find a chiropractor Fenton Michigan – Page 4

THE ANTI-FAN

I attended a football game at Michigan State University this past Saturday “GO SPARTANS!!!”. I love going to the campus, I love being in the stadium and I just love everything about a day of college football. It was the most beautiful day for a football game and we sat in some really great seats…well, great seats to watch the game, not so great seats for one particular fan, or “anti-fan”, that sat behind us. The entire game, this anti-fan shouted out the meanest things. He was a MSU fan and I am pretty sure one that has been attending games for years and years. He was loud, angry, negative and down-right mean. They would do something great and he would be sarcastic with his support. They would do something bad and he would shout something like “WELL WE HAVE GROWN TO EXPECT THAT FROM YOU GUYS!!!” They would start moving the ball down the field and he would act shocked, they would have a turnover and he would go back to his “of-course-that-just-happened” attitude. It was unbelievable that someone would pay money to come to a college football game and knock their team so much…to top it off, he was not quiet about it. His wife was with him and a younger woman sat on his other side…both of them were ultra-quiet…and it went on the entire game.

There are two things I learned from that…1. I am really glad I do not have anyone in my life that is that negative and 2. if you are a fan, BE A FAN!!! There is a saying “You get more bees with honey than vinegar”. If you are looking for positive results, it is important to have a positive attitude. Now some would ask, how much effect could one guy in the stands have on a team that is down on the field? and, does it really matter if one guy is being negative in a crowd of positivity? Have you ever heard the saying “One bad apple spoils a bushel”? I was not letting him effect me on a conscious level, but who knows what he was doing on a subconscious level to my energy, much less everyone else around him. More than anything, if a guy is that pissed off and negative at a wonderful college sporting event, I can only imagine what he is like in a stressful situation. If someone like that is the patriarch of a family, I would wager his negativity infiltrates his family members…and I know for a fact that it is effecting his health.

It isn’t always easy to keep a positive attitude, especially when life seems to be throwing you lemons…but what about that saying “When life throws you lemons, make lemonade”. By writing about this, I am by no means complaining about him. I am hoping to increase the awareness around attitude. When someone asks “How are you?” let’s run through 2 possible answers. “Not bad.” is one possible answer…but “Not bad.” leans towards negative energy. What if when asked how you are, you answer “I am good.” or “I am really great!”. Even just saying those two answers, as compared to the first, really changes the energy of how you are feeling…and in essence changes the energy in and around your body.

How are you spending your life? Where are you focusing your energy? What small changes can you make to shift your perspective in a more positive direction? Let’s start today…we only get one chance to make this the best life possible!

FLASH MOB

This past weekend I had my first flash mob experience!!! How fun! Flash mobs are happening all over the world these days. Have you heard of it? Basically people choose places where there are predicted to be large crowds and start some music and do a choreographed dance. If you have ever witnessed one, it begins with just 3 or 4 people. Then a large group gathers around to watch and a portion of the spectators are actually in on the dance and join. Then usually there is another section of the crowd that seem innocent but are actually in on it too and join and when it is over, everyone goes back to doing whatever they were doing and act like nothing happened. It is about bringing joy to others through the element of surprise and dance.

So I got wind of this group called Flash Mob America and I registered with them to receive their updates. It just so happens they were coming to do one in Ann Arbor…and you know me, always looking for rich, rewarding experiences…so I decided I would make it a point to join in the fun. I arrived at 9am for rehearsal which lasted for 3 hours. We went over and over and over the dance and learned about the specifics of how it develops because there is no actual practice time in the chosen location. There were about 80 people that were at rehearsal and it was awesome to see it all come together.

The flash mob took place at the Artisan Market in Kerrytown area of Ann Arbor (the same location as the farmer’s market if you have ever been). The 80 participants walked around shopping leading up to the time it was supposed to start which was 1pm. Then out of nowhere, we here the beginnings of the song “Party Rock”…which literally starts with the singer yelling “PARTY ROCK!!” Then 4 people began the dance and it evolved from there. I was fortunate to have a friend standing by and videotaped the entire thing and I wanted to share it…and my incredible dance moves, jk :)…with all of you.

If you get wind of a flash mob happening in your area…check it out, join in and have some fun. We only get one chance…dance like no one is watching…or dance like the whole world is watching and shake that booty and make it count!!!

