Our Dirty Secret

The contest winner is #5-Molly B! Please email us at info@crazysexylife.com so that we can send you a 50 load and 25 load bottle of Method’s new plant-based, 8X concentrated, vegan formula laundry detergent!

When I travel around the country and meet people, it’s funny how there are common complaints people share. When gas prices climbed past $2 for the first time, everybody wanted my inside tips on saving gas. As I’ve been trekking around the country to help my friends at Method promote a new laundry detergent, what I’m hearing more and more from people is this: why in this age, where everything can happen at the speed of light, are we devoting countless hours a week to the drudgery of laundry?

I couldn’t agree more. And I’ve tried to find a pleasant way to wash my sheets and clothes. I did the line-drying thing outdoors, thinking it would be like living on a farm with sunny fields and red barns; instead a bird pooped on my sheets. I tossed dried lavender in the dryer thinking it would infuse it with aromatherapy; it clogged the lint trap with what looked like rat droppings. What I really needed to figure out was a way to speed it up, so that I could use my newfound free time for myself.

TIP ONE: IF YOU NEED A NEW WASHER, NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY.

Brand new washers are designed to clean clothes faster, use less water and save money on energy use. The Department of Energy recently allocated $300 million to all fifty states as part of their “Cash for Appliances” rebate program. Each state has compiled different rules and regulations on when their program will start, what will qualify and how you can apply the rebate savings. The overall rule is that only Energy Star qualified appliances will be eligible, so for states that are offering rebates on washing machines, the same rebate will not apply to the matching dryer since no dryers currently qualify for the Energy Star mark. So, if your dryer is working fine, just buy the washing machine to take advantage of the rebate. All programs are starting at different times, from February to April, and will continue until all the funding is used up. Keep track of your state at energysavers.gov/rebates.

TIP TWO: STOP OVERDOSING

One dirty secret of the laundry business is that we’re all guilty of over-dosing. If you’ve ever filled a washing machine with clothes you felt could use an extra boost of cleaning power, you likely add more than the recommended amount of detergent. Believe it or not, this can actually make your clothes…dirtier.

Since washing machines are becoming more energy and water efficient, too much detergent can leave a film on your clothes. Since detergent is designed to attract dirt, wearing overdosed clothing can actually make them dirtier faster…causing you to wash your clothes more often. And residual detergent inside the machine can build up, causing it to work less efficiently and leave a mildew smell.

To “clean” your washing machine, pour two cups of white vinegar and run the machine as usual. This will remove all the residual soap and give you a clean palette.

TIP THREE: CHUCK THE DETERGENT JUG.

One of the drudgeries of laundry is hauling the heavy jug of detergent home from the grocery store. It was only in 2007 that Wal-Mart mandated detergent sold in their stores to be a minimum of 2X concentrated, which led to smaller bottles, a savings of 95 million pounds of plastic resin, and less watered-down formulas, saving 400 million gallons of water. Three years later, a new detergent bottle small enough to fit in your front pocket is debuting, which is 8X concentrated and features a patented precise pump that delivers the exact amount of detergent needed with no messy caps or drips on the side of the bottle. This is from my friends at Method (which is cradle-to-cradle certified) and features SmartClean technology, a 95% plant-based formula that inverts the cleaning molecules to clean clothes faster and better. But here’s the best part: For city-dwellers, busy moms, and anyone who dreads dragging a heavy bottle to the Laundromat or home from the store, this is a revolution in laundry. It’s itty bitty, and a little goes a very long way.

TIP FOUR: LET YOUR HAMPER SORT FOR YOU

Nothing can ruin a load of laundry like a red sock mixed with a load of whites. To speed up sorting through dirty clothes all over the floor or on the table at the Laundromat, invest in a 3-compartment hamper that sorts whites, colors and delicates for you. Each compartment is marked clearly with a sign so every member of your family knows what goes in each bin. For apartment dwellers, 3-compartment tote bags are also available for smaller washes.

