I recently attended an event called A Day of Lament which was organized by my daughter Joanna. The afternoon’s activities were designed to help workers who minister to people living on the street to process their grief about events they are exposed to each day. The facilitator for the day, who was very knowledgeable, provided us with a list of books and other resources for further study. One book really stood out to me. It is called The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul, written by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. This week I am slowly working my way through the book, and it turns out that many, if not most of us, are living in an ongoing state of overwhelm, due to all the world events we are dealing with and all the social media that we are exposed to, among many other things. The author explains what overwhelm looks like, what is causing it, and then she maps out a strategy for us to handle the situation. She explains how we can learn to metabolize the trauma we are exposed to, how we can recognize and deal with saturation when it occurs, and then gives us chapters on how to be less distracted and more connected, less disconnected and more present, less depleted, while developing more stamina, and less attached, while adopting an attitude of being more curious.

I am finding the book to be really practical and really hopeful. I am going to continue to study it and try to apply it to my life. I can see that it would be really great to get together with others like you to discuss the book and its strategies. At this time of additional stress and worry due to the coronavirus outbreak, it is even more important for us to develop ways that will work for us to handle the world we are in today.

For instance, the author tells us on page 74, that Dr Richard Davidson has discovered there are four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting wellbeing: our ability to maintain positive states or positive emotions, recover from negative states, focus, and be generous.

Being generous… that one really struck me. I have seen in my own life that when I am generous, it does really affect my sense of well-being. Even something as simple as offering a smile to each person I meet when I am out for a walk helps me feel better, and it is lovely to see the people smiling back at me! I have found that even sending a cheque for $5 or $10 to an organization I want to support makes me feel so much better inside. I feel good for simply doing what I can, even if it is just a little bit…. and on it goes.

These days when there is so much to worry about, what would you think about trying to focus on finding a way, at least once a day, to be generous in either thought or action towards someone, and see how it affects your sense of well-being? It is, I think, a win/win situation for both the one we choose to be generous towards, and for ourselves! I am going to set this an intention for myself for the next while, and if you decide to join me in trying out this practice, I’d love to hear how it goes!

Wow! My 65th birthday has come and gone! I am retired from the practice of family medicine and I get to spend my days in my studio, resting, reflecting, relaxing and creating!

I have created three workshops and offered each of them in the months of January and February, at least once.

One is called Life Review, and is a series of 6 sessions, spaced 2 weeks apart, learning how to write one’s memoir, and sharing this journey with one’s fellow participants. The first group will be finishing up at the end of March. We have had a great time together! I will offer this workshop again in fall 2020.

The second one is called Collaging your Hopes and Dreams. Each year, I have gathered during the last week of December with friends and family to create a collage of hopes and dreams for the new year ahead. It has always been an afternoon of laughter and fun and I thought it would be lovely to offer this experience to others. Two groups of folks have gathered to do this process, and fun was had by all, while creating a lovely collage to take home. Making a Hopes and Dreams collage can be done anytime during the year, but seems to be especially meaningful when done near January 1.

The third workshop is called Lectio Divina. I discovered Lectio Divina about 2 years ago and have really enjoyed using it in my own life. It’s a way to interact with a sacred reading, or nature, or a poem, or a painting, to draw closer to God. Practising it on a regular basis, I have found I feel more like the tree described in Psalm 1 : “ He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf doesn not wither.” I offered this workshop in February and plan to offer it again in June 2020.

If any of these workshops appeal to you, please let me know and I will be sure to notify you when a solid date and time is set!

Did you read Simple Abundance, a book of daily meditations written by Sarah Ban Breathnach, when it came out in 1995? It was updated in 2005, and Sarah has updated it again with our busy, digital world in mind. This updated version was released last week. I loved it in 1995 and I am loving it again now. Today’s reading was extremely powerful, as Sarah writes about what the Pilgrim women went through. The part that moved me the most was Sarah’s words about women- who we are and what we are capable of.

“These are the same gifts all women are endowed with. We are born with a blessed DNA— the genetic code of resilience, strength, ingenuity, creativity, perseverance, and determination. Our Destiny, Nature, and Aspirations are Heaven endowed, so why wouldn’t we be given the wherewithal to fulfill them?”

Deep down in my core, I know her words to be true. They are true of me and true of all women I know. It is amazing what a woman is capable of, especially when she is acting on behalf of someone she loves. When I feel discouraged and weak or not enough for the task, I am going to remember that I am a woman, and I have been indeed been gifted with a blessed DNA. Thank you Sarah, for reminding me of this today!

This morning I was reading the November 25th meditation from Mark Nepo’s book The Book of Awakening. He shared a saying of Lao-Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, thought to be the author of the Tao Te Ching.

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These are your three greatest treasures. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

I was so moved by this quote. Isn’t it wonderful to think that working towards embracing compassion for oneself can result in being a force for peace in our world, a world which so desperately needs peace?

It seems to me we are living in times where people feel overstimulated, stressed, unstable and uncertain. I wonder What can I do to help?

I love the idea that if I slow down, become more simple, become more patient, offer more compassion to myself and others, I can offer stability to myself and become a force for reconciliation in the world.

Hallelujah!!

I have made it! I have retired from family medicine! I have hosted my 40th Medical Reunion and I am settling into the studio as my primary place of creativity and work. Yahoo!!

I am well into the writing for my new book You Are Already Whole : A Daybook of Rediscovery and I am hoping to hand it over to Joan for editing by April 2020!

