The Gift of Pain

Dec 24th, 2003

yeah right you might be saying. true, we don’t really like pain, but it is extremely useful. being able to feel pain is a huge gift and a benefit to our health. think of a medical condition people that doesn’t allow someone to feel pain as a warning sign (quadriplegia, leprosy, others?). if they hurt themselves, they don’t know it. and that can be a BIG problem.

thinking of a less dramatic circumstance, let’s take back pain. i frequently have some kind of back or neck pain. for the past year or so i’ve had more lower back pain. i could run to the doctor and get pain pills or take over-the-counter pain pills, but then i’d be masking the original problem. right? masking the source of pain is one of american’s favorite things. isn’t that what chemistry is for? if we don’t mask our pain with pain pills, tv, alcohol or other drugs, work work work, an obsession with computer games, what can we do?

we don’t have to become health experts in order to listen to our bodies. common sense also comes in handy. using common sense and tuning in to my body, i know that my lower back pain can be treated with good self-care. This self-care could include losing weight, doing abdominal and other core strengthening exercises, eating nutritious foods, drinking adequte water, getting massages, stretching, staying active, lifting properly, and not overdoing it.

on a metaphysical level, i can also read what louise hay says in her book, you can heal your body, and healing back pain by john sarno. both books talk about the emotional component of physical pain. whenever i’ve read the explanation about possible emotional reasons for my pain, the description has often matched up with my current state of mind. i find that interesting. makes sense…because of the mind-body connection.

i am concerned that our culture tends to be unwilling to take responsibility for taking care of our bodies. we turn that power over to medical authorities. but they don’t live in our bodies and can’t ever know as much as we do about our conditiona and what might be the causes or solutions.

you may have heard the story about two individuals who had the same condition. one had an operation for his condition and the other did not. the man who had the operation asked the other why he didn’t have an operation too but appeared to be well. the reply was "you went to a surgeon. i did not." when we take our illness and injury to the traditional medical community, we are probably going to get traditional medical help in the form of a prescription or an operation.

Traditional medicine works best in combination with complementary or nontraditional medicine (though many are ancient) that uses natural processes and remedies for healing.

if you have an interest in taking responsibility for your health, you will become good at self-care. with good self-care you know when to treat your conditon yourself and when to see a health care professional. it’s a great skill to have. more about self-care later. in the mean time, be grateful that you can feel pain because the pain will guide you to the root cause which will guide you to a solution. thank you, pain.

Bad Moods

Dec 23rd, 2003

not sure what i want to say about bad moods except that i’ve been in one for a week or two. if we could cure bad moods or at least limit them, the planet would be a much happier place. i’m here now to ponder the solutions.

by bad mood, i don’t mean mean. a bad mood for me might be tired, uninspired, worried, anxious, fearful, critical, grumpy, not happy, edgie edge, edgey (sp?), drained, not hopeful. that does sound bad doesn’t it. but i don’t feel all of those things at once (whew!) funny thing, most people would never guess that i’m in a bad mood. thankfully i keep them to myself unless i divulge it to a friend so that i can talk about it which often helps me figure it out and usually move out of it.

this mood has been more tenacious. got me wondering if it’s because mercury (the planet) is in retrograde. yes it sounds funny to me too, but i gotta wonder. am going to www.astrologycom.com to read all about it. i don’t know if i’d like it more or less if i found the cause was outside of myself. see how i am. i went to astrologycom.com to check out the retrograde….couldn’t find it, but i did find an iq test. always wondered what my iq is so i decided to take it.

i think i was doing ok, but it was some work. i hate story problems. they fooled me. i had scrolled to the bottom to see how long it was and they said "take a deep breath" and click here which made me think it was a short test and i’d have the patience and energy to take it. when i clicked that button, though, there were a ton more questions. it’s late and i don’t have the energy for a really long diversion (remember my original goal–to figure out the mercury thing)….but i didn’t want to lose the "work" i had already done. so i tried to fool the technology and copy and paste the questions into microsoft word to look at later and it jammed up my machine. this is what bad moods are made of. he he. now this makes me laugh. guess i’ll have to continue to ponder this bad mood thing. i just know, though, that something is shifting and i don’t feel nearly in as bad a mood. more later.

I Think I Was Right

Dec 16th, 2003

got a very sweet email from my buddy graham at blogger.com in response to my email about sending a digital picture. i think i was right about him being an introvert. he wants to remain anonymous. not me. anybody want to know who i am? want a picture. he he he. somebody with a website called cherylmillerville.com probably isn’t an introvert. right.

well if i have any more glitches with blogger, i’ll see what my buddy graham has to say. maybe he’ll warm up to this whole thing about being bold and brassy. he’s shaking his head “no” right now. ok i’m through bugging him now. let’s talk about me!

i was going to instruct my readers on how to rave tonight….but i just am too tired. gotta get some sleep first because it takes energy to talk about raving.

