Meditation meets Military Jargon: RAIN vs OODA Loop

When I first heard of Tara Brach and watched one of her talks, I was immediately turned off.  She seemed too airy and breathy, talking sooo slooowww and OH MY GOSH her “S’s” on her wordS were like a whiStle and I just couldn’t Stand it.  Give me a high energy, forceful, high impact motivator please!!

Then I read the book and heard Dan Harris on Ten Percent Happier podcast #224describe his first impressions of her as he interviewed her and he nailed it!!

“…She had pleasant submitting features.  She was holding forth in a creamy, cloying tone.  The style was astonishingly effective.  Artificially soft and slow as if she was trying to give you a reiki massage with her voice. She exhorted us to love ourselves, “invited us to close our yes and trust in the oceanness, in the vastness, in the mystery, in the awareness, in the love, so you could really sense nothing is wrong with me.”

I couldn’t bear to look over at Jason who I imagined must be silently cursing my name.  Brach closed with a poem, then a dramatic pause and finally a self serious sotto voce “thank you.”

BLECH.  But I continued to listen to the podcast and intermixed between the two of them she was much more tolerable.  She talked extensively about RAIN, which is akin to the military OODA loop.  These are strategies or tools to use in times of when multiple new inputs are coming at you and you need to deal with it and make a decision quickly.  In my work as an ER doctor however I do this all the time, so it is pretty easy to adapt to an introspective nature.

• R: Recognize emotions or body sensations rising up into your awareness
• A: Accept what’s happening as it is and lean into it
• I: Investigate pay attention to deepen your understanding of it
• N: Nurture (or Non-identification) realize freedom
• After RAIN:  rest in the awareness and realization

As compared to OODA Loop, where there is less surrendering to the inward and more outward action :

• O: Observe the data brought to your attention
• O: Orient what is meaningful and how does it apply to your situation
• D: Decide synthesize the information so the best goal is now clear
• A: Act make it happen
• Loop it back as needed and fine tune your process

OK easy enough.  At work I’ll see a patient, they describe their symptoms and I examine them, recognizing patterns of disease as I investigate and make a decision then act to diagnose or treat it.

Recognize and observe what the patient is saying.  Accept and orient by asking more questions which is an investigation that makes a decision to order certain tests which hopefully lead to a diagnosis and an action on a course of treatment that realizes how to help the patient.

This is sped up even faster when a patient arrives with ambulance sirens blaring, pulseless and not breathing while getting CPR.  I have to very very quickly Observe not only a life in danger, but what personnel are around to help me.  Sometimes I get some information about the circumstance and sometimes I don’t.  I need to rely on my knowledge of interpreting vitals, my clinical exam, suspicions based on patient age or clues on their body.  This is Orienting myself to the severity which funnels into the next step.  I have to use my training to Decide if X ray should be done now, or wait.  Prioritize compressions, or airway?  Once I have come up with the new goal I Act– quickly directing nurses to give life saving medications and securing the airway, directing CPR, etc.  All of the parts of the acronyms are happening simultaneously.  I rely on my training and my experience and have to constantly reassess the situation, keep situational awareness of my team, and reorient to outcomes that are working or not.  This is how lives are saved.

So how do I apply this to my own personal life?  I had to slow it down at first.  Recognize I get angry when I find yet another dirty plate on the table and not in the sink or dishwasher.  Accept that I’m angry yet again, which I know just increases my own stress.  Investigate how this anger makes me tense up and restricts my breathing, how I start pointing fingers at others but actually I’m guilty of leaving a stack of partially opened mail on the counter where it doesn’t belong (this loops back into recognizing and accepting).  Nurture that there’s no need to get angry about any of this, we’re all a family who just help each other out with household duties.  With time and practice, I’m able to use it more during toddler tantrums or when the inevitable miscommunication happens with my husband.

Anyone relate?  In the next post I’ll talk more about my immediate aversion to Tara Brach but again… how my judgments are so wrong and she is so, so right.

