CHAPTER 7

GET IN SHAPE

One ought, everyday at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

—Johann von Goethe

 

 

Ever been on one of those expeditions where you trek or cycle over mountains or paddle rushing waterways? The outfitters or sponsors of the events assure you that you will enjoy the experience more and are less likely to drop out or get hurt if you are in good shape. Ditto with fatigue. If you start out fit, you’re better able to deal fatigue a blow when it threatens; you’re less likely to drop out or get hurt.

To be fatigue-fit, you need to be buff in five areas of your life: your personal relationships, your spirituality, your physical health, your work, and your attitude. Here’s what I mean:

FATIGUE-FIGHTING FITNESS

Have strong relationships with family, friends, colleagues, organizations, and neighborhood.

Have a spiritual side or practice a religion. These are not mutually exclusive.

Take care of yourself. Be healthy and rested and know how to set limits so you can keep on learning and growing.

Find purpose in your work, whether paid or unpaid. Derive meaning and pleasure from what you do.

Have an upbeat attitude. You need to envision grander possibilities and believe that progress is possible.

The following worksheet will help you determine your current level of buffness:

MY BUFF-O-METER

I have strong family, work, and social relationships. ❑ Yes ❑ No

My life has robust spiritual or religious elements. ❑ Yes ❑ No

I take good care of my body. ❑ Yes ❑ No

I enjoy work. ❑ Yes ❑ Mainly ❑ Not really ❑ No

My attitude is generally positive. ❑ Yes ❑ It depends ❑ No

This chapter is all about shaping up. It follows along with the five points in your Buff-O-Meter and ends with ways to fit fitness into your life.

RELATIONSHIPS

Unless you are a hermit, people are part of your life. They are key to the four steps of the Fatigue Prescription: awareness ➙ reflection ➙ conversation ➙ and plan-and-act. People you have relationships with can be mentors, Encouragers, friends, or family. You have an enormous effect on the people around you as well. How contagious is your fatigue?

To be sure, no one is on a high plane all the time. It’s unrealistic. On a daily basis, even your own body has peaks and valleys. For example, in response to stimuli from your brain, your cortisol (an energy hormone), peaks in the very early morning, falls during the day, and reaches a low when you are asleep. You may be aware of up and down curves in your relationships, too. Just as with your energy bucket, your connections with others stay robust only with renewing.

SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION

Almost nothing else can move you or touch you as much as spirituality and religion. San Francisco rabbi Eric Weiss points out that both spirituality and religion entail awe. When you name your awe—Adonai, Allah, Jesus, Buddha’s way—you define your religion. He adds that religion provides structure, rules, and practices, and may ascribe power to a supreme being; spirituality often involves curiosity, imagination, and the senses. My husband defines three elements of spirituality: reflection, connection, and meaning. The Fatigue Prescription has you engaged with all of these.

Many people find spirituality, faith, and religion are the foundation of their lives and the reach beyond themselves. Their beliefs are activators and the basis of their enthusiasm. (In Greek, “en” means within; “thus” is from “theo” which means God. So enthusiasm literally means “God within.”)

Being connected with your religion or spirituality—your mysteries, joys, and grandeurs—can show you a way out of fatigue.

How do you get in touch with these powers within? Being in an oak grove helped the Druids; medieval cathedrals’ stained glass windows helped peasants and nobles alike who worshipped there; bonfires under starry nights provided native peoples the setting for telling stories and passing along traditions. It’s not so different nowadays.

Places and ceremonies may open up feelings or impart majesty or peace. The outdoors, beauty, and rituals all can link you to deep truths. You probably know the best place or time or thought to help you to get in touch with your spiritual connections. Your spirit is obtainable and can be at your service. It will be there for you most dependably if you are a willing, open-hearted searcher.

