Peace Chiropractic Arts

Gentle, vitalistic chiropractic in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn

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Posture: The One Word that Can Change Your Behavior Instantly

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Posture.

You just sat up, didn’t you?

The word, itself, reminds people of the importance of good posture.

We all know that good posture is important.  But why?

Here’s Why

Do you know that your posture can literally determine your mental health? Your emotional health?

How successful you can expect to become?

Here’s one thing I notice about living in Amsterdam, home of some of the tallest people in the world: A good majority of them stoop over.

A lot.

They do the same thing that New Yorkers do, regarding cell phones (known here as “mo-bile” phones). They walk down the street, bent over the tiny screens, typing as they walk…walking into traffic, bikes, me*…

[pullquote align=”normal”]*…by the way, that makes me crazy. I wish these people would just pull over to the side of a building and do their business. Why do these people walk down the street like a zombie, colliding with everything like its nothing?* [/pullquote]

…but I digress…

However, many Amsterdammers tend to slump over without the phones.

They slump over while talking to friends, while eating at a restaurant, sitting at their desks, when speaking in front of a room full of people…its as if they have an imaginary ceiling over their heads, and they have to perpetually duck as to not hit it!

Then I watch the older Amsterdammers, those in their 50s, and 60s, let alone their 70s and 80s, trying to walk down the streets.

Many of them shuffle, their upper backs now deformed after years of stooping, and the gravitational weight of their forward head carriage has worn down their low backs’ ability to stabilize the rest of their body, so their legs are weak from nerve system interference.

Many of them have walkers, or are even in wheel chairs.

Goodness knows about their ability to go to the bathroom, have sex, or even climb the stairs, let alone their ability to enjoy the sailboats in the canals or the beautiful parks on bicycles.

It’s really sad to see, because the Dutch are a very proud people.  One can see, as they make their way slowly down the street shuffle by shuffle, that their lack of independence at a relatively young age is extremely humiliating to them.

It’s unnecessary

It’s so unfortunate, because it is so easy to fix.

One simply needs to adjust their spines and change their posture. And keep doing it.

Americans are not immune.  We slump.  A lot.

It affects everything we do.

It even affects our hormones.  Forward head carriage and slumped shoulders are primal stances of fear and depression.

When we slump forward and rest our weight on our rib cage, we are telling our bodies that we are in danger and that we are helpless.

In contrast, sitting and standing straight, head held high, shoulders open, chest open and available, tells our bodies that we are not only all right, but that we are strong, happy, and victorious.

posture

Amy Cuddy, researcher at Harvard University, and her team, tested this theory out in a series of famous studies; the results of which she presented in a famous TED talk in 2012.

She and her team found that testosterone and cortisol levels improved dramatically after just TWO MINUTES of what they called, “high-power positions,” vs. “low-power” positions.

postureposturepostureThat’s huge.

When we carry ourselves straight and tall, strong in our core, our brain and spinal cord are able to function with less interference and are able to clear waste products from our cerebral spinal fluid into our lymph nodes. This is crucial for brain and body health.

Posture affects

The following quote is attributed to The American Journal of Pain Management. I can’t confirm right now it that is true; if it is, it was written in or before 1991.  However, the quote is said very concisely:

[pullquote align=”normal”]“Posture affects and moderates every physiological function, from breathing to nervous system function, and despite the considerable evidence that posture affects physiology and function, the significant influence of posture on health is not addressed by most physicians.” [/pullquote]

Can you imagine if it is true? That we’ve know this for at least 30 years?

You know that there is a lot of worry about the increasing incidences of Alzheimer’s disease these days.  Did you know that recent research suggests that brisk, purposeful walking 30 minutes a day can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 60%?

There’s not a drug out there that can come close to matching that.

How much more effective do you think these results would be if we employed open, strong, proper posture to our walking?

No shortage of help

There is no shortage of postural and fitness professionals who teach the importance core strength and postural alignment.  Yoga teachers, Pilates teachers, all the martial arts, therapeutic exercise, strength training, Rolfers, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Technique…of course, the list goes on.

When we have been stuck in a rut of poor posture, chiropractic care is crucial to the success of any program of postural success.

How Chiropractic Helps Posture

When we hold our bodies in any position for a long period of time, the body creates fibrous connective tissue to hold us in that position because it thinks we want to stay in that position.

