Author: Mina

Writer. Playwright. Performer. Citizen. Traveler. Enthusiast. Author of Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives and Run Like a Girl 365 Days a Year, plus other stories, books and plays.
What Does Less Is More Really Mean?
mindfulness · Wordless

What Does Less Is More Really Mean?

Mina

Lately, I’ve been receiving the same message from various quarters in my life. The message is this: I can do less, in a less is more way. I can push less. I don’t need to try so hard. I can trust the universe. That all sounds almost dangerous, especially the trust part. Also, how can I be less-is-more without diminishing myself? The message is hard to receive, because, at first blush, it seems to align with a long-held, not-so-happy belief—that I am too much. I talk too much and laugh too loud. I am too bossy, too excitable, too energetic, take up too much space, too, too and too. You get the point. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been getting this too-much message since I was born (at a sub optimal moment that I was told negatively impacted my father’s career).

Yet I know (in that deep knowing way) that this time the words are not coming as criticism. Rather, they arrive as an invitation to be more myself, which sounds paradoxical, since the message is about less. Do less. Yes, and…be more. Less noise. More presence.

What does this mean in my day-to-day? Well, in the learning groups I facilitate and the 1:1 coaching I do, it means—ask one question, without refining it fifteen times to get just the right word or adding seven more layered questions, with icing flourishes in between. Ask one question. Then wait for the answer. Literally.

And metaphorically. Trust that the energy I want to share with others will be felt without me doing a jig, standing on my head and waving a fiery sparkler. I am enough, without needing to push my energy out into the world. This feels like the difference between authenticity and personal brand.

As you can see here, I am still very much in the wrestling phase with these ideas. I haven’t corralled them into a coherent narrative of how I will be going forward. I am exploring a new equilibrium between my exuberance and trusting my presence.

Enough.

Finding Ground When Home Is Elusive
fitness

Finding Ground When Home Is Elusive

Mina

Yesterday the home I lived in for 28 years was sold. I will likely never call another place home for as long.

In the past three years, I have moved three times, finally landing where I am now just over two years ago. Still, this place I am now, while it is nice, it is not home. Knowing that I will have to move again, I have resisted many elements of settling in-ness. Because, you know, that would just be more stuff to move. For example, I don’t have measuring cups. Or serving bowls or platters. I don’t have a lasagna dish. Or obscure spices for Ottolenghi’s complicated dishes. Things that used to make me feel like a grown up. A person who has groups of friends over for dinner. Plus, given the current state of affairs here in the United States, where I’ve lived for more than 30 years, I can’t help wondering if I should move home to Canada. Or elsewhere.

All this is in direct conflict with my strong nesting inclinations.

So, how do I find ground, when I have no nest? Okay—that’s a complicated visual. Nests are high in trees. The ground is, well, far below. Still, you get the picture of settling, of nestling after a long flight. Parts of me feel in constant flight and they are tired.

Nest in a pine tree by Luke Brugger on Unsplash

Getting into my body offers my most reliable respite—running, hiking, skiing, biking, yoga, dancing, crossfit, pilates and so on. Of all of these, running outside offers me the most solace. With each step, the earth beneath my feet brings me home to my very physical existence.

For that moment of footfall, I land. Rest my wings. Find ground. Come home to my body. May that be enough. For now.    

Should You Watch Apple Cider Vinegar? –Notes from An Alternative Medicine Fan
fitness

Should You Watch Apple Cider Vinegar? –Notes from An Alternative Medicine Fan

Mina8 Comments

Here’s the picture: I’m on my couch. Tucked into my sauna blanket. A device that looks like a combination of a sleeping bag and weighted blanket, that heats up, as a sauna and emits far infrared light, the benefits of which are numerous (and possibly exaggerated) and boil down to—anti-inflammatory and promotes cellular regeneration.

I’ve been tempted into buying this device because the functional medicine practitioner, with whom I’ve been consulting for about a year now, recommended that I would do well to add red light therapy to my protocol, to support my immune system and overall health. My ultimate goal is healing my Addison’s Disease. A pipe dream, according to my medical doctor. Though he was surprised I still had functioning adrenals in a recent blood test. So, I hold out hope of surprising him further in the future and red light therapy is my newest effort in that direction. As many of you know, I also follow a protocol of vitamins and other supplements, with the same goal. In addition, my functional medicine practitioner has recommended a variety of meditation and mindfulness practices and programs, some of which I’ve followed and some of which mapped to my existing practices. And recently, she suggested that while I was applying a glutathione cream intended to remove heavy metals from my body, that I imagine a golden light healing my adrenals, which I am doing.

