bed – We Only Get One Chance

I’LL TAKE A HUG

Out of the mouth of babes “I think I’ll take a hug.”

Be still my heart…let me set the scene.

Life has been incredibly busy and full and I haven’t gotten specific time to hang with my nieces and nephews like I usually do. Actually it is not just the time of life, it has more to do with the season than anything. We hang out every weekend all summer long playing together on the lake. When winter rolls around, although we all love the wintertime and the snow, it just isn’t as organic to get together.

A few weekends back I chose to take time from the regular busy life, canceled a few things and headed up north to ski with some of my family and be able to have some high quality time together. I am not a skier but when I am out on the slopes helping with the little ones, it is nearly impossible to do anything helpful strapped to my snowboard.

I bought a set of skies about 2 years ago, after not skiing for 22 years, and have been having a lot of fun with the kids out on the slopes as they learn to make turns on their own.

It was a fun filled day of skiing and each of them were eager to show Aunt E just how good they are getting…and they really are! It is the best to be able to be with them as they are learning so much and putting pieces of their own worlds together. I absolutely love being in the role of Aunt E.

So at the very end of the day, I was going to drive back downstate to be with Mike for the rest of the weekend. I said my “good-byes” to all of the adults and had to hunt down a few kids to give them squeezes and kisses and one more exchange about how proud I was of their skiing.

There were a missing group tucked in a back room watching a movie together. As I knocked on the door and entered, I found them all huddled around a little TV on the top bunk watching a movie together, a precious site in and of itself.

I said “Hey guys! Aunt E is going to go now and I just wanted to say good-bye and tell you how great you are all getting at skiing.”

“Aunt E, where are you going?”

“I am going to be with Mike for the rest of the weekend and so I will be driving back down to our house in Frankenmuth and we will have Sunday together.”

“Awe, do you have to go?”

“Yes guys, I want to be able to get some good sleep and wake up refreshed for Sunday back home.”

“Ok. Well maybe we will be able to ski again some other weekend?”

“Absolutely!”

They were all tucked together and up high and so I wasn’t able to really get up to them to do much so I said “Hey, how about high fives all the way around?”

They did that and I turned around and headed for the door when Charlei chimes in and says, “Hey Aunt E? I think I will take a hug.” …and proceeds to climb all the way down to give me a hug.

It was the sweetest thing. In fact I left and shed tears of gratitude during the first 30 minutes of my drive back downstate.

I am fortunate to have such an incredible family.

I am blessed and lucky to have these little one running around calling me Aunt E and caring about spending time with me. In all of the things that I do to make a small difference in my little corner of the world, knowing that I have touched them is one of the most important things.

“I think I’ll take a hug.” from the mouth of my 7 (almost 8) year old niece. They all mean the world to me and that phrase landed so intensely on my heart in the most beautiful way. Thank you sweet little ones!

BVI SAILING PICTURE DIARY

In order to have seen many of the pictures of our BVI sailing trip, you would have to have been a friend of mine on Facebook or have come into the Cafe of LIFE. There are quite a few asking about my trip so I wanted to put together a little BVI Sailing Picture Diary for you to take a glance at some of what we did with our 10 days on our sailboat Yacht Emily Morgan.

These are my friends, some really good friends that I have traveled with often. They all live in Denver and are all chiropractors…and have been trying to get me to move out west since I moved home 11 years ago. I met all of them in 2001 within the first week of starting chiropractic college at Life University in Atlanta, GA. I love each of them for what they add to my life, my being and the level of joy and laughter daily, even when we are not together.

These are my feet and this is the front of the boat. The entire trip was absolutely beautiful, as you can tell, and this was such an awesome spot to take it all in.

Christmas morning, we are in the midst of our white elephant gift exchange and I ended up with a selfie-stick which I was totally stoked about!!! My friends, Marco and Scott, and to the right in the picture, is Bones, the owner of the ship, host extraordinaire, comedian, dance instructor, master sailor. We got lucky to be on this boat with him and his wife!!

Later on that day using said “selfie-stick”…

…and then I realized that I hardly needed any friends to take my pictures or be in my pictures because I now had a SELFIE STICK!!!! I am only kidding…that is not really true, we all need our friends.

