantic pace) is precisely what the subconscious will do while you’re “away”. That part of you that knows what joy and peace and wellbeing feel like will shed its business suit and languish in every moment of free time you allow it. It will frolic, laugh and play, siesta in the afternoon, and buy silly souvenirs. But when you’re not paying attention, it will do some of the most important work - It will evaluate your life, hone in on what matters most, and point to what’s getting in the way.

This dialogue between our frantic self and our serene self is crucial in the balancing of our lives. And since vacation is the serene self’s time to shine, the frantic self (usually willingly) steps aside. Yet it is only by working together – being whole - that we can see the grains of wisdom falling through our butterfly net or out of the vast cosmos. And the easy feelings that vacation eventually brings relaxes us enough to let the clarity and meaning in.

“The best news of all is that we never really lose vacation mind,” Stephen says. It is entirely possible to feel peace in the midst of the anxiety and whatever else is going on; we don’t have to always remove the anxiety first. With vacation, Stephen adds, “You’re rolling to a stop rather than putting on the breaks. You are simply enjoying yourself naturally, rather than trying to force it.”

So have you taken a break from your typical life lately or are you at least planning to?

A new perspective can truly be a blessing, even if we simply replace a fraction of our usual daily routine with a dose of vacation bliss. What can really be so important that we don’t take care of our deepest needs? Whose world are we trying to keep spinning atop those various plates and dancing puppets? And if it’s our most personal, intimate world that’s got us so uptight and anxious, now’s the chance to rethink, re-focus and recreate. Starting someplace exotic.

Creative Community, Helping Hands, Blissful Beings

We just had our second successful ‘La Dolce Vita’ event at Middle Way Health’s Midtown Sacramento location and we’d like to thank those who joined us for an evening of ‘The Sweet Life’!

For people and connections to feel real, we have to actually get together with them - to feel and share energy, chemistry and emotion. It’s the physical presence and awareness (embodiment) that makes a connection, thought or idea real. The intent of our ‘La Dolce Vita’ gatherings is to bring creative people together to sample and discuss what makes up The Sweet Life, to come up with ideas and create a community of like-minded people who want to be happy and make the world a better place.

We all want to live some version of The Sweet Life, and we need others with whom to share the rewards of our efforts. Coming together around a vision causes it to grow and spread, and community is then built up around it. But we’re not just talking about superfluous things; happy people make the best helpers. It may sound corny, but it’s true.

We all want to be happy, healthy and helpful, right? Often, however, we don’t know exactly how we can help others. Our ‘La Dolce Vita’ gatherings have brought together a variety of people and professions - many of whom don’t normally come together in the same place. For instance, we’re connecting artists, writers and musicians who haven’t previously networked with mental health professionals, politicians and community activists, who in return don’t generally mingle with healers, food industry or fashion professionals.

Bringing different aspects of our community together in this way we are building bridges, sharing passions, generating ideas and solving problems. And our events serve as a method to spread various sources of information. For instance, Melanie Noel Light prepared a visual presentation of Dream Life Designing at our last gathering, something we’d like to continue, with a different presenter from the community each time. This is how we grow ourselves and our businesses, and this is how we make a more significant difference.

We all experience stressors in life - often all too often - and we at Middle Way Health believe in alleviating them by dealing with our responsibilities and creating room for the good stuff; the stuff that makes life worth living. This requires a balance between rewarding ourselves (while not leaning toward hedonism) and practicing blissful wisdom (accepting and sharing what we’ve learned).

At Middle Way Health we offer a variety of services to bring about joyful balance in one’s life. But it’s not solely about doing things one-on-on; we also aim to spread the vision of ‘La Dolce Vita’ (a healthy, joyful, balanced life) through workshops, classes and community events.

We believe we can all be healthy and happy at the same time. While maintaining health takes work, it shouldn’t detract from the happiness we want to experience. A happy, healthy person living a balanced life is to us a success - and can make a difference, even if just by example. A group or community of happy, healthy people living in balance and working together, however, can really turn the tides for the better!

