Rien n’est plus précieux que le temps. (Nothing is more precious than time.)
I was let go from my full-time job recently at a time when my entire sector is struggling. A sympathetic colleague signed off on a supportive message to me with “Stay well.”
Wellness is the focus of much career transition advice I have read so far (on websites, the job program I am in, etc.). Some of it makes sense for anyone: see friends, do exercise, get outside, eat good food, get enough sleep. Some is specific to the emotions and challenges that go along with unexpected job loss: name your feelings, make prudent budget cuts, consider making time to upskill, etc.
Some wellness advice focuses on being mindful about next steps: take time to reflect on and even rethink one’s career goals and job hunting strategy. One piece I read warns against running right back to look for similar jobs when “pursuing a similar role might be the first step in letting history repeat itself.”
It all seems aimed at putting me in a space where I can discover new, even undiscovered, paths ahead for me. But it is a circuitous route: taking time away from looking for work in order to find it. And for a self-admitted workaholic, all this not looking for work feels like work. It is hard to enjoy free time when it is imposed…and the clock ticks with no secure income.
As my brain has been chewing on the work of wellness, I happened to think of flânerie, which one blogger describes as being “all about experiencing the world with an open heart and an unhurried spirit.” In the 19th century, wealthy French male flâneurs walked and wandered the urban cityscapes in a detached, observational way “to appreciate the world […] in its simplest form, free from the pressures of time.” Another way to put it is that they were idlers, which some saw as lazy and others saw as radical.
Paul Gavarni, Le Flâneur, 1842.
Should flâneurs be my wellness gurus right now? You can’t disagree that it’s nearly always a good idea to get out for a walk. In the context of job loss, “staying well” may require some serendipitous, open-heartedfrench wandering. Getting idle in order to see what’s around the next corner. Maybe I will start with Lauren Elkin’s book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City (2017).
Not being of the elite class, however, I only have a limited time to be free from the pressure of time. I can only afford to make flânerie part-time work.
What is your experience with wellness during job loss, and how much work was it “work” to try to savour the time?
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.
What a month it has been – life as a full-on business woman is very intense. As a reminder, 18 months ago I returned to a career in the finance industry, after a 20 year hiatus where I had children, earned several degrees and then transitioned to professional musician and contract professor… It has been quite an 18 months.
In late July, I realized that I had not yet made it to my favourite Lake Huron beach and was aghast. I was afraid that it was going to be late October and I would be filled with regret about my lost summer adventures. I am lucky that I have supportive management, and flexibility in my working hours, and so I decided to do something – Summer Wednesdays were born.
What are Summer Wednesdays? Well, some of my luckiest colleagues work for companies who have “Wellness Programs” and “Early Release” days that designate half-days off, often on Fridays or before a long weekend. I realized I could create my own personal program (with the caveat of course that I still have to get my work done, just on my own schedule). Summer Wednesdays are my plan to sign off of work early, maybe 2-3pm, on Wednesdays in summer, and drive to one of the gorgeous Great Lakes beaches near me.
So the first Summer Wednesday came and went, and there was just no tearing me away from my desk. So Thursday morning, I put on my bathing suit underneath my clothing, and set down to work. Thrilled, I drove down to Lake Erie and had a truly glorious 4 hour visit, complete with nap on the beach and many swims. So in great irony, Summer Wednesday I was a success, even if it happened on a Thursday.
Summer Wednesday 2 was not so great. I was anxious. I was overwhelmed. I had many excuses and the week slipped past me. So Summer Wednesday 2 earned a DNF.
The smile on my face here tells you what Summer Wednesdays mean to me
Summer Wednesday 3 just happened this week. After not making it last week, I was pretty worried this week. I tried to get more realistic and planned a trip to a quarry about 30 minutes from here. It worked, and I had a wonderfully refreshing swim. (Hilariously I also managed to start a video call to my Vice President when I put my phone in my back pocket. I heard someone calling my name behind me and realized it was my phone. I pulled out my phone – with full view of my chest and bathing suit – and apologized profusely. She said she realized it was a pocket call, but stayed on the call, because she wanted to make sure I was ok. *cue above where I said I have supportive management).
So that’s my check-in this month. I have probably 4 more Wednesdays left in the swimming season, so Summer Wednesdays 4 – 7 represent opportunities for me. I’m curious – how do you prioritize your own self, in the midst of a very busy life? I think I need to keep working on this.
Lake Erie – the muddiest of the Great Lakes, but still a miracle!