TRIATHLON SUCCESS

As many of you know, I have spend the past couple months training really hard for the First Try Triathlon. Well I am happy to report that my training paid off. The event was this past Saturday over in Linden. I have done many races but as we got closer to this event, I was really nervous. To do 300 yard swim had become kind of a simple thing, 9 mile bike ride-no problem, 2 mile run-piece of cake…but to put them all together and do them back to back, I wasn’t so sure.

So my morning looked like this…

Alarm goes off, get dressed, early breakfast and hydrate, load up gear, blast loud music as I drive over to Clover Beach, survey the scene, unload my gear, set up my transition area, get body marked with my number and age, put swim cap and goggles on, strip down to swim gear (it was about 60 degree with a treacherous wind and very difficult to part with my sweatshirt), line up in heats, swim, dodge weeds, catch my breath and swim some more, run up the beach to transition area, change to biking gear and bike 9 miles (shoot I forgot to put my sunglasses on), back to transition area, change to running gear, try not to throw up (I was very nauseous), run 2 miles still trying not to throw up (and thinking I wish I had time to use the bathroom), finish, cheer on my family and friends, find my mom and run the end of her race with her, and enjoy and celebrate the completion of my first triathlon.

WOW! That was so much fun! During the entire race I was sure that I was in the middle of my heat…not near the front nor the back…but figured I was right in the middle. I have abnormal anatomy in my heart that limits my oxygen carrying capacity so even though I do a lot of running races, I mostly do them to complete them rather than compete. At the end of the triathlon I go to check my times and of course I start in the middle of the list and work my way down…my name is not there. I thought that was a bit odd, so I scroll down it again. Well there is no way I should look above half way on that list…I have never been above that point. So I scrolled up the list and low and behold I found myself finishing at number 52!!!!!! I thought to myself “this can’t be right, there is no way”…but it was and I actually finished 4th in my age group!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!! I was and still am thrilled. I am not one to throw placings around (mostly because I am usually so far back on the list) but this time I have to.

So my overall view is the triathlon itself was incredibly well organized, I had so much fun, I smiled the entire time, I finished and felt great and the icing on the cake is the fact that I actually did really well. Of course you will currently find me trying to figure out when I can fit another one into my schedule.

I am always up for an adventure. I learn so much about myself and about life by taking on challenges like the triathlon. Life is about learning, growing and evolving. Have you been stepping outside your comfort zone to find your limits? The great thing is when we do, we find that our limits are in a constant process of changing and we can usually go farther and do more than we previously gave ourselves credit for. We may as well test our limits…we only get one chance.

MOTHER’S DAY

I had a wonderful weekend enjoying time outside and soaking in the sun and I always enjoy celebrating Mother’s Day. I am very fortunate to live so close to so much family, and my mom is included in that. I have a wonderful relationship with my Mom and she and I are very close. Moms are moms and life happens which can sometimes create an awful lot of baggage in a parent/child relationship. I am very fortunate and get to spend a lot of time with my Mo

m. I consider her one of my closest friend and tend to discuss most aspects of my life with her. There are quite a few people that are curious of her and my relationship and most people make the assumption that we have been this close my whole life. I grew up with three brothers and was pretty much carted around with them, doing everything that they were doing and not getting much room to be an individual and almost never getting individual one on one time with my Mom. I never really learned the value of good quality female relationships until I went away for school many years down the road. Then came the invention of Internet and email. I was living in Alaska at the time my Mom first got email. We began to email each other 2-3 times per week and I really felt like I was able to get to know her, and thus get to know myself at a deeper level. This progressed for a few more years and our relationship really began to flourish to the point that I she became one of my very best friends. I moved back home in 2004 and lived under the same roof with her for two years. She is amazing, brilliant, straight-forward, talented, level-headed, caring, loving, balanced and really happy. I admire her and all the trials she has had in life and how that has shaped her to really be grounded in who she is. Though she is not “raising” us anymore, because of the mutual love and respect that the my brothers and I have for her, we are able to go to her when things come up and allow her to guide us when we need guidance. It really is a beautiful thing. For Mother’s Day this year, she spent the entire day working and wasn’t going to be home until 8PM. In my mind, she still deserves recognition, as every Mom does, on that special day. We made a small desert celebration happen last night to surprise her, and we did just that. Without my Mom, there wouldn’t be a Me and without a Mom like I have, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Thank you Mom!!! Happy Mother’s Day…today and always!

