Elizabeth M. Johnson

As a long-time fan of Oprah, I was devastated to learn about her free offer of KFC on her website.  My mind swam when I heard this.  Oprah, long an advocate of healthy living and strong personal wellness, puts a coupon on her website for free fried chicken, two sides and a biscuit. 

This offer is wrong on so many levels, I hardly nowhere to begin.  Let me start with Oprah’s tagline: Live Your Best Life.  How does free fried food help one to live his or her best life?  It sounds to me like a recipe (forgive the pun) for a worse life, a life less than healthy, less than well.  

My understanding is that this offer is an effort to help people deal with a down economy by providing them with a free meal.  A laudable action, certainly.  However, as I pointed out in my letter of complaint to Oprah’s website, the people who most need a free, hot meal are not ones who likely have access to the computer.  Instead of creating an offer that only certain priviledged folks can respond to, why not put an offer of a free meal out to the general public via a newspaper, the local libraries or, better yet, through ministry organizations that are already having a difficult time providing enough food for the growing number of families that flow through their already full doors? 

If it were me and I wanted to sponsor multiple free meals, a one-time coupon to KFC would obviously not be the path I would take.  Why not put that money toward purchasing “extra” food from a local farm or bakery for a local soup kitchen or similar organization that provides meals (and more!) to the homeless and needy on a daily basis, not just once? 

Since Tuesday is personal wellness inventory day, let me turn the question on you: what would you do if you had the means to provide a hot meal to 250,000 people?  [I have no idea the number of people who have downloaded that coupon.]  How would you assist in improving someone else’s wellness with this condition: providing a hot meal to 250,000 people? Would you provide a coupon for a fast food meal or something else?  Let me know your thoughts–in agreement or otherwise–by leaving a comment.

It has been over a week (hence, the lag in regular posting) since my beloved, trusty ThinkPad was beseiged by a nearly-full cup of Harney’s Bangkok and subsequently shut down.  Ironically, almost a year to the day, I had posted The Six Things I Cannot Live Without; my latop was #5.  Without it, I feel like I am only a portion present.  Part of me is missing and when it might return, I am not certain.   The complete distress that I have felt over this loss has caused me to reflect on how certain comforts are key to our personal wellness.  And, since Tuesday is personal wellness inventory day, my technology trauma seems a fine path to explore the connection between comforts and wellness. 

Let’s be clear: Understanding what comforts we need in our life (and ensuring their continued presence) is a key to maintaining personal wellness.  Simply put, when we know what makes us feel good, we are stronger, we “are” good.  We are in a better position to keep up the job search, leave a bad relationship, apply to grad school or join a MeetUp group.  When we abandon, lose or don’t know our comforts, we are more likely to be short-tempered or lose our patience.  We will not have the energy to exercise or spend time networking. 

Example: A client of mine is readying herself and her family for a major move.  Wondering about how best to adapt her young daughter to the idea of a new place is to create a scrapbook which features pictures, names, addresses and other personal information for the friends (and loved ones) that she is leaving behind.  The scrapbook will help her remember those friends when she is feeling sad and serve to remind her that they aren’t completely gone from her life.  She can call them, write letters or ask that they come visit.  A scrapbook is just the comfort that she needs to maintain her own personal wellness.

I am one of those people who do find comfort in objects.  Materialistic as this may sound, it’s actually not a bad quality.  For one thing, I am not an impulse buyer.  I don’t overspend on shopping excursions, I buy only what I absolutely love and hold onto those pieces for years.  Strange as it sounds, my laptop was one of one of those treasures.  As a educator, I consider it as indispensable as my glasses or contacts!  But when a tried and true comfort vanishes, what can we do?  

1. Acknowledge the loss.  Mourn it, shriek like a banshee or go for a really hard run.  Whatever you do, don’t pretend that it didn’t happen or it doesn’t matter.  Not owning the emotions that are linked to the comfort doesn’t free you from dealing with them, it just forces them to manifest in different, unconnected ways e.g. yelling at your husband or daughter instead of being honest about your sadness.
2. Seek a replacement!  That’s right, once your mouring is over, move on.  Get a new one or borrow one.  Don’t let grass grow under your feet on this one.  Pretending does no good.  You need one so get going.

Ruth Reichl’s second book is the deliciously-titled Comfort Me With Apples.  In it she details the beginnings of her now famous career in food.  Reichl, Editor of Gourmet magazine and former New York Times restaurant critic, has always loved to eat and cook. Food is one of her comforts.  It seems to me that through her writing, Reichl offers a recipe for wellness success that we can all tip our finger in: keep comfort close at hand.

Tuesday is personal wellness inventory day.  Let’s focus on your mistakes. 

Are you squirming yet? If so, you are in good company.  Most of us don’t want to think back to past errors we’ve made, let alone look at them in detail.  We’re embarassed or ashamed of them.  We might even still be angry with ourselves.  But author Jonah Lehrer argues that it is critical to consider our mistakes.  Lehrer looks at how we made decisions on a daily basis and what we can do to maximize our brain power in his newest book, How We Decide.  Lehrer says that a common trait of successful people is that they are willing to consider their errors.  Apparently, they even look at their successes to see where and how they can improve.

Personal wellness comes in not accepting the status quo, the average, a “C” grade.  When we work a little harder on a vexing problem, when we take even a small risk, when we exercise ten minutes more we are builing personal wellness.  Simply put, it is stretching (our bodies and our minds), not engaging in the routine, which builds wellness.  Examining our errors is the sort of stretching (of our comfort zone, patience, and cognitive ability) which builds wellness.  Wellness is built because we are attempting to live honestly, in balance. 

