what I’m learning and loving: july 2018
Happy summer! I’m trying to get back into a monthly routine with these (past posts here), in hopes that they aren’t so long.
What I’m loving
Cucumber everything. Our cucumber patch is popping this year. Since cucumbers are something that we don’t eat out of season, we gorge on them when we’re harvesting them. Open-faced cucumber sandwiches are my favorite, but cucumber salad is a close second.
ACV Mocktail. I went on a retreat in June, and I bought myself a water kefir drink at the store before I got there. I loved it, but once I looked at the actual ingredients, it was mostly apple cider vinegar (my love for ACV explained here) with some fruit juice. I started making myself a mocktail of sorts with whatever La Croix was in the fridge plus a few glugs of raw ACV – and it’s my new favorite evening treat. Well, I would rather have a glass of wine, but this makes a nice substitute.
MyFlo app. I bought this on the recommendation of Sarah from Pantsuit Politics, and I can see why she raves about it so much. The app helps you see the various “seasons” of your cycle and gives you specific recommendations for each season and symptom. Maybe it is just getting older, but I can’t just “power through” like I used to without facing the consequences. MyFlo really helps me to see when I need to focus on rest, or when is a good time to delve into a new project. Until about the last century, most of the people in medical schools and receiving scientific funding for research were men, so it would make sense that there are many aspects of women’s health that have been under-studied. Something like this app helps empower women to take responsibility for our own well-being since the medical community seems to ignore it unless we’re trying to have a baby or prevent having one.
Half decaf. Speaking of the MyFlo app, I began tracking some of my monthly symptoms with my caffeine intake and noticed that they are correlated. I only have one cup of coffee a day, but I decided to try experimenting with cutting my normal morning cup with half decaf. Because Grant makes our coffee in the Chemex, he came along for the ride, and we’ve both noticed that we feel better cutting half the caffeine at least several days a week. I have tried the decaf dark and espresso monkey from Just Coffee, both of which are delicious.
What I’m learning
Our memory can’t be trusted – and that’s okay. I’ve always had a really good short-term memory. Or so I thought before listening to this episode of Revisionist History (the entire season is SO good). Even if you think you don’t care about this topic, I think everyone should listen to it. Just in the last few weeks, it has saved me an argument or two with Grant about something that happened in the past, and how Gladwell applies the lessons to the #metoo movement toward the end was really important.
We are missing out. I finished Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind earlier this month, and I am convinced that psychedelics should be more widely available, so long as we learn from our past mistakes. The science is very clear that pyschedelics are game-changers in the treatment of PTSD, addictions, depression, end-of-life anxiety, and more. In addition, they hold tremendous potential benefits for “the betterment of well people” as Pollan calls it. I can’t stop talking about the book, and I think it is wrong that these substances aren’t better available in a regulated way, especially for people suffering from mental illnesses, which we currently have a pretty terrible track record of treating. If you don’t want to read the whole book, I dare you to be willing to change your mind and listen to this podcast interview with Pollan and Tim Ferriss.
Everybody hurts. I mean REM told us this (as well as hundreds of other wise teachers over the centuries), but I read this beautiful piece of writing (if you have suffered from mental illness or know someone who has/if you’re a human in the world, that blog post is must-reading) just before I started the amazing Us Against You, and it reminded me that “everyone you meet [or read about or watch on TV or follow on social media] is fighting a great battle.” The grass isn’t greener over there, there is no “there” there, and the only “secret” of the people around us who are full of joy is that gratitude, contentedness, and presence are practices that require a constant returning to – at least daily, often hourly.
Your turn!
