Mind-Body Shift

Today brought taking my own healthcare into my own hands to a whole new level: I administered my own subcutaneous immunoglobulin immunotherapy for the first time this morning. While I’m not thrilled to *need* this treatment, I am extremely grateful for the independence, freedom, and portability this new method allows me. And I look forward to recovering enough of my strength, energy and vitality again to continue doing even more of the deep healing work to get me to a place where I won’t even need to poke myself anymore.

Grandmaster Aiping Cheng largely credits her years of tai chi training for allowing her the mobility to still be able to perform this incredibly graceful rainbow sword performance at her retirement community at the age of 68. How will YOU move when you’re 68? Let’s make sure we’re laying the foundation today!

How Will You Move When You're 68? How will you move at age 68? Our master and founder, Grandmaster Aiping Cheng shows how Tai Chi training makes 68 the new 28.Learn more about our offerings: ...

“In order to heal — to me, healing is about making whole... I think to truly feel whole — it’s not about acquiring something that we don’t have. It’s about remembering who we fundamentally are…And so I do think part of what has challenged us right now in this moment is that there are a lot of forces around us that have made us feel that we are not whole, that we are not enough…But part of what we have to do is to ask ourselves: are those messages speaking the truth about who we are or is that a narrative that’s different?…I think part of healing, to me, is about recognizing what we already have inside of us, coming to trust that, coming to rely on that, and ultimately coming to find fulfillment in who we are.”

Vivek Murthy — To Be a Healer | The On Being Project The physician/public servant on formation for whole, healed human beings in the time ahead; the many costs of despair; and love as a public good.

“[T]he hunger for holiness in terms of a sense of being rooted — grounded in shifting ground…oddly means that to be…holy is to keep one’s balance while the earth moves under our feet…I like it much better than ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual,’ but to be a seeker after the sacred or the holy, which ends up for me being the really real…that’s got layers all the way down.
[…]
The catch with reverence is…we want reverence that brings us into the presence of something greater than ourselves, which is the bottom-line definition. These days when people tell me they don’t believe in a higher power, it occurs to me weather is a higher power. And that there are many things around us beyond our control that are greater than we are. But I think reverence is attractive, particularly to people who want that to be a beautiful awe, a beautiful reverence….[Yet] so many of the experiences that have increased my reverence have been ones that reminded me how small and temporary and woundable I and all my fellows,”

—Barbara Brown Taylor, wrote _Leaving Church_ in 2006 about her decision to leave her life of congregational ministry, finding other ways to stay “alive and alert to the holy communion of the human condition, which takes place on more altars than anyone can count.”

Barbara Brown Taylor — “This Hunger for Holiness” | The On Being Project A sweet pilgrimage of a conversation — through "lean spirituality" for life's wildernesses, the evolution of faith, and making reverence of routine.

“[A] person’s understanding of the menstrual cycle and its intersection with one’s health and well-being…is essential from the time leading up to the first menstrual period through menopause…Yet many American girls still do not learn the basic facts about their menstrual cycles at home or school or from health care providers. [Research capturing first-period stories of girls across 25 states found many] are afraid, ashamed and do not know whom to ask for advice when their menstruation starts. [Demonstrating the inevitable consequences of this under-education, a survey of women of childbearing age revealed] fewer than 50% knew the average number of days of a regular menstrual cycle. Not knowing what is ‘normal or not normal’ in relation to an average menstrual cycle – ranging from how often you get your period to the extent of bleeding or pain experienced – increases the health risk for an adolescent girl or woman.

Health – including menstrual health – is a basic human right. For those who menstruate, this means a right to menstrual health literacy, along with being able to seek care for the myriad menstrual and reproductive health disorders. These range from dysmenorrhea, or severe pain, to endometriosis, a condition in which endometrial tissue grows outside the uterus and can cause menstrual irregularities and significant discomfort. Both require diagnosis and treatment.

Menstruation is an issue of public health, and one long overdue for increased attention and resources, starting with – but not limited to – menstrual health literacy.”

