Kris Carr's Golden Ticket

I recently wrote about some of the good things I learned about surviving a personal trauma in the ten years after my husband's death (No Lifeguard On Duty).  After that post was published, many people told me they found it helpful to know how things feel ten years after a loss.

 

No matter how crazy and afraid you feel after a loss, it's essential to keep trying to find the support you need until you discover a different way to live.  Even though change is the last thing you want to do, change is possible.  It feels as though nothing will ever go right for you ever again, but that my friends, is a feeling that eventually will pass if you give it some time.

There is always hope.

 

The idea of changing and rebuilding your life, working on personal development or sustaining a lifestyle change over a ten years period is so interesting to me.  How do other people do it?  What keeps them committed to their new way of life?  I was Googling to see if I could find out more about how others mark their personal benchmarks of change when up on the computer screen popped the name of one of my favorite inspirational people: Kris Carr.

 

Photos Courtesy of Kris Carr

 

Kris Carr is truly amazing to me.  I have written about her many times on Cry, Laugh, Heal and never tire of her enthusiastic, original and generous way of approaching life as a person diagnosed with a Stage 4 cancer. 

 

Kris Carr is a New York Times bestselling author and wellness activist who brings you to the idea of change in a best girlfriend, let's do this together kind of way.  Whenever I am in a rut or feel the need to kick myself in the butt to get motivated, I either pick up one of her books or read her blog, Crazy, Sexy Cancer (www.kriscarr.com).  Kris Carr recently went in to the doctor's for her ten year check up and talked about it on Oprah's amazing weekly program called Super Soul Sunday.

 

Please watch this short YouTube clip and listen to Kris Carr talk about her changed life ten years after being diagnosed with the Big C:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cE3OnOZR4&feature=player_embedded

A Daily Om

We all need a mental health break, don't we?  I just didn't expect to find one downtown in a city park.

While walking down the street yesterday during lunch hour in the downtown area of the nation's capitol, I spied a large white tent set up across the street in a park known as McPherson Square.  The tent reminded me of one of those large white tents that people use at outdoor wedding receptions.  I could only see the back of the tent so, ever the curious one, I walked over to check it out.

Somebody must be promoting something, I thought, but from the first glance of it, I couldn't tell exactly what.

Turns out it was Mental Health; as in come inside the tent and take a rest from your daily work routine or from whatever is happening to you.

When I got closer to the tent, I could see a rather small blue, yellow and white sign saying "Mental Health Break, Noon to 7 pm, May 6."  Yes, I thought, this looks interesting.  The front of the tent was wide open and inside were low white tables and cushions for seating.  Small groups of people were sitting and standing, talking and reading.  Other tables were set up with free goodies such as blue balls that people could hold and squeeze to relieve stress or anxiety, and there also were water bottles along with green tea for drinking.  There was even a photobooth for quick laughs if you wanted to take silly pictures.

 

Children Practicing Yoga
Photo Courtesy The Daily Om

Thanks to The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, which was sponsoring the mental health event, people could also take yoga classes outside of the tent for relaxation under a cluster of trees. A few people taking a class that had already started were either sitting on chairs or sitting on mats with their eyes closed and arms stretched out, palms towards the sun.

It looked so un-DC.

Yet it was a unique concept.  Everything went to improving the human experience and community.

 

Here, a couple of blocks from the White House and The Washington Post, two centers of business that I think most people would associate with stress and hypercompetition, was a place dedicated -- at least for one day -- to finding your inner self and "happy place."

 

I associate, and I'm sure you do too, a mental health break or a mental health day to calling in sick from work.  We've all done it at least once in our work lives or know someone who's done it. Either you've been working on a project or just putting in too many long days and you need a break.  You're not really sick but you know you're going to get sick if you don't take a much needed break.  Thus, the mental health day.

 

 

But this mental health tent was sending a different message from what I could see,  which is: we are all capable of self-care at any time of the day in any place and with some practice, we can learn to  turn down the extraneous volume surrounding us and instead find inner calm and peace.

