How Sweet The Memories

It is the fourth day of my sugar detox and right on schedule, I am hungry enough to eat a horse without unsaddling it first.

Right now my sugar-addicted brain is trying to convince me that ice cream is a health food. I am almost buying it. After all, ice cream has protein from milk, and it has fruit—at least some do (Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey). And some types have nuts. Nuts are good for you aren’t they?

Actually, ice cream is one of my favorite foods. Don’t get me wrong, I like all kinds of food—even some that are good for you. But ice cream holds a special place in my heart.

Baskin Robbins was where I fell in love for the first time. It was Mint Chocolate Chip. He was the first ice cream I ever met that wasn’t one dimensional. He had depth and personality. He was sweet, rich and just a little fresh. He swept me off my feet.

Over the years I have dallied with many different ice creams. I have swooned over cartons with foreign-sounding names. I have toyed with specialty ice creams so thick they had their own gravitational pull. I spent a blissful summer ain a out-of-the-way shop sampling ice creams made with so much liquor that they had a hard time staying frozen.

I’ve loved other frozen treats in my time—frozen yogurt, gelato, sorbet—but, through it all, Baskin Robbins’ Mint Chocolate Chip has remained my favorite sweet treat. I guess you just never forget your first love.

Her First Mistake

It was a dark and stormy night…

Wait. Let’s start the story a few days earlier on a bright and sunny day. I was headed up the highway to do a little grocery shopping and suddenly I heard a loud ping and the car died. I had just enough momentum to carry me across three lanes of traffic to the side of the road where I sat until my heart rate settled enough for me to call AAA.

I knew the car wasn’t going anywhere under its own power so I had it towed to Denver to be repaired and then rented a car.

That was when I made my first mistake.

As I said, it was a bright and sunny day. The weather reports were not predicting snow in Denver for the next week so I didn’t think about needing a four-wheel-drive car. All I thought about was getting my dad to an important doctor’s appointment in Denver so I got a car that would hold his massive walker. My father has Parkinson’s Disease and uses a specialized walker about the size of a small Jeep.

Anyway I ended up with a Chevy HHR a flex-fuel wagon that is, unfortunately, rear-wheel drive. I do not know why American manufacturers continue to make rear-wheel-drive cars, but that is a rant that will have to wait for another day.

On the day of the appointment the weather forecasters predicted the storm to come in late in the day so I hoped we would be able to beat the snow home. No such luck. The snow hit just as we were leaving the doctor’s office and heading west.

That was when I made my second mistake.

The highway was getting bad so I made a quick decision to go up Bear Creek Canyon road. True, it is a narrow, twisty, two-lane highway, but it usually is more protected from the weather than the major highway is. Not this time. The canyon was snowy and icy all the way up. I knew that if I hit my brakes even once on all those curves I would end up in the ditch (or, worse, in the creek) so I just kept going hoping to make it to Evergreen—which I did. Unfortunately the weather was worse in Evergreen and we were running out of daylight. My gut told me to call some friends and try to find a room for the night, but I didn’t listen.

That was when I made my last mistake.

The roads heading for the highway hadn’t been plowed and I knew I was in trouble but I kept going and, somehow, made it to a parking area just off the highway that skiers use when they are sharing rides. I just made it into the lot and got stuck in, maybe, three inches of snow. We called home for help and our friend Karen (now known around our house as Saint Karen) came to our rescue.

As we sat in that parking lot waiting and watching all the skiers with their cars, trucks and SUVs drive off to their warm homes I reflected on my mistakes and was thankful that the people around me thought I was a tourist and not a local who was stupid enough to rent a rear-wheel-drive car in the middle of the winter. I was also thankful for having friends who care enough to rescue me from the effects of my stupidity.

And that is never a mistake.

P.S. If you are wondering about the title of the blog I recommend you listen to Lyle Lovett’s, “Her First Mistake”. OK, it has nothing to do with this situation, but it’s a really good song.

Meg's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I woke up in the morning with a sore throat and painful sinuses. The expensive humidifier I bought had run dry in the middle of the night. I knew it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I got up to fix breakfast and nobody was ready for it. By the time they were ready the eggs were overcooked and the toast was cold, but I made them eat it anyway. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I forgot to bring in the Christmas lights and artificial garland I had bought in Denver so I had to go outside into the cold and wind to get them. When I opened the back of the car the reusable shopping bags I keep in there blew down the street. One of them lodged under a car and I had to roll around on the ground to get it. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I was carrying a big armload of garland into the house when I missed the step onto the deck and fell, twisting my knee. I wasn’t hurt, but when I got up I had to chase after all the garland before it blew away. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When I got inside I realized that I had stepped in some animal poop. I had to clean it off my shoe with paper towels and cotton swabs. Then I had to go around and clean up all the places I had been. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I started to put the lights onto the garland and kept ending up with too many lights at the end or too few. It took me three times to get it right and then I had to do it all over five more times. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I took a bunch of medicine to help me deal with the cold I’ve had for more than three weeks. The medicine made me feel Sleepy, Dopey and Grumpy so I made an appointment to see the Doc. I was not Happy. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I packed the humidifier back into its box. It’s going back to the store tomorrow. I am going to drink some hot tea with lemon, ginger and a huge slug of bourbon. I know the best way to get over this day is to sleep through it.