AGING: Healthy Role Models and Mindsets

My husband is only 43 and yet he worries about aging to the extent that it sometimes wakes him in the middle of the night. He worries about losing loved ones, his health failing, and to a lesser but still painful extent, his looks fading. He’s not overly vain; he’s just like the rest of us – honest and searching.

I can relate with much of what he’s experiencing. When you turn that corner from the future being always a distance away to seeing and feeling yourself aging, it is disconcerting. Suddenly, here’s this fact of life (aging) that you never really literally imagined happening to you (getting old), and it’s now happening - to you.

In our youth and beauty-obsessed culture, it’s no wonder that we’re uneasy about our years showing. There are, however, more significant, affecting ways in which we age, including our health failing, mental health suffering, and thoughts tending toward mortality. We develop GI tract issues, stiffening joints, unreliable memories, etc.… and they’re not just superfluous complaints. They’re typical things people who are aging talk about and have a strong desire to mitigate. That’s the medical/psychological side of it all. But what if we look at it from another perspective, with a different outlook and attitude?

When I bring up the topic with Stephen, the first thing that comes to his mind is his grandmother. He says he once asked her how old she felt when she was in her late 80s. She responded that she still felt 17 - and she lived to be 102. “I feel younger in some ways than I have before,” Stephen says at age 60. “I’d say I was more preoccupied with getting older when I was younger.”

Feeling like he’s turned a corner, he seems to have made a certain peace with aging. “Something in us is getting younger… it feels a bit like Merlin. He would get younger as he aged. In other words, the more I age, the more I’m coming closer to my next rebirth.” I realize this is a spiritual perspective, and I wonder if those of us worried about aging just need something to believe in. It’s certainly so much nicer than feeling like a victim of time and gravity with endless physical and cognitive worries.

But how about younger generations; what are they learning with so many role models trying so desperately not to age? I hope enough of us can find a balance between taking care of ourselves and respecting the parts of us that undeniably get older. As for me, I do try to be gentle with my imperfect self and not to worry about inevitable things.

It’s a science, if we think about aging in terms of eating right, staying active, engaging the mind, and challenging old beliefs and stale attitudes. It’s an empowering lifestyle if we focus on how better we can live right now, how well we can wear our years. Yet maybe it’s a religion too – If we find something so great to believe in that we fear no future phantoms and instead lap up the present as if it were the best fountain of youth there is.

Winter Solstice 2012

This is a unique time in history. We may not know exactly why, but many of us are feeling it in some way, shape or form. And so all the more reason to take care of ourselves, figure out what matters most to each of us, and focus on (and create) the wondrous.

In some ways, this December feels like the beginning of a fresh start, while also having a profound, ancient quality to it. What’s in between? Time and space to relax, reflect, and mostly, be in the present moment more presently than before. If we choose, we could even re-envision a new future for ourselves. How we think, feel and act today will affect that future more than anything.

As the holidays are upon us, we can find meaning inherent in them (whether we’re religious or not) or create new traditions that speak to the soul. Being with loved ones, slowing down, appreciating our surroundings, realizing the importance of our health, creating and enjoying peace and harmony… We are reminded of the significance of these things this time of year, as it is an opportunity to awaken the spirit. This, however, requires moving past societal pressures while connecting with earthly and spiritual ones.

Eclipses, full moons, solstices, planetary alignments and shifts signal powerful energies lining up. They are natural rhythms that are opportunities for reflection, renewal and celebration. By connecting with the powers all around us we can ground ourselves, release stress, and tap into the most magical and meaningful things – some of which might not yet even exist.

Often, when things shift from day to night, dark to light, full to empty, one season to another, these in-between times reveal subtle places and powers we tend to miss. Time and space converge in a unique way, and we ought to be open, curious, magical in our thinking. But how do we tap into the potential that lies in the in-between moment and the opportunities for us to become more aware, calm and connected?

This is done by holding the two polarities (day and night, light and dark, etc.) together at one time, even if just for a moment. Just notice them and that place where their energies are even; then hold them in awareness without judgment. When we’re in an innocent state something happens in between, something forms between the gap. That’s where the real energy, the real self is. It’s not just happening outside of us; it’s felt in the body too. What’s happening in the universe in also happening in us.