Then one day Bones took us knee-boarding on the back of the dinghy. It has been since June 24, 1998 since I have been knee-boarding. I remember the date so clearly because I ended up breaking my nose out on Lake Ponemah (a whole different blog post to share that story, maybe). It was super fun to be knee-boarding and of course I can’t help but always try to see what’s still possible on that thing. Here is me doing my best rendition of “Hey Mom!!! Look at me!!!” …only my Mom wasn’t anywhere around. 🙂

Emily Morgan hauls around these paddleboards we could take out anytime we wanted. So much fun although I am not sure I used them all that much. This trip became quite a sedentary trip actually.

But while we were sitting around all day, we would see such BEAUTIFUL rainbows!!! Spectacular rainbows and a few of them each day. I know this picture may not even seem real but this was shot with just an iPhone camera, no zoom. Crazy beautiful place!!!

And while I am at it, enjoy these two beautiful pictures!

Sundown time was some of the coolest lighting of the entire day. I think coupled with the sway of sitting on the boat and about to eat some of the most delicious food, it became our most favorite part of each day.

…it was time for another selfie… 🙂

After the first few days of strictly being only on the boat, we began to crave being on land and would dinghy into shore and get grounded for a few minutes. Sometimes we would find beautiful beaches to hang out on but mostly we just needed to not be moving, swaying and rocking for a few minutes.

I LOVED learning about sail physics and helping with to put sails up and take them down. The greatest part of our trip is our hosts could completely handle the boat themselves and so we could choose how much we wanted to participate in crewing the boat minute by minute. I just loved the raising and lowering of the sails, literally the mechanism that was catching the wind and moving us around these islands…how freakin’ cool is that?!?!?! I am still in awe of how it all works and am excited to find a sailing vessel of some sort this coming summer…maybe windsurfing. Yeah, that sounds about right for me.

This is a picture of my room. These 2 bunk beds that were available to me and I ultimately found that the top one had the best air flow. I do not sleep well when my body is moving (in the car, on a plane and apparently not on a boat either). Aside from a sedentary 10 days, sleeping was the only other downfall of being on the sailboat for me. I am particular about sleep and need certain pillows and support and position and basically the only way to sleep in this bed was to tie up a hammock up to the wall at the head and foot of the bed to keep from rolling out at night as the boat rocks in the waves. This took a while to get used to and then once I was home, it took a while to get use to being in a bed that was not moving. It is interesting to watch the brain try to adapt to all of that!

This is how our days were spent…sitting, sailing and chatting. This particular group of friends are what I consider “growth friends”. We are always presenting ideas, talking things over, offering each other perspective and solving the problems of the world…well our own small worlds if you want to be particular.

Another incredible evening anchored in some beautiful place, rocking in the waves, chatting about the day and prepping to wind down for the night.

New Year’s Eve was spent on the island of Jost Van Dyke at a world famous bar called Foxy’s. It is amazing that among the 3,000 people at this party that I can be dancing around the place and come across a sticker of one of the businesses, Unlimited Offroad, here in Fenton, MI. It amazes me to be thousands of miles away and have evidence of Fenton’s greats right in front of me!!

These guys…the greatest!!!

And these two, Bones and Anna and their beautiful boat Emily Morgan, exceptional is not even the word great enough for them. 24 hours per day for 10 solid days with 6 demanding goofballs in their home…I have no idea how they endure something like that. This is the moment stepping off the boat and parting ways after our 10 days. We were truly like a big happy family with them and we all miss them. You can see in their smiles and in their energy fields, even after 10 FULL DAYS, they have the biggest servants hearts of any people I have seen in a while. Our trip was as amazing as it was due mostly to them. Look them up if ever you are looking to have an exceptional vacation!

So that concludes the BVI sailing picture diary. If think I covered the trip thoroughly as I also strongly believe that pictures tell the best stories. Until next time…I am still “Sailing the Scene, 2016!”

NOBODY IS EXEMPT

Daily, for over 10 years, I have been helping people to increase their health and internal resilience through my job as a Doctor of Chiropractic. Aside from keeping the nerve system free of interference, the chiropractic adjustment, there are NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY that need to be followed in order to be healthy and remain that way…and nobody is exempt. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy, you have to do the following:

EAT WELL.

