Category Archives: Blog

NOCOMMENTS

Race To The Finish

Christmas is five days away.

How do you feel when you read that? I’ve been asking my patients about their plans for Christmas and it’s really interesting the different responses I’ve gotten. Some women are crazy busy with cooking and shopping, and some are just over it. One woman told me that because they did a big Thanksgiving at her house this year and her kids are older, they were just relaxing together and taking things light. I loved that answer!

But what does that mean?

I didn’t really have time to ask her for details and take care of her visit concerns, but I wondered. In my little world, I can’t quite imagine what taking it light looks like for Christmas. Maybe I’m not applying my considerable imagination here, but even if I wasn’t working overnight for Christmas this year, I still don’t know what that would mean here. My room is full of boxes of presents to wrap, I have food to cook, and the house needs some serious picking up. I’m also still working, and now I have a cold. The cold is the sign that I’ve been staying up too late and my immunity is down from lack of sleep. But look at this pile!

Who’s gonna wrap all this?

Now let me make two disclaimers: One, I know holidays with younger kids is different than with grown folk, and I’ll miss it when they’re older. And two, I have learned to take some shortcuts to make the actual holiday easier. For example, I ordered a lot of the Christmas dinner from the grocery this year because I knew I wouldn’t be here for the meal. But, my baby girl has allergies and even with the options at Whole Foods, I couldn’t order the whole thing and get her fed. So I’m going to make a cornbread stuffing for her (which everyone loves, so I’m making a big one).

So, it is what it is. Fortunately, all the gifts are here. The stocking stuffers are in a shopping bag. The food is scheduled for pick up, and since I couldn’t get my surgical cases on at the hospital because it’s so busy, I’m laying here fighting this cold. My problem is that I still don’t feel like I can rest – everything isn’t done!

I still need to cut this into cubes and dry it out for the stuffing… My daughter made it for me though!

This discomfort, this unease with resting is very familiar to me. I heard the best description of it this week, so let me share with you. You know how you can have an air conditioner or heater in the background and you don’t really notice it until it clicks off? That’s how this feeling of unease is – kind of like white noise, or an operating system just running all the time. When I meditate or get still in the moment, that’s when it clicks off. You know what I’ve figure out?

I don’t like white noise.

When my kids were small, we had a white noise machine for their room to help block out the other sounds in the house. They seemed to find it soothing. But I did not – it was irritating to me. I like quiet and dark when I sleep, so that stupid machine was never something I’d want in my room. I know lots of people find background noise very comforting, and I have no argument with that. Do what works for you! But as I’ve learned more about myself, I’ve figured out that my normal sensitivity to most things are high – light, noise, smells. And it’s a good thing, because I can pick up on signals that I might miss if I were less sensitive. But it’s a challenge because to much sensory input is exhausting for me. So when the washing machine is running and the kids are bickering and the music is on and a kid goes to bang on the piano, I feel like I want to jump out of my skin!

It’s the same with my mind.

Over the years, I’ve trained my mind to be vigilant, not to miss things and pay attention to details. This skill serves at work and often at home, particularly if a kid is trying to get away with something. But as a practice, as a way of being, it does not serve me. It promotes anxiety and restlessness, and it doesn’t feel good. If it had a purpose, if maybe I got more done because if it, then it might be work it. And sometimes I amaze myself at how much I get done! But at what cost?

Real deal…

This week, one of my best friends got bad news about her health. Now when a doctor says “bad”, that’s not normal “bad”, that’s a whole ‘nother level. We are trained to find the worst possible outcomes and try to avoid them. For a doctor, “bad” is when it looks like there might not be a way to fix it. My brain went haywire thinking of all the terrible things that might happen in the coming months. It felt like a plane spiraling down out of the sky. And then my conscious self said, “Stop that.”. It reminded me that today, right now is all we have. Whatever is coming in the future isn’t to be lived now. Living hard things in the future is a recipe for misery, because we are experiencing the hard thing that might happen, and then if they do happen we have to experience them twice. What good is that?

What may happen in the future can stay there, because we miss the moment now when we live in the future. When we miss the moment now, we miss the sweetness, the joy, the laughter, the peace that we can have right now. After I heard the news from my friend, I showed up at her door the morning of my next day off. She told me she was leaving for an appointment and I wasn’t planning to stay. She even told me not to come, probably because she thought it would be a waste of time since she was headed out. When I showed up, she scolded me first, and then cried because I told her I just was there to make sure she knew I love her, and that I’m here. I was only there for 15 minutes, but it was a moment that we will both remember. That’s what it’s about – experiencing the moments we’re given as the gift they are. Because whenever the end of this life comes, we will have lived it. So as I go into the last few days before Christmas, I am turning off the white noise and taking the moments I have with the kids, my parents, my wonderful husband and my patients as the gifts they are.

