Posts by Joy Held

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Food is our major source of energy. Long time ago our grandparents raised almost everything they ate but you know it isn’t that way any longer. Technology has set a pace for the human race that is exactly that: a race from sun up to sun down and beyond to be, do, get, fix, and plan lives that are dependent on the mass production of the food we eat. In exchange for technological progress, we have placed our trust in complete strangers to grow, prepare, and serve most of what we eat. Granted, the opposite choice is a little daunting. Who has the time, money, energy, or space to cultivate a garden or raise chickens? When my sister-in-law got my father-in-law a full grown rooster for his birthday, the city made him get rid of it because ordinances did not allow for the harboring of any animals other than cats, dogs, and reptiles. And the neighbors got pretty pi$$ed off when the rooster when off every morning in the middle of town at 4:00 a.m. So we’ve had to set aside our trust issues and rely on professionals for all our food.

Hmmm. Not yum, but hmmm.

Recently author Kristen Lamb blogged rcently on how one simple diet change changed her life for the better. She discovered a wheat and diary intolerance and now eats plenty of food I imagine but without excessive amounts of wheat because of the gluten and dairy because of the casein. Both are diet troublemakers for a lot more people than you would think.

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/writer-wellness-one-simple-change-for-more-energy-focus/

I discovered the very same situation with my diet in 1998 when I was introduced to “The Blood Type Diet” popular among yoga practitioners at the time. I bought the book Eat Right For Your Type, The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo with Catherine Whitney and once I realized how much better I felt I have never looked back.

http://dadamo.com/

D’Adamo is a homeopathic physician and so was his father. D’Adamo the younger has carried the work of his father into the 21^st century with strong, reliable results. There is proven scientific support for the program. It’s based on a simple fact: not everybody can eat everything, nor should everybody eat the same things. The science is based on a thing called lectins that causes blood to get sticky and then causes all sorts of trouble from there. Read the book.

There are four blood types among humans and four food programs to follow according to D’Adamo. I don’t call it a diet. Ever since I heard Richard Simmons say, “The first three letters of the word ‘diet’ spell ‘die,’” I stopped using the word. I’m on a specific food program with an enormous list of foods acceptable to my blood type which is O. For half of my life, like Kristen, I would eat pasta and need a cot standing nearby to catch me. Wheat caused me to swell, retain fluids, and have headaches but I didn’t know it until I removed it from my diet and discovered a whole new way of being. And wheat is the number one offensive food for blood type O people. Go figure. Dairy ranks up there as tough on O-people but it’s do-able in moderation. Anytime I go beyond the moderate level of dairy, indigestion is the result.

Blood type “food program” isn’t without its critics, but I’m not one of them. How do I get around wheat in my diet when everybody we trust to make our food is filling it with the stuff because it’s cheap? I’ll explain that in a future Friday Feast, but don’t worry, I’m not hungry or asleep after eating like I used to be.

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“Women with clean houses do not have finished books.” ~Me

There is a wonderful chapter in the classic writing text by Brenda Ueland titled “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing.” The title is enough to liberate me from the toils of the home but others may need a bit more convincing. Before I encourage you, male or female, to reduce the amount of housework you do so you have more writing time, I will qualify my remarks with saying that complete abandonment of the necessary tasks to keep a dwelling sanitary is not what I’m advocating. It’s a matter of accepting other people’s help.

Ueland’s chapter is in her inspirational book If You Want To Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit first published in 1938. The copy I never let get too far away is a 1987 edition, and even though she was a turn-of-the-century woman, her advice is applicable to anyone who wants to write today. Her ideas have influenced my belief that everyone is a writer to some degree. Some take it farther than others. In this clever chapter, Ueland presents the work of former writing students from her classes and shows how as women they are quite talented writers but the demands of being mothers and wives seems to prohibit them from knowing the satisfaction of publication.

Online chats and luncheon table conversations at writing conferences never fail to spend some time bemoaning the fact that women have too many household responsibilities and civic chores to get any writing done. Whooey seems to be my word of choice this week, and I repeat it here. I homeschooled my two daughters for 18 years and published a non-fiction book, finished a historical romance novel, wrote weekly columns for three regional newspapers, published many poems, published book reviews online, and wrote 1-4 articles monthly for a trade magazine all while they were sitting at their desks beside me doing social studies and English. When it was time to focus on work where I couldn’t be interrupted, I made sure they were safely ensconced and closed the office door. The sign read “Do not disturb unless it’s bleeding, broken, or on fire. Love, Mommy.”

