Author Archives: Alissa

Creating a Life

Posted on January 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been focusing a lot on food and health on this blog, but that is not the only fish I’ve got to fry! What of my art goals for 2010? Well, I have not resumed The Artist’s Way. I have not joined a writer’s group, and I have not started guitar lessons (yet). However, I don’t feel like I’m suffering for lack of creative outlets.

I haven’t started doing the creative endeavors that I set out to do this year because I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve been busy in a good way. For one thing, I have been doing a lot of editing lately. As David has been working on getting marketing materials together for his massage practice, and cover letters together for job applications, I’ve been busy helping him to craft messages that are good representations of him and what he believes in. I’ve also been asked to look at several cover letters for friends recently, which is fun for me. Editing is something that I’m good at, and it feels good to use something I’m good at to help people out. Many people may not realize that editing is actually quite creative. It’s a real creative challenge to take something that somebody else has written and tweak it to suit his or her audience while still retaining his or her “voice.”

Editing aside, I have also been learning HTML. The main reason that I set out to learn it is for career development. Many writing positions are now web-based. Even though I already know how to use several web editors, most web-based positions require at least a basic HTML knowledge. The second reason for learning it is that I am slowly but surely building a (very basic) website for David’s practice. I know that there are a lot of cheap services that we could use to create a website for him; we may still use one of them to build something fancier. But right now it’s good for me to have a specific project as I’m learning. It helps reinforce the knowledge. I have been finding the project very inspiring.

I haven’t put a whole lot of action into creating a career path for myself recently. At least not directly (above and beyond HTML!). But I have been working on it; at the very least I’ve been working on it at an emotional and intellectual level. This kind of thing takes a lot of thought; a lot of working through issues that I didn’t know I had. It takes up a lot of head space.

Another piece of the puzzle is trying to whip my body back into shape. I won’t hover on this topic very much right now, since I already do a lot of that on this blog, but attempting to re-create one’s body is actually very creative. So much creativity and interest goes into pouring over recipes, making food choices, designing meal plans, choosing exercise routines, and cooking. It’s much more artistic than I have ever thought it could be.

Finally, though it hasn’t been reflected much yet in the consistency of my posts, this blog has also been enormously inspiring for me. For one thing, it has brought me back to the page. It has got me writing (in public – yikes!) after a long absense of the will to write. It has me feeling exploratory, and really thinking about what it is that I want to write. There are trillions of topics to pursue, and just simply writing about my own journey through “getting my act together” has really been helping me to figure out what my secondary passions (after words) are.

I feel fulfilled right now, with the creative end of my life. It’s a new revelation that simply creating my life can fulfill that creative urge within me. Therefore, I’m not going to come down too hard on myself for not hitting the specific goals that I set out for myself a month ago. I am excited to move on to learning new things, and creating new things. But right now my life seems pretty full!

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Inner Guidance

Posted on January 22, 2010 | 6 comments

Yesterday was an emotionally challenging day for me. The cause was nothing really specific. It was just a combination of a bunch of things: my alarm didn’t go off, and I overslept. It was rainy and gray outside. I paid my bills (never fun), and realized that the new outfit I was hoping to buy for going out this weekend (more on that later) wasn’t going to happen. People keep asking me questions about a transition that is happening in my job; I don’t know the answers, and I feel anxious about it. David is looking for a job, which is gnarly business for anyone, but particularly for someone like him who has never really had to learn how to look for one. It stresses me out, too. And the walls are starting to really close in on us at home. Five adults and two large dogs make for a pretty crowded house. I felt bummed out for all of yesterday afternoon, and into the evening. I almost didn’t work out. But then I did. And I felt better.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and I woke up feeling bummed out again this morning. I drove to the bus depot feeling bummed out. On the bus, I wasn’t going to read because I didn’t feel like it. But then I did. And I felt better. I was reading a passage in Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul by Deepak Chopra. It was about the inner guidance that we humans have. Intuition, instinct, or soul – whatever you want to call it; I think it exists. I’ve seen many examples of it in my life. The funny thing about this inner guidance is that life is so much easier when you follow it, but people so rarely do. I’m no exception. The less you listen to it, the quieter it gets. The more you listen to it, the more it seeps out into the physical world and starts giving you direct signs of which paths you should be taking.