BUILDING YOUR BODY’S STAYING POWER: PHYSICAL FITNESS

You’ve been paying attention to your relationships and your spirituality. Now it’s time to return to your body. In this section I will offer some facts and opinions about food, fitness, medications, supplements, and more to supply you energy and fortitude as you use the Fatigue Prescription.

No one says it is easy to become or stay physically fit. If it were, you wouldn’t hear train loads of advice about diet and exercise. I’ll keep mine short.

Food and Exercise

Food

• Spices are better for you than salt.

• The brighter a vegetable’s color, the more nutritional value it has.

• Calories count—keep them low, diverse, and tasty.

• Using small plates helps make modest servings look heftier.

• Fat has nine calories per gram. Sugars and starches have four calories per gram.

• If you don’t burn the calories you eat, they get converted to fat that will pad your frame. Do the math. Fat in is more likely to put fat on than carbohydrates. Fat cells make and secrete chemicals that cause inflammation inside your arteries. Eventually, the irritated cells in your arteries die and form “gruel” (that’s the scientific term!) that collects inside the wall of your arteries. This makes an ever-expanding pillow-shaped obstruction to blood flow. When the pillow gets too full or bursts, your circulation gets cut off and disaster strikes.

Exercise

• Exercise is good for you.

• It can be a bore. Therefore, find exercise you like so you can stick with it. Companions may help.

• Exercise burns calories, builds muscle, and dissolves built-up fats.

• It builds two kinds of muscles in addition to your heart. One kind helps endurance and the other helps your speed and strength.

• Exercise can decrease falls and fractures and increase sleep. Yoga and tai chi count as exercise; and they also help with the stretching that keeps you limber.

• You can start to exercise and get good results at least up to age 92. That’s good because there’s an ever-improving chance that you and your elders will live to be over 100 in good health if you take care.

• Your goal should be to exercise a minimum of thirty minutes a day five days a week. The effort should increase your pulse rate by about 50 percent. Check with your doctor before you start a new routine.

Now let’s assess your current fitness level.

MY BODY’S STAYING POWER: PHYSICAL FITNESS

How does my weight now compare to my size in high school?

❑ My weight is within 5-10 pounds.

❑ My size has increased by 2-4 levels.

❑ I’ve gained 10-20 pounds per decade.

❑ I’m not overweight, I’m under-tall.

I strain to keep up with the crowd or am the last one to make it up the stairs because I am out of breath. ❑ Yes ❑ No

 

For exercise, I:

❑ Do as little as possible, and I like it that way.

❑ Am not proud of my record and I’m thinking about changing it.

❑ Can do just about whatever I want to do, especially if I take a rest along the way.

❑ Lift weights and/or have a regular exercise routine.

Physical fitness can go a long way toward reducing your fatigue. I am a certified exercise hater, but even I was able to learn to do it.

Walking is my exercise of choice because it’s easy: it requires no new equipment and no training, and there are some nice trails near our house. Walking became less of an ordeal when I discovered wildflowers along the trails. First I counted them: twenty-three kinds in one day! Then I learned their common and botanical names and how the Miwoks used them. After some weeks, Jamie and I, interested in reclaiming nature, took on The Dell, a shady notch off the trail extending up a hill and choked with highly flammable non-native Scotch broom. We set to work taking out the broom and other weeds. As we worked, we recruited allies and an entire community grew around the project. I formed friendships with walkers who offer good company. The piquant conversations decrease my misery from the exercise that I still hate. We all enjoy the Dell which now has sticky monkey flowers scattered through it, and native grasses grow along its springtime stream. My self-improvement project also meant that I had to cut back on food, even chocolate chip cookies. Along with decreasing butter and having smaller servings, I found that brushing and flossing immediately after dinner were key. I would rather go over Niagara Falls in a barrel than floss my teeth twice in one evening, so flossing eliminated my night-time snacks. Viola! Twenty-five pounds gone and still gone (with some wavering), nineteen years ago.