Even the bones will grow extra bone to try to stabilize the body in a position in which we repeatedly place ourselves. That’s called osteoarthritis.

If the spine starts to do that, the extra bone can grow into the spinal canal and the foramen where nerves pass. That’s when we can get severe nerve interference.

posturepostureposture

If you find it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve healthy posture, it is critical that you get chiropractic care.

Chiropractic care breaks up the adhesions in the spine and joints of the body. It allows free movement of the vertebrae, and thus minimizes interference to the nervous system at the junction of the brain/spinal cord and the peripheral nerves of the body.

It allows the success of using every other technique.

But you can start today. Right now.

Here’s how.

Standing

Get up against a wall, feet shoulder-width apart.  Touch the back of your head and your rear end to the wall. Roll your shoulders back until your shoulder blades are flat against the wall. Drop your shoulders.

That weird feeling you’re feeling is proper posture.

At your desk

The top of your monitor should be level with your eyes. Your legs, arms and hands should all be at a 90-degree angle with the rest of your body. Your keyboard should be close. Make your spine straight by lifting yourself up from your pelvis and tummy. Breathe into your tummy, not your shoulders.

And get up and shake it out every 15 minutes.

Walking down the street

Put the phone away, or use headphones to talk, straighten up and walk forward.

Using your phone

Bring the phone to eye level – not your head to phone level. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. So what? Are you afraid of a little upper body strength

When talking with short people (like me)

Stand tall, look down at me with your eyeballs. As long as your manner is jolly and not snobby, I won’t take offence.  Make me straighten up to talk to you.  It’s good for me, too.

It will make us both jolly. Literally, it will make us happier, healthier people.

For Two Minutes

If you can do any of the above and hold if for just TWO MINUTES, you can improve your health by a magnitude!

Imagine if you hold it for longer? Hours? Days? Months? Years?

How happy and healthy can you make yourself if you do just this? Absolutely free?

C’mon. Straighten up. It’s worth it.

Mosquito Season Sucks

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“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” –Dalai Lama XIV

I don’t know why I thought that there were no mosquitos in Europe.

I especially don’t know why I thought there were no mosquitos in Amsterdam, a city that is literally made of landfill and canals.

It is most egregiously frustrating to have a summer of breezy cool nights punctuated by puncture marks and itchy lumps on my skin.

I do have a few tricks I use to deal with these suckers.

Tea Tree Barrier

mosquito season sucksmosquito season sucks

Mix 4 parts water to 1 part tea tree oil.  Spray around the windows, the doors, and the upper walls of the room.  They hate that.

Rub yourself with herbs.

The following herbs are anathema to mosquitos.  If you have a garden, these are nice plants to have around.  Take some of the leaves, crush them in your hand, and rub the essence on the joints of your arms and legs.

  • Rose Geranium
  • Lemon Thyme
  • Cedar
  • Lemon Eucalyptus
  • Peppermint
  • Citronella
  • Lavender
  • Lemongrass

mosquito season sucks

If you’re not into the herb garden thing, go to the health food store and buy some with some combination of these ingredients. I keep a spray bottle of a local brand, Bzzz Away, in my purse now. I’m armed.

Here’s some other ideas:

Air out your rooms.

Mosquitos like carbon dioxide, so make sure your rooms have free flowing air.

Don’t go to bed sweaty.

Mosquitos are first attracted to carbon dioxide, and then the sweat on the skin. Try to make sure your skin is clean of sweat at bedtime, and that the room is comfortable.

Avoid twilight hours outdoors.

Twilight is when those blood suckers come out.  Time to duck inside at twilight.

Avoid standing water.

Mosquitos breed in standing water, so mothers trying to get enough nourishment to grow her eggs are going to hang out around standing water.

So remember…

Running in the heat near standing water at twilight: prepare for feasting beasties!

Have a beautiful, suck-free summer!

Sometimes Being There is Enough

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One of the reasons I chose chiropractic as a profession is that I like to fix things.

I think I got this from my mother. Whenever I asked a question, she had an answer.

Sometimes, it was a wrong answer. But to her, that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was to have an answer. To be of service.

She was letting me know she was there.

Bless her heart: I don’t think she knew she was doing it.