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

I taught my very first yoga class this past Saturday and I have a new perspective. It was called a “feedback session” which means all the teacher trainees were invited as well as anyone else I wanted to invite. The concept is I teach an hour long slow flow class and the teacher trainees stay after and give me feedback. It was a wonderful process in spite of all the nervous energy that takes over the body when one undertakes something like that and I learned a couple interesting lessons from it.

First, I have been practicing yoga in the room I taught in for over 4 years now. To me, this room is sacred and when you are in it, the rules are you need to obey “noble silence” which means shut your mouth and stay out of other people’s business. There is rarely even whispers going on in that room except for if someone is trying to make room for someone else’s mat. My routine when I go to take classes is to go in, set up my mat, go to the back, change my clothes (I am almost always coming from work), do some talking in the tea room and when I am done and ready to be quiet, I go in and find my place on my mat and prepare to be present. So in the beginning of the class that I taught, none of my regular routine was happening and it kind of threw me off. There were 8 or 9 people in the class and getting them to lay down on their mat by a simple verbal cue was pretty easy. After working with breath for a few minutes it was time to start the class. I was almost paralyzed by the idea that I had to talk for the next 60 minutes in a room where everyone else was quiet and I had always been silent in for the past 4 years of my life. My lesson…I am a “rule-follower” almost to a fault. It was so funny to see the panic inside of me as I faced this 60 minutes of talking. But I did it and as the minutes slipped past, it became more and more comfortable.

Second, I am a vinyasa student and I was having to teach a slow flow class. The vinyasa classes that I am used to are a little, and sometimes a lot, faster pace than slow flow and some of the moves take a little, and sometimes a lot, more effort to transition in to and hold. I thought I was making a flow that would be great for the level of students I was working with. Apparently it was a little, or a lot, too hard!

For 9 years of my life, I was an aerobics instructor and I taught so many types of classes, and even yoga, in a gym setting. During these classes, I was able to gage the participants by their body language and energy. One of the goals of yoga is to build up the capability of peacefully handling incredibly intense moments, both on the mat and out in real life. As my yoga class is progressing, all the participants were peacefully moving through the postures in what appeared grace and ease and to me, didn’t seem like they were working very hard….I had forgotten that is part of the whole point of yoga.

So after class, some of the attendees were like “Were you trying to kill us?!?!?!” When I look back, it is a really obvious thing and I chuckle at my naivety. The lesson here is in yoga, or even as we walk down the street or around the grocery store, we have no idea what is going on inside of each person that we pass. One of the biggest lessons of yoga is to have compassion for others and extend loving kindness to all people in our lives. Since we have no idea what is going on inside other people, what better way to look at the world than from a place of loving kindness and a new perspective…we only get one chance.

POISONING

I will be posting some wonderful pictures from my past weekend in the next post but I wanted to discuss a little about a situation and a lesson I learned about the body. This past Monday, my flight went from Reno/Tahoe to Denver to Detroit. My connecting flight in Denver was delayed. Usually I am running around trying to find a protein bar or something on these types of travel days but since I had an almost 3 hour delay, I decided that I would take the time to sit down at a restaurant and have something healthy to eat. My choice was a salad with mango, strawberry and

Dr Erica Peabody - Poisoning - Best Chiropractor Fenton Michigan

salmon atop a bed of beautiful greens. When it arrived at my table, it looked appetizing enough to dig in so that is exactly what I did. One fork-full at a time, I was noticing a little tinge of brown on the greens, maybe a little dried out, the strawberries hadn’t been run under water in a long time and the mango, though tasted really good, was maybe a little extra slimy and weird. At that moment I thought to myself that since I was at a nice restaurant, it should be fine and I am not one to complain much about what I am served so I finished it all…and everything was good until that evening when I finally reached my destination, I was starting to get a nagging headache. Sometimes a headache will come on if my blood sugar is low so didn’t think much about it and continued on to have dinner, Thai food. I went to bed and slept well but was woken up at 5:00AM with nausea, 7AM started the vomiting and my body was so drained and exhausted. I couldn’t pull things together to make it to the Cafe that morning and slept for about 3 more hours. When I woke up I proceeded to get ready and made it in to work to serve people for the afternoon. I always feel better when I am helping other people feel better, but that is where it ended. Tuesday evening as I was laying down to bed, my entire body hurt. It was food poisoning for sure, my entire body was poisoned and working overtime to improve the environment. Many people in that situation would have tried to find something that would stop the vomiting and take away aches and pains. If the body is poisoned and trying to get something out, don’t you think it is a good idea to let it do that? If it is food poisoning and the body recognizes that, or anything else for that matter, let it do what it is designed to do. Because I let it run its course, my body took care of it and in the long run is better off for it. When symptoms arise, instead of reacting to them, let’s watch them and as long as they are not life-threatening, let’s let the body do what it is going to do. We will all be better off.

