Breathe, Pet Your Cat

I laughed this morning when I went to Christiane Northrup’s book Goddesses Never Age and read, “If I see a group of women sitting at a table having an “Organ recital, I move on.” Her use of “Organ recital” was that they were talking about their internal body parts, not a musical instrument.

 I had just read something I would have preferred not to read and turned to Northrup’s book to get me back on track.

 Don’t knock motivation. Do whatever it takes to lift your mood—play music, pet your cat—don’t live in the dumps. The sun is shining out there.

 I love this quote by Henry David Thoreau: “To affect the quality of the day is the highest art. “

 (For the better, he ought to add.) My intent here is to raise the quality of the day as best I can, but I need your help. Here is another quote from Thoreau: “Every oat tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground.” (That doesn’t sound like Thoreau does it?)

 In my first blog post, I mentioned that I was three pages into Christiane Northrup’s book Goddesses Never Age when I got excited about creating this blog. We need a place to talk about how it is to be 50 and beyond, or coming up on it, and the issues and concerns that swirl around us now. It's a great time to be alive, often of soul searching, making new decisions, reevaluating one's life, and coming up with a new plan. We have put aside some petty concerns and created a more peaceful attitude.

 Perhaps with that extra testosterone, we are getting, we are more able to put aside the BS. Maybe I'm missing my women's group, where we talked about anything, our feelings, our hurts, our emotions, and yes, our body parts. They all work together, and when you squelch one, whatever the issue, it will squirt out someplace else.

 We will also talk about organs here. But not in a gleeful way, like sharing how much we suffered in childbirth to get sympathy from those who have yet to experience it.

 “Let’s make it easy to be healthy and happy.”

 I hope the word holistic or “Mind, Body, Spirit doesn’t become cliché, for it is thrown around like peanut shells on a bar floor. 

 Here is what I set out to talk about today before I got carried away:

 The Breath.

 And the Lymph System.

 You know about the circulatory system. The blood has a pump, your heart. Yet your cells are bathed in lymph, which has no pump and relies on body movement and deep breathing to move it.

 Of course, breathing is automatic most of the time, but if you include some deep breathing and hold that breath, it will help move the lymph through your body, thus giving your cells more oxygen and washing away waste material and dead cells. As a result, you will have more energy and vitality.

Lymph contains many substances, including proteins, minerals, fats, damaged cells, cancer cells, and germs. It can wash them away. Lymph also transports infection-fighting white blood cells (lymphocytes).

 A study on chicken cells kept in a clean substance—like lymph—caused those cells to almost achieve mortality—well, 30 years instead of 11.

Plasma passes from your blood into the lymph system, where it bathes every cell, providing oxygen and nutrients and removing waste material, dead cells, and such. Close to the heart, it is absorbed back into the blood, where the waste is removed and dumped from your system. 

 Two things move the lymph: body movement and deep breathing. So, take a few deep breaths on purpose. 

 Here is a breathing exercise that will help move your lymph.

 Remember 1-4-2

One breath in. Hold for four counts, Exhale for two

Or, 4-16-8--same ratio.

 If you feel strong, go for 6, 24, or 12.

 Okay, here we go, #1 Inhale, count, “One hundred and one,” Hold. “One, two, three, four. Exhale, “One, two.”

 That was too easy. Go for a count of Four, “One, two, three, four. Hold, One, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Exhale, One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight.”

That feels good.   

Try this breathing exercise 10 times a day for 10 days and see if your energy isn’t more incredible.

 Hey, it’s easy, breezy, beautiful. You have to breathe anyway, right? I'd love to hear how this breathing exercise works for you. Share your experiences in the comments below.

 Or, what do you want to talk about?

Girls, It's Up to Us

 

There is a battle happening.

 

It’s a battle for our thoughts.

 

It’s a battle for our beliefs, emotions, and humanness.

 

“There is something in us so beautiful, so powerful that countries will go to battle to keep us distracted from our humanness. “—Gregg Braden.

 

We are over chemicalized and overburdened with media trying to keep us reading their material. They want eyeballs, your time, attention, site numbers, and money.