Nia classes have begun for the fall. It is wonderful to be dancing again!

I am planning a series of workshops for January 2020 to May 2020. I am working on a workshop series on Life Review to be offered every other Monday from January through March. I also am preparing a workshop on collage and its many uses - for visioning, for healing, for fun! I would like to offer an afternoon workshop on the beautiful practice of Lectio Divina and another one on the use of Haiku as a spiritual practice.

Life is good! Life is beginning to move at a slower, more sustainable pace. Creativity is flowing! Hallelujah!

Again, it has been a long time since I wrote a blog post. Now it is 2019!

It is my retirement year from family medicine! By the end of 2019 I hope to have completed the writing of my next book You Are Already Whole : A Daybook of Rediscovery. I am convinced that at the core of every human being there is a beautiful essence/an ‘ Original Self’. I am hoping to help each of us reconnect with that whole essence by offering a little book of 30 meditations, with an expressive arts invitation or visualization to accompany each one.

I also look forward to offering more personal growth type workshops, and more Nia classes.

It’s an exciting time of life, as I transition from identifying primarily as a family physician, to identifying as an author, an artist, and a personal growth facilitator.

I am so thankful I have been able to serve as a physician for 40 years and I look forward to hosting my Meds 79 class reunion at Queen’s in October 2019.

Sheri is visiting this weekend and she  has helped me update my website. We have used a new template which reflects the autumn season of life I am in.

As well, I was hoping to start writing blogposts I can share more widely and so we have now created a subscription list on the website.

It is exciting to be entering a new phase of life, the beginnings of writing a new book, and celebrating that by using a new website template.

And it's finally spring!

Hallelujah!

I had thought my next book would be Clarity Therapy, the book I know I want to write some day about my philosophy of coaching, complete with a 'magic toolkit' of tools and techniques I have found really help, sometimes even transform, people.

I also wanted to write a storybook to pass down to my daughters called My Shelter and My Song, a book of experiences I have had where it was clear God loves me, God loves us all, and how He/She loves to intervene in our lives, in dramatic ways, to demonstrate that strong, loyal and effective love.

But instead, I am finding myself writing a book called, provisionally, We are Already Whole. I am convinced that at our core, each of us has an Original Self, an untouchable place of beauty and wholeness, that cannot be damaged by anything that life throws at us. I have found that this concept of the Original Self has been lost and I want to remind us of it. I am writing it as a book of short reflections, a daybook for 30 days. I am hoping to include a few tools that I will also put into Clarity Therapy, tools which connect us to our core, a quiet untouchable place of beauty and truth within. I have found that walking a labyrinth, making a mandala, and proprioceptive writing are shortcuts back to our center. I am excited about writing this little book and I feel it will take less than the usual 2 years to put it together. Sheri is coming to visit next week and I am excited to begin to talk with her about it!

This month, I have been taking a course on Personal Myth with Sarah Ban Breathnach. Last week she shared with us a quote written by WB Yeats. I have been captivated by it!

"There is for every man and woman some one scene, some one adventure, some one picture that is the image of our secret life, for wisdom first speaks in images and this one image, if we would brood over it our whole life long, would lead our souls disentangled from unmeaning circumstances into that far household where the undying gods await all whose souls have become as simple as flames."

In our course, Sarah is encouraging us to find that one image. It has been a wonderful quest to look at images of women throughout time and space and produce a book of the images that really speak to me. We are being asked to winnow our images down to the one that speaks to us the most. For now, for me, that image is a painting by Haynes King, done in 1872, called The Letter. A woman is sitting at a writing desk focused, serene and beautiful, fully engaged in her task. Light is coming in her window into an inviting room. I love this image and could look at it for a long time!

Being so captivated by this image, it seems to me that the time must be coming close to start writing my next book. I am waiting for the 'daemon of creativity', as Elizabeth Gilbert refers to it, to begin to move  through me! I am thinking it will soon! Woo hoo!!

 

Again it has been a long time since I have visited my website and written a blog post. Life has been busy! But something big has happened. June 30, 2017 was the last day of the 10 year lease of my studio. I decided not to renew the lease, so I have been in the process of winding down my time there. June 3 we had a beautiful ritual of closing for the studio. Many dear friends of the studio gathered and we drummed together, made a collage, danced and shared memories of our times together there. Then began the process of sorting through all the stuff that had accumulated, deciding where furniture would go, and what to do with all the really large paintings I had made especially early on in my time in the studio. Meni joined me on June 30 to share my final hour in the studio before it was time to lock the door for the last time, and head into the next phase of my life. I feel very grateful for the opportunity to create a beautiful space where core values of Connection, Creativity, Challenge, Learning and Growth, and Movement could be honoured.

I am pleased to say that I have been able to create a new studio space called 70 Clementi Expressive Arts Studio. It is smaller, cozier, more intimate space, but large enough to host a small drumming circle or workshop. I can make my own art here. I can write my next books here. It is going to be lovely to create here with new core values guiding me, the values of Mercy and Kindness, Comfort and Joy. I am transitioning from adulthood to elderhood in my own life. I am making the transition archetypally from Mother to Sovereign. It is time to slow down somewhat, while still doing meaningful work in the world. Dear 370 Expressive Arts Studio, I will miss you and I will evermore be grateful for all you gave to me and to others. I am excited, 70 Clementi Expressive Arts Studio, for all you will mean to me too. Let this new phase be characterized by Comfort and Joy, for me and for all who will join me here. Amen and Hallelujah!