I think her mother also had an answer for everything.  I didn’t have the privilege of knowing her mother very well, but the family stories suggest that answers flowed like water from MeMa O’Grady.

It was her way of showing she cared.

Being of service has always been a strong calling in my family, on both sides. We have a rich tradition of spiritual leaders, former police officers, writers, health care providers, volunteer caregivers, teachers, veterans, artists, musicians, etc…in our family.  The O’Gradys and the Fitzpatricks have a history of service, and of wanting to serve.

Of course, I adopted the habit. Being of service drives everything I do.

So I know that of which I speak when I say, you don’t always have to fix the problem.

The important thing is not always the answer.

The important thing is being there.

My patients brought that lesson home to me over the years.

When I first got into practice, I thought I had to know everything. That I had to have all the answers.

The first time I was able to bring myself to say, “I don’t know,” was a huge relief.

Sometimes the subluxation — a subtle, physical interference to the nervous system — manifests because of an emotional block, like the feeling that we are facing our challenges alone.

Chiropractic is like that. When the nervous system is free to express itself, sometimes what happens along with the physical release is a revelation.

When that happens, I have learned that my place is to witness and hug.

 

We don’t know how to fix everything.

None of us do.

None of us really know what its like to walk in our neighbors’ shoes. None of us truly understand the perspective of our children, our partners, our parents. None of us can fix all of the others’ problems.

We all go through transitions that are painful, sometimes irreversibly so.  It is the way of things.

Some things cannot be fixed, even if we desperately want to fix them.

Sometimes, all that’s required of us is our presence, to witness and to let the one in pain know that we are there.

Be love. Be there.

I know this message will reach someone who needs it today, right now.

Trust me.

Be love. Just be there.

Here’s Five (Plus A Bonus!) Ways to Healthify Your Hair

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Want to healthify your hair?

I know, healthify isn’t really a word. But why would you not want to healthify your hair?

I was questioning if I should chime in on this whole hair thing and all.  I don’t have naturally long, luxurious, thick hair.  My hair is very fine, and as the years pass, I find I have less of it than I once did.

But I have to tell you: the hair I have now is WORLDS healthier than the hair I had when I was younger. It’s not even close.

I figured out these well-earned secrets like I have learned most of my hard-earned lessons in life: from 40 years of doing the wrong thing.

I am GIFTING YOU my 40 some odd years of trial and error here.  So, save yourself a couple of decades and read on!

1. Don’t wash your hair every day

My friend on Instagram, who has GORGEOUS hair, by the way, validated this for me last week. If you wash your hair every day, you’re asking for breakage.

Do you remember the movies in which the actress would say they can’t do anything that evening because they were “washing their hair?”

That used to kill me, because I used to wash my hair every single morning. I was so paranoid that my hair would look greasy and oily that it became just the opposite.

I used to have ridiculous split ends that no amount of conditioning could fix.

It wasn’t until I became an entrepreneur that I figured out that washing my hair less frequently helped it stay healthy.

When you work for yourself, you delegate all your time very judiciously. There’s no one else to do it for you, so you have to really regiment your time well…right down to the amount of time it takes to make a meal, to work out, to commute to work, to get ready for bed.

In the beginning, when I wasn’t yet very good at it, my choices started to look like this:

I can either shower or eat breakfast.

When faced with that choice, if I showered/washed my hair the day before, unless I did something extremely body-intensive that morning, breakfast won.

My hair started to get healthier without my even noticing.

I wash my hair two…maybe three…times a week now. I actually schedule my high-intensity exercise around my wash days so that I don’t have to wash my hair more.

2. Make sure your diet is healthy and includes healthy fats and proteins.

I know. So obvious, but it has to be stated.

If your body doesn’t have proper fuel for its nervous system, your bones, muscles, etc…It’s going to conserve its energy and allocate resources from “expendables,” like your hair.  Less effective nutrition = nasty hair (skin and nails, too).

Before I really knew something about nutrition, back in the 80s and 90s, I used to get my eating tips from popular books and vegetarian magazines. It’s not that they were wrong all the time – a lot of their advice I still use today. But back then, fats – all fats — were considered evil.

The covers of these magazines almost always featured a big plate of pasta tossed with colorful nightshade vegetables and silken, “low fat” tofu.