Merry Christmas!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way (But what if it is?)

You would not believe the day I had yesterday…

It’s been a long haul recently. As a practicing OBGYN, every week’s schedule is different – some days I’m in the office, some I’m doing surgery, and some I’m in the hospital managing laboring patients and seeing patients being admitted and those in the ER. Since the hospital I’m at now is far from my house, when I go on call or do surgery, my days are really long because of the commute. It’s not fun, but it’s not usually every day. Last week, I drove into the city to the hospital or to a meeting six days in a row. That was followed by two more days in the office, so a grand total of eight days of work in a row. Now, I know there are many people who work many more days at a stretch than that, and I’m not complaining – the work has been fine. But I didn’t do right over the Thanksgiving week, and I was going to bed around midnight every night. So when I started back to work getting up at 5 am, I was whipped. It’s kind of felt like being jet lagged for the past week and a half. Plus, I’ve been hustling to get the house decorated and the Christmas shopping done, because Christmas is less than two weeks away!

So when I went to the office yesterday, I thought that I’d run through the day and squeeze in a few extra tasks, like work on a patient list I needed to update and call a few extra patients I needed to talk to. As I walked in the door, I heard my charge nurse say, “Hey, Dr Parks is here!” and I knew it wasn’t because they were so happy to see me. That meant I was assigned “Doc-Of-The-Day” and they already needed me to address some situation. The day had barely begun and we were already running. And so it went. Every time I looked up, another patient had been added to my schedule, or someone needed my help with one of their patients, or a nurse needed me to sign an order or answer a call or a question. This all in addition to a few pretty challenging patients on my schedule who I also needed to see and take care of. I finished the morning patients two-thirds through the lunch break, spoke to my supervisor until six minutes into the afternoon session. I grabbed my lunch salad out of the frig at 3 pm.

It tasted better than it looks…

It was the kind of day that makes most physicians want to pull all their hair out. Or at least start a part time schedule or do more administrative work. Too many days of that pace back to back are enough to frustrate a saint. I already went down to 80% in my schedule after eleven years at this speed because I needed a little room to manage the kids and the homeschool better. And in the not so distant past, I’d be ready to snap on the next person who wanted something. But yesterday, I didn’t. I joked and laughed with the staff, I kidded around with the midwives when they needed something, I did extra when asked and I wasn’t angry/resentful/frustrated when I had to work through lunch. What was different?

I was different.

The circumstances hadn’t changed at all. If anything, my schedule and the complexity of my patients and the coordination of care has gotten more challenging over the years. But the way I’m thinking about it has changed. Instead of being annoyed that I’m needed by a midwife or nurse practitioner, I kept thinking about how much I like working with the people I work with. When the nurses came to ask questions, I remembered how hard it must be for them to keep having to search us out, knowing that some doctors would give them a hard time for interrupting their schedule. Also, I really like our nurses, and I remembered that too. Even when I was in the room with an upset or challenging patient, I knew that I could manage whatever was wrong. I can be kind and patient, even when I know there are two phone calls and three patients waiting for me. Even at the end of the day, I still was feeling good and looking forward to going home, even though I had another daughter’s hair to do that night.

Sounds like someone slipped something into my coffee, right? I know. And given that this is not at all my formerly normal way of being, I have to acknowledge the mid work I’ve been doing is having an effect. In last week’s post I showed a picture of the book I’ve been reading by Eckhard Tolle, and the part I read yesterday just changed the color of the whole day. I even read it to my older kids. My son asked me again about it this morning. Let me share it with you…

When I read that, I sat for a full minute trying to figure out what problem I had at that moment. My brain couldn’t come up with anything. And because I’ve been working that gratitude list, my mind started offering me all these lovely things that were good right at that moment, like the warmth of the space heater, the snuggly collar of my robe, the pink of the sunrise between the houses, and the sound of my healthy kids making themselves some breakfast in the background. It was true – my problems are made in my mind and exist wither in the past or in the future. They have whatever meaning I assign to them. And even then, they’re only a problem if I made them one, because otherwise they are a situation I may or may not be able to address right this minute.

Here’s the thing: I really don’t like how angry and frustrated feels in my body. And I feel angry a lot, because I’ve practiced it for a long time! Even knowing that most of my anger comes from fear doesn’t make it go away. But knowing that how i think about everything is my choice helps a ton. If I want to feeling differently, I get to choose the thoughts that I have that produce the feelings I want to have. I can choose to complain and rail against what is and how it might affect something that might happen later and I will be angry and frustrated. Or, I can choose to believe that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. I can choose to think that whatever I’m dealing with is growing me into the next best version of myself, and growth is often uncomfortable. I can choose to know that right now in this present moment, everything is well and I have many things that are good. When I choose those thoughts, I feel peaceful and I can smile. Do I do it well all the time? Nope. Is it always easy to think this way? Not at all. But it’s a practice, and to me it’s worth the effort. The days will be what they are, but I get to decide how I will live in them. And that thinking, my friends, is a gift we give can give to ourselves.

