stress reduction

by

What is the American Legion Serving?

Your local American Legion Post serves numerous things- many of which are not well known, understood, or appreciated. Beyond the stereotypical cheap drinks, the Legion actively serves people, young and old, in communities across the country.

My personal experience at the Ernest A. Love American Legion Post 6 in Prescott, AZ, has opened my eyes and warmed my heart- showing me that The Legion is more than a bar, more than a building. 

Post 6 Commander, Sam McPherson, cooking eggs for Sunday breakfast

What are they serving at my post? Thousands of home-cooked meals of soup, sandwiches, tacos, eggs, potatoes, bacon, and pancakes per year. Grilled burgers to warm up the crowd for Queen of Hearts on Thursdays. Sunday breakfast is served with a healthy side of smiles and laughter.

Post, Auxiliary, and Sons of the American Legion Members keeping spirits high in the kitchen

The local American Legion post is a unique and warm place where veterans and their families can come to relax and share stories. It is a place to sing and dance-  a place that combats loneliness. A place that serves up cheer, good will and support.

What does it mean to serve? Well, there are over 12 definitions of the verb Serve.

Here are three main meanings:

  1. As in to attend to. To help a person to food or drink. To work for or wait on.
  2. As in to act. To be of use. Hold an office. Discharge or perform a duty. Respect and honor.
  3. As in to provide services that benefit or help others. To assist or answer the needs of.  The American Legion Service Officer is a prime example of this role.

I have witnessed Legion members and officers acting in all three of the above listed definitions of Serve.

Like my father (a WWII veteran), my mother (a post Auxiliary member), my husband (Post Photographer), my brother (a Son of the American Legion) and cousins (Vietnam veterans), it is my honor to serve.  It is all about Veterans Helping Veterans.

So what are we serving at the American Legion?

  • We are serving aid to the homeless, the lonely, the sick, and the injured.
  • We are serving connection and support to veterans through Buddy Checks.
  • We are serving as a home and welcoming “3rd place” that people can go to for  comfort and belonging.
  • We are serving smiles, hugs, and laughter.
  • We are serving camaraderie, meaning, and purpose.
  • We are serving history, honor, and remembrance.
  • We are serving traditions, respect for the flag, and Americanism.
  • We are an extended family who looks after each other. Supports and assists when the chips are down.
  • The Legion is light- not heavy (like in the 1969 song  “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”), lifting up our veteran brothers and sisters. Lifting the burden of loneliness, trauma and grief. Giving a warm and comforting hand when it’s needed most. 

This is what the American Legion is serving!

Post 6 Officer and ALR Member, Rusty Snyder, serving members at annual Picnic in Prescott, AZ

The American Legion had strong and active family units and chapters who extend and expand the service of the post members. The Sons of the American Legion (S.A.L), the Auxiliary, and the American Legion Riders (ALR) all play an important role in the service to the veterans, their families and the community.  They also make awesome bacon guacamole burgers and Denver omelettes!

The Legion is more than a bar. It is more than a building. 

The American Legion Post in the heart and soul of the local community serving veterans and their families.  

by

The Ultimate Three-fer

On this first day of summer 2024, my yoga instructor Chris reminded us that energy is building due to three key events this June. One is the auspicious Summer Solstice on 6/20, two is International Yoga Day on 6/21, and three is the Full Moon (Strawberry moon) on 6/22. Wow, now I know why our 2 kitties have been going crazy in the house this past week!

Photo by David Besh on Pexels.com

The heat waves in the US are upon us and this increase in cosmic and thermal energy can add to the turbulence and the temperature in our lives. My advice is to be extra mindful of your hydration levels and strive to temper your responses to stress with pauses and deep breaths.

While in the middle of this three-fer event, I’d like to make 3 wishes for the world:

  1. Patience
  2. Tolerance
  3. Compassion

“Patience is not simply the ability to wait- it’s how we behave while we’re waiting”. – Joyce Meyer

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” – Dalai Lama

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” -Dalai Lama

Photo by Elina Fairytale on Pexels.com
by

Of Courage and Judgement

In the eleven years of writing my thoughts and ideas on my Word Press site Strong Words and Simple Truths, I’ve observed that some posts receive more random views than others.  The blog below was written in October 2016 and is one that is consistently gets viewed by three or four people every month and I’ve always wondered why.

On this morning in June 2024, I pulled the Judgement card and reflected on the symbolism once again.  I haven’t seen this card in years and decided to read the widely read 2016 blog again.

It’s uncanny how similar patterns in the world and in my personal journey keep repeating themselves.

