Sing. Sing a Song. Sing out Loud. Sing out Strong.

Sing out Loud Every Day.  This piece of health advice comes from listening to my daughter Julia sing every day when we were in Ghana.  I realized, while I listened to her strum on her guitar and let her soul pour out in words and notes, that something really important was going on there. 

You’ve felt it.  I know it.  Driving down the freeway, windows rolled down on a beautiful day, belting out whatever song from your youth is on the radio and loving every minute of it.  AND, if you were with a friend doing it, it felt even better.  My kids and I used to do this with Mr. Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra.  Geeky.  I know.  But it feels fantastic.

When I was just in Ghana this past Fall, I was an on a tro-tro (very scary tiny money-buses that take you around the city and country) and every person on the vehicle started singing out loud in unison to a gospel song on the radio.  It was beautiful and the whole vehicle was beaming with the light of song.  There was a lot going on there beyond just having fun and praising God.

For years I practiced the piano, sang in the car, and sometimes broke out into spontaneous song with my theatre kids or theatre geek friends, but I never really pondered the importance of singing out loud.  Turns out that this is really good for you on three levels:

1)    Physically:  It creates a different kind, a deeper kind of breath in the body that is incredibly cleansing for the lungs and the vocal folds…just helps to de-toxify the whole body through the breath.

2)    Emotionally:  Singing produces serotonin in the brain.  Lots of it.  When they scan brains of people singing, it lights up like crazy in both hemispheres and especially on the serotonin receptors.  In other words, singing makes you happy.  Even if you’re singing a sad song.

3)    Spiritually:  Also turns out that when you sing, you feel closer to something greater than yourself.  Call this God, Jesus, Spirit, whatever you wish, but singing makes people feel spiritual. 

There are a bunch of studies out there on how singing can change you.  Here’s just one link from a study I read this past week.  I discovered it when working on some Alzheimer’s research and found it fascinating:  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/11/alzheimers-patients-brains-boosted-sound-music-singing

Sing.  Sing a song.  Sing out loud. Sing out strong.  Just sing.  Sing a song!

It can actually change your brain, make you feel better, boost your serotonin and bring vivacity into your body.  AND, even better, if you sing in a group, you get an amazing communal response where breathing, heartbeats, and brainwaves sync up, causing a wave of relaxation and a lowering in the stress hormone cortisol!: 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2013/07/08/really-feel-the-beat-singing-and-heartrate/

So, sing alone.  But singing together is even better.  For me, singing alone during devotions is wonderful.  I sing a favorite hymn or some worship song that I love or California Stars by Woody Guthrie and Wilco which always makes me closer to God and the ones I love.  I’d love to hear the whole world singing out loud every day.

Jubilee: Keeping a Sabbath

Sabbath.  Keep a Sabbath.  Keep it holy.

I have never done this.  Sundays have always been a time to go to church for me, but then they would turn into work days, days of dealing with housework or home repair or whatever.   My friend Jessica in Ghana taught me that the Sabbath is more than this and that I should try to find a way to incorporate it into my year of total health and from there into the rest of my life.

The seventh day is blessed in more than 73 places in scripture, so I’m not really going to launch into a full study of those.  In both Isaiah and in Leviticus we learn about the year of Jubilee – after six days of work you take a seventh day of Sabbath,  after 6 years of work, you take a seventh year of Sabbath, after 49 years of work, you take a 50^th year of Sabbath when all captives are set free, and all debts are forgiven.  The Israelites never fulfilled this year of Jubilee – the 50^th year.  They just couldn’t do it.  It took Christ coming to proclaim himself the Lord of Jubilee.  We always find rest, we always find grace and forgiveness in Christ.  Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath.

So what does this mean for health?  These words from Henri Nouwen struck me as relevant to this:

In general we are very busy people.  We have many meetings to attend, many visits to make, many services to lead.  Our calendars are filled with appointments, our days and weeks filled with engagements, and our years filled with plans and projects.  There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, and we move through life in such a distracted way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say, or do are worth thinking, saying or doing.  (The Way Of The Heart - Henri Nouwen).

We need, more than ever before, to take the time to ponder our lives in times of rest.  Try it for one week.  Take a full Sabbath day.  Many cite this time of rest as a key to happiness.

I’ve been reading quite a bit about what happiness is.  At the Center for Positive Psychology in Pennsylvania, they discuss one way to find happiness is to design a beautiful day.  Here is the assignment as described on their web-page:

Beautiful Day Activity

A Beautiful Day: Applying Principles of Positive Psychology

Author: Martin E. P. Seligman, University of Pennsylvania

Concept: Positive psychology seeks to understand the qualities of the good life, encompassing positive subjective experiences and the qualities that define them. This activity will challenge students to explore their own definitions of the good life as they apply the concepts studied throughout the unit.