MOVE WELL.

THINK WELL.

REST WELL.

Some of you are doing an exceptional job at committing to health and I don’t want to make a blanket statement but I do want to review what is necessary.

Let’s start with the first…EAT WELL. The body heals by replacing cells. The body and all the cells in it are replaced on a regular basis. The body grows new cells by the building blocks you ingest. Ingest a bunch of junk and you will have weak structure and usually a lot of inflammation. Ingest good healthy food and you will have strong building blocks to construct your cells. AND DRINK YOUR WATER!!! Every single day, yes ALL OF THE DAYS, EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE, you need to DRINK WATER. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to EAT WELL AND DRINK WATER and nobody is exempt.

Second thing you need to do daily…MOVE WELL. The body is built to move. Every joint in the body is nourished through movement. If we were supposed to be sedentary we would not have nearly as many joints in our bodies. Circulation increases when you move your body and with that oxygen increases as well. Circulation is how nutrients and oxygen are transported though the body and delivered to all organs, tissues, muscles and glands. Muscles also need to be moved and stretched every single day. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to MOVE WELL EVERY SINGLE DAY and nobody is exempt.

Our quality of life is determined largely by our attitude towards it. Wake up with a smile or wake up with a frown, it is going to set the tone for your entire day. The days add up to weeks, weeks add up to months and then years and life goes by rather quickly. Life is only a fraction of what happens to us, and mostly our reaction to it. Be grateful. Even when things don’t seem to be going your way, be grateful for something. Take some time to express gratitude silently to yourself and maybe even out loud to those around you. It doesn’t matter how old our young you are, in order to be healthy you have to THINK GOOD THOUGHTS IN YOUR LIFE and nobody is exempt. Chiropractor Fenton Michigan Smiling Flower

Have you ever really taken time to think about sleep? At night, we literally leave this conscious state and step off to some place while our physical body rests. Sometimes this is to dreamland and sometimes it is quiet and
uneventful. Either way, we sleep. Our body shuts down and goes into restoration mode. It is a time for rebuilding, regrouping, integrating and healing and our bodies require it. Every. Single. Day. It doesn’t matter how old our young you are, in order to be healthy you have to REST WELL, take some down time and rest and nobody is exempt.

Patients come to the Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic Center every week for over 10 years and I help them through the chiropractic adjustment. The greatest thing about chiropractic care is that the adjustment helps keep the body connected to it’s power source, the brain and nerve system, and allows it to do everything it is supposed to do, better and more efficiently. I also do my best to help my patients understand the NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY. I ask things like “How much sleep have you had lately?” and “How much exercise have you gotten today? This week?” and “How much water have you drank today? This week?” and “What are you doing to handle stress in your life?”

Some reply a resounding “YES! LOTS!!” and I realize that so many are committed to their own health. However, some reply with answers that DO NOT follow the NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY as described above. These are not laws I just made up…this is really serious business and involves your body and your life.

WE HAVE TO DO WHAT WE KNOW WE NEED TO DO IN ORDER TO BE HEALTHY AND THAT’S IT!!!

There are no shortcuts.

There is no easy way.

There is no magic pill.

I talk about water on most of your visits because the importance of being properly hydrated is underestimated. But now you have to go out there into your life and DRINK YOUR WATER!!! You have to, that is all there is to it.

I love you and this is why I am expressing to you the fact that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to FOLLOW THE NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY and NOBODY IS EXEMPT!!!! Got it? Now get out there and get to work!!! 🙂

HELPING OTHERS

For the past 6 months of so, I have found myself awake and staring at the ceiling (when I should be sleeping) a little more than usual. There doesn’t seem to be anything too different happening in my life that is creating a little more sleeplessness however I get to that time of the night and I just do not seem tired. Of course, life still goes on and regardless of how little sleep I have gotten, I have to get up and start my day. So I have turned to helping others…

Helping others? What is she talking about now?

I am going to take you all the way back to elementary school and this idea of “You get what you give”, isn’t there a song called that? If you are playing nice and you decide to share something with a classmate, that classmate will think of you next time they have something to share. When you give out a good or bad attitude, you usually attract the same in return.

So what on Earth does any of what happened back in elementary school have to do with sleepless nights?

