Right to the Heart of What Matters

Welcome to February. It may be our shortest month of the year, but it offers Americans more official holidays, and culturally special days, than any other of our months.

Just two days into short February, we focus our attention on this furry little fellow, the animal world’s weatherman, Punxsutawney Phil.


And, due to the bright glow cast by dozens of news camera lights simultaneously focused upon him, Phil always sees his shadow, offering us six more weeks of Winter.

There are also two president’s birthdays, now merged into one holiday known as President’s Day. But some of us remember when we celebrated each separately. Abe Lincoln’s on the 12th and George Washington’s on the 22nd? It was a school kid’s delight having two four-day weeks in one short month.

And of course, on the 14th, we have the romance day of the year ~ Valentine’s Day ~ when we give (and hopefully receive) cards, candy and flowers, professing heartfelt feelings and desires for loved ones.

Now before you start thinking too much about whether or not February really does have more holidays and special days than any other month, I would like you to stay focused on those heart-shaped candies in the picture above. No, not because they are sugary little treats that take us back to our childhoods. But rather, because they are indeed hearts. And it is our Hearts that I would like to talk about today.

In my work as a Holistic Life Coach, I invite people to “Create a Brighter Future, Honoring the Heart of Who You Are”. At our women’s retreats, I encourage our participants to quietly connect with their Center ~ their Heart ~ to “hear” what they Truly Need, to learn the truth of what is really important to them.

But today, I am asking you to not only Honor the Heart of Who you Are, but also to Honor, to Connect with, and to really Pay Attention to How you Care for your actual Heart. You know, that miraculous, beating organ within each of us that makes it possible for us to physically exist here on Mother Earth.

This week, Sunday, February 1 through Saturday, February 7, is Women’s Heart Week. Sponsored by the Women’s Heart Foundation, since 1995, the first week of February has been dedicated to raising public awareness and educating women about Heart Disease, the number one killer of American women.

Surprised? I was too.

Like many women, I thought Heart Disease was primarily a man’s disease, and that our biggest health threat came from cancer. But, as I learned on the website of The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, “Since 1984, more women than men have died of heart disease each year.”

On the Mayo Clinic’s Women’s Health page, I found out that Heart Disease is responsible for more women’s death than all forms of cancer combined. I was shocked. For years, women's health focus has been on breast cancer and uterine cancer. How is it that I did not know that heart disease is just as much of a concern. In fact, even more.

According to the Women’s Heart Foundation website (womensheart.org),

“Heart disease is America’s leading killer of women over the age of 34. Most women are not aware of this fact and fail to recognize their own risk factors for heart disease. Women's symptoms, especially those that are milder, often go ignored. Women often miss out on critical opportunities to save their own lives.... Women are busier than ever as they juggle career, family and care-giving responsibilities. For many, each day resembles a jig-saw puzzle in which a women is required to piece together her time and obligations. Now, more than ever, women need to take time out for themselves and be given a reminder: Take Care of Your Heart.”

Take care of your heart; take care of yourself! This simple statement is so difficult for our feminine spirit to really take to heart. I can remember my mother, who never held a job outside our home, but out-worked my father every day. Her workday began at 5:30 ~ before anyone else was awake; and it ended well past my bedtime of 9:30. I would hear her downstairs getting things ready for the morning while my father sat watching TV and/or reading the newspaper.

Now add to those household responsibilities the full-time job that most women hold today, plus helping our kids with homework and getting them to extra-curricular activities. Or maybe, you're part of the "sandwich generation" ~ age 40 to 60 ~ trying to take care of your own household while helping out your elderly parents, by running errrands and helping with maintaining their home. Add on the other end of that generational chain a couple of your own grandchildren to help out with, and where do you have any free time ~ any down time ~ to call your own. By the way, there's actually a Sandwich Generation month ... July 1-31 ... with an official website authored by the Sandwich Generation Resource Group. It offers resources for family members and caregivers of older adults and those living with disabilities. Find the link under my "Women's Heart Health Links".

Are you wondering at this point if my purpose here is to make you feel even more overwhelmed than you already feel? As I just re-read that last paragraph, I felt overwhelmed. And overwhelm can often lead us to feeling depressed, which makes us just want to lie down. Or feeling depressed can also often lead us to the kitchen, searching for some of those yummy comfort foods, which are often high in cholesterol. My favorite used to be a bag of the latest exciting flavor of Doritos.

But actually, it's all of the above ~ the overdoing, feeling overwhelmed, overeating and under-exercising, that are just some of the major reasons that Women now claim Coronary Heart Disease, which causes heart attack, as the leading cause of death for American Women. (See the American Heart Association link for more heart disease risk factors.)

So what can we do to change this statistic? First and foremost, we can't let the fear factor allow us to turn away from these realities, to ignore the facts and think it won't happen to me.