I think that the main thing that makes it so hard to follow intuition is how deeply rational society has become. I mean, doesn’t what I described above sound a little like schizophrenia? Listening to your “inner voice”? Looking for “signs”? All of us are a little afraid of losing our minds. So we hold on to them like a vice; allowing nothing to come in that doesn’t seem rational. Unfortunately, that vice also keeps positive things, like creativity, from going out. But isn’t it our minds that drive us crazy in the first place? Would we really be so depressed if we could stop thinking about all of the negatives? If we weren’t thinking of all the negatives, would we be spending that energy on doing the positive?  Maybe losing a little bit of our minds isn’t such a bad thing.

So, letting go of a bit of my mind, being irrational, I’ve been reflecting this morning on the times in my life when everything just fell into place. When I chose my college. When I met my husband. When I quit a bad job. When we were planning our wedding. I’ve also been thinking of the times when my intuition, and all the signs, pointed to one thing; but I did the rational thing instead, and ended up losing. When I stopped writing. When I went to school for Arts Admin. It doesn’t always have to be a major decision. Your intuition could point you to turn left instead of right, and it could end up making a huge difference in your life.

In the last year, I have made some rational decisions that also felt intuitively correct. Encouraging David to quit his job at his family business and follow his intuition to be a healer. Moving back in with my family. These are not decisions of the variety where everything falls easily into place. These are decisions of the variety that take patience. But there have been signposts along the way that have told me that I did the right thing. If I can keep my awareness open for more, and not get dragged down by negative thoughts, it’s going to get easier. The more open I am to positive change, the more opportunities I’m going to see for it.

When was the last time that everything just fell into place for you? Was it obvious? Were you open to it? Or did it seem crazy?

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Food Philosophy Vs. Practice

Posted on January 6, 2010 | 3 comments

In this post I wrote about how eating healthy is not that complicated. The overall point being that if a person eats actual food, and doesn’t eat an enormous amount of it, it’s pretty likely that he or she will be healthy. I am insanely tired of my own diet/food schizophrenia. I’m tired of thinking so hard about what I should or shouldn’t eat. I’m tired of all that thought being in vain when it becomes clear that whatever diet I’m on isn’t working, or when it conflicts with whatever the most recent nutritional science says. I’m tired of constantly starting new food routines. I just want to eat and be nourished and healthy. Period. Therefore, as part of my resolution to treat my body more respectfully, I intend to actually adopt the logical philosophy of Michael Pollan, “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”

I sincerely hope that this will be my final change in food routine. Ever. This final change-up entails the following:

  1. More shopping and more cooking. I will be looking for the most “whole” food possible. If sustainably farmed animal products are not available, or if I don’t know where they came from, I will not be eating them. In that sense, I guess that I will still be primarily vegan (since good stuff is hard to find!). But, since I will eat any animal products under the right circumstances, I will not call myself vegan or vegetarian. I heard a new term last week that probably describes my eating habits better: “flexitarian.” Or, perhaps I just won’t term myself anything but “eater”! Anyhoo, veggies and grains will be organic and as local as possible (acknowledging, of course, that it is the dead of winter in MN right now!). As little as possible will be processed. If I want a particular dish, I’m going to try to make it entirely from scratch (it’s an adventure!).
  2. 3 squares per day, nothing between. I want to eat well-rounded meals 3 times/day, not in front of the T.V., ideally in the company of at least one other person. Acknowledging that breakfast and lunch will still most likely be consumed while sitting at my desk (I would still rather be able to go home earlier each day than take a break to eat!).

So, really, those 2 things – eat food, not too much – are kind of a lot of work in the context of the current American societal structure. When I said that eating healthy isn’t complicated, what I really meant is that it is not difficult to comprehend logically. I didn’t mean that it is easy in practice! I am personally curious about how much time this will take each week; how much work will it actually be? Also, is all the work really worth it? Therefore, I am going to add a new weekly feature to this blog. I’m going to call it “Weekly ‘Eat Food’ Wrap-up.” Here is what I plan to include in the feature:

  1. What I ate over the last week.
  2. How many hours I spent shopping.
  3. How many hours I spent cooking.
  4. Times that I went off the plan (used stuff that doesn’t technically fit).
  5. Results: Weight loss (I will also note how much I exercised as an added barometer for this), noticeable health improvements, any stuff I learn in the process about new sustainable products/where to buy them, etc.

