Life Is Better At The Beach

I listen to the ocean waves as they continuously break on the shore and happily feel the sun's warm rays melt the tangle of stress webs in my brain and body and I know for sure that the beach is a magical place!!! 

The sign pictured below is not a cliche.  It's the absolute salty and sandy truth!

Temporarily Off The Grid -- Vacation

Go Go's Album Cover Featuring the hit song "Vacation"

Vacation

All I ever wanted

Vacation

Had to get away. . .

Vacation lyrics by: Kathy Valentine/Charlotte Caffey/Jane Wiedlin

Having been in the workforce for decades, I am familiar with watching people work themselves sick.  Literally.

I believe in hard work but I also believe in vacations. . . BIG TIME!  You can't work hard unless you take breaks and allow yourself some healing and recharging space.  Vacations aren't luxuries.  They are very necessary for helping you live longer.  Even if you don't go anywhere, you deserve unscheduled time away from the office and at least an at-home Staycation, enjoying relaxation in your home with lots of sleeping in, having lunch or dinner with friends and family, reading, gardening or exercising.

But you cannot play chicken in the office with your fellow colleagues and see who works the longest day and who can go the longest without a vacation.  Eventually the consequences of that behavior will catch up with you.

Here's one of many reasons why:  when researchers from the State University of New York at Oswego recently released a survey it conducted of 12,000 men ages 35-57, they found that those who didn't take at least one week long vacation per year boosted their risk of dying from heart disease by 30% during the course of the nine-year study (please see link to study below).

I am going on vacation today and as much as love my readers and Cry, Laugh, Heal, I need to take a break and enjoy some down time at the beach with my son and my friends.  My intention is to post a few times while at the beach but I'm not sure. . .and I hope you understand!

Here's the link to the MSNBC story about the study concerning work and stress:

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/27/12951646-your-stressful-job-is-indeed-aging-you-study-confirms?lite?ocid=twitter

The Stepping Stones

I like the hopeful tone of this short story a lot and I hope you do too.

It captures what life is about and I really believe that step by step, little by little, we can help each other through the ups and downs of life.  Then you can turn around and help another person:

The Stepping Stones

By Barbara Williams

Come, take my hand.  The road is long.  And we must travel by stepping stones.  No, you're not alone: I'll go with you.  I know the road well, I"ve been there.

Don't fear the darkness, I'll be with you.  We must take one step at a time, but remember, we have to stop for awhile.  It's a long way to the other side and there are many obstacles.  We have many stones to cross, and some are bigger than others.

Shock, denial and anger to start, then comes guilt, despair and loneliness.  It's a hard road to travel, but it must be done.  It's the only way to reach the other side.

Come, slip your hand in mine.  What?  Oh, yes.  It is strong.  I've held many hands like yours.

Mine was once small and weak, like yours because you see, once I had to hold someone else's hand in order to take the first step.

Oops you stumbled!  Go ahead and cry.  Don't be ashamed, I understand.  Let's wait here awhile and get your breath.  When you're stronger, we'll go on. . .One step at a time. . . There's no need to hurry.  Say, it's nice to hear you laugh.

Yes, I agree the memories you shared are good.  Look, we're halfway there now; I can see the other side.  It looks so warm and sunny.

Have you noticed?  We're nearing the last stone, and you're standing alone!  And look at your hand. . . You've let go of mine.  We've reached the other side, look back.  Someone is standing there.

He is alone and wants to cross the stepping stones.  I'd better go, he needs my help.  What?  Are you sure?  Why yes, go ahead, I'll wait.  You know the way, You've been there.  Yes, I agree, it's your turn my friend. . . to help someone else cross the stepping stones.

24 Hours

Sometimes rebuilding your life is just plain hard.  Today's choices are not the choices I want and, try as I might, I can't steer things to go in the direction I want.

This post is not about whining.  That would be unproductive.  Instead, this post is about how I still need to work on being patient.  Life is about grabbing opportunities but then it is about dealing with what it feels like when the opporunity doesn't work out the way you planned.  It's about the twists and turns of life and how I need to get better at accepting and working through stuff I don't want.  I try to stay positive and I try to break situations down so that I am not overwhelmed but honestly there are just times when life is terribly frustrating.

And that's all there is too it.

I need to prioritize and keep in mind what is really important: namely good health.  I cannot stress myself out about things that remind me of another time; a time when I was a wife, a time when I didn't have to take care of everything myself.

Backyard Garden By Kino

Today I did reach out to others for help and that made things a bit better but I wanted to talk longer and I couldn't since work was on my desk and needed to be finished. Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get home and put the day behind me.

Then just as I reached the front door of my house, ready to close the door on the day's events, I opened the storm door and surprise, surprise...two unexpected gifts awaited me: a great friend had left a bag of plump juicy tomatoes from her garden (so yummy for dinner!!) and a bag of books to read!!