How do you think about the challenges you face? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “How do you want to feel?” Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

Why Can’t I Sit Down?

It’s here…

This is the time of the year when everything seems to be happening all at once. From October to February, we have Halloween, our anniversary, his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all four kid’s birthdays in the 30 days after Christmas. I call this our high season. This year feels even more wild than usual because Thanksgiving was so late into November that Christmas is to follow only a mere 26 days later – that’s a week less than in 2018. Now, I’m generally pretty organized, but somehow this loss of a week has thrown me off and I feel like I’m on a race to the finish. In addition to the normal Christmas shopping, family picture taking, decorating and planning, I’m working on call for Christmas this year and now the plans are even more crucial because I won’t be here to carry them out – they’ve got to be done and ready to work without me. So it’s felt like a little bit of a hustle!

Still, I had a few days off at Thanksgiving and because we made it a joint effort, there was actually some time that I didn’t have as much to do. A mom in our homeschool group posted about a drawing for kids video series on YouTube that kept the girls busy (yay!) and my son was happy to play video games with his dad. There were these small chunks of time that I could have sat down and read a book, or taken a bath, or done some coloring. I even gathered books and had them piled next to the couch. But every time I got ready to sit down, something would come up. A child wanted a snack. The kitchen wasn’t cleaned up. There were socks and sweaters strewn about and I needed to summon the kids back to clean them up. Dinner prep had to be done. A sale on something we needed was happening online and I had to get my order in. The days were so busy that it felt like before I knew it, the end of the day had come, the kids were in bed, and I hadn’t sat down all day.

My lonely coloring book…

I’m tempted to blame this on the phase of life that I’m in right now. I have children who need supervision, a household to run, my paid job to do. But that’s not really the problem. Of course I’m busy – aren’t we all? We all have lots to do in these full lives that we live. Yet, I’m starting to understand that the word “busy” in my mind needs to be a warning sign to me that something is off. Let me explain…

Even with all the to-dos and life to live, there’s always the opportunity to get a moment of space. The reason why we don’t get it is because of how we think. My default mode is to keep moving, always have something to do, to keep a running list of tasks that need finishing so I don’t miss anything. That’s fear thinking right there. It’s real though – things can get missed. Even with all the things I got done this week, I missed one important one. The night before taking Christmas pictures, my youngest came to me 20 minutes before Perry and I were scheduled to meet with our new homeschool teacher and reminded me that her hair wasn’t done. There was no time left to wash, detangle, restyle, have the meeting, and still get her to bed at a reasonable time. Everyone else had their hair done for the pictures except the little one who was waiting on me. Even the guys had gotten haircuts. In that moment, I wanted to spiral down into feeling like a mom failure. I looked down at her sweet little face and gently took off her sleep scarf. A decision had to be made: Was I going to decide that this was a disaster or that the situation could be salvaged?

I decided that I could put a little gel on her edges and we’d be fine. And it was. The feeling I had in the moment I realized I missed doing what I was supposed to do was exactly the feeling I try so hard to avoid. Sometimes, it’s that guilty, bad-mom, shameful, failure feeling is what keeps my feet moving when I’d rather just read a book. Not the best of motivation even if it is effective. Shame as a motivator breeds anxiety, fatigue, and fear.

My problem isn’t the massive amount of stuff to do or the amount of time in the day – it’s the way I think about it and my resistance to feeling the shame and failure feelings. When I’m giving 100% and I’m doing as much as I can, not putting any rest time in my schedule is a mistake. Running myself ragged taking care of everyone else while they enjoy their break from school just leaves me resentful, because deep down I know it doesn’t have to be that way. Who said mom shouldn’t be able to rest and enjoy life too?

When I decide that I don’t ever want to feel shame as a mom, when I am unwilling to make a mistake and feel that emotion of failure, I decide that I have to keep going, not rest, work harder than everyone else so that the hard feelings don’t happen. So my default thinking is that I can’t rest – I don’t have the time. That if I rest, something will go wrong and get missed and it will be my fault. The truth is that usually things work out, even if I do take a break, and even if I run as hard as I can, sometimes something will still get missed. The fear of failing is a terrible motivator, even if it gets a lot done. The feelings of shame and failure are uncomfortable, but they won’t destroy me. I can feel them, acknowledge them, and they go away. The work that is needed to try to avoid them (which isn’t 100% possible) isn’t worth it. Big important things need that kind of vigilance and effort. In this situation, it wasn’t even a big deal. The problem is that our brains get used to this type of thinking, and they make everything a big deal. ]That pattern of thinking isn’t serving anyone. I’m all strung out with worry, my kids don’t get me to be fully with them even though I’m around, and I’m so busy that I miss the moments that are flying by.

