My Water Walking Talk on ADHD at Walden Pond

 

The Beauty of Touch

I've been meaning to write this post for forever and here I finally am.

My goodness is our world in a precarious place however, on so many levels, but maybe what I have to share will help lighten the heaviness, if only in some small way. 

Like many people, I've been a very sensuous being from a young age (reports my much older sister) and this piece of me only continues to blossom and nourish me, as I continue to grow older.

Physical touch, whether through handholding, hugging, massage, dance or through a deeper sexual connection with another soul, or just alone, is my very favorite thing in life. Nothing beats it for me- it's healthy, full of great chemical releases, it's free and what our bodies were naturally born to do.

And it's a great stress releaser.

I credit my comfort with physical touch partly to my parents who showed their love for my siblings and me, and with each other, partly through touch. 

So what follows is a hodge-podge of things that I have learned:

• The first is from the book The 5 Languages of Love. Author Gary Chapman's test HERE is what confirmed for me, several years ago, that my top language of love is physical touch. It's interesting to learn what our top languages of love are.

• If you haven't seen Netflix's 3-part series, THE PRINCIPLES OF PLEASURE, it is very good. Our Bodies- Our Minds- Our Relationships

• The art of Slow Sex. There is lots of great info on the web about this very sensuous, gourmet form of slow sexual connection but this VIDEO explains how wonderful it is to slow things way, way down.

• The Sexual Enhancement of taking a toke of weed. If you don't already know, it's great for dancing too.

• This TOY is the bomb.

• THE SECRET OF GREAT SEX- My favorite line in this article is: 

“If we can let go of our traditional notions of what does and doesn’t ‘count’ as sex we might discover something altogether more fulfilling. I like to grab parts of a partner’s body, to really worship the texture and feel of a leg or a stomach. “

• My FAVORITE massage oil etc.

• And lastly, I leave you with FOR HER, that I wrote several years ago.

I hope you all are enjoying these first breaths of summer,

xo, Louise

Talking about Sex Like It's The Weather

I tend to get hooked on things for a time, like a certain spice, a song or a scent.

I imagine your can relate.

For quite awhile, I've been hooked on KIM ANAMI, who is a sex therapist. I like her especially because she is into Tantra and energy, which is like adding lighter fluid to the mind, body and spiritual experiences of our sexuality.

For years I've wondered- why is discussing sex so taboo when it can be so great and so very good for our health?

For instance, we may delight in a fabulous recipe, a great band, the ballet, a massage or an exquisite sunset. We discuss how these things move us, uplift us, make us happy and make us feel soooo good. 

But discussing sex? 

Not so much.

In the 60s, marijuana and the sexual revolution began to break the ice a bit on the subject, and of course, the younger generation has made talking about sex a much more open discussion.

So much more open. Wide open!

Like they have blown the roof off the Vatican.

But for our generation? Sometimes I feel like I am the ring leader.

And yet I retreat. Because I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable.

But this week, I introduce Kim Anami. What I like about the video below of hers, especially, is that she discusses the importance of sexual release for everyone, single or partnered and how so many good things flow from having it in our lives.

Pleasure is our birthright and we all deserve it.

And it's free ❣

The Blow-Up Bra

In celebration of our new administration this week, I bring you a little humor and a true story.

Yes, a blow-up bra, inflated with something as simple as a straw. 

No bike pump needed.

Below, 94-year-old Betty Jenkins, tells her story about how an inflatable bra, that her mom gave her to wear, actually blew-up, in a most inconvenient place.

Imagine if they had something similar for a guy. 

I also love this animated version of her story:

The Blow-Up Bra (a handmade animation by Manual Cinema with audio story provided by StoryCorps) from Manual Cinema on Vimeo.

A New Year Begins

Happy New Year to you all. We've rounded a corner and here awaits, a new road and maybe even a bit of magic perhaps? 👀

We shall see.

