Wellness Wednesday: Well Lifestyle Experiments, An Invitation!

Today on Wellness Wednesday I wanted to launch a new series here at the happyluau called "Well Lifestyle Experiments" (WLE). I invite each of you to join in! This series will focus on healthy lifestyle habits, healthy aging, well being, and experimenting with supportive habits. It is an EXPERIMENT--for me, for you. With each post, I'll focus on one thing that I want to experiment with and invite you to consider it too--of course modifying it to fit your unique lifestyle and way of being in the world. In the comments we can discuss this topic and share how it's working out for us as well.

The goal of Well Lifestyle Experiments for both of us will be to figure out which habits or ideas support the lifestyle we want and which ones we want to sustain and incorporate into who we are. And to encourage each other on our journeys to live healthier, feel better, think supportively, and be authentic. So if you are reading this, consider yourself invited!


I have a wealth of ideas to start with. Initially, I'm going to choose meaningful practices from several sources: 


(1) Lessons--incredible lessons--I learned from my visit with Kelly Kikipotamus the Hobo in March. 


(2) Ideas from friends who have embraced a well-being focus, like Kate Iredale. 


(3) The Radiant Goddess e-course that I am taking, along with my friends Lori-Lyn Hurley and Jessie Marianiello. 


(4) Stuff I read elsewhere, things that the Universe serendipitously brings my way. 


(5) Great ideas you mention to me in the comments that make me want to blog and share them with everyone, instead of leaving them semi-buried and away from the search engines. 


The cool thing is that as we are going along, helping each other, I'm thinking that others will find these posts and be inspired to create healthier lifestyles, maybe in just one small area--but every small step can make a really big difference over time! Many lives can be changed for the better. 

Wellness Wednesday : Hormones, Dare, and a Birthday!

This Wellness Wednesday I am recovering from a long day yesterday at a doctor's office and a blood lab to have my hormones evaluated. Everything went very well, it's just going to take a while. My lab results won't be back for three weeks. This doctor works primarily with bio-identical hormones, as opposed to my regular doctor who doesn't believe in them and thus wasn't supportive of my efforts to have her test and monitor my use of them.

I could tell that I needed some type of adjustment because in the past few weeks I have only slept in spurts punctuated by hot flashes, have had very low energy (even for me), and have cut back on my activities to only those functions that I must do, cutting down to almost nothing outside the home. Dressing and grooming are exhausting to me and require recovery time...this is no way to live unless it is necessary.

So for the next few weeks while waiting for the blood tests, I'll be doing some monitoring with the new doctor, taking a basic dietary supplement that she likes, and starting on a low dose of Armour thyroid. The latter is very controversial, (see here and here if you are interested in why). Years ago I studied the issue in depth and was on Armour thyroid for several years but ten years ago conventional doctors took me off of it. So we shall see. I'm going to be "hanging in there" for a little while yet.

Mildly disappointed to go a few more weeks like this, but happy to find a path that could lead to wellness and a full life. More hours awake. Less time spent exhausted. (I almost wrote "Less time spent spent.")

If you haven't watched the 90 second video I call "Dare, Unforgettable", please do. I'm reposting it here, again, to encourage you to see it and be inspired:





And last, but certainly not least, today is the birthday of Rick, ever fabulous, my good friend and Official Voluntary happyluau Editor Extraordinaire. Rick is also 14X Winner of the "Man, Did You Help Me Out Award". He describes himself as a Sufi mystic masquerading as a former (ouch) corporate IT manager. He is also the OFG, a proud PV, father of four marvelously creative and powerful daughters, and second banana to his wife, author Julia Rogers Hamrick.

A fantastic Happy Birthday to you, Rick, with wishes for a Shining Year!

Dove's Latest Pro-Age Ad Banned in US

Catching up on back emails, I recently read in Melissa Gayle West's newsletter that this ad was "shown in the UK and Canada" and "was banned from TV in the US." Can you believe it? Melissa writes, "Seems we can show "perfect" teen bodies doing just about anything, but this tasteful ad is off limits." What do you think?

Coming back from Hawaii, and seeing sensuous bodies at all ages dancing the hula and more, I am shocked that such a tame ad would be rejected by our culture. What is up with our American culture, ladies?

If you missed it, click here to see Dove's Banned Pro-Age Ad.

Midlife

"At midlife more than at any other time, we have a renewed opportunity to reinvent ourselves and fuel our lives from Spirit."---Christiane Northrup, via daily inspiration

This is so, so true. At midlife, it is a time to celebrate. If you're not at midlife, look forward to it, and plan for it to be a time of re-creation!

