life lessons – Page 12 – We Only Get One Chance

EVERY YEAR…

…around the birthday time for the Cafe of LIFE, I ask people for 3 words that describe their experience here. That small piece of paper is then entered into a drawing for some gift certificates, shirts, bags, etc here at the Cafe of LIFE. Last year I decided to post all the words on here so that I had a place to remember them since knowing that people describe the Cafe using these words is a HUGE compliment to the staff and I.

…positive, professional, friendly, relaxing, comforting, peaceful, welcome, kindness, easy, convenient, personable, healing, compassionate, laid-back, cool, friendliness, caring, wonderful, pleasant, fun, calming, helpful, healthy, hopeful, welcoming, complete, calming, enlightening, healthy, friendly, awesome, nice, relaxing, positive, altering, happy, healing, peaceful, wonderful, I love Erica, I love Teri, fun, great people, serenity, practical, makes me feel good, everyone makes me laugh, great experience, relaxing, hopeful, life-changing, convenient, expedient, amazing, fun, life change, positive, exciting, P.S. everyone is friendly, relaxing, rejuvenating, therapeutic, sense of well-being, uplifting, inspiring, amazing, relief, comfort, relaxation, release, healthy, re-aligning with LIFE, enlightening, growth, encouraging, healing, welcoming, did I say healing?, peace, health, calmness, thankful, rejuvenated, health, relaxing, friendly, refreshed, energized, relaxed, relief, learning, comfortable, invigorating, healing, fun, relaxing, stress-release, calming, wonderful, helpful, hopeful, relief, refresh, fun, painless, peaceful, restoring, cheerful, healing, grateful, new, me again, straight, relaxing, new, feel better, friendly, always smells good, relaxed, clear, energized, educational, serenity, rejuvenating, delightful, awareness, awaken, alive, relaxing, inviting, efficient, calming, relaxing, comfortable atmosphere, understanding, gentle, kind, relaxing, helps, relieves pain, wonderful, pleasant, fantastic, relaxing I love Erica, friendly I love Angie, awesome I love Teri, good health, peace, calming…

There were another 20 or more of the word “relaxing” but I didn’t want to keep writing it.

Bottom line…I think we are doing our job and we are looking forward to many more years to come. Thank you to all of you for adding to our Cafe of LIFE community!!!

YOGA TEACHER TRAINING

As many of you know, I practice yoga…a lot. I have been committed to cultivating my inner yogi for the past 4 years and spend 2-3 nights at Ethos Yoga Studio in Holly http://www.ethosyoga.net/.

It is one of my passions and helps to make me a better person in this world. My usual classes are Monday and Wednesday night over at Ethos and Friday afternoon either there or down at Center For Yoga in Birmingham http://www.centerforyoga.com/. It is therapeutic for me; mind, body and spirit. It is absolutely one of the greatest things I have added to my life and spend a lot of time talking about it during the day at the Cafe of LIFE. In order for the body to be and stay healthy, it needs to move. I haven’t found a better way to move the body than to flow and twist and turn in a yoga class and would highly recommend it in some way to everyone.

Tomorrow starts a new phase of yoga for me. I am always on the hunt for rich, rewarding experiences and I will begin a Yoga Teacher Training course over at Ethos Yoga. The course is 3 months long and is designed to immerse trainees in the yoga philosophy. We will be practicing yoga on a daily basis on our own or in a class. We will develop a personal meditation practice on our own and in class. We will change our eating habits to vegetarian or vegan. So this is going to be in addition to what I already have going on which is running a really fun chiropractic practice, hosting an amazing Book Club, giving Half Hour to Health lectures, participating in an awesome Walking Club, being a dog mom, and a runner amongst many other activities I am involved in. It means getting up an hour earlier and time managing a little better. It means studying and spending a lot of down time reading and writing. I look forward to it. I will keep you posted during the process.

(pictures are right off Ethos website; Kel Leigh Coale photography)

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.

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!

DURANGO

Durango, Colorado!!! I visited such a wonderful place last weekend I have to share with you. It is a small town in southwest Colorado, very near what they call “The Four Corners” where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah come together. I guess there is a monument there that you can straddle with your arms and legs and be in 4 states all at one time. I didn’t make it there however I did get to explore the area. Durango is a very conscious city. The people of Durango pay attention to what they eat and how they treat the land and environment. They recycle whenever they can, ride their bikes if it is possible, and respect others. It seems that many people are questioning standard western medicine there, thus leading to healthier births, childhoods, and lives in general. I have friends that practice chiropractic there in the city and are loving every minute of being in their small piece of paradise. Though it is more than a hop, skip, and a jump to get there, if you get a chance to go, TAKE IT!!!

ADD LIFE

If we eat live things, we add life to our bodies.

If we eat processed things, it doenst matter what it is, our digestive systems get clogged up. There are so many additives to make things look pretty and appear tempting. The processes that they use in order to make these products yield foods that are very taxing on our digestive system. So when the digestive system is taxed, the body has to work harder to accomplish even the small stuff in life. But when you eat things that are alive, the items that we are eating are actually adding LIFE to our bodies. I could go on and on with this principal however the bottom line is that if we eat live foods, we actually add life to our bodies, if we eat processed foods, we tax our systems.

LET’S ADD LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!

BOOK CLUB

One of the most wonderful things that has come into my life in this past year is the Cafe of LIFE Book Club.

I am not the originator though it was passed to me because I host it at my office. It is such a wonderful experience each and every meeting we have. We all leave lighter and with more ease than what we came in with. We cozy up here at the Cafe of LIFE and have open discussions about real things, that really matter. If you ever get an opportunity to join something like this, take it. And if you haven’t found one yet, COME JOIN US!!!! We begin a new book “Loving What Is” by Byron Katie tomorrow, Thursday Sept 25th at 6:30pm and meet every other week to discuss about 3 chapters at a time.

One word to describe book club….INSPIRING!!!

DOMS

Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness, DOMS,….my friends and I laughed and joked around when we first learned this in school. It is seriously referred to as “doms” and I had a serious experience with it over the past weekend. On Friday I decided I would do a step aerobics class (60 min), a yoga class (60 min), and then I had my first horseback riding lesson. I used to show horses when I was growing up but once I left for college, it was difficult to find time or a horse to ride on a regular basis. Essentially I have been away from horses for 10 years. So I decided I would start taking riding lessons to get involved with horses again. It was great fun but I found muscles that had not been worked in a long time (like 10 years). I work out all the time and I would think that power yoga 3 times per week should have touched all of those muscles but I guess not. Each exercise uses different muscle groups and that is why it is so important to cross-train on a regular basis. My next riding lesson is tomorrow and I am really excited because each time it will be easier and easier on my body. And of course getting adjusted on a regular basis is so important to keep it all balanced. I will be doing that tomorrow as well!!!