Back to the picture. I’m on the couch, sweating out toxins (maybe healing my adrenals), watching the show Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. A show, based on a true story, about hucksterism in the alternative medicine (aka functional medicine, aka wellness) space.  A show about the dangers of disdaining western medicine and falling for all the extravagant healing claims around juicing and coffee enemas and supplements and veganism. The show doesn’t mention far infrared light therapy. And that’s likely because the events in the show took place a decade ago, before red light therapy became all the rage it is today.

Belle, from Apple Cider Vinegar (on Netflix), striding through a throng of groupies

In other words, I am deep into possible huckster space with my own health. As I watched the episodes spool on, I was keenly aware of the irony of each droplet of healing sweat pooling on my body and the hope that droplet contained and the potential chimera of everything I’m doing outside of taking my pharmaceutical medication three times every day.  Still, I persist with the alternative protocols. Why? Because right now, I believe that I can heal, and I want to do everything in my power to reach that star. Just there, I hesitated between writing “I need to believe” or “I want to believe”. Neither need nor want captured my state. My belief is not a need or a desire. It is.

Am I believing blindly? Am I giving up on western medicine and putting all my chips on alternative solutions? No and no. I am expanding the range of healing modalities that I include in my life. One of the hallmarks of most alternative healing practices is the need to believe in your ability to heal.  I’m on board with that ethos.

The trickster part is that the alternative practitioners depicted in Apple Cider Vinegar are also pitching exclusivity. Show your fidelity to my wisdom by abandoning all other ideas, including traditional medical modalities.  An approach that proves mortal to several characters in the show. I am not doing that. I tried ignoring western medicine right at the beginning of my own health process and my potassium marched quick step upward into unpleasant territory.  

I was devastated. I spent more than a year in a state of psychological resistance to my medication. Believing it was bad, I was bad, something was bad, because I was taking little white pills multiple times a day. A large part of that mental model was influenced by the pervasive influence of the kind of people depicted in Apple Cider Vinegar. Then a couple of months ago my doctor consented to do some tests with the levels of my medications. And while he was surprised by my level of adrenal function, I was disappointed that function was not enough to reduce my doses. At the same time, the tests created a shift. I relaxed into gratitude, true gratitude, not gratitude mixed with resentment, for my medication. I need my medication and that’s okay. My condition is not a failure to believe in myself (or to consume enough freshly juiced fruits and vegetables).

I am continuing my alternative protocol, adding things, as they seem interesting. The sauna blanket is an example. Is it healing my adrenals? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, I feel good in many ways when I use it—my muscles recover and I sleep better, among other things.

Given all this, I might have found the show a vindication of the approach I’ve chosen. Because, in the end, that is the message the show tries to deliver. A balanced approach is best. Instead, I was frustrated with the show. By focusing on an extreme case of hucksterism, the show denigrated alternative modalities in a way that is as exaggerated as the hyped-up healing claims. They subverted their own message at the end with garbled scenes that lacked clarity. I only realized what the scenes were meant to portray in the Netflix write up about the show (spoilers!). I was left with the feeling that all alternative wellness is fraudulent.

The show was unsatisfying in other ways. The story was told in loops, circling back to the past and forward to the present in disorienting time jumps. I had trouble hanging on to who was who among several of the characters and could not always catch up with when was now in any particular scene. Instead of deepening the character arcs, I got lost and stopped caring. I was waylaid by small details like Belle drinking from single use plastic bottles, when she was preaching for the environment in other scenes. Was the plastic bottle meant to signify her treachery? Or was it carelessness on the part of the showrunner?

As you may already suspect, I do not recommend Apple Cider Vinegar. Unless you just really enjoy shows about grand scams.

As for my wellness tips to myself—I have work to do on self-love and self-acceptance. Will they heal my adrenals? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, they are essential to my wellbeing, ease and joy. The true bottom line. Top line. And every line.