Already I feel like there is going to be some new magic happening on January 21st when agent orange leaves office. 

A few months ago, I began wondering, like many of you I'm sure, how the hell I am going to survive this winter? 

What do I want to have done when I come out the other end of it? What is going to keep me content & occupied during this time? 

So I began to make a list:

* Dig out my big pile of journals from the basement, dating back as far as 4th grade and read them.

* Go through my file drawers and chuck all the info that I no longer need.

* Cozy up my home more by wallpapering one wall in my bedroom (I bought the wallpaper several months ago and there it has sat), buy new textiles and whatever else catches my eye.

 

* Continue swimming as long as I can outdoors. I just ordered a much thicker wetsuit and I'm curious how far into the winter it will take me. Walden Pond may freeze but the bay in Boston, where I swam today, won't. Cold water swimming gets less scary and more euphotic the longer I do it. There was a great article about it keeping people sane yesterday in the NYTimes, if you're interested, HERE.

* I have been playing a beloved game called SETTLERS OF CATAN online since Covid hit but I want to find a new game to play online with my sister. Does anyone have one they can recommend? I'm thinking Scrabble as one idea.

* Continue to strengthen my core to support my healed, but once fractured, 5th vertebrae, from a year ago.

* Complete the 12-week book/support group that I just committed to, THE ARTIST'S WAY.

* I also might want to take an online astrology class but maybe this will be too much right now.

* Get out and snow shoe, ski and ice skate.

* Meet my kids for walks & skating in Maine.

* Keep peculating on a story I want to pitch to the NYTimes & gather the courage to send it to them (it’s not about my 32 year long marriage).  

* Read more.

* Finish knitting the sweater I started when Covid hit.

* Pamper myself. My favorite way of doing this has always been massages but I can at least take hot Epsom salt baths and do other things like get my haircut.

One last thing this week-

I was sent a helpful article recently from Ten Percent Happier called THE LONELY WINTER. Truly helpful & comforting.

We're going to make it through this.

We're going to make it through this.

In peace, until next time,

Louise

And Then

Backyard beauty

Yesterday, I loaded my Christmas sleigh with treats and drove to Maine in the rain to meet my kids and their dad for a short Christmas day visit. Masked, we sat in an air-filled sunporch, had brunch and opened presents. A sweet, unusual celebration, that I will certainly remember forever, as I imagine you all will this year. 

Between brunch and dessert, I went for a walk in the rain with one of my daughters. Earlier in the week I had jotted down that one thing that I feel is going on during covid is that everyone is taking everything very seriously right now. Globally. Understandably. But when we can collaboratively just be in it and be with it, and not make it feel like a life and death situation, when everything isn't, it's so much easier and so much lighter to bare. 

For starters, I need to breath more and release the tension of the pandemic in my body. 

And usher in more gratitude.

And continue to step forward into trying new things that resonate for me. 

It's a very hard time historically but we are actually right where we are suppose to be.

As my good friend Cindy has said before, about times of transition, we need to continue to live, while adjusting.

Yes.

After writing all the above down, I peered in on how the pandemic has been affecting me personally and one of things I noticed is that I hadn't cried in a very long time. In the coping of life during covid, I have become a bit  hardened. No longer as soft. Not as much like my true nature, especially the last several years. 

I've been holding tears in, perhaps in an attempt to hold life together.

But then, yesterday on the walk in the rain, the floodgate of tears blessedly began to open, and wash over me, and I've been ushering them in ever since.

And gosh does it feel good & soothing.

Tears really are our strength.

Sending them, and hope, and love out into the world today to you. 

Louise 💗

Comic Elixir

Thank you Agent Orange impersonator, SARAH COOPER, for helping us through this nightmare.

Keep it coming, you're fabulous!

Six Feet Together

Photo by Caroline J. Fernandes

I've been thinking about writing this post the last few weeks, as my thoughts keep fermenting, as life continues to morph, into the unknown.

