Sunday, February 4 · 3:00 – 4:30pm PST (weekly same time) Video call link: https://meet.google.com/nhs-ugsc-jvf (same link every time) Or dial: (US) +1 304-908-9066 PIN: 704 162 576#
Our meeting will be used for us to explore together the themes of the week. The purpose is for us to get present, share where we're at in the moment and then use the group to witness, clarify, and support what we are wanting from where we are right then. We will be using the Heart Circle model created by Tej Steiner who has a 30+ year career in leading and participating in circles and groups. These are not therapy groups (though we may talk about things we are struggling with) and not lectures (the themes of the week will guide our discussion). I have participated in the same Heart Circle for 17 years and I think this is the perfect model for us to be able to get real and help each other really start to act from a place that is heart-directed, present, and real.
Heart Circle Format At the first meeting we'll set up and discuss the agreements and purpose (see below.) Each session will start with a tune-in, followed by a quick check-in from each person answering the question, "what are you feeling right now?" and sharing something that is "up" or significant change for you since we last met. After check-in, we will change the focus to the themes of the week, sharing anything that might have come up doing the practices. You can also use this time to "test" things out, get feedback, use the group to help you get clarity on something you experienced. We will close by going around and acknowledging the time we spent together and offering a statement of being complete with that time.
Diet and health are probably the biggest topics and the hardest to cover briefly. Please reach out for more specific guidance or resources for what you are hoping to address or explore during the course. At a minimum, I suggest spending the first month really limiting your consumption of pro-inflammatory foods. Stressors good and bad cause their own inflammatory response so we are wanting to support with fuel that is as supportive to our well-being as possible. An easy place to start is to remove as much packaged food as possible and make a pact with yourself that you will consume as much whole-foods as possible during this time. You could follow the Autoimmune Protocol Diet from the cookbook (a full PDF copy is downloadable from the link above), which removes any kind of inflammatory food and then helps you reintroduce. The diet is extremely restrictive, removing everything from nuts & seeds, dairy, sugar, and even spices from seeds from the diet. It can be overwhelming, but a powerful tool to get the noise in your body created by inflammation all the way down.
Another approach would be to avoid the most common allergens:
Eggs
Soy
Dairy
Tree nuts
Shellfish
Wheat
Peanuts
Avoiding these foods will go a long way to seeing if something in your body is reacting, causing a variety of symptoms from mood swings and brain fog, to psoriasis and digestive issues.
Now, let’s talk about how to support good health from head to toe, I like to refer to the “5 P’s of Good Health”:
Protein - Without protein there is no chance you have healthy cells, as amino acids (the building blocks of protein) are required for nearly every cellular function. Chances are, you aren’t getting enough protein. Suggested reading: Inflammation Demystified: Where Endurance Training and Autoimmunity Meet
Prebiotic Fiber - Including these foods in your diet can help support a healthy gut microbiome and promote overall digestive health: Avocado, artichokes, Brussels, Asparagus, Jicama, Seaweed, Bok choy, Sweet Potatoes, cassava, Garlic, Onions, Leeks, Chicory root, Dandelion greens, Oats (gluten-free, if tolerated), Flaxseeds, Chia seeds
Polyphenols- These foods have been associated with numerous health benefits, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries), Apples, Grapes (red and purple), Cherries, Pomegranates, Citrus fruits, Dark chocolate, Green tea, Coffee, Olive oil, Nuts (especially walnuts), Flaxseeds,
Polysaccharides - Crucial for good gut health and energy balance, Sweet potatoes, oats, quinoa, brown rice, lentils, chickpeas, legumes, chia seeds, flaxseeds, mushrooms, seaweed
Practice - This is something we are exploring deeply throughout the 12 weeks of the course. There really should be a 6th, “Phat”, which is having a focus on high-quality fat sources from animals or things like avocados, olives, and coconuts (non-palm.) The more you fill your plate with the 5 P’s the easier cooking, eating, and feeling good with a clear mind and heart becomes.
Here are just a few books and resources I like. No book or plan is perfect, so focus on finding what you like and then double-down on the process.