The Sun in My Eyes Will Get Me Through
mindfulness · motivation

The Sun in My Eyes Will Get Me Through

Mina

I’m leaving January feeling bruised by life. My word of the year, ease, has gone and hidden in a deep underground cave. I’m worn out on coming to this blog with my woes. What’s happened now? Among other things, the home I lived in for 27 years with my ex, will pass on to other owners on March 1st. I haven’t lived there for 2 years, and I thought I was over it.  Apparently not. Somewhere in a hidden corner of my psyche, I imagined that I might live there again. Recover that sweet feeling of security and home. Finality is crashing down, bringing with it all the scaffolding I thought I’d put in place to manage the grief of so many other losses these last three years. Mother. Cat. Marriage. Home. Health. And more.

Amid the dusty ruins, I have still managed to drag myself outside in my running shoes and put one foot in front of the other. Someone recently pointed me to the research around sunlight in the eyes first thing in the morning—good for regulating circadian rhythm (i.e. sleep), boosting mood and such like. And yes, some of the sources are questionable, so I’m offering no links. A quick Google search turns up a trove.

Research and dubious sources aside, how good does it feel to be blinded by the sun first thing in the morning? So good. Right? Especially (especially!) on a cold winter day, when we are sun starved.

Soaking up apricity

My last few runs have been a battle royale to get my body out the door. And the grace of that sunlight in my eyes has saved me. I run with my eyes half closed, head turned toward wherever the sun is coming from, soaking in its faint warm breath. Like a fireplace that puts out almost no heat, until you get right up close, the winter sun warms only my eyelids, its touch not even reaching my cheeks. There’s a word for this delicious, precious feeling: apricity. The warmth of the sun in winter. Having that word now to describe the sun’s solace in my eyes enlivens the experience. And it is these tiny shifts in consciousness that will get me through. And my runs. And family. And friends.  

Stop Resisting Ease: My 2025 Challenge
Fear · mindfulness · new year's resolutions · WOTY

Stop Resisting Ease: My 2025 Challenge

Mina2 Comments

Every year I choose a WOTY, as many of you do, no doubt, and many of us here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue. I was having so much trouble choosing my word for this year, that I couldn’t even contribute to our group post. I kept saying to people, I want a word like ease. Something that captures the lightness and flow of ease. The way we can be more present when we are at ease. And I kept not wanting to choose the actual word. Ease. One friend sent me this fabulous Japanese expression, ichi-go ichi-e, which basically means for this time only or cherish this moment. It’s a version of Marcel Proust’s madeleine or the Heraclitus’ line about never stepping into the same river twice, with a dash of gratitude added, for the beauty of the river we are stepping into or the deliciousness of the madeleine we are eating. As beautiful as all these ideas are, ichi-go ichi-e felt heavier than what I was looking for. I try to make a practice of being grateful for as much as possible in my life. And that gratitude does not necessarily bring me ease. Gratitude demands attention and intention, especially in hard times. I was looking for a word that captured a feeling of less effort, if not full-on effortlessness (if that’s not a contradiction).

As I was effortfully trying to write this, pushing words and ideas around on the page, as if they were one of those sleds people push in CrossFit, I came across this quote from Norman Fischer, a Zen priest, poet and teacher: In the full intensity of the present moment there is never anything to fear—there is only something to deal with. It is a subtle point, but it is absolutely true: the fear I experience now is not really present moment based: I am afraid of what is going to happen. So, maybe ease is less about gratitude and maybe more about finding a way through fear. Not that that is simpler. Yet softening around all my myriad fears feels like it just might be a route to ease.  A few days later, while writing something else, I came up with this formula:

What I was wrestling with was the idea that if I can move into the future with trust and find the grace to dance with what the universe delivers, then I will be able to move through my boat load of fears. And there, on the other side of fear, is where I will find ease.  

As I headed out to meet a friend for a run on January 1st, in a cold winter rain, which turned to snow just in time for our run and then switched back to rain as we took our last steps (thank you, universe, for that opening gift of 2025—an easy gratitude!), I realized that I was resisting the word ease, because it felt so impossible, or like I don’t deserve it. Here’s a sampler from that voice in my head: It’s coming up on 3 years since your marriage started falling apart and you still can’t find ease? What’s wrong with you? Why are you not over it already? If you can’t find ease by now, you never will. Also, that’s your fault. The inside of my head is not always the most cheerful place to be.

