Fear

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I’ve had a lifelong fear of flying. It’s never prevented me from going anywhere but I am not saying I haven’t grabbed (or rather dug my nails) into the passengers arm next to me (okay usually Lance, sometimes Roxanna) during some scary turbulence. I sat next to a pilot on one of my flights back from Puerto Rico (poor him, yay for me) and quizzed him on everything from wind sheer to lightening to what the heck happened on that Air France flight from Brazil (I am like Rain Man with plane accidents). Then I asked him about his diet (as he pulled out  a baggie full of candy) and I told him he ate like crap. I think it was an enlightening experience for both of us….if I do say so myself.

But what it really got me to thinking about (something I have pondered a lot this year) is fear. I have spent a lot of energy of being afraid of flying and yet I’ve flown 100′s of flights and I’m still here. It’s the things that I never feared that have happened. I certainly wasn’t fearing a brain tumor. And since Lance was diagnosed I have had fewer fears than I have had in my life. I realized what a waste of energy those fears have been. Lots of expended energy and not a whole lot of return. I have really tried over this past year and a half to have trust in our process but be grateful for each day, knowing that fear is a head thing and that if I lead from my heart that the fear diminishes. I am not saying I am some master at this. I’M NOT. I just practice this daily because well, frankly I have to.

In fact these past couple months fear came up in a big way again. And I just wanted to yell “Go away! You are not helping the situation!” But then it was still there. And at times it’s been overwhelming, even paralyzing. Lately though, I’ve felt this feeling of moving beyond it again and I wanted to share what has been helping. One has been my continued meditation practice (ah yes, any chance I get I will encourage you to meditate…the cure for almost everything).

I would wake up with that dreaded feeling and drag myself out of bed and sit my tush on my cushion and slowly it would melt away. And meditating always helps me be present and then I realize when I’m in the moment, I am not afraid. So why waste my energy on fear? The pilot brought up a good point that fearful flyers are always anticipating for the big moment when the plane looses control. Ahh, that would be me!! But that’s not being in the moment now is it? I loved that pilot so much, that I gave him a list of books, movies, and food suggestions to help him change his and his family’s diet. :)

So recently I feel calm, knowing that we (Lance and I) have today and that’s all any of us know. It gives me a reprieve and makes me grateful for this day.

Doing my best to fear less,
Nancy

Just a cute little picture of my family being in the moment...

 

Island of angels

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I’m back in Boulder. Lance stayed a little longer to be fawned over by all sorts of real live angels. Seriously I have never met a place with more concentrated heart centered, caring people in my life. Just good good people…angels with feet (pictures below)…

Coe, just one cool lady with a heart of gold

So I am just wondering how am I going to implement all this knowledge I learned? We learned a lot about food down there and a part of me is wanting to step up this nutrition thing a notch and another part of me just wants to take a big deep breath. I learned a lot about enzymes (among other things) which I am going to share in a post to come but I kind of need a big green house to grow all this stuff and not so sure Lance is up to building me one. I do know Lance is so sick of eating that energy soup that I’ve gotta wait a week before serving that ;) . And btw, although I know it didn’t exactly look appealing, there are ways to make it quiet tasty!

Pamela who makes colonics a spiritual experience

6AM yoga with Caroline. Caroline taught us many things. She moved to PR with her 3 kids and husband b/c she is so passionate about this way of eating, living and breathing.

So when I get overwhelmed I just come back to…a little of this, a little of that…a little at a time and before I know it, I got all sorts of new things going on…both in life and in the food department. So while I throw a lot of stuff at you, trying to encourage you to do these things that we do, I also want to reiterate to just pick one or two at a time and when you’ve got that mastered than pick up another one or two.

 

I am not just talking about food either. I am talking about making these changes that will ultimately change your life for the better.

Leslie from NY...my Puerto Rico BFF.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am when someone says to me that they are being more present in their marriage, or or they are meditating for 10 minutes a day, or even some people who said they have been inspired to downsize and simplify their lives. It’s like the ultimate reward for me to hear these stories.

So thank you for sharing with us the changes you have made. Please keep them coming! It’s working towards a healthy, happier, more peaceful life that is our ultimate goal for you. One change at a time.

Day of departure...my "after the cleanse" photo

 

 

 

Okay now off to plant some sunflower sprouts.

Love, love, love,
Nancy

 

 

 

Wonderful wheatgrass

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Wheatgrass. I know what you all are thinking! I did too. In fact, even though I have been growing it all year, I confess I was not drinking it. Well here in Puerto Rico I am living, eating, breathing wheatgrass and am actually starting to like it (I even rub the juice all over my face). There are incredible benefits to WG..which I will share in a sec.

