What Was the Last Instruction You Were Offered? - #117

Keeping my body healthy is a full time job. My wellness team includes two massage therapists, an acupuncturist, a nurse practitioner, a D.O. who specializes in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, a Spiritual Director, and a Tai Chi Instructor. Plus a Primary Care Physician who I've only seen once when I recruited her.

These health practitioners are experts. Each of them is generous with advice that I can implement at home.


I won't name names, but this week, wrapping up our appointment, the instruction given was two words:

DO LESS

The words are stuck in my head. This may be the most difficult instruction I have been given. DO LESS.  

Who is on your health care team? What could you do less? Can You DO LESS?

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

Midweek Uncertainty

Your tolerance for uncertainty correlates with your ability to trust life. 

From: www.drdianechung.com

The saying above made me remember when one of my favorite clients said: "Celebrate Uncertainty." At the time I was so startled by her words, I didn't know how to respond but I never forgot them.

Like most people, I don't like uncertainty. The idea that I could celebrate it continues to tantalize me. I'm thinking that if I could celebrate uncertainty, life would be one big celebration!

How about you? Have you ever celebrated uncertainty? How do you deal with uncertainty?

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

The Irony of Icons - #116

exploring the mystery post on May 28, 2013, with little or no fanfare, included an image. What an image it was!*

This unusual photo ignited my obsession for capturing images that increase the value of a post. I'm puzzled why after years and years of ignoring images, only having time for words, I am suddenly hooked on illustrating my posts.

Perhaps the pictograph phenomenon permitted me (forced me) to look at something other than the printed word.  In order to launder my clothing I have to decipher icons that would look familiar to the peoples of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.  

Each week I go through my Picasa web album containing all the photographs from recent years. It is like a treasure hunt with a steep technological learning curve.   Last week, when I found the reflecting pool with frogs that I had taken two years ago in the garden on Michigan State campus, it felt like I won the lotto. 

Retrieving images from my phone is still difficult. Ironically, today there will be no image because the perfect one - a pictograph that pictures a dog with leash & says, Dog Relief, a picture I took in an airport a couple of years ago refuses to transfer over to the blog.

Are you adapting to the language-independent new world?

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

*If you go to the blog and scroll down as far as you can go and then click on older posts and wait and then scroll some more you will eventually come to May 28, 2013, photo.

Midweek Question: Do You Know This Type of Stillness?

"We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images; and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our silence."

                                             William Butler Yeats


Sent to me by Companioning the Dying, June 13, 2014

I Dare You To Open Your Mouth! - #115

Pema Chodron writes that during meditation, the mouth is to remain slightly open so the air can move easily through both mouth and nose. 

This is contrary to what I was taught at the Des Moines Zen Center. In fact, it is different from anything I have ever read regarding breathing while meditating.

The usual advice - close your lips, let your teeth touch, breathe through the nose.   

One morning, throwing caution to the winds, I relaxed my jaws and slightly opened my lips while sitting on my meditation cushion.  

The result was nothing short of amazing! Concentrating on my breath was much easier. 

(Picture a house, windows thrown open, fresh breezes swirling through.)

Try it! If meditation is not your thing, remember to part your lips the next time you feel stressed or want to relax - it worked for me once. You might want to keep your chap stick handy. 

Let me know what you discover.  Scroll down and click on exploring the mystery to take you to the blog comment section or reply to this email.

NOTE: The picture above is contrary to how hemp shower curtains normally dry. Carl Hiaasen fans may detect a holy personage just waiting to be sold.

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall