Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis seven years ago, at the age of 28, it felt like my life was sent spinning downhill. My fear of how this disease would weigh on me, drag me down into inevitable disability, was echoed by the concerned family and friends who cautioned me to be careful, not to take risks, to take drugs, to abandon my dream of having children. How would I cope with one day being in a wheelchair and not being able to work? Who would take care of me?

At the time, I was a longtime heavy smoker, in a toxic relationship, and my feeble attempts at exercise consisted of the occasional yoga class or visit to the gym where I’d putter around on the machines, uninspired and ignorant of how my body actually worked.

The MS diagnosis was a lightning bolt, propelling me into instant action. Leaving the doctor’s office that day, I made a decision to change my life, to embrace a path of healing and empowerment. I quit smoking on the spot (and have never smoked since). I radically changed my diet to eat more organic foods, visited acupuncturists and massage therapists, chiropractors and colonists; I got a personal trainer and went to the gym regularly and started running. The next evolution of my newfound body awareness was to take my growing yoga practice to the next level, and I attended a year-long yoga training program and became a certified Kundalini yoga teacher. Sat Nam!

Yet something was missing. I still thought of myself as a victim, a sick person, at best just slowing down the disease train that was going to smack me into submission, someday.

Then, after a long meditation one day, I got an inspiration, asking myself: What does a strong, fit, powerful healthy person do? Who did I believe I could be, in my wildest dreams? At the top of my brainstorm list was “climb Mount Everest!” Well, I was sane enough to know that wasn’t a short-term option, so instead I decided on a modified plan – I would spend a month trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal, to get myself to the basecamp of the tallest mountain on Earth. That certainly didn’t seem like something a “sick person” would do!

Soon after, I found myself climbing steadily uphill, rising every day, step by step, toward “Chomolungma,” the sacred mountain the Nepalese call “Mother Goddess of the World.” At 15,500 feet above sea level, life takes on a different perspective. The oxygen levels were 40 percent lower, yet every breath was deep and pure, as I appreciated the pristine mountain air. After three weeks of hiking from dawn to dusk every day, I felt blessed by a new awareness and appreciation of my body, the rhythm of my own power to move my life, upwards, higher and higher, into what seemed like heaven on earth. One morning, I woke at sunrise and watched the daylight fan across the top of Mount Everest, and I knew I was connected to a light that would rise for me every day if I woke to greet it.

After that journey, I realized the healing power that I was seeking could be found in immersing myself in nature. I began to explore the wilderness in my own backyard, in Canada. I began to hike regularly and practice yoga outdoors, in the mountains, on the beach, in remote fields of wildflowers. I paddled canoes along backcountry lakes and swam nude in secluded rivers under the moonlight. I felt healthier and more vibrant than I ever had in my entire life! So much so, that I decided to dedicate my energy to helping other women discover their wild side and natural vitality, changing my job from an urban office worker to becoming the director of Wild Women Expeditions, an outdoor adventure travel company, and moving from the city to living on the edge of a National Park surrounded by forest, mountains and ocean.

The medicine I needed more than anything was to fall (rise!) in love with life again. To love my body and trust its infinite resilience. To love and cherish the land and the water, and let it hold me and wash over me, like a nurturing mother. Synchronicity would have it that the love of my life, who is now my husband, is a holistic life coach and personal fitness trainer at Holistic Fitness Guru, as well as a wilderness guide. We are now getting ready to welcome our first child into the world!

There have been so many lessons in the adventure of moving through the healing path, and in every way I am more alive because of the disease I chose to make a tool, not an obstacle. I have found that living more naturally is about deeply engaging in the world around you, connecting with the land and the lifecycles that bring us nourishment, daring to get our hands dirty and our feet wet.

Many scientific studies have been conducted to validate that physically and psychologically, getting outdoors and being active in nature is beneficial for our health. And intuitively, we know this to be true. Spend an afternoon walking in the woods, swim bare breasted under a waterfall, push yourself through waves in the ocean or sing your heart out around a campfire. Feel yourself wild and powerful and a precious part of the life that grows all around you.