As we did with combating breast cancer and STDs, we must start to educate ourselves, our partners, our friends and family. We need to dispel the myths about heart disease being a man's disease. We need to understand how the symptoms for a heart attack for women are different than for men. We just need to know more and spread the word. And that's what this week ~ the first week of February ~ is all about.

Now, I know I have thrown a lot of information at you today. But I also know that the feminine spirit has the capacity to meet any challenge, once we understand what that challenge is. Now that you have more information and more resources to gain a better understanding of our challenge, I have one more thing I would like you to do. This one is pretty easy.

I would like you to "Go Red".

"Go Red" is a movement to bring awareness to Women's Heart Disease by wearing the color red on February 6th. That's this Friday. For more detailed information about this colorful women's movement, visit the Go Red for Women website, also listed on the sidebar under the Women's Heart Health Links.

All of this information boils down to one bottom line ... to the Heart of What Matters. We need to shift our thinking.

Maybe February's most memorable date shouldn't be Valentine's Day on the 14th. Indeed, if we are busy recovering from a heart attack, the last thing we need is a box of chocolates. Maybe the color red and the heart symbol that we now associate with Valentine's Day should also connect us to this week of caring for our own physical hearts and the hearts of all of those women who we care about. That way, we all can be here to receive those Valentine's cards and flowers.

Why, even Punxsutawney Phil is getting on board with the movement.

Peace & Light to You
Jae

Is It Spring Yet? Recovering from Seasonal Memory Loss

How extra special of Mother Nature to send us a Winter that reminds us Upstate New Yorkers of what an old fashioned Winter was really like. She has given us snow storms, followed by ice storms, followed by a special January soup of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. And we've had those single-digit and below-zero days that make us all feel like we are walking icicles.

I have tried to roll with Ma Nature's winter punches and stay open to seeing the beauty in her work. Like on December 12th. I gazed out my front window at the trees, dazzling in their icy jewels. And even though the thought of getting all bundled up to go outside was unappealing, I just had to do it.

Grabbing my camera and stepping outside, I became a part of this perfect winter postcard. Just look at those sparkling trees!


Have you ever noticed how unbelievably quiet it is after a winter's storm? Of course, that quiet was broken the moment I stepped off my porch and the ice covered grass crunched under my feet. But, I had to get a closer shot of those iced pines ...



And these ice-encased branches ...


Okay. I confess that as the ice and snow storms keep coming, requiring me to scrape and dig my way into my car at least twice a week, I have become less enthralled with Mother Nature's frozen artwork. In fact, after our most recent storm, as I sat behind my steering wheel ~ car started, defroster and heater pumping out barely lukewarm air ~ all I wanted was to ...

have Spring arrive NOW!

I wanted to be walking around our little Lake Hampton; to be once again watching the geese landing on a misty morning, seeing our little muskrat swimming near the shore, and simply taking in the beauty of the trees and flowers.

Remember when we did that?
Sure you do ... kind of ....

So, when my car was finally warmed up and I was pulling out of my driveway, I decided that I just had to take that five-minute detour to remind myself that there was still a little Lake Hampton.

And this is what she is looking like as she waits for us to return for our warm-weather morning walks.


Parking by the shore, there was the green park bench I sat on when I shot this same view last Autumn. On this post-storm morning, I couldn't get to the bench because of the snowbank. But in the distance, there was our giant willow, looking a lot smaller without its leaves. Steam escaped my mouth as I breathed out a sigh of "I'm ready for Spring now." And then I got back into my car and drove off to start my work day.

Later, when I returned home, and downloaded that shot into my computer, I was still doing a lot of sighing and yearning for Spring. So, I decided to pull out a few more colorful memories of Lake Hampton. Just looking at those pictures helped to boost my spirits and to renew my faith in Mother Nature's wisdom. I was reminded of when I was absolutely sure that the very hot, humid days of Summer would never end. Remember feeling that?

So, I want to share some of these warmer season memories with you. May they help to remind you that like our circular walk around Lake Hampton, Mother Nature's process is also a circle. And soon, we will be trading in our winter boots for some lighter, less serious footwear . . .


We'll no longer have to huddle inside our heavy coats and bury our faces into the warmth of thick scarves. We will be joyously anticipating our first view of Spring crocus pushing their way up through Winter's brown debris to reunite with the sun's warming light.



We will be smiling broadly as we celebrate the arrival of Spring goslings ...



and happening upon a kitty pausing during her morning outing.


In no time at all we will be rounding the corner from Winter's frosty days to Spring's warming thaws and Summer's flower-blossoming heat. We will once again sit at a picnic table, looking out upon this peaceful view of our little Lake Hampton. And we will be smiling with the joy of being part of a Healing Circle gift from Mother Nature.

Peace and Warming Light to You,

Jae

It doesn't have to be perfect. Really? Yes, really!

Here are some examples of statements I heard on a regular basis as a child. Maybe some of them sound familiar to you.

Dad:
“That picture needs to be moved. It is way off center.”
Reality check:
The picture was a sixteenth of an inch off center on an eight-feet wide wall.