Bahama Mama...Jump Back Jack...You just never know....

Reach For The Stars

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.

Always remember, you have within you

 the strength, the patience, and the passion to

reach for the stars to change the world

~ Harriet Tubman

Sally Ride

Sally Ride

"What's it like to be in space?"  "Is it scary?"  Is it cold?"  "Do you have trouble sleeping?"

These are the first sentences from a wonderful book that astronaut Sally Ride wrote in 1986 with her childhood friend, Dr. Susan Oakie, who once was a medical reporter for The Washington Post. 

Everyone always has tons of questions about what it feels like to be in space and Ride and Oakie's book, titled To Space & Back, was written to give children a sense of what it feels like to circle the Earth, experience being weightless and even how you go to the bathroom in space. 

Ride, 61, will always be remembered for being the first American woman to travel into outer space, and sadly she died yesterday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

"When I was growing up (in Los Angeles), I was always fascinated by the planets, stars and galaxies, but I never thought about becoming an astronaut," Ride writes.  "I studied math and science in high school, and then I spent my years in college learning physics -- the study of the laws of nature and the universe.  Just as I was finishing my education, NASA, the United States space agency, began looking for scientists who wanted to become astronauts.  Suddenly I knew that I wanted a chance to see the earth and stars from outer space.  I sent my application to NASA, and after a series of tests and interviews, I was chosen to be an astronaut."

Ride makes the process of becoming an woman astronaut seem so simple and straightforward but we know it wasn't; especially for a woman competing in the macho male world of jet pilots.  Ride was a capsule communicator on two space shuttle flights and also helped design the robot arm that was used in the Space Shuttle for scientific experiments and other projects that involved placing satellites into orbit or pulling satellites out of orbit.

How many little girls Ride may have inspired to follow her in the fields of space, science and math, we'll never know.  But she did something no other woman had done before and that's a remarkable distinction.  NASA's space program no longer exists today due to budgetary cuts and two unthinkable Space Shuttle explosions but when the space program operated at it's peak, it was incredibly exciting and people like Sally Ride made us think anything was possible.

"All adventures -- especially into new territory -- are scary, and there has always been an element of danger in space flight.  I wanted to be an astronaut because I thought it would be a challenging opportunity," Ride says in To Space & Back.

"It was; it was also an experience that I shall never forget."

Foxhole People

There are people in my life that I call  my "foxhole people."

These are the family and friends that I would want next to me were I fighting a "war" involving a personal crisis and I found that I needed support to get through my "combat situation."  I know that these people would instantly jump into the foxhole with me and they would stay with me through thick and thin until it was over.

It doesn't matter who these people are, what matters to me is that I know the people who would do this for me and that I would do the same for them.

I know that you also have at least one or two people like this in your life.  You may not call them "foxhole people" but they are people who have your back and you have theirs.

These people share certain traits.  Obviously, they're committed to you and me and they care about us.  But I think it would also be fair to say that these people are emotionally resilient.

According to Joan Borysenko, PhD, and a noted lecturer on health and spirituality, emotionally resilient people believe there is a higher purpose for even the most painful event.  That doesn't mean that they think it's good to have problems, it's more about the ability they have to see that something positive can come out of a negative event.

Think about this idea.  When something bad happens in your life, is it the end of the world for you? What is your usual response to emotional stress?  Do you immediately think the worst?  Emotionally resilient people do recognize that even though things may initially look and feel bad, some good can come from even the most traumatic events.  Resilience can be developed within yourself.  If you actively want to become more resilient, it is possible.

Borysenko is a former cancer cell biologist at Harvard Medical School and she is author of Minding The Body, Mending The Mind and A Woman's Book of Life.  She has spent decades studying emotional resilience and here is a short synopisis of her journey:

"When my dad killed himself in 1975, I felt not only grief but also terrible guilt.  As a cancer biologist, I felt I should have done a better job of helping him endure the difficult treatment process he was undergoing.

But I refused to give into despair.  I told myself that if I could help even one other family avert such a tragedy, my father's death would have meaning. 

I quit my job at the lab and retrained as a behavioral medicine specialist.  Then I founded a mind/body clinic at one of Harvard Medical School's teaching hospitals, beginning a new career helping patients and their families cope physically and spiritually with life-threatening illnesses."

Borysenko also recounts that a friend of hers also went through something similiar when her son died in a car accident.  To survive the incredible pain of losing her son, her friend forced herself to think about other families and what she could do or how she could give something positive in her son's memory.  She now volunteers as a support group facilitator, giving emotional support to other parents who have suffered the tragedy of losing a child.

It is the meaning that we give to awful events in our life that allows us to endure the deep pain and come out on the other side of it a stronger, more resilient person.  While we cannot control what happens to us, we can work on our response to those events.