I’m not saying that I plan to be “perfect”. In fact, I will straight up say that when it comes to eating with others at restaurants or in their homes, I will eat whatever’s put in front of me (minus the meat, in most cases) without complaint. I’m a pretty average girl, and I want to see how this goes for the average person. I know that this is kind of an exhibitionist thing to do, but I feel like it will add some motivation for me to keep on track with stated values, and it might help others who are curious about how hard it is to do this and are trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it!Anyhow, I’m going to try it and see how it goes.

What do you think?

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Working it Out: Gym Hatred and Other Exercise Dramas

Posted on November 18, 2009 | 1 comment

I have reached my first little weight loss plateau already. It came sooner than I expected; but once again, I am not 23 anymore, and can’t expect my metabolism to be the same as it was then! I’m doing pretty well on the vegan diet now, so I think it is time pump up the exercise.

I have mentioned here before that I was not a very active child growing up. In fact, exercise was connected to some of my worst childhood traumas. Ah yes, the classic childhood trauma of being the last picked for teams! As you might imagine, being terribly shy, overweight, and not particularly interested in sports did not make me a popular choice in gym class. To make matters worse, my gym teacher throughout all of grade-school (age 5-12) literally bullied me. She would do things like make me stay after class and keep hitting the goddamned volley ball over the net after everyone else had gone to change. She was constantly yelling at me (really yelling – private school teachers were still allowed to be abusive to a certain extent), calling me out and humiliating me in front of classmates – as if I really needed any more humiliation than I already got. She was not being supportive or pushing me to achieve, she was just a straight up evil bitch; and hypocritical too, considering that she had to be well over 200 lbs herself. I recently saw her walking into a restaurant in Savage (yes, she still teaches at the catholic grade school there, and if I heard correctly, might be the principal now. That ASTOUNDS me). This might be kind of extreme, but I told Dave that we were going somewhere else, because, now that I have some balls, I couldn’t be responsible for what I would say to her. My heart was racing, and I could feel the rage waiting to come out. Something along the lines of “Thanks for the bulimia, bitch. It truly hurts my heart that you are still allowed to influence children.” Sometimes its amazing how much people from your childhood can haunt you, and when you see them, it feels like your negative association with that person just happened yesterday.

Ahem, moving on. In short, I didn’t have very good beginnings when it came to exercise. I thought that I sucked at everything physical, which fed into my vicious cycle of unhealthiness. I didn’t exercise because I wasn’t aware that just because I happened to suck at team sports didn’t mean that I sucked at all physical activity. As I got older, I slowly began to discover independent physical activities that I love: hiking, skating, biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, dance,Yoga, etc. I am actually really good at a lot of those things. Right now the problem is that many of those things are outdoor activities, and it gets dark out before I get home from work each day. I’m just not as fearless (read: stupid) as I was in my younger years, and can’t bring myself to get out on the trails, alone, in the dark. It just isn’t safe. Perhaps with my dog and a can of bear mace…

If I’m not going to work out outdoors in the winter, I will obviously have to workout indoors. I’ve got Yoga, but I need some kind of cardio as well. In the past I have taken care of this requirement by going to gyms. I always start out as a good gym member – going at least 4 times per week. But then, my ambition slowly peters out. The main explanation for my flagging motivation is that I HATE gyms. Really, I do. They’re so boring to me! I don’t lift weights. I don’t do aerobics (I don’t like being confined to the class schedules). I’m a bad swimmer (10 years of lessons as a kid, and my skill level is still at “I won’t drown if you throw me in water”). That leaves the cardio machines. Treadmills don’t make sense to me – I could just take a walk during my lunch break. Stairclimbers hurt my knees (also, I work on the 9th floor of a skyscraper – I regularly take the stairs for free). I do like the stationary bike. But my favorite is the elliptical machine. I adore the elliptical. However, one, maybe two, machines does not a gym member make. Two machines doesn’t make the membership fee worthwhile, and they certainly don’t make showing up at the gym worthwhile! So, no. I will not be a gym member any longer.

Instead, I turn to the poor-man’s elliptical. Instead, I present to you, the GAZELLE!:

It essentially does the same job as the elliptical; it’s just a lot more rickety. So far, what I like most about it is that it gives me an excuse to watch TV guilt free (well, the shows that I watch are still worthy of guilt. But at least I’m not sitting on the couch!)! Apparently bad TV creates motivation where wasting money on a gym membership could not!