Make sure you get a healthy balance of Omega 3-6-9-7, fats and foods rich in proteins in your diet. If you work out, use undenatured minimally processed whey protein or, if you’re a vegetarian, use an appropriate pea-hemp protein.

Run from saturated, processed, hydrogenated fats and deep fried carbs.

Here’s an overall lifestyle tip: if you’ve seen it in a commercial, chances are that you shouldn’t eat or use it.

3. Use hair products that are all-natural, and sourced organically.

You have to do your homework here. It’s hard to find products that don’t have cancer-causing chemicals in them.  Two brands I can recommend off the bat are Acure and Aubrey Organics.

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If you want to geek out on this stuff like I do, this is a MUST USE source: Environmental Working Group.

I refer to this site all the time. They have a database that details exactly how toxic a chemical is, so you can go to the store armed with knowledge.  YOU MUST make this one of your go-to pages!

4. When you wash your hair, towel dry it BEFORE putting conditioner on.

This has been huge for me.  I don’t know why, but one day it dawned on me that my hair was so wet, the conditioner just thinned out.  So I towel dried my hair before I put the conditioner on, in the shower.

While my hair was in a towel, I shaved my underarms.  I took the towel off, I saturated my hair with the conditioner, and I went about shaving my legs while the conditioner was on my head.

That leads to # 5:

5. Leave the conditioner on for 5+ minutes, then rinse for 10 seconds.

Don’t just do the 60-second wait. Schedule your shower tasks around the conditioner. Leave it on for at least 5 minutes, and when you rinse, don’t rinse your hair until it squeaks! Rinse for 10 seconds (give or take a second).  You know… one Mississippi…two Mississippi…etc…

Here’s a bonus round:

**Bonus**:

[pullquote align=”normal”]Let your hair dry about 85% before you put a dryer to it. Use a high-powered ionic hair dryer and dry it completely. [/pullquote]

When you’re out of the shower, towel-dry, brush your wet hair, and go about putting your lotion, deodorant, perfume, makeup…let your hair dry on your head.

When its about 85% dry, use a hair dryer that is over 2000 watts strong. If you want straight hair, use the flat head funnel adaptor; if you want curls, use the round knobby adaptor.  Dry your hair COMPLETELY. Then use the cold-shot button to set your hair with the cold air.

If you do these things, you’re going to see immediate improvement and obvious results in 3-6 months.

I know you have a tip. Please share!

Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less

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I made a Facebook video, “Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less,” last April.

I embedded the video below.

But first…you need to know that the reason I posted it isn’t the reason I gave in the video itself.

I want you to know why I posted it.

I posted it because something happened to a woman on Facebook.

Last April, a woman with whom I am friends (but I don’t really know all that well; I met her at a conference years ago) on Facebook begged her Facebook friends to please be gentle.

It was regarding the death of a murderer who had just killed an innocent man.

This woman, 60 years of age, had grown up next door to the murderer and his family.  The parents and siblings of the murderer were her friends.

Her post was a preemptive plea.

The news had just broken and she was anticipating the venom that can arise in these matters.

She knew the family was going through their special version of hell.

I was going to quote her, but she has since removed the post.

Apparently, the plea fell on blind eyes and people posted vicious responses. That’s why she removed it.

I’ll try to paraphrase her post from my memory.

In essence, she wrote:

“Please be kind. I know it is in our nature to verbally attack and condemn people and situations of which we only know little. Please be respectful of the families who in this case are truly innocent, have to deal with the aftermath. Please know that they are truly remorseful for the victims of their family member’s actions and wish them only peace and love. Please respect their humanity.”

Reacting vs. Responding

When we are outraged, it is easy to forget that, sometimes, people need kindness and understanding.

This is a great big world with many people. They are living many stories.

Sometimes, these stories collide.

Social media often provides a sense of separateness, as if the people to whom we respond aren’t real.  That they aren’t human. That they deserve viciousness that we would never dare utter to a soul face to face.

When we feel that rage, it is crucial that we take a breath before we react.

When we pause and take a moment to respond, we are taking charge of our emotions.  We are taking charge of our morality.

We are taking charge of our inner and outer health.

Reacting online is a type of road rage.

I sometimes fall into this trap.

I sometimes hear a news report and I inwardly fly off the handle.