Kia Sanford is my co-author, an amazing clinical nutritionist, and a great researcher and solver of complex health issues: http://kia-sanford.squarespace.com
There are many ways to practice mindfulness, meditation being the most common. And, while meditation is often associated with faith-based traditions, there are a ton of secular resources that relate to mindfulness meditation. Many people, including myself, are drawn to Buddhist mediations as the practice is essential to the religion, but I invite you to embrace the idea that while you might find words that you don’t understand, or belief systems different than your own, the practice of meditation doesn’t require a change or subscription to a particular system, even if you are using tools that come from a specific lineage of thought. The importance of having some sort of stillness practice could not be overstated. We are living in a time where we are continually consuming some form of outside stimulus, leaving no space for our own sense of self to breathe, develop, and communicate with us. Even 5-minutes a couple of times a day to sit and breathe can have a tremendous affect on your mental and physical well-being.
The characteristics of mindfulness (my interpretation from Ron Kurtz, the creator of the Hakomi Method):
A focus on the present (what is happening right now)
“Willfully passive”, which I think of as a non-reactionary state toward what is happening, or letting what is, be, without any judgement
With attention turned inward. Certainly, we can practice being mindful when out in the world, which also requires the first two, but when we are incorporating stillness we are looking to experience from the inside out.
I wrote a post about meditation for a year straight in 2017. I need to write an update, as I ended up meditating every day for nearly 5 years. There are a bunch of resources in the post, so some of what is below may be duplicated.
I use the Insight Timer app which has a tremendous amount of free guided meditations as well as my favorite meditation timer. I’ve created a group for the course where I can share some mediations. Please join if you are interested:
I have also spent a lot of time with a practice called, Mindfulness In Daily Life (MIDL). The insight-based meditation is Buddhist in origin, but the teacher has created dozens of meditations that are focused on how to breathe and how to approach mindfulness. He has a series of 52 weekly meditations for the year in Insight Timer that I’ve gone through a few times. Stephen Proctor’s Beginning Meditation guide and meditations is one of the best and easiest to get into as they focus on deep relaxation and calm to build a daily practice.
One of my reading practices is to have a thoughtful non-fiction book that I’m reading along side my fiction. These tend to be mindfulness, consciousness, or philosophical in nature and I read them primarily in the morning. They also work in the evening, but I tend to like to read fiction as it doesn’t engage my “processing” mind as much, allowing me to slip into sleep better. Here are just a few books across a wide spectrum of mindfulness that you might like:
Stillness Is the Key - this is a more modern look at mindfulness across history, pulling in vital concepts and offering a world of resources to discover.
There is no specific movement component to the Year of Magic, but I believe it to be one of the most important components to your health; mentally, spiritually, as well as physically. At a minimum, I recommend having about 30 minutes per day of activity from walking to cycling or working out. If that isn’t possible or too much to think about right now, go for two 10-minute walks during the day, ideally, right after a meal or before you get your day started.
I highly suggest really thinking about engaging in a rigorous movement practice—without mine, I would likely still be dealing with the complete debilitation of my Crohn’s Disease. What does that look like? the 30-minutes per day is the ground floor, add on a 1-2+ hour effort on the weekend of your favorite activity and a couple of strength workouts (even High Intensity Interval Training which features 10-minute or less sessions!) per week and you could dramatically upgrade your overall health.
My Coach
Menachem Brodie of Human Vortex Training has some great resources and a book for strength training that provides year-round training plans. A few principles that you can apply to any movement practice is the idea of doing a dynamic warmup before your exercise and complete any effort with some sort of breath work. The former helps to wake up the tissue (not just stretch) and the latter helps kick your body into a parasympathetic state so that it can integrate the work you just put your body through.
Starting with soft-tissue work using a foam-roller or other devices
”These six movements collectively make up the dynamic warm-up, which should take you about 10–15 minutes total. Going from general to specific, here is how they stack up in a session:”You can find some excellent videos on Menachem’s YouTube or see the collection of dynamic warmup options on his site: https://www.humanvortextraining.com/membership-book/2-dynamic-warmup/
His crocodile breathing technique is one of my favorite for pre and post workouts for building 360 degree breath and can be done with the box breathing method to really get a boost.