I am continually inspired and reinforced by the words of the poet Mary Oliver, who wrote the compelling challenge to us all: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Jennifer Haddow is the director of Wild Women Expeditions, Canada’s Outdoor Adventure Company for Women. She is a certified yoga teacher and believes strongly in the rejuvenating powers of nature and that wilderness immersion is essential to good health, life balance and human happiness.

Take Your Om Outside

The world’s best yoga studio has no walls, an uneven surface and is void of stinky gym people. You don’t have to worry about fighting for good mat space and there is never a shortage of inspiration. Without question the best yoga studio offers a mind-body connection like no other. And most importantly, it is available to everyone on this planet. It is the great outdoors.

Yes, I know. Rain, wind and cold weather can all be distracting, to say the least. As a resident of Wisconsin I understand that it doesn’t quite work to practice outside every day. And yet dare I say that sometimes even less then desirable conditions motivate the practitioner to be even more focused and more present.

This morning I practiced outdoors on Madeline Island’s beachfront. The smell of the beachfront brushes and the sounds of the waves hitting the dock was my backdrop. There was no need to search for spiritual energy or tap into a deeper presence. It just unfolded before me.

Top five reasons to take your Om outside:

1. You can root into the earth. Not just metaphorically but really feel the surface beneath your feet. Even with a yoga mat between you and the ground cover, the concept of growing tall like a tree from the soles of your feet extending up through your spine makes so much more sense when you are barefoot outside.

2. It is OK to be less than perfect. Upon moving my hand down to the ground, my index finger rested upon an acorn resulting in a loss of balance and a step back. At home in the studio I would have cursed the distraction. There is a natural acceptance of living in harmony with the outside if you practice in it. This also aids us in letting go of our expectations. Nature is constantly changing things up on us. There is no guarantee that the surface that worked for Ardha Chandrasana (half-moon) on Friday will make itself available on Saturday. A light rain can change everything.

3. It’s memorable. I’ve done Natarajasana (dancer) in snow boots, balanced in crane on a tree trunk, done headstand on the shores of Lake Superior and meditated in the forest. I remember each of those unique moments. More than a hundred headstands in my life and I have no direct connection to the ones done against a studio wall. The one where I created a groove in the sand with the imprint of my skull is the one I remember. Why is that? Nature provides a mind-body connection like no other. For example, a drishti (gaze), which includes the twist of bark on a tree, reminds you to be present as well as focused vs. a small smudge on the mirror of a studio that honestly for me would create the desire to clean it.

4. No germ warfare. How many times have you shrunk on your mat as the practitioner to your left broke into a controllable coughing spasm during the cold and flu season? Perhaps she wanted to move toxins out of her body through yoga but it always left me feeling slightly resentful (not to mention grossed out) to follow behind her in handstand potentially placing our hands on the same surface. I feel not only more alive in my outside practice but much less vulnerable.

5. Hello stress relief. I can’t explain the magic but what yoga does for me in a studio is magnified 100 times outside. Perhaps it is the fact that breathing outdoor air just feels more natural, or maybe it’s the sounds of nature as my background music. Whatever. All I know is that after a few poses on the beach and I can feel the release of tension. It seems to be genetic trait too. I often take cues from my children who innocently follow their instinct without the manifestation of the fear we learn as adults. My daughters were playing on the beach and one flipped into a headstand. Moments later another settled herself at the water’s edge and folded into lotus (or crisscross applesauce). Simply being in that moment, surrounded by nature, following their heart.

Amy Annis, a crazy sexy cancer survivor, is a believer of the healing power of yoga. After teaching for over a decade she launched her yoga retreat business on beautiful Madeline Island, Wi for all levels of yoginis and adventurers.

Photo credit: Andrew Kalat

Are You Suffering From a Nature Deficiency?

This modern, hermetically sealed lifestyle is turning many into indoor zombies — with dulled senses, suppressed immune systems, depressed spirits, and sharply increased risk for illness and disease. One can hardly call that living — particularly when the healing power of nature is so close at hand and, literally outside your front door. If you are suffering from a nature deficiency, and there’s a good chance you are, the good news is that it’s an easy fix — with benefits that have the power to change the course and quality of your life. Here’s how to get started:

Here comes the sun.
Though many of us have been scared off the stuff, sunshine in moderation is essential to our health. It enables the body to create vitamin D, which is key to boosting immunity and warding off serious disease. How to slip in a bit of sun without booking a flight to the Bahamas? Eat lunch outdoors a few times a week. When the days grow shorter, get out there for a brisk walk, point your face to the sun, and get your dose of D!