 

As author and wellness coach Kris Carr has written, "When you understand your mind you can harness its power to achieve more than you imagined possible.  The space between the noise is where God/dess lives.  There are many answers there.  Don't shy away from visiting."

 

Reboot Yourself

Kris Carr

Kris Carr is a resource that just keeps on giving.

As an author and wellness coach, Carr has a sassy and down-to-earth style that speaks to me and I find she always helps me reboot my health and wellness priorities whenever I think I am not eating right, exercising enough or stressing my brains out.

As a cancer survivor, Carr draws from her personal experiences and she also draws from the advice of medical and health experts to provide helpful tips on self-care.  I just love her breezy way of explaining the evils of sugar, how to eat well on the run and how to work through those incredible cravings for stuff you know is unhealthy and just chock full of chemicals and fat but taste soooooo good.

In her latest newsletter, Carr takes on the idea of a personal tune-up.  What perfect timing!  I know I am always in need of one.  There is a lot going on in my personal life that others would prefer I not address in my blog and I respect that wish but it has meant that in the last couple of months there is little personal time left over.  I know I am not alone in feeling the crunch of personal and work responsibilities and I see you nodding in agreement. 

 "I don't know about you, but when I'm done with a major project I crave inner and outer tidy time," Carr writes.  "We all do our best when the pressure's on, but sadly self-care often gets the royal flush."  Carr's major project is her latest book, "Crazy Sexy Kitchen."  Here are Carr's fantastic tips:

Inner intentions:

1.  Mindful minutiae.  Rather than making a big production of my spiritual practice and stress management activities, find bite-size calm in the storm.

2. 10-minute workouts a few times per day are enough right now.

3.  Add pineapple to your green juice.  It's a total love-fest!

4.  Cranial sacral transforms my brain.  I've been getting lots of headaches lately and this amazing therapy soothes my noggin'.  It quite literally makes me purr like a cat.

5.  Shallow breathing depletes your health.  Notice your breath, your belly rising; make a conscious effort to take up more space as you (and I ) suck in life-giving, idea-nourishing; love-providing oxygen.

Outer intentions:

1. Clean your desk.  For the love of God, clean your desk.  (I'm speaking to myself...)

2.  Read the deliciously useless young adult book my girlfriend sent.  We share a love of the netherworld and all things supernatural.

3.  Cook (and eat) simply for a week.  Lots of juice, salad, steamed veggies, brown rice, soups, herbal tea, water, water, water.

4.  Spruce up the sheets and get a dark curtain for our bedroom.  We're still in the throws of our massive renovation, so hubby and I are basically sleeping in a tree fort (Not literally.  But let's just say I'm ready to bid farewell to the extremely steep ladder I climb to get to my bed.  And did I mention that our current bedroom is the perfect size if you're a hobbit?)

Nonetheless, sleep is essential.  Enter new organic sheets and total darkness.  When I don't get enough sleeop, my joy comes to a screeching halt.  P.S.  If you have trouble sleeping, magnesium really helps.

5.  And last but not least, I bought a really cool garden book to get a very tiny plot started.  Check it out: "The Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith.  This book is so thorough and totally perfect for a newbie like me.

Pretty In Pink -- Grieve Out Loud

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/after-losing-three-sisters-to-cancer-bethesda-firefighter-turns-to-advocacy/2011/05/26/AGDZfqHH_story.html


I read this timely story in The Washington Post yesterday about a local fireman, Marshall Moneymaker, who had lost his three older sisters to breast cancer in less than two years.  Moneymaker and his wife did all they could to help the three sisters beat this awful disease but it wasn't enough.  After burying three sisters, the enormity of what had happened left Moneymaker emotionally exhausted.

Where do you go when you have felt pain and loss deeper than you ever thought possible?

You can shut down and put out the "Vacant" sign or you can stay involved in life and fight back.  And that is exactly what Moneymaker did.