If you live in a cold climate, what do you do for exercise during the winter? Do you like the gym? Or do you find alternative methods?

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The Connection

Posted on November 16, 2009 | 2 comments
gala

Abby, Shannon, and me at the Gala, 11/2009

Over the last week I have been thinking a lot about how connected all of my big goals are with each other. Good health, strong spirituality, wealth, and a satisfying career are nodes on the same loop.

Good health is biggie. We’ve all heard the phrase “you haven’t got anything if you haven’t got your health.” This is true on so many levels. The first level is obvious: if you are sick in any way, you are not able to function to your highest potential. If you are tired, can’t breathe, are in pain, can’t move properly, etc., it is going to make it all the harder to reach any goal you set out for yourself. Obviously, people overcome all kinds of physical obstacles to achieve their dreams; but at this point in time I feel like if I have any control over the obstacles, it’s best to just remove them. I have enough “issues” to get over without adding physical problems to the pile! The more energy I have, the more I can devote to spirituality, career development, and wealth.

The second level is that physical issues feed into the psychological issues. If you don’t feel good, it affects your brain chemistry and how you perceive the world; which then affects your behaviors, which affect how others perceive you. The perception of others can affect a lot of things – from your personal relationships to your career. It’s all a self-fulfilling loop. Feeling bad begets feeling bad.

The next level is that your health affects your appearance, which also affects the perception of others. Let’s face it, as much as we all want to say appearance doesn’t matter, it absolutely does. Despite our advanced self-awareness and cognitive ability, it’s my opinion (based on some stuff that I have read that I am too lazy to go find for reference!) that humans still have some holdovers from “survival of the fittest.” Above and beyond obvious conscious biases (ie., if you look like a supermodel or an olympic athlete, chances are that people might be “drawn” to you!), if you’re not healthy, there are a million little subconscious ways that other people are going to know it and be subconsciously biased towards you. I think that is some of the basis for “gut feelings” about people. If you have the opportunity to remove biases that others might have towards you, it is only going to be helpful in developing the relationships that a person needs for a successful career, etc. In other words, I think that health touches every part of our lives.

The next part of the “loop” is money. I don’t think that a lot of money is necessary for good health. But I do see where the more money a person has, the more they can afford to spend on maintaining their health, and they will definitely be less stressed out without debt nagging at them. Furthermore, there’s the old adage, “it takes money to make money,” you need to spend money on education and/or on other resources and supplies in order to gain a successful career that will earn more money. More money can also mean more free time- which can lead to more time for spiritual practice.

Next we have career development. Having a fulfilling career leads to a better sense of confidence and well-being, which contributes to good health in all kinds of ways – higher levels of endorphins, lower levels of stress, etc. People tend to be more successful at things they are passionate about. Success leads to wealth. I also believe that having a vocation, or doing what you are “supposed” to do for a living, can be part of a spiritual path.

Finally, there is spirituality. Like health, I feel that spirituality touches every single part of our lives. Part of it is that I believe that we are each active participants in creating our own realities. Every thought that we have has the potential to be a “prayer”- we are constantly asking the universe, or God, or whatever your preferred title, for what we want via our thoughts and intentions. If you think negatively about your health, money, or career, your experience is going to be negative. If you think positively your experience will be positive. I believe in this both psychologically and physically (I put weight on the whole theory that thoughts have physical bearing). The more energy I can devote to training myself to live with intention, and gratitude for the life that I have at any given moment, the better off I feel that I will be.

So really, the main point that I am trying to make is that having a lot of goals doesn’t need to be overwhelming, because if you are working hard on one of them, it is also going to make a gain in the others. Everything is a big web, and when you make positive changes in one area of life, all areas will be positively affected. Personally, I feel really good about focusing most of my energy on good health right now. It seems like a strong cornerstone. But it’s been a nice side-effect of that focus to begin noticing other, seemingly unrelated changes!

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“Plenty”: Good Writers Writing About Things That Matter

Posted on October 28, 2009 | 3 comments

plenty

I finished reading Plenty:One man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally on Saturday. You may have heard of “the 100-mile diet.” Well, authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon played a huge role in  popularizing this way of local eating. The book covers the couple’s one year commitment to only eat foods that were sourced from within 100 miles of their Vancouver home, their purpose being to reduce the negative environmental impact created from shipping food across thousands of miles. The point is that a lot of fossil fuel is burned unnecessarily while bringing food from across the country, or across the planet, when most of us can live just fine on food found near our homes. Not to mention that we might actually know exactly what we’re eating, since eating locally doesn’t include eating anything processed (most processed food is made from ingredients that were sourced from god-knows-where)!