Ueland’s advice is similar: “If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: ‘Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!’ you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.”

What strikes me the most honestly about her comment is that my daughters reacted this very way to this very practice. My oldest called me this week to tell me she has arranged for me to speak to the undergraduate playwriting group in her college theatre department to talk about Writer Wellness and how it applies to their future careers as writers. I didn’t intentionally set out to raise more writers. Both daughters write really well. I set out to respect myself and model what a woman with a passion for something looks like so that when they find their passions they’ll know it.

If they grow up to be writers, I won’t be disappointed. I just hope I still have their rooms relatively “clean”. It’s a feast or famine career but one that even a mother can be proud of doing.

Of course, there’s the story where one day I heard the youngest child saying, “I don’t think Mommy likes matches,” and I flung the office door open pretty quickly.

Be well, write well.

 There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

I once read in a pop icon’s autobiography that none of his work was his own. He considered himself a vessel or a conduit for some unseen, powerful creative spirit and it was his duty to deliver these songs and dances to the world for this artistic deity. What if he was right? What if there is a master puppeteer pulling on our strings and sending us the ideas? For the sake of argument, shouldn’t we be in good condition to accept these wonderful creations? Would we fail the great artist if we were full of nicotine, fat, caffeine, drugs, and booze and didn’t have room to take in the art? Yes, there are scores of unhealthy artistic people who have left their marks on society but think of how much more valuable work we might have known from them if they were in better physical shape.

Except for those who have just landed on our fair planet, the rest of us are aware of the positive benefits of physical exercise. Weight loss, muscle tone, cardiovascular conditioning, longevity, improved mood, and better sex can all be the results of regular activity such as walking, yoga, and lifting weights. Granted, I’m simplifying things because I want to get to my point: what is the point of exercising? We know about the results, but what is the point? If we are going to be artistic chalices full of great ideas and inspiration, there has to be room for all that stuff. The main point of physical exercise is to remove toxins from the inside out to improve and regulate our bodily functions. Sluggishness creates more writer’s block and missed deadlines than lack of inspiration. When our bodies are full of crap, we can’t create as well. We have to exercise to help move all the crap out of our systems literally and figuratively.

“I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.”

                ~Brenda Ueland, author If You Want To Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit

Let’s cut to the chase. If you exercise physically on a regular and consistent basis, your writing will show marked improvement over time and it will be ENJOYABLE. Writing is downright painful and exhausting when writers are already bogged down with sweat, free radicals, evil thoughts and whatever else is built up in the body and mind from lack of trying to wring it from their very souls. But who has the time?

“I don’t have time” is the lazy person’s excuse. And it also means they have set unrealistic expectations for exercise. These ideals are crafted to set the person up for failure. So rather than schedule yourself to run the Boston marathon in the spring, design an exercise schedule that is manageable and practical for your individual needs.  Here are three quick ideas.

1. Keep two soft stress balls on your desk. Every hour stand up and squeeze the balls with your hands for one minute. Increase cardiovascular benefits by raising and lowering your arms as you squeeze.
2. Get a wooden foot roller thingy and keep it on the floor under your desk. Every hour, take off your shoes and massage the bottoms of your feet with the roller.
3. Take a walk every day. Inside on the treadmill or outside on the sidewalk. Start with five minutes and work up a thirty-minute walk several times a week.

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“So you see, imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.”

                ~Brenda Ueland, author If You Want to Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit

Creative people are dependent on their imaginations. The perpetual answer to, “What if?” fuels the work of artists, choreographers, teachers, writers, and anybody who relies on ideas for sustenance. Ideas are generally responses to sensory input from the world we experience day in and day out. If all it takes is the world to stimulate creative ideas, where did the idea of “writer’s block” come from? How is it possible NOT to have something to write about if all we need is experience? Writers become too comfortable in their surroundings and what feels like consistency becomes boredom. Boredom becomes complacency. When the brain is bored it shuts down. When we stop feeding our brains a variety of sensory impulses, we go on autopilot for a while, then the ideas dry up.

In Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, she describes a process called “filling the well” as the work creative people require on a regular, ongoing basis in order to maintain “focused attention,” or what I call awareness. Many people think they are aware, but most people are secure in their situations because they have created and repeated them over and over until the sensory organs shut down and they think they are experiencing writer’s block. While it’s popular to say you have or have had writer’s block, I think it’s a bunch of whooey. Because if we journal often enough, read plenty, exercise regularly, avoid foods that cause us problems, and engage the world in new ways then writer’s block is a myth. A writer may not have the whole story plotted out or be writing on the work-in-progress every single day, but as long as that writer keeps the keyboard tapping or the pushing the pen or the body and the mind thinking and moving, they are not blocked. Ever. How does it work?

I was in the audience at a book fair several years ago and young adult bestselling author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was answering questions. A  young man asked what she did when she had writer’s block. Ms. Naylor responded, “I never have writer’s block. I have writer’s diarrhea. I don’t have time to write all the stories I can think of.” A very prolific writer, Naylor knew that the more she wrote the more she had to write, but everyone gets tired. That’s when the brain needs entertaining and the chance to feed itself with sights, sounds, motions, smells, and feelings it hasn’t experienced recently to shake up the creative juices and get them spilling onto the page again. This is what I refer to as creative play. It’s when a writer takes a leap out into the world and thoughtfully fills her mind with the ideas, arts, and images of other creative people.

It’s more than reading a good book or going to the movies. It’s going to museums, taking walks, taking pictures, doodling in a journal, taking a class in ceramics or ballroom dance, and attending concerts and lectures that open your awareness to the possibilities out there. The practice of creative play or “filling the well” is the opposite of what most writers do all day in their jobs. That’s primarily why it’s such a challenge. Our writing is about us and just us. We manipulate fictional lives and imaginary settings, but creative play demands we go out in the world and gain a new awareness by appreciating the work of other artists. It’s that simple. Appreciate someone else’s work in a deep, thoughtful manner on a regular basis and you will never run out of anything to write.

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“When I stop, I pass out,” said one of my college hatha yoga students. That means you are out of balance. It means you have neglected the quiet, still moments in life and your energy levels are at an all time low, so your body seizes the moment (when you stop) to knock you out cold so it can recharge. I call this backwards living because when we are going and doing constantly, it takes a punch in the belly to dump us a$$-over-tea-kettle so the body, mind, and spirit can get some rest. This is the hard way to achieve balance. In this zippy age of “just DO it,” 99% of the students I meet in yoga are looking for something to slow them down, but when they meet it head-on they resist. What we resist is what we need the most.

To look up the definition of “balance” in the dictionary would cause most people to slam the book shut and think, “How can one word have 27 different meanings? Forget it.” If you’ll spend a breath on the Latin (don’t freak) derivation, you’ll see that “balance” is Latin for “two scales”. Take your thoughts a bit farther and the image of the scales of justice should roll across your mind’s eye and you might take the leap to understand that “balance” is another word for “equality.” Hopefully, you think equality means giving both sides the same amount of time. It means striving to equalize your “doing” with your “being.”

We call ourselves human beings, but we are so much more human doings. Aren’t you always doing, going, getting, asking, etc. almost all the time? “Doing” is everything you’re responsible for and everyone you answer to. “Being” is much simpler. It is calming your mind until the only “doing” is breathing. Strangely, the human body, mind, and spirit react positively to an inequality of “doing” versus “being.” We can be much more active than inactive and our human carriages will show positive signs of health, but we must offer our bodies organized sessions of peace and quiet at regular intervals. In other words, it takes only a few minutes of “being” per day to balance many minutes of “doing” and we can achieve equilibrium.

The “being” is simply sitting or lying in a quiet, meditative state that is conscious relaxation when we are not talking, moving, thinking without obsessing (more on that later,) and simply appreciating the moment in which the only requirement of us is to breathe. It is not sleeping. It is conscious relaxation when our minds are focused on the breath and only the breath.

