Loosening Your Grip

Loosening Your Grip

Over the years, I have learned many important life lessons from riding a bike.  This past weekend I was reminded of a lesson that I would like to pass along to you.  The point of the lesson has to do with what at first seems like a paradox--something that is entirely counter-intuitive; one can work to be relaxed while stressed. 

Because I'm somewhat of a bike nerd, I love to read biking articles whenever I get a chance.  I read an article recently that provided the basis for the life lesson I learned last week on my bike.  This article said that many riders lose valuable energy during peak exertion, at the same time that they can least afford to lose any power.  The article pointed out that when a rider is straining their legs riding up a steep hill, the rider has a natural tendency to completely tense up their hands, arms, and upper body.  There is a tendency to grab the handlebars with much strength and thus tighten all the muscles in his or her 's arms and shoulders.  This tensing of the upper body does not translate into any increased output for the rider's legs, but rather it has the opposite effect.  Tension in the upper body drains energy from the lower body, where the power is needed most. 

The article went on to say that the art of riding well when a biker's legs are stressed is to keep the upper body relaxed and loose.  When I read this, I was intrigued.  I wondered if it was really possible to be relaxed and stressed at the same time.  I looked forward to trying out the idea, and that's what I did last week.  Sure enough, I naturally did exactly what the article said not to do.  Whenever I came to a hill or tried to accelerate quickly, I found that I immediately tensed my whole upper body--not just my arms and hands, but my teeth as well!  This reaction was automatic each time I exerted myself. 

I remembered the article I had read, and for the remainder of my ride, I tried to practice what I learned.  Each time I found myself straining my legs for either a hill or because I was increasing my speed, I worked hard to keep my hands, arms, and jaw relaxed.  I consciously deepened my breathing and loosened my grip on the handlebars.  I loosened my shoulders and jaw as well.  And guess what?  I could immediately feel a difference.  My legs felt stronger, and most importantly, I felt like I was riding more efficiently. I could truly feel a positive difference.  

I learned that if I consciously took the time to relax my upper body just before I began a steep climb up a hill, the climb was much more manageable. The application of my bike lesson to the rest of my life is perhaps obvious.  We all face stresses and obstacles. Like you, I have plenty of things that can be stressful in my life.  Sometimes the pace of my work gets very stressful.  Sometimes I have to have a stressful conversation with someone I care about.  Sometimes I get stressed worrying about someone I love.  In all of these situations, remembering to take some deep breaths and, at the same time to loosen my need to control the outcome of a situation has a very positive effect on how things go.  

Whenever I know I am about to enter a stressful situation, I always take a moment to take a deep breath and center myself.  It always helps me to approach the situation with greater calm and greater clarity.  In a sense, that's what I was doing on my bike this past weekend. 

I invite you to try this for yourself, whether on your bike or the next time you are about to enter a stressful situation in your life. Relax, loosen your grip, and just keep on pedaling.
 

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The Re-Creative Power of Nature

The Re-Creative Power of Nature

   In his book Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv coined a phrase that has stayed with me since I first heard it. In his book, he states that children are spending more and more time indoors and are thus suffering from what he describes as "Nature Deficit Disorder." There is plenty of data to back up Louv's claim that children are spending more time indoors. The American Pediatric Association recently reported that an average eight-year-old child in the United States spends eight hours a day in front of a screen (computer, mobile device, or television). The number increases to eleven hours a day for teens. Nature-Deficit Disorder is not a medical diagnosis but is a way to call attention to the fact that children often miss out on the whole-health (body, mind, and spirit) benefits of spending time outdoors. Apparently, Nature Deficit Disorder is not only affecting children. It seems that most everyone, when given a chance, retreats to nature for renewal. As I view emails and Facebook posts from countless friends who are taking a vacation now, I see that almost every one of my friends is choosing to spend a large portion of their vacation time doing something outdoors, away from screens. They are cherry-picking, mountain climbing, camping, kayaking, biking, golfing, hiking, fishing, spending time at the beach, going to summer camp, gardening, attending picnics, and enjoying countless other outside activities. People seem to be naturally aware of the therapeutic health benefits that come from spending time outdoors. I understand this myself, and thus my wife and I have just finalized our plans for a Canadian wilderness canoe trip in a few weeks.