If you’re game, try this:

1. Think about a recent error you made–large or small, it doesn’t matter.
2. Reflect on the circumstances surrounding the mistake.  Take into account outside influencers (weather, time of day, who you were with, where you were) and internal influencers (the mood you were in, how well you slept the night before, your hunger or thirst levels, stress level of the moment).
3. Next, write down on paper the error and the circumstances surrounding it.  Keep it to a half page, more or less.
4. Now, focus on the mistake again with the benefit of the full circumstances and a fresh distance from the event.  What strikes you?  Write down 1-2 learnings that you can use for the future.  Example: “I need to ask at least 2 people to review my work before I submit it next time.” or “Next time I will read aloud the instructions so I understand them completely before I act.”

Considering our errors isn’t about fixating on them.  Prolonged fixation is perfectionistic.  Perfectionist tendencies are the opposite of wellness enhancing actions.  Considering our errors is about stretching ourselves into stronger personal wellness.

Columnist Froma Harrop’s op-ed about marriage last week ruffled my feathers quite a bit.  Harrop wonders why, instead of giving away the milk for free, more single moms don’t require men to “buy” the cow.  I’m paraphrasing a bit here obviously.  She cites the example of a struggling single mom neighbor with a live-in boyfriend who “clearly doesn’t want to be the mother’s husband,” (how Harrop came to be clear on this point is actually unclear) as the basis for her the title question of her column: Why not get married?  Instead of ending the article with a question about whether marriage intensifies one’s sense of duty, I wish that Harrop had started her piece with due diligence to answer, instead, why get married?

Perhaps she might have come round to what some of us already know: marriage is not a guarantor against single mom drudgery.  Certainly some women lack the self-esteem, as Harrop implies, to demand that dad help out with the child.  But a marriage certificate doesn’t equal a guarantee that dad will transport little Joey to school or anywhere else for that matter. And yes, while marriage can mean additional income, it doesn’t mean that more money is going specifically to the child or the household that supports that child.  Point in case: a former client of mine was given by her husband, exactly half of the costs for their daughter’s diaper and formula fund, after Client shared receipts with him.  Cheap but affluent, he also couldn’t be relied on to bring Sue to the doctor, babysitter, even grandparents, taking her only when convenient for him to be seen with his child.

Some marriages also end.  The drawbacks of which often prove more financially damaging that any of the benefits that came from the marriage. In her book The New Feminine Mistake author Leslie Bennetts examines the costs (emotionally, financial, otherwise) of opting-out of work in favor of full-time motherhood.  Relevant here, however, is the particularly close look at divorce she takes in Chapter Five, citing the work of several experts who all agree that post-divorce women are in a much greater state of financial distress than they were before they married. Here is an excerpt, “women’s standard of living drops 36% when their marriages are disrupted, whereas men’s standard of living rises by 28%.  Divorced women are also more vulnerable to complete economic collapse.” (107)

Economic collapse due in part because divorce is expensive.  I know couples who remain unhappily together because they cannot afford to get divorced.  I have counseled women who, because they were out of the workforce for so long at home with children, have found themselves “out of date” in the job market.  In this position, they cannot afford to get a divorce from their abusive husband  (who, by the way, doesn’t want a divorce).  These experiences are supported by research conducted at The Center for Work-Life Policy by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, explored in their article, “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success”.  They note that, “. . . women lose an average of 18% of their earning power when they take an off-ramp.” And, the longer you are out, the more severe the earning loss.  Without money (ours or someone else’s) most of us are pretty powerless.

In short, marrying to have a helping hand around the house, for assumed financial benefits, perceived safety or security or to conform to a social expectation are not reasons enough.  As Dr. Robin Smith says in her amazing book, Lies at the Altar: The Truth about Great Marriages, “you have to be whole before you can be joined,” (21).  Marriage is not a recipe for personal wellness. In asking the question, “why not get married?”, Froma Harrop seems to imply just the opposite.

Personal wellness is not just about eating right and exercising, as readers of this blog know.  It is also about taking time off, practicing self care, getting adequate sleep, indulging in doses.  One topic related to personal wellness that doesn’t appear to surface very often (here or elsewhere), is beauty.

Not human beauty but everyday beauty.  Everyday objects or images that flood your heart with pleasure when you see or experience them.  The Dez Ryan lamp on my desk, Spring pink linens on a king bed, pure white Baci asleep on a bed of green clover in the backyard.   Everyday beauty soothes and rejuvenates.  It is a balm against distress, disease even, I think because it forces our eye to look longer, take a deep breath and drink in bliss.  I have long believed that the average person doesn’t have enough beauty in their life.  This has always struck me as sad since everyday experiences can be beautiful.

Tuesday is “personal wellness inventory day” so here’s an exercise to take stock of yours.

1. Set your tea timer for one minute and put pen to paper by answering this question: Where does beauty show up in my life? Make a list of every thing in your life that you find beautiful  (a newly upholstered antique sofa, the glass bowl on your dining table with a dozen pastel-colored eggs in it).  The catch is that it must be in your life: at home or work.  It can’t be in/at someone else’s home (the blue hydrangeas at Kira and Bob’s Cape place don’t count).
2. Next, evaluate your list.  Is it chock full or sparse? If you need to amp up your beauty quotient, consider a jaunt to a place where you often find beauty and see what you can borrow there for your own life.  I like trips to the grocery store myself.  I look at the lemons, eggplant and bell peppers.  These are among the most beautiful produce to me.  Sometimes they are flawless.  I buy a few and add them into my own life.  Instant dose of wellness!