 

Race Day Meditation

My favorite meditation app Ten Percent Happier is doing a free course and I realized I had never shared this trick for when I’m running a race.  Sharon Salzberg was doing the daily meditation as part of the New Year’s Challenge and it’s on Metta meditation, or loving kindness.  My husband reported he had never done a Loving Kindness meditation, and I’ve heard great science behind the benefits while experiencing them first hand.  (More science on mindfulness in general here.) I posted this to a meditation group I’m in:

Today I tried a new Meditation, never heard of this combination but found it to be an amazing experience: Metta during a half marathon! (Aka loving kindness)I picked someone ahead of me and would focus on sending them the phrases “May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from suffering, may you live with ease.” I found my own physical limits vanished and I’d be so concentrated on this person I’d suddenly find myself running alongside them.
I found it helped to fine tune the focus by imagining their chakras and directing it toward that body part, so each person got about 7 recitations.
Around mile 12 though my brain was mush and I just reverted to my military training of imagining angry muscular jarhead instructors yelling cuss words for motivation 🤣

I came across this on instagram recently as I follow

#goenka and I like to visualize the words sometimes.  Thinking of doing a Goenka retreat so this was a funny coincidence to stumble upon.  Having these written down is a nice reminder of what to think as sometimes I forget the exact wording that works for me, and these are the phrases I like best.

What kind of benefits besides running and inadvertently catching up to people did I see?  As a physician, I definitely noticed more compassion- which is obviously very important.  Talk to any doctor and you may hear about “compassion fatigue” and how it leads to burnout.  With overcrowded ERs, the healthcare system in disarray,  long hours and shift work, etc. more and more physicians are finding our jobs bring less joy- and we leave the profession.

There was a newfound gratitude I had stepping in to see patients, seeing past their disease or chief complaint.  I gained much more than I gave, though I delivered the same medical care as always.  My medical school’s motto is “We Also Treat the Human Spirit.”  I felt much more than ever that I was living up to that.  I regained some Joy.  I felt a deeper satisfaction at the end of the work day.  More abundance.  Even with difficult personalities I felt like I had more resilience and less anger would arise.  Frustrations seemed to just be noticed then drift away, and not grip me for hours on end.

It helped with personal relationships too, more patience and understanding like when my 2 year old refused to put on her shoes.  If my husband left a plate out on the counter, I would just put it in the dishwasher without the mental grumbling.  My own thoughts took on the same tone- less inner critic and more “hey, that’s ok you didn’t check off every To Do list item” .  It used to be “Oh my gosh I can’t believe I didn’t do all the things!!!!  Where did the time go???  You need to do better 😡 ”  It helped to realize that self shaming judgy voice was Not Helping Anything.  My negative inner dialogue just ghosted away, and a weight felt lifted off me.

Of course, you don’t have to be a runner to do the meditation.  It was a spontaneous thing I tried and I combined my two new passions- running and meditation.  I’d always thought running WAS my meditation, until I tried the real deal.  Now it feels much More, with increased focus and increased love.  Ew, love?  Yep.  And more kindness towards myself.  Who doesn’t want more kindness shown to them?  Who doesn’t want more love?  When you look at it that way, it all makes sense.  Spend more time with someone who’s nice and loving- YOU.  You don’t have to tell anyone, it can be a secret all in your happier head.  Until you blog about it and the secret’s out 😉

What I Actually Wore as a Mom on a European Vacation

DAY BY DAY!  Finally put together a collage of my daily outfits from the trip literally 6 months ago, I’m hoping to fine tune what I actually am comfortable in and will wear!  Expanding on my previous post which was done before the trip (click here).  As you see through these photos, you may notice a few clothing items show up numerous times.. a couple only once.  Can you spot them?

Did you notice that the whole last week I wore the same nearly outfit every day????

BOTTOM LINE: Here is a list of items I would pack again. Layering of course is key!