For now, I'd like to set aside the devastating health tragedies and sorrows, the crippling financial impact and Mister Agent Orange.

Just for a minute,

in this unprecedented time, as we try and move forward, without any answers or frame of reference for a pandemic.

Suddenly it feels as if the world is shrinking, this virus being the greatest unifier and equalizer ever. We are all in a shake down, living life upside-down, together.

But yet apart.

I love that we are more dependent on each other than we have ever been. As moral support, dropping food off at doorsteps, saving each other from the abyss of boredom. Not to mention the incredible sacrifices those on the front lines in the medical world are coming forth with.

Life is changing every day, asking all of us to do less, give more and live very differently.

Life is asking us to rethink and I find such beauty in this.

A good friend of mine shared, "We always want the situation to change, not realizing we were placed in it, so that we may change."

Truly.

What a disorienting situation this is but there is so much that is being illuminated. So much that we are facing as individuals and as a collective, as we face this global crisis.

To evolve perhaps into a new way of being together?

What if we became curious with this alone time and had no mission other than to experience being? What might we find in the quietness, not just in the night, but now in our days?

What if a true purpose is found in this new space?

I believe this pause is filled with opportunity. Not the opportunity to get the taxes done or finish a book or master something, but the opportunity to get comfortable in our uncomfortableness. The opportunity to be without a path forward, for the first time in our lives.

All over the world people are slowing way down and reflecting.

To perhaps what truly matters.

To love.

I've been lying on my bed and just staring up at the ceiling some mornings. I actually became so still the other morning that I saw one of the lilies in a vase next to my bed, spring open. This I had never seen before, except in time-lapse photography.

So what does it all mean?

I don't know.

All I know is that there is some crazy good things going on in between all the heartache, personal struggles and anxiety.

Good things that we haven't been able to see and live nearly as well, until now.

People singing & playing instruments for each other across alley ways, skies less filled with gas fumes, wildlife benefiting, strangers giving their phone numbers to the elderly, so that they may have someone to call in need and the burst of art and creativity that is exploding everywhere.

All over the world people are looking at their neighbors and the people they pass on the street, in a new way.

In a new light.

Perhaps this is all as it is suppose to be.



Sending love your way,
every day,

 💗Louise

The Second Story

When I first think of the word spiritual and remember adolescence, I think of being at our Presbyterian, church up in the balcony, with my friends and having very inappropriate bouts of laughter. 

I'm reflecting on one Sunday in 9th grade when this bad behavior grew so hard to contain that I had to leave the church and go out into the hallway. Unfortunately my mom was there as I made my way to the restroom. I was red in the face and still trying to control my laughter, when we bumped into each other. 

She responded quite simply that if this was all I was getting out of going to church, that I didn’t need to come anymore.

WHAT??? 

Was she serious? 

She was.

It was shocking to hear her say this but I felt I had been spared one of the most boring things in my life and was very grateful to be released from my Sunday church obligation.

It is clear to me that my spiritual development in adolescence did not happen inside the church, as nurturing as the community of it was.

Instead, I have very vivid memories of sunsets in my parent’s backyard as I looked northwest from the Niagara River where it met Lake Ontario, across from Toronto. 

Big, bold, beautiful sunsets of brilliant oranges, reds, pinks and yellows. Seeing those sunsets was my first experience with the magnificence of nature. When I think of them now, through my mind's eye, I can still feel how my body felt when I experienced their beauty.

I can also still feel my body when I think about sailing in those days, especially with the quiet solitude of my father. My memories of being on the boat with him, sometimes in very choppy waters, as the wind and weather swept and propelled the sailboat forward, were my first glimpses of my body being connected to a rhythm and physicality, outside of my own.

Perhaps the adolescent years were mostly about getting in touch with spirituality through my physical being.

Enter getting stoned on marijuana for the first time in 9th grade...

