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Summertime

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It’s summer.

I’m revising and editing and adding to my second book on recovery. I hope to publish it within two years with a traditional publisher. It fills a need in the marketplace.

I’ll be able to give more details about the book in the fall. Right now I’m keeping it under wraps except to say the book has a passionate and professional voice. That’s how it differs from a clinical treatise that an M.D. would write.

In this season I’m going to research healthier food options and talk about them here.

I like the Amy’s Organic soups and Pacific Organic soups. I have soup year round for lunch and for dinner with a salad or vegetable or fish.

The Earthbound Farms organic spring mix salad greens container is not that expensive so it makes sense to buy this product instead of regular iceberg lettuce.

What we put in our heads–positive or negative–effects our mental health. What we consume in our mouths affects our health and in so doing this it effects our mental health too.

May through November is Greenmarket season so that gives a lot of us seven months of healthful food options to buy and to prepare.

I shop at local Greenmarkets because of the “No Pesticides” signs above the produce on the stands.

In coming weeks I’ll post more photos of meals with recipes.

More towards September I should have news about the second book.

Creating a Vision Board

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I’m writing a second book that I hope to publish within three years hopefully more like within two years.

One aspect of this I might feature is creating a vision board which I think is useful unlike certain critics of doing this.

My own vision board stands against a wall in the hallway. I tacked to it photos, postcards, and magazine advertisement–along with fortune cookie fortunes like “Fate Loves the Fearless” and “A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline.”

Anything goes in decorating a vision board. You can use a concert ticket, fabric, ribbon, most anything to visually represent a goal you have for your life.

I recommend viewing the board once a week.

While it can become wallpaper, a vision board is also an enduring visual memoir of the person you are and who you aspire to be.

For that, it can’t be beat. The vision board can certainly cheer you every time you see it–like a little thrill to discover yourself and your potential.

The color red and strong women in chic clothes figure in my own board.

This is just an idea for a tool for growth and change. Oprah Winfrey was a big fan of them years ago.

I’d be happy to hear from readers if they created a board.

3-Point Guide to Mood-Boosting Food

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I have developed a 3-point list of what I think makes sense when choosing what food to eat:

Eat well–you’ll feel better.

East mostly food that comes from God’s green Earth.

The best stuff on earth truly comes from Earth.

Not a bottle or frozen box. Pass on chemical-laden drinks and foods with unnatural “natural flavors.”

Nix sugar.

Remember: sugar is sugar wherever it comes from. Refrain from drinking chocolate milk–it has 33 grams of sugar in an 8 oz glass. Not good if you take an atypical medication for schizophrenia or bipolar that can increase the risk of getting diabetes.

Bonus point:

If memory serves it was Michael Pollan who wrote: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

A friend is now going on an eating plan geared to a person with diabetes even though he doesn’t have diabetes. This could make sense as a possible plan for individuals with mental illnesses to adopt.

Lastly: I do NOT endorse drinking sugary sports drinks or Power-Ade type drinks. Not at all. Nor do I endorse drinking Red Bull or other type energy drinks. I DON’T endorse eating power bars of any kind except every so often in a crunch when you have nothing else available. And the shakes available at gyms aren’t the most healthful option either. I only have a shake once or twice a month.

The goal is to remember that when you eat light and healthful there’s almost no restriction so you’re not depriving yourself: you can then have a pastry every so often.

Mourning and Moving Forward

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The stages of grief can happen at any time. There’s not always or often a quick start-stop to bereavement. The reality of this ongoing nature is what’s so unconscionable about leaving older adults and senior citizens with mental health conditions in the dust when their elderly parents are gone.

The Stages of Grief

I will use the diagnosis as an example–yet mourning any kind of loss is likely at any time in our lives. The day our loved ones are gone is possibly the most sad time of all. The stages of grief can happen at any time.

Shock:

You’re not fully conscious of what has happened.

Denial: You cannot believe that the loss is real.

Anger:

You wonder: “Why this illness? Why me?”

Bargaining:

You attempt to maintain the status quo even though it is no longer possible and you can’t go on the way things were before.

Depression: You can no longer deny the truth of the loss.

Acceptance: You have had time to work through these stages and it is here you come to terms with the loss. You take action to move beyond it.