It was interesting to me to read about the trials and tribulations of Alisa and James as they scrabbled together a healthy diet in the cool and rainy pacific northwest. It made me feel grateful that, if I ever do decide to start the 100-mile diet, I live in central Minnesota. It seems like there are not a whole lot of food staples that don’t grow within 100 miles of Minneapolis; notably, we have a lot of grains here, which was a problem for Alisa and James. Though this was interesting, what really fascinated me about this book was the thoughtfulness and the skill with which the authors lay down the story of their year.

The chapters of the book are each named for a month, and Alisa and James (I know that it is not proper journalistic method to refer to authors by their first names, but I’m a blogger, not a journalist, and I almost feel like I know them after reading this book!) take turns writing about each month. Each chapter is preceded by a recipe and a pertinent quote.  Both of the authors are professional journalists, so they know how to write in a way that is technically excellent. Being a description of a particular experiment, the book could have been a lot more dry than it was – trust me, I’ve read many a dry non-fiction. However, Plenty is filled with personal stories from the lives of James and Alissa. The stories and observations of the couple dovetail beautifully with the nuts and bolts of the diet to create a picture of how emotionally and spiritually connected humanity is with what we eat; and how far we have strayed from that connection. The trials and tribulations are interesting and, at times, instructive, but it is the amount of imagery and emotion in the book that makes it a pleasure to read.

November in Minnesota doesn’t seem like the right time to completely dive in to a local foods lifestyle, but someday I hope to live this way, and I’m taking baby steps all the time. It will be extra challenging with my allergy-induced diet restrictions! In the meantime, Plenty is an inspiration for anyone that wants to feel closer to the earth, and to gain a better sense of how lucky we all are to be here.

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Letting Go

Posted on October 23, 2009 | Leave a comment
Colors

©2007, Chaos to Clarity

I have been stuck on Week 3 in the Artist’s Way for two months. Sad, but true. I have still been intermittently writing my pages and going on Artist Dates; but I haven’t really been sticking with the program; doing the exercises, etc. The biggest reason that people give for falling out of the Artist’s Way is that it is so time consuming. This is true. It does take quite a bit of time; at least an hour per day. I think that the other reason that people fall out of it is that it requires you to dig in and touch places that you might not want to touch. In fact, it requires you to poke those places especially hard, because they could be the places that are most likely keeping you blocked. It feels easier to walk away from the path that you know you should be on than it does to to face the things that are keeping you off from it. However, it doesn’t make much sense to embrace a lifetime of anxiety because you aren’t doing what you are meant to do in favor of temporary relief.

The first three weeks of the program have a lot to do with letting go of impediments, whether it is letting go of your inner critic/editor, or letting go of toxic relationships with other people. I made it through the first two chapters with flying colors, and took the major step of going public with this blog. I did that even though I was terrified to show my writing to anyone. The way I look at the world has changed a lot from just those two weeks. However, Week 3 is something that I clearly have a problem with. It is called “Recovering a Sense of Power.”

The hard thing about chapter 3 is that to recover a sense of power, you also need to take responsibility. You need to look at what you are doing that robs you of a sense of control over your own destiny, and at what other people in your life are doing to do the same. I think that the reason that I have been stuck here is that I have a problem with letting go. Of anything. I am a pack-rat, both physically and emotionally. I am a big fan of shrouds and safety blankets. I like, to a certain extent, security. This means that I have trouble letting go of anything that I once hid behind, particularly images. This is what makes it hard for me to completely let go of smoking. I have trouble letting go of anything that can be an excuse; like being fat, or being too “busy,” for example. I have trouble letting go of anything that has been in my life for a long time; like toxic relationships. All of these years I have thought that I have no will power. No strength. The truth is that I have extreme tenacity and an unusually strong will, but that I have been using those character attributes against myself rather than for myself. I already have the tools, I just need to work on transforming them.