It’s been a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY!

My thanks to Judith Viorst, author of the wonderful children’s book, Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, for helping me deal with my day.

Exploring Your Path

I call my clients searchers—people who have spent many years searching for something that will give their lives meaning. They have followed dozens of different paths, but have never found the right one. Each time they find a path that feels promising they follow it eagerly only to have it turn out to be a dead end for them. By the time I meet them the pain and frustration of the search has become almost unbearable.

A client of mine had come to this point again. A promising path seemed to have suddenly dead-ended for her. She felt herself losing interest and could imagine herself boxing up all her materials and moving on as she had so many times before. If you are a searcher you can probably relate. I know I do. I was a searcher myself and I have the boxes to prove it.

After we had talked for a little while my client began to see her situation a little differently. Instead of thinking that she has to start her journey all over again she now looks at this as a brief trip down a side road. Everything she did and learned relates to her overall journey. This path may not have been the right one for her but she is definitely going in the right direction.

It has been said that life is a journey, not a destination—trite but true. Every avenue you take along the way is an exploration. Some avenues you know right away are not going to wok. Others you have to follow for a while before you realize they are not going to take you where you want to be. It is also possible that for you the exploration is the destination (more on that later).

If you are a searcher take a little time to look at your journey from a new perspective. Instead of looking at your career attempts as failures, look at what they all had in common. What did you love about each one? What did you hate? When you find those common threads they will point the way to your true direction in life. Have a great journey.

Why What Not To Wear is a transformational show

I have always been a fan of the TLC show, What Not To Wear. It’s not just the fashion advice (though that is useful) or the personalities of the two hosts (very fun) or even the dream of having a makeover done on me (can I nominate myself?).

No, what I really love about the show is watching the people go through an exciting personal transformation. Now that’s what I call entertainment!

If you are not familiar with the show, let me give you a short description: two fashion experts take a clothing-challenged person—usually nominated by friends and family—to New York for a week-long shopping makeover.

The two experts hijack the unsuspecting “contributor” in her home town, let her know that her friends and family have nominated her, and then present her with a credit card with $5,000 to spend on a new wardrobe. In order to get the money she must let them throw out her old wardrobe and shop by their rules.

The show seems to be about making superficial changes, but in fact it is so much more. Most of the people who go through this process make fundamental shifts in how they see themselves and their bodies. Some of them go on to make huge changes in their lives. But why would getting a new wardrobe create such a transformation?

It’s actually not the wardrobe that creates the shift. Yes, having nice clothes can help people advance in their jobs or “hook a hottie”, but it is the process of learning what not to wear that creates the change.

The show allows the participants to see how they have been presenting themselves to the world and also forces them to face the reasons they have been dressing this way. In life coach terms, the show “busts their stories”.

We all have stories we have created to justify our negative behavior. As soon as somebody asks you why we stay in our bad relationships, or dead-end jobs, or oversized wardrobes we dust off our stories: “Oh, I couldn’t leave Bob. He’d be lost without me.” Or, “I’d never be able to find a new job at my age.” Or, “If I wore clothes that fit me I would look fat.”

By telling our stories we are actually hiding the truth from ourselves (everybody else can see through our stories easily). However, when we confront our stories they crumble and we can see the real reason why we are stuck. Once the truth is uncovered it no longer has power over us and we can begin to transform our lives.

What Not To Wear literally holds up a mirror (a 360° mirror) for people to see themselves as they really are. Since there is no place to hide their only choices are to face their fears and transform their lives, or go deeper into their stories and stay stuck—but with a really great wardrobe.

The next time you have a chance, take a look at What Not To Wear and watch the transformation.

Mindfulness vs Positive Thinking

This morning my coffeemaker overflowed. I had not put the carafe in the right place so coffee and wet grounds flowed all over the countertop, onto the floor and even into the silverware drawer. I had to clean up the mess before I had my first cup of coffee! How irritating!

A few years ago this sort of situation might have sent me into a tailspin of negative thinking about how unlucky I was, and how this sort of thing always happens to me. Eventually I would have used this incident as another example of why my life was so bad. I would have then gone on to have a terrible day. Today, however I grumpily cleaned up the mess and, after I had my first cup of coffee, allowed the irritation to drop away. In other words, I got over it.

In this country we have just begun to realize the effect negative thinking has on our mental and physical health. Negative thinking can color how we see our lives, blocking out the good and magnifying the bad. It can lead to health problems from headaches and stomach problems to high blood pressure and even cancer.

The good news is that people are now starting to recognize how much of their thinking is negative. The bad news is that many people, fearing that their negative thinking is attracting negative things into their lives, are trying to wrestle their negative thoughts into a positive direction and becoming even more stressed out and fearful in the process.

Mindfulness, a Zen technique for self awareness, teaches us to recognize our thoughts without trying to change them. The simple act of awareness allows us to separate ourselves from our thoughts and view them from an outside perspective. Because we are not caught up in the emotion of our thoughts, we can see where our thoughts end and reality begins.

By contrast, positive thinking requires us to turn our thoughts, by force, from negative to positive. Not only does this take constant vigilance—which can be exhausting—but it also keeps us locked inside our heads so to speak.

So the next time you find your thoughts turning negative try mindfulness instead of positive thinking. You may be surprised at how quickly your stress disappears.