My child is one of my most gifted teachers.  Not because he’s extraordinary, rather his gifts lay in his relationship to the ordinary.  My child is young enough to still have wonder informing his everyday world.  Over the past week I have been consciously witnessing his relationship to grief and how this relates to his sense of wonder.  They are so clearly interrelated in him.

This wasn’t a random choice to watch both of these parts of his childhood.  I’ve been studying/practicing grief for three years as a conscious reclaiming of this portion of my being human that was demonized in a combined effort by my protestant family, my own midwestern culture where I grew up and also by phony modern spiritualism.  I live in a culture that has no room for grief.  Grief requires a slowing that the machines of capitalism haven’t the time to afford.  Grief requires community and the more isolated we become in modern culture, the more difficult the high watch, a sacred beholder is to find.  Deep grief is not a job to take on alone.  Now you may ask why practice grief?  That sounds like a miserable way to start the day.  Lets focus instead on our high vibration emotions!!!!  I dare you to find grief on the emotional vibrancy charts. I am going to say this flat out: emotional vibration charts are actual fake bullsh*t AND they do damage to the practice of being human by assigning native emotions comparative values and then ranking them. This is utterly absurd. If you need more help understanding this please read Rumi, The Guest House.  

Grief is one of the most holy things we get to feel and experience as human beings.  As Martín Prechtal says, “Grief is praise.”  When we grieve the ones that are no longer here, we are praising the life and love they gave us, the places they touched our lives.  When we stop and allow the grief of war or environmental damage to touch us, we begin to mobilize for change.  If we stuff it down with dopamine distractions (scrolling, alcohol, more work), we miss the opportunity to live fully.   Grief makes room in our bodies for both wonder and for creative action.  And yes there is discomfort to grief.  As Shanti Zimmerman teaches without discomfort and a solid relationship to it, we will find ourselves stuck in adolescence just scrambling from one high vibe feeling to the next never finding actual maturity despite our aging.  A true elder and any child knows this is not the way to live a fully rich and informed life.  Malidoma Somé teaches that the Dagara keep the young children and the elders closely together in community in the village.  He talks of barely speaking with his father during early childhood because what would be the point?  A grown man, working, in the prime of his life is simply too busy to understand a child the way a patient and listening elder could.  It was his grandfather that was his closest ally.  The two ends of the most spiritually aware spectrum, those that have just entered from the spirit realm to those about to make their way out to spirit really get each other. Both have potential to fully understand the value of grief and wonder in our world.

I am grateful at 45 I have had this year to slow down and witness my child.  It is through my child that I realized that his ability to sense and move with grief is part of what is informing his sense of wonder.  New Mexico is a beautiful place to live and there is intense poverty, crime and complications from the ready distribution of methamphetamines. My child notices every, single human being in desolation.  He takes them in.  Sometimes he cries.  He reminds me to feel this.  He reminds me to feel the disparity in our world.  We were recently in Española and a young tattered man asked us for a brownie.  He didn’t ask for cash.  He simply said, “I am so hungry. Will you buy me a brownie?” J looked at me with total clarity that said we are going into Starbucks where he was standing and buying him one.  I talked with my child for a bit about the situation as tears quietly streamed down his face.  Oh how I wanted to take that pain away. Not only for J’s sakes but because for me as an adult the wave of the world’s disparity came crashing down on me in beholding this one hungry human being and my child’s attentive grief. We try to stop our children’s grief because we are uncomfortable with our own.  The deep well of grief from living 45 years in a world that gives no sh*ts about the poor and homeless hit me hard.  I do not cry and take in every single homeless person I encounter.  I do not always let the sadness touch me nor inform me.  I feel discomfort, yes but I do not always let that discomfort move as grief nor do I always move to action.  I spend much of my life grief constipated. The story I tell myself is, how would I get through my day crying all the time?  I am barely surviving all the things I must do.  This is classical German farmer mentality and serves capitalism beautifully.  This exact same dangerous thought moves through me and prevents me from sensing and meeting my grief at many other personal levels as well.  

There is an open-heartedness to wonder.  Without allowing my heart to open to grief, I am closing myself to wonder.  Anything I am avoiding feeling is simply dragging behind me in my day to day life and siphoning my creative energy.   

Today I am pausing to notice.  Today am I am choosing to practice grief and wonder.  A beautiful friend has a simple daily practice in which she names two things worthy of grief and blesses them with a few drops of salt water.  I am joining with her in solidarity today. 

Today I grieve for the homeless in my town. 
Today I grieve for the disrespect for the Earth. 