Materials: None.

Description: After discussing the qualities of positive subjective experience and what constitutes "the good life," propose the following to the students:

Design a beautiful day (a 24-hour clock day) that is within the realm of possibility for you to live currently. Explain why you choose each element.

Have students bring in their designs for discussion. This discussion is to help the instructor be sure that the students understand what the research says about positive subjective experiences and "the good life." Once discussion has come to a satisfactory conclusion, present the following assignment to the students:

Try to live that day and report your feelings while including the following questions:

Part 1: Were you successful in living that day? Why or why not? Were all of the qualities of your beautiful day truly beautiful? Why or why not? What would you now change about your perception of a beautiful day?

Part 2: Is there any action you might take to move toward achieving a "beautiful day" on a more regular basis? How does your conception of a "beautiful day" fit in with your life's goals?

So, design one beautiful Sabbath and keep it.  I would love to hear about the results.  I am committed to keeping Sabbath this year.  It will be so so difficult for me.  I don’t even know if it’s possible but here’s what I plan:

No email at all on the Sabbath.

Go to church or find a way to worship on the Sabbath.

Do something fun and relaxing.

Get out into nature if possible.

Read something non-work related.

Eat something wonderful a few times during the day, but not anything that is difficult to prepare.  Make it easy.  Or eat out.

Go slow.  Give thanks for five things.

Talk to friends and family, to find out how they are doing.

Hang out with someone or some-two or three that you love.

Richard Rohr writes the following about keeping Sabbath…it’s more metaphorical meaning in our lives beyond just the practicality of resting:

“[We] are overly concerned with building our own kingdom and seeking our own fame… Keeping the Sabbath reminds [us] that the meaning of life does not consist in action alone” (Discovering the Enneagram, 228). 

Sabbath is not inaction…it is a halting, a pause, a breath.  Very important in the fullness of life. 

I start next Sunday.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Go slowly.

Go Slowly.  Give thanks.  Write down your thanks.  This piece of health advice comes from my sister Debbie.  Thanks Debbie.  It’s not an easy one, but one that you challenged me to take on.

Many of us have read Ann Voskamp’s book A Thousand Gifts and I know a lot of people who did just that.  Wrote down a thousand gifts in their life.  I did it last year.  I got to 900 and then stopped.  Probably it needs to be a daily practice.  She has a devotional journal you can purchase at her blog site in order to complete the 1000 items. http://www.aholyexperience.com/

Dare to live fully, right where you are.  That is the mantra of the site and the book.  I think this is the right idea.

When I take my students to Ghana, I ask them to breathe.  To breathe in each moment and not rush.  Now, Africa makes you slow down because time moves at a much different pace and you find yourself waiting A LOT.  What we learn is that by waiting, we think not better, but differently. And this difference is all the importance in the world.  But what you have to remember to do is to breathe.

You can actually CHANGE the chemistry of your body by taking ten slow deep breaths.  You will reduce cortisol in your body and increase serotonin release.  Try it before eating.  Try it before walking into a difficult situation.  Try it before anything that might cause any form of anxiety.   Here is the exercise I recommend that I learned from my first voice teacher about two decades ago:

1.  Count to three in your head.

2.  Draw a breath in about ¾ of the way.

3.  Let it sit.  Count to three in your head again.

4.  Gently let it out and create a vacuum in your lungs by getting all the air out.

5.  Repeat 10 times.

After I started doing this in times of challenging difficulty, I noticed a difference.  I also started to do it before eating.  Part of giving thanks for my food.  And it made a difference.

Then I found this website dedicated to the psychology of eating:  http://psychologyofeating.com/about-marc-david/

And here they are dedicated to slow, mindful eating and living.  It is a great place to begin if you feel that you are rushing through life, eating too fast and just not enjoying life fully. 

Slowing down is really hard in our culture.  Tonight I had the chance to sit and have a bowl of soup with my dad (soup I had made earlier in the day) and we spent about an hour lingering over our soup and a glass of red wine.  It was lovely.  Savoring every delicious sip and bite. Slow.  Nothing expected.  Just nice.