Grieving is a natural and healthy response to your diagnosis and the circumstances of your changed life. It is by mourning the past that you clear the way to a brighter future.

Living in anger for the rest of your life is no way to live. Anger takes a lot of energy to maintain. It keeps you stuck. Working through your anger can motivate you to make positive changes.

It’s truly possible to have a better life after some of us get sick than we had before.

Like any loss we have to mourn there’s also not always a quick start-stop to the hard time we experience after we get a diagnosis.

“Move along” we must as the All-American Rejects sing in their modern rock song.

Moving along often takes time. It’s often a long and winding road we go down.

Yet remember this: our loved ones will always be with us even after they’re gone.

An Appointed Time for Everything

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There is an appointed time for everything,

and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;

a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Chockfull of Salad

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I tend to have a lot of salads. You can buy Earthbound Farms organic kale on the cheap and it will last for four days of servings.

Here’s an easy simple recipe:

Cut kale or other greens up. Peel and chop carrots. Use olives. Cut tomatoes into wedges. Slice an onion. You can also slice bell peppers.

Toss into a salad bowl. Add olive oil and vinegar or olive oil and lemon. Squirt onto the salad to your taste and toss.

I add grated parmesan on the salad after I use the dressing on it.

Here’s a handy secret that I really shouldn’t be giving away:

You can buy pre-made salads and place them in individual salad bowls to serve to guests at a dinner party. You can find store-bought salad dressing to use that is a healthful option like Cucina Antica organic salad dressing

Fresh Direct is an online delivery service in New York City and Philadelphia. Peapod is available in a lot of other places online. Either way you get groceries and household supplies delivered right to your front door.

I buy Greek salads this way and found a Fresh Direct olive oil-and-sundried tomato vinaigrette dressing to use on the salads.

Bobbi Brown the famous makeup artist in her book Living Beauty describes how to make what she calls a “chopped kitchen salad.”

Whether it’s her version or mine I make the case for having more salads and other greens for lunch or dinner.

You can get a CSA box delivered from Fresh Direct–a community-supported agriculture box of 8 to 10 items of produce from June through end of December. It comes from a local organic farm.

The $30/box has enough produce to make a variety of meals or side dishes. I received butter leaf lettuce and created a salad for dinner one night along with a recipe for lemon-and-thyme carrots.

It’s true I’m obsessed with eating mostly only real food that comes from God’s green earth not a laboratory.

Get the cookbook Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop. I find myself running to this book every week to cook the produce I buy. The recipes are simple and easier to cook because they don’t often take up a lot of time.

Happy eating!

 

Fall Into Winter Favorites

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I want to return to talking about nutrition.

The fall through early winter is my favorite time of year for eating well.

One recipe that is easy and healthful is for butternut squash soup:

Cut squash in half and remove seeds. Roast in 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Take out and scoop out squash and blend in a blender with vegetable stock. Add about half a container of stock and add more to suit your taste if you’d like. I buy the vegetable stock boxes.

Pour soup mixture in saucepan and add 1/2 cup heavy cream. Simmer until heated.

Serve with a couple slices of cheese and some whole grain bread. I like the organic whole wheat sourdough bread you can get from Bread Alone in New York City.

Hearty! And oh so filling!

Up next I’ll talk about my kind of a garden salad that I call a chockfull of salad salad.

New Year’s Resolutions

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It’s coming up on the time when people make New Year’s resolutions. I think it’s more helpful to plan in terms of setting a goal you can achieve in three months / every season / and a goal you can achieve in one year.

The reality too is fare more real: fitness is forever. Allowing the number on a scale to dictate how you feel about yourself is most likely all too common. Thus the mad frenzy to join a gym on January 1st.

I say: examine your motivation. Ask yourself “Why do I want to do this __________________(lose weight or whatever you want to do)? Be clear that you’re setting a goal that is specific measurable achievable relevant and time-sensitive.

Remember too that planning in terms of a life-line instead of a deadline is the strategy that has helped me and might help other people and stop us from quitting or getting upset if we don’t do what we set out to as quickly as we hoped.

Case in point: it takes time to get fit–whether you’re striving for physical or emotional conditioning.

What I find helps is to think of the long-term outcome you want to achieve instead of berating yourself for not doing what you wanted to do in one week here and there.