It is during these times I apply the technique outlined in the video below.

So in the video, I lied. A little.

In the video, I told my viewers it was about getting rid of headaches.

And it is.

But that’s not why I made the video that day.

I really was thinking of the woman who pleaded for written mercy and who was denied that mercy.

It was for her that I made the video.

Reacting with hatred hurts everyone.

What happened to her, to her friends; indeed, to the victim, seems endemic these days.

Whether online or in the flesh, people who react violently and ignorantly seem like they are in our face 24/7.

Of course this has an affect on our outlook, the way we see the world, and our health.

There are tons of studies that show that rage hurts our physiology, as well as the physiology of everyone who is a receiver of that rage.

Rage itself is a killer.

I, too, have to remind myself that the only way out of the morass of moral chaos is calm, stillness, compassion, and peace.

The video below teaches how to chill out in five minutes or less. It teaches how to gain that peace quickly.

Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less

[video_page_section type=”custom” position=”default” image=”https://joyhealthandbodyworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Chill-Out-In-Five-Minutes-or-Less.png” btn=”light” heading=”Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less” subheading=”A Meditation for Your Mind and Your Head” cta=”Do this right now!” video_width=”1080″ ][/video_page_section]

If the above link doesn’t work, you can watch it here.

There is no downside that I know of regarding following its instructions. The worst that can happen is that you fall asleep.

The best is realizing that you have control of your inner situation, and if that’s true, that you have control of your outer situation.

Use this technique. It is my gift.

It is my gift to you and to me.

Let’s all remember to take a step back and focus on our own journey before we insult and judge those who we feel “safe” to condemn.

This is my mission:

To help us clear our nervous system of stress so we can get to the business of living well.

If we can live well, we will gear our efforts toward helping each other rather than hurting each other.

Over the last ten years, I have helped many people reduce interference to their brain and nerve systems via chiropractic adjustments, lifestyle adjustments, and mindset adjustments.

It is the single most important thing in the world to me.

I am opening my chiropractic practice this week in Amsterdam. I am SUPER EXCITED about that!!!

I am also so grateful that technology has gotten us to a point in which I am available around the world through my online coaching company, JOY! Health and Bodyworks.

What I do in JOY is everything I do for my patients in the office, minus the chiropractic adjustments.

Those you need to get from your local chiropractor, and I can help with that. I also help you find practitioners like psychologists and counselors to aid the process as well.

Those are just some of the bonuses with working with me in JOY!

You can take a look at my programs here.

You have a blessed day. Talk to you soon!

Opioid Addiction, Chiropractic, and a Single Payer Option

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I met a woman here in the Netherlands whose husband has been struggling with opioid addiction for 10 years now.

It’s hard on her, her husband, and her marriage.

Very hard.

She said that, for the last 10 years, she has been living with a different man than who she married.  She told me she’s not even sure the man she married exists anymore.

She’s been struggling with thoughts of suicide.  Her own.

Things seem to be looking up, though.  He has finally agreed to enter a rehab here in the Netherlands.

Luckily, the health care system here is such that it will not abandon them, and it will not bankrupt them.

The opioid crisis is global. Thank goodness she belongs to a health care system in which her insurance premiums are manageable, in which crisis care is covered indefinitely.

The Opioid Crisis

I find it ironic that the mainstream media has only recently “discovered” that there is an opioid addiction problem in the United States.

I assure you, there has been an opioid problem for quite a while.

Since I started my practice in 2005, I have watched many practice members and their families struggling with addiction to prescription pain medication.  I can’t tell you how horrible it has been to watch my patients’ families ripped apart, and even lose their lives, because they or their loved one cannot break their addiction to pain killers.

I can’t tell you how sad it makes me that my daughter personally knows young people whose friends have died from heroine addiction after they were unable to obtain opioid pain killers from their “suppliers” anymore.

This shouldn’t be a thing.

It’s a scary world we live in when the United States, the richest country in the world, comes in #36 in the Save the Children’s “The End of Childhood Report” the world in terms of the quality of life our children experience.

What are we doing to secure the emotional, physical, and spiritual health of our children and our families?

Right now, from The Netherlands, I’m watching the U.S. health care debacle unfold.