...and the music and lyrics that we listened to, while getting high and the delicious kissing that ensued. Now there was some yummy, potent, spiritual development.

Also during this time, like two of my brothers before me, I became a competitive swimmer and discovered the capable athlete that I still am.

Perhaps the socialization skills I learned in the first ten years of life, coupled with getting to know my physical being, like I did as an swimmer, prepared me to join together physically with another human being, in the richness of adolescence, a few years later. 

And perhaps all those abundant hormones pumping through us, were part of the magic, that made it all happen.

Tiny New Habits

This brief Ted Talk by BJ FOGG, who wrote Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, is very good.

Doing two push-ups after every time we pee? What a novel idea :-)

A New Path

I took this photo of my feet in early October, soon after I made the hardest decision of my life.

My wonderful whole-life coach, ELIZABETH ELLIS, told me recently that I have a story to tell.

She is right, I do.

I just haven't yet been able to share it.

This is partly because I have been busy with coaching school etc but also because I am still putting my thoughts together in just how to share it.

In one regard, it is a simple story actually. I could write it in one sentence. I could just say-

After 36 years, I have decided to conclude my marriage.

But saying this makes it feel like it landed like a thud and it was not a thud.

It has been a 3+ year process of letting the rocks tumble and allowing the pebbles to settle, whilst I found my way through to clarity, of what truly resonates for me, in order to make a decision.

It has actually been a celebration of sorts. A huge relief in many ways after years of being in a sometimes torturous quandary. But also a deep sadness of pulling apart my family, at least temporarily, as we all redefine what our family is.

A few days ago, as we gathered for Thanksgiving, I could see that the redefining and the healing has begun. As a mother and as a friend, I am beyond grateful for this, as we all continue to mourn how life has always been.

Recently someone explained to me that when one piece of steel is welded to another piece, the weld is stronger than the steel itself. This may seem a crazy perspective to see a divorce through but maybe there is an analogy here in terms of the new family strength that I think is forthcoming, for all of us.

Or maybe it's just that my dad was a metallurgical engineer and had a metal fabricating company that involved a lot of welding, that something rang true in this for me, from him.

But I also feel sure in my heart now that many things are meant to fall apart and that this new bumpy road that we are all on is a better path than the bumpier one we've been on.

I've known for awhile that I would be the one that would need to steer our family down this new road.

For my children especially, because there is nothing worse than being at the effect of a parent's quandary.

I feel bad that it took me so long to do it for us, but it was important that I turned over the last stone and I needed time in order to do this. There was no rushing it for me.

Times heals all, it's true.

More pieces of this story to come I imagine, when the moment feels right.

Until then,
in love & light,

Louise

The Garden

I am mid-way though a year long certification with COACH TRAINING INSTITUTE to be a health & wellness coach. I am loving the program, all the learning & relearning and the great people I have met. I don't want it to end. I love how coaching is really about getting down underneath and processing deeper emotions. The feelings that frequently leave us stuck and keep us from having a more alive and fulfilling life.

Prior to starting school, throughout the craziness of the past few years, I received a lot of advice of course, but one piece in particular rang especially true for me.

It was:

"Don't eat off someone else's plate. For instance, don't pick up someone else's knitting project and start knitting, as if their project is your own." 

So good.

So I was especially delighted when my sister forwarded me a post written by Betsy Burris, who is a coach for teachers and has a coaching practice, called TEACHING THROUGH EMOTIONS. I connected with her search for deeper emotions in her practice, as well as how her piece below, titled The Garden, resonates with the concept of not eating off someone else's plate.

I dig her analogy about people being gardens! 

Kind of like, don't poke around in my garden or start knitting on my knitting project and I won't do it to you.

I bring you Betsy:

"OK this is going to seem really simplistic, but many teachers I’ve worked with have found it helpful. 

Here goes: 

When I think of people, when I think of individuals, I think of gardens. I think of each of us as standing in the center of a circle- a garden wall- filled with flowerbeds.