May my heart stay open even when I face the uncomfortable truths of my existence so that through my willingness to grieve my sense of wonder and praise is able to continue inform my life. 

https://www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/the-guest-house-by-rumi

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/330400/ritual-by-malidoma-patrice-some/

https://www.being-shanti.com/about

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246885/the-smell-of-rain-on-dust-by-martin-prechtel/

I am writing today from a camp chair at a folding table in my New Mexico kitchen.  My life has become nomadic and deliciously lighter in many ways.  However, this new material lightness doesn’t always lend itself to the cozy writing spots I was once used to, nor the lovely gaps of alone time where I could gather my thoughts  The homeschooling child sleeps and so I have cultivated this sweet, quiet space for you and I… 

Know it is warm in my kitchen today despite the snow falling outside and I have poured us a cup of tea.  As you imagine sitting here with me today may the tenderness surrounding us touch you.  I woke up early because I want to open up into the honesty of the timing of my choice to begin pelvic floor physical work.  This was not an easy choice for my body. In simply making the appointment to work with my own pelvic floor with a physical therapist so much energy in the form of memory began to move in my body.  And in that movement of memory/grief/fear it became quickly clear to me why I have chosen to wait for this exact moment to enter this form of healing work.  This choice has been years in the making and preparations, nearly a decade to be exact.

The timing of entering pelvic floor work matters.  Adding another human being to the mix on this journey is a HUGE step especially for survivors. As much as I would have loved for my healing to move much faster, deep, lasting healing cannot be rushed.  The body unfolds from trauma in its own time and as a human with this one life to live, healing time can feel extremely slow and the subtle changes invisible to my hurried eye.  I trust though, my body knows exactly what she is doing and over the past decade, I can see the shifts and sense her healing from the inside out.  

When one is contemplating pelvic floor work there are some important considerations.  May this short list help you decide on your timing or help you in the creation of your own readiness tool.  Each body is so unique.  Know that your readiness may require different pillars of support. It is in the recognizing of what I need, the magic happens.  Dr. Julie Von has a wonderful exercise she utilizes in helping folks find what they need as their foundation of wellness.  As women living within patriarchy sometimes the hardest question we can ask ourselves is, “What do I need?” These pillars once identified consciously are more able to help hold and support us as we facilitate our own healing.  I am applying the what are my pillars tool here in discovering what I need to move forward with this next step in my healing journey.   

1. space, time and financial resources
2. trusted/vetted facilitator be that a Pelvic floor PT, osteopath, Cranial Sacral/Myofascial, Priestess, sex therapist etc. 
3. community/professional/partner support
4. nervous system readiness

As an osteopathic physician that works with women at this stage of pelvic floor healing, I am now even more aware of the healing value of readiness that this journey requires.  I am so lucky today to be able to see the sacred timing.  Wherever you are on your healing journey, know I believe in you and your body.  This work matters.  And, the timing is all yours.

Recommended movement music to for this writing:

You Can’t Rush Healing by Trevor Hall

This Thanksgiving holiday was emotionally the safest and neurologically the longest parasympathetic stretch of my entire life.  I am the calmest and most grounded in my body I have ever been following this particular holiday.  The people that were allowed to gather near me this week created love sharing similar values.  Mostly, my time was spent with my son and my husband that I adore so deeply it goes beyond any written words.  I allowed myself to be cared for by myself and others.  Yesterday, I napped hard and would occasionally awaken and watch my husband clean our home as we prepared together for emerging from our nest back into the wide world.  I left last night and went to soak alone for 30 minutes in hot water and did not even consider taking my phone with me.  This is new.  So much is new as I close this holiday weekend that writing felt necessary for true integration.  This was not the adrenal-addled Thanksgiving of years past due to my own HARD decisions and emotional growth.

As a child of abuse my synapses were wired from infancy in fight or flight.  My biological father used a shotgun inside our house in rage.  Later he tried to kill my mother by cutting her brake lines and I lived through his violent presence in our home and my brain/body remembered. My mother was the child of an alcoholic and her transgenerational programming of neglect and abuse instructed my nervous system as well. My birth was her failed 16 year old escape plan from her family of origin. The repetition of abusive relationships shifted and changed over the years for both my mother and myself but only this year was I finally able to find clarity and truly cut from the web of the abuse of my childhood.  

I came into utter clarity this year and was forced to let go of both of my parents after I witnessed the abuse of my mother in my home.   