“Breath in, breath out,” is all we need to think and when something interrupts or tries to supersede that simple mantra, we do not follow its lead but continue the easy words in harmony with our natural breathing. As you breathe in, repeat to yourself, “Breath in.” As you breathe out, repeat to yourself, “Breath out.” Try it for five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen, and twenty minutes gradually increasing the time as you feel ready. It sounds easy, but let me know how easy it is or isn’t for you. If you’re human like the rest of us, it will present a lifelong challenge that will change your life forever and for the good.

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

It’s definitely a derogatory slur to call someone a fathead. Let me clarify. I’m not calling you a fathead. I’m simply bringing a scientific fact to your attention: excess abdominal fat does more damage than forcing you to let out your belt another notch. Besides being dead weight it releases toxic chemicals and inflammatory molecules that can literally seep into your brain and contribute to sluggishness when you’re trying to think. And excess body weight in middle age adults has been found by a Kaiser Permanente study to increase your chances of developing dementia as you age. Yikes. Plenty of reason to reduce body fat by choosing healthier, brain-friendly food options before the goo gets trapped in your gray matter.

In a nutshell, the study discovered patients in their seventies who did not have a weight problem in their forties were less likely to have developed dementia.

“People who were obese in mid-life were 74 percent more likely to have dementia, while overweight people were 35 percent more likely to have dementia, compared to those with normal weight, said lead investigator Rachel A. Whitmer, PhD, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California.”

http://www.dor.kaiser.org/external/news/press_releases/Obesity_in_Middle_Age_Increase_Risk_of_Dementia_Later_in_Life/

Don’t think of healthy food options as cutting out your favorite foods. Think of it as replacing something high in fat that will more than likely come back to bite you later on in life only you won’t remember eating the fat or anything else if the menu continues to include high fat foods over low fat. Here are some suggestions.

In place of:                                                                    Eat instead:

corn chips                                                                     non-wheat crackers

cookies                                                                           oat granola bar

red meat burger                                                         turkey burger

Do a little bit of research. Read food labels and try to cut down on the fat intake and you’ll remember doing it later in life!

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

One of the best stories for the first week of 2011 was about a homeless man named Ted Williams who was taped by a Columbus Dispatch photojournalist while panhandling at a corner in the heart of Ohio.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/01/05/ted-williams-homeless-radio-announcer-becomes-viral-video-star/

It’s pretty amazing and heartening at the same time to witness what happened to Mr. Williams in a few short hours after his video cameo went viral on YouTube (illegally, I might add, see Columbus Dispatch explanation.) It’s an interesting exercise in copyright to read what the newspaper did to protect their video.

http://blog.dispatch.com/blog-36/

Job offers galore, a tearful reunion with the mother he hasn’t see in ten years of homelessness and drug abuse, a shave and a haircut, and spots on the top news shows thrust Mr. Williams into the cultural consciousness of America and he will never be the same again…we hope. Hopefully, whatever contributed to his situation will not happen again. We all know how special and rare a second chance is. I’m sending him strong thoughts for success and healing. But what about the person who brought the plight of Mr. Williams to our attention?

Doral Chenoweth III is a photojournalist for the newspaper but according to his website, he is a world traveller whose special gift in my opinion, is seeing, really seeing the depths of the truth and the not-so-true that live within us all. Just looking at the pictures on his website is inspiring.

http://doralchenoweth.com/

According to his website, Mr. Chenoweth is a family man, an adjunct college instructor, a newspaper photographer, and a humanitarian. But it’s what he instinctively “sees” in his fellow man that interests me and the fact that he writes his stories with photos fascinates me, too. He’s a writer who uses pictures instead of words to tell his story. That’s called a photojournalist. But he must have a gift for recognizing what’s special while looking through a camera lens. What did Mr. Chenoweth see in Mr. Williams that compelled him to roll down his car window and make a video that changed William’s life? Does Mr. Chenoweth see a hopeful world and a year of goodness and compassion ahead for us in the simple story of a homeless man with a “God given gift?” Looking at his other photos, it’s obvious he sees goodness in lots of faces and places. Is it just a matter for the rest of us of stopping and taking the time to really “see” what’s inside a person? Is the photography asking us not to jump to conclusions?

If you ask me, it’s what writers have done for centuries. The way they view something and the way they then explain it to the rest of us is a special ability. Writing (and photos) change lives. I bow humbly to both men.