~Picture from Hubbie Mark

Lost and Found---Little Joys

I was going through my office megapile of "To Do" stuff today and I found my long-lost camera. Which tells you how often I revisit my office paperwork. A special friend had visited us this last week, and I have no pictures of the visit, because the camera was lost throughout. Despite numerous frustrating futile searches, I knew I would find it someday, though (since I knew I'd never taken it out of my house!), attributing its misplacement to menopausal fog, and sure enough, that's what happened. So here's a picture of me rejoicing that my lost camera is now found. Bonus: another rare picture of my husband happy, since I know he will be when he reads this and hears the news! I call this picture "soft eyes" because he is looking at the camera not just with happiness but with tenderness. I was so glad to have captured this moment and to have my trusty little camera back again!



~Picture by Me, Glad to Have Found My Camera

Menopause---Out of the Closet

I want to thank Tinker for the title of this post, based on a comment she left on my blog today. Tinker is a blogger friend who is very creative...check out her blog here. She told me about a terrific menopause blog, called mymenopauseblog.com. It is truly about time that menopause comes out of the closet, as tinker said, and that we begin to celebrate this empowering passage! I am definitely getting into resources that frame aging as the wonderful process that it can be, instead of just a time to mourn losses. Yes, there are losses, as with every stage of life, but there are far more reasons to celebrate!



~Picture by Hubbie Mark

Menopause and Menstruation

I have another great blog to tell you about---musemother---which today had a beautiful posting about menopause. Women my age will appreciate this, but it is a worthwhile read for younger women also to appreciate what they have to look forward to. Menopause is an interesting time that can be celebrated, not endured. Via Jennifer Boire, the author of musemother, I found another interesting link to the Museum of Menstruation, which is of course, a virtual museum. Take a few minutes to visit...


~Picture by Hubbie Mark

Good Links Wednesday

Here are some random and interesting things I've read today:

First of all, the bizarre mating habits of the anglerfish on the thinking blog. Read the whole article; I'm not interested in fish at all, but this makes me think about life and creation and ummm...our mating habits as humans.



Sometimes I feel like I'm a turmagent wife. Probably because some days I am a turmagent wife. This is a great new word. If you're not signed up for Word of the Day, why not?

Do you want to go to Hawaii really inexpensively? Here's a way to plan a trip for the fall or winter. It's not first-class, but, hey, it's Hawaii! A week in Hawaii for airfare and hotel under $500 or $600 doesn't come along that often. I've saved for three years to go on my 50th birthday trip this summer and my ticket alone cost more than that! And it's only $435 from LA to Waikiki for the flight, five nights in a hotel, a welcome lei, and breakfast the first day. Check it out.

This was sent to me by D. about aging. It's from The New Yorker. Did you know that for all of history until the past couple of hundred years, the expected life span for a human was only about 30 years of age? So "aging", as we do it today, is a fairly new field of study. Aging fascinates me. I want to be able to age well. This article is about some of the realities of aging and of the field of geriatrics.

Lastly, here is a movie recommendation for thoughtful people---The Great New Wonderful. It is definitely not a ha-ha funny comedy, as it's being billed. Nor is it light-hearted as the title implies. It's a sort of dark drama with comedic moments that is absolutely haunting. It's ostensibly about five New Yorkers and the details of their lives a year after 9/11. The characters were not involved in the 9/11 tragedy directly, but it shows how stress has affected each of their lives and the conclusions they've arrived at by the end of the movie. When I watched it the first time I thought "This is just dumb", but since then, I've never had a movie haunt me so much. The more I think about it the more meaning I find in it. It's one I'm going to buy. Have you ever watched a movie like that? I usually either love them or feel like I've wasted my time. So this movie is definitely different. It has to "sink in". If you have someone to watch movies with who enjoys discussing them afterwards (and your friend is pretty intelligent and introspective), go for it. I absolutely can't stop thinking about it!



~Photo of Anglerfish by David Paul/Mark Norman, ACF via the thinking blog
~Photo of Hawaiian gal by Me
~Photo of Forest by Hubbie Mark

Real Beauty

I finished a book this week that I highly recommend for every woman---"I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame", by Brene Brown.



Anyway, this from the book really got me thinking:

"When Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty was launched a couple of years ago, I asked women how they felt about seeing "real" women in their panties and bras (versus super-thin models). I was not surprised to hear half the women say they didn't like it."