Natural Foods, Supplements, and Drugs

I can understand why “natural” seems to equal “good.” Fresh air is better than foul; clean water is better than dirty. If you think about it, however, you can come up with plenty of examples in which “natural” is bad. Poison oak and poison ivy are natural. Nature is full of minerals that don’t do our bodies any good, such as asbestos, lead, and mercury. Whereas you do need traces of zinc, but put in the wrong place—your nose—and sometimes with even one dose, you can lose your sense of smell.

Many people approach supplements with the philosophy, “more is better.” But if you have reasonable eating habits and are generally healthy, what’s to supplement? Your body has been adapted through eons to thrive on good sense and good food. And there are plenty of ways to have too much of different supplements. We know, for example, that too much Vitamin A causes liver, bone, and skin damage. Excess Vitamin D causes kidney stones and other disorders secondary to high calcium. High doses of Vitamin C (over 2000 mg or 2 gm per day) have never been shown to prevent or ease colds for run-of-the mill people like you and me, but does cause diarrhea.

All supplements are not dangerous or foolish, of course. You may well need to take extra calcium for your bones, and many studies show that women who take extra folic acid before they become pregnant and while they are pregnant are likelier to give birth to babies with normal brains and spinal cords than women who do not.

Here are my tips on “natural” products and supplements:

• It’s important to check with your doctor, dietician, or other professional before beginning natural products or supplements. (Salespeople are not always reliable. I once inquired about a bin of pennyroyal in a natural foods and tea shop. The saleswoman told me how restorative it is. I said, “Did you know that pennyroyal has been used for centuries to cause abortions?” “No,” she said.)

• The Internet is most helpful when the authority for a web site is the United States government, a respected research institution, or a data-based not-for-profit; http://medlineplus.gov is a splendid resource for well-written information on a wide range of health and medical topics.

• Headlines are supposed to grab your attention so you’ll buy the magazine or wait through the ads on TV or radio. They don’t claim to educate or tell the truth.

• Bone up on science. Research is not a collection of anecdotes made popular by the herd mentality. Rather, good research meets high standards of ethics and reproducibility.

• Valid studies, depending on their purpose, generally enroll large numbers of people (more than 10-100) and continue for a long time (more than 6-12 months).

• Valid studies have a “control group”—some people receive the treatment and others don’t. In “double-blind” tests, neither the researchers nor the subjects know which group is getting the medicine and which is getting the placebo. This precaution takes into account the fact the people have a remarkable propensity to feel better or worse even if they have a placebo.

• Valid studies report side effects and adverse outcomes along with efficacy. This includes reports on diets.

To add a further cautionary note, a product or supplement that is “natural” may act like a drug. Dr. Douglas Paauw, Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, collects data on interactions of herbs and supplements with over-the-counter and prescription medication. These interactions are usually discovered by accident when humans are unwitting and unwilling experimental animals. Dr. Paauw cites a long list of “g” substances that interact with warfarin (Coumadin), an oral agent that is used to inhibit blood clotting:

• Garlic

• Ginger

• Ginseng

• Ginko

• Glucosamine/chondroitin

• Feverfew and dong quai (the latter is often used for gynecologic complaints without quality control or proof that claims are substantiated)

Similarly, St. John’s wort, which has been used with inconsistent results for depression, has variable formulations of flowers, leaves, and/or stems. It interacts with statins and warfarin.

There is no room for guesswork with any herbs, or over-the-counter or prescription drugs. Tell your doctor absolutely everything that you eat or drink so he or she can determine what potential you have for negative interactions. The information you give your clinician needs to include alcohol consumption. Alcohol interacts with a host of medications, including some for allergies, infections, arthritis, cough, depression, high blood pressure, pain, sleep, and of course, warfarin. Some over-the-counter drugs contain a surprising amount of alcohol: Nyquil Cold and Flu is 10% alcohol. Compare that to beer (4% alcohol) and wine (11.5% - 15% alcohol). Full disclosure heightens your chance of avoiding a nasty herb, supplement, over-the-counter, or prescription interaction.