When I realized that my dis-ease with the word ease was about resistance (my fear!), and not my usual, there’s-a-more-perfect-word-to-describe-what-I-mean, I knew what my word of the year had to be. EASE. Sometimes my word is aspirational and other years it is a beacon. This year it is the former—an aspiration, which I will try to hold lightly, mindful of the paradox that if I aspire too hard, then I will surely not find ease. What will ease look like? Less time in my head, worrying about the future. More time just being (trust!). Making choices rooted more in pleasure and less in financial fear (grace!). Less fighting against what is, like taking my medication (grace!). More noticing the gifts on offer, like how well my medication works (trust!).

This year I will trust and dance with grace. Aspiring. Letting go. Moving through fears. That’s where I’ll find ease. If I do. Not that I’m attached to the outcome. Okay, maybe a little bit. Here goes.

When Can I Be Awesome?
celebration · challenge · femalestrength · running

When Can I Be Awesome?

Mina2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I ran rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. The effort was a moment to remind myself of the strength of my spirit after a period of enormous loss, chaos and instability, including health setbacks. As I ran from the night into the dazzling first drops of sun gilding the tops of the cliffs, the dawning day called me back in to myself. 

My youngest brother, Noah, proposed the adventure. His goal was to run rim to rim to rim (R3)—across the canyon and back again. My goal was rim to rim. I would accompany him for the first half of his effort.

It had been more than a decade since my last ultra run. Yes, I know, technically, rim to rim is not ultra, because it is not longer than a marathon. That said, those 21 miles are challenging. I underprepared. By a lot. One month out, I broke my toe.  I wasn’t sure I could even join my brother for the first steps. A few days before we were set to leave, I was fretting about my lack of training, when the universe delivered me a lightning bolt of clarity. You know how to do this. In that moment, I felt a fizz of recognition, the running was the least of it. To be prepared was to believe in myself. I could give the rest over to the universe. I felt a sudden sense of being anchored. I know how to do this. I’ve done ultra runs before. The experience is inscribed in my cells. Yes, in the past I have always trained. A lot. And that wasn’t an option this time, so I will run with what I do have. My knowing.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t suddenly think that I had the whole thing in the bag, and it would all be a dawdle. Not at all. Rather, it was an acceptance that I might well turn around and that would be okay, combined with a confidence that I could do it, if all else aligned (weather, health & sleep, being the three primary things that needed to be in alignment).

We started running at 4 a.m. Descending 4500 feet. In the pitch dark. For more than 2 hours.

At one point, my headlamp caught a lone, bare tree, which looked like a staging of Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot.  I thought about Didi and Gogo, near the end of the play, contemplating whether to hang themselves from the scrawny tree. A current of energy passed through me and a voice in my head said, I want to live. I want to stop waiting for something external to happen, to give me a reason. Life is happening now. This is it.

I relaxed into the pleasure of the run. We reached the bottom in the dark and began to make our way across. I’ve been down into the canyon twice before and come right back up. I had never traversed the canyon floor before. Never been hugged by the canyon walls, as I passed through the sometimes narrow, winding passage to the far rim. The light began to seep into the canyon, long before the first sunshine splashed over the highest rock faces. The North Rim loomed 5000 feet above. It didn’t seem possible that there was a trail leading up the sheer walls. And yet, there it was. Sometimes skinny and precipitous. Sometimes breathlessly steep. With views to astonish.

Tears prickled as I reached the top after 7 grueling hours. I was overcome with the full body pleasure of finishing. Despite all. I’m awesome. I thought. For a moment. Only to watch most runners who came after me turn around (as my brother did) and run back again to the South Rim.

I was so proud of my brother for achieving his desired goal. And, at the same time, all the runners out there covering twice as much distance as me that day made me question my own sense of accomplishment. I only did … I made a halfway effort. In our world of increasingly extreme efforts, in our world where people are routinely pushing their bodies to the very edge of their human limits, what counts? What is enough? What am I allowed to be proud of? Wait a minute, who is doing this allowing? Why can’t I allow myself to be awesome?

