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Positive Social Connection

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Lifestyle Medicine Positive Social Connection Whole Food Plant Based Diet

Thanksgiving

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The leaves are falling, mornings are cooler, and travel plans are being made. It’s November! And that means Thanksgiving.

This will be my second Thanksgiving after changing my diet to a whole food plant based, and this year I am pulling out recipes and planning all sorts of great tasting feast dishes. But, last year, I remember Thanksgiving looming like the great “test” or the big hurdle to cross over. A lot of my joy of the season was sucked away as I worried about the food. Would I need to turn into the weird relative that insisted we all eat a tofu dish shaped into a turkey? Because that sounded horrible.

I decided that if I wanted turkey, or anything else, on that day, I would eat it. This way of life isn’t about feeling deprived! It’s about abundance and enjoying. I decided that I would try a new plant based recipe as a side dish: roasted acorn squash filled with chickpeas and wild rice with a tahini dressing drizzled on top. You can find the recipe I used here:

Wild Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash

I also made fresh cranberries, roasted brussel sprouts tossed with a whole grain and apple cider dressing, and mashed potatoes from cauliflower. This year I plan to add this apple pie:

https://nutritionstudies.org/recipes/dessert/apple-pie-that-wont-make-you-die/

As it turns out I was totally unprepared for one fact: I didn’t want to eat the turkey. After 6 months of eating whole food plant based, and enjoying an abundance of great food and feeling great, I had prepared for the day by saying to myself that I “deserved” some turkey on this national holiday. So I sat at the Thanksgiving table conflicted. I had a plate full of delicious squash and rice and beans and potatoes and cranberries, brussel sprouts and rolls. But as I looked at the platter of deliciously well-prepared turkey headed my way, and it surprisingly didn’t look as good as I remembered. In fact, it looked like it would hurt my stomach. The cook did an expert job, and so I am not referring to the cook when I say what my tastebuds relayed to my brain. It looked dead and greasy as opposed to alive and flavorful.

In the end I skipped the turkey and I don’t think anyone noticed. I enjoyed a feast of sides and realized that Thanksgiving probably had always been about the sides anyway.

And I practiced the rest of the lifestyle medicine prescriptions. I walked outside, I sought out positive social connections, I let unreasonable expectations and all the associated stress, go up to the universe, and I sipped on some tea and counted my blessings under the stars after the last dish had been done and the last guest bid goodnight.

The result was a Thanksgiving to remember; one where I really gave thanks for the people around me, the time together, and the feast of delicious food in abundance.

Lifestyle Medicine Positive Social Connection

Cholesterol Checks and Ukuleles

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Wednesday was a day full of caring for health in obvious and usual ways and in ways that might not be fully appreciated.

In the morning I went to the doctor for my annual check up. We discussed “being healthy” in the way of traditional health system medicine. This is important involvement and commitment to my health. I did my annual screening blood work, checked weight and blood pressure, and discussed needed preventative tests and vaccines. The great news included that my cholesterol continues to fall, my blood pressure remains normal, my weight is marginally lower than last year, and most importantly I have sustained the 25lb loss for a year’s time. Committing to a whole-good plant based diet and the other pillars of Lifestyle Medicine is paying off big time. I was struck again by how cheap this “treatment” has been for me. It has saved me money in medications and follow-up doctor visits, been low cost to implement, and payed big dividends.

Also great news is that this is *not* the year that I will need to put on my big girl pants and get a Shingles shot or a colonoscopy. But when those things come due I have committed to my doctor that I will do them.

This is what we traditionally think about when we think of “health care”. It is doctors offices and blood work, vaccines and colonoscopies. It is critical to health. But it is an incomplete prescription for health

Wednesday evening I went to the first meeting of “The Highland Ukuleles” offered through my church. I had never played-or even held in my hands-a Ukulele. But, I was intrigued by a small instrument that seemed designed to sing out joy into the world. I contacted the leader of the group who enthusiastically encouraged me to come. She was able to offer a ukulele that I could use because someone had donated two ukuleles to the church for just this purpose.

So I showed up. I was handed a ukulele and some sheet music showing me how to place my fingers to produce the correct chords, and I took my place among a group of people ranging from beginners to the experienced. I learned the C chord and happily strummed it when indicated as we practiced. I sang songs ranging from “If You’re Happy and You Know It” to “Jingle Bells” to “If You’re Lonesome Tonight” by Elvis. It was joyful and fun and I could feel my heart singing with the community laughter, and my brain growing in connections as I started to teach my fingers new ways to be useful.

