pediatric chirorpactor – We Only Get One Chance

LAUGHTER

Laughter helps everything.

There has been a lot going on in life lately, all of it really good stuff but keeping laughter at the forefront of it all helps everything!

For Memorial Day weekend, Mike and I headed up north to be with my family. On Saturday we decided to kayak/canoe/float the Betsie River which runs right by my parent’s house. It was a beautiful day, quite warm for late May in Northern Michigan and it felt great to get out on the river. I always forget how relaxing and healing a nice float down the river is until I am on it.

Mike insisted that I just relax in the front of the tandem kayak and not paddle and that he had it all handled. I trusted him completely and he gave me very little reason not to…at least for the first part of the trip.

We had rented a sit-on-top kayak from Crystal Adventures. The adventure company owners advised that we bring one of their dry sacks with us on the boat and I said “It is nearly impossible to tip one of those things over but we will for sure take one.”

Famous. Last. Words.

Mike did and incredible job (THANKS BABE!!!) at navigating the river until one tricky part. I was so used to sitting back and taking in the scenery that I did not see it coming and I don’t think he did either. A big tree branch was down in the water and in very slow motion, I remember being in total disbelief it was even happening, the kayak got stuck, the current was super strong and tipped us right over. I grabbed the stuff that I could and the rest headed down the river to be retrieved by other family members. We were both soaked in clothes not necessarily planned for dunking in the river but laughing. I am not sure what else there was to do but laugh. Mike felt bad but was also sort of bruised up. I had some scratches and bruises and we just laughed and went on our merry way.

Around the bend, my brothers were whispering to each other “That must really be the right guy for her if she was that calm, cool, collected and both of them were just laughing.” They were pretty shocked at our response to the whole thing.

All the weekends, and weeks for that matter, are spent managing things, handling projects and making things happen. This past weekend was no exception as we framed and wired an entire basement at one of my rental properties. It is a rather large space and a lot of work. We finished the project around 10pm on Sunday and were wrapping everything up, finishing laundry and loading the dishwasher. We sat down in the living room for a few minutes and as we were heading up to bed, Mike put a couple things in the sink. As he stepped up to the sink, something felt strange. Looking down was the view in the picture below!

You see, neither of us has had a dishwasher in our lives for over a year. I am not sure how he did it but mistook liquid dish soap for dishwasher soap and the kitchen was filling up with bubbles. I just start laughing. First off, we are old enough and know better, or at least I thought we did. But secondly, we have both missed having dishwashers in our homes so much it has been something we have looked so forward to!

Here he is standing in ankle deep suds from putting the wrong cleaning product into the dishwasher and bubbles and spewing out the sides and continue to flow. I am laughing so hard at this point that I think I am actually making him a little irritated. Through laughter “BABE!!!! How on Earth did you do this???” both on hands and knees cleaning up the floor. (Side note: our kitchen floor is extra shiny and nice now!!)

We pretty much laughed ourselves to sleep that night.

Laughter helps everything!!! Truly lightens the mood, shifts the tone and make it all better. Mike and I do a lot of laughing together all the time, life is just too short to be any other way.

Look around in your life. Are there areas you can laugh more? Are there things you can laugh about instead of get angry or irritated with? How can you choose laughter more through your days? We only get one chance in this life!!! Let’s have some FUN!!!!

DONATION

Hello Everyone!!! Happy December!!! Over the past couple years, my chiropractic office Cafe of LIFE has chosen to forgo sending out holiday cards and use that money to increase our donation.

We have decided that it is more important to help those who need assistance fulfilling their basic human needs (of food in particular at this point).

Here is a quick clip of what we do with the money we would normally spend for sending out holiday cards.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhl-RsAOtsk&t=1s[/youtube]

We want to do the most good we can this holiday season and we have discovered sending donation to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan is one of the best ways to spread our donation as far and wide as possible while serving our local area. It is astounding that one single dollar can provide 6 meals inside their system. That is some serious buying power!!!

We trust you are accepting of our choice to increase our donation this year. In saying all of that, we are still excited and will gladly accept your holiday cards. In fact, we look forward to it! Happy Holidays!!!!

NOT GOING TO CUT IT

This particular answer is not going to cut it in this life. A dialogue I had today…

Me: Is your week going well so far?

Patient: It will be when the weekend gets here.

It’s Tuesday. This answer is not going to cut it.

What do I mean by “it is not going to cut it?” Guess what???? LIFE IS REALLY FREAKING SHORT!!! Why would you ever want to spend 5 days each week looking forward to 2 days?

So you wake up in the morning on Monday and it is seriously a race to see how quickly you can get to Friday afternoon? Seriously? How can this be a life worth even living? The ratios are all off there…ALL OFF!!!! What if you spent 2 days looking forward to 5 days? That is more like it!! If he said to me, “Well I made it through Monday and Tuesday and so now I am going to have an awesome week!” I would have taken it.