I’m reading a book right now called the Power of Now by Eckhard Tolle. He talks constantly about getting your mind out of the past or the future and being fully in the present moment. He says that you can’t be miserable in the Now. I can’t say that I’ve experienced every possible situation that could be painful, but I do know that for me, most of my misery comes from what I think will come in the future, not what is actually happening right this moment. What I make this moment mean in my mind is what makes me worried and unhappy. Try this: When you’re tempted to get all amped up about something that needs to happen, take a deep breath or two and fully exhale. Then notice the feeling of your clothes on your body, the temperature of the air on your skin, the rising and falling of your chest as the air enters and leaves. In this moment, you are well. When I’m unbraiding hair, I can feel the softness of my daughter’s hair in my hands. When I sit in my chair, I can feel the softness of the cushions around me. In this moment, I am well. When I learned that most of the worry and unhappiness in my life was because of how I have taught myself to think, it changed everything. And while I easily fall back into my most practiced though patterns, I now understand that they are optional. I can change my thinking. It takes practice, and every feeling I have isn’t comfortable. But if I am willing to feel uncomfortable feelings and work on my thinking, I can experience and enjoy so much more of my life. For that, the work and discomfort is worth it. And I get to sit down sometimes!

What about you? Do you find yourself racing around in worry? Have you ever felt like you’re at the mercy of your mind? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

The Misery We Make

I passed the Lifestyle Medicine board exam!

Whew! I wasn’t sure it was going to work out that way. When I walked out of that room, I felt less confident with every step. You know, I’ve taken lots of exams over the course of my career. Between the 22 years of school, MCAT and GRE, four years of residency, five medical board exams for my medical license and specialty, I know how to take some exams! So you’d think that after I spent the better part of 2019 preparing for this exam, I’d have felt pretty clear about whether or not I was going to pass. Well, I thought I did…

There was more to it though. Actually, I did a lot of studying. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you saw the photo of my flashcards. I mean, I made flashcards! Lord knows I haven’t done that in forever. After the plant based conference, the many modules on nutrition and exercise and smoking cessation and stress management and more, all the evidence based studies, and a board review course, I figured I was ready.

The exam wasn’t really what I expected. I’d heard that lots of the medical studies were on the exam, so I knew those cold. I’d reviewed every test question online and on paper that I had and had consistently been scoring high. But the actual exam was different. You know that cold sweat that pops up when you start an exam and don’t know the answer to the first question? Yep, I had that. And even though I kept moving and got through all the questions in plenty of time, I still felt uncertain after question #150. But after reviewing the first 60 questions for the second time, I heard the lead proctor’s instructions in my head again, telling us to trust our first answers and not go back and change them. So I submitted the exam and packed up my computer. I figured I’d done my best, so that was it. That’s when the spiral began.

When I left the exam, I sat down to wait for my pediatrician colleague to finish the exam and drop me off at the airport. She came out ten minutes later and seemed to feel pretty confident. Of course, then I decided it must have been even worse than I thought. While I waited in the airport, I kept mulling over the questions that I hadn’t been sure of and wondering if I should have stayed longer and reviewed more of my answers. Then I decided that the exam review wasn’t very good if the questions on the exam were so different. I blamed the course for not preparing me well, and decided that if I failed (which by now I had decided was quite possible), then it was because of that course. Then I remembered that the last board exam I took was really hard and I had to retake it because I hadn’t prepared well enough was when I had little babies and was pregnant and sick for most of my study time. I now was working, have four kids, and am homeschooling them with a teacher to manage – what made me think I could devote the necessary time to studying for a medical board? If I failed, then what could I possibly have done differently? I can’t get rid of the kids and I’d already spent as much of my time and resources and I could to get ready this time. Was I going to try again in 2020 if I didn’t pass this time? What could I do differently anyway? And what about all that money I’d already spent? The more I thought about it, the worse I felt, and the more sure I was that I hadn’t passed. By the time I got home, all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and sulk.

Here’s the problem: I was preparing for the worst before it happened. Isn’t that normal? It’s a common tactic we use to steel ourselves for the pain we anticipate. I’ve been doing it for years. It seems like a good way to protect myself from the pain that I’ll feel when the hard thing happens. See if you recognize this logic: If I feel the pain of disappointment/sadness/fear now, then when it happens it won’t hurt as much. That makes sense, right? But here’s the problem: What if the hard thing doesn’t happen?