The patterns of abuse within my mother and step father’s relationship were less obvious than a shotgun being fired in the house and yet, the patterns and neurological impact were still there.  My clarity is this, the patterns of abuse ends with me. This cycle ends with me, mostly for the health and well-being of my own child and now I realize for the health of my of own neurology. Since distancing myself from both of my parents, living in my body feels very different and there has been so so much grief. Because of my growing clarity I bravely stood up immediately to witnessed abuse this past September and asked my step dad to leave my home. What ensued was scary and hurtful AND predictable behavior from an abusive person. AND, I stood strong in my clarity despite many attempts by my mother to smooth this over.

You can do all the work on yourself imaginable and if you still allow persons utilizing abuse in your presence, the cycle will continue. It gets extremely tricky when an abusive person is your parent or step parent.  I miss my mom every single day.  We were extremely close and talked daily AND I now see how her adult decisions are continuing to support this pattern of abuse.  Now we share only a few words once a week as I do not want to continue to enable her.  I do not miss my step father.  Over the past few months, I have been able to see more clearly the impact his unchecked abuse has had on our family over the past 30 years.  This week I received my last text from him and I finally blocked him from my cell phone.  Prior to making this choice I was able to tell him in utter clarity that I was afraid of him and no longer desired a relationship with him. 

Writing this blog is terrifying and cathartic as I have spent so much energy covering up for my family over the years.  It has been my job to pretend everything was ok when it never really was.  I was asked to call this man Dad when he never actually was a father to me.  I tried desperately as a teen to create something out of absolutely nothing because it was what I was given.  Today I consciously call that energy home.  I no longer need a father like I once did.  I am no longer the scared and lonely child I once was.  

I am whole. I am loved unconditionally and deeply. I consciously create my own safety and care.

I write today because I know with certainty that others spent the holidays with folks who may not be good for their nervous systems.  I write this because I want to continue to remind MYSELF that as grown ADULTS, we have a choice, always in who we stand closest to.  As children we have none and this helplessness can spread unconsciously into adulthood if we do not examine our choices.  

Nothing has been particularly easy about the choices I have made this year AND like many of the hard choices in life, the results are worth it. I choose to love my parents deeply from a distance that reflects their actual behaviors rather than an idealized child’s dream of an intact family. I embrace my clarity consciously again and again until it become habitual. And, in this choice I can come home, truly home within myself.

As many of you know reproductive rights have moved from the quiet shadows of conversations out into the wide open these past weeks, especially in Texas. I am grateful to see the attempts at repression resulting in a sisterhood of backlash in which women are beginning to drop the decades of shame that have saddled their lives and bodies. In telling their stories out loud, healing is happening at a profound level. My passion for women’s rights has been ignited and burns with such an intensity, my heart now glows visible from miles away. As a pediatrician it has been hard to figure out where my energy will be best utilized in this fight against patriarchy as I am not an obstetrician nor a lawyer and so my “frontline” is going to look more like a flank. My responsibility today is family education and preventative care.

Sex education in Texas schools at this time is extremely restrictive (abstinence curriculum only) and leaves the responsibility of actual sex education on the parents of these children. This is wonderful in some ways as I don’t want an anti LGBTQ nut in the Texas school system teaching my child a single thing about sex. The problem is this, not all kids have a parent around to feed and supervise them let alone sit down and have an awkward sex conversation. Not all parents know how a menstrual cycle works, their own fertility windows etc. Also, denial is an all too common coping strategy when it comes to teens and sexual activity and when utilized it is dangerous for all involved.

Average age for onset of sexual intercourse in the United States is 17 years. Firstly as 17 years is the reported average, mathematically it means some of these kids younger than 17 are sexually active. Ask your teacher friends if you want to really be horrified. I also want to be crystal clear, as a wise woman I don’t think a 14 year old has the spiritual capacity for intercourse nor its consequences. I am not pro young kids doing MANY of the things that they get up to and yet as a pediatrician and a trusted mother I get to be a real and a safe place for them to land when they get off course. In the state of Texas right now sexual education is paramount and could truly be life saving. It is critical for parents of children 14 years and up to create a reproductive sexuality box and GIVE it to their child.* You want the child to have the box and to store it where they choose. It is none of your business once teaching is complete and handed over UNLESS your child comes to you. Some children will, and some will not. Children need that privacy and autonomy to use this box correctly. Understand, owning a hammer doesn’t mean I need to immediately go out and build a house. However before I do build a house I need to practice swinging a hammer, yes? This is about having the tools. This is about opening the conversations and showing your kids what is out there to PROTECT them and their friends. Abstinence is great. Waiting until marriage is also a great recommendation. Just know reality is this, 95% of Americans have sex before marriage. Raising a child without a partner is hard AF. If you are the mother of a daughter right now, the reality of patriarchy is this, the majority of this responsibility financially and emotionally will fall on you and your daughter’s shoulders. It is not fair nor right AND we get to be REAL about what things are like currently as we work toward change.