As I embark on a new chapter and journey in life, I am reminded to keep the faith and have the courage to do what is right.  

Photo by Lukas Hartmann on Pexels.com

The following excerpt about the Judgement tarot card is taken from https://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/judgement.shtml and applies to all people facing major changes in their lives.

“It’s a very hard card to read, in part because it deals with very hard and final decisions.  And it means facing something that most querents don’t want to face.  This is not about Death, something ending whether you want it to or not, this is about deciding to make a change, to stop doing something that isn’t working or do something that will work.  Which means that’s it really a card about courage, and about recognizing that you’re holding on something that needs to be let go.”

Here’s my post from October 9, 2016 titled The Fool on the Hill and the Judgement Card:

There is nothing like a good tarot card reading, a pending move to a new state and a bizarrely disgusting election news cycle to get me to look at things in an altered way.  An Agile Life encourages us to have frequent Retrospectives to review what is going well, what is blocking us and what we can do differently.

I view tarot cards as a mirror to the heart and soul and they often reflect thoughts and notions back to us in a new light.

“There is no way to leave the past behind,” The Angel observes. “Each step wears down the shoe just a bit, and so shapes the next step you take, and the next and the next. Your past is always under your feet. You cannot hide from it, run from it, or rid yourself of it. But you can call it up, and come to terms with it. Are you willing to do that?

The Angel hands the Fool a small trumpet. The Fool is hesitant, but he knows that the Angel is right. There are certain memories he has a hard time looking back on as they make him feel guilty, ashamed, angry. He knows that he’s never come to terms with what happened and he must if he wants to make that final transition.”

Here are some retrospective thoughts and questions based my drawing of the Judgement Card last night:

Are we able to resurrect the past, forgive it and let it go?

Do we need to start something we’ve been putting off or have the courage to finally end something that isn’t good for us?

Is it time to move on?

As I bask in the glorious autumn weather of Colorado and watch the leaves turn to orange, yellow and red, I remember that they will all fall to the ground soon, dead but nurturing to the soil below. I also have faith that the leaves will be reborn in the spring as the seasons continue to roll by.

I have hope that after the cold winter, there will be a better, brighter season but in the meantime…

It’s time forgive and move on to more important things.

by

Self-Nourishment: Releasing for Recovery

Are your muscles tense and holding a huge amount of stress?

Is your neck screaming at you? Maybe it’s your lower back that is barking.

Life’s challenges can be extremely stressful on your physical body. So often we hold our stress in our muscles and this leads to pain and discomfort. What can you do to get some relief?

To help release and let go of your tension, I recommend the top 3 basics of walking, stretching, and yoga. Recently, I experienced great release and recovery from a fitness class at Mountainside Fitness called “30 MIN. XPRESS ROLL & RELEASE” led by Kathleen Sollars which used foam rollers and tennis balls to help us achieve the benefits of myofascial release and increased blood flow and circulation to soft tissue. I felt like a stick of melted butter after this class! It’s amazing what a bit of focused rolling and pressure point action can do. The result that night was the best quality sleep I’ve experienced in months.

To help us better understand and apply the release and recovery model, my good friend and Yoga Therapist, Nancy Martch, shares her wisdom and focuses on the importance of self-nourishment in our daily lives. More than self-care, self-nourishment is the intentional replenishment of vital energy and breath to the body. Just like it is beneficial to feed our bodies quality food and nutrients, it is equally important to fill up our body’s emotional and spiritual tanks with positive movements, reflections, and breath work. In addition to yoga and mediating, rolling and releasing can be key components to your daily self-nourishment.

Below is a slide I appreciated from a presentation crafted by Nancy, owner of Jai Yoga. As my Yoga Therapist, she has helped me to become more aware of my body and its response to external stimuli and trauma. Nancy has helped me to breathe, balance, release and accept. Yoga therapy is an outstanding way to promote health and well-being within a therapeutic relationship. To learn more , check out this video. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram @jaiyogahouston

It is my hope that you can release some of your pain and tension with these ideas and tips. Life is too short to be in constant discomfort and you deserve to have some relief.

Take care of yourself. Breathe, move, and let it go.

Self nourishment calls on the Mother within you to take action for your personal and specific needs.

Remember the 3 Rs of Roll, Release and Recover!

Namaste.

by

Surprise! You are Ready to Rearrange

“Sometimes our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed and rearranged to relocate us to the place we’re meant to be.”

I was shocked to realize that I ready was to rearrange my life, shaking it up like a red, 1975 Etch A Sketch- selling our house and moving to another city.