1. Shoes:
   1. Dansko ballet flats: (black flat milled full grain)
   2. White walking sneakers (not Olu Kai, would get Adidas or Puma)*
   3. Running Shoes
2. Accessories:
   1. Waypoint Scarf
   2. Large Carryall Personal Item Bag
   3. Travelon Purse
3. 1 Dress:
   1. Gray Sheath Dress OR Floral Dress
4. 4 Tops (5 if you count workout outfit):
   1. Heather Long Sleeve Top
   2. White V neck
   3. Thank a Pollinator Tee (PAJAMA)
   4. Long sleeve black merino
5. Outerwear:
   1. Pleather Black Jacket (comfortable for airplane ride also)
   2. THIN Raincoat (the REI one I brought was quite bulky)
6. Bottoms:
   1. Gray skinny Jeans: (similar, same brand:)
   2. Black Leggings 
   3. Lulu lemon Track Pants (PAJAMA)
7. 1 Workout Outfit:
   1. Top
   2. Shorts
   3. Bra
   4. Hydration backpack
8. HONORABLE MENTION:
   1. LilleBaby Carrier (borrowed from a friend)
   2. Scrubba laundry Bag
   3. City Select Lux double stroller ($$$ but worth it)
      1. Note:  Would not recommend if you plan to use the metro frequently.  For that, advise small umbrella style, have heard good things about Pockit
      2. Was fantastic on all cobblestone streets (Bruges, Paris, all museums), on trails around Orval Brewery, and priceless for airport travel.  Youngest kid will actually nap in this!  I was able to get RIGHT UP  to the Mona Lisa because the French guards saw my stroller and directed me to a special line!

The embroidered button down and denim chambray shirt did not travel well, they both got very wrinkly.  The black tank I ran with I didn’t need, could have used just a t shirt.  I also packed a swimsuit, I wore it once.  Would not bring again on this type of trip.

*I wish I could get rid of a pair of shoes, if I had to give up one, it’d be the white shoes.  The black Danskos were just super comfy and can be dressed up or down and dedicated running shoes are very important to me.

Other lessons learned:

• Jewelry:  one dainty gold necklace is fine, 2-3 stud type earrings are fine
• Toiletries:  Have since changed to the Peak Design wash pouch– AMAZING.  I may do a separate blog post just on that!  Jewelry fits into a small pouch here.
• Journal:  Will use same notebook but thinner stickers and bring more polaroid film for the Instax printer
• Money belt:  Don’t bring. The travelon purse does just fine, the belt isn’t as practical
• Bag:  Backpack style was never used.  Rolling bag all the way, just bought this Travelpro carryon bag
• Umbrella?  Yes, nothing big or fancy
• Shopping bags:  Brought two, definitely used and needed. (say NO to plastic bags!!!)

Made this super quick video which reinforces some points and goes into the Essential Oil Diffuser which I also wrote a blog on!

 

The House of Closed Doors

It’s easy to walk down a hallway of your mind, brightly lit, and avoid the closed off rooms you pretend don’t exist.  I have been doing this for decades.  The way I am seeing myself lately, and the way I describe my fears to my husband and friends now is of opening doors.  Sure, this is probably an age old way of looking at one’s self.  You open doors to opportunity, when one door closes another opens, etc.

In the past, I’ve felt that when I got a glimpse of some dark part of myself, I’d immediately divert, avoid, shut off.  Only recently do I fully accept that dark thing is still there.  It’s not going anywhere, it’s housed under the roof of Me.  I used to think that if you avoided dealing with some emotion, it would run off and never come back, like a wolf hell bent to race out of a trap and be free off in the woods where you’d never see them again.

Well well well.  That wolf isn’t running anywhere but around my subconscious, unbeknownst to me.  Here I go on this voyage of self improvement and realize that this angry, vicious, dangerous being is right here, right now, all the damn time.  It’s why I can’t open up, why I don’t want to be vulnerable, it whispers in my ear “you can’t do this.  Don’t be weak.  Don’t show them.  Stop right now.”

So how does this wolf image I just conjured relate to the house of me with closed doors?  I just know that when I get close to this emotion, I want to slam a door to it.  Each motion is deliberate:

• My hand is on the door knob (I’m talking to someone and a topic arises)
• I grip and turn the handle (maybe I’ll look inside this emotional memory)
• Push the door open (uh oh am I really doing this?)
• The hallway light creates just enough to look in the room (a mess of shit I don’t want to deal with)
• I slam the door shut and avoid (nope nope nope change the subject)
• What I saw was this trapped wolf in a room, surrounded by the other discarded emotional memories that I didn’t want to deal with, directly because I couldn’t face that wolf directly.

OK so WTF is this wolf anyway?  I’m already self judging here, thinking it’s a stupid way to describe this.  A damn wolf.  OK here’s where I’m going with this.  Pardon me if I sound like I’m hesitating… I am.