  A friend of mine who is a grade school teacher loves to spend time in her garden, and when she is not in her garden, she is often biking, hiking, or kayaking. She is concerned about children experiencing Nature-Deficit Disorder, and so when I visited her classroom a while back, I was not surprised to see that there were many nature-themed posters on the walls. Each of the posters contained a motivational quote to inspire the children to spend time outside. Not being able to hold class outside, she had found a way to bring the lessons of nature indoors. I remember one poster of a large oak tree in particular, and I will close this week's column with the wisdom from this poster. The photo of the mature oak tree was stunning, and it drew you closer so that you could read this message that was the central focus of the poster. Here's what it said:

Advice From a Tree

By Ilan Shamir

Stand Tall and Proud

Sink your roots deeply into the Earth

Reflect the light of a greater source

Think long term

Go out on a limb

Remember your place among all living beings

Embrace with joy the changing seasons

For each yields its own abundance

The Energy and Birth of Spring

The Growth and Contentment of Summer

The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall

The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter

Feel the wind and the sun

And delight in their presence

Look up at the moon that shines down upon you

And the mystery of the stars at night.

Seek nourishment from the good things in life

Simple pleasures

Earth, fresh air, light

Be content with your natural beauty

Drink plenty of water

Let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes

Be flexible

Remember your roots

Enjoy the view!

I need to go now-I need to get away from my screen and get outside to see what important lesson or advice nature has to offer me today.

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Ice Cream Lessons

Ice Cream Lessons

  Do you ever suffer from sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia? If you do, you have no one to blame but yourself. That may sound harsh, but I know first-hand about this because I, through my own doing, suffered from it again last week. That's right, just a few days ago, I made the mistake of eating my two-scoop mint chocolate chip ice cream cone way too fast. Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is the scientific name for what we usually refer to as a brain freeze or a dreaded ice cream headache.

   A brain freeze, I learned after doing a little research, is caused when the nerve fibers on the roof of one's mouth get overwhelmed with too much of a cold sensation. When this happens, the nerve fibers begin to constrict, and the brain interprets the signals it is getting as pain. A brain freeze will pass relatively quickly (although it doesn't feel quick when you are in the midst of it), and it is helpful to know that holding your tongue on the roof of your mouth will help relieve the symptoms. This is because your tongue will help warm up and thus expand the cold nerve fibers.

  The lesson in all of this is simple--too much of a good thing is often a bad thing. We know this in theory, of course, but it is easy to forget at the moment. For example, I tend to work too much, and my work/life balance gets off-kilter when I do. This can easily create its own kind of brain freeze, where stress causes my thinking to be less clear and my emotions to be more reactive. Others may routinely stay up late enjoying the quiet of the night, leaving them exhausted and crabby in the morning. Others may overspend in the excitement of the moment, only to feel the pain when the credit card bill arrives. Still, others may enter too quickly into a relationship only to find out later that the other person is not a good match for them.

  We live in a culture that seems to thrive on excess and intensity and where moderation can even be viewed as boring or dull. This way of thinking is captured in a saying I have heard folks proudly exclaim from time to time, "If anything is worth doing, it is worth overdoing." It is usually said in a joking manner, yet many people seem to take it seriously or even as good advice. However, interestingly enough, whenever I ask people to list some words associated with wellness, the word balance is almost always at the top of the list.

  The famous Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton wrote, "Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony." And the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus wrote, "Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance." My response to these two great thinkers is to pose a few important questions for all of us, myself included: Is there anything right now in our lives that we are doing either too intensely, quickly, or in excess? Is there some area of our lives that if we slowed down or did more moderately, we might enjoy it more, both now and in the long run?

  With this in mind, the next time you find yourself enjoying an ice cream treat, remember that balance and moderation are not only essential to enjoying ice cream, but are also the keys to helping us all, "taste the joys of life in abundance."

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Falling Upward, Again and Again

Falling Upward, Again and Again

 (I am taking time off from writing new columns this summer. This column seems especially timely, though, as we slowly begin to imagine our lives after COVID. All of us have fallen; now we have the opportunity to reflect on what it means to fall upward.)

One of the best books I have read in the last five years is Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr. Rohr is a priest in the Franciscan order who integrates wisdom from spirituality and depth psychology. He has traveled the world for the last forty-two years leading retreats and conferences on wholeness and wellness. Falling Upward, published in 2011, is a book about the two halves of our lives. The first half of life, according to Rohr, is characterized by external growth, expansion, and accomplishment. It is the time of life when people finish school, begin careers, begin relationships and families, and most things in one's life are on an upward trajectory. Rohr talks about the first half of life as being primarily about building and solidifying one's identity and ego.