 

Chemicalized? Please think of this: doctors are prescribing Birth control pills for young girls to regulate their periods. Take them off long enough for them to reproduce, and then chances are artificial hormones come next. Possibly, they will have a hysterectomy, for they don’t need a uterus anymore. Then back on hormones. (Please read my comments on Premarin on the pages at https://Goddesses50andbeyond.blogspot.com.

 

Suggest a pill to a man to lower his testosterone to reduce his aggressiveness, and he will go ballistic.

 

Life isn’t all stable and regulated. We have ups and downs. Our emotions get tricky. I take Armor Thyroid rather than a synthetic. (I don’t think they killed a pig for it.) My Naturopath said the difference was that the synthetic was more stable. Natural is like a fruit cocktail. You dip a spoon in, and you might get a pineapple chunk and a grape or, another time, a peach slice and a cherry.

 

But isn’t that the way life is? Not predictable? We vary; we are organic, after all.

 

I say it is up to us, we 50 and beyond, because we’ve been around the block a few times, and we remember the strides we’ve made and how hard we fought for them. Don’t slip back. If you think we have no control, think of this: women 50 and beyond are becoming premier buyers because they often have discretionary money to spend. That’s one way to spell out our preferences. 

 

Think of it this way: Darwin missed an essential aspect of human evolution. (And, I was a biology major steeped in evolution.) What he missed was cooperation.

 

Why do you think Zebras look alike? Why do you believe herds stay in a bunch? Why do wolves hunt in a pack? And why did women create language? 

 

It works better if we bond with a group.

 

My daughter told me today that Pilates sprang from Yoga. I didn’t know that. Some people objected to the spiritual aspect of Yoga, so they took it out.

 

Maybe that’s what is missing from our culture—the morality that comes with a spiritual connection. Lying is accepted. There is a disrespect for our laws that we try, not perfectly, to make fair. It’s okay to criticize our fellows because they look different or act differently from us. Revenge is encouraged, and many men still use and mistreat women because they can.

 

Gregg Braden defined Divinity as “the ability to transcend.” That is the something in us that is so beautiful and powerful that countries will battle to keep it from us.

 

We are Body, Mind, and Spirit here.  Our bodies are brilliant. Our mind is bright, and Our Spirit is so big we don’t have words to contain it.

 

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”—Mark Twain.

 

Ageless Living

“Agelessness happens in that space where we choose to step into joy and possibility rather than remain stuck in a vicious cycle of anger, fear, and grief. —Christiane Northrup. 

I became excited about beginning this site about three pages into Christiane Northrup's book Goddesses Never Age. I learned that women hide incontinence and don't tell their doctors for an average of 8 years. Many women have some degree of pelvic prolapse and, not only women who have born children. In Asia, it is estimated that adult diapers will outsell baby diapers in 2024. These are the facts, man.

My excitement isn't about adult diapers but about how we can talk about such subjects and help each other. 

Since I believe in the Mind-Body-Spirit connection, that our physical issues are not separate from our minds, and that our minds are not separate from our Spiritual understandings, that’s what I want to talk about. 

In her book Mindfulness, Ellen Langer, Ph.D., a Harvard professor describes how she conducted a study with men in their 70s and 80s. She had one group live as though they were in the 1950s when they were in their prime. They watched TV shows, listened to music, and looked at their pictures from that time. (Think the Beatles and Elvis Presley; if it had been women instead of men, they would probably be wearing circle skirts. )

At the end of two weeks, the men from the 50's experiment had better, hearing, vision, lung function and other measurements, plus they had a greater sense of well-being. 

The control group, who had carried on as usual, showed no change.

You don't have to be over 50 to join this group. However, I'm naming it Goddesses, 50 and Beyond.

Remember, we might be grandmothers, but we're the ones who wore mini skirts, went to Woodstock, burned bras, and championed Woman's Rights. We're the ones who taught our kids to tell the truth, eat good food, brush their teeth, say Please and Thank you, and then with enthusiasm, we said, "Okay kids, get your swimming suits, we're going to the lake."

 

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom”—Viktor Frankl.