Some time ago, during one of the Cafe of LIFE Book Club meetings, we were reading a book about creating happiness and how if you are searching for happiness, reach out and help another person be happy and the Universe will step up and help you in return. Likewise, if you are looking for a relationship, reach out and help someone else find a relationship and the Universe will step in and help you.

So due to my recent challenge to find zzzzzzzz’s when I need them, I decided to help other people fall asleep…and I don’t mean with chiropractic care, however sleep improves tremendously under chiropractic care.

Let me side track for a moment. Have you heard of the concept of visualization when you are trying to manifest something in your life? Do you ever take a moment to visualize an event or situation you are involved in before you get there? …and then you realize that it turns out in real life exactly how you planned? The brain will fire the same neuron connections and pathways wether the situation is actually happening in real life or if it is just a figment of the imagination.

So getting back to my sleep challenge…I lay in my bed, and instead of staring at the ceiling, I imagine myself getting a small hand lantern and walking down the road to each of my neighbors homes and visualize myself helping them fall asleep. There is nothing that I actually do (I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to put someone to sleep), I am just there setting an intention for them to fall deeply and peacefully asleep and having a very restful night.

Funny thing is I have yet to make it past the 2nd house and I am out like a light. Also my final thoughts before that rest were helping others and that has to be a good thing. I can tell you one thing, it has changed the evenings for me and I have been doing this for a solid 3 weeks now with ridiculous levels of success.

This past weekend I was in New York City at a Hay House conference called “I Can Do It”. I was with a couple girlfriends and we shared a room. If you know me, you know I have anxiety about sleeping in the same room as other people (hmmmm…may be a good hint why I am still single, just sayin’) but that is the set up and it saves us loads of money to share a room together.

This time I had strategy and I spent the first 2.5 minutes or so mentally walking the halls and standing outside other people’s doors and helping them to fall deeply and peacefully asleep and having a very restful night. I say 2.5 minutes because honestly, it is such a short time of helping others and I am out.

This may seem like a really small thing to you, like it is no big deal.

This is a REALLY BIG DEAL to this gal.

I keep checking in with myself the following morning to see if I remember my last thought from the night before…and it is always helping others fall deeply and peacefully asleep and having a very restful night. It is a really peaceful way to end my days.

If there is something out there that you want more of in your life, spend some of your time and energy helping others to have that and the Universe will help you. I am living by a whole new motto “Forget counting sheep, help others fall asleep!” …I am going to go and do that now.

I REMEMBER…

I remember this feeling. I am in a new house and a new bed and I have yet to move the rest of my furniture into the new place. Over the past couple days I have had some upper back stiffness and I feel really hunched over and locked up. I am sitting at my desk at my office Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic and trying to remember when I felt this last…and then it hit me…it was prior to the purchase of my Sleep Number bed.

I remember waking up for years feeling like I got hit by a truck while I was sleeping. I was (and am) working out, drinking lots of water, stretching and doing yoga on a continual basis and at that age (and this age), there is no way my body should have felt (and currently feel) like that. (I am not trying to be a commercial for Sleep Number by telling you all this.) I purchased my bed 2 years ago after stopping in a store on a recommendation of another chiropractor. Everything they were telling me was making sense and when I got it home and tried it for myself, I was really, really impressed and amazed with my ability to rest and feel rested in the morning. It is one of those things that after sleeping on it for so long, I had forgotten the difference…until the past 2.5 weeks.

The biggest challenge I have now is that my Sleep Number bed I have at home is a queen and my new master bedroom has a king and requires a king…so I am going to have to go and purchase a king Sleep Number in the very near future. People that come in and get adjusted at my chiropractic office ask me all the time what bed I recommend. I always give them my personal experience because what else can i possibly talk about besides what I have done myself.

We spend a third of our lives in bed and it is important to make an investment in the quality of sleep we get. How can we possibly move through our days and do what we need to do feeling like we got hit by a truck sometime during the night? Just for the record, there are many really good quality beds on the market. Everyone is slightly different and our bodies have different requirements when it comes to relaxation and sleep. The best advice I can give on sleep position is to make sure your spine is as neutral as possible…making sure there are no twists, extra stress or sagging occurring…and I am grateful to know what I need to do about this and where to go to return to happy sleeping!!!