Whether it’s our nature or something we’ve learned, we tend to be antagonistic about opposites, always thinking we have to choose just one and reject the other. But when we begin to experience these polarities working together – when we’re somewhere between ‘holding on’ and ‘let go’ - a special energy happens in the gap and something appears out of that space that is new. This newness can be tapped into by being present and open, and catching a wave of inspiration or insight.

Tapping into nature’s power - the earth beneath us, the energies around us, and the cosmic powers above us – help us tap into our personal power. By thinking of our highest intentions, we can bring about our highest potential, one moment at a time. Simple and profound.

La Dolce Vita – Because You Deserve It

‘La Dolce Vita’ means ‘The Sweet Life” in Italian. You’ve probably heard the term before. So why the sweet life? Why want it, why aim for it, why learn to create it a bit each and every day? Aside from the fact that it just feels good, being happy and content improves our health, gives us inspiration to continue our self-care, and betters our interactions with the world.

Being healthy allows us to participate in the fun things life has to offer. If we’re not motivated toward our own well being, our experiences become increasingly less pleasurable. Ultimately we all want to enjoy ourselves and we want others to do the same… but within reason, of course. And so there’s the balance. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle from day to day can become a rather serious endeavor at times, and yet this is tempered by simply letting ourselves enjoy the finer - as well as simpler - things in life.

Living life to the fullest without doing harm to others is consciously and compassionately-inspired action that brings about more of the good stuff for all. While not every decision we make has to be universally directed, feeling a connection to others is an imperative component to our well being. Enjoying what we do and sharing the rewards that we reap with other healthy-minded, creative individuals allows us to enjoy both the emotional and tangible things in life, such as food, wine, music, art, nature, good company, etc.

If we let ourselves lose sight of the little things that contribute to our everyday happiness because of excessive worry, fear or doubt, health problems, traumatic experiences, relationship or career challenges, etc., we won’t be very motivated to improve our lives. If on the other hand we realize that we all have things to work on throughout our lives – and resources at our disposal in which to do so – we can get down to the business of tending to our well being. Then, letting ourselves experience the rewards of our efforts a little each day, creating and enjoying a taste of the sweet life, it becomes that much easier to envision and welcome in.

This balanced place, or the middle way, where responsibility becomes empowerment and feeling good becomes our ultimate reward, feels like coming home to a place we’ve always belonged. It’s the relief of finally ‘getting it’, and the realization that relaxation is both a reaction of and precursor to peace of mind. In both literal and figurative terms, walking the path of the middle way is a sweet reward for all of the senses.

What we’re creating at Middle Way Health is a place to connect with others, do dream work and healing work, express ourselves, enlighten our minds and enliven our spirits. We are creating a place where it all comes together – our well being and the betterment of our lives; a place where we can share challenges and dreams with others, and together watch the fruits of our labors ripen.

Ignorance, Oblivion and Living in Extremes

We’re all oblivious to something in our lives at any given time. Usually in hindsight – if we bother to look back – we can see it. But how do we do it in the present moment? Are we not capable of seeing it, is it some sort of denial, or are we just not versed in how to see it? How do we start to see what we’re currently not seeing?

Practically speaking, when we focus on something in front of us, we can’t see what’s behind us. We weren’t born with eyes in the back of our heads for a reason, right? However, we do sometimes need to know what’s going on behind us, and we can utilize our senses in order to do so, whether we turn around and literally look or just hone in with general awareness.

But in other situations, we have a feeling we’re missing something; we just don’t know what or where that something is. So how do we know what the right questions are to ask and/or where to look for the answers? Should we stay put and wait for them to come to us or should we go out looking for them?

Often, just talking with someone else is enough to widen our perspective and see something we hadn’t before. But sometimes the problem is that we don’t want to see the other side because we’re hyper-focused on one extreme. For instance, we may choose to not see someone else’s side of things because we’re too wrapped up in our own suffering. We might also be ignoring the big picture because we’ve created a habit of vacillating between two extremes. For example, we might not see that a relationship is unfulfilling because we’ve become too accustomed to swinging directly from misery to bliss, and vice versa.