My guiding question right now is, in the words of a famous hash-smoking caterpillar, “whoooooo are yooou?” I feel like at this point in time I have a pretty good grasp on who I am at my core.  The exercises in Chapter 3 have helped me find that person even more. Now I  need to work on becoming that person outwardly, and to do that I need to hold on to her, and let go of the other things that are trying to destroy her. When I can do that, I will know that my sense of power is recovered. The thought of feeling really in control of my own destiny has been creeping in for me, and is really exciting, rather than terrifying as it has been in the past. I plan to finish my Chapter 3 exercises and do my artist date tonight and tomorrow. It will feel good to finally charge forward again!

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The Doors of Perception

Posted on October 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

Lately I have been pondering perception. I’ve been wondering how much misery is created in this world by our perceptions of situations, rather than by the facts. It has caused me to look back on my life and wonder how many of the situations that have been painful for me were at least half in my head. I’m thinking specifically of situations in which I felt victimized by other people.

One of the things that got me thinking about this was, oddly enough, an episode of 30 Rock. I tried to find some clips from the episode, but was unsuccessful. I will try to just sum it up: in the episode Jack talks Liz into attending her high school reunion. Liz doesn’t want to go because in her mind she was tortured and ostracized by her classmates. There is a flashback scene that shows her defending herself against the cruel teasing of her classmates. When she gets to the reunion, she discovers that her classmates viewed her as the cruel one, always being defensively mean in response to their friendly advances. The same flashback is shown from the perspective of her classmates, in which Liz, rather than defending herself from their cruel teasing, is cruelly lashing out at them. I remember seeing that episode and wondering; “huh, I wonder how much of that was true for me”?

As I’ve mentioned before, I was extremely shy for most of my childhood/early adulthood. I spent a lot of that time bemoaning the fact that the only attention that people seemed to pay me was to make fun of me. In hindsight I wonder if I didn’t kind of invite that. The problem with being shy is that people often perceive you as being stuck up – they think you don’t talk much because you think you’re superior somehow, when it is really the opposite. I know that I spent most of my time frowning and looking unapproachable (which is so strange to me now, because for years now people have told me the exact opposite – that it’s my smile that makes me seem so approachable!). Also, in hindsight, I responded defensively to pretty much everything. I was so convinced that most people were out to hurt me that I’m pretty sure I was inappropriately rude to people sometimes.  I spent a lot of time hiding behind my hair rather than engaging with people. I lived in a constant state of embarrassment and defensiveness.

I’m not saying that there aren’t some people who are just cruel for no reason. What I am saying is that when you feel like you are being victimized, it might do some good to check yourself. Perception in human relationships can be a big viscous cycle. First off, sometimes you can’t control how others perceive you. What you can control is how you perceive them. For example, if there is someone that drives you crazy; ask yourself why. Is it because that person is really trying to piss you off, or is it because of that person’s own set of issues, exacerbated by the fact that they sense that you are perceiving them in a negative manner? A little compassion can go a long way. If a person perceives that you are not responding negatively to them, they are less likely to continue negative behaviors, so on and so forth into infinity. In other words, the best way to influence the perception of others is to temper your perception of them. If you try to be understanding of others, it opens a doorway for them to be more receptive and understanding of you.

I still have a little bit of a problem with feeling like people are judging me, and being overly defensive about it. It’s just some of the remnants of a long perception of victimization. The idea of feeling compassion towards people that seem to take jabs at me is another useful life lesson for me (and is, duh, a basic tenet of many of the religions I’ve looked into!). It is something for me to keep in mind while trying to invite patience and positive experiences into my life! It will only make my own experience, and that of people I encounter, better.

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Personal Care Products or Pretty Poisons?

Posted on October 5, 2009 | 3 comments

Recently I have been reading Big Green Purse by Diane MacEachern. It’s a book of advice on environmental advocacy via responsible consumerism. I didn’t read it cover to cover because a lot of the information in it is kind of second nature to me (and I hope most people!) at this point. For example: biking as opposed to purchasing fossil fuel (duh). One of the striking chapters for me was the one about personal care products. I guess that I was aware, on an intuitive level, that many personal care products are not good for the environment (or our bodies) because they often come in un-recycleable or unnecessary packaging, and contain chemical ingredients that are toxic in some way. However, I never really got into the specifics of what the toxins in so many of our personal care products actually do. I found this user-friendly list of common toxins in personal care products on Green-blog.org. It is pretty comparable to the list found in Big Green Purse. Once you get down to the nitty-gritty of what these toxins do to us (and to the animals and plant life that are affected by run-off from our showers), it’s pretty horrifying that manufacturers are allowed to use these ingredients at all.