But before I loose you because the thought of wheatgrass makes you sick, I want to tell you a little story. Lance got in a car accident a few days before coming here. It was kind of a freak accident, a major malfunction of the car, the air bags went off and our car got totaled (but that’s not the story I wanted to tell you). He had these open wounds on his hands from the airbags and they were not healing and here at our little educational institute, they tell you to put wheat grass on everything. So I put some on his open wounds, and in a few hours they were practically healed. I swear!! It was like voodoo. We were both in shock.

Cut too Lance and Nance drinking wheatgrass like there’s no tomorrow…

OK now that you are all running out and getting your wheatgrass…let me tell you a few tips:

I know my facial expression isn't exactly screaming "delicious" but really it's not that bad!

1) The best thing I learned about WG to make it easier to swallow is this: Do not shoot the WG straight back like a tequila shot. Keep it in your mouth and mix with your salvia for at least 30 seconds. Now I know this might sound unbearable to some of you but try it! This breaks down the enzymes (enzymes are my new best friend!) and makes the taste much milder and way easier to swallow. So much easier than shooting it back and burping WG all day.

2) Start with a 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce and you can work yourself up to 1 1/2 to 2 ounces…a little goes a long way.  We are doing a lot here but it really only takes a little to reap all the benefits.

3) Among the many benefits of WG, I am going to list a few that stand out:

  • The enzymes from WG (post is to come about how important enzymes are) and the amino acids can protect us from carcinogens like no other food or medicine!!
  • WG juice is 70% chlorophyll (see past post on cholophyll for all the amazing benefits) but here are a few more:
  • Chlorophyll (WG) rebuilds the bloodstream
  • Liquid chlorophyll gets into the tissues and helps them to become alkaline
  • Science has proven that chlorophyll stops the growth of unfriendly bacteria
  • Chlorophyll neutralizes toxins in the body, helps balance the liver, improves blood sugar problems, improves digestion, can reduce high blood pressure, removes heavy metals and can eliminate constipation and if that didn’t convince you, it also keeps hair from greying!!
  • It is oxygen-rich. The brain and all body tissues function at an optimal level in a highly oxygenated environment.

Every morning we wake up to these bags of WG with our names on it. This is how much we drink in a day here in PR (this is a lot more than 1-2oz!) If you had told me this is how much WG I was going to be doing, I might not have come.

So listen, If I can do it, you can do it! Remember this is your body, your health, your life! I am not saying do this every day but give it a try…do it for one week out of every month. What do you have to loose? I can promise you this is better than 95% of the things you are putting in your body.

Cheers,
Nancy

Love and sprouts in Puerto Rico

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Lance and I are eating a lot of sprouts in Puerto Rico at the moment. We are at the Ann Wigmore Institute: a grass roots, super intimate, wheat grass juicing, live foods type of place (based on the much fancier Hippocrates Institute near Palm Beach). I considered Puerto Rico fairly close until it ended up taking 3 planes and 14 hours to get here, ending in a beautiful flight across the island on a tiny 8 person plane. I had to make sure to get to know every one of the passengers before take off in case we were all going to die together. They thought I was being funny but I was actually serious. They turned out to be some groovy Puerto Ricans and we laughed the whole way to the west of the island. We landed safely :) and I was thrilled to be in this luscious, humid place.

What has really drawn me to this place, is not only does it remind both Lance and I of our travels pre-kids (in India and other parts of Asia) but the people are so incredibly genuine, nurturing, loving, supportive and so extremely passionate about what they are doing!! Between the live foods diet (meaning nothing is cooked and everything is either sprouted, soaked, blended, or fermented), and the juicing, it is super educational as we attend classes on everything from wheat grass, to sprouting, to digestion, food combining, fermenting, composting, sugars, starches, dry skin brushing to more than I ever wanted to know about the colon. Every single thing we eat is grown right here.

82 year old Leola. Lance's new girlfriend.

What I love about this place, is even though they are teaching this “live foods” diet, they are constantly reminding you of the importance of taking care of yourself: body, mind and spirit. That is right up my alley! In all these classes they are always genuinely mentioning that more important than even the food (which is what they are all about) is love: loving yourself, loving each other, love, love, love. These people are all heart. There is the sweetest and smiliest woman here who is 82 and has been apart of the institute since 1990 and says she is “having more fun than she has ever had in her life.”