The garden wall is a boundary, a personal boundary, a membrane that defines where we end and others begin.

The garden is ourselves: our needs, our safety, our identities, our happiness, our interests, our power, our reality. 

We cultivate our own gardens. We choose what flowers we plant and where and when we plant them. Ideally, we make our gardens beautiful and safe for ourselves. We range freely in our gardens and value them. 

And we decide if and when anybody else gets to come into our gardens. We build up our gardens walls, lower them, open the garden gate, close the garden gate. We invite people in when we want to and, when we don’t want them in our gardens, we have the right to tell them to get out. Ideally.

I told you it would be simplistic!

But the metaphor is also really useful.

Because, if my garden is my reality and your garden is your reality, then I don’t get to trash your garden. I don’t even get to enter your garden without your permission. I get to talk to you over our garden walls about our gardens, try to understand why you planted deadly nightshade right next to your garden gate, admire your hollyhocks, think about planting some of my own.

I get to wonder about your garden, your reality, from the safety of my own garden, my own reality.

I don’t have to take on your problems or energy or emotions. I don’t have to convince you to make your garden look like mine. I might think your garden desperately needs tending, but when I remind myself that it is yours, I’m clear that the weeds in your garden are not my responsibility. I might wonder about them; I might express concern about them; I might itch to pull them; but I don’t need to fight you about them. They’re yours.

Conflict happens, I believe, when I charge into your garden and start planting or fixing or weeding or judging or-UGH-defining your garden for you. Or when you do this to me. Engagement happens when I can be curious about you and your garden without co-opting or colonizing it. And, importantly,

when I am confident that I can prevent you from co-opting or colonizing my garden.

I’m here in my garden. You’re there in yours. Let’s be clear about that."

With love from my garden to yours,

Louise

Choosing Hope Over Fear

my ode to my mom & dad, the birch tree lovers

"It's easy to get overwhelmed...

to wake up at 3AM questioning every decision you've ever made.

It's easy to feel like your life isn't working or your plans aren't panning out.

That's the fear.

When you feel that make a decision to replace it with hope and trust instead.

Trust yourself and where your life is going.

Trust the chances you're taking.

Always pick hope over fear."


~Awesome wisdom from
Maya Angelou

The Tapestry

After an almost 2 year separation, MR. FIX-IT and I have been living under the same roof, having a new look at our 35-year relationship, through the lens of all that we have learned while apart, as well as sometimes together, but most importantly perhaps, through the lens of learning about ADULT ADHD and it's impact on our connection and our disconnection.

I’m looking at our marriage as a complex floor tapestry, which it has always been, but now with new light, shown upon its intricacy.

Much of the tapestry got sucked into a vacuum cleaner and torn while being vacuumed the last two years. 

So we've set about mending it.

Attempting to reweave a torn union, mending it where is needs repair, but also adding in the new stands of colors, that have been missing.

Can we make a masterpiece out of the remnants?

This I know, 

there is a lot of love here

and I’ve survived the torn and tatters, as the HEALING continues.

I've new perspective and understanding, but most importantly, compassion and better communication.

You know how Sully successfully landed that plane on the Hudson River?

Knowing what I do now, can I execute the same with my marriage? Is it possible for it to land better than it ever was? 

These are the questions that I’ve been thinking about it. 

These are the ponderings that when I’m an old lady, 

that I’ll be happy I took the time to explore.

Marriage, like all relationships of course, isn't about landing the perfect triple gainer dive off the high board of life.

It is organically complicated, very WABI- SABI and always a work in progress.

And hopefully with its own sprinkling of soul magic.


💗💗

There is a Crack

 Yesterday on Pleasant Lake

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

~Leonard Cohen



It’s been a few years of being cracked wide open, and splintered apart and I can honestly say now that I am grateful for all of it.

Without the cracks, I would never have seen, learned and embraced so many of the lessons that I have on this spiritual journey. I feel more whole now than I ever have.