And then on the Thursday after the Grand Canyon, I read these words from David Whyte (from his book Consolations. Words I had read before, which took on new resonance: “…taking a new step always begins from the central foundational core of the body, a body we have neglected, beginning well means seating ourselves in the body again, catching up with ourselves and the person we have become since last we tried to begin …”  I felt my first steps down the South Kaibab trail again and the intensity of everything that moment contained. The flood of memories of other physical challenges, like this run, that I’ve done in the past. All the ways in which my life and how I see myself have changed since then. All the doubts I was carrying into the canyon about my own capacity. Would my Addison’s Disease be a factor? The run was an opportunity to catch up with myself and the person I have become since last I tried to begin. I discovered a woman who is doing better than she thought. The light of resilience is seeping into her cells. Soon, the only-seemingly-insurmountable cliffs ahead will be painted gold and the trail will show itself. Step by step.

Am I My Own Delilah?—choosing the radical road to grey hair
fitness

Am I My Own Delilah?—choosing the radical road to grey hair

Mina14 Comments

These past months I’ve been feeling the call to begin the transition of accepting my grey hair. Now (and for the past 25 years) I’ve had a variety of shades of red. I started by sticking close to what had been my natural colour (from birth!), before I started to go grey. I have since strayed into bolder territory. At first, I thought I’d stop at 50. Then I didn’t. I wasn’t ready.

Because I get comments on my long curly red hair from strangers almost every day and I am addicted to the attention. Random, unlikely strangers, tell me how beautiful my hair is, how much they love the colour, or they just smile and point at their heads, to let me know my hair has prompted the smile. Just last week, at a drum circle, a woman told me that I was like a dancing flame in the corner with my drum.

I hear how women my age become invisible. I feel visible. I’m scared of not being seen. More. I am a reasonably energetic person. I ran in the forest in Lisbon for two hours this morning, before settling on the couch in my Airbnb to write this. I laugh loud (maybe too loud). I love to dance almost anywhere, anytime. I can get carried away on a wave of enthusiasm. And somewhere along the way, I began to bundle those traits with my hair colour. As if my presence and personality depend on me being a redhead.

Yet, my hair doesn’t feel right anymore. There’s a voice inside that says I’m too old for my hair, or that the colour is inauthentic, that I’m hiding behind my hair, or that it’s just plain time to see what the grey is like. When I see women with beautiful grey hair now, I admire not only their hair, but also their bold authenticity. I feel the call to step up to their courage. Which means, for me, that I will need to cut off all my hair and start over again. I do not want to keep my hair long and slowly grow my grey out. And that radical road also scares the crap out of me, because what if I not only become invisible; what if like Samson, I lose all my strength, energy and enthusiasm for life? In the Book of Judges, Delilah betrays Samson by cutting off his hair, knowing it will destroy his strength. Will I be my own Delilah to my own Samson?  

Forest in Lisbon
Forest path in Lisbon

I have, of course, investigated my options, which is what eventually tipped the scales to the radical road. I had the idea that maybe I’d just dye my whole head blonde, to make it easier to start growing out my hair. I consulted with a colorist I used to go to. Before I started colouring my hair myself with an all-natural-add-only-hot-water product that is shipped from an organic salon in Paris. Here’s the text message I got from my ex-colorist when I asked if he’d be game to help me with my transition-through-long-blonde-hair plan:

Hi Mina. Of course I remember you!

I would not touch your colored hair with a 10-foot pole, considering you’ve been using henna! Sorry

I have seen the detrimental effects of trying to correct or remove henna color firsthand. Your hair could turn green, or just break off randomly so you end up with a “chemical haircut”

While henna itself is “natural”, so is snake venom and gasoline

Henna is a metallic vegetable dye that leaves a permanent residue on the hair that can react really horribly with any other treatments.

If you truly want to go grey, the best (and in my opinion the only) option is to just wait it out as your hair grows in naturally grey

For my 2 cents, no matter how young and beautiful your face is…gray hair makes you look at least 10 years older As long as you’re ready to look, and be treated, as “old”, go for it!

Well okay then. Thank you. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve heard this kind of opinion. I have friends who have said that going grey will age me by 10 years, instantly.

Setting aside his hostile tone and harsh judgment of grey hair, I did some research into what he said about henna. I asked another hairdresser who confirmed that henna was bad. He generously dyed a sample lock of hair blonde, to show me just how wrong things could go. I now have a lock of yellow yarn doll hair.  I did further research and confirmed, to my distress, that henna is indeed quite toxic and contains heavy metals, which end up in the body. So much for my pure, organic Parisian colour. I’m not putting that in my hair again, since I’d also be putting it in my kidneys again.