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Even if it’s producing results, exercise can be boring. When you think exercise is boring it’s time for a change. Time to shake up the workouts or possibly time to get started with a fitness plan you can manage that will reap solid benefits.

Think of “boring” as a symptom of repetitive stress syndrome. Exercise bores you because your muscles are no longer responding to the actions because you do the same treadmill, the same bike, or the same yoga practice over and over again. You have created “muscle memory,” which is good, but the average person’s muscles respond better to a variety of workouts. Muscle memory is important for dancers and athletes who have to perform consistenly under stress. Games and performances are stressful and these folks rely on muscle memory to carry them through, but the same exercise routine day after day for the average person causes muscle fatigue because after a certain point muscles stop improving they tire and do not improve. This is the feeling that leads someone to think, “This is boring.”

Variety is the secret. Create a fitness program that includes a number of varied options. Exercise reaps more benefits faster and maintains results longer if the body and the brain are regularly challenged by variety. Mix it up. Yoga, treadmill, aerobic dance, walking, martial arts, kickboxing, recumbent bike, and weights can make for an interesting week of productive exercise. And change the locations. That helps also.

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are  five primary areas of practice to the the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

In the exploding world of brain research, it’s being proven that play is healthy for your brain. Most people love to play games. Growing up my house was filled with games and gamers, although we didn’t call ourselves gamers back then. We played card games, board games, music and dance games, and learning games in my house almost every day. My mother was a dance teacher and my father played alot of musical instruments so our house was pretty busy with some kind of creative endeavor all of the time.

We not only learned skills and strategy, we learned competiveness. And we learned to think like someone else. If we could figure out how someone at the game table was thinking, it was possible to win the game by thinking like them but ahead of their thoughts. That’s strategy training.

Games were really big and the holidays were really special because it meant we didn’t have to stop playing a particular game to go back to school. My favorite Christmas was at age seven when I received Monopoly as a gift and my dad, sister, and I played the game for four days without stopping until one of us won. I couldn’t wait for the weekends as a child because it meant extra time to play games.

What good is playing a game? Were you “taught” that games are a waste of time? Too bad, because playing games creates new brain cells and new brain cells mean better quality of life because new brain cells help use function and cope longer and better. Work a crossword puzzle, play a video game, or play cards with family friends. It is proven that playing games challenges your brain and increases its ability to function.

The practice of using your brain to think through a game’s strategy and then implement your plan keeps things like memory and focus in tact. Playing a variety of games such as working puzzles and playing board games encourages your brain to build new brain cells in response to the mental challenges. These cells prosper when challenged continually. Playing games helps your memory to function better just because you practice using your memory when playing games.

Don’t play games with other people’s heads. Engage in gaming to strengthen and lengthen your own brain’s capabilities. As my college teachers used to say, “Play is learning.” Cool.

(Fall Fairy by K. Held)

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Relax? What does that really mean? It can mean taking a moment in the face of stress and remembering how inconsequential the problem is. But is that practical? What if the problem is a really big issue like something burning? Thankfully, the natural “fight or flight” response will kick in and you can probably put the fire out but what about responding to the everyday stresses we encounter all the time? It all matters a little bit but how we react to the situation is the real cause of most of our stress. It’s a matter of choice.

I believe that what causes the most stress for people are expectations. The fear of not living up to the hype causes us to tense up and that tension results in poo-poo thinking and the release of stress hormones that don’t dribble out later. They hang around and sludge up the works making blood sticky, muscles achy, and thinking unclear.

What helps? Breathing helps. Meditation helps. Exercise helps. Loving helps. Heck, hugging helps reduce the stress response and makes us think maybe we can cope with all this crap after all. Everything happens for a reason, and you are here now at this moment for a reason living life the way you are. You may not know it, but I think the human experience is only about finding that reason for living and pursuing it with everything you’ve got body and soul.

Find your reason for living by paying attention to the little things and to how fast time flys when you’re engaged in a particular activity. When do you lose all track of time? When do you feel refreshed no matter how intense the activity? When is your thinking focused on one thing and nothing else can get in until you let it? These are clues to finding your reason for being here, for contributing to the existential drama that causes us so much stress because we don’t know for sure what our true purpose in life is supposed to be.

Be still, breathe, and listen and the answer will overpower the stress.

(Photo by J. Purkey, 2003)

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com