Room #1 is an emotional memory of my 5 year old self running through the snow in my bare feet, pulling my 3 year old brother with me as I try to find a neighbor in the trailer park who can get me back to my mom.  We had just climbed out of our bedroom window because my dad had beat us and locked us in our room.  I didn’t want myself or my brother to get hurt anymore and I was so afraid of when my dad might come back, what he might do, and yell and hit us some more.  This is what created my angry, protective wolf.  The one afraid of being trapped and waiting to get hit, of watching my brother get hit more.

This room has that memory at its core.  Surrounded by it are all the times I was afraid of being trapped, of asking for help I knew wouldn’t come from people who were supposed to care for me.  In this house of Me, whenever I felt like I had to wait in fear, helpless, I chose to throw that feeling in the room next to that Wolf and WALL IT OFF.  DON’T LOOK AT IT.  IT DOESN’T HELP YOU TO CARE.  JUST PROTECT WHO YOU CAN AND RUN AWAY.  THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN PROTECT IN THE END IS YOURSELF.  YOUR DAD HIT YOU, HE’S SUPPOSED TO LOVE YOU… FUCK HIM.  RUN AWAY.

This broadened into anyone who I might care about.  Just stop, don’t care.  They could hurt you, and then what?  Barefoot in the snow again.  Just run away now before the beating happens.  As I got older, anger layered over it.  Just get angry, why the hell did this have to happen to you anyway?

Even better- don’t care, so you don’t feel trapped.  If you care about someone, you’re back in that room, one of them is the one you’re helping get up and out the window, one of them is about to burst through the door and hurt you.  So don’t get close to someone you might protect, and don’t get close to anyone who says they care about you.

Oh and now that you’re old enough to know never to talk about this with anyone, lest they pity you, just go ahead and get angry about it.  You can’t talk about it anyway, they just change the subject. So why open the door to begin with?

Let’s pretend that door doesn’t exist.  Let’s pretend that wolf was never born.  Let’s pretend all the memories of every time you avoided opening up to someone never happened.  Let’s pretend this whole room doesn’t exist in the house of Me.  Let’s pretend I’m a whole and complete person with this house of closed doors, of dark rooms, with no stacks of regret piling up, festering up this otherwise gorgeous house of happiness I think I have.

But I don’t see the undertones of all these wolves, how they whisper in my ear, how they breathe and steal my air, how I now can’t enjoy even my fully open and brightly lit rooms, because I hear them behind those closed doors.  Silently I feed each of these hungry wolves, afraid to face them and really turn on the lights, go to the window and let other people see inside.

Now I see how these closed doors have closed Me off.  How they take up room and inhibit me from being wholeheartedly happy.  How I hide these rooms from people, how I can’t even tell someone and I write it here to figure it out.  Stepping into these rooms has been one of the scariest things I’ve done in my adult life.  More scary than learning to ride a motorcycle, more scary than jumping out of an airplane, more scary than volunteering to go to Afghanistan.  Facing my own damn self.

How did I do it?  Lots of things, but mostly having a mindset of being open to cross that threshold when I notice I’m afraid.  How do I know I’m afraid?  I want to change the subject.  Run away.  Slam that shit shut and hide it far the fuck away.  How do I know this?  I sweat like crazy.  My heart pounds.  I feel like I can’t breathe.  Get away.  There’s a line, I can’t cross it.

Let’s go through opening the door again.

• My hand is on the door knob (I’m talking to someone and a topic arises)
• I grip and turn the handle (maybe I’ll look inside this emotional memory)
• Push the door open (uh oh am I really doing this?)
• The hallway light creates just enough to look in the room (a mess of shit I don’t want to deal with)
• FUCK FUCK FUCK THERE IS THAT THING I DON’T WANT TO SEE
• OK your heart is beating and I’m frozen and I can’t move
• Take a breath (yes I know you’re not breathing)
• Take a step.  Say something that wolf doesn’t want you to say
• OH YES YOU’RE DOING THIS HOLY SHIT STOP NOW
• Keep saying the THING (it’s ok if you’re talking fast and rambling)
• Focus on saying the WHOLE thing
• HOLY SHIT I’M SCARED IS THAT A FUCKING PRICKING IN MY EYES DON’T CRY GET AWAY
• Well fuck my voice is breaking and I can’t talk anymore or I’m talking so fast oh I forgot to breathe get out get out get out
• PRETEND LIKE EVERYTHING IS FINE AND SHUT THAT DOOR AGAIN YOU FUCKING IDIOT
• ok shut the door and regret everything you just said.  Until you realize you took a damn step and now have to deal with that.  At least you said something.
• Sleep for 12 hours straight
• Wake up with a vulnerability/shame hangover.
• Thanks you fucking self help idiots.
• .
• .
• .
• Well shit I think I feel better.
• .
• .
• .
• No wait I feel worse
• .
• .
• No wait I feel better.  Let’s open that door again, slowly, with someone by my side.
• This is exhausting.  I think it’s worth it.  I hope so.
• Get after it.