What’s that smell?
Stale office air, off-gassing office carpets and chemical-spewing copy machines at work all chip away at our overall health. Why steep yourself in it? Get out at lunchtime, even if it’s just to pick up some food from down the street. While you’re walking, take a few deep breaths, and fill your lungs with fresh outdoor air instead of the re-circulated indoor stuff. It will help clear your lungs, boost alertness and reduce your exposure to office toxins. In the evening, take a walk around the neighborhood with one of your kids, to sneak in a bit of fresh air plus that all important quality time. When I was growing up my father used to take a 30-minute walk with either me or my brother several times a week, and I remember how we each relished the time we spent on our one-on-one walks with Dad.

Keep it simple.
Getting into the great outdoors doesn’t necessarily mean climbing Kilimanjaro — although I highly recommend walks and hikes in peaceful locales. Sometimes, the wilderness is where you find it. Even a 10-minute break on park bench in a quiet park or garden will help calm your mind and reconnect you with the natural world. If getting yourself and the kids outdoors is a challenge, make a celebration of it. One of my patients turned an annual summer meteor shower into a friends and family star-gazing event, complete with a picnic dinner for all and kids on the lawn in sleeping bags on the watch for shooting stars.

Listen to the world around you.
Just as honking horns, barking dogs and crying babies can escalate irritation and blood pressure levels, soothing sounds from the natural world can calm the mind and body, and help bring blood pressure back down into the healthier range. When possible, head to a peaceful park, take the headphones off, and listen to the sounds around you. If getting outside isn’t an option, sound machines that replicate the sound of things like streams, running water and soft rains can help bring the sounds of nature indoors — at least until you can get out for a dose of the real thing.

Surprise your eyes.
Make your brain work a little harder by exposing your eyes to the ever-changing light and colors of the natural world. More vivid than any computer screen, the colors found in nature actually force your brain to work a bit harder to process it all — helping to increase activity in the brain and develop those neural pathways. Think of it this way: Step outside and get smarter — now that’s a no-brainer!

Explore new ground.
Hug a tree. Lie in the grass. Dig your toes deep into the sand by the sea. Bottom line: Connect physically with the earth and natural world to energize your body. By making regular contact with the ground, you’ll restore and help maintain the body’s natural electrical balance, thereby promoting your optimal health. To read more about the “earthing” connection to wellness, take a look at the fascinating new research in “Earthing.”

No matter what big pharma would like us to believe, ultimately, true health just doesn’t come in pill form — it comes from the things we do to promote our well-being. Though most of us know that spending time at the beach, in the woods or far beyond the city limits is a rejuvenating experience, it’s important to remember that nature has the power to heal — as long as we give it a chance — so get out there!

For more information on how to optimize your life, visit drfranklipman.com/.

Photo credit: Marina Perevezentseva

Cabbage Sutra

I was once practicing meditation in Benares, India, in a monastery situated right in between a bus station and a train station. In this very urban, crowded place, there was one patch of garden that was a few square feet.

I was sitting outside there one day next to the few little tufts of grass and other growing things, when I noticed that within the garden there was a single cabbage growing. In that moment, I had an amazing experience. Sitting there, just looking at the cabbage, I realized oneness with it!

When I looked at the cabbage, what I saw was forces of nature coming together in a certain configuration, at a certain time, with tentative form and tentative color, coming together, arising, being born, growing old, decaying, dying. I recognized that what I called my “self” also was just forces of nature coming together in a certain way at a certain time, with tentative form, having been born, growing old, decaying and dying. I saw I was composed of elements, with no self entity beyond that or behind that. Just a constant flow of energy. I became totally at-one with this cabbage.

I remembered the Mahayana Sutra where all the Buddha does is hold up one flower. He doesn’t speak at all; he just holds up a flower. In that tiny garden at that time I understood how all of the laws of nature, all the inherent truth of life, could be revealed in one moment of seeing deeply into an event or an experience or an object or a person.