TIP FIVE: SPEED UP THE DRYING PROCESS

While a clothesline may be the greenest option, it’s not the fastest or most practical one for most. To save time, try to dry one batch of clothes after another; the residual heat from the first batch will dry the next one faster. Add a DRY towel to a batch of wet clothes in the dryer; the towel will absorb moisture while the clothing dries and speed up the drying process. When drying towels and bedding, throw in two tennis balls saturated with fabric softener; the balls will help fluff towels and bedding to speed up drying and keep them softer and less wrinkly. It also saves money since you do not need to invest in fabric softener sheets.

To help a Crazy Sexy Life reader speed up their routine, I’m giving away a 50 load and 25 load bottle of the new Method Laundry detergent. All you have to do is a leave a comment and we’ll use a random number generator to pick the winner! Good luck!

CSL and SARK Talk Creativity

CSL: Your tagline says “Succulent Wild Woman”. What does that mean to you and how can women (and men?) find their own succulent wild person within?

Many years ago in San Francisco, I found these words etched into the cement on the sidewalk; Succulence is Powerful. I immediately resonated strongly with those words and shouted; “Yes! And I am a Succulent Wild Woman!” and went home and started a book with that title. A succulent is a plant that is self-nourishing, self-sustaining. It feeds itself water from the inside.

I believe and know that we can be like this too. Right after Succulent Wild Woman came out, I saw that so many men wanted to be involved. So I wrote The Bodacious Book of Succulence, which honored all the Succulent Wild Men that I knew, including my cat Jupiter! Being Succulent & Wild became a phenomenon all over the world, with people forming groups and connecting with each other. I continue to live, explore and create with magnificent succulence, as do countless others.

We all want rich, rare, eccentric, unusual lives, filled with adventure and juiciness. Succulent Wild people feel that every day. To find your own succulence, become aware that you are already succulent, just being human. Then consider reading one of my books or engage in one of my eprograms and “tune your dial” to the succulent channel. As you magnify and expand your experiences of succulence, you will notice yourself changing and growing from the inside out. You can then share that succulence with the world.

CSL: How do you feel creativity is related to mind and body wellness?

We are intrinsically creative and must express that in order to live an abundantly healthy life. Those creative expressions can take endless forms. Raising children is one of the most creative acts we can engage in. Changing your perspective to think of yourself as a creative person, and behaving that way, is tremendously valuable for nourishing your mind and body.

Every challenge there is, is solved by creative solutions. Every joy is expanded by our creativity. There is no end to our creativity!

CSL: Can you give our readers a few strategies they can use to awaken their creative spirit on a daily basis?

Commit to your creative spirit by experiencing creative things- tiny or large

Realize that you ARE creative already- you are born as a creative soul

Engage in practices that fill your soul- then share the overflow with the world

Avoid energies that drain you or drag you down- learn from them and then move on

Try new things all the time- be filled and fulfilled by what you experience

Invest in creativity- read, study, discuss creative things with creative thinking people

Vividness is a “creativity accelerator”- Find some

Energetically shift to a an active creative daily life-you are meant to live this way

CSL: For our readers who may not be familiar with your writing, what is your mission as an author and artist?

When I was ten years old, I declared that I wanted to be “a beacon of hope” for the world. I would now add this: To transparently share my life and gifts so that myself and others can be delighted, illuminated, refreshed and filled. May we all then share our creative abundance with the world.

CSL: Do you have any exciting new projects that you can share with us?

Yes! I am excited by so many upcoming projects. I am simultaneously creating 5 books, utilizing my micromovement method; 2 nonfiction, 2 children’s books and a memoir. One of the nonfiction books will be published in fall 2010 by New World Library. The working title is Glad for the Grief; Transforming Grief and Loss into Gift and Opportunity.

I’m also creating and developing more marvelous new eprograms, in addition to the 4 we’ve recently launched, which will be available at http://www.planetsark.com

Part I: DETOX, is it Real?

When I was a little boy, my mother always said, “Do not go swimming after a meal. Your muscles will cramp and you will drown.” For a long time I laughed it off thinking it was a scare tactic so she could take a nap after eating without having to watch me in the pool. As soon as she nodded off, I would jump in and swim even more. I was lucky…

Throughout medical school I was secretly waiting for the moment when I knew enough that I could disprove my mom. Nothing.