Being frugal with beauty doesn’t improve personal wellness, as frugality with ice cream or whoopie pies does.  It’s just the opposite.  Add beauty into your life and you’ll feel more capable of breathing.  You’ll walk (skip?) with a kick in your step and smile at strangers.  Simple acts may move you to tears and gratitude.  As Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Can you concentrate with a lot of noise reverberating in the background?  Do you crank out your best work in a frenzy of movement, clamor and shouts?  Many of us (including myself) do not.  Hiring managers are no exception.

As Auren Hoffman says in a recent post, “noise goes up but the quality stays the same.”  The noise he is referring to is the amount of resumes from C-Players (his term) that companies receive for open positions in a down environment.  The amount of A-player resumes stays about the same but C-Player resumes are up dramatically. This makes sense.  Companies when they need to lay-off workers will be more inclined to lay off C-Players (the average worker) than A-Players (me, maybe you).

Bottom line: It is harder for hiring managers to find the A-Players with all of the noise and harder for A-Players to find meaningful work because of all of that distracting noise.  Not all hope is lost, however,  Hoffman offers a few tips for both parties in the rest of his fascinating post here.  What he doesn’t mention but I will, is that in my experience, it isn’t C-players who leave their jobs–at a highpoint in their successful tenure with their company–to start their own business.  It’s usually B or A players.  Hiring managers, take note: consider closely–definitely more than the C-player resumes you receive–someone who has owned and operated their own busines. You’ll find someone who is not only creative and resourceful but who also brings a passionate dedication to do and be better.

Think for a moment about what you have: items you own (appliances, shoes, laptop), money in the bank, property able to be used for collateral, trinkets-large and small-around the house.  Don’t forget to include intangibles like love of family, support from best friends, spiritual fulfillment, satisfaction from volunteer work, good health, chance encounters with people who end up helping your job search, whatever else can be counted among your possessions blessings. You have a lot, don’t you?  So much in fact that you likely skipped over some of what you actually have because one of those categories (shoes perhaps) is slightly problematic in that you own so many pairs of shoes, you couldn’t even begin to count, let alone seriously consider them.

With all that you have, how much is enough?

Jake DeSantis defined his enough in his letter of resignation: “. . . I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.”  For the former AIG employee, enough also means donating his entire $742K bonus to charity, specifically to “organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the economic downturn.”

My friend, Susan, knows her enough too. She moved from Wyoming to North Carolina last summer and has been looking for work from Day #1.  Susan accepted a lower paying part-time job which would lead to full-time work and while it wasn’t exactly what she had hoped for, she took the job.  I knew that she was still hunting so I sent her job leads that I came across.  Susan never failed to acknowledge each with a thank you.  I emailed her last week and learned that she gave notice at the “toxic” job. Susan knows what enough means to her.

Enough for some people means that they can pay their bills and have a little money leftover for the occasional dinner and a movie. They work, live within their means and Freecycle what they no longer need.  Family is seen more frequently than just on Christmas.  They give time or money to causes that they believe in because it makes them feel good.  Others have no concept of what their enough might be because they are really busy pursuing More.  They hope that the pursuit of More might lead to enough.  Hint: It won’t.  Trust me on this one.

Tuesday has been dubbed “personal wellness inventory day” so here’s an exercise to take stock:

Put pen to paper and write down what you need to have as “enough”.  Include the intangibles mentioned above and things like dog food, water, electricity, etc. Consider what you have now and go from there.   Do you already have enough? Question some of the assumptions that you find yourself making or aspects of your life that you take for granted.  For example, not everyone needs to own their home.  If you are a travel fiend who loves to hit the road for planned adventures 3-5 times per year, then maybe renting a homebase is enough.  Because your enough means money in the bank for those adventures.

Personal wellness doesn’t improve with aquiring an abundance of stuff.  It will improve, however, when you take stock of where you are and what you need (including those intangibles like sleep).  That’s Enough.

Believe it: there are bright spots.  You just need to look for them.  If you feel, as I do, that we are surrounded by bad news all the time, day in and day out, and that the constant barage is damaging to our personal wellness, the feel good news stories below will be welcome solace:

1. Candy store sales are not sucking!  Lollipops, Necco Wafers and gummies of all sorts are flying off the shelves at candy stores all over the country.  Indulge more here.
2. Finally some real reform in the commercial food industry in the United States.  In March, President Obama announced that the Department of Agriculture would officially put an end to cattle unable to walk being mishandled in order to get them to the slaughter house.  This is much needed legislation that ensures greater safety in the meat that Americans consume.
3. At The Great Human Race in Durham on March 21, volunteers from non-profits around the Triangle gathered to walk or run as a fundraiser for their group of choice.  My sister, Caroline, raised $1510 for The Coalition to Unchain Dogs to build five fence.  Overall the Coalition was the biggest single fundraiser, raising over $18,000.
4. Freecycle.  Freecyle.  Freecyle.  Get rid of your old junk, find new treasures. Did I mention that it was free?
5. A contest is underway for photographers who have a Dream Assignment.  They enter the details and people vote on it. The winner is awarded $50,000 to make it happen.  Voting ends TODAY!.  Here’s my favorite.
6. New home sales jumped in February, the first month-to-month gain since July 2008.  Has the housing market finally reached its bottom?  Let’s hope so.
7. Hyundai came up with the “Hyundai Assurance” plan in February.  Basically, if you buy a Hyundai and then lose your job within a year of purchase, Hyundai will buy back your car and absorb any loss in the car’s value up to $7500.  Yesterday, Ford and GM decided to jump on the clever sales incentive bandwagon.
8. Earlier this year, Fortune posted their Top 20 employers who are hiring. Yes, hiring employees.  Might one of their open position be your next gig? Click here for the list.
9. There are free movies at Duke almost every night.  Yes, I said “free!”  They range from documentaries (with discussions with directors afterwards) to recent releases.  Click here for a preview.
10. Yet one more lawsuit against Wal-Mart has been settled.  The Evil Empire settled for $17.5 million dollar in February on a class action lawsuit in which plaintiffs claimed that Wal-Mart discriminated against African-American truck drivers.  Keep your eyes open for future developments on yet another class action suit, this one filed by millions of female employees alleging lower pay than their male counterparts, among other charges.
11. Students across the country have taken up the challenge to completely ban the r-word from their vocabulary.   Way too many people default to use the word “retarded” or “retard” to describe just about anything that is stupid.  This step is a shining example of social activism in action.  I love it!
12. Speaking of service, applications to AmeriCorps numbered over 9K in February alone, up almost triple from the same month in 2008.  “People are feeling their own pain, but they’re also feeling their neighbors’ pain,” said Alan Solomont, board chairman of the government-run Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps.
13. A friend of mine recently discovered a dressy skirt with all of its tags, accompanied by its 2007 receipt (!), still in its department store bag in the back of her closet.  Now working in retail, she no longer needs such an item.  Curious, she called the department store to see if they would take it back. They took it back and credited the card that she bought it with!  It’s a small win but a nice one.
14. This restaurant isn’t going anywhere!  Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero, CA has been in business for over 115 years and is still kicking, just like their pepper soup.  Italian with a Portuguese flair, Duarte’s features Cioppino along with the famous pepper soup and all kinds of pie.  “People want this place to continue on probably forever,” says Kathy Duarte, “and that involves family members.”
15. Retail sales fell significantly less than expected in February.  Store sales may be picking up.  Now if only all stores would wrap for free.
16. Are you in the market to buy a house?  Well, mortgage rates are at historic lows.  Now is the time to buy a house, as an investment or for new digs for you.
17. Your local Whole Foods Markets not only offer great weekly specials (so your trip doesn’t become Whole Paycheck) but also free classes like Herbs 101or tours (Healthy Wealthy and Wise. . . on a budget) AND local do-good programs.  On April 7 the Durham Whole Foods Market will donate a portion (7%, I think) of their proceeds to Animal Protection Society of Durham.
18. The town of Chapel Hill voted to ban tethering (chaining) of dogs in late March.  The ban takes effect in 2010.
19. High-tech jobs are still in demand.  This industry expanded by 77,000 jobs in 2008, the fourth consecutive year of growth.
20. Your heart muscles can grow back!  Not just after a bad break-up but after a stroke.  Scientists have long believed that the heart muscles cannot produce new muscle cells so, unlike the rest of your body, you die with the same heart cells you were born with.  Finally new research shows that this is not the case.
21. Highway fatalities fell to their lowest levels in 50 years, especially in New England where the drop was steepest.
22. While 2.5 million people were laid off in January, 4.4 million new workers were hired.

What good news do you have to share?  Email me them to me at ej (at) ejohnsonandcompany (dot) com and I’ll add them to the list.

Imagine for a moment the condition of your personal wellness if you didn’t have a home.  Meaning, you didn’t have anywhere to sleep, eat, or be safe from harm.  The street or an alley was your home.  No walls protected you from the elements or human predators.  How well would you be?  Add an addiction, alcoholism or mental illness into the mix and wellness quickly becomes a ludicrous, unaffordable ideal.

After sunset as many as 60,000 people wander the street at night in Los Angeles–more than Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Houston’s homeless populations combined–according to a recent 60 Minutes story: Mr. Lopez meets Mr. Ayers. I was thinking of personal wellness as I watched this story of an unusual friendship between two men.  Mr. Ayers, a brilliant musician once enrolled at Juilliard, is homeless and mentally ill.  Mr. Lopez is not a musician, homeless or mentally ill.  He is a journalist who heard the music of Mr. Ayers and decided to not just toss a coin in a case.  Approximately 1/3 of the homeless are mentally ill. These people could be anyone: foster kids who aged out of the system, veterans who fought for their country, or men like Mr. Ayers.

His mental illness took over during his first year at Juilliard and when school let out for the summer, he took off for home.  Permanently.  Since then, he has taken medication off and on, had electroshock treatments and settled in Los Angeles where he can be heard playing the violin, cello or any number of other instruments on the streets or in tunnels.  Mr. Lopez found Mr. Ayers in one such spot and decided to write a column about him.  One thing lead to another and a friendship began.  One fine day, Mr. Lopez took Mr. Ayers to hear a rehearsal of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, “I knew that Mr. Ayers was home,”  The musicians had heard about Mr. Ayers and started to give him lessons with him.  Says violinist Robert Gupta, “The fact that he has people that understand him, that respect him, that wish him well, I think that is incredibly therapeutic for him.”

And that’s the rub of it.  Therapy for illness doesn’t need to shouldn’t come solely in a bottle or by machine.  It can be in music or art. Certainly the therapy of practicing with a world class orchestra isn’t enough to combat decades of mental illness but the truth is that mental illness is a strange disease.  We aren’t much further along in treating its mysteries than we were twenty years ago when Mr. Ayers was first diagnosed.  Given Mr. Ayers refusal to try newer drugs, music therapy and his friendship with Mr. Lopez [of which Mr. Lopez says, "it's the most meaningful friendship that I have had in my life, it's the one that I have learned the most from,"] might be the only things that contribute to a state of wellness in his life.  Without medication, of course, Mr. Ayers can never be completely well but at least through his two current therapies, he has taken a room off the street that Lamp Community has provided him.