 

Ships Are Meant to Sail

When you pray to God and he answers your prayer, you might not like what he has to tell you.  I realized that a few weeks ago and am living through the repercussions of that still.  But I do know that when God speaks to you, you better listen.

It wasn’t a big booming voice in the sky.  It wasn’t like the biblical stories I’d heard growing up Catholic, it wasn’t a single “AHA” moment.  It was a string of events between me and people I met, people who I now know were the shining light he put in my path.

This hearkens back to my post about running in the Bastogne.  It was an unreal experience for me, and now looking back I realize it was my best form of prayer.  I was running in a beautiful nature setting, trusting in Something and letting faith guide me.  It was meditative, and it was transformative.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but God was showing me something about myself I didn’t even know.

The key moment of that half marathon honor run was when I dropped to my knees right on that battlefield and thanked every soul who came before me for that sacrifice.  Tears ran down my face as I thought of each soldier who would never come home, sons and husbands and fathers who gave everything.  Yes some gave their lives, but some gave something more intangible.  They gave the rest of their lives to that experience, to relive it, to remember it.

Months later I’m at a meditation retreat outside of Tucson, Arizona.  It was at Miraval resort, a place devoted to helping people with self-development, exploration of your true potential, that kind of thing.  My meditation teacher, Jill Wener was doing a Tapping session with me, also known as the Emotional Freedom Technique.  I didn’t really know much about it but watched a quick video and had no idea how tapping parts of my body was supposed to help me, but I was willing to give it a try.

I walked into it feeling very raw and emotional, which is unusual for me.  Through a series of meeting other teachers at the resort, journaling, and thinking back to some intense conversations with friends, I met with Jill and let her know that I was on the verge of tears and I didn’t know why.  I am not one to be emotional, EVER.  My key traits tend to be logic, discipline, hard work, results, progress…. vulnerability?  Heck no.

Yet here is Jill, open to helping me answer some question.  I don’t even know what to ask anymore so I have to pick something.  I guess I’ll go with “Should I get an MBA or should I do a fellowship in Integrative Medicine?”  Pros and cons to both, and a very logical thing to discuss, or so I thought.

So we begin the tapping . She poses my pro/con list back to me as if it was my consciousness talking to me.  It was weird hearing my thoughts being spoken aloud by someone else in a non-judgmental way.  Looking back on it, it feels like she was a mirror to my snarl of thoughts, showing me how to unravel it.

The concept of intuition comes up.  I tell her about how I followed my intuition in Bastogne and it led me to an amazing experience beyond words.  I feel tears welling up again.  She asked a simple question “Why did that make you cry?”

I hadn’t thought of really, really why.  Now with me sitting here after a few days of working on personal development and feeling like I hadn’t developed at all, this question pushed me into a sudden realization.  Running and remembering made me cry because of that sacrifice.  Because I have the highest respect for that sacrifice.  I hold it in such high regard because I haven’t made that sacrifice.  I feel like I’ve come up short in being as noble as those soldiers were.  Yes I served in the military but my destiny was not to give my life on the battlefield.  My service lies elsewhere and I’m still working on that, however…. I got emotional because I realized I hadn’t given My all to the people I love the most.