Listen. I was not happy with The Affordable Care Act (ACA) that President Obama put forth a few years ago.  It is FAR from perfect. The most glaring omission is a single-payer option.

But the insurance situation right now in the U.S. is better than it was in 2011, I can tell you that.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a health care bill that would dismantle much of the progress the ACA made.

Now the senate wants to push through a plan that will not only roll back time to the dark days before the ACA, but will make it WORSE, especially for our parents and children.

The Congressional Budget Committee evaluated the bill and determined that 22 million people’s current health insurances are in peril.

More: the cuts in the senate bill will roll back Medicare/Medicaid benefits that help pay the treatment for people struggling with opioid addiction.

Many of our parents, our children, our neighbors, and possibly even we, WILL die if they do this.

Tell them to stop

Call your senators and tell them to stop this nonsense.

It is outrageous that our future is at risk because our politicians are so short-sighted. Our government needs to own up to its responsibilities as our servants – not our killers via neglect.

Our kids need our support in the home and in our communities.

We have to stay healthy

In any case, we need to make your that our and our families’ inner and outer environments are clear of toxins, trauma, and emotional stress so that we won’t fall victim to the United State’s dysfunctional health care system.

As a doctor of chiropractic, I have known for a long while that chiropractic is an effective and affordable health care delivery method.

Health care. Not “sick” care.

Chiropractic care is health care. It keeps our bodies and minds healthy, minimizing our need for sick care.

Kids, as well as adults, respond well to chiropractic care, especially in terms of how chiropractic helps us to adapt to our environment.

Last year, the National Institutes of Health released the results of a survey of 2011 utilization of chiropractic care by younger disabled Medicare patients and its correlation of opioid use.

They found that those patients who were receiving chiropractic treatment used much less opioids than patients who did not use chiropractic care under their Medicare plans.

That was in 2011 – BEFORE the Affordable Care Act.

Now, our politicians are planning roll back these benefits, and many others.

Tell Them You Want A Single Payer Option

Call your senators and congressmen RIGHT NOW to tell them you want them to vote no on this current health care bill.

But it’s not enough to call your senators and congressmen to tell them you oppose what they are doing.  They need to know that, if they’re going to craft a new health care bill, we need A SINGLE PAYER OPTION.

Also, we need to make sure that chiropractic care – as well as other natural forms of health care — are included in that option!

As of this writing, he senate pushed back the vote on their health care bill until after the July 4 recess.

They’re hoping to rally support around it, and they’re hoping we forget about it.

Call your senators and congressmen RIGHT NOW and tell them.

https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

There’s no time to lose. Government is supposed to serve us.

Our families need us.

Guest Post: Jack Tricarico on Tai Chi

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I’ve known Jack Tricarico for going on three and a half years now. 

Jack is an accomplished painter and poet from New York City. He also teaches tai chi and meditation.  He is turning 80 next month.

Since I’ve known him, he has touted the practice of tai chi, and credited it with saving his sanity and his life on many occasions.  

I asked Jack to contribute his story, that it would touch the life of someone who needed to hear it; and he very generously obliged.

When you read his story, you may think that Jack is an understated fellow.  On the contrary; his personality is big and his talent wide. His work is anything but understated!

I highly encourage you to get to know him and his work. Links are provided below.

By the way: the teacher who introduced Jack to tai chi, Eddie Rodriguez, is also a talented massage therapist on New York City’s West Side,  

I refer patients to Eddie very often. A link to Eddie is below as well.

[divider style=’centered’]

Jack’s Story

In the year of 1988, while teaching drawing and painting to high school students at an after-school program in Manhattan, I met a young man named Eddie Rodriguez; who, at the age of 17, was already a black belt in karate, and knowledgeable of other martial art systems.

After the program ended Eddie asked me if I wanted to learn karate. I had never practiced a martial art form before then except boxing in my adolescence which I enjoyed, but had no talent for.

After a few months of practicing karate, I became bored and quit.

Shortly after Eddie again asked me if I wanted to learn tai chi, which he thought I might be better suited for.

He was right.  At the time, I had a close friend who practiced tai chi also, and it appeared to be a discipline I might enjoy learning because it looked so profoundly meditative when I watched him do it.

Before that, I had practiced yoga for a couple of years and Zen meditation sporadically. I enjoyed these disciplines for both the calmness and the energy they produced.