In one of his more lucid moments, Mr. Ayers tells Morley Safer, “music is saying ‘life isn’t that bad’. .   His comment is why we need to be realistic about wellness.  It is a privilege.  Certainly some are in a better position to pursue greater personal wellness for themselves.  But those same people are also in a position to be able to help others, like the homeless, gain wellness.  I love Ian Frazier’s article in The New Yorker about holding a writer’s workshop weekly at a soup kitchen in Manhattan.  And “small” gestures, like listening or writing go far too.  Just ask Steve Lopez.

I came across this quote yesterday–

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Think on your own life, your own job.  What, if anything, do you make more important than people? Consider the impact–on yourself, the world–that your answer has.  There are no insignificant actions.

I’ve had a yen for primary-colored gummy bears recently.  They are comfortingly fat and soft and smell really good.  Apparently, I am not alone.  An article in today’s NYT reveals another sweet spot to this down economy: candy as cheap cheer.

The reasons for this candy explosion vary, ranging from candy’s relative inexpensiveness to the idea of sugar as solace.  Candy also provokes strong, often positive, memories that are much needed at a time when worry and anxiety are the standard emotional state.  When we suck munch on Pez, we are reminded of visits to the penny candy store near our grandparent’s house or adventures at the Cape with a friend and her family.

Of course the nostalgic candy story is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Most candy is chock-full of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, offering no nutritional sustenance.  Let’s face it: candy makes us feel good mainly because it tastes so good!  Constant sweet goodness wreaks havoc on our personal well being, however.  But during a time when we might need extra sweet pleasure in our life, candy is a welcome add-in.  Here’s how to have your candy and eat it too:  (In other words, get your candy fix without sacrificing wellness!)

1. Make your own. Buy some pistachios and a good quality dark chocolate.  Melt the chocolate and pour over the chopped (not finely) nuts.  Instant bark!  It will keep well if wrapped tightly, is portable and makes a great gift.  The Make Your Own idea can be used to duplicate other candy must-have’s.  Think peanut butter cups, candied popcorn, etc.
2. Budget it in.  Diane Campbell, owner of The Candy Store, says that her customers are budgeting in their candy purchases.  What a great idea!  Budgetting something in means that you set aside a specific sum of money and when that money is spent, there is no more of that something.  Controling your candy urge by budgetting allows you to control the pleasure instead of having it control you.
3. Indulge with friends. You are more likely to stick to an exercise plan if you go at it with a friend.  The same reasoning holds true for candy indulgences.  Friends reign us in and keep us on track.   Consuming bags of candy alone isn’t far off from opening and finishing a bottle of wine by yourself.  It’s not healthy.  Friends remind us of what is really important and can usually be cajoled into sharing.

The good news is that if you, too, suddenly have a yen for a Mary Jane, pack of Necco wafers or red licorice whips, you’re in fine company.  Sweet spots can be hard to find so when we find one, we sometimes fall overboard in our delirium of relief.  Plan for the bliss, instead of falling into it. When we plan for it, balance develops and our personal wellness strengthens.

People who find themselves champions of a unpopular cause know what an uphill battle they face to gain support and exposure.  The tide can turn, though, often unexpectedly.  Let’s look at how this can happen.

Advocates for organic and locally grown food, for example, while having found allies in the likes of Whole Foods Markets and Stonyfield Farm, have in the recent past been ignored, under-exposed or declared elitist.  Not any more.  Friends of the movement have welcomed a new call for healthy living by the White House with the decision last week to plow under part of the South Lawn to make way for a vegetable garden.  Suddenly, success feels closer at hand and getting more real all the time, even in this down economy.  There is talk of a “food revolution” and the tone feels populist, not privileged.

Why does one cause suddenly get fast-track attention while another makes slow, plodding steps?  Part of the difference lies in the public face of the cause. Michelle Obama has long been a proponent of healthy living, working out religiously and eating healthily.  When, earlier this month she praised the fresh food on the menu at a soup kitchen in Washington DC, people listened.  Unlike Alice Waters, a major proponent of the slow food movement who has the luxury of seeking out fair-trade chocolate at organic foods shows, Michelle Obama is one of us.  She eats a burger at fast food joint every once in a while.  She has two small children who don’t eat everything.  Before running for president, she worked full-time.

Another essential difference is one that most advocates forget: they must not only educate the public about the importance of the issue but make it relevant to them by showing them how to create change in their own life. Slow food advocates like Waters, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan and others do a wonderful job on the education piece but they get a “D” for the relevancy piece.  Giving people the education without the relevancy to their own life is akin to teaching someone how to wire a house and neglecting to mention how electricity fits in with the other utilities in the house. Those in the advertising business have got this formula down pat: the basics (education) but also relevancy (the ‘what’s in it for me?’) piece.   Recall any of Apple’s commercials or the Gatorade Like Mike campaign.

Making fresh sustainable food available to everyone is a glorious idea.  It’s an idea all the more likely to succeed with someone like Michelle Obama at the helm of this vast ship, urging all of us to eat more healthily, telling us why it is important and showing us how it can be done in our own lives.

Good =average, okay, halfway decent

Great = terrific, above par, immense

Great does not equal perfect.

Great can also mean abundant.  For our purposes here, passing up good for great means that we aren’t willing to live small or accept smallness.  We are holding out for a bushel of plenty instead of a serving of mediocre.