Rave On

Dec 15th, 2003

guess i’m not finished raving about graham at blogger.com. his email was up on my screen as i leaned over to close out of my computer…..so i read his perfectly crafted email (again). some things are worth savoring. after the first bite, your brain and other body circuitry takes time to process the experience. a moment later, you realize to an even greater extent, that the thing tastes great.

enjoying the after taste of his email I notice that the grammar is even correct. my my my. i love this guy. wonder how old he is. hehehe. so i thought i’d include his email message here so you could see the beauty of it….correct grammar, useful clear content and all:

I republished your blog and the archives are appearing correctly now. If you ever need to republish again (for instance, if you change your archive settings, or your template) you can find instructions in our Knowledge Base here: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=103&topic=17

isn’t he awesome. do you see the beauty of his expression–concise, clear, correct, useful. you may think i’m goofy to go on like this. but i’m not. you can tell a lot about a person by the way they communicate with you. my guess is that he’s respectful, smart, detail oriented, clear headed (not a dope user), probably an introvert. i’m guessing he doesn’t get a lot of compliments (or appreciation for his work). who does? i can’t tell if he drinks coffee or not he’s top drawer though…..and it’s all expressed in one little paragraph (oh and the fact that he replied promptly and that he actually fixed the problem). i’m in love.

tomorrow i’m blogging about how to rave. this is an example. changing the way we communicate, one rave at a time. an aside. for a change i did a blogger spell check on this post just to see how it worked (yes curious). spell checker didn’t recognize the word "blogging." on a blog server i find that quite funny.

Things Just Worked Out

Dec 15th, 2003

graham at blogger.com fixed a problem we were having with my blog archives since we’re now ftping it to cherylmillerville.com. he just did it and it works. i love it that there was no struggle there. he actually read my email, figured out what i needed, and…… did it. i know that sounds like a no-brainer….but have you noticed in this virtual world we live in now that people don’t take the time to help you…..or they’re so behind the scenes that you just can’t get to them at all. being a people-person……i don’t like that. i’m also kinda demanding when i want something to work (yes i’m working on that), so when graham fixed my problem and emailed me about it right away, i was SO pleased and told him so.

i think he’ll go far with the qualities he exhibited helping me….a total stranger. i’m not even a paying customer. i get it all for free and he still helps me with finesse and then tells me where to find the solution on their web if i ever need it again. so he’s gone the extra mile, and i noticed that. would like to pinch his cheeks. i’ll bet he’s cute. people who are cool and helpful and with-it are always cute in my eyes…even if they have a big nose, crooked glasses, or don’t smile.

thank you graham for being a way-cool techie who cares. my hope has been restored.

Its, It's, Its'

Dec 14th, 2003

you know how you just notice things? i happen to notice when people use its it’s its’ according to their own "rules."

having taught business writing for 7 years at western michigan university at kalamazoo (mi) and washburn university in topeka (ks)….i can’t help but notice grammatical and mechanical variances i hesitate to call them errors…because grammar is just a convention. there really is no right or wrong…unless you’re grading papers….which heaven knows i did. thousands of them. so if you care about using "its" "correctly," read on. (notice the quotes outside the comma, he he he he he). quotes go outside the period too like this."

it’s is a contraction meaning "it is." it ALWAYS means "it is" and never means anything else. its’ looks like a possessive, but there is no possessive of "its." so it’s just "its." weird huh.

"its" is the possessive form (e.g., the dog chased its tail). if you wrote that the dog chased it’s tail, it would be read: the dog chased it is tail. see why it catches my eye? i think the usage of "its" is probably one of the most common errors in mechanics. to be safe, if you don’t understand apostrophes…..avoid them. just spell things out like "it is."

and if you’re not sure about the possessive form, rewrite the sentence so you don’t have to use it. that’s what i do when i can’t remember a rule. my particular favorite to "not get" is "who" and "whom." "whom" is just not a word that i like. so unless the sentence calls for the name of the book, for whom the bell tolls, i use "who" or rewrite the sentence so i don’t need a "who." he he.

you might wonder why I used quotes around "its" and "who" and "whom." the quotes indicate that i’m using a word as a word. i’ll bet that’s a lot more clear I also used quotes around "correctly" and "not get" as an aside to indicate that I’m poking a little fun. funny when ya start talking about grammar and mechanics, it gets even more muddy. for example, i could contest the use of "it" in the previous sentence because "it" has no antecedent (word that it refers to). oh isn’t this crazy making fun. sorry.

soon, i’ll write about "you’re" and "your." that’s a good one too. your welcome

just remembered something. i have a bachelor and master of arts in english…..but that’s not how i learned grammar. i learned from teaching it. i was "blessed" to teach a standardized curriculum that required that i write the number of the rule that was being broken by each error. i had to learn hundreds of numbers….hundreds of rules. it was awful. but now i know. doesn’t mean i won’t make errors. there’s an awful lot of rules…and some of them i just don’t care about. like ending a sentence with a preposition. or fragments.