Energy Soup. 80% sprouts..breakfast, lunch, dinner

We are doing a cleanse for the next 3 days (“energy soup”). I confess I have never done a cleanse. In fact I am thinking I am horrible at it and we haven’t even started. I don’t like to be hungry and so all day today I have been sneaking extra food every chance I get. It’s like I wanted to store up before the big hibernation. (I know it’s not that long of a cleanse but it is to me!).

I am going to post one or two more times this week with more pics and stories in case you want to check out the blog again this week. I won’t send out a mass email. Oh and please comment on the blog instead of replying to my email. Lance doesn’t like me to crowd his inbox with emails but loves reading your comments.

Oh and forget HBT, we are HBE here in P.R. (that would be eight not eleven).

Love, love, love,
Nancy

HBT

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I know at least one friend is going to smile when she sees this topic. Her dad coined the term “HBT” or Horizontal By Ten. I know you all know this but I think it’s something we all need to be reminded of…including me. As Lance watches me doing circles around the bedroom (so patient, my man), he often wonders, “will she ever get in bed?!”

I can’t tell you what exactly I am doing but I often find myself diddle dallying and suddenly it’s 10:45 and I am annoyed at myself. It’s a constant balance for me and when I do succeed at getting HBT I feel so much better the next day because it is actually a fact, that almost ALL humans get a second wind after 10:30 at night. I’ve heard people say, “I just get so much energy at night.” Actually you are not alone. If you are staying up past 10:30, that’s pretty normal and makes it a lot harder to wind down. Also, research shows the sleep you get before midnight is actually your most restful sleep of the night. A night owl’s sleep is much less rejuvenating.

Instead of listing all the benefits of sleep, I wanted to tell you a story that I found particularly fascinating. A friend of mine has been dealing with arthritis for years and years. She has kept her head high but all of us have seen the inflammation and knew the pain she was in. She tried it all from western to eastern but relief wasn’t coming easily. The other day, we were talking about the importance of getting in bed early. This friend is a self proclaimed night owl. She said for the first time in her life she was really working on getting to bed earlier. What really amazed me was she said for the first time in 3 1/2 years she was symptom free. So I hope that is enough to express the importance of sleep and being horizontal by ten.

Zzzzzzzz,
Nancy

My morning cocktail

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I haven’t started drinking vodka in the morning…yet…but I have added this new cocktail to our repertoire and its my favorite new thing.

I make this drink before my meditation and before our green juice. It’s amazing and I’ll let you discover for yourself what comes out the other end…

Lemon/Chlorophyll/Aloe Vera juice

First of all Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a powerful blood builder. Chlorophyll has the power to regenerate our bodies at the molecular and cellular level and is known to help cleanse the body, fight infection, help heal wounds, and promote the health of the circulatory, digestive, immune, and detoxification systems and it’s an anti-carcongenic. It’s also extremely alkalinizing.

We are WAY into Chlorophyll.

Now for Aloe Vera…It is a great boost for your overall immune system. It’s anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiviral. Aloe helps promote the production of new healthy cells. You will be more energized and lots of people have actually claimed that since they started drinking Aloe Vera juice, they hardly get sick. Some studies have actually confirmed that Aloe can destroy cancer tumors. The polysaccharides in the plant are found to have anti-tumor properties.

We LOVE Aloe Vera..

So we combine them all together like this…(double this is you are making this for 2 people)
6 OZ of water
1 organic lemon (cut off ends, scrub lemon and then cut into 6-8 pieces (with the rind)
1 OZ Chlorophyll
1 OZ Aloe Vera Juice

Throw lemon and water in a blender (or vitamix if you have one) and blend it until it’s liquified.
Strain through a strainer.
Pour remaining lemon juice back into blender and then add the Chlorophyll and Aloe Vera Juice and mix them all together.

DRINK UP! (give yourself about 30-45 minutes before eating anything else).

You will feel amazing and energized and doing lots of wonderful things for your body!

The Story of Our Lives

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A friend of mine, Ryan, gave me this amazing book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller. I encourage everyone to read it.

Million Miles is about what it’s like to edit down your life to the interesting parts. Donald wrote his memoir and in the process he had to cut out a lot of his life. If you write a memoir, hopefully you want people to read it. So it needs to be compelling. It needs to be a good STORY. That means all the boring stuff needs to come out. Editing your life. Yikes. What a strange experience deleting big parts of your life that people wouldn’t think is interesting.

What it led Don to realize was that we can write The Story of Our Life in the present and make our lives truly remarkable right now, not so people will want to read about it, but so we will live amazing lives.

There is a chapter early on in this book about Don listening to a friend (Jason), as his friend is telling him about the trouble he’s having with his teenage daughter. Jason and his wife found pot in her room. She was hanging out with the wrong crowd and the wrong guy. The whole thing was devastating to Jason and his wife.