Understanding your unique definitions of “good” and “great” translates into three personal wellness benefits:

1. Increased clarity (about your goals, desires, relationships)
2. Greater confidence (in every small and larger corner of your life)
3. Stronger faith (in yourself and your place in the world)

As always, when in doubt, consult a trusted friend, counselor or coach.  The great ones will tell you if you are being foolish, greedy or lazy.  The others don’t usually offer much good.

My intention was to get the stuffies out in the backyard and inside before the rain came.  I opened the door to venture out, almost closing it on the eager face of my youngest.  Not so fast.  The door opened wider, allowing him to bound down the stairs, breathless in his excitement already.

Baci raced around the small yard in circles, first with a neon blue octopus in his month and then, all of a sudden, it vanished.  I found another toy and tossed it to him.  He caught it deftly in his mouth and kept running.  A greyhound in flight is an amazing thing; Baci is no exception.  He seemed to change direction, seemingly in mid-leap, he is that fast.  And, just as quickly, as his momentum begun, he stopped, panting like a maniac.  We headed back inside.

Release.  Just saying the word feels a sigh or a deep breathe.  Nothing quite matches the exhilaration of an activity (physical, emotional or otherwise) that allows you release from the stresses of your day.  We desperately need this release, especially when we live in a stressful state daily.  Many of us are in this state: we have been laid off and are actively looking for a job; we are going through a divorce or moving cross country.  These are high stress times.  Now more than ever, we need to take extra good care of our personal self by building in time for release.

Dogs model the release command exceptionally well.  While they aren’t out combing Careerbuilder for a new job lead, they do get stressed.   Extremely intuitive, dogs know when their people are anxious, sick or unwell in general.  But they find release in the smallest of ways.  They toss a toy in the air and play by themselves.  They run outside for no reason and bark.  Loudly.  They take long naps.  They hang out with their friends.  They stand by their people and offer a wet kiss or wait to be petted or nuzzled.

Release activities shouldn’t be limited to our four-legged friends.  Humans benefit from naps and quality silly time with friends. I am not a fabulous barker (my dogs give me little opportunity to practice) but I can imagine that a strong yawlp would similarly do wonders in the release department.  Massages are also great for stress release as is yoga of all sorts.  Baking and cooking offers sweet release; share the sweets and giggle with a friend for added stress relief benefits.  Creating in general, whether a homemade Easter card, a wreath or a scrapbook project, is wonderful stress release.

The release command is a no-brainer.  No one fails or is disqualified.  Success begins the moment that you start.  It’s a goodmood enhancer.  It can even be free. Unlike our furry friends, humans don’t need to wait to be fed, walked or watered.  But we still need to be urged to take care of ourselves in other ways. Take it from your dog. . . release!

Perhaps due to an inherently pessimistic nature, our daily assumptions tend to be negative: “I’ll never get the job,” “I will be alone for the rest of my life,” “No one understands me.” More likely, though, is that our negative assumptions are a natural by-product of a constant stream of bad news (and news that feeds on our personal insecurities) directed at us by newspapers, media, radio, etc.  Regardless of the source of negative assumptions, however, we need to understand that three things happen when we make assumptions-

1. We short-change the people involved in the situation: ourselves and the other people involved.  In doing so, we cause harm.
2. We remain angry/bitter/anxious*.
3. We limit our possibilities.

None of these results, unfortunately, are the kind of personal capability that enhances your resume, charms a prospective partner or leads to greater solidarity with a circle of friends.  So, when you assume, you are setting yourself up for that assumption to come true, simply due to the results of your assumption.  Instead, ask yourself if you are sure.

“Am I sure?”

“Am I absolutely, positively sure?”

Very seldom will your answer be “yes.”  Trust me on this one.  And if your answer is “no”, eureka!  You now have the chance to turn your assumption from a groundless worry into a statement of possibility. Here’s how: if you are now not sure that you won’t ever get a job, then a potential job is still out there for you, right? If you are now not sure that your MSW was the “wrong” degree to pursue, then it is still possible that it was the right one after all.  In both cases, you can look at what you do have–a job search (not a “just lost” job) and an MSW–and from there is possibility!

From a place of possibility, hope springs.  No one is harmed by incorrect assumptions and attitudes change from bitter and anxious to hope-filled and grateful.

Are your assumptions negative or positive?  Why, do you think?  Are you sure?

*Byron Katie’s The Work is another resource that delves into this idea of using personal inquiry as a way to eliminate suffering.

I once had two friends named Joanna.  Joanna M. was wild, beautiful and spent the bulk of her monthly living allowance during our semesters in Florence on clothes and shoes.  The other Joanna was more like me: bookish and introspective.  She told me once that she dreamed of owning a store which would sell only her favorite things and she would name it as such: Coffee, Chocolate, Books and Gin.

I thought of Joanna #2 after reading an article on the benefits of  two of her favorite things, dark chocolate and coffee, in Sunday’s News & Observer.  The article authored by the People’s Pharmacy dynamic duo detail some of the most recent good news for coffee drinkers and dark chocolate devotees. If two of your favorite things are coffee and chocolate like Joanna #2, the healthy findings below will really whet your palette:

• Whether you take it black or with milk and Splenda, coffee is basically a mix of chemicals, but not a deadly or even dangerous mix.  It’s a chemical drink chock full of antioxidants.  In fact, coffee contains more antioxidants than most foods, even vegetables, which could be one of the reasons that it is associated with a reduced risk for certain cancers and Alzheimer’s disease, according to the article.