A month after he had buried the third sister, some volunteers for the Susan G. Komen 3-day Walk for the Cure were coincidentally setting up a pitt stop near his firehouse in Bethesda, MD.  One thing led to another and he and the other volunteers started talking about breast cancer and how it had dramatically touched their lives.  One of the volunteers Moneymaker met was Mollie Simpkins.  Simpkins said she felt a bond with Moneymaker and she liked his generous spirit.

"After you lose someone to cancer, you're not sure if you're grieving or honoring the dead properly," Simpkins said.  "Everybody has their own way.  There are those that grieve in silence, and then there's us."

Moneymaker's actions in the face of personal tragedy are incredibly heroic and show us that freedom comes from not being afraid to grieve out loud.

Check out the picture of Moneymaker above decked out in pink as a tribute to his sisters.  That's my idea of a real man!

Discovering Kris Carr

A relative who is also a close friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and she introduced me to the awesome books written by New York Times best-selling author Kris Carr.  I don't know how I missed her but I am now totally taken with her philosophy of assessing your personal priorities in order to successfully battle cancer and become a "wellness warrior."

Carr's blueprint for self-examination helps you to take stock of how much you actually exercise (not enough), what you actually eat (room for improvement) and what you should eat (more veggies) to how much stress (too much) and fun (not enough) exists in your life.  Kris Carr is all about empowerment plus she mixes it up with a fantastic sense of humor using terms such as "cancer posse" to describe those who have helped and supported her since her diagnosis, "CanSer babes" referring to herself and other women united in the battle against cancer and "Froot Loop mentality" noting the lack of nutrition in the standard American diet that is chock full of processed and sugar ridden foods.

I have never been diagnosed with cancer and I pray to God that I never am, but I am also fully aware of the risks of cancer in my family.  Relatives on both my mother and father's side of the family have fought various cancers and sadly, some have lost the fight.

But you don't have to be a cancer patient to appreciate and take advantage of Carr's information.  I immediately found her positive attitude and approach to life incredibly uplifting and was also struck by how adaptable her philosophy could be for people who are in various stages of grieving.  Reading the "Crazy Sexy Cancer" book series could recharge your inner you and perhaps give you a friendly kick in the butt to move yourself forward.  I know it did  for me.

Just to fill you in a bit about Carr, she was diagnosed with a rare and incurable stage 4 cancer in December 2003.  Doctors said chemotherapy, radiation and surgery could not help her.  "This whiskey tango foxtrot moment (that's military lingo for WTF?!) sparked a deep desire in me to stop holding back and start living like I mean it!," Carr said.  She then went on a deep healing pilgrimage and discovered a nutrient dense plant-based diet that put her in remission.

Carr has an amazing talent for crystalizing thoughts about life.  A sentence which immediately jumped off the page for me was: "Catastrophic moments in life force you to focus in on the immediate."  Wow!!  Is that ever true!!!  Everything shifts when you are handling a trauma and things that you once thought were important get deleted from your priority list.  You only have so much energy and you find that it has to be directed towards the catastrophic event in your life, not the things that drain you.

Being diagnosed with cancer is certainly a catastrophic and traumatic moment as is the death of a loved one.  When either of these things sadly occurs, you are feeling so many things at once it's hard to get a grip on what is happening to you.  That is why Carr's take-charge attitude is so helpful.  Ask for help, find help, keep looking for help and eventually your situation has got to improve if not physically, then mentally.

Another sentence in Carr's books that grabbed my attention was: "When you are living like you mean it, you are a force of nature."  It's very difficult in the beginning of grief to live your life like it means anything because you are in pain and have no enthusiasm.  At that point, all the cards have been thrown up in the air and you have no idea which way to go or what to do.  It's enough to throw on some clothes, try to eat and maybe go to the grocery store or call a friend....and sometimes the day turns into a lot of time spent sitting and staring at family pictures and wondering what happened.  That's okay too because it's all part of the healing process. 

Create your own pace and slowly, and I do mean slowly, you will begin to feel that it's possible to put one foot in front of the other and, as Kris Carr says, you will meet yourself and begin a new journey.