So Don starts telling his friend about the concept of Story. Telling Jason about his experience editing his life story and realizing we can all create wonderful stories in our lives in the present moment. Then he said, “Your daughter is living a terrible story. She’s writing a story where there is risk and adventure with pot and crazy boyfriends” which made Jason realize he hadn’t mapped out a great story for his family so his daughter had chosen one for herself. The best story available to her.

Don’s friend kind of went a little crazy after that as most of us would define crazy. He did what I think is amazing. He took a $25,000 second mortgage out on their house (he definitely should have talked to his wife first!) and paid for an orphanage to be built in Mexico that they were also going to help build. It transformed the family. Jason had had the realization that not only was he not taking risks, but they weren’t helping anybody. His daughter was totally into it, wanted desperately to go to Mexico to take pictures of the orphanage and children to post on her website and inspire people back home to help. She dumped her boyfriend. Their lives changed dramatically for the better.

I am so inspired by how this dad changed the story of his family’s life and by how he saved his daughter. The chapter is called, “How Jason Saved His Family.”

This whole concept of story has made me think how Nan and I can change our story. Nan is thinking too. What can we do to give back? All of us can change the Story of Our Lives at any moment.  Why haven’t we built an orphanage? If we do something crazy soon at least you wont be surprised.

Love,
Lance

Native American Ceremony

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I think I am writing this for myself as much as I am for anyone who wants to hear about our ceremony last Saturday night. First, thank you for all your comments, emails, texts, pictures of candles lit, people telling us all over the country that they were holding some sort of prayer/meditation for us. We felt so supported.

Pulling off this ceremony was no small feat. The more I saw how involved it was to put this together, the more shocked I was that my sister made it happen in less than two weeks. Sometimes these ceremonies take 6 months to a year to pull off. People came from Maryland, New Jersey, New York, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado..most of them driving. And even my sister didn’t know many of these people. You must be wondering why? Why drive 30 hours for someone you have never met, know nothing about? That’s what Lance and I were asking ourselves. The answer is simple. That is what these people do. If someone is suffering or sick, they come and pray.  Maybe they have suffered in the past and they want to give back. We can relate to that. They have the purest hearts and the best intentions and that became clearer and clearer as the night went on.

I started realizing the day before when my sister arrived with some friends how much was going into this ceremony. They (meaning the people involved to make this ceremony happen…and trust me when i say it was a lot) pray on everything…how they prepare the food, how they put up the tee pee, how they tie the polls, how they cut the wood, the water, the fire, EVERYTHING is full of intention and prayer. At one point, Lance was helping prepare the food chatting about this and that while my sister and her Native friend were dead silent. I quickly filled Lance in on how you are supposed to be preparing the food in silence, with intention and prayer. He was silent from that moment forward.

Saturday night. We arrived at 7:45pm. All I could see besides people milling about in the dark was this enormous tee pee pitched outside with a glow of a fire being started inside (no matches were used). It looked a lot like the picture above only there was the whole front range of snow peaked mountains behind and the night was clear with Venus and Jupiter shining brightly in the sky. When we went into the tee pee, we had very specific places to sit, next to the person who conducts the ceremony and his wife.  I cannot express enough how meticulous everything is run with such a specific protocol. I was a little ambivalent about what I had gotten us into mostly because this was a 12 hour ceremony, sitting up all night long. I like my sleep! There were approximately forty people sitting all around the tee pee and at least half were Native Americans.

Lance was asked to speak of his story from day one, all the details that we have been through so that these people knew exactly what was going on and what to pray for. Then I was asked to speak which was really through a lot of tears but they understood.

The most crucial and well attended part of this whole ceremony was the fire. The fire is everything. Well the water is too because without heat and without water we cannot survive. Tending the fire is A LOT of work. One person is appointed to tend to the fire but others help. The fire is a prayer and an art form in itself.

Without going into all the details, there is drumming and singing all night long. The songs are Native American prayers. In between all the singing and drumming, there were very specific prayers made to Lance and I sometimes spoken in English and sometime Navajo. People would share stories which helped us understand why they would come all this way for someone they had never met.

I can’t really explain the whole process of the tee pee meeting (as a Native said to me…you can explain all you want but you really need to experience it) but there are a lot of rituals and prayers and cedar burning. There were children 13 and 14 years old that sat perfectly still, sang the most beautiful songs and just kind of blew my mind!