• The benefits of dark chocolate have long been lauded.  It has always my chocolate of choice but now I have more reasons than ever to break off a bite.  Dark chocolate is higher in antioxidants than milk chocolate, for example, but according to the N&O article, it can also lower blood pressure in overweight folks.  It is also reported to improve cholesterol levels and insulin sensitivity (important for better blood sugar control).

Too often we eliminate food favorites from our daily lives.  We do this because we are on a diet or trying to eat more healthily.  But most experts in this area agree that eliminating foods is one of the biggest reasons that diets fail.  Instead of eliminating, limit instead.  Avoid dark chocolate as your default snack.  Instead choose it once per day, making other snack choices: nuts, raw carrots, hummus and crackers.  Since there are obvious health benefits to two foods that we tend to want to eliminate (coffee and dark chocolate), the key is just to balance them in.

So, if in your travels, you come across Coffee, Chocolate, Books and Gin, tell Joanna that I sent you, in search of better health and personal wellness, to the most delicious wares in her store.

What does it mean to live in a country where 1 out of every 31 people are incarcerated?   That number jumps dramatically when looking at only the African-American population: 1 out of 11 are in some sort of correctional facility.  What crime-stricken country is this?  It’s ours, yours and mine: The United States.

One meaning is that as a country, we seem to be more concerned with short term results rather than tackling larger social issues; we would sooner incarcerate someone than look at the issues that support the prevalence of a crime.  Let’s consider domestic violence.  While, dv isn’t a crime that traditionally lands the perpetrator in prison for long periods of time, it is a crime that is strongly rooted in accepted social norms such as racism and sexism which help contribute to the common belief among abusers that they have the right to beat their wife or partner. When we put people away to be left alone for long periods of time with little opportunity for education, rehabilitation or penitence (the word lends us the modern term “penitentiary”), we create large communities of un-wellness: ill in mind and in spirit. If and when those people are released from incarceration, those illnesses don’t evaporate when confronted with fresh air or carte blanche to order take-out.  They remain with the infected person and spread to others, by committing fresh crimes or emotionally damaging others.

Instead of simply sending people away to be not only isolated but with little opportunity for rehabilitation, communities must take partial ownership of the crime committed and offer the perpetrator a chance for redemption, through rehabilitation and re-education. If you believe, as I do, that a crime such as domestic violence is a learned behavior than it stands to reason that someone can un-learn such a behavior as well. We cannot expect different results (the cessation of domestic violence for example) when we adhere to the same thinking that clearly does not work–a given when one looks at the high recidivism rates of people sent to prison for all sorts of crimes.

What does it mean to you, loyal reader, as an American, human or otherwise that 7.3 million Americans are in prison, on parole or on probation today?

For more on prisons in America today, financial, social or otherwise, pick up a copy of Angela Y Davis’ book, Are Prisons Obsolete?  My review of this radical book can be found on Goodreads and in the Spring 2008 issue of Woman in Mind journal, published by Iota Iota Iota at Southern Connecticut State University.

Recently, I have been contemplating lost arts. I am not talking about Michelangelo’s oversized Hercules, missing since the eighteenth century, but everyday art.  Practices and habits of living that have, over time, ebbed from the everyday to the unusual.  Reading is one such lost art.  When I meet people for the first time, I often ask them if they read.  [Note the "if": a significant, and necessary, conversational adage within the past fifty years ago --more required today than it had been when televisions were still rare and computers were distant dreams, except, of course, in The Twilight Zone].  With an affirmative answer, I ask them what they read.  The answer to this question never fails to teach me about the person: their passions, their dreams perhaps. It also often hints at what role personal learning plays in their life, always fascinating to me. Some people ask about music (not a lost art as far as I am concerned; we are more [i]Tuned in to music than ever) but I usually ask about books.

Another lost art is letter writing. So lost, in fact, I am unsure whether to hyphenate the phrase!  Letter writing was once the only way of communicating with loved ones.  We didn’t have a cell phone, even a telephone, and computers were decades or centuries in the future.  Letters were the only means of communication for those who were away.  Recently, I opened up a cream-colored box from Crane that I had unearthed at the bottom of another box and came upon almost a years’ worth of letters.  They were addressed to me, in care of “Guidi” on Via Piamental in Florence, where I lived for for nine months.  I didn’t remember many of them.  But opening them up and reading what friends and family had painstakingly plodded out on paper, for my pleasure and out of love, was like taking a warm bath in the sweetest memory.  I don’t know what to do with them but they will not be discarded or even recycled, like other paper trash.  They are a part of my personal history and, I believe, must be preserved.

Perhaps this savory discovery is why I have decided to resurrect this lost art in my own life.  I have decided to write, in pen on stationary, one letter a week.  So far, I am three for three!  Three letters in as many weeks to three women whom I haven’t seen in months or years.  As I mentioned in my letter to Allison, I am unsure of even the smallest in letter writing; how to end a letter for example.  In an email to one of my sisters, I might say “talk to you soon” or “call you later”, a promise almost inferred by the immediacy of its nature.  But a letter contains no such promise.  I have no idea when I will see the recipient again. That is somehow, strangely, part of the pleasure of the letter.

I write “thank you” notes on a regular basis.  I even created my own Valentine cards  (yes, I am becoming crafty) and mailed those off well before Saturday’s love fest, even adding extra postage for the ribbon (I told you I was becoming crafty!).  But, writing letters is something altogether different.  We don’t write letters in a creative frenzy wielding a glue gun, gazing down at a doe-eyed greyhound covered in glitter.  And even the best “thank-you”s are formal, usually stilted in tone, certainly not intimate.  Wayne Muller would call letter writing a Sabbath break.  We choose special paper to compose on, a certain pen, inspired content to share.  We are contemplative, at rest, as we write.  Beautifully unfamiliar, letter writing is a new muscle to be stretched while simultaneously slowing us down.