Whether you are resetting your priorities, refocusing your efforts, or completely changing your home address, change and moving are not for the light-hearted.  Change is hard and that is why most people don’t attempt it.  Leaving your comfort zone is painful and that explains why so many remain like the frog in the proverbial boiling pot. It often seems easier to do nothing than it is to take a step into the scary unknown.

But I am here to tell you, not changing or relocating may result in just as much pain and anguish in the long run (look to history books for numerous examples of this- 1939 Germany comes to mind).  

My recent shakeup involves two major areas of my life- my job and my home.  The catalyst was a down-sizing event at my employer of ten years and then the retrospective conclusion that my home was located in a place where I wasn’t meant to be.  It just didn’t feel right anymore, and I knew that a drastic change was needed.  So, I resigned from my dead-end contract job and my family put our house up for sale.  The house got an offer in 2 days with a short 3-week close date.  Wow was that shaking things up!  

The rearrangement continues as I sit in a coffee shop called the Ground Shaker and write this blog.  I am in the city of Surprise, AZ where we are fortune to be staying at the house of good friends who are snowbirds who flew to Colorado for the summer.  

So now I find myself jobless and homeless with all of my worldly belongings (minus my clothes, bikes, and Apple devices) in a storage locker in Prescott, AZ.   

Moving is one of the most stressful and tiring experiences and this is the 24th time I’ve done it in the past 35 years.  All of my immediate family lives in the same county where I was born and raised and I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if I had never left for my first Army duty station after college.  A rolling stone may never gather moss but it also doesn’t establish strong and deep roots.  I do miss seeing my sister, brothers, cousins, nieces and nephews for the holidays and important life events. I miss and long for the adventures and trips down the shore with my east coast friends.

Relocating is all very unsettling and disconcerting but it helps when you know that you are doing it for a good reason.  Keeping a positive future state clear in your mind is one of the keys to reducing the pain of the change.  Visualization of a better place where I am meant to be is helping me cope with the waterfall of stress and angst. 

The ideas and images of a new house in a smaller, cooler town in the mountains are calming and soothing to the soul.  I’m hoping for that the higher altitude will bring better attitudes (or, to be more grammatically correct, higher elevations will bring positive revelations).  Less heat, more trees and lakes- that is what I need to keep my sights on- not this temporary sense of dread and unease. 

And so here I am in Surprise Limbo, experiencing the thrill of having my life completely shaken up, changed, and rearranged to enable me to relocate to the place I’m meant to be.

Onward and upward!

by

Does anybody really know what time it is?

I’m in a funky, themed house with dozens of clocks- all standing (or tilting) still with different times.

I even wrote on the wall in the kitchen- “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” These lines are from a great song by the band Chicago and it got me thinking. Is there any one thing that two humans can agree upon? Is the time on the clock the one thing that we are on the same page about?

Some of my friends are always early while others are always late. Why is that?

Could it be that the perception of time is unique to each individual mind?

Some people seem to appreciate and value time more than others. Some people are obsessive about time while others pay it no mind.

The one thing that is common to the majority of humans is that we don’t know when our time on this planet is up. If we all are on a “lifespan timer” or have a known expiration date (like in the movie Logan’s Run) , we would be better off ? Animals don’t be to care about this and they are always living fully in the moment .

How many humans live fully in the present moment? Why do so many people seem fixated on the past or worried about the future? Do our many clocks and time constraints drive this?

So many questions but not many answers on this topic. But what can I expect when I seated at the Tea-Party table in the Mad Hatter House (a cool AirBnB in Flagstaff, Arizona)?

“We are all quite Mad here” it says on the wall- plus “ It’s always tea time”.

Hopefully you will find more time for creativity and fun in this life.

After all , we don’t always know what time it is.

by

Ernie’s Hedge Fun: Top 12 Posts

Ernie the Hedgehog came to our family in 2016 while we were visiting Estes Park, CO. He’s a 2 and a half-inch bundle of joy and mischievous antics. He is a great photography model and always brings a smile to the waitresses at the restaurants we frequent.

Ernie is the internationally renowned Facebook Group leader of Ernie’s Hedge Fun and has been spreading happiness and cheer since starting the Ernie’s Fake News group in early 2017. This was back when you could still joke about the election, the craziness of politicians, and the new media. We had a laugh poking fun at the insanity of the process. Ernie specializes in satire and slapstick humor though they are out of favor on most social media platforms now.

