BlogHer18 Health, the first health-focused conference produced by BlogHer and SheKnows Media, was a terrific two days full of inspiring speakers, education and connection. To say that I’m glad I went is a profound understatement! It was terrific to be in a space with a shared language of health and wellness being spoken everywhere! I loved it! More…
healing
It all comes back to – or starts with – childhood
Five years ago, in January 2013, shortly before I was to turn 40, I experienced something of a seismic shift from which I’m still feeling aftershocks. In the space of just a few weeks, I had the opportunity to interview three amazing people and be present to the same message told from three different perspectives:…
On screens, suicide and surviving
It was a year ago that I got clear just how profoundly my brother’s suicide nearly 30 years earlier had affected my life. I’d started to think about its impact on my health when I read Donna Jackson Nakazawa’s The Last Best Cure in 2013 and, in July 2015, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Biology…
Lab report & retort
If you don’t think blood test results from the lab are super exciting, I get it. It’s not like I expected to be distracted the entire afternoon by their bolded “high” numbers. I would have preferred to actually look at my children, to attend to them instead of breaking the rules about no screen time…
Reflections on the healing journey: summer into fall
“You’ve come a long way,” said the Total Body Modification practitioner as I listed my areas of improvement along with my concerns. When I started seeing her in the spring, I was struggling, as noted in “Morning with a High-Maintenance Mama.” I’d come out of a bad winter cold and a digestive crisis but was…
A snapshot of health: tired adrenals
In the past few weeks, I’ve had to cancel some appointments for my own healing because my children were sick and I didn’t have childcare. I got so down, I canceled even more that I could have made; I got overwhelmed and started to question how I was ever going to feel better. It felt…
Making the scary or different okay
Welcome to the March 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Tough Conversations This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have spoken up about how they discuss complex topics with their children. Please read to the end to find…
Yoga as birthday gift
I turned 40 on Monday. On my birthday eve — last Sunday — I had the most beautiful yoga class with a small group of friends. I walked in anxious and grumpy and walked out grateful and open-hearted. This weekend, I am off on a retreat through Beloved Yoga at the lovely Kent Manor Inn….
Chameleon season, in weather and in health
Something bizarre this way comes. And goes. Last week was the most bizarre week in the atmosphere outside my windows — and also the one in my body and heart. It went from a chilly Sunday to a rainy Monday (after the school system made a super snafu and called for a snow day) to…
A day of focus
That crazy sound you hear is my head spinning so fast I think my eyeballs will melt from the inside out. In other words, today blew my mind. I left the house at 9 a.m. for a workshop with healer Dr. Claudia Welch on breath, Ayurveda, and hormones. I left that gig an hour early…
Upcoming conferences & events for healthy living
It’s hard to keep track of all the amazing events coming up in the next few weeks! Here is a snapshot. Let me know what I should add! Thursday, October 18 Holistic Moms Network Arlington/Alexandria chapter presents: “Breathing Techniques” Learn about different breathing techniques and how they can contribute to health and wellness from VitalSelf…
Blooming trees and buzzing Bs
Eighty degrees in March, and nothing is at rest. The flowers are up, stretching their arms after nary a winter’s nap. The magnolia has exploded into blossom way before its time, dropping its once-precious petals onto the ground where they turn slipper and slimy like a million mini banana peels. After she sat down on…
The pull of escape, the pull of retreat
This time of year is always good for smacking me around. Even on a sunny day like today, when the quince and camellia are blooming and you swear it can’t be January it’s so warm, winter is in my bones. And my mom’s too. Right around this time in 1995, while I was doing my…
Now is the time for now
The instant I read the words, I regretted picking up my BlackBerry that one last time before going to bed. A well-meaning relative of mine had read my recent post about my health and my leaky gut problem and told me: “This is not the time to volunteer for things.” She intended to point out…
Seeing the light, in the dark
It was a day when every hour looked like 5 p.m. Grey. Rain. Then rainier, and windy. So why am I feeling better than I’ve felt since, like, June? One guess is the yoga. I did about 20 minutes alone upstairs in my bedroom this morning, after 5 minutes using the chi machine. Post-juice, pre-breakfast….
Healing the c-section scar
I knew when I went in for my c-section in 2006 that the effects would be lasting, but I only recently realized to what extent. I tend to hold on to emotion through my body, and since the need for a surgical delivery was profoundly disappointing to me, I expected that it would take my…
Peggy O’Mara at Family Wellness Summit
I promised myself I would not stay up late since I have to get up before sunrise to make it back to Reston for the birth panel at the Freedom for Family Wellness summit. But I also will focus better if I can at least share some pearls of wisdom from Mothering magazine editor Peggy…
Freedom for Family Wellness Summit
Reporting here on this exciting event I’m attending tonight and this weekend! Wellness Summit to Address “Vitalism” and “Conscious Choice” Parents are up against a lot of choices these days. Whether the question is about vaccinations or breastfeeding, co-sleeping or where and how to give birth, today’s buzzword is “informed choice.” As International Chiropractic Pediatric…
Priorities, values, and goals… oh my!
“Priorities” pops up as one of my most used tags because this blog is essentially about my trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to accommodate them when they seem to contradict one another. Or when one supposed priority gets bumped off its seat for something I don’t claim to care about…
No, I don’t think I’ll become a Bradley instructor
I remember the first time I got a message from the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth after my son’s c-section in 2006. The subject heading — “The World Needs More Bradley® Instructors!” — didn’t exactly feel warm and fuzzy to my tender belly and the emotional guts beneath it. But it was the contents of…