I finished my January book last month, When the Body Says No, and was actually a little disappointed. It’s funny, living with a chronic disease for the better part of my entire adult life, I’d already learned a lot of what Gabor Mate outlines. Stress contributes to the disease, and your life choices can impact your health–you need to live in balance, as much as possible. What I wanted from this book was more prescriptive advice, and less “I had this patient who had this terrible life and this terrible experience” narrative-style storytelling to make the same point over and over again, and more “this is how you cope with ongoing life with a crazy-ass disease.” So this led me to the recommendations from my friend Kate about meditation. The first book that showed up from TPL was Real Happiness, and I’ve been slowly going through it this month. It’s a 28 day program with interesting exercises like walking meditation (which I find compelling). The other two books that I have out are Breath by Breath and Teach Us to Sit Still.
Also, I’ve been doing some restorative yoga at home, my lungs have been bothering me lately, and I’ve been doing a lot of pranayama breathing to work them out–it’s helping. It’s a bit hard to do anything with a toddler, but at least once I’ve got my legs up on the wall, I can handle him bouncing up and down around me. Taking five minutes isn’t hard–it’s not ideal in terms of trying to calm down while there’s a manic energy around me, but I’m doing it anyway. I had thought I might tackle my diet this month but I’m still so harried on a day-to-day basis that finding five quiet minutes is something more than I had a couple of months ago.
I find that rhythmic breathing, counting in, counting out, to be so restorative. I know it sounds simple and kind of silly but the more I concentrate on the simplicities in my life, the easier it is to deal with the giant bits. So there’s my revolution for the month, breath. Belly breathe, if you may.