As someone with ADHD, I am always looking for ways to improve my ability to focus. My medication, my planning, and environmental cues all help but it can still take a lot of energy to keep myself on task, so when I came across some music that made it easier to stick to my work plan, I was delighted.
I’m not sure how I happened upon Greenred Productions ADHD Relief Deep Focus Music (embedded below) but I can only assume that it was something the algorithm churned up after I watched a How to ADHD video at some point.
Embedded YouTube video from Greenred Productions called ‘ADHD Relief Deep Focus Music with Pulsation, ADD Music for Concentration, ADHD Music’ The video includes 12 hours of music but there is a single still image on the screen for the whole video. The image is of a mystical looking stag with antlers that look like gnarled tree branches. The stag is standing in light that seems to be shining through the trees that surround it. There are broken tree stumps, plants, and a large rock near the stag.
Maybe there is a scientific reason why this music works for me or maybe it is a coincidence but, either way, playing this video helps me to focus. And the fact that it is almost 12 hours of music means that I won’t lose track of time while selecting music or creating a playlist.
I don’t always have music on when I am working but it has been great to have this on hand when I need a little extra help to focus.
A couple of weeks ago, I was returning to the video over and over throughout the week but, for some reason, I wasn’t resetting it, I was just letting it play from wherever I had paused it the session before.
So, even though it is a 12 hour video, I eventually reached the end and THAT’S when I found the best meditation/relaxation/body-calming music (embedded below) that I have ever encountered.
Embedded YouTube Video of Greenred Productions video “Deep Cello Meditation Music: Dark Meditation Music, Relaxing Music, Dark Cello Music for Relaxation” There is two hours of music but there is no actual video just a still, black and white image of a person with shoulder length hair playing the cello outside a stone house with a set of double doors and a window set in the front of it.
It turns out that I find cello music incredibly calming. In fact, when I listen to this music, I feel the same kind of sensory-soothing calm that I feel when I put on a weighted shoulder wrap or lie in my hammock. Something in the music just really grounds me and puts me at ease.
I have been playing it while I meditate, draw, colour, or read and I swear I can feel myself sinking deeper into those relaxing activities as a result.
Do you find specific types of music help you to focus or to relax?
Does music contribute to your peace of mind?
Did YOU know that cello was so relaxing? Am I the last person on earth to discover this?
Tell me all about it in the comments. Pretty please!
PS – I really wanted to call this post ‘Cello, it is you I’m looking for’ but then the first embedded video wouldn’t make any sense and besides, I wasn’t sure if the Lionel Richie reference was too much of a reach for the joke to work. 😉
Flouranguishing: the state of simultaneously flourishing and languishing (see also: being human)
Recently a number of my friends circulated an article about the blah many of us currently feel as COVID drags on. The author named the sensation as languishing. Even as we get vaccinated, so much still seems risky or is outright closed off to us. We aren’t quite depressed, but we aren’t quite happy. We are in the doldrums. Sigh. Some days I languish more than others. Yesterday, for example, halfway through breakfast, out of the blue, I was afflicted with a deep sense of oh-what’s-the-point. As the day progressed, I started to perk up, but I could still feel the layer of languish in the background.
Because, generally, despite all during this pandemic, I feel like I’m flourishing (about which I feel some guilt and self-consciousness and even shame—because, how dare I flourish during these dark times, doesn’t that just indicate I’m an entitled, selfish so-and-so?).
The pandemic’s Zoomification of our world made it possible for me to start training toward a certification in Non-Violent Communication (maybe … I’m not 100% committed to the certification process yet, as I write this the sign-up page for the next phase is open in my browser).. NVC then led me to some Internal Family Systems training. I have discovered new ways of working and being. I’m exhilarated every time I uncover yet more ways in which NVC and IFS connect into and inform the work I was already doing (workshops on emotional intelligence, among other things). Athena Casey recently interviewed me for The Intolerance Podcast, which gave me a great chance to synthesize this understanding for myself. Talking with her got me excited all over again about this path I’m on.
Except … for the days when I wonder why I thought it was a good idea to add in a whole different discipline at well into my fifties; and further wonder whether all this curiosity can actually lead where I want it to lead, or whether I’m just an eternal dilettante, destined to pedal as hard as I can, but never go anywhere, a stationary bike I can’t get off. Uh oh. Languishing again.