The two events of Wednesday were equally important to my health in complimentary ways. Health is more than the important blood work and screening exams. Full health can be fun, and should be fun. Research studies, Blue Zones, and my experience all support this truth. Good health is made by, and for, joyful living and connection with others.

So I have been practicing my ukulele nightly and have learned three new chords as my husband listens to me sing out “Amazing Grace” and “You are My Sunshine” from the couch each night. And in a few years time I’ll get my colonoscopy; although a temporary dragon tattoo on one bottom cheek is something I’m considering for the occasion. Because, Jolly Hearts, joy and connection are just as important as removing polyps. These elixirs for health are free and can be brought into any day by our choosing…and perhaps aided with a ukulele in hand.

Positive Social Connection

The Work of the Divine

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Twenty years ago I had gotten married, moved 500 miles from my family, and had a baby. I was doing my medical training, working 100 hours a week, and experiencing the isolation that comes with being a new mom, who, as a pediatrician, was supposed to have all the right answers, while realizing that she had none.

In the middle of this time my mom’s voice came through the phone line, “Grandpa is asking about Will’s baptism. When is it?”

My grandpa and I shared a special bond and love for each other. He freely shared his wisdom that he had picked up and tucked in his pocket through the years. And I, not deafened by the natural defiance that comes with listening to parental advice, could hear him.

He was an active church member. He lived as such, and let his life speak for itself. We never directly discussed God. In hindsight, I can see that words were rarely needed because God existed and lived in the space between us. He made sure of it.

So, in that love, in that space, I called a church near our house and asked about a baptism. We met with the minister who suggested a baptism during a Sunday morning service. We assured him that we just needed a small room, on maybe a Wednesday night, just for the family and grandpa. I remember the twinkle in that preacher’s eye when he explained that the entire congregation would take responsibility for helping us to raise our son to know God. The church was part of the ceremony. I consented reluctantly, but it was a busy time and we just needed a baptism. For grandpa.

That minister retired a few years later. He had been a great orator and wise leader of that congregation for decades. We occasionally came to that church again at Christmas, but otherwise. happily went about our business of career and family with the self-reliance of youth.

But, all the while, the divine kept its arms around us. My grandpa passed away, but we moved down the street and there were neighbors on either side that went to that church. There was a retired minister two doors down whose wife brought us pound cake to welcome us. There was the nearby Baptist church preschool that we enrolled our boys just because it was close, and the Cub Scout troop at the Methodist church just because it was nearby also. There were friends found in kindergarten whose mom was the assistant minister at the church. And so while we were not actually going to church, the church had encircled us in the world. We did not talk of God with these various people, but as with grandpa, He lived and thrived in the space in between. They made sure of it.

What I know now, that I didn’t know then, was that a life of self reliance is actually a myth of the headstrong. And so one day, years later, when that lie of self-reliance came crashing down in a final triumphant clang, I looked up and recognized those people and that force that had been reaching in, reaching out, holding us. I saw love that filled the space in between us and held us together. and it was the truth. I finally said, “I understand now, grandpa. I get it.” I hoped he could still hear me, even as I felt him smile back.

Today I belong to that church and hopefully contribute in positive ways. My kids joined the youth group and we cleaned up after many Wednesday night fellowship meals. I have seen many babies baptized and promised with others to help those parents and families raise their kids to know God, just as they did for me.

Today, the minister who baptized our first child returned to give a sermon. I could not wait to see him again. After the service, I went up to thank him, for the powerful gift he gave us, and he smiled and nodded…and had no memory of it whatsoever. As I held his hand again-after 20 years- I felt the Divine smile in the space in between us as it whispered, “Look, I am doing a new thing.”

Positive Social Connection Stress Management

The Space In Between

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Welcome to The Jolly Heart; Beach Week Edition! It’s a week of travel, family time, and seeing good friends. Routines will be upended, unanticipated challenges will come, cooking will be for multitudes, and new memories will be made. It’s a vacation, but it also has moments of chaos.

I have been thinking of chaos lately. It might be because I live with young adult children, my job can keep me on my toes, and the news has never been newsier. It all leads to days of feeling unsettled. I try to pay attention to getting movement and eating well, but I also tend to something I call The-Space-In-Between to get some relief.

I had a mentor tell me once to draw a circle around my feet and look down. This is what I could control. This was the space I was in charge of managing. It contained my own body and mind, but, I also realized that circle encompasses the space in between my feet and yours.