As I’ve been agonizing about my hair, a friend sent me this article about taking a year of celibacy: The Sexiest Year of My Life Involved No Sex  So, if I cut off all my hair and let it be grey, should I also prepare to be celibate? And not by choice, according to my ex-colorist. I know my friend didn’t intend the article to land that way. Yet, I do worry that my colleagues at work will no longer respect me. That my friends won’t want to hang out with me. And yes, that no one will love me or want to have sex with me. Ever again. Apparently, my own judgments are worse than my ex-colorist’s.

These fears are all the reasons to go for it. Reset. Restart. It is time to find out if I am more than my hair. November 15 is the day. A friend has undertaken to accompany me during the process. To hold my hand. Console. Celebrate. Scrape me off the floor or ceiling, depending on what happens to my psyche.   

Yes, I know, I am not making an irrevocable decision. In my teens and twenties, I was constantly changing my look. I can start colouring my hair again (just not with henna). Hair grows back. What’s time anyway? 

Onward, with curiosity.

Running Through the Past to Renewal
running

Running Through the Past to Renewal

Mina3 Comments
View over Palisades Park in New Jersey from Fort Tryon Park

When I lost my relationship of more than 28 years, I also lost the extraordinary complicity of shared memories that is built over that much time. The way a we can hear three notes of a song and be transported into nine different times when they listened to that melody together. The way a we can walk by a restaurant that’s been six different restaurants and remember the first time they ate their together and all the meals in all its different iterations. The way a roadside rest stop can conjure a decade of drives to Vermont.

I am still too often surprised by a wave of grief, which washes through after an experience that hearkens back to a past that no longer exists in the same way, even as a memory. My ongoing divorce has not only radically changed how I live now; it has shattered the lens through which I look at my past, too. Joyful memories, comfortable memories, loving memories—they are all cast into doubt. Spoiled. Was what I lived real? And if it was, how did I lose my life?

Starting a few weeks ago, I have literally been running up against one such file folder of memories. In late August, I decided to run up to The Cloisters Museum and Fort Tryon Park in New York. From my old apartment, it was a 14-mile run, there and back. I’ve moved further north, and further east, so I wasn’t sure how much shorter the run would be. 3 miles shorter, it turns out. Which is just right for what I want to run now. I’ve done the run three times now, and I hope to do it again this week. Just because, I can. After everything (divorce, diagnosis and more), to feel alive and be able to run this route is joyous and comforting. Not only for the physical accomplishment, also for the view of the Palisades cliffs in New Jersey across the river and being on the grounds of the museum that was always my paternal grandparents’ first stop on their semi-annual road trip to New York from Regina, Saskatchewan. My grandmother had a particular love of the unicorn tapestries. Which is why it was also one of the last places I visited in New York with my father before he died, so that we could stand where his mother had stood so many times and feel her spirit. I don’t know if my father knew that his health was failing that day. He had a small growth on his face that he’d been ignoring, which turned out to be melanoma.

The first time I ran to the Cloisters was 30 years ago. There was no beautiful bike path up the west side to the little red lighthouse beneath the George Washington Bridge and what path there was by the river was sketchy and not something I’d run alone. The first time, I ran it with my ex and two other running friends, who have long since moved away. I’ve run it with many different friends over the years. At least once with one of my brothers on a crazy windy day. It’s a great tourist (who is also a runner) outing. And, of course, I ran it with my ex. Many times.

Until 2022, when my marriage started to fall apart, I had done that run every year, often many times (especially during marathon training). I didn’t do the run in 2022, nor in 2023. That was when I started to feel tired. So tired that that kind of distance moved out of reach. Deciding to do the run again, even if a shorter version, was a declaration of renewal.

I can still do this. Even if I’m alone and every step contains a memory. The super steep climb out of Riverside Park. The water fountain in Fort Tryon at the turnaround. The hill one of those OG running friends named, Where the Fuck Did This Come From? Because we’d run steadily up to get to the cloisters. So how was it possible that on our way back down, a few blocks east of where we’d climbed, we were running up yet another hill, which seemed impossible, geologically. Such is the variation in terrain a few blocks apart in Manhattan. And, as if to further taunt us, at the bottom of the hill named Where the Fuck Did This Come From? is a pharmacy called Hilltop Pharmacy. I never pass that corner without a bubble of inner bemusement. I wanted to share that bubble with you, here. To help build new neural pathways into my memories.