I have been holding fast to the idea of putting down roots, making this final decision, using logic all the time though my husband hasn’t been happy.  He’s been saying why and I haven’t been listening.  The truth is that it scares me to act on emotion.  To do away with logic and trust that God will take me where I need to go.  To have faith in my husband, to put his happiness really, really first.  Even if his happiness does not make logical sense, the fact is that he is unhappy.  I love my husband with everything I have but I have not put his happiness first.  I haven’t let myself be that vulnerable.  I built my fortress around concrete ideas of why he should just get used to my ideas being better.  Of course I did everything I could to build a beautiful palace for him in this fortress we built.  To him though, it’s still a prison.  This place.

For the first time, I realized the problem was ME.  When I follow my intuition, take a leap of faith, trust in God, that is how I get to my own true self, my own true happiness and my own true purpose.  I don’t need to fear emotion, I should embrace it.  That is when I felt the most alive, the most raw, when I let my walls down and allow myself to feel to the depths of my soul.  I realized I don’t do this anymore.  I need to do this at home.  Be open.  Be vulnerable to blind faith.  It scares me.

So there in that session, taking slow deep breaths to recollect myself as this realization hit me, it felt so completely Right.  It all was laid out before me and I saw how God was telling me this through my experiences and all the people who had pushed and spoke to me in a way that I would finally Hear.  But I only had to look within to see it all along, to ask myself just one layer deeper than I thought I had- that one question “Why did that make me cry?” Because it reflected on ME.

In the weeks since that moment I have had up days and down days.  I won’t lie- for me, crying is a completely exhausting thing.  I left the session reeling and slowly felt my basic self quickly return.  Anger.  I don’t want to feel the uncomfortable truth- getting fucking pissed off is a much more comfortable place to be.

My head can be a foul mouthed place to be, just know that IT WAS ALL CAPS AND IT WAS LOUD AND I WAS SUPER DUPER MAD AND PISSED OFF AND OH YOU BET EVERY OTHER WORD WAS A SWEAR WORD AND I AM CENSORING MY REAL MIND FOR YOU DEAR READER.  JUST KNOW THAT RIGHT NOW THERE’S A TON OF 4 LETTER WORDS SCREAMING BETWEEN THE LINES HERE, GOT IT?

The real kicker is though.. when God speaks to you, you better listen.  Even if you don’t like what he has to say.  Seeing that mirror of your snarled thoughts clear up and feel like you’ve dived too far deep in a vast ocean of denial and have to come screaming up for air.  This ocean I’d been sailing looked pretty good until now.  Now I realize what’s beneath the surface and where this ship is meant to sail, where the current has been trying to take me.  So I gotta pull up my anchor and follow the stars, trust the winds, and wave goodbye to the safe harbor we have come to know.  Wherever that takes us, I give to God.

A Daily Cold Shower??

Somehow I heard about this type of yoga that is uncommonly taught here where I live- it’s called Kundalini! I found a day long immersion course on it and was the only student who wasn’t aiming to be a yoga teacher. By the end of it, their feedback was “wow, it’s so different!” And when the teacher said “it’s like the espresso of yoga- it’s all about the music” I was wanting to learn more.

So as I’ve done a total of maybe 2 sessions I am NO EXPERT. The part I wanted to share though is that the lifestyle of this yoga involves some daily practices- one of which is a COLD SHOWER IN THE MORNING! Plus you start your day with a quick meditation and do an ab workout before you even get out of bed. So hardcore!

The first time I tried this crazy cold shower thing I was screaming in my head to stick it out. I lasted a quick tense 10 seconds before hopping out. The next day, it was an easier 10 seconds. Then more relaxed and easier… Then I extended it to 20 seconds. I actually look forward to it now, only 5 days in to the practice. The idea is to trigger your nervous system and oh my gosh does it get your nerves rushing! Definitely don’t need a morning cup of coffee after that!

I have also found the 1 minute ab hold, where you raise your feet up 6 inches and back up seems to clear my sinuses. At first it’s just my abs shaking but at 45 seconds into it, it’s like a decongestant suddenly hit. Given I have a history of sinus infections this is pretty cool. This practice is supposed to “set the navel point” whatever that means.

There’s a bunch more to the wake up routine- massage and putting on oils, that kind of thing. I haven’t tried that but given the benefits I’ve found in just these two routines I’ll be digging more into this yoga tradition and see what happens!

Travel Journal: France and Belgium

We’ve made it our goal to spend things on what we know makes us happy: experiences! Keeping a record of the personal experiences and how we felt, what amazed us, is something that just photos can’t capture. So journaling is my answer!