Then, I perk up. Again. A friend recently mentioned that when we are low about the future, it is helpful to simply change the time horizon. That is certainly true for me. When I look forward a year or further, I can see where I’d like to be, but not how to get there. That’s a languisher, for sure. But when I shorten the time horizon to, say, the next two days, I’m looking at a 2.5-day NVC workshop on gratitude and I know it’s going to be fantastic and I’m going to love it. That’s a flourisher.
Back and forth. Again.
Oh, and that’s not all. There has been other flourishing, too. In response to the languishing article, another friend sent a piece about flourishing during the pandemic, which pointed out a bunch of ways we might discover new richness in our lives these past months. One was connecting with friends and family in a different rhythm. Well, that’s happened for me, too. Pre-pandemic, I was in regular communication with my mother via text, but we virtually never talked on the phone. I’m a phone-o-phobic, so I’ve never been good about calling. Now? –we are having long Zoom confabs twice a month. Sometimes my two brothers join, one of my sisters-in-law and some nieces and nephews. We’ll have New York, Calgary, London (Ontario) and the other London (UK) all together. I’m also zooming with friends in other cities and countries, with whom I was only sketchily in touch before. An IRL friend recently asked me why I was still doing friend-zooms. Why would I stop? I’ve made space for them in my life. Why would I want to diminish the joys of being more in touch with geographically distant friends?
Because, it turns out we can use space, just as we used time, to alchemize some flourish out of languish. Here’s a Zen story:
A student of Zen came to their teacher and asked her how they could learn to feel less frustrated and angry and sad and disappointed. They wanted to know how to calm their pervasive anxiety and sometime depression. The Zen teacher asked the student to bring her a teaspoon of salt. When the student came back, the teacher presented the student with a beautiful, clear glass of water and asked them to mix the salt into the water and drink.
“Pthaugh. Yuck,” the student said, spitting out the salty water. “How is that going to help me?”
The teacher then invited the student to get another teaspoon of salt and meet her down at the lake. At the lakeshore, the teacher asked the student to mix the spoonful of salt into the lake, then fill their glass with the lake water and drink it (this is the land of Zen myth, the lakes are unpolluted, pure and potable).
“Aah. Delicious,” the student said. “But … ??”
“Your mind is a glass of water. Now, make it a lake.”
Lake, Emma Harper on Unsplash and glass of water, Manu Schwendener on Unsplash
I already mentioned how we can change time to our advantage. Well, it turns out we can fiddle with space, too. Gratitude, for example, is a huge space maker. For me, if I can make my mind a lake, I make room to access the flourish-nutrients available just from noticing what is going well and being grateful. I’ve stayed healthy, so far. I have continued to run and mountain bike and ski and spin and Pilates and, and … The spring cherry blossoms were fat and fabulous this year. My partner and I celebrated 27 years together.
Flouranguishing is the art of being present to our humanness. We are rarely all one thing. And we are certainly not a duality either. We do not languish OR flourish. We are rarely (if ever) experiencing one single emotion, one unique condition of being. We live in a soup of simultaneous states. How we use time and space determines which ingredients dominate.
Here’s the constant that I’m trying to work with right now. I have the power to choose what flavours I focus on in the soup. Languishing may feel like it is imposed on me from the outside, due to circumstances beyond my control (the pandemic, the inherent uncertainty of the future). Yet, I can still make the choice to focus my attention on what’s flourishing. As hard as it may seem at times, I want to be present with what is good, right now. To be grateful, even and especially for the smallest things. To engage with life. None of this is to say that I’m pushing the languish away, or compartmentalizing. No. I recognize and even honour the languish. At the same time, I set the intention to notice the flourish.
Running this morning, my body was so tired. I heard out the part of me who was exasperated with my exhaustion. In fact, there was a pretty extended discussion between the various voices in my head about whether I should cut my run short. But then I picked my eyes up off the pavement and noticed what a beautiful morning it was, how good the air felt on my skin and remembered that the only measure of success that mattered today on my run was pleasure. So, when the option to abridge my route came up, I ran right past. I wanted to stay with the trees in all their fresh green. And, when I made that choice, my body suddenly felt more ease, the run more fluid.
Another day, the choice to shorten my run will be the one that resonates for my body and grants ease. My work is to listen for when a decision is about languishing and when about flourishing. With time and space at my disposal, I have powerful tools to support my intention to savor the flavour of flourish.