So, in July of 1989, at the age of 51, I began learning the Kuang Ping form of tai chi, an early Yang style technique, from Eddie.

During this time, I was in the midst of an emotionally turbulent relationship with a woman I was nevertheless rapturously in love with.

Practicing tai chi for a couple of hours daily enabled me to maintain some semblance of sanity throughout this affair.

The practice utterly reduced the stress of the continual conflict that went on, sometimes edging toward violence, between my lover and I.

A year after that relationship ended, I met someone else who I eventually married.

Since then, I have learned 3 more tai chi forms: the short Yang style which I learned from Larry Galante, the Chen style and the Yang style classical sword form which I again learned from Eddie.

I have survived 3 car accidents, which caused spinal, knee and nerve damage, and cancer since then.

Today, at 80, practicing 2 to 3 hours of tai chi and meditation daily, I feel better than I did at 30.

This routine has also helped me creatively more than I can imagine.

I am both a painter and poet. My work can be viewed at: New York Art World, web director Johanna Lisi, and Collaborative Pursuits, LLC, web director Courtney Rogers.

I thank Eddie Rodriguez and Larry Galante for teaching me tai chi. It helped save my life.

Jack Tricarico

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Jack’s paintings are available at the above links; some of his poetry is also on Amazon. For further works of his poetry, you can contact Jack through his art agent here.

Eddie Rodriguez practices massage therapy at 448 West 57th Street, Garden Level, New York, NY 10019. His contact information is here.

How to Spot if You Are Talking Yourself Out of a Good Thing

by

How do you spot if you’re talking yourself out of a good thing?

I’m not talking about an impulse buy. I’m talking about that noun — that person/place/thing/idea  — that you’ve been thinking about for weeks.  Months.  Years.

  1. Are you taking too long to think about it?

Whether it’s an idea, a pair of jeans, an opinion, or a bag of (fair trade, organic) nuts; are you deliberating longer than you should?

You know you want it. You even know you need it. You want to say it. It needs doing.

But you just sit there with it in your hand and your heart, looking at it. Deliberating over it.

  1. Are you worried that someone else won’t like it?

Is there a familiar sickly tug inside that is trying to remind you that you have to check with your wife/husband/daughter/boss/friend/cat before you make a move on that thing in your hand and heart?

  1. Are you feeling voices?

You read me right. Not hearing…feeling.

Is there a feeling of a voice inside, that sickly tug, that is saying:

  • It’s not going to work.
  • It’s a waste of time and money.
  • That’s not your place.
  • You don’t deserve such a fine thing.
  • You haven’t worked hard enough for that.
  • That would be selfish.
  • No one wants to hear that.

  1. Is your attention starting to drift?

The thing is in your hand and heart; and you start remembering that you haven’t done the whites yet. You have to pick up your daughter in 45 minutes. You have to call your brother back. You wonder if that check has cleared in the bank yet.  You need to check your Facebook or Instagram to see if anyone liked your last post.

  1. Is there a pain in your body?

Wherever there is a “weak link;” is it starting to flare up?  Is your “bad” knee starting to hurt? Your back? Are you getting a headache? Do you feel nauseous? Are you getting gassy?  Is your elbow aching?

  1. Are you still staring at it?

Is your hand starting to vacillate between holding it to your heart and putting it back on the shelf?

  1. Are you repeating all of the above over and over while you stare at your good thing?

 

Then yes. You are talking yourself out of a good thing.

Here’s what to do.

  1. Stop thinking.

You’ve done enough thinking about it. You know you want it, and you know how to get it.

  1. Commit to it.

Shut down the nagging advisors.  They are not in charge. You are. This is something you’ve wanted/needed to do for a long time.

  1. Run to the checkout./Open your mouth.

Let the people in the really real world, the ones OUTSIDE your head, know that you are committing to your plan/idea/opinion/thing.

  1. Own it.

Whatever it is, make it yours.  Open it. Craft it. Shape it. Eat it. Use it. Do it.

If it doesn’t fit, if it doesn’t work, if it wasn’t what you thought it would be:

Fix it. Make it better.

Or gently release it.

It doesn’t matter.

This is what matters:

You made a decision.  You owned it.  You acted on it.

That’s what really matters in the end.