When we prepare for the worst, we’re living in one possible future. There are a few problems with that. One, that future may not happen. We actually don’t know. But while we prepare our minds for that future as if it’s real, we are actually living the pain of that future without even being there. Two, we’re not experiencing now if we’re focused on the hard thing that may be coming in the future. Yes, the hard thing might happen, but it’s not here now and we’ve lost the good time that we’re in currently if we are focused on the hard thing that might happen. I could have chosen to feel accomplished in completing the exam, in the year of work I’d done, in the space that I now had to do other things I’d been putting off. All those options were available to me, but I chose to fall into the well-worn pattern of worrying about the outcome of the exam and what I’d do if it was poor long before I knew what the result actually was. Three, if the future I’ve prepared for doesn’t happen, then I tortured myself with fear and anxiety for no reason. I lost the current moment that actually could have been good to keep myself sad so that the disappointment wouldn’t feel as heavy when it came. But it didn’t come.

The worst thing about this is that when we do this, we don’t experience the fullness of our emotions, the breadth of our human experience. That means that because we practice blunting our response to hard times so we save ourselves from some pain, we also don’t feel the fullness of the joy and beauty and excitement in our lives. When we practice the worst cast scenario in our minds over and over, then when a good thing is coming, we also prepare for the worst possible outcome for the good time. And the joy is also dampened. So we stay in a very narrow range of emotion to protect ourselves from the lows, but then we miss out on the highs.

The funny thing was that this was the first time I’ve done this to myself where I could see what I was doing. I’ve been practicing managing my thoughts enough that when I started down the spiral I could hear the little voice inside saying, “But you might pass! Even if you don’t, you can be happy now. You can decide what to do when you know. You don’t have to think this way.” I fought it. I didn’t really want to be miserable, but I was so averse to the pain of failure that I kept going in the thinking that was normal to me. I decided to be prepared for the worst, to steel myself against the pain.

But awareness is a practice. Even in the midst of my funk and darkness, I could see a little light. I knew there was a different way to think about this. I also know there will be more opportunities to practice – times when I’m afraid, when I may fail, when challenges arise. And next time, I want to revel in the now and live my life fully without blunting my emotions, even if some of them are painful. So, I keep practicing and managing my mind. Who knows who and what I’ll become as I grow and learn new ways to think?

Have you ever found yourself preparing for the worst and it didn’t happen? How do you keep yourself from spiraling into misery? Please share in the comments below!

2COMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Recipes

Get Your Greens! Grilled Bok Choy

It’s time for a new recipe!

I was sitting around and talking to one of the surgical assistants at the hospital this week while I was waiting to start a cesarean. She follows this blog and reminded me that I hadn’t done a recipe in a while. So Toya, this one’s for you!

I love my greens. All of them. Kale, collards, brussels, cabbages, lettuce, asparagus – I could just keep going, but we need to get to the recipe! I’m convinced that if you don’t like a particular veggie, you probably haven’t had it prepared well yet. One favorite in my kitchen is bok choy. It’s fresh and juicy and can be used raw or cooked, in salads, and in stir fries. I love to eat bok choy raw in and asian salad with cabbage and nuts – Trader Joe’s has an easy bagged version. Raw veggies generally provide more of the antioxidants and vitamins that can be destroyed in cooking. There are some fruits and veggies that cooking actually helps make some of their benefits more bioavailable (like lycopene in tomatoes, fiber in broccoli for cholesterol reduction). So I eat lots of raw food, and adding cooked veggies on top of my salad mixes it up and keeps things interesting!

Since it’s getting cold and I like to have more cooked food in winter, I’m cooking the bok choy today. To keep the most health benefits of the vegetables, you want to lightly cook them, no matter how you do it. If you boil veggies (not my favorite), lots of the benefits of the veggies end up in the water. And since I live in Georgia and the sun is out, I can use my grill! I love my grill. I’ve been known to grill through the winter, even once or twice in a light rain! So I’m going to grill this bok choy, and we’re gonna flavor it up and make it savory and delicious.

Ingredients

1-2 heads of bok choy, 4 if using baby bok choy

1/4 cup olive oil and butter, melted (I used vegan butter)

1 teaspoon garlic paste or fresh finely minced garlic

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Preheat your grill on high heat.

Trim and wash your bok choy. Just trim off the ends so the leaves stay attached and use a brush to wash off any dirt.

Just the ends…

Then cut them in half longwise.

Melt your butter and oil with the spices and brush on the surface of the bok choy.

Grill over high heat, allowing grill marks to form on one side and flipping to the other for 2-3 minutes. You don’t want to completely burn the leaves or overcook the juicy white ends.

After grilling, brush on the rest of your oil mixture and enjoy!