MacEachern indicates in her book that there is very little government regulation over the ingredients in personal care products. To find out more, I checked out the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website and found these clif notes to FDA Authority Over Cosmetics (the inclusion of other personal care products is implied). Basically, the FDA says that manufacturers are responsible for guaranteeing the safety of their own product and for providing consumers with a list of ingredients. The implication is that if consumers don’t want to absorb harmful toxins into their skin, they have to do their homework. Obviously manufacturers are typically more concerned with their bottom line than they are with the well-being of their consumers; therefore they are going to keep their definitions of “safety” pretty loose, and are going to make their labels as indecipherable as possible.

I am a general advocate of personal responsibility. I think that people should have the right, and the responsibility, to choose how to live their lives. I’m not big on government regulation. However, I think that if that’s the way we’re going to play it in this country, then there needs to be some guidelines around transparency. If we’re going to allow people to choose whether or not they would like to risk cancer to keep their skin smooth, there should be warning labels attached to these products that let people know the risks. It shouldn’t be so difficult to figure out what is or isn’t “safe.” This is the whole argument surrounding the warnings attached to packs of cigarettes. Why isn’t this extended to other arenas? Because most people probably won’t relate their breast cancer back to their deodorant?

The issue of financial ability to buy safer products could begin to be addressed by warning labels, too. If people know that a product is bad for them, and why, they are less likely to buy it, and more likely to spend their money on a safer alternative. The more people spend money on safe products, the more the price is going to drop until it’s affordable enough for everyone. Until there are better regulations on personal care products, there are organizations like the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that are working to bring easy access to information to the masses. I highly recommend checking out their website!

Anyhow, before I get all foaming-at-the-mouth-ranty; I did what MacEachern suggested and took inventory of the products that I use. Her suggestion was to either cut your total number of products used by three, or decrease the number of days each week that you use all of your personal care products. By not using as many products, or by not using them as much, you can then afford to start replacing the products that you do use with safer, toxin-free products. Here’s all the products I currently use each day. Next to each one is a toxicity rating from the EWG (go here for a quick and easy toxicity rating for the products you use, plus suggestions for safer ones!):

Toxicity Rating Scale: 0-2 Low Hazard, 3-6 Moderate Hazard, 7-10 High Hazard

  1. Herbal Essences Shampoo for Wavy and Curly Hair –5
  2. Herbal Essences Conditioner for Wavy and Curly Hair – 5
  3. Dove Soap – 3
  4. Tom’s of Maine Apricot Deodorant – 4 –This one surprised me. It must have something to do with the fragrance, since the unscented formula is only a 2.
  5. Sensodyne Toothpaste – 4
  6. Aveeno Naturals Radiance Face Lotion – 6
  7. Covergirl Smoothers Concealer – 2
  8. L’oreal Perfect Match Foundation – 5
  9. Rimmel Translucent Powder – not in the database
  10. Covergirl Blush – 9
  11. Maybelline Stilletto Mascara – 6
  12. Burt’s Bees Lip balm – 2
  13. Burts Bees Face Wash – 2
  14. Coppertone Sport Sunscreen 70+ – 4

The first thing I noticed is that I am kind of surprised by the overall number of products I use. I generally consider myself pretty low-maintenance. I don’t use hair products or a million different facial products. I don’t use a lot of make-up. But 14 items still feels pretty big. I don’t really see myself cutting down on the number right now, but I will cut down on the number of times I use each product each week (with the exceptions of soap, deodorant, and toothpaste – those have daily significance!).

I am actually somewhat surprised by how few of the cheap-o products I use are really bad. I wish that I was surprised that one of the higher numbers on my list, Aveeno face lotion, is greenwashed to make it seem better for you than it really is (the addition of  some natural ingredients justifies them calling their mostly-chemical lotion “natural”) . As a result of this inventory, I will be getting rid of that Covergirl blush immediately. I will be working on finding replacements for the Shampoo and Conditioner first, as those are things that are rinsed down the drain and more immediately affect the environment. Then comes the face lotion and the mascara. Etc.