Many years later, reading Runner’s Magazine, I found an article about a frequent experience common to women in training for a marathon. They stop menstruating. While training intensely. A rusty bell went off in my thinking brain. Here is another case of the body shutting off a function when another function is demanding it’s attention and energy. When we wake up in the morning, we have a full battery of energy to spend. At the end of the day, we fall asleep, recharging the now almost empty tank. This full tank of energy has to be distributed among the many functions of the body.

There are functions that cannot be shut off, or we would die. The heart is the prime example. It has to keep beating. The brain is next. And in order of priority, one by one of our body functions is funded. When one function is used more intensely, other ones, less important at the moment of increased energy expense, will slow down, or shut down. This is the case of the marathon running ladies. The body wisely realizes that it will not get pregnant while training hard, so it momentarily shuts down the whole cycle of preparing the uterus for a baby and then discharging all the work every month. Once these women stop running, they resume their periods.

In the case of my mom’s theory, it wasn’t that obvious, but it was the first clue to my greatest discovery about the workings of our body systems.. If her ‘folk culture’ advice is true (to this day I have never heard of anyone drowning from muscle cramping because of swimming while digesting), it would mean that digestion is given such importance that our muscles would be shut down to protect it, with the obvious risks. My instinct tells me my mom was right all along. And I have a theory of how this came to be.

When it rains in a desert that seems dead, life sprouts as if by magic. A closer look reveals how evolution resulted in plants developing very sophisticated roots to capture every molecule of moisture.

For thousands of years, humans did not know where or when their next meal was going to be. Life basically consisted of surviving while looking for the next meal. And we developed a digestive system that absorbs everything it can, in case the next meal takes a long time to arrive. For thousands of years our genes evolved in such a way that when a meal was thrown in the processing tube (your intestine) and other than the heart, everything else was put to sleep. Just watch what happens next thanksgiving. We stuff ourselves to the point of stupor.

But suddenly, everything changed. The conditions that shaped our genes for thousands of years changed overnight, from an evolutionary perspective. In just a hundred years we have food available 24/7. The amount of time we used to spend hunting, we now spend eating.

But our genes still act as if every meal was the last meal. So our body absorbs everything it can, and it stops or slows down other functions while doing it. Digestion and absorption became so sophisticated by necessity in the past, that it requires the body to put a lot of energy into it. It will take evolution thousands of years to adapt into simplifying our digestion and absorption systems to relax a little and know that the next meal is only a few minutes away and therefore not need to take everything in.

I never go swimming after a meal any more. But I picked up a much more useful tip for life. One that would completely transform my way of thinking and my approach with patients and their sufferings.

This is what I am talking about: “When digestion is happening, the detoxification systems slow down”. They cannot completely stop because we would die in minutes. But their slowing down creates damage and disease in the long run. And this is one of the most important reasons why human health is in such a critical state. At a time when we are exposed to more toxins than ever before in the planet’s history, at a time when we need our detox systems to work extra hours, we are putting these systems practically into hibernation because we are too busy digesting. And we don’t even know it.

Part II of Detox, is it real? coming tomorrow…!

Why Is It So Damn Hard?

Hello you Gandhi-like group of giving forgivers!!

“Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” -Unknown

Can we talk about forgiving? Why is it so hard to do? Forgiveness is a misunderstood notion. When I discuss forgiveness with my clients, there is usually a load of resistance and a need to express to me how I must not REALLY understand what happened or I would be recommending they beat the crap out of the offender, NOT forgive them! Trust me, forgiveness is for “us” not necessarily for “them”.

The most common misconception about forgiveness is that two people are required for it to work. This is not true. We can forgive people who are no longer here or with whom we no longer have contact. Forgiving is all about you. Holding anger or releasing it occurs in your mind. How do you want to feel? What do you want taking up space in your brain/body? It’s your choice. Forgiveness is not condoning the actions of the other party. It is not rolling over and giving up. It is not giving in or losing anything. Forgiveness is the healthy thing to do to free YOU from resentment prison. It may not be easy but its worth the effort.
Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Forgiveness will change your life experience.