This was lunch the day I wrote this post – delicious!

What’s your favorite winter greens recipe? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Inspirations

How To Take a Solo Retreat

The concept of a solo retreat seems a little strange to many people I talk to. The strong introvert and overwhelmed mom are quick to embrace the idea, but others look at me with a question in their eyes. Why would you go away alone? What do you do? The next question that comes most often is how: How do you manage to leave everything and be by yourself for days? (This one usually comes from the moms). So I thought I’d explain how and why I do these retreats, so that you might be able to find the space and time for the benefits of a solo retreat for yourself.

Over the past few years, I’ve been learning more about rest and energy. Since my tendency and training is to run at top speed until I fall asleep at night, I’ve been trying to figure out what rest is for me. The first clue came in a book I read called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. She talks about (among other things), the need introverts have for silence and time alone to recharge their energy. Now, I love talking and singing and people and doing, and I am not a shy introvert, but I definitely lose energy when I spend lots of time with people. I need time alone to bring my energy (and attitude!) back up. That book really helped me understand my need for solitude and to feel good about carving out time for quiet. Then a good friend of mine published a book about spiritual lessons she’s learned over the years during her meditations in silence. When her son was in school, she set aside time for meditation and silence so she could better connect with God and hear his direction. This sounded like a great idea to me, but between work and the fact that my kids are schooled at home, there weren’t any days where I could have silence and be in my house. The third thing that happened was my husband scheduled a boys trip. He just decided with his friends, put it on the calendar, and let me know the plan. Now, I’d been waiting for years to schedule a girls trip, and had been putting it off “until the kids were old enough”. Apparently, the kids were old enough. So I decided that I’d need to set aside time if I was going to take it. It wasn’t just going to appear, like a gift. Scheduling a girl’s trip takes a lot of coordination. But a solo retreat? It takes some planning, but not as much.

First step: Get it on the calendar. Schedule vacation days, make it a long weekend, whatever. I don’t recommend using a holiday weekend (everyone else is doing that), so you’ll have fewer options for where to stay, and prices will be higher. This isn’t a mini-vacation, it’s a retreat, so schedule it at a time that doesn’t fit in anyone else’s calendar. You must get the dates first – the rest of your plan becomes real when there are dates on it.

Next, get your support lined up. Can your husband cover your days away? Do you need a babysitter for some of the time? Rides around activities or church? Gather your replacements and get them committed. You will have an easier time on this if you plan in advance. I plan my retreats about three months ahead of time.

Now it gets fun. Start looking for a place to stay. AirBnB makes this easy. I’ve driven to Asheville (3 hour drive for me), and I’ve done a stay 25 minutes from my house at a little lake community. Decide what you want: Do you like driving and are you willing to spend half of your first and last retreat days driving? Is it important to you to be in a particular location, like the beach or the mountains? How much money do you have to spend? If you have to fly and pay for lodging in an expensive place, that increases your costs considerably. What kind of environment do you want when you’re there? I wanted to be outside but I’m a mosquito magnet, so I wanted a screened-in porch where I could write and read. I also wanted to be near water, so I picked a spot with a small lake within walking distance. Spend a little time creating a vision of what you’ll want to feel while you’re away – you don’t want to be stuck alone in a house or room that isn’t nourishing to you. You’ll notice everything without kids and life to distract you, so craft this part of the plan carefully. You probably won’t be running around going on activities (you can, but it’s more restful to have as little as possible on your schedule – don’t trade your everyday crazy schedule for an away solo schedule!). So where you stay matters – choose carefully.

The screened-in porch and my peaceful place…

Now the best part: What do you want to do while you’re there? Sleep? Read? Meditate and pray? You don’t have to plan all the details, but knowing what you want to get out of your time away will help you pack. My most recent retreat was supposed to be a girl’s weekend, but when it fell through, I decided to make it a solo retreat. So this time, I didn’t do exactly what I’m encouraging you to do! But, I wasn’t going far, I was driving and could pack up my car with whatever I wanted, and I was open to what God had planned for the time, so I didn’t have any expectations, other than to sleep until I felt like getting up, and to go out in my car as few times as possible (I planned to walk the neighborhood and maybe swim or sit by the lake, but no errands).