But that is not what he said and so here I am at a coffee shop having to write about it. I don’t get to go home right after work, I have no other choice than to sit here and write about it. There is not a chance I will be able to sleep after hearing that comment unless I spend my time time this evening writing about it.

Not really guys, I am not that obsessive. If I was, I would have WAY BIGGER problems!!

Seriously the days are not all filled with rainbows and butterflies. We all see tough times. In fact it was just revealed to me that I appear to live among the clouds and am untouchable by strife. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!! I am just grateful for the learning when I am in the trenches. Of course I am not grateful at the time, but the stuff I learn there when the pressure is turned way up, allows me to be real, authentic and genuine and it makes me more, well, ME!!!

We seriously never know when the tables will be turned on us, towards the bad or towards the good. We never know when a really crappy week will turn really good. We also never know when our wonderful life will be turned upside down either.

Chiropractor Fenton Michigan - Not Going to Cut It — (yes that is me)

What if we just started the day, every day regardless of if it starts with ‘Sat” or “Sun”, in a good mood. Lets look at the fact that we are waking up on the top side of the grass. We get a chance to do all kinds of things today!!! And SO MANY more things that if we weren’t on the top side of the grass!!!

So you could maybe be asking “Well what if my life really does suck?”

Okay, that is a legitimate question. I like that you are thinking like that and want to question me. If your life really does suck, you actually can take this day and make it just a little bit better.

Let me tell you about the time my life really, really, really, really sucked. I got divorced half way through chiropractic college. I had 2 years of intense schooling still ahead (I was 8 years into school at this point) and not a moment to process such a huge loss. When I finally finished I moved home to Fenton to try to figure out what I wanted to do. Life got really quiet, my friends had dispersed all over the country and I was left with all of the “stuff” that really didn’t feel good. I went into massive grieving mode and severe depression, to the point that I could hardly get out of bed. I also had a degree, a license and a desire to not stay that way. It would take one step every single day to move me forward. Even if that meant going out and buying one single pen, it was movement.

Just do that. One little tiny step in the direction you want to go. Because guess what? The time is going to pass anyway. Go do something with your ONE WILD LIFE!!!!!

I cannot do a thing about patients responding to me like that and not having a good time in life. If I could, you know I would!!!

The only hope I really have is letting you, my faithful readers (have I told you lately how much I love you??? I DO!!!) know, that that kind of attitude is just NOT GOING TO CUT IT!!! Get on with enjoying your LIFE!!!! We only get one chance….

BAREFOOT AND FREE

I had an incredible weekend! It was just about as much fun as one could possibly pack into the minutes of one single weekend and a good portion of it I spent at the Barefoot and Free Yoga Festival.

We live, work and play among some real superheros and it is hard to know who those superheros are until something like this weekend is pulled together through the vision of one woman. Of course, there will always be so many people behind the scenes that do not get enough recognition, however, it takes one person to have the vision to start with…and that person is the one who ultimately takes the initial step forward.

Proud Lake Recreation Area is a super amazing place just south of Milford, Michigan. I had never been there before and although I had signed up for the yoga festival just because of the idea of it…quite frankly I had no idea what I was getting into.

I pulled in, parked my car and took a walk to the festival site. It was an absolutely ideal location allowing for yoga classes to be held in a few different areas on the grounds. There were vendors, big tents that would hold yoga classes, a bunkhouse for those that wanted to stay, areas for tents, food vendors and so much amazing positive energy, it could not have been in a more perfect place!

Us yoga peeps, even though we are supposed to be super flexible (not only in class but in life in general), sometimes get stuck with wanting to only take our “favorite” instructor(s) and become actually quite rigid with our regular yoga routine. For me, my time is precious and I am always wanting to maximize my time spent in any yoga class and so I have my favorites and stick with them.

The great thing about the festival setting is that there are options and you are exposed to some other really

exceptional instructors…and because this festival was so close to home, those instructors are easily accessible to me, well if you consider “easy” to be within about 45 minutes.

When I am at my usual yoga class(es) during the week, I am usually running in there last minute and heading out immediately following closing postures. Life is busy, busy, busy! The flow of this festival and the timing of classes

gave us some real time to spend with these like-minded people. There were a few people I see regularly at class but I actually had some time to ask them about themselves and their lives outside of the studio. We shared time, space, laughter and snacks together. We had time for conversation between sweating our behinds off. We had a few moments to jump in the river together. I have stronger, tighter connections because of the weekend.