People hurt us in a zillion ways big and small. Whether you are dealing with being betrayed by your spouse or cut off in traffic, you must decide to ruminate or forgive. I see forgiving as letting go of something toxic or as one of my clients would instruct, “Bless and release”. A very important aspect of being able to forgive is having your feelings understood and witnessed by an empathic other. I teach my clients a burning ritual to release resentment. Think of an unresolved injury in your life and then write an unedited letter to the offending party (living or dead), pouring out how the experience made you feel and the ramifications it had in other areas of your life. You are creating a comprehensive narrative, where the facts and the feelings co-exist, to share with a safe and trusted confidant. The witness should not comment or react (no gasping please). Their job is to be an active and sympathetic listener only. Then go to a safe place and burn the letter releasing it back into the universal energy and out of your body. Affirm I AM FREE…and feel it.

Forgiveness research gives us some scientifically based information about why forgiving is good for you-mind, body and spirit. Elizabeth Scott M.S, from About.com writes about a study done by Behavioral Medicine that found forgiveness to be associated with lower heart rate and blood pressure as well as stress relief. A different study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that forgiveness not only restores positive thoughts, feelings and behaviors towards the offending party but the benefits of forgiveness spill over to positive behavior towards others outside of that relationship. It is also associated with more volunteerism, donating to charity and other altruistic behaviors. The converse is true for non-forgiveness. So it is clear that holding onto resentment has far-reaching negative ramifications for life quality.

So now that we have established the why, let’s get down to the how. After your letter writing/burning exercise consider the following condensed version of The 8 Steps of How to Let Go and Forgive courtesy of Leo Babauta from the amazing website www.zenhabits.com.

1. Commit to letting go. You aren’t going to do it in a second or maybe not even in a day. It can take time to get over something. So commit to changing, because you recognize that the pain is hurting you.

2. Think about the pros and cons. What problems does this pain cause you? Does it cause you unhappiness? Think of the benefits of forgiveness — how it will make you happier, free you from the past and the pain, improve things with your relationships and life in general.

3. Realize you have a choice. You cannot control the actions of others, and shouldn’t try. But you can control not only your actions, but also your thoughts. You can stop reliving the hurt, and can choose to move on. You have this power.

4. Empathize. Try this: put yourself in that person’s shoes. Try to understand why the person did what he did. Start from the assumption that the person isn’t a bad person, but just did something wrong.

5. Understand your responsibility. Try to figure out how you could have been partially responsible for what happened. What could you have done to prevent it, and how can you prevent it from happening next time? This isn’t to say you’re taking all the blame, or taking responsibility away from the other person, but to realize that we are not victims but participants in life.

6. Focus on the present. Now that you’ve reflected on the past, realize that the past is over. It isn’t happening anymore, except in your mind. And that causes problems — unhappiness and stress. Instead, bring your focus back to the present moment. What joy can you find in what is happening right now?

7. Allow peace to enter your life. As you focus on the present, try focusing on your breathing. Imagine each breath going out is the pain and the past, being released from your body and mind. And imagine each breath coming in is peace, entering you and filling you up. Release the pain and the past. Let peace enter your life. And go forward, thinking no longer of the past, but of peace and the present.

8. Feel compassion. Finally, forgive the person and realize that in forgiveness, you are allowing yourself to be happy and move on.
Being healthy is not always easy but always worth the effort.

I will close with an Oscar Wilde quote that made me laugh because it is so true.

“Always forgive your enemies-nothing annoys them as much.”

You know I am here to help.

Go make Gandhi proud!

Love Love Love
Your Crazy Sexy Life Coach
Terri

Feng Shui 101

Laura Benko, Feng Shui Consultant

In 2001 I came down with a bad upper respiratory cold and upon a routine doctor visit, my blood work indicated something more serious was going on. After quickly being diagnosed with a rather grave prognosis, my head was in a WTF spin when 24 hours later my primary care physician was suggesting an “inevitable” bone marrow transplant. Three other opinions and extensive tests all later confirmed a different type of bone marrow cancer with a more hopeful outcome and an indolent, slow moving trajectory: Polycythemia. My next step was leaving my job at a company that represented film directors to think about my health and focus on a plan.