Staying parked right here

Then, you pack. I packed food (a bagged salad, a kale salad, a vegan noodle meal, a container of lentil soup, some cherries and tortillas for salad wraps). If you don’t take food, you’ll need to pick up groceries at the beginning of the retreat on your way into your destination, or you’re going to spend time running around trying to feed yourself. If you want to order in, that’s fine, but I find it most restful to have food sitting in the frig that I can eat with very little fuss when I get hungry. I don’t have to think about it much, and since I’m not feeding anyone else, I’m on no one else’s hunger schedule. The first full day of my retreat, other than a cup of coffee and a few cashews around 1030 am, I didn’t think about food until after 2 pm. It’s funny how the cues to eat are triggered by situations (lunch break at work) or other people (the kids!). Maybe it’s a new diet…

The rest of the packing is light. Take clothes you’ll want to hang around in all day, really comfy stuff. If you think you’ll go out, pack a nicer outfit and your makeup, but mostly lounge clothes, pjs, a warm sweater (I love to snuggle on the couch and I don’t like being cold), and something to pin up your hair. Then I packed a big bag of books (some for fun and some for spiritual growth), my journals, my bible, and my laptop for writing my post. I also packed my yoga mat and meditation stool, my bluetooth speaker, my swimsuit, and my face pillow and earplugs.

My face pillow, cozy sweater, blanket, and essential oils…

Then comes the hardest part: Go. Kiss the kids and your honey and leave. You’ll be tempted to check in, accomplish some to-dos on your phone apps, and your mind will come up with tons of stuff to do. Fight it. Turn off the ringer and the notifications on your phone. You’ll also be tempted to fill up the quiet with the TV and/or books, and if that’s what you planned, fine. Otherwise, make an intentional effort to sit in the quiet and experience the space. That’s why you’re there! If you keep at it, your mind will downshift and you will slow down. You need it. Your kids need you to rest and come back better than you were when you left. If you use the time you’ve set aside, you’ll come back with a rested body, a peaceful mind, and a grateful spirit for the time you had off and the life you’re returning to. Now go plan your retreat!

Have you ever taken or wanted to take a solo retreat? If you did, what did it do for you? What would you like a retreat to do for you? Please share in the comments below!

1COMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Gift of Thanks

I usually write early in the mornings. It seems that if I want to get things done, it’s best to start early, before everyone else is up and the day snowballs out of control. So I get up, pray and meditate, read my bible and write. Some weeks, that’s the only way this blog gets written.

But today was different. It’s supposed to be my day off, which really means I don’t go out to work, I just work at home on my kids and grocery shop and whatever else has to be done. I wanted to go to a yoga class this morning and swim a few laps at our neighborhood pool. But I knew I had to get some groceries (even though I just went two days ago), stop at the library and pick up the books on hold, get some writing done and prepare for moving the kid’s rooms around this weekend. I also still have tons of coursework to get through for my board exam in October, the dog food needed to be ordered, and I needed to make a plan for meals for the weekend. But what I really wanted to do was sit down, read a magazine, be still and think. That just didn’t seem very likely…

Recently it’s just been too much. Life has been too much. We started with a new homeschool teacher a few weeks ago and my kids haven’t been adjusting as well as I’d hope. Planned, really. So I’ve been spending every morning and evening working with them and their attitudes and behavior, making sure I’m supporting the teacher every chance I get, and updating my husband and adjusting our parenting accordingly. Not to mention praying constantly for them to get it together and for our little homeschool to get back on track. As an aside, have you ever noticed that when one thing is off kilter in your life (especially when it was running well before), it seems like your whole life is upended? Well, it’s been feeling that way for me.

Anyway, in addition to managing our homeschool transition, we’ve been asked to help facilitate a group series at church, I’m supposed to be starting a sex ed curriculum for the kids at church this fall (which is right around the corner!), the kids need extra-curricular activities set up for the fall, semi-annual reviews for my practice are due (and I have to give them), and I’m training my colleague to take over my position as the lead MD in our group. I’m tired. All I’ve wanted to think about is my solo retreat at the end of next week.

But I have to come back, so getting away isn’t really the answer. We love to live for vacations and recreation time, don’t we? But in the end, real life awaits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty of looking forward to the next break as anyone and missing the good moments right in front of me. But two things happened that reminded me how to find joy and peace right now, instead of the worry and overwhelm I’ve been living.

First, we had an outdoor midweek church service at a park this week. People brought dinner and birthday cakes for people who had recent birthdays, and we sang and prayed for an hour. Being together outside helped, but as different men and women prayed and shared their needs, I could see how much good there is in my life. I might be busy and tired sometimes, but the things that are happening are gifts. They’re gifts that are growing me in some way, or they’re gifts that nurture me in another way.

Second, I picked up my grateful list again. We’ve been working with the kids on their thoughts, attitudes, choices, and character, and we’re finding more and more that the way to address the heart of it all comes from gratitude. “Gratitude is one of the keys to life!”, my husband keeps telling them over and over. Having trouble being respectful to your teacher? Write down all the things about her you’re grateful for. Woke up tired and short tempered? Write down a few things you see around you to be thankful for. Feeling good and happy about it being the weekend? Write down all the good things that are happening for you right now. Gratitude changes us! It’s so easy for me to slip back into a complaining, negative mindset – it’s my default position. Besides, I can’t very well teach them to do something that I won’t practice. So I’m working on myself through my grateful list again…

Life can be a challenge. Sometimes the pace is brutal and it seems like the work will never end. Yet there are rays of sunshine that peek through, even when it’s dark out. Practicing gratitude helps me remember that God has my work, plans, and rest all in mind. He shows me all the time in the little gifts – I just have to notice!