Restful Sleep

Nearly all of us experience sleeplessness at some time during our lives. Half of us have trouble sleeping more often than once a week. That can spell trouble, since the value of sleep is profound.

Sleep improves resilience, memory, insight, creative thinking, attention span, reaction time, and your ability to recover from fatigue. Thomas Edison may have invented the light bulb on three hours of sleep per night, but your lights are likely to dim with fewer than seven to eight hours.

Sadly, if you are weary, you often sleep fitfully. Your sleep is strained, even agitated, as your brain churns. This has got to stop. The Fatigue Prescription has some ways and means.

You know some old-but-good keys to restful sleep: no caffeine after noon (its effects can last twenty-four hours), cope with worries during daylight, and get your exercise well before bedtime. What else can you do to capture what Shakespeare called “Nature’s soft nurse”?

One thing you should not do is rely on so-called “sleep aids”—namely, prescription or over-the-counter sleeping pills. I have one word to describe these drugs: dangerous. In a version of the Supplement Syndrome, there is a high risk of over-medicating yourself, as in “Gee, I slept pretty well on a single one of those; maybe I’ll try two tonight.” There is also risk of becoming dependent on these drugs. Then there is the danger of combining medications with each other, or with sedatives such as alcohol. Finally, if you use drugs to avoid dealing with the basic problems that may be keeping you awake, this is a recipe for disaster.

My advice: do not take sleep-aid drugs except in a real emergency. Even then, use only a prescription written by a reliable physician, and use it only for a night or two.

What about melatonin, the so-called “natural” sleep aid that is today’s stylish preventative for jet lag? The same dangers apply. Plus, research has not shown the appropriate dose. We don’t know melatonin’s short-term or long-term effects; we don’t know much about its interactions with other substances. In short, melatonin has not been well-studied and I think it can put your brain in jeopardy. That makes it too dangerous to mess with.

There may be reasons why you can’t sleep. Maybe arthritis is producing a dull but persistent pain. If you’re a woman in menopause or a man taking hormones for prostate cancer, you may have night sweats. Maybe you have regular, low-level headaches and you think if you could just ease the pain, you’d get a good night’s sleep, and the headaches would be gone for good. Can’t you just take a pill for it?

Maybe, but even the simplest remedies have side-effects. Aspirin can cause bleeding; other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve) can damage your kidneys; acetaminophen can cause liver failure. (Tylenol is one trade name; it is also found in Midol, Vicodin, Percocet, and some versions of Nyquil and Dayquil) These medications should be taken rarely and with restraint, even under a doctor’s care. You should not take more than 4,000 milligrams of acetaminophen—and probably less—per twenty-four-hour period alone or in combinations. That means if you take a couple of acetaminophen-containing painkillers or sleep aids at night—which could be more than a gram—you are limiting the amount of the medication during the day.

There is no such thing as a secret formula or magic bullet to help you sleep, but I do have some recommendations.

• Open a window or turn the air conditioner on low; most people sleep better in a cool room.

• Tune in to some calming music, white noise, or nature sounds.

• An occasional relaxing bath or hot shower can help you put a diminuendo to the day.

• After the soak, you might choose some light reading material that takes your mind somewhere else, somewhere pleasant or amusing. That leaves out suspense and mayhem novels.

• If you think a nightcap will help, how about warm milk? It works. Alcohol can rev you up before it knocks you out.

• Think of your bed as, well, a bed. It is not an office, waiting room, library, storage closet, or cafeteria. A bed is for sex and sleep. You want just to look at your bed and think: make love or go to sleep. Not make a phone call; browse a magazine; have a snack.

• Is there a TV you can watch from bed? Get rid of it. News or talk-show hosts are not conducive to pleasant rest. Nor is listening to a police scanner. Get rid of the glowing clock, too. You can get agitated just eyeing it at night when you check to see what time it is and how long you’ve been asleep—or awake.