Days later, while in a bookstore, a book about Feng Shui and health fell on my head. Yes, it literally fell on my head. A ray of sunlight beamed upon it too, but each time I have relayed this story I have left that part out because it really sounds so incredibly hokey – but it’s true. I always had an interest in this topic, so I bought the book, made some changes in my home and immediately felt a difference. When I heard that the author was giving a lecture in New York, I ran to attend and left feeling so impressed by the depth and interconnectedness of this ancient art of placement. I called up the author’s office and asked if I could work for her in exchange for going through her training program. As luck would have it, she happened to need someone that week. I ended up helping run her business, graduating from her training program, studying with other Feng Shui masters and then eventually leaving to start my own Feng Shui consulting business.

Early in my wellness journey I began to shed some of the suggested, traditional plans of attack and found solace in alternative therapies that just made sense to me. While zoning out in acupuncture, I realized that Feng Shui works in the same way. Energetic pathways run throughout our bodies in the same way they run throughout our homes. Whether blockages are emotional (feeling jammed up, stuck, can’t move on) or physical (high blood pressure, stroke, tumors, cysts, sluggish organs, artery plaque) clearing the clutter in your environment and letting go of things that no longer serve you can have an enormous impact in allowing the fresh pathways of chi (or energy, or life force) to flow.

Need to speed up or slow down the flow of energy in your body? Look into the colors that you’re surrounding yourself with. Red is a stimulating color and considered auspicious in Feng Shui but an abundance of it is not recommended for proliferating cancers or those prone to stress and anxiety disorders. Do you have challenges with certain organs? Tap into the energetic properties of particular elements. The water element connects to the kidneys, the wood element to the liver, the fire element to the heart, the earth element to the spleen and the metal element to the lungs. Each element can be represented in your home in literal and symbolic ways and when there is a great imbalance of one or all elements in your surroundings, chances are you will experience imbalance too – especially if there is a pre-existing condition or a propensity for a particular organ weakness.

One important thing to remember is that each individual has different needs and what might be considered a balance for one home might not be the necessary balance for another. That is why before I start a consultation, I need two things from the client: a hand drawn floor plan and 1-2 written pages about what is currently going on in their life. When I enter a home, I first sit down with the individual or couple or family and discuss those specific challenges in detail before I walk through the home and make recommendations.

Even though a great amount of Feng Shui information is based upon thousands of years of ancient Chinese information, it’s also blended with modern psychology, urban planning, interior design and science. My favorite layer in this ball of wax, under the psychology category is symbolism. Symbolism often clearly illustrates how the emotional underpinnings of our issues come to the surface in our surroundings. I see it in nearly every single consultation I do. Sometimes it’s a subconscious manifestation, like, the frazzled client who “couldn’t get a handle on things” and yet there were literally no handles on any of her cupboards or drawers. That constant, day-to-day grappling without knobs in her home eventually took its toll and exacerbated the struggle that pervaded every area of her life. Another example is the blended family that was trying to create unity among their children yet had “his children” on one side of the dinner table and “her children” on the other side, with divides in their sleeping areas as well.

Couples struggling with marital discord who have pushed one side of their bed up against the wall will create a feeling of one person being trapped and unheard. An imbalance of “his” furniture or collectibles vs. “hers” is sure to cause an imbalance in other dynamics as well. And to all the people who can’t sleep at night, for goodness sake, get the treadmills, piles of work and pictures of crashing waves out of your bedroom. Once these associations are brought to light, a new intention is set in place and these no-cost recommendations are made, you are shifting the energies in your environment and therefore, in yourself. It’s by looking deep beneath the surface that we really start to see the connections between our external and internal lives, which then allows the best in both to unfold.

Laura Benko is the Feng Shui Correspondent and Home Expert for the television show Live It Up! on WLNY every Friday morning. She lectures around the country and writes for various home and design magazines.
For more information: www.BenkoFengShui.com