The wellness trend is surging, so we’re told. Women are taking care of themselves more these days. Prioritizing their needs (an idea whose time has surely come). Paying attention to nourishing foods. Getting more exercise. Starting to think about the health of their minds and spirits. These are good things, right? Yes!
paper with the word mindfulness in calligraphy on a windowsill
breath in neon signage
I’m on board. I have a curious bent. As much as I like to try new physical activities, I also like to try new health and wellness protocols. Why wouldn’t I want to feel as good as possible physically and emotionally? I’ve had some kind of meditation practice for more than a decade. I incorporate acupuncture and massage into my schedule with some regularity. There’s a Korean spa just over the George Washington Bridge we like to go to with friends for a stiff scrub and some time in the saunas and under the far infrared light. Yes, my vagina has been steamed with mugwort vapors (enjoyable, not life changing). And I have succumbed to the promises of quite few skincare products; the best of which deliver on about 25% of their hype, which is more than I really expected, if I’m honest with myself.
Have we gone too far?
Lured by the wellness industry’s promises of eternal youth and beauty (also great sex), are we trying to buy our way out of reality? Goop is one of the industry’s most high profile villains-du-jour. High on the list of accusations lodged against Goop are that it is marketing products that are not scientifically proven.
amber tincture bottles on a desk with books and decorative straw ball
As an aside, researchers (at Harvard, no less) are hard at work studying the surprising efficacy of the placebo effect. Virtually all of us engage in some magical thinking that has worked. There is a good chance that we will discover that a lot of pseudoscience may be less pseudo and more science than is currently understood.
In the meantime though, Goop has been taken to task (and court) more than once for grandiose claims it makes about the products it hawks. The clientele, largely white women of privilege, is disdained as gullible over-spenders with too much money and not enough sense. It’s so easy to question the priorities and intelligence of someone who buys a jade egg for her vagina; even if the whole idea of the egg is pretty ancient.
Yet, the very success of enterprises like Goop demonstrates that for all the privilege (whether real or not—the infamous jade egg was only $66), money is not buying us peace of mind. I haven’t actually bought anything from Goop, but I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t feel better about myself. Rather, our unease with ourselves enables companies to offer more and more outrageous and outrageously priced “solutions” for unsolvable challenges, like aging (and fear of aging). As this article in Quartzy points out, #skincare is just a code word for anti-aging. The marketing language may be coloured with all sorts of body positive words, but the root emotion that’s targeted and monetized is the same as always with these kinds of products—shame. Shame about our bodies. Shame about getting older.
I struggle with this. I spend too much time studying the wrinkles on my face, trying to decide if they are worsening, or if whatever new miracle product I’m using is actually smoothing them away, even a little. I have strong feelings about cosmetic surgery. Denying my aging feels like a betrayal of women. Yet it is also a high horse that is precarious. As much as I want to accept the inevitable with dignity and grace, to stay strong and healthy by eating well, drinking water, exercising, sleeping and such, I know that at any moment I might fall off my hobbyhorse, landing on needles full of Botox and fillers, or UPS boxes full of promise-y Goop products.
We women are not alone in our susceptibility. Men are just drawn in by different language. For men it is the language of performance optimization that closes the deal. Deploying knowledge to biohack a more efficient personal ecosystem are their code words for lose weight, get strong and stay young.
We are not idiots for falling for these bright, shiny promises. We live in a society that delivers a torrent of messaging, which tells us that we aren’t young enough, fit enough, beautiful enough, rich enough, famous enough, or really enough of anything. Even when anti-aging is rebranded as the dewiness we all deserve, we know the truth of what we are buying. We are spending money to put a finger in the leaky dyke of our not-enoughness. Intellectually, I know I should always think that I am enough. But I don’t. I know I’m not alone in this. It’s a big part of why the health and wellness industry is growing.
We have the actual, literal possibility of more and more comfort, yet we live with less and less ease.
I wonder if that’s because we know that our society is askew and our subconscious senses this dis-ease. The gap between have-a-lot and have-not is widening exponentially. Some women are spending a small fortune and enormous amounts of time on wellness, while in the same country other women are working multiple jobs and still can’t put dinner on the table for their children. Coming home from a dermatologist appointment during which I had a little skin tag on my neck removed (a voluntary procedure), I walked past a homeless man, sleeping out in the pouring rain. A wave of guilt washed through me. Should I have given the money I’d just spent to him instead?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t take care of our health and wellness. I’m not going to stop trying to stay physically and mentally healthy, or stop buying any beauty products. I’m not saying we shouldn’t indulge.
I am proposing that if we do so more mindfully, perhaps we can indulge just a little less and share just a little more.
We are optimized when we are comfortable in our bodies and with who we are. That’s the brass ring of health and wellness.