It could be a learning curve to replace my toxic products with safer, more enviro-friendly products.  Though they are really bad for us and the environment, I can’t deny the power of parabens.  When I happen upon a good replacement product, I’ll post it here! In the mean time, I leave you with 3 questions: 1. How many products do you use each day? 2. What are your favorite low-toxin products, and why? 3. How do you think toxins in personal products should be regulated, and why? Please share your thoughts!

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Just a Little Patience

Posted on October 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted as much this week as I normally do. This is because I have had kind of a crappy week this week, particularly at work, but also at home. I’ve been overwhelmingly busy for most of the week, and little frustrations have been cropping up all over the place and have been piling up into a big mound of angry-cranky-exhaustion. Things have calmed down, so I’m feeling much better now, and have the presence of mind to notice that a theme is developing. Basically what I’ve realized is, in the immortal words of Axl Rose, I “need a little patience.”

The topic first came up in relation to this post, when my friend Jessica commented that yoga is the only way in which she is patient with herself. To which I say “right on, sister.” I have found that I have good yoga patience as well, though I also tend to be impatient with myself in every other way. The topic came up between she and I again last night, and it got me thinking. First, that people who get impatient for results need to just keep working. Keep plodding onward. This is because if you keep working, it is probable that you’ll get some results sometime, even if they don’t come as quickly as you want them to. Whereas, if you do what I often do and quit working because results aren’t coming fast enough, you will never get any results. Pretty simple, right? Sometimes these big breakthroughs are so easy I could just smack myself for not getting them before!

The next thing that I got to thinking in relation to patience is that maybe I am not just impatient with myself. I’ve written before about how bottled anger is one of my personal roadblocks in life. In the last year I’ve realized that a lot of that anger has been due to living too much of my life based on other people’s ideas for me. In the past year I’ve made a lot of progress on taking back my life from the constructs that were built for me when I was a kid. It has done A LOT for my general well-being. I don’t carry around an internal fountain of hurt and outrage any more. However, I am still prone to flashes of temper that can spoil days at a time. These little tantrums don’t seem based in ongoing adversity like they used to be. They’re not pity parties. Since I was thinking about patience anyhow, I thought , “huh, maybe a big chunk of anger in my life has to do with a general lack of patience.” Hmmm…let’s examine this.

I thought about all the things that pissed me off in the last week; the things that made this a bad week. Lo and behold, all items had to do with impatience, mostly impatience with other people’s quirks. Don’t get me wrong; I think there’s a fine line of respect that people need to walk when working together or co-creating anything in this world, whether it’s a project for work, or a lifetime together. Everyone has their own style, and partnerships of any kind move along more smoothly when each person respects the other one’s style. However, there are also some resources involved that each person brings to the table. Time, money, energy, etc. One needs to have respect for the other person’s resources as well. Respect for style and respect for resources needs to be balanced, and all players need to contribute to that balance.

I’ve been realizing this week that maybe my scale for this type of balance is a little wonky. There are some situations where I think annoyance, AKA impatience, is valid. When a person’s personal style is quickly draining my resources, usually time, that person is not respecting me. In that case, the imbalance is on them. I am thinking here about projects that take twice as long as they should due to some lack of skill on another person’s part. In those cases, if my partner is not acknowledging the problem, it’s probably more constructive for me to do the hard thing and point it out to them than it is to just be passive aggressive and get pissed off. That way we can make a plan to compensate for it in the future. Or, I can acknowledge that the person’s style is just different than mine and set limitations; such as, “I can spend this much time on this;” and then stick to it.

On the other had, I know that I also need to be more reasonable about what is an actual drain on my resources. For example, my personal expectations aren’t necessarily the same as a deadline. If I ask my husband to do a load of laundry, just to get it done, it’s not the end of the world if, for some reason, he doesn’t do it right away. This is not a valid reason for me to get pissed off; if I do, I’m just irritated about his general way of doing things. It’s not cool to get mad at people just because they don’t do things how I would do them. However, if I say “Honey, can you please do this, it needs to get done by this time for this reason,” and it still doesn’t happen, that is probably a valid reason to get annoyed (unless there was a really good reason why he couldn’t do it). In either case, I’ve been realizing that even if it seems like an issue is primarily the other person’s fault, there are always things that I can do to avoid frustration. My first response shouldn’t always be to get angry.

So, in short, patience is a virtue that does not come naturally to me. It’s just one more thing that I need to keep noticing and working on in order to clear up more space in my being for the good stuff in life!

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