The problem is that in preferring one specific feeling or bouncing between two extreme ones, we’re ignoring the balancing of our human processes and the work it takes to keep finding healthy middle ground. It takes constant awareness and energy to be flexible in this way, and many of us aren’t accustomed to living like this. But by shedding light on our unconscious patterns, we can free up the trapped energies and utilize them to create more efficient and pleasant ways of living.

Watch for part II - where we elaborate further on 'What We're Missing' - to come~

Reconsidering Time

What does time mean to you? Do you live your life by the clock or try to avoid it altogether? What’s your time worth?

Time is mostly just the way we organize and manage our lives. It’s a way for us all to be marching to the same social beat. It makes important things run more smoothly. And for many, the faster you go, the more you can succeed. But time is also inevitable. Time is change, and change is constant. Exactly how we keep track of time doesn’t even matter much; what matters more is if we agree upon that method.

Some of us have time-dictated careers, where we operate within a strict time-oriented structure. Keeping up with this, then, dictates whether we are successful or not; For instance, doctors, therapists, and those whose days are filled with appointments or deadlines. Others have more project-oriented careers, which isn’t quite as time-specific and may have more flexibility. While there may not be many careers where time is not a factor, how you ‘sync’ up with your livelihood may be affecting your wellbeing.

Which fits you best: Do you thrive under time constraints and find that they motivate you? Do you resent the rigidity of the clock and external pressures? Or do you appreciate the boundaries that the structure of time creates?

As always, extremes are draining. Having too little time may make you too scattered to think straight, let alone stop to smell the roses along the way. But having too much time can make you feel lost, unclear about your purpose, and disconnected from others. Do you thrive from the kind of structure that comes with your job or lifestyle? Or does it not fit with your natural sense of rhythm?

At Middle Way Health we have to use time as a tool for our practice. So in a sense, we have a partnership with time. However, since we don’t want to feel slaves to time, we have to make sure its confines don’t get too narrow and that we have breathing space and downtime. Both business and personal relationships are affected by time – whether productively on not. When each party has a different way of dealing with time, conflict can arise. For instance, a couple may constantly battle with tardiness versus punctuality.

What matters most about time? It affects us all. Whether we agree to meet at noon or when the sun is directly overhead, it helps us create some structure within which we can make things happen. But what also matters is how we look at time and engage with it. Fearing there’s never enough time is going to make that fear come true, because you’re always rushing and never feel caught up. But time is somewhat fluid, actually. The faster you go, the faster it seems to go. The less you have to do, the more it seems to creep along. The more you love what you do, the richer the time and space seem to get. But wasting one’s time… now, that’s another story. If you take time for granted, you may be taking your life for granted. For when you waste your time, you can never get it back.

If your life feels dictated by time to the extent that you resent it, your relationship with time needs help. If you generally disregard time, you may come across as disrespecting others’ time. But if you work with time and create a nice pairing of time-sensitive and free-time, your life will feel more balanced and be more manageable.

We all have flexible time – time that is ours to do with what we will. Even if that time is the seven hours we allot to sleep at night, it’s up to us whether we prioritize our time and create some downtime for ourselves. Sure, sleep helps re-charge our bodies, but our minds and spirits need their own time too. It might do us a world of good to get up an hour early to do yoga, journal, meditate or work on that prized vintage car. The point is, we are in a relationship with time and need to communicate our priorities perhaps more than we have to compromise them.

While most of us would like to throw away our watches and live in a timeless world, the desire to disengage in this way means we’re not relating to time properly. The clock and incessant minute-hand are man-made time keepers, but they are based on nature’s time: the natural rhythms that keep us alive (such as the sun and moon dancing from day to night and our hearts pumping blood and oxygen).

There is a spirituality to time as well, although we don’t tend to think of it this way. Buddhism’s Kalachakra teachings, for example, are about cycles of time and learning to harmonize your time. Things like weekends, getaways and retreats – when you lose track of date and time and are on sun and moon-time – are good for the soul. Letting ourselves “lose track of time” once in a while and experience the freeness of just being elevates the spirit from our mind-driven world. So to take a snapshot of that vacation mentality back with you, think of time as breaths per minute rather than a piece of metal or plastic running your life. It’ll make time a more grounded, embodied, personal and meaningful part of your days.