Writing a letter need not be a larger-than-life undertaking, taking  years to finish only to be lost in shipment.  It’s a small art to be treasured, savored, enjoyed.  It’s about connecting with people in a way that signifies loyalty, love and a committment to relationship.  In a world where we are all too often off balance, letter writing allows us to write ourselves.

Who would you write to?

In the frenzy of our every hour, it seems far out of reach to have even a moment of downtime to pause in reflection.  Think again.  In Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, author Wayne Muller explores the importance of the need for pause, a Sabbath, for each of us.  It doesn’t matter what religion you affiliate with; each of us need to time to shift from fifth to first in order to “honor the necessary wisdom of dormancy,” (7).  Telling readers that, “a lack of dormancy produces confusion and erosion of the life force,” (7), Muller makes the case deliberately and slowly for immobility, rest in our lives.

One way that he recommends integration of such moments is to seize upon a common everyday occurrence (a doorbell or phone ringing, a red light at an intersection) and make turn it into a Sabbath moment.  Here’s how:  Choose your common happening and when it presents itself–the light turns red-take 3 deep, full-body breathes to help clear your mind, refresh your body and give yourself a small break from the day.  Pausing to take deep breathes slows you down automatically, giving you a snippet of much needed peace. It’s kind of like yoga; if you do it too fast, you’re not doing it right.

You could spend the rest of your life in fifth and suddenly wake up at age 60 and wonder what happened, not only to your body but also your life.  Or, instead, you could wake up tomorrow, take three deep breathes and set the alarm on your cell to vibrate every 90 minutes as a way to remind you to stop and reclaim a sense of clarity of body and spirit in your life.  That’s a good a place to start as any.

I just finished reading Mark Bittman’s new book Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.  Two years ago, Bittman, an admitted foodie, was overweight.  Over the course of one month, however, his cholesterol and blood sugar were down.  His sleep apnea was gone and he was fifteen pounds lighter.  Major changes all by eating healthier, the details of which Bittman discusses at length in the book.

Food Matters is broken up in two sections.  The first looks at food consumption and how that impacts global warning (factory farming, yes, but mass produced baked goods are one of the largest contributors to energy usage), how manufacturers market specific foods to us and how that impacts our understanding of what we are supposed to eat ( re-think how you define “healthy” because more than likely your definition comes from a clever marketing plan and not what is actually healthy) and what Bittman terms “sane eating” [I refer to the same concept as "clean eating"]: eliminate processed foods, load up on as many vegetables as you can, embrace moderation (smaller plates, more frequent meals), limit alcohol, and give yourself “good” sweets (a homemade cookie, dark chocolate with natural peanut butter, etc.).  The second section details recipes and meal plans.  They are smart, uncomplicated and make good sense.  Most are vegetarian, if not vegan, but if you are a meat eater, it is easy to imagine where you can use meat or watch for Bittman’s meat add-in suggestions in certain recipes.

Bittman sets out to inform readers about how his personal health journey can be ours as well and, by taking this less traveled path, how we can, as individuals, help reduce global warning.  It’s a compelling case.  Books like Food Matters are important because they connect the dots for busy people who want to do the right thing.  This population is obviously the intended audience: the average American who is not terribly affected by the recession, who feels reasonably comfortable in his job and is not overly concerned if gas prices rise again, even if he does drive an Acura MDX.   Because what is not addressed in Food Matters is the extent to which one’s socio-economic level impacts their opportunity to eat healthily. Pretty much a non-factor based on my assumption of who his intended audience is with this book.  With one vague reference to vegetable side dishes being less expensive on the menu than meat ones and a reference to how eating less meat and fish can lower your grocery bill, Bittman doesn’t include the factor of price with his “keep your fridge full at all times, mostly with fruits and vegetables” mantras.

Eating healthy is expensive. Choosing cage-free, organic eggs over the store brand can cost the average consumer at least $1-2 extra, more depending on the market and location.  Those healthy, environmentally good choices add up.  Organic produce is always much more expensive than the non-organic option.  Farmer’s markets are great places for good food and worth supporting but from New York and Connecticut to here in Durham, I have found them to be just comparable in price or more expensive than their grocery store counterparts.  And, yes, eliminating or cutting back on meat and fish will always reduce the cost of your grocery bill. . .if you do your weekly shopping at Balducci’s.  But if Kroger is your grocery store, like it is for me, you can buy frozen turkey breast for 99 cents per pound.  That’s less expensive than practically any vegetable in the entire produce department, with the exception of kale or turnip greens perhaps, and what’s more that turkey will feed a family of four for dinner, with leftovers.

And so we come to the challenge between great ideas in theory and in practice.  In theory, we could all adapt Bittman’s recommended lifestyle and save the planet from imminent destruction.  In practice, most of the population in the United States is not wealthy enough to purchase wild salmon and fresh herbs on a regular basis.  But I am not a fan of either/or.  As participants from workshops and my clients know, I often look for the vast grey area in between black and white (either/or) for tips, ideas or answers.  So, Food Matters is worth checking out from the local library (I am returning my copy tomorrow).  Open it up, peruse.   You don’t have to adapt every single one of his practices, if they feel beyond where you are at right now.  Take what you want and leave the rest.

One thing we can all do, regardless of income level, is acknowledge that we–not our doctor, partner or even Mark Bittman–have control over our personal health.  And that’s no small potatoes.