More to come in the New Year. 

As always,

in love & light,

Louise

Deep Within Us

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all,

and then stands back to see if we can find them.

 ~ Elizabeth Gilbert


I think of my mama frequently as I've made my way through the new life that I have been creating for myself. How she so seemingly, effortlessly, began a new path and understanding of herself at the age of 90, when she moved to the Boston area, for her final resting.

How she reached out and made new friends and continued to learn new things. How perhaps she grew to know the artist in herself a little more deeply. How she learned new ways of being in the world through her experiences and through what came across her path, that ignited a spark in her and lit her up, like a new dawn. Until about age 95, she remained excited about life and optimistic about her days, even though, like me, she had her moments of uneasiness and doubt. To me she always seemed to be reaching for a new spice to sprinkle in her life.

And the beauty of all of this is, I got to witness it all, like a primer, for what would soon follow for me, after her passing.

Frequently during her last few years, I would ask her what the secret is. Many of her responses here were after the deep dementia had begun to settle in:

Mom what’s the secret?

Being good to other people and being careful about how you treat them.

Mom what’s the secret?

Be thankful for what you have

Mom what’s the secret?

Love each other. Be friendly. Be as active as you can be.

Mom what’s the secret?

Two glasses of water to start each day.

Mom what’s the secret?

Take good care of life.

Mom what’s the secret?

Climbing Mount Marcy.

Mom what’s the secret?

You tell me.

No you tell me

Mom what’s the secret?

Good friends. Having a change with people you like to see

Mom what's the secret?

Having someone to love.


Thank you mama for inspiring me to love life through my senses even more, as the older we grew. Sight, taste, sound, smell and touch,

especially touch.

I love you dearly.

Happy Thanksgiving

Everyday is thanksgiving.

My we give our love & gratitude today.

May we wrap our arms around them and send them out into the world,

like shooting stars,

today and everyday.

We all need this more than anything

We all love, love.

We cannot live without it in our souls.

May we pay the love and gratitude forward.

And acknowledge others today for their beauty

and be intimate and vulnerable with the love that we have to share in our hearts,

which is sometimes the very hardest thing to do.

Allow love to wash over us,

like a new season.

Today and everyday.



Happy Thanksgiving my loves!

from my home

to yours,

💗Louise

Truly

Boy have I learned this in a 101 ways this year.

In spades I have, as I continue to repaint my tipped-upside-down life.

We really are WHAT we think about.

Eckhart Tolle has said that being able to change the channel in our head, begins with the awareness of what we are thinking about.

Growing better at doing this has been the silver lining

of my everything.

Into My Heart

This photo of my mom was taken when she was my age.

Almost every afternoon since I can remember, she made a point of setting the timer on the kitchen stove and taking a nap for 20 minutes.

A mother of five, stealing some time for herself to rejuvenate, between her piles of ironing, making pie-crusts, canning peaches and putting a wholesome dinner on the table, every night of the week.

She was the epitome of mindfulness, way before it was ever a common word in our culture. Before we all grew so busy with double income households, in order to pay for life's necessities, and before smartphones took over our lives.

She passed away already 3 weeks ago but I found her again several days ago, in my heart.

This is where she has moved to, where I can still touch her now and hold her. Where I can take her with me anywhere.

Where I can call on her for strength.

The Arrow

"The Buddha speaks about the "second arrow." 

When an arrow strikes you, you feel pain.

If a second arrow comes and strikes you in the same spot, the pain will be ten times worse. 

The Buddha advised that when you have some pain in your body or your mind, breathe in and out and recognize the significance of that pain but don't exaggerate its importance.

If you stop to worry, to be fearful, to protest, to be angry about the pain, then you magnify the pain ten times or more.

Your worry is the second arrow.

You should protect yourself and not allow the second arrow to come, because the second arrow comes from you." 

THICH NHAT HANH