The US lacks adequate education around puberty and menstruation for young people – an expert on menstrual health explains Research shows that many girls are in elementary school when they have their first period. But often they have not received adequate health education.

“So what can we do, as a single and fleeting flash in the vast and growing jumble of humanity, to enhance our collective creativity and agility (and don’t you know we need to)? Maybe the answer is as simple as this: to make like a neuron and be as connected as possible. While brain cells find each other in a sea of chemical soup, the best human connections are made through the swirl of humor and wonder, grief and affection, tenderness and awe, gratitude and music. Whether you live in Kansas or Kotzebue, the best work we can do is to bond with parents and children, ancient cedar trees and just-hatched mayflies, house sparrows and house flies, Muslims and Mormons, clouds and cranes. We can’t know in what direction our collective consciousness is reaching, but we can laugh and ponder, cry and hug, feel rain on our cheeks, hear wind in the leaves, make music with our neighbors, and do our tiny part to expand the awareness of the muttering, grumbling, singing billions.” —Hank Lentfer in Orion Magazine
https://orionmagazine.org/article/neurons/

"’Fear isn't an enemy. It's something that nature gives you to allow you to stay sharp and perform well and to have all your senses firing,’ [says adventurer and survivalist Bear Grylls]…Tools break, technology fails, plans fall through and it always seems to rain when you least want it to. Grylls says a key quality to survival – and to life – is getting comfortable with uncertainty and learning to adapt. ‘If I had to choose three things [to bring on any expedition], I would make them a resourceful spirit, a determined heart, and a courageous attitude – that you're going to walk towards the difficult stuff and do whatever it takes to get out of that’.”

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/08/1116276609/bear-grylls-survival-advice-on-facing-fear-running-wild

Bear Grylls on how to S-T-O-P fighting fear in everyday life : Life Kit Survivalist and adventurer Bear Grylls shares his advice on facing fear, preparing for the worst and the power of courage to get you through any situation.

“As a culture, we’ve put all our faith in and all our accolades on the brain in the head. We think reason is supreme, and we try to think our way through problems and stop feeling them. When that schism between our thinking and our being actually heals, you feel every thought.

There is no division between thinking and feeling. But we give reason this place of supremacy in our culture. In the most important things in our life, reason is utterly impotent. You can’t reason your way into the present. You can’t reason your way into luck. You can’t reason your way into your soul’s purpose.

So, to come back to your soul’s calling, to come back to your life in this moment is to come back to the body, to come back to that deep, deep knowing in the pelvic bowl that comes into felt relationship with the world around you.”

https://www.yogauonline.com/interviews/embodiment-and-inner-path-healing-return-whole-living

Embodiment and the Inner Path to Healing: The Return to Whole Living | YogaUOnline In this interview, Canadian visionary Philip Shepherd talks about embodiment, the body’s three brains, and his work centered on reconnecting with the wholeness of our being. He is the author of “New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-First Century,” and he leads workshops int...

Mind-Body Shift updated their information in their About section.

“‘Gardening situates you in a different kind of time, the antithesis of the agitating present of social media. Time becomes circular, not chronological; minutes stretch into hours; some actions don’t bear fruit for decades. The gardener is not immune to attrition and loss, but is daily confronted by the ongoing good news of fecundity. A peony returns, alien pink shoots thrusting from bare soil. The fennel self-seeds; there is an abundance of cosmos out of nowhere.
[...]
Is art resistance? Can you plant a garden to stop a war? It depends how you think about time. It depends what you think a seed does, if it’s tossed into fertile soil. But it seems to me that whatever else you do, it’s worth tending to paradise, however you define it and wherever it arises.’”

https://www.brainpickings.org/2021/04/23/gardening-art-resistance/

Gardening as Resistance: Notes on Building Paradise “Can you plant a garden to stop a war? It depends how you think about time. It depends what you think a seed does, if it’s tossed into fertile soil.”