As I run, I am filled with a strong brew of melancholy and joy. Each time I trace this route, I carry with me all the iterations and all my companions. And I imagine my grandmother, walking in Fort Tryon Park, stretching her legs after a day of driving, thinking about that dying unicorn. And I remember walking the park paths with my parents. I contain my ancestors and all the girls and women I have been. I revel in the joy of being gifted another opportunity to make my way up to the cloisters on my own two legs.

Aging with Grace: What I Want Versus What I Ought
fitness

Aging with Grace: What I Want Versus What I Ought

Mina4 Comments

Here on this blog and elsewhere, there’s lots of information about the benefits of strength training for women, particularly as they age. Cardiovascular fitness and endurance focused fitness have lost their luster. They are not considered as productive for women’s long-term health—maintaining bone density, healthy sugar levels, heart health and such like.

I’ve added some strength to my mix. I have a pull up bar. A nearby CrossFit-like class I go to. Plus, streaming Pilates around the edges. I am taking pleasure in getting stronger. And I know that really, I’m doing the classes because they keep me fortified for what I truly love doing—running, hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, mountain (and regular) biking. I get way too much joy from being outside and moving through cities, parks, forests and mountain trails to give up cardiovascular and endurance focused activities. I barely think of them as fitness. They are my way of being and moving in the world, an expression of my heart’s desire, my deep wants. The impulse to do strength classes comes from a very different source. Yes, I want to do strength classes, but in that ought-y way. As in, eat your peas, they’re good for you (though I quite like peas). As a result, I’m probably doing less strength work than I ought to be doing.

So, I wonder, should I rebalance my activities to a more productive mix? What about my joy? Is it productive (by which I mean, long-term healthy)?

This week I was provoked to think about the distinction between productive and fruitful. The talk I was watching, made the distinction between getting shit done, no matter the toll it might have on me. Think of a machine metaphor, where the machine breaks down and we fix it, give it some oil, solder the fissures, plug it back in. Versus, being in flow, which, yes, in and of itself might lead to a lot of shit getting done, though possibly at a different rhythm. A fruit tree metaphor is apt here, a metaphor of seasonality, of cyclicality, of dormancy and blossoming. The fruit tree in my mind’s eye is an apple tree from my grandfather’s orchard, my mother’s backyard growing up.  

This idea of productive vs fruitful resonated with this internal wrestling match around what I ought to be doing for my health versus what I want to be doing for my health. While my workouts might not be as productive as they could be, maybe they are fruitful (for me—you do you and will have your own version of fruitful). The feeling of flow, of connection to nature (as precarious as that can sometimes feel in a city), the sky in all its moods, the weather imposing its presence, has a discernible impact on my wellbeing. How can my heart be healthy without joy? Maybe my bones densify when I feel awe in nature? (The study has yet to be done.) My friend, Kim (of this blog!), reminded me that “studies show” that our parasympathetic nervous system grooves well with the smooth pleasure of a flow of repetitive movements, like running, cycling, dancing, hiking, skiing and such. For me, connecting with the joy of movement and the beneficence of nature invigorates me in a way that Pilates or CrossFit don’t.

Getting groovy feels fruitful for my long-term health.  

Yes, I want to do the things that help a woman stay vital as she ages. Of course I do. And a good part of my vitality is sourced from the outdoors. With only so much time, what’s a woman to do? In my case, I am going to keep experimenting with the balance. Like fruit trees, I have cycles where I am more focused on outdoor activities—like when I am in mountains and focus almost exclusively on cross country skiing or mountain biking and trail running—versus when I’m in the city, and more likely to incorporate specific strength training. These cycles feel fruitful for my wellbeing. No doubt there’s tweaking to be done. I’m trying to listen to what my body wants (what my spirit wants), hoping that coincides with what I need. If that doesn’t sound scientific, it’s not; or is it? I’m listening to intuition and felt sense. Increasingly science is showing that our mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing have an impact on our long-term health. This is where fruitful joins hands with productive.