• Find something lovely to visualize. I often choose a peachy sunset over the ocean. After a trip to Hawaii and a long encounter with sea turtles, I see them with my mind’s eye, suspended in the crystal clear green water, peaceful and utterly at home, and it usually puts me right to peaceful sleep.

• As for that low-level pain you may be tempted to assuage with a pill or two, try a gentle hot-water bottle instead. This antique remedy can soothe pain and provide sweet comfort. Electric heating pads can overheat or spark a fire. I do not recommend them.

• Always remember the cuddle, kiss, pats, and words of love as you drift off.

It takes awhile for fatigue to recede. One woman at a RENEW workshop said, “It took a year for me to get creative after I finally started getting enough sleep. It was like a veil lifting.”

Take a Break

On any adventure, you need to take breaks.

Breaks can be short or long. A shrewd nurse once told me that the only way she could get off the unit during her shift was to go to the bathroom, so she drank a lot of water while she was on duty. For longer breaks, you could emulate the astute ministers, physicians, teachers, and executives who arrange for sabbaticals. You might be able to get funding from outside your organization to take a learning or service break. Some foundations are so concerned about the sustainability of the non-profit sector and its leaders, for example, that they offer grants to provide respite from the inexorable pressures.

At RENEW sessions, we often ask about micro-breaks: “What can you do in fifteen seconds to have a better day?” Here are some of the answers people frequently give.

MICRO-BREAKS

Smile.	Wash your hands, splash your face.
Laugh!	Hold the elevator for someone.
Hug someone.	Put your head down on your desk.
Pet the dog; stroke the cat.	Think of someone you love.
Take a big, deep breath.	Kiss.
Smell a flower.	Pray.
Say “No.”	Count your blessings.
Say “Yes.”	Recall a pleasant memory.
Have a daydream.	Thank someone.
Stretch.	Take off your shoes.
Close your eyes.	Open your window, or at least look out of it.
Look at a favorite photo.	Exercise, even just five jumping jacks.
Send an xoxoxo text message.	Turn off the “received email” beep.

WHAT BREAKS CAN YOU TAKE?

My fifteen-second quick fixes:

 

 

 

 

 

What I could do with a longer break:

 

 

 

 

 

Very long breaks that I will schedule:

YOU’VE GOT ATTITUDE

We all have attitude, whether we know it or not, and we show it in the way we carry ourselves and interact with the world. And I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you that a negative attitude, one of anger, fear, or annoyance, is exhausting. Clenching your teeth in fury or cowering in terror, whether literally or figuratively, are sure paths to fatigue.

So how can you fix your attitude and reduce your fatigue? Four things: get clear on what you can and cannot control, think well of yourself, have a sense of humor, and know how to be happier.

Control

The urge to control is virtually universal among high-reaching people. Unfortunately, it is damaging and wearing—both for you and for those around you. I’ve seen people with serious fatigue who have severe muscle pain as a direct result of the muscle-tensing that comes from trying to grasp and mold all their priorities. In fact, health consequences of fatigue range from widespread aches to nighttime teeth-grinding to increased blood pressure, all associated with tensions, frustrations, and explosions.

Our minister, Pam Shortridge, says: “We grasp for power and control when we are afraid.” This is a good time to practice managing those urges to control and to fix. The Fatigue Prescription will give you the ability to let go of the things you should let go of.

I learned about control late, but well. As my parents’ health was failing, I pulled out all the stops to reverse the trend. When they declined inexorably, however, my goals slowly shifted from “control” to “manage,” then to “influence” and then, as Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross called it, to “death with dignity.” Along the way, I learned that I couldn’t fix that which I wanted the most to fix, my beloved parents’ health.