And I think we do not get this often enough.  I love one of the exercises that Marc David, the founder of the Psychology of eating, has one of his students do.  This particular student eats Big Macs (two of them) every day for lunch and he is a doctor!  Anyway, he asks this doctor to just do one thing.  Eat the Big Macs slow.  Take a whole hour to eat them.  And the doctor cannot do it.  When he starts eating the Big Macs slow, he realizes that they taste awful.  And so he gave up McDonalds and moved on to better food once he realized, by slowing down his eating, that McDonalds does not taste like food at all!

So, I would ask of myself and of you to slow down.  Breathe in every moment.  Wait.  Let things settle.  Who cares if you’re a little late?  Who cares if you think you’re too busy.  You’re not.  None of us are.  Take some time.  Write down one thing you are thankful for every single day of your life.  Write it down.  Look at the writing.  Breathe with the writing.  And then move on.  But slow.

As I was writing this, I thought of a poem by Theodore Roethke about going slow.  This is just a beautiful vision of things:

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

Learning to face addictions

Try intentionally to become aware of your own addictions.  Seek them out.  This piece of health advice is thanks to my great friend Jason. 

This is a difficult one because most of us just do not want to face the fact that we come from an addictive culture and that we have many many addictions.  I could list ALL of mine, but it would take a few pages, so I won’t bother listing them all.  In fact, for most of us they lump into categories, so for me these I list here are some of the major areas I face as challenges.  Here we go:

1)    The sweet stuff.  Sugar.  I’ve already mentioned this.  Perhaps if I keep admitting it out loud I will deal with it.  Yes, I actually believe that voicing it out loud makes a difference.

2)    The Internet.  It is always with me and I cannot stop.  Look at me writing this blog about total health!  In the past year, it’s definitely not improved.  How to describe this?  This is actually an to being tied in all the time…coming from a fear of loneliness and disconnection.

3)    Worrying.  I fret and get anxious about all kinds of things from financial to relational and global too. 

4)    Being RIGHT.  I love to be right and I like to tell other people that they’re wrong.  This is not good… I know.  I need to stop it.  Being a know-it-all is not a good thing.  In fact, I can’t stand know-it-all’s myself and so that’s how I know I am one because we usually cannot stand things in other people that we overlook in ourselves.  Log in the eye sort of thing.

5)    Euphoria -- just plain feeling great.  I’ve used all kinds of things to get to this point in the past, to try to get away from the pain of life that I deal with when I worry.  Compulsive behaviors feel great in the moment, but they don't work in the end.  For example--  I run and over-exercise in order to stop worrying and feel euphoric.  The runner’s high or any kind of exercise high is something I crave.  Exercise and compulsive behaviors are not the answers to forgetting my worries and feeling great.  I am working to find the seeds of joy within myself.

These are the addictions that I have sought out in myself and will face this year.  So, the question is why should we do this?  Why should we seek out our addictions?

Healing only comes with confession first and from that point of confession we become free to explore.  Sometimes we can find a replacement for the addiction.  Sometimes we just have to walk away from it and find a new way.  When I quit smoking it was finding a replacement.  I actually replaced it with running.  With sugar, I believe that I will just need to walk away and there will be nothing to replace it.  Substances just might be easier to deal with than these other “feeling” addictions that I have.  

And it is true that many addictions are rooted in fears – loneliness, boredom, anxiety for all sorts of things, even a fear of being disrespected which is where my addiction to being right comes from.

Here are three quotes about confession and addiction that I love and that have led me to this place where I feel like I can admit my addictions openly:

1)    Probably the one that really began to change me comes from Richard Rohr’s book “Falling Upward”:  “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” 

We can actually re-write our brains by changing the way we live.  We’ve seen it happen over and over again with the worst kind of addictions, but it can happen on every single scale.  We must choose to live differently.

2)    From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Living Together:  “Confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16) He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, not withstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break through to fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”

You could replace the word sin here with addiction, which is most of what sin stems from, if you look at it carefully and seek out its sources.  We do not live in community well.  We isolate from one another, even in our church communities where we should be openly confessing in fellowship so that we can be better servants in our world.  Addictions drive us downward into isolative practices, but we do really need communities where we can open up.  AA works this way, of course.  As does Overeaters Anonymous and so on.  Open up.  Tell your community who you are. We need safe spaces to do this.

3)    From Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude:  “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 

This is the true meaning of confession.  When we have someone that we can just be with and tell ourselves to.  Some people find this in a spouse.  Some in a pastor.  Some in a friend.  Some in a stranger. 

Whatever your addictions are that are pulling you down, confess them openly to someone or to some people if you have a community you can do that with and then slowly, carefully, work on yourself.  I’m doing it.  It feels great.  Maybe confession is what will replace my addictions!