Yummy Leftovers

Dec 13th, 2003

i usually love leftovers….quick tasty meals. my thinking is that if you like or love it the first time, there’s a good chance you will like or love it as a leftover. but if you didn’t like it very much the first time….consider giving it to the dog (or the birds) because chances are you will never want to eat it as a leftover and it will grow mold in your refrigerator (giving leftovers a bad name). Might as well not pack it into small containers….because you’re never going to eat it.

not sure why is this concept so hard to get. how many times have you put leftovers in the fridge and then turned up your nose at dinner time at the thought of eating them? yeah, me too. if we were were pioneers (or lived in a third world country), we’d eat them whether we were in the mood or not because of scarce resources. but we’re spoiled now and resources appear to be abundant (and they deliver)….so we we can "afford" to turn our noses up at leftovers. been there, done that. you too? but tonight i had great leftovers.

I Love to Walk

Dec 13th, 2003

had another snow storm–about 5 inches deep. it was heavy wet snow. . . the kind that that sticks to the shovel. got a good workout shoveling. then ate some wonderful shitake, barley, lentil, veggie soup, talked to my sister, then took a 3 mile walk along the levee with jasmine. we were the only ones out. should be seeing the eagles soon because the river is freezing. if we had walked closer to sunset i would surely have seen a few.

on my walks i love to ponder life, my plans, conversations, and worries….well i don’t love to ponder worries, but sometimes i do. my mother (83) fell the other day on her new carpet because her shoes stuck like velcro and she went down. she hit her head on something (too confusing to hear it on the phone), they went through a roll of paper towels to sop up the blood (thank goodness my dad was there). turns out it was a 10 inch gash. my mother says the stitches look like a railroad track around her head. makes me kinda sick just to think about it. when i first heard the news i took it ok. but as the evening progressed and i went to bed, my fears grew and grew and grew. finally at about 1:00am i had to get up. you know how it feels when you’re darned sure you’re never going to sleep again so you must get up….no matter the time. i meditated to try to calm down. a close friend of mine had died the same week (unexpectedly) so my mind started confusing him lying in state with my mom lying in state. i kept wondering if i was having premonitions or if i was confusing my friend’s death with my mother’s condition. all in all, it sucked really bad. lots of stumbling here.

the day after her fall they were supposed to leave to drive 16 hours to our family christmas gathering in chelsea, michigan (near ann arbor). i was so relieved that they decided not to do that. my parents can be stubborn. so we delayed the event until this coming weekend. what a relief, huh. anybody with aging parents knows what i’m talking about here. when you almost lose a parent suddenly like that, it puts a big fear into you. the reason i say that is that my aunt carol (my dad’s sister) fell 3 years ago, hit her head, and has been unable to move or speak above a whisper since then. the same thing could have happened to my mother. makes me realize how lucky our family has been all these years.

i stop to be grateful. since she is ok and my dad is ok (he really rallied), i’ve elevated them to king and queen status. for the rest of their lives, their wishes are my command. kinda got a wake up call about how grateful i am for their presence. i always knew i loved them deeply, but now i know i won’t even get irritated by them again. who’s got time for that! so now there’s just room for love and tenderness and compassion. hum. might be a good idea if i use that approach with everyone, huh. interesting challenge…i mean, thought.

when i talked with mom this morning i told her to THROW THOSE VELCRO-CARPET-STICKING-KILLER SHOES AWAY RIGHT NOW AND TEST ALL HER OTHER SHOES. i don’t know if they heard me, but i told my dad to test all of her shoes by rubbing them into the carpet and tossing any that even slightly stick.

wow did i get sidetracked from my original direction. my point was going to be about exercise. i love to exercise….and was glad to get plenty today. on my walk i pondered a new program i’m going to offer in the new year. it will be called winterfit …..support when you need it most. while i walked i got clear on what i wanted to do with that program. walking is great. now i get to figure out what i’m going to eat for dinner. life just keeps renewing opportunities doesn’t it .