DANCING….

So I attended a really cool event last night. My best friend is an amazing person, and amazing at what she does. Recently she set up the major sponsor’s display for the “Dancing With The Stars” Tour that is happening right now. The Tour has 38 dates all over the country in a 2 month time period. Anyways because she set up the display, she was given a few tickets to the Detroit event which happened last night. Yesterday was a busy day with snowboarding in the morning, kayak practice in the afternoon but what is one more event when I had been running all day anyways. So I made my way down to Joe Louis Arena for a 7:30pm show last night. By intermission I was completely awe struck and inspired at the same time. The dancers did an amazing job of putting on this show. Whoever created and directed the show really knows how to work the crowd. These dancers are such incredible athletes. They all put out so much energy that evening and to think they are doing 38 shows in about 60 days and all of them at that level of energy is totally amazing. I asked my friend if after she saw some of the rehearsals, if she went back to her hotel room to see what moves she could come up with on her own (because that is exactly what I would have done). She said no, however I do not completely believe her as it is human nature to just WANT TO DANCE!

A NIGHT

Many evenings after work, I spend over at the yoga studio in Holly (thanks Kathryn for creating such an amazing space and for making it so close and accessible). The nights I attend yoga I get home at 8:30 so in essense, if I choose to got to yoga in the evening, the night is basically over. I get out of work at 6:30 every night so I have very limited time to make much happen. This evening I thought I would go to yoga and then come home and eat and clean my house, do laundry, unpack my suitcases (yes I have already been home 5, almost 6, days) and get things straightened up around here. Some of you know that I just got a 2 year old chocolate lab a month ago. He is such a blast and how could you possibly not fall in love with him with a face like that. So he was looking at me with his eyes and bringing toys to me (which a luggage tag was his toy of choice this evening) so I layed down on the floor next to him and he wanted to wrestle. 1 hour later I realized I hadnt gotten anything done and now it was too late to start. I did manage to eat, however my house is still a mess, there are still piles of laundry, and no vacuuming has been done and it was all so worth it. I was never a dog person before a month ago. I wanted a change in my life and people thought I was nuts. Choco brings so much joy to my days. We argue a lot, I always win, but in the end of the day, he is way more important than dealing with laundry detergent and vacuum bags…at least for today anyways.

RADICAL FORGIVENESS

I know I have mentioned it before, however one of the greatest parts of every other week is the Cafe of LIFE Book Club meeting. This club began almost a year ago and we have a wonderful group of committed individuals that show up and share each meeting. We have read so many wonderful books so far and each seems to be adding to the last. Our new book, and our meetings begin tomorrow, is “Radical Forgiveness” by Colin Tipping. We took the month of December, well besides our celebration during the first week, because we figured it was a strange time to begin a new book. Now that 2009 is rolling, we begin our new journey with it. It is the greatest part of my every other week, it really is. And if you ever want to know more about how to get involved, please feel free to ask!

A NEW BOOK IN THE NEW YEAR

As many of you know, I am one of the organizers of the Cafe of LIFE Book Club. We have a phenomenal group of women who sit down every other week together and study books that add to our lives. We have done a number of books with titles such as “Eat, Pray, Love”, “A New Earth”, and “Loving What Is”. We ended our year with a celebration of the year and it was amazing to look back on what we had accomplished together as a group in one short year! Years are short anymore. Time just goes by really fast! Anyways with the New Year here now, we are beginning a new book starting Thursday January 8th. Our new title is “Radical Forgiveness” by Colin Tipping. Sounds like an amazing title and I’m sure the book will be equally as amazing. We have a few new people who plan on joining us this time around and we welcome anyone who would like to add studying with a book club to their life. Let me put it this way, I guarantee this will become on of the greatest and most looked forward to hour and a half of your week. Come join us! If you have any questions, direct them my way and WELCOME TO 2009!