Do you have a gratitude practice? How do you practice gratitude and how does it help you? Please share in the comments below!

3COMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations

Puppy Love

This week has flown by! I’m exhausted and this post almost didn’t get written. But I have a really good reason, and you’ll meet her later on in the post. Keep reading…

I spent this past weekend in North Carolina for a Plant Based Prevention of Disease conference. I flew in Friday night and met up with one of my best friends from when I lived in Durham. We went out to dinner and spent the evening catching up. It was so good to have that friend time, and then to spend the weekend learning more about the science and benefits behind a whole foods, plant based diet. I met some great people and had some thought-provoking conversations.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!

By the time I landed in Atlanta Sunday night, picked up my car, drove back home and got settled, it was after 11 pm. I did a full day in the office the next day, full of the usual Monday hustle and drama. But it all ended ok and I got home to spend a little time with the kids, watching Forks Over Knives on Netflix (excellent documentary on whole foods, plant based diet and the benefits on cardiovascular disease – we all enjoyed it!). But when bedtime came, we all moved quickly to bed, because Tuesday morning was the big day…

Bright and early Tuesday morning everyone was up and dressed. We ate, cleaned up and jumped in the car. After a short drive, we arrived at our destination, excited and ready. And there she was!

After months of discussion, planning, thinking, calculating and begging (from the kids), we were finally picking up our new puppy. We found a golden doodle (for Anora’s allergies) with a sweet and perky disposition. She had stayed with the breeder for 2 extra weeks for training and she was finally ready to come home! We spent the morning learning about her training and getting prepared to take her home. Finally, we got it all done and Riley was coming home with us!

Later that night I had to work a 16 hour overnight shift in the hospital. Sometimes I get to sleep. Not this time – I got a couple of hours here and there, but eventually the morning came. After a marathon shopping trip to Trader Joe’s, I drove my sleepy self with all the groceries home. And there was Riley!

I’d forgotten how much attention a puppy needs. It’s kind of like having a two year old – you better get your nap when she’s napping! Add to it that the kids had to be supervised and have to be trained to deal with Riley, and it all added up to very little sleep. When I woke up from my fog Thursday morning, I had to clean a poopy crate, make the vet and groomer appointments, get the kids off to swim practice on time, and feed and water everyone. I’ve given two puppy baths today for the crate accidents, and as I write she’s sleeping peacefully on a cushion.

It’s a lot. And I know you’re probably wondering what in the world would possess me to add a puppy to a house of four homeschooling children while I work full time and run my household. It does seem a little masochistic. Here’s what happened: After our elderly dog passed away at age 18 three years ago, it didn’t take long for the kids to start asking for another dog. At first, I thought it was just a passing request, like “can we have french fries for dinner?” I figured it wouldn’t last, but I was wrong. My kids know almost every dog in the neighborhood and their owners by name, and they know each of the cats that wander through our yard as well. When my youngest got itchy after being licked by a dog, I figured we wouldn’t be able to have a dog and I told the kids so. But she doesn’t wheeze or break out around dogs unless she is licked, so we could work around this mild an allergy. We took our time, visiting homes with dogs, reminding the kids to take responsibility for their things to prove they could handle a dog, and doing our research on the best dog for our family. When I saw how much my oldest was comforted in her preteen angst by animals, I decided that we’d better give this a try. But I wasn’t sure I’d really want to go through all the work of raising a dog. I’ve done it, and I remember how hard it was before, and I knew they had no idea! So we decided we’d talk to a breeder and visit some puppies.

I know, how could I think that after seeing the adorable puppies that I’d be able to walk away? But that wasn’t it. Yes, the puppies were super cute, but they still looked like work to me. What got me were the breeder’s own dogs. She brought them out to show the adult versions of her puppies and how they turn out with proper training, and all of a sudden I remembered how much I liked having a dog. When I told Perry that after the visit to the breeder, that was pretty much it. We were getting a puppy!

So here we are, now with a new fur baby and all the mess that she brings with her. But she’s smart and sweet and is learning fast! I’m looking forward to the days when the housebreaking is done and she can go on long walks with us around the neighborhood. For now, it’s shots and appointments and scheduled meals and cleaning up, along with training and treats and furry snuggles. Welcome to the Parks family, Riley!

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