And then I should mention what it means to the body and mind to do that much yoga in a condensed timeframe. I took six, 75 minute vinyasa classes in 90-100 degree temperatures. I took an inversion workshop, a slow burn class and attended a lecture. This all happened in a matter of 48 hours starting at 7pm on Friday and finishing Sunday at the same time. That much yoga for me would usually be over a 2 week period and so putting myself into that many different postures, that much intensity, that much breath work, that much laughing and that much dancing, shifts a person at their core. Barefoot and Free has such

divine timing as I am in one of the most stressful weeks of my life in a long time. In the midst of playing a mean hand of “52 Pick-Up” with my life, I find peace. Peace is my center and I am craving more time on my mat like I have never felt before, such a strong draw for that level of intense movement and shifting.

I have shared about my experience over the past day and so many have asked “How do I get involved?” “How did you find out about that?” and “When is the next one?” I can say this for certain, DO NOT MISS next year! It is a simple 30 minutes from my home and if you are around the southeast Michigan area, probably within an hour from yours too…very central location to many.

I seriously had no idea what I was getting into. This is yet another time that I simply said YES and made it happen. Leading into the weekend I was asked, “Are you meeting a bunch of friends there at the festival? Do you know many people going?” No I did not know many people going, but I knew by the time I left, with the nature of yoga and the woods and the connection with Mother Earth, I would have new friends by Sunday. Plus I am not sure I love anything more than being BAREFOOT AND FREE!!!!!

Thank you to that teeny tiny superhero, Beth James, for creating a place for all of us to play…and be barefoot…and FREE!!!

I’M CONFUSED

A few weeks ago I was at a seminar in Toronto and there was a sign on the bathroom door of the convention center and I thought to myself “I’m confused.”

This is what the sign looked like.

Most of you know that I do not have a TV at home and mostly listen to music and read on my downtime. Because of that, I generally get most of my news from Facebook and all the hype about Target and their bathroom policy had many up in arms.

For a day and a half during the weekend, I walked by this bathroom in search of a “women’s” bathroom and all the while was wondering what it would be like to go into a bathroom that was marked as above.

Would there be urinals in there?

Would guys be required to go to the bathroom inside of a stall?

Will I be walking in on someone or something that I do not want to see?

So I passed by this bathroom option all weekend and pondered it over and over…what is going on behind that door? This is Canada after all and maybe they just do things differently here.

As I watched that particular bathroom door all weekend, I did notice that perfectly normal, and un-traumatized women were walking into and out from that door. Men too!

And then on Sunday afternoon I decided I would take a chance and head through that door.

Once I got to the other side of the door I started laughing. There was a set of stairs that went up with a sign for men’s bathroom and another set of stairs that we down for the women’s bathroom. The women’s bathrooms down that set of stairs had zero lines. The other set of women’s (marked as women only) bathrooms had long lines every single time, as many women’s bathrooms do in this life.

Once I crossed through that door and started laughing, I thought what a great metaphor for life: things are not always what they appear and are usually less scary than we think if we have the courage to cross the threshold.

As a culture, we really need to start paying a little closer attention to the sensationalism that is the news, and even the news on Facebook. We need to be conscious of all the things that slip by our filters and get lodged into our minds and beings. I am not exposed to news a whole lot, however even that whole Target thing, and I am sure that is not the only thing, got planted in my own mind without me even aware of what was happening.

Our subconscious runs most of our days for us without us even paying that close of attention. We need to guard ourselves from a lot of what the media is promoting and learn to originate our own ideas, decision, perceptions and actions.

“I’m confused” may be a theme when moving through the next door that is marked in an unfamiliar way. But I know and trust to drop my guard sooner and venture in just to see what is on the other side. Maybe you will want to try that too!!!

One of My Favorite Moments

One of the greatest things about my work is being able to serve pregnant women as well as after the baby is born. There have been some really incredible women delivering babies lately and their stories are wonderful and amazing experiences that I hope to share with you at some point in the near future. I usually have anywhere between 10 and 15 women at any given time at all different stages of pregnancy. I hold all of them in my heart during this time however right now there is one that I am holding a special space close to my heart for. I recieved a phone call two weeks ago from a very frantic practice member that went in for a routine pregnancy check-up and they admitted her to hospital bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy which is at the very least 6 weeks. Now this particular woman does her absolute best to approach life vitalistically, and looks to do as many things naturally as possible. That was her plan for this pregnancy. Complications in the past has lead her to this bed rest period which is, in her case, probably the safest thing that she could be doing. So I have been able to visit and adjust her in the hospital for the past two weeks and have really enjoyed our visits. I have no idea if I am actually allowed to be adjusting in a hospital setting and I am sure that there would be ramifications if they found out…so I sneak it, so to speak. It is important for me to allow her to be at her best and whatever that takes I am going to do. I have been fortunate to have other things pulling me to Ann Arbor the past couple weeks but I will be there regardless. It is about service for me. This all is just about serving others. What else is there to do in life but to serve????