In our RENEWing workshops around the country, we ask, “What can you control?” Here are some answers:

THINGS I CAN CONTROL

My aspirations	What I want to learn
The dog (sometimes)	The food I eat
What I put in my environment	The clothes I wear
My priorities and my actions	My attitude
What I worry about	My mood
Who I spend time with	My reactions
Information flow	How fast I drive
My mouth	What I do in my free time
My clutter	What I read
The way I treat others	My hair color
My decisions	How I spend my money
Sleep, to a certain extent

Notice this list tends to omit the illusion (or delusion) of controlling other people or circumstances.

But for the sake of brevity, let’s distill this list. The three most important things you can control are:

• Your aspirations. This implies going beyond hopes and dreams and into action.

• Your behavior. What you say and how you say it; what you do and when you do it.

• Your attitude. Because somehow the world tends to act the way you expect it to act. Or it becomes what you perceive it to be, the old self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Fatigue Prescription is all about giving you control over what you can control. It is about managing your energy, health, and life.

Self-Esteem

Your self-esteem is one of your best renewable energy sources. It can propel you over hurdles of fatigue and on to living your dreams. To “buff up” your self-esteem, you need to get some insights into why it may need burnishing and why it is essential to controlling your fatigue. Then you can develop ways to shine in your own light.

Why do you give yourself such short shrift sometimes? Or often? Perhaps you think you aren’t worth the trouble? You may feel inadequate and unworthy. Why? Your self-esteem bucket may not have been filled early in life, or it may have been drawn down over time. Perhaps you are trying to be perfect and you can’t be, so you are disappointed in yourself. If you’ve given up on perfection, you may still feel that it is your fault when things go wrong.

What is so splendid about self-esteem? Like it or not, you are the one upon whom you can most depend. You need to know you can do the job! Self-worth gives you the confidence to move forward. You need to have a good supply of pragmatic self-esteem to carry on in the face of opposition or disaster.

So let’s fill your worthiness bucket. If you really examine yourself, you will find that you are quite fine. You are not a Nobel Laureate, perhaps, but you are far better than merely “acceptable.” You have plenty of successes to celebrate, whether big or small. That means that you can reinforce yourself; you can refill your own bucket. I compliment myself every so often when I clear out a jumbled drawer, make points with students, or go for my (nearly) daily walk. “Way to go,” I smile to myself when I weed the garden or put the spices in alphabetical order on the shelf. Give yourself plentiful compliments; this will raise your self-esteem.

Since part of gaining or regaining self-esteem also depends on how others see you, look in the mirror before you go out. A fashion consultant once said, “You are treated the way you look.” Jamie wears a sport jacket and slacks on most airplane trips, and he notices that he receives better treatment from security officers, gate personnel, and flight attendants.

MY SELF-ESTEEM BUCKET

1. Level of self-esteem: ❑ High (watch out for overconfidence) ❑ Sufficient ❑ Endangered ❑ Low ❑ Fumes

2. List three things you are good at:

3. My bucket needs attention and this is what I will do to fill it:

A Sense of Humor

Laughter changes everything, including your attitude. Losing your sense of humor is both a serious warning of dangerous fatigue and a loss of one of your major defense mechanisms. Laughter can help with embarrassment, enhance social relations, diffuse awkward situations, and, most of all, keep you happy.

PEOPLE AND THINGS THAT MAKE ME LAUGH.

Your chuckles and guffaws set your own tone. Just hearing yourself laugh raises your spirits and the spirits of those around you. By enhancing your energy and health, laughter can fire you up as you uproot fatigue.

Happiness

Insofar as it is a choice, happiness is an attitude. Happiness—enjoying life, finding joy, and having fun—is right up there on the values popularity list with love. Happiness applies to the Fatigue Prescription in two ways: it is a way to quell fatigue, and it is a byproduct of quelling fatigue.

I do recognize that some cynics scoff at the thought that happiness is possible or desirable. They say that if you are happy, you just don’t get it—that you are a social and political blockhead.