I’ve kept journals of all kinds throughout my life. Now combining travel with kids and finding ways to remember these moments is my new creative endeavor.  These are not All the pages of the journal, it is still a work in progress (if I ever really finish!)

Looking back at all my past travel journals is such an amazing way to reminisce. Even now just two months after our trip I’m adding in a few notes and photos (had a printer issue that is now resolved) reading all the details I had forgotten about brings me so much joy.

It is picture perfect for an advertisement? Is my hand lettering expert level? Heck no. Will I treasure this for years to come and hope to help my kids remember our fun family time? Heck yes. #memories

See this post about materials used for this project.

Once home I used a Cricut machine with adhesive metallic vinyl for a title.  Also used washi tape and a ribbon to keep it shut

Monet Garden visit, under the photo are some pull out pics from a brochure.  Seriously, such a pretty place

 

Louvre and went to a sidewalk cafe with AMAZING food.. as evidenced by the tab

My daughters still talk about seeing the Eiffel Tower

The pamphlets fold out and you can read about these locations

I bought the croissant and chocolate bar sticker in a shop down from our Air BnB in Bruges

I could have printed 10 photos of this ruined Orval Abbey and not done it justice

Honfleur was so awesome, probably should jazz up this spread

This one is a little busy, but since I was beyond impressed I went beyond crazy on journaling it

Funny how often I mention laundry.  When traveling light, it is an integral part of your evening!

Travel with kids… so relaxing…

 

Our travel friend is an amazing artist.  I tried drawing once, as you can see.  It was only once.

 

 

 

 

Not sure if you can tell, by this late point in the trip I was just trying to throw in things Super Quick, no time to be artistic

 

 

I wrote another blog post about my Bastogne Half Marathon run.  Very moving.

 

 

 

We picked the poppies by the beach and folded them in a baguette wrapper.  I put it at the back of this journal until they were dry. Worked fantastic to press the flowers, laminated them when I got home.

Bottom right photo is the guy who owns Brecourt Manor and made the calvados himself from their own orchards.  You can see the story of Brecourt Manor in “Band of Brothers” on HBO

Meeting Normandy vets and celebrating our friends birthday at Luc Sur mer

 

The original Orleans, where Joan of Arc is from.  Saw the Original Bourbon Street

Chateau country is so so so cool.  Just go to the Loire Valley.  Just go.

Stuffed full of memories!

Travel and Essential Oils

Three weeks in Europe and i had to think ahead of how to prepare for the stress of travel. So I did what I do at home and on previous roadtrips!

I am no expert on essential oils. I don’t sell them. I use them at work, home, in the car, as adjunctive topical treatments and in my cleaning agents… So I know what I like about them.

On our recent trip to Europe, this is the array of oils that I brought that I found worked fantastic. With so much moving around, one of the first things I did at each new hotel/AirBnB was to set up the diffuser and drop in some oils.  It’s also nice to have an international plug adapter specially for the diffuser, but not necessary.

Because we moved a lot, when I’d pack up, I would fill the blue glass spray bottle and use that to transport the oil-filled water. I also had a plug in USB port for the car, so for longer rides we reaped aromatherapy benefits (and we know stress can go up driving in foreign countries for hours with 4 adults and 2 kids!)

This Kavu kit also held the diffuser. I don’t have a personal photo of the diffuser since I brought it back to work, from my screenshot you can see I’ve already bought 2- one for each location I work!

This little kit was definitely worth the luggage space, I highly recommend it for any traveling family! Our friends who traveled with us loved it, saying how it always made each place so inviting and helped take calming, centering breaths through our adventures. Oh, and calming breaths when our 2 year old tested her vocal cords 😉

75th Anniversary D Day Half Marathon

Grueling and exhausting. Two grim words to describe my run at Omaha beach today, though it was also of course, a moving experience for me to be running the infamous stretch of sand.

After a day of touring Normandy with my two kids which loved to be held, one of whom is a teething toddler, I was exhausted. I already felt like I had done a major bicep, back, and shoulders workout, on top of a 4:30 am wake up. On top of that, I didn’t know if the beach would even be open today with all the dignitaries visiting and subsequent road blocks.

Ultimately after the tour was done, my husband drove me to the beach