Mindfulness

Mindfulness is my own personal word-of-the-decade. Mindfulness is the polar opposite of multitasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. Despite popular opinion, multitasking does not enable you to get a whole bunch of different things done all at once. When you multitask, what you are actually doing is switching your attention incessantly from one focus to another, and giving none your full consideration. To multitask is to invest heavily in attention-switching at the expense of learning. A waste of your precious energy, multitasking frazzles your nerves and impairs your ability to focus. 

The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness. Continue reading


Meditation is My Happy Place

Last week I said a few words about my own meditation practice, how I started with an approach that I call one-minute meditation, and how I had no idea where it might lead. I just knew that I liked listening to what regulator meditators said about their own experiences. So I thought I would try it out. One-minute meditation is just what it sounds like. It’s great for starters. It’s hardly much of a commitment. I mean, it’s one minute. You won’t be late for the sake of a single minute. Continue reading


Words of Thich Nhat Hanh

I have had a daily meditation practice for just over six years now. I started with one-minute meditation, which I have taught to many people over the years. I like to think of it as a good way to start. One minute is not very much time, and I have generally found that just about everyone is willing to dedicate a single minute to meditating. It’s really just a minute: you breathe in for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds. That’s your warmup; now do it 5 more times. That’s it. One minute. You’re done.

When I first started meditating, I did not really know the reason or the purpose. I just did it to see what would happen. I only knew that I liked listening to what people who meditated regularly said about their experience. So I thought I’d try it for myself. I don’t know what I expected. Next time I’ll talk more about how those first years went. This week I want to talk about the words of a man named Thich Nhat Hanh. Continue reading


Remembering What You Want

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Your Health is Where You Want it to Be

Good morning, and happy Sunday! I want to tell you about a conversation I had with a patient this week. She was someone I’d never met before, and, like many before her, she was absolutely flummoxed about what to try next. She had already done everything she could think of to lose weight. I think you know this story. I’ve told it many times before, and you may even have experienced it yourself. Maybe you’ve been on practically every diet, eaten cabbage soup, denied yourself your favorite foods, carved out time you didn’t really have to get more exercise than was comfortable at the time. Of course none of this was sustainable. You can’t eat cabbage soup for breakfast forever. So what’s next? Next comes balance. Continue reading


How to Make a Life

Connie and her husband Duane were my parents’ closest of friends for upwards of 40 years. They drove to Cleveland from their home in the hills of northwest New Jersey to crawl into bed with my father in his last days, to whisper their love for him, to share some memories, and to be, as always, the best friends they could be. My parents shared thousands and thousands and thousands of memories with Connie and Duane throughout the years. Their shared love for their Afghan hounds and Belgian sheepdogs, their joyful July 4th celebrations, hundreds and hundreds of weekly Sunday dinners, restaurant meals, New Years Eve parties, Thanksgiving graces, glasses of light red Beaujolais, local and national dog shows, chaffeuring one other, Zooming together, housesitting, and endless games of Trivial Pursuit. How do you make a life? How do friends and neighbors become transformed into family? This is how. Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY CUP: Hopeful Tea

In my opinion, it’s time to take a deep breath. Oh boy. A lot has been going on, no? Hopefully this tea will provide you with an opportunity to breathe in, to savor the moment, and then to exhale. I believe this is the very first time I have ever included a recipe for tea on the blog. This recipe was handwritten on a card given to me by a friend who has been making their own tea blends for a long time. They called it quiet spirit tea. I call it hopeful. Continue reading


Mom’s Birthday

Today is my mother’s birthday, the first since she passed away almost a year ago. In just a few weeks, we will observe her first yahrtzeit, the first anniversary of her passing. So much has happened this year, and we have all struggled mightily to find our way. When I think about telling her everything that has happened, it feels more like a dystopian novel than the truth. But it’s not all bad. Even though the past few months of winter have been particularly challenging, I am looking forward to returning once more to spending loads of time outdoors. And in view of the rising rates of vaccination, I am certain that next winter will be much better. Yesterday afternoon I sat outside in the sun for an hour with my husband, son-in-law, and daughter even though the temperature was only in the 20’s here in Cleveland. It was freezing, but that did not stop us from enjoying a plate of chocolates — handmade by my son’s friend in Jerusalem — and a bottle of Pavo Real wine, whose label displays a beautiful peacock feather. Mom really loved her peacocks, and her house was filled with their feathers. She would have loved that. Continue reading


The View from You

It’s a conversation that has lasted for more than twenty years, one book at a time, one month at a time. On this particular evening, long before the coronavirus, two members of our book group, Suze and Lynda, have folded themselves, side by side, into two big chairs separated by a small table. Dee, our host this month, lies nearby on the floor, her head on a large, soft cushion. Continue reading


Sometimes You’ve Gotta Go Slow

A while back I learned that race car drivers have a saying: “Sometimes you’ve gotta go slow to go fast.” If you want to shave seconds off your time, in other words, you need to slow down as you head into the curve. If you want to keep up, sometimes you need to back off a little. It’s especially true right now. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re actually headed into the roughest part of the pandemic. I had no idea that this whole year was just a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Continue reading