Teen Sexuality Preparedness Box

1. Tampons/pads
2. Condoms
3. Water based lubricant
4. Plan B
5. Pregnancy Tests

Now the hard part. You cannot just give this stuff to a 14 year old without discussing what each tool is and how to use them. If this conversation is horrifying to you or you don’t feel like your understanding of the menstrual cycle and human reproduction are the strongest then I highly recommend the Unitarian Universalist OWL program. What I like about OWL is that they have classes for all ages and are inclusive and open. There are many other resources online and local sex educators will be free to comment and add links to what they offer. Also I am happy to help anyone with this topic for FREE. Please just reach out directly via the contact link.

These five are for ALL genders. This box does NOT change for boys, girls or other folx. So why tampons and pads? This is a gateway to talking about the menstrual cycle. Giving guys tampons helps demystify them and makes them that guy that is willing to go to the store to buy them for his girlfriend. Understanding the menstrual cycle empowers kids to know when they or their partner is most fertile. Condoms are a no brainer. It is the teen chosen tool of protection, wisely preventing both pregnancy and minimizing spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Put large amount of different brands of condoms. Share and trade with Mom/Dad friends. I would love to see teen parents getting together, sipping wine and joyfully building these boxes as a village. Give kids enough condoms that they can play and practice with them. Again swinging the hammer so that when it comes time to build, I know what I’m doing. These boxes are gender neutral. As much as young men need tampons and pads women need condoms. They get to know how to use them. Condom play is a phenomenal way to keep your teen healthy. The famous banana demonstration is great and there is nothing like giving a kid extra condoms and letting them work out the best way for them to get it on and off. Grasping the base of condom as one exits a sexual encounter is a skill and an important part of the discussion so that they don’t simply dump the contents into their partner. Water based lubricant is crucial in this kit. They can use this for healthy masturbation and water based lube is critical to keeping a condom intact. Oil based lubricants destroy condoms are often the easiest household type item kids will grab mistakenly. Make sure your kids know the difference between oils and water based lubricant and how to read labels. These same kids will leave for college soon and you want them ready! Plan B is a must in the teen box because condoms break, they can be slid off incorrectly especially with a newer user, and in a moment of passion, they can be forgotten all together. Plan B is available OTC and can also be found on Amazon. Check your expiration dates when they arrive. Make a note of the expiration date in your phone calendar/reminder and if your child hasn’t asked for another, just replace when expires. Plan B is a large dose of progesterone that blocks ovulation/implantation and works much like oral birth control. It will not abort a pregnancy that is already there. This is why it is critical that it be given immediately following a condom failure. This is why it is important to have the medication on hand as timing is key to the success of it use. The later it is given, the less efficacy this medication has. The package will say up to 72 hours but again every minute counts towards better efficacy. Pregnancy tests can be purchased at the Dollar Tree and help children know when they need immediate help. Teach kids WHEN to start testing. I would place at least 3-4 in the kit. And make sure that your child knows what a positive pregnancy test looks like and that it means you need trusted adult help immediately.

I hope this helps you get started and gives you ideas on how to help advocate for the continued health of your kids. Please reach out through the contact portion of the website with any private questions or in the comments if you think it will help others!

*see OWL link for age appropriate resources for younger children education ie naming body parts etc. Also know your child and their friends. Peers are a powerful influence. If you get wind through your 13yro of sexual activity in their class, give them the box!

****This article is not intended as medical advice. I am happy to schedule a telemed for anyone who needs personalized preventative care at this time. Most supplements in pregnancy are to be avoided. Please discuss their use with your midwife/physician

I have very limited time to write today but I woke up in Texas during the Delta wave with utter clarity that I need to teach folks how to find harmony with viruses. I am not sure that the general public knows that there are critical portions of our health that need to be considered beyond simply the vaccine available to us. Although Pfizer tech is moving in my body, I STILL have more work to do to stay healthy in the surge.

How many times have you been to the doctor and they say it’s just a virus and there is nothing we can do? From their perspective this is true. AND, developing immunity to viruses in our environment is key to us living in harmony with the smallest creatures among us. However, as most of you reading my blog know there are actually loads of options open to us to help the body navigate and prevent full on take over.