Ok, so this is half the women!! I have written, very positively, about Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty here and have a video they produced here. Now I read that it is women---women---who are upset with the campaign! Here is more:

"Many described their reaction this way: "I know it's probably a great thing, but I had a very negative emotional reaction when I saw it." Some women felt "embarrassed for the models" and others said, "It doesn't inspire me to look better or lose weight." Basically what I heard two years ago is what I still hear from women today: "I know it's empowering and wonderful, but my gut reaction is...You're too fat and not perfect enough---put some clothes on." It's imporatant to understand that most of the women who struggle with their emotional reaction to the Dove models look like the Dove models...beauty has been defined for us so often and in such insidious ways that we now support and buy into the definition, as if it were our own. The result is disastrous: We don't want to see ourselves reflected back to us in magazines because we're not perfect, thin or beautiful enough to be valued. Ironically, the only way to free ourselves...is to reclaim our real power---the power to create and live by our own definitions."

Well, I look just like the Dove models and I think it's great. But something inside me hurts---really hurts---for those women who look like me and yet feel "less than". Or not beautiful.

Yesterday I overheard a man make a comment, "I feel sorry for him because he's married to that woman." The person speaking didn't know "that woman". I asked, "What do you mean?" and when pressed, he admitted, "Well, she's fat." The woman was beautiful, elegant, and yes, somewhat overweight. The man speaking knew nothing else about her, and was a portly man himself. I felt sorry for the man, but knew that he reflected perfectly my culture's view of women. I felt sad for him that he is culture-bound and severely limited in his ability to appreciate and know women. But how many men are like this? It really makes me wonder.

I am tired of my culture's definition. I think it's time for us Baby Boomer women to stand up and present a positive alternative to our culture's stereotypes of women, as with Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. I think it's time for us too, to appreciate the men who know and appreciate us, and to acknowledge and recognize them for not buying into silly manufactured stereotypes. Do you know a man like this? Thank him for not being an asshole a patsy and for having the courage to think for himself. Give him a big hug and a kiss today :)

Beautiful Rolls

Here's an absolutely gorgeous picture of a woman in Dove's Pro-Age campaign. She has the most beautiful rolls of curvaceous flesh I've ever seen. I've blogged about the Pro-age campaign previously.

Dove's ad campaign targets pre-menopausal and post-menopausal Baby Boomer women. I must say that it is effective, at least for this Baby Boomer. I'm looking forward to new ways of aging as I prepare to turn 50. It's the most exciting exploration of my life. I know that I'm going to age differently from previous generations, but I'm now sure just how. There are plenty of role models around in the media and in my life, and I'm observing, processing, and defining for myself what aging will mean to me.

Check out this article: Campaign for Real Beauty Uncovers the Beauty of Women over 50. Dove wants to demonstrate that "women are genuinely stunning -- at any age"...

 "Dove seeks to create an attitudinal change in the anti-aging category
-- from negative and fear-driven to affirmative and hope-driven," says
Kathy O'Brien, Dove Marketing Director. "Pro-age is about looking great for
your age."

Affirmation and hope versus negation and fear. Sounds good to me. I also agree with Dove's "Beauty Comes of Age" survey, that:

• I am too young to be "old"!
• Past generations of women over 50 were not doing the things women over 50 are doing today.
• The media and advertising need to do a better job of representing realistic images of women over 50.
• Society is less accepting of appearance considerations for women over 50 than their younger counterparts, with showcasing one's body the least acceptable.

Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty site is here.

Pro-Age

Don't you just love the Dove "Pro-Age" campaign? The idea that Dove (the company who makes Dove soap) has is to celebrate being whatever age you are and looking beautiful at that age. They use the motto "beauty has no age limits". A few months ago they came out with "Dove Evolution", a commercial showing how an average woman's appearance is manipulated to fit what we have come to expect in our media:



Now they are stepping out even further, showing in their ads and commercials real women of various shapes and ages. Currently, in O Magazine, there is a beautiful, tasteful nude picture of a 64-year-old grandmother. Visit Dove's "Campagin for Real Beauty" to learn more. Or take a peek at their Pro-Age web site. It is SO about time. This campaign is truly countercultural and I love it. Why should we not feel beautiful at our age---we are beautiful! It's about time that our media begins to turn around the unhealthy messages they promote about girls and women who do not meet the "size 0" stereotype. I commend Dove for their campaign, for taking the lead in this area. For getting in line with reality. And true beauty, which is not created with cosmetics and a scalpel, but comes from the inside and radiates on the outside. Thank you, Dove.