For hundreds of people around the world, Ernie’s page is a stress-relieving sanctuary where all are encouraged to think like a 2 and a half year old, apolitical hedgehog who loves cookies and playing jokes on his parents. He is also an enterprising entrepreneur who starts a new job 2-3 times a day. While his fear of water is subsiding, we are always sharing zany photos of his new hydrophobia therapists who are rarely human.

Below are the top 12 Posts from Chief Content Creator, Steve Smull in February 2023.

1. Ernie’s Back End IT Integration Service.

“When we’re done, you’ll have no idea what connects to what & you’ll need a fire extinguisher.”

2. Nobody told Ernie trains are supposed to stay on tracks before they gave him the keys.

3. Ernie thought those were Girl Scout Thin Mints so he ate them all and now he is flying around the desert sky with the roadrunners.

4. Honest Ernie’s Used Car Lot.   Reasonable prices! This one includes a FREE TREE

6. Of course we drove straight into the mud like we learned how to do at Ernie’s Driving School For Dogs.

7. Ernie managed to get oil on the ceiling riding this thing around the house.  There’s oil everywhere.  Ernie looks like one of the ducks that get pulled out of the oil spills in the ocean.

8. Ernie bought a long horse named Stretch Limo.

9. Ernie has hydrophobia, so he rides his inflatable unicorn in the sand.

10. Ernie’s Windowless Grand Canyon Tours.

If you look closely, you can see Ernie waving, he’s looking out from the under the steering wheel.

11. Ernie has standards.  They’re low but they’re standards.

12. Hop in and put your seatbelt on, no time to explain.

by

Birds, Words and Green Trees

Every time I spend a few days away from home in a house surrounded by green trees, I get the urge to write. I’m not sure if it’s the clean air, the amazing views or the lack of distractions that prompts my literary desire to share my thoughts with you but here I go.

It could be the fact that I’m staying in a charming AirBnB in Prescott, AZ with my husband Steve and the owners from France have an amazing collection of books. Our bibliophile hosts feel like family to me as I view the many family photos on the white walls. I can feel the love and joy they get from cooking and sharing meals with their children and their friends.

As a recent and neophyte author, I have an immense appreciation for prolific and complex writers like Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and Michael Crichton. The main wall in the master bedroom has a large bookcase filled with pages of an adventure and intrigue. I could feel the emotion emanating from the titles on the spines.

So what is my story to share with you? Why would you be interested in my thoughts and experiences as I type these words from a wooden deck over looking the city of Prescott?

A large hawk just landed on top of a telephone pole about 50 meters from me. He hung our and watched me for a while and then flew off. Sometimes I wish I could be weightless and fly.

The morning air is clean and cool and crisp. My hands are getting cold as I type so I just grabbed my large, white ceramic mug of hot green tea and took a healthy sip. I look up again at the baby blue sky, the green and brown mountain horizon and feel a sense of serenity and gratitude. I feel happy to be able to share my thoughts and photos of this lovely place.

I feel connected with the trees and the birds and it brings me comfort and relief. I feel connected to the warm family that owns this home and as a result my own family in New Jersey is close in my heart and mind. I miss them dearly and look forward to my trip to see them in a few weeks.

The elevation of this property is 5,790 ft and I’m a facing due west at 270 degrees. My mind and senses are open to new input and information and I’m happy to chronicle my journey and share it with you.

I hope you have enjoyed my short and simple story of birds, words and green trees from Arizona.

by

The Best Medicine

It’s so good to be sitting on the porch of a cute, cozy cabin and reflect on what is important in life. Health, family and friends top the list of most valued gifts.

Spending time in the greenery of nature is soothing to my soul and my morning walk did me good. This fun sign below caught my eye and got me thinking. What do I want and how do I plan to get it? Where should I go and why? So many questions are swirling in my mind.

The cabin I’m staying in is small and quaint. There is no Wi-Fi or Internet and uploading the photo above took over 5 minutes. During the time I waited, I thought more about what I wanted to share here with you. It slowed me down even more to reflect and creatively choose my words.

Here are some of my answers to the questions:

Who: Me

What: Calm my mind and heal my shoulder

When: Now

Where: In the woods of Arizona

Why: Life is short and I want to alleviate the pain

How: Appreciating the beauty of the verdant trees and the sounds of the birds.

Getting away from the day-to-day grind of work and chores is a wonderful treat. Strong and simple – just the way I like it!

So many of us are hurting right now, physically and emotionally, and my wish is that you can take a moment for yourself and ask- Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.

The honest answers may be your best sign post to get you moving in the right direction.