Around 5AM I heard a rooster crow and I have to admit, I was like, “Oh Thank God this is almost over.” (I was uncomfortable and getting restless). Little did I know this was hours before we were getting out!!! I had a moment of panic and whispered to my sister, “I can’t do the sweat lodge after this!” and she looked at me in her still position that she had been in ALL NIGHT LONG and said to me, “What are you worrying about that for? That’s not for another 4 hours. You should be in the moment.” Point taken but 4 more hours?!!

After the ceremony and after the 2 hour sweat lodge, there was a feast organized by my friend Roxanna. For a moment, I thought, “I can’t believe I invited people to come here.” I wasn’t exactly feeling social. However, it was incredible when they all came, how naturally they all fit in and how they all commented on the love and peaceful and inviting feeling that was just emanating from the place.

It was a magical and moving night…one that we will never forget. We were so touched by the intention of these people. We are so grateful for everyone who participated near and far. Our gratitude is deep, our hearts filled, once again we are humbled.

Hágoónee’ (that’s goodbye in Navajo),
Nancy

 

 

Needing your prayers

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Dear Friends,

In case you’ve notice it’s been quiet on this end, I am ready to share why. A couple weeks ago we had some less than positive news about Lance. The first thing I want to tell you is we are done with MRI’s (ok, I am anyway…Lance will get there). It’s amazing how it completely controls your emotions one way or another and the tailspin it can create. These last two weeks, we have been devastated and grappling with Lance’s MRI results. When in truth, it is one part of the picture. A wise friend said to me “Our whole experience is through the glasses we are wearing.” (btw, this friend is a doctor). Meaning, Lance is not feeling bad physically so we are focusing on that rather than what a picture says. The picture is just one part of the formula. Not the whole picture. This may not be how some people would view it but this is how we have chosen to view it.

I was initially hesitant to share this news because of needing to just keep to ourselves and the emotions we have been facing. However, we have pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps and have a renewed sense of hope.

What we are needing (as some of our close friends have asked) is all your prayers and visualizations, in whatever way or meaning that has for you. This is our greatest wish and request. Especially hold Lance in your hearts and prayers (light a candle if you feel so inclined) on Saturday evening while a Native American ceremony will be being held for him.

With love and gratitude,
Nancy

The power of touch

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I have been practicing yoga for about 15 years. When I first started, yoga teachers would adjust you, touch you, sometimes wrap their arms around you and it felt like you and your yoga teacher were one. Then around 8 or so years ago, it stopped. Completely! Well, you get a tap here and a tap there but really it changed pretty drastically. I realized quickly in this litigious society we live in that they were all afraid of getting sued. Thus I adjusted to the new way of doing yoga…no adjustments and finally after awhile, I accepted it.

I bring this up because recently while in yoga I got the royal treatment and realized how differently I felt when I left the class. My teacher did the full on shivasana treatment, pulled my legs, ran his hands down my back, pulled my shoulders up, smoothed my forehead out. Little does this yoga teacher know how much he made my day (or maybe he did). Then in another class the other day, I was feeling down and desperately hoping my yoga class would change my mood. Towards the end of class, a woman next to me that I had never met before (turned out to be a yoga instructor), just reached out and gently laid her hand on my leg giving me an adjustment in my supine twist. It literally snapped me out of my funk (thanks Valerie :) .) 

Which got me to thinking about the power of touch and how much it can transform the way you feel and if it transforms the way you feel, what else does it do? Well I researched it: touch triggers the release of brain endorphins: an endogenous analgesic more powerful than heroin or morphine. Wow!

I believe for the most part, we all liked to be touched and it can literally transform a moment of being kinda blah to feeling so good, even transforming your entire day. Touch is a powerful tool and I think people are deprived of it in our society. We are a “touch phobic” society due to the reports on sexual harassment, child molestation, etc. when the simplest hug can be completely innocent.

Our 9-year-old son Zach and his buddy Quinn

From our first moments of life, the sense of touch is the most important of our five senses. We can’t live without it. It is a basic human need. This isn’t surprising when we think about how infants need loving touch to be healthy and develop properly. Additionally, touch can heal. Many conditions can be alleviated by the healing touch of another human being: headaches, stress, anxiety, difficulty relaxing, tiredness, chronic pain, strained or injured muscles. Healing touches release the body’s natural capacity to heal. It’s holistic; starting with the skin, it “touches” the mind and spirit as well as the body.

 

So my message is, if you see me, touch me! Hee-hee. No really, hug someone, reach out and touch someone, a loved one, a friend, TODAY. Don’t be afraid to touch. You could literally change the way that person or yourself feels for the rest of the day and best of all, it’s free!

Hugs,
Nancy