Mom:
“This living room is a complete mess.”
Reality check:
Sitting on the floor beside the couch was one pile of old magazines waiting to be looked through before being thrown out. And there was sheet music sitting open on the piano, which I had just finished playing before I went to the bathroom.

Dad:
“Better to be half-an-hour early than five minutes late.”
Reality check:
Unless when you arrive early, it’s very cold outside and you have to wait for someone to arrive to open the door for play rehearsal.

And here’s the big one:

Mom and Dad:
“If you are not going to do a job right, don’t do it at all.”
(As a teenager, I often tried to get out of doing chores by proclaiming, ‘I won’t do it right anyway, so I might as well not do it.’)
Reality Check:
I still had to dust and vacuum the living room, and dry and put away those dishes.

So, why am I telling you all of this?

Because lately, this perfectionist behavior that was fostered with loving care during my formative years, and proudly practiced with excellent results throughout my adult administrative career, has really started to cause me problems.

“How,” you might ask.

And I would reply, “Look at the last posting date on this blog.” Never mind. You don’t really have to look. I’ll tell you. It was September 22, 2008 that I last wrote to you. The post was called “Heart Connections in Autumn Light.”

We are now “Freezing Our Butts Off in Winter’s Dimness,” and I’m finally managing to sit my butt down and write to you. So before I continue . . .

a belated
Happy Halloween
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy December Holidays
and
Happy New Year
to all of you!

Now, back to how perfectionism has caused my blogging derailment.

Bottom line: If I can’t do it right ~ and by that I mean as perfectly as possible ~ I have a hard time making myself do it.

And what factor determines whether or not I will be able to do something as perfectly as possible? Time. Perfection takes time. And if you live on a tight schedule with a long To Do List ... well, it comes down to an easy equation:

Less Time = Less than Perfection

(and according to inherited parental truths)

Less than Perfection = Don’t Even Start

Therefore, when my To Do List was topping out at over 30 items around mid-October, the “Write Blog Post” item on the list kept getting shifted to the bottom.

But why? I love to write. Writing has been one of my greatest joys since I was a child. I wrote my first play at age 10. My favorite jobs have included writing as an integral part of my work responsibilities. So why put off blogging, which is actually doing something I love to do? Because I need to do it as perfectly as possible, and that takes time.

Well, so does cleaning the bathroom, lady, but you managed to do that.

Now there’s a good example. In fact, just last week, I started out to do a quick spruce up of the bathroom to just freshen it up. But once I got going, my Perfectionist Self got out of control. It was as if my glasses had magically become magnifying lenses ... forcing me to see every little speck of anything on every little surface. And, of course, once I saw all of those specks ... well .... Three hours later, my 7 x 5 foot bathroom was absolutely spotless.

About fifteen minutes later, I was sitting back in my comfortable chair, having a calming cup of tea. As I sat trying to recover from my spontaneous cleaning frenzy, the moment of “Are You Insane?” hit me. I had just spent three precious hours of my time sponging, scrubbing, rinsing and polishing my little bathroom, and no one but my husband and me would even see it. And he wouldn’t care.

And as I continued to marvel at the level of perfectionist compulsive behavior that cleaning jaunt exposed, I began to see a wider of view of the effects of this gift/curse. If I could allow myself three hours away from my “To Do” list to do the unappealing task of cleaning a bathroom that no one “outsider” would even see, why couldn’t I find time to write my Blog? Again, writing is something I love to do. But . . . lots of people would see it . . . . . . . .

Is that the key? Who would see my work? Well, of course it is.

I couldn’t allow myself a spontaneous writing frenzy ... just let it flow and let it go ... because I couldn’t risk the possibility that it would not be as perfect as possible. I have read that some bloggers just log on and write off the top of their heads, not worrying about typos or missed words. But not me. I could never allow myself that freedom. I had to write it, and then reread it, and rewrite it again.

With the Perfectionist Me keeping watch and making sure that every one of those 30 items on my To Do List were completed with an A+ approach, it was no wonder that I was feeling like one of the great joys of my life ~ writing and blogging ~ had become just another one of those To Do’s.

So friends, today I have taken a slightly different approach to writing this post. Instead of the write, and re-write, and re-read and re-write again process I have taken in the past, I decided to just write. Honoring that changing ourselves 180 degrees in one spontaneous moment of Ah Ha is difficult, I am sure it will be difficult to just click publish as I complete this. But I’m going to try it. And, I’ll bet, that even if I’ve left out a word, or misspelled something, you will all be able to figure out what I was trying to say.

My hope is that my “bold new approach” will help to inspire those of you who also have a Perfectionist Self whispering negative messages into your Inner Critic’s ear ... telling you that you should beware of taking approaches and trying new things. I hope that you ~ like I am about to do right now ~ will allow yourself to at least turn down the volume of those negative messages. In doing so, we can reclaim the joys of “just doing” things that we love to do.

Peace & Light,

and here it goes

Jae

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