The cumulative effect to me counts more than any temporary slip-up along the way. I’m living proof: I’ve gotten here–to 50–even though I have a diagnosis.

We each of us need to remember that the grass isn’t greener over there–we’re responsible for watering our own grass and planting the seeds of goals and tending to our own beautiful green and glorious garden.

This takes time. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Just Do It. And Keep Doing It. Whatever “it” is that is sustainable for you in terms of a lifestyle.

Chances are not everyone is an Athlete archetype. This explains why not a lot of us are taking spinning classes five days a week and competing in marathons. That’s OK.

The point is to set a S.M.A.R.T. goal not chase after a New Year’s Resolution. I prefer to set goals in the fall and in the spring.

I joined the gym in March when I was 39. You see: it’s not ever too late to make a positive change. Investing in yourself at any age is the gift that keeps on giving.

During this season that is supposed to be of good cheer and peace to all on earth I wish that readers of this blog can find pockets of joy and happiness inside the challenges we all face living our lives in whatever we’re in recovery from.

Happy Thursday!

U-N-I-T-Y

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I’m compelled to publish this last blog entry today before I go online shopping. I offer it as a disclaimer because in the coming days I’m going to report on what I learned at the NAMI-New York State educational conference.

My high school art teacher taught us the concept of “unity with diversity” in composition.

Michelle T. Johnson, the author of The Diversity Code, tells us that the ideal is the goal of “viewing diversity as the highest form of honoring individualism.”

I want to talk about this as I head into talking about what I learned at the educational conference.

Anyone who reads this blog will realize I have strong views. Yet what I believe is not any more valid than what another person thinks. More so, I’m not going to use my belief to justify discrimination.

I strive to treat everyone with dignity in the same open compassionate way. This to me is what’s missing from dialogue that often devolves into flame-throwing.

Johnson talks about the peril of how a person will counter another person’s belief with their own opinion as if their belief is valid and the original comment is not.

The cross of this matter is that no one is willing to work to find common ground, so that attacking your opposition has become the norm.

The beauty of living in America is that each of us can freely express ourselves. Fear of reprisal shouldn’t stop us from speaking out.

I listen to people, and I understand them. We’re all in this together. It’s precisely because I remember the past that I understand where consumers are coming from in what they say.

Yet I’ve always been more hopeful. Still it’s not “my way or the highway.” Not at all. I welcome unity with diversity. Queen Latifah sang a song “U-N-I-T-Y” in the 1990s. Remember that?

Like I said my new focus in this blog will be on right here right now. My contention is that we each of us need to move forward into the future, not remain stuck on crucifying the psychiatry of the past.

Today is right here right now the day to shift the needle.

I respect that leaders in the field and ordinary peers are evolving the dialogue at the NAMI-New York State educational conference.

The love is palpable there because we are all NAMI-New York State family. And family sticks together.

I just wanted to say this before I present my views of what I learned.

Failure

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Failure helps us get one step closer to victory.

Yet sometimes it’s not advisable to keep trying to do something over and over. My great light bulb that went off in my head was that if a person has to try too hard to make something work, it might be time to give up trying.

This was evident when I had jobs in the gray flannel insurance field. It was also clear when I made the gnocchi recipe: it turned out just to be doughy and forgettable. I won’t attempt to try the gnocchi recipe again.

Failure is the cost of trying. I’m found of the Michael Jordan quote: “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.”

A corollary is the idea that a lot of woman make mistakes with makeup. It can take us years to settle on the colors and shades that we look good in.

A person can also spend a lot of time trying to figure out the life path they want to go down. Taking a detour happens to a lot of us. I’m confident when I tell readers that the whole of life lies in seeing. Seeing the possibilities and being open to choosing what we think is the best one right now is the way to go.

A woman I met said most people make excuses for why they can’t do something. Thus they remain stuck because they’re not willing to try something new or to consider doing something that is a stretch.

Yet no one gets it right the first time they do something. My failure with the gnocchi recipe is a concrete example of taking a risk that didn’t work out. In life as with gnocchi I’m a firm fan of taking risks to grow as a person.

I say: risk change.

The famous Linda Ellerbee quote tells us:

“Change is one form of hope. To risk change is to believe in tomorrow.”

I say: believe.