1. Nutrition status
2. Rest
3. Supplements
4. Inflammation status
5. Listen to your body

For some of you wise ones, just reading this list will gently remind you, ok yes I know what to do. For some of you, you will read this list and think F I have let things slide a bit. It’s ok. I slide too. It is part of ease! As awareness arrives again, we begin again!

1. Nutrition Status

This will look unique for every single body. There is not one particular diet that I recommend. HOWEVER, simple carbs (white carbs/processed foods) and simple sugars are the devil to the immune system. The way they act on the body is related to our inflammation status. They cause oxidative stress on our systems. Basically this means that they cause small fires in the body. COVID can cause a forest fire in certain immune systems. You do not want little fires already burning when it arrives. Vit C, D and Zinc are critical to healthy immune function. If your diet is not rich in these or your digestion isn’t strong, I highly recommend supplementing these.

2. Rest

My prayer is that each of us have learned the value of rest. In my mind this is what COVID came to teach us. No more working ourselves to death for nothing. To put an end to the over scheduling of both ourselves and our children. There is NO healing without ease. Our immune system only functions optimally when it has the space and resources to do so. If you are continuing to give yourself away and hold nothing back for yourself, this will be a more difficult illness. If you get away with it this time, another lesson will come. As a society, we must learn how to create more ease in us and around us. It is the only path to healing our bodies and the planet that supports us.

3. Supplements

For each of you this category will look unique! For my body I use both olive leaf extract and Ban Lan Gen (Hawaii Pharmacy brand). The reason I use these two particular antivirals is that they are both have anti inflammatory effects as well. My body has a tendency toward the small stress fires I described above. There are many more out there. Each virus requires distinct antivirals. There are ongoing studies on both of these supplements for their effectiveness in supporting the immune system during COVID. I discovered olive leaf research when I was in residency as it was being studied in the treatment of HIV. Ban Lan Gen came to me later as a T cell balancing herb from TCM and later I discovered the MANY viral illnesses that it has been found effective against. It is an herb that must be given early as it effects viral replication. Where as olive leaf is actually being studied in COVID ICU patients that are already deathly ill. Most likely this stems from the powerful anti-inflammatory effects of olive leaf.

4. Inflammation Status

So if you’re a person that knows they shouldn’t be eating bread or dairy, now is the time to tighten up the reins a bit. Our baseline inflammation status is related to both our nutritional status/gut health, our genetics and our lived trauma. Our nervous system and our immune system are tightly woven together. You may have thought this was going to be a paragraph on NSAIDs… maybe just for a moment. Remember initially when COVID broke and there was that strange relationship between increased death and ibuprofen usage? NSAIDs overly used are actually immunosuppressive. Delicate use of NSAIDs is a beautiful thing but overuse is what I most typically see. Parents afraid of fever, discomfort end up overloading themselves or their children with unnecessary medications. COVID has been a wonderful entry point for teaching the value of fever! This to say, if you know you may be coming down with COVID do NOT be tempted to take fistfuls of Advil. As an adult a baby aspirin may be a better choice (still not for kids!) to help take the edge off the discomfort. Very few children run high fevers with COVID and I do not recommend the use of ibuprofen for them either.

Instead again olive leaf, quercetin, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green juices (if you have the digestive strength), bone broth, alkaline water, avoid dairy/gluten, avoid simple carbs, avoid processed foods

I would not take all of these at once. I live on some of these because of baseline autoimmune issues. I swear by food. Yes supplements are fast and easy but a yummy turmeric ginger soup made with love will both nourish you and provide you the biochemical support you need! Cooking slows us down as well. This is particularly true when we stop to make food from scratch. Obviously if you have COVID you won’t feel much like cooking for a few days but DO ALLOW OTHERS TO COOK and drop off homemade foods FOR YOU!!!!!!

5. Listen to your body

I was initially so clear that the mRNA vaccine wasn’t for me due to my health issues. And I waited 6 months and held a clear NO, against so much cultural pressure as a physician. In June something changed. It was clear as day. Like a bell went off. My body asked for a booster (I had already had very mild native disease ~a year prior). I had been following what was happening in India, knew the required travel that was coming for my family this year and it became clear I was going to need some western magic to support me as the next surge hit. I am so happy I listened. For some of you the vaccine is still a heck no for your body. I support this. I will always support embodied awareness and medical choice. Unlike the media thinks, I know we are not all immunologically the same. It may not be for you. If it isn’t, please do all the things you know how to do to be ready to be with this virus. There will be no hiding this time and we CAN be READY!!!!!!

I love each of you and pray for your continued vibrant health in this surge.