This whole experience reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, a young girl one day taking a trip through the Looking Glass. Suddenly, I was looking at everything from a completely different angle, recognizing that there is no inherent substance to anything in our lives; there is no solid entity like an unchanging ego that we need to do battle with.

In spiritual life, we are not facing an implacable enemy of self that we need to fight, that we need to overcome or eradicate. Spiritual life is understanding the true nature of things, most importantly our own true nature.

It is as though we were trying to dislodge a tree in a forest; the most powerful and direct way would be to uproot it. The root of the tree that is our daily grasping and fear is ignorance. We can approach the tree and start picking off leaf after leaf and twig after twig and branch after branch, only then beginning to peel away the bark, and start cutting off inch after inch of the trunk, to finally get to the root. Or, we can take the direct way.

In spiritual practice the only true confrontation we have is with our own ignorance. Ignorance is the root of this tree of uneasiness and dissatisfaction in life. All of our effort is directed toward understanding. We do not need to do battle with all the different leaves or twigs; we need to see clearly how things are.

I had a moment like that in the tiny garden in the monastery in Benares. I was a bit chagrined that it was a “lowly” cabbage that was my vehicle for seeing more clearly at that time. I couldn’t imagine, for example, a text called the Cabbage Sutra. But there the cabbage was – plain, homey, not ornamental or showy … and there I was, trying to understand my life.

For more information on how to optimize your life, visit SharonSalzberg.com

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Photo credit: smarzinske

Just Jump

You know the parable of the frog: If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the danger. But if you put a frog in a pot that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant, and gradually heat it until it starts boiling, the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late.

This is a pretty good illustration of how our culture, through slow but steady changes away from ancient communities that worked for humans for millions of years, now finds itself in acute distress—on the verge of snuffing out human life.

Undertaking the cleansing lifestyle is a little like reversing this process. As the accumulated waste with its accumulated toxins and bi-products leave the body, the proverbial boiling water gets turned down. What a relief to escape the jaws of death! However, the cooled water is a gateway to another stage: although the water temperature is no longer a threat, you look around and realize that you’re still in a pot!

The roots of our suffering are in this pot—in the civilization in which we find ourselves. The towering, cylindrical walls rise up around us and separate us from our home in the natural world. The pot isolates us from the interconnectedness of the greater living world, which our pre-technocratic ancestors simply took for granted. The best I can determine is that this isolation is the cause of all modern psychopathology. As long as we are cut off from our interdependent relationship with the living world, we are like a plant cut from its roots—roots that would otherwise generate and regenerate us. Cut off, we become madmen, consumed with ourselves, our fears and shortcomings, and our need to possess and protect ourselves against this world in which we’re stuck.

If you have escaped the boiling water by successfully cleansing your cells and tissues, you’re sensitized now to the myriad other injustices to the human organism that most people just accept as normal life. People, like frogs, don’t belong in pots. They are a part of the whole natural world. This is the reality beyond the immediate peril of the murderous water temperature. Frogs and people belong in nature doing what frogs and people do best—leaping across stones and streams, creating life-generating communities, and bathing in sunlight at the break of day.

At this stage, seekers may look for respite in spiritual or philosophical systems, while isolating themselves further, suffering in silence and antisocial behavior because the world doesn’t make sense to them. Or they may just ignore the internal unrest and tell themselves that this better place they have reached is the best one can expect from life—that it’s the end of the road, a dead end they should accept. Only when it dawns on them that they are in a place they don’t belong will they initiate the next cycle of growth and liberation.

The next step toward more gratifying life experience is to leap out of the pot, regardless of the water temperature. The more we respond to things that disturb us, instead of writing them off as normal, the more we discover that we can make liberating changes.

The wonderful thing about life and growth is that there is no endpoint. It’s nice to stop boiling, but even tepid water can’t make the pot our home. It’s a tomb. Frog or man, being buried alive in a pot is far worse than suffering a short, painful death.

The beauty is that with every cycle of growth another one awaits, as illustrated in the upward spiral of the double helix—the very promise of human life, past, present and future! Life-generating challenges satisfy and vitalize the mind, body, and soul.

If we think of heaven as an adventure of greater vistas, greater knowledge and creativity, and the opening of gateway after gateway, we can begin to create heaven on earth.

Time to jump the pot, turn it upside down, and play drums froggy-style!

Ribbit!