Aging is complicated. Every day, I feel like there’s a new something I should be doing. How can I stay vital and age with grace? For this moment, I’m going to focus on being fruitful and bring that spirit of wants, of heart’s desire, into my movement, whether it’s a run or a CrossFit class.

Rewriting the Stories I Tell Myself
fitness

Rewriting the Stories I Tell Myself

Mina3 Comments

I tell myself stories all day long. Stories to soothe. Stories to motivate. Stories to console. Stories to provoke fear and anxiety. Stories of success. Stories of failure. And, as hard as it is for me to believe at times, I can rewrite any of those stories at any time.

Here’s one.  It is a story that’s ostensibly about mountain biking. And, as with all our stories, it is a story I’m telling myself about myself. Where I used to mountain bike in the California Sierras, most of the trails l rode were longtime friends. I knew exactly where the tricky spots were. I assessed my ride by how many times I touched a foot on the ground, how long I stayed on the bike during a treacherous or super steep stretch and how many times I got off the bike. I told myself stories about my focus and strength and resilience, which were not always supportive.

This summer I was in new terrain, as I am with so much of my life in this moment. The mountain bike trails were unfamiliar and challenging in different ways, a lot more slippery giant tree roots, for example. I was off my bike significantly more often than I used to be on my longtime trails. At first, the story I was telling myself went like this: You’ve lost your mojo and finesse, maybe your fitness, too. You are too old to mountain bike. That I had a sprained ankle didn’t help, though my ankle was surprisingly cooperative when I was riding and even when I was hopping off to walk the bike for steep uphill stretches, a water feature or a tree root festival.

Then one day, as I was walking my bike through difficult terrain, berating myself for my weakness, lack of talent and age, I suddenly thought. No. This is not the story!  I decided on the spot to rewrite the narrative. To tell myself a new story. Wow, Mina. Impressive transitions getting on and off the bike with such speed and grace. Never mind all the effort of the hopping off and on, even carrying the bike over some obstacles. I didn’t even stop there with my new version. All this on and off requires more strength and agility than just riding. Great functional fitness benefits, especially as you age. Rockstar.  

The story of my shortcomings morphed into a story of grace and resilience, of healthy aging. Was I lying to myself with the new story? No. The stories are nothing but interpretations of these neutral facts: I was hopping on and off my bike on a mountain trail. The story I tell myself to make meaning of that experience is up to me, as it is with every story I tell myself about what’s happening in my life.

My life could benefit from any number of rewrites these days. Without becoming delusional, I want to tell the stories that support me into the future, rather than the stories that mire me in sadness and fear. I’m not talking about stories that negate what is. I mean stories that help me make sense of what’s happened, without stopping me cold in my tracks.

Here’s an example.

Version 1 of The Story of My Addison’s Disease: You failed to manage your stress. If you had been better able to manage the fear, sadness and distress of your relationship breakdown (or if you’d not failed at your relationship in the first place), and, also, if you had better managed the grief after the loss of your mother, your cat and your home, plus a suddenly financially precarious situation, then you wouldn’t have this disease. You brought this on yourself. You have only yourself to blame.

Can you hear the brakes squealing in my life, as I run aground in the quagmire of depression and hopelessness this version of the story engenders?

Or there’s Version 2 of The Story of My Addison’s Disease: Shit happens. And, in your case, a lot of shit happened all at once. Also, way back in 2016 your potassium was already elevated and your egfr was low, but after seeing a kidney doc, the conclusion was that you were in excellent health. When those pre-existing fragilities, along with some viral load that is also common in Addison’s Disease, then combined with the perfect storm of stressors (which any normal person would have found difficult to live through), they triggered the onset of the Addison’s. And how amazingly lucky are you that it wasn’t worse? That you are alive. That, even as much as you’d like to heal and get off your medication (a work in progress), the medication works beautifully, and you have the energy to be your same old exuberant and enthusiastic self. Hallelujah.   

Version 2 is a story to dance to. I need dancing way more than I need brakes. I need to celebrate getting off my mountain bike to walk through tough obstacles, not criticize myself. Also, mountain biking has always felt like dancing on a bike, so I want to open space for the full pleasure of that experience. Side note: I’m loving that the women mountain bikers at the Olympics were so huggy at the end of their race. That’s what dancing on a bike can do for you.

My goal: More dancing (and more hugs) and less blaming in the stories I tell myself about myself.