In contrast, Rohr describes the second half of life as primarily about deepening one's identity and developing one's soul. In the second half of life, things begin to get more complicated. Loss becomes more prevalent. Relationships end through separation or death. Bad things happen to good people. Dreams fall short, and disappointments occur. We are aging and now facing the finite limits of our lives in the second half of life. Things begin to fall apart, but the point that Rohr makes is that we have a choice when we face an experience of things falling apart. We can choose to fall down, or we can choose to fall upward--hence the name for his book.

Rohr's book resonates entirely with my own experience in life, both personally and professionally. In my experience, all spiritual growth--all growth of the soul--occurs in response to working through some experience of challenge or loss, some experience of facing a problem that cannot be solved by simply working harder (the striving of the ego). Another way to capture this is to quote one of my favorite sayings: wisdom is simply healed pain. Those who face and heal their pain as they move into and through the second half of life become wise. They are the sages and elders of our lives whose wisdom and counsel we regularly seek. Their souls are well developed. They have depth and a palpable gravitas. Those who do not face and heal their pain in the second half of life become constricted, bitter, and cynical. Rohr captured this difference in a lecture I once heard him deliver when he said, "we have a growing population of elderly in our country, but not necessarily a growing population of elders."

The field of personal growth literature is vast. Much of it is geared toward the first half of life, toward what Rohr would call the growth of the ego. Most of these books are some version of "Ten Steps To A Better You." There is, of course, nothing wrong with this kind of literature as far as it goes. But if you are looking for a book that will nurture your soul's growth, you will benefit from reading Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. You can read the book for a couple of days, but you will spend the rest of your life integrating and applying the wisdom found in this book.

Regular readers of this column know that one of my favorite sayings is, "Change is inevitable. Growth is optional." Richard Rohr makes this more specific by saying, "Falling is inevitable. Falling upward is optional." Rohr says that when we fall upward, what we come to discover is that what is falling away as we get older is the false self and that what is finally emerging is the true self. He is clear, though, that this is a choice that we have to make. We make it one day at a time, in community with those we love and trust, and in community with a Higher Power that is always guiding us to discover our true selves.

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What We Appreciate

What We Appreciate, Appreciates

  I was out for a bike ride one evening this week, and I came upon the iconic summer scene of a Little League baseball game. I stopped for a moment and watched, reminiscing about the many years I spent playing baseball as a kid and coaching my kids as they did the same.

As I rode on, I found myself thinking back to one particular ritual that we used to do after each game, both when we won and when we lost. Our team would form a circle and chant, "Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Go…….Giants (or whatever the name of the other team was)." Then we would go over and shake hands with the other team, who had usually just finished doing the same cheer for us. We were paying attention to each other's efforts, whether it led to a victory or not. 

For me, one of the most important parts of youth sports, if not the most essential part, is the opportunity to teach character and values through being a good sport. Educating youth to appreciate others' efforts sincerely, no matter the outcome is a life lesson they can hold on to long after they complete their Little League baseball years.

All of this brings me to one of the core teachings that runs throughout our adult, parent, and teen wellness programs, the principle that "Whatever we pay attention to, is what will grow.' While I didn't mention this principle directly in my column last week where I talked about the gift of imperfection, it was certainly implied. In that column, I spoke of when it comes to our gardens as well as our lives, we can pay attention to the weeds that will always be there, or we can pay attention to that which is good and beautiful. Because, in fact, whatever we pay attention to, is what will grow.

I recently heard a different way of declaring this truth, and it ties in with the Little League baseball cheer I mentioned earlier. It goes like this: "What we appreciate, appreciates."  

If we appreciate and praise good behavior in a child, we will likely see more of that behavior.

If we appreciate someone's efforts to face a complex challenge, we will increase their self-confidence and commitment to keep working to overcome their challenge.

If we express our gratitude and appreciation for something that someone does for others, we encourage more acts of kindness.

When we call someone who is alone who could use a little appreciation, we make them feel cared about and make their day.

You can, I'm sure, think of additional examples from your own life of how "What we appreciate, appreciates," and I encourage you to do so. Even more, I encourage you to test out the truth of this principle by making a concerted effort, in the days and weeks to come, to go out of your way and appreciate people in your life.

So, here we go, team,……." Two, four, six, eight. Who can we appreciate? Go………."

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