Surely no one feels that life is or should be perpetual jubilation. Everyone keens and moans at times. That’s Life. How would you know when you achieve the glow of happiness if you hadn’t seen the dark side? But how does “enjoying life” actually feel? Can you achieve it these ragged days? If so, how?

Medical literature suggests that those who consider themselves happy may have longer and more productive lives. Vaillant cites a study of nuns, for example, that linked happiness and health. At age twenty, 180 nuns wrote a short autobiography. “Of those who expressed the most positive emotion, only 24% had died by age 80. In contrast, by the same age, 54% of those who expressed the least positive emotion had died.”

So, happiness is good and it is something you have some control over. How can you get more of it?

The Dalai Lama, who is emphatic about good spirits, suggests that we are all seeking better things in our lives, seeing this as a movement towards happiness. A practice this wise man advises is to identify what leads to suffering, eliminate this from daily life, and spend time in the cultivation and pursuit of happiness.

MY OWN HAPPINESS

My definition of happiness:

 

 

 

 

What makes me feel peaceful or content?

 

 

 

 

What/who makes my heart warm?

 

 

 

 

What/who really excites me?

 

 

 

 

What/who makes me smile?

RENEWING RITUALS

Rituals fit into the Fatigue Prescription because they provide pattern and structure. Rituals also support and enhance your core—reflecting, connecting, and living your values and meaning. This section will define and describe some healthy rituals, what they do, and how to set them up.

Rituals can be practical. When I was an intern, I appreciated the routines we had for doing various punctures, drainages, and biopsies. They covered every part of the procedure from start to finish. They gave me confidence because if I followed them precisely, they were pretty foolproof, even for someone who was sleep deprived.

Rituals can also have a rich, dreamlike quality about them. Rituals offer opportunities to be in touch with your life force and its creativity, insights, and resilience. They are more than habits. They connect you to your essential self and remind you that you matter. Rituals can heal.

Rituals are likely to be everyday matters, except for the ones you hope are once-in-a-lifetime, such as a wedding. Some daily “ceremonies” may happen in the early morning—a cuddle, a latte, listening to NPR, a quiet time. They may happen in the evening—kids’ bath time, reading, knitting, connecting, reflecting. On a more than daily basis, Jamie and I kiss each other and say, “I love you” every time we come home or leave home.

I have been surprised at the variety of practices that people consider “rituals.” There are common threads among them: repetition, noticing, pondering, enjoying, and taking time. Here are some renewing rituals:

• Running or walking

• Going to church or synagogue

• Gardening, watering

• Saying grace at dinner

• Doing stretches in the shower

• Greeting the sunrise and acknowledging the new day

• Lighting candles at mealtime

• Walking the dog

• Writing

• Morning coffee

For people who are driven to produce and accomplish, these rituals may seem frivolous. I believe, however, that grinding on without relief wears us out. Rituals provide a renewing break. They can erase conflicts and fears and help inspiration seep in.

Reflect about things that revive you. What are your rituals? Think of quickies, such as a morning stretch, or more languid ones, like settling into your armchair at the end of the day with your feet up and a good mystery in hand.

MY RITUALS

These rituals are important to me:

 

 

 

 

 

Am I really doing them? ❑ Yes ❑ No ❑ Welll…

How and when will I find more time for them?

The workout never really ends. As a personal trainer might say, you can always do one more repetition. Set your own buff-ness plans for fighting fatigue. And don’t forget: you can’t get buff overnight. This adventure is for the rest of your life.

As writer Henry Miller said, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” Fortunately, renewing is a splendid adventure. The Greek poet, Cavafy, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, imagined Odysseus’ life as the great warrior struggled to get home to Ithaca after the Trojan Wars.

ITHACA

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty,
if a fine emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

 

Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn from those who have knowledge.
Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind,
to arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

 

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

 

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much
experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithaca means.

 

(Translated by Rae Dalven)