If I was New Age I might call it my Aura, but Lifestyle Medicine doctors call it “Social Connection”. It is a very important contributor to our health and as important as not smoking to our longevity.

When I first started paying attention to The Space In Between I went after low hanging fruit. Not using my middle finger while driving meant a successful day for me. It’s important, I believe, to realize when we put our frustration and exhaustion into The Space In Between. It affects those around us and we have no idea of fully knowing what’s going on in their circle and at their feet. Snapping at my husband after a long day at work, barking at my kids to clean up, sarcasm, eye rolling, denigrating another behind their back or on social media; these are all examples of how I can, unthinkingly, pollute up their space with my own fear, my own frustration at the clunkiness of life, my own desire to have it all the way I like it. It can hurt worse than a slap to the face and it creates a divide: not only between me and them, but also between me and others witnessing. There are no bridges and connections being built. And without these connections, research tells us, we are taking years off our own life.

After controlling for pollution, I started to challenge myself in The Space In Between to try some beautification. Small things like eye contact and a smile with a cashier, sending emails with gratitude folded around the business needing done, thanking my family for their own acts of kindness, bringing curiosity and grace to other’s anger and frustration. I started to sprinkle those beautification seeds everywhere I went and I felt different. I felt happier regardless of what others around me were doing in their space. I was tending my space and it made me feel healthy and strong in a world full of chaos.

On our beach-bound road trip we stopped in a Wendy’s. While my family ordered the food, I noticed the straw/napkin/utensil station was a mess. Trash overflowing on the counter around the trash holes, no napkins, low on utensils, etc. “Sheesh, Wendy’s,” I thought, “my grandpa, a man with an eye for details and the original lover of the Wendy’s Frosty would be disappointed.”

I went up to the counter to ask for some napkins- because road trips can never have too many napkins-and the gentleman sighed in a kind and tired way and grabbed at a large wrapped brown paper package. As he ripped open the big package of napkins, he muttered as much to himself as me, “Everyone called in today…I was on my way to replace these..”. He offered me as many napkins as I needed before he was called by another customer to ring up an order. I looked at my feet and imagined that circle…all of it…and I grabbed a few fist-fulls of napkins and put them in the napkin dispensers best that I could. (I obviously missed the employee training session about Wendy’s napkin dispensers.) I hoped it bought our guy a few more minutes to do the job himself. My husband chuckled and said, “You’re hired!” and my teen just looked slightly embarrassed, but there it was: The Space In Between.

Just like my garden, I don’t always get it right, I never get it perfect, but it’s where I see magic and holiness happen, and for me, where I see my God at work: The Space In Between your feet and mine -in a world full of chaos- is important.

Positive Social Connection

The Separateness Lie

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Am I the only one that has times of feeling alone living on a planet of a billion people?

A better word might be disconnect.

Disconnected is different from being alone. I have felt disconnected in a room full of people and I have felt connected while totally alone.

When I am connected I feel part of a larger whole. This state seems to be intricately tied to my mental health and well-being, and it was how I first understood the word “God”.

God started for me, and still is, the whole thing. The bigger thing to which I belong. I am a part, and I am connected to all the other parts. Or as yogis like to say, “Namaste”.

When my youngest child was learning violin the teacher explained to him that when he played the E note on his violin using other strings, my son’s E string would start to vibrate. Something in the space between the strings was connecting them. It is called resonance.

When I’m feeling disconnected, it is that space in-between that I need to tune into. I am seeking resonance.

How each of us does this is quite individual, but it always takes a form of bridge making, that you feel more often than see.

Nature is often a bridge from the larger whole to each of us. There is a practice of going outside and looking up at the sky when someone feels lost. The posture is so universal that you can visualize it immediately. When we look at the sky, or a beautiful tree, body of water, or large vista we are automatically connecting with what is larger than ourselves. Try it. Go on outside, take a deep breath, and look up. Feel it? Resonance. We are outside of our little self-in the space between-if only for a moment.

Artists often connect by creating. Their art is a bridge made from them to you. Our souls resonate through time while looking at what has been created. Writers do this too by building mental bridges of shared humanity that can be powerful.Speech and vision setting are other forms of connecting art. I notice this particular lack from leaders in the world today. I crave hearing a vision of our shared space with a sort of pleading desperation letter that I can’t figure out where to send.

Too often I get task oriented, but when wise people advise to listen, not just hear, or to be present, not just solve, I believe they are speaking of the sacredness of this space. Truly seeing another person, or hearing their soul is rare today. Caring for the divine in that space between is where I see God.

The greatest truth I know is that we are all connected to each other. For good or bad, neglected or nourished, this truth will remain.

And in a world that sometimes get transactional with broken bridges everywhere, I remain convinced that this bridge building, creating resonance, tending the space between, will be the most important work we do for our health.

We are built to build it, feel it, and respond to it, as surely as the violinist’s E-string.

Positive Social Connection

Circles

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The Lion King is famous for the song, “The Circle of Life”. Most of us can picture Mufasa, holding up little Simba, proud and full of love. When I picture the scene in the Lion King, I feel my eyes crinkle into a smile and my shoulders relax.

But there is an opposite to the Circle of Life. There is the Circle of Fear. I am no stranger to this place. But I’m sure I have underestimated it exponentially. I have judged fear, or anxiety, or stress, or insecurity, or any of its pseudonyms, as a trivial individual concern.

I know what fear does to me. It’s a focusing inward posture and thought process. I think up ways to mitigate, to reassure, to be safe. Perhaps I need a new petition or a law, a new tonic or drug, perhaps I need to look thinner or use hair dye, maybe I need to subtly lift myself up at the expense of my neighbor. At its most harmful I need to find an enemy to blame.

It feels like there is not enough. And it’s catchier than a pandemic. Unless skilled like a Jedi, you start to fall ill when surrounded by it. “Why was I so naive,” you think to yourself as you join the sick circle of fear and pass it on. scarcity of resources blinks like a neon warning light.

You go get the new alarm system, buy the gun, don’t go to the music hall for fear of someone else and their gun. You shutter up the shop that offers your gifts to the world. And the only thing you have to offer the person next to you is…more of the same fear.

Circle complete.

I am convinced that fear is our worst contagious disease and our greatest public health threat.

I haven’t found the cure, but I have found a few things to break out of the fear racetrack. The good news is that these things are always available, and they are free.

You just chose. The circle of Life. Or the Circle of Fear.

Choosing Life means choosing the substance of Life as illustrated in the famous scene from the Lion King. Choose belief and love. Choose faith. Choose to see the other in front of you. Listen to people around you and learn their hearts, not just their words. Practice humility and really laugh. Serve. Share your gifts boldly. Stop hiding them. Let me repeat that: Stop Hiding You.

Live Namaste, Matthew 7:12, or your own personal version of the same.

In the end, the Circle of Fear gets us alone and afraid and convinced that the Circle of Life is not real. But in the end, your Life is the only real thing of any value you can leave behind. Choose well…and then go infect the others with reckless abandon.

Positive Social Connection

Freedom

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When I started eating differently, I was afraid. Of what, I could not tell you. Perhaps some rouge tofu might attack me at the grocery store once it found out I was looking at recipes with beans and lentils. I am still, truth be told, a little wary of tofu.

But, it always seems to be like that, doesn’t it? Trying something new is scary.

Six months ago I talked my mom into trying a Silver Sneakers class at her Y. She was nervous and reluctant. But I know my mom. She likes people, music, and dancing. And we just happened to walk into the best class in town with Lisa leading the way. Now when I am back visiting we don’t miss her class! It’s a room full of people dancing and moving and health and life surround it all.

But pushing someone else to try a new thing is so much easier then doing it yourself. I like to learn about new things, but actually doing them is a different story. For example, I read about cooking tofu for months, but when I actually touched the tofu, I wore my skeptical face with wrinkled up nose, and kept repeating, “Remember… this is just soybeans…you like soybeans…”

Fast forward to this 4th of July. I talked my dad into trying a recipe for grilled carrot dogs. It couldn’t be more scary than the weird white soybeans, right? Besides we were in this adventure together.

But they were delicious! I’m still in disbelief myself. If you are laughing at me right now, know that I am laughing too!

I noticed that I try new things when people I love and respect encourage me down a road of change.

I thought of this on this Fourth of July. The few who tried a new way. Trusting the people. A belief that we are always better as a sum of our parts than any one of us alone. We need each other because change is scary. And because not a single one of us has all the good.

But each one of us can take another’s hand and walk toward health and life. That direction is easy to recognize: healthy living is always a building force and not a destructive one. It is free-ing.

So make that positive social connection in real life, take a friend to a joyful exercise class, or laugh while grilling carrots. (Have we now seen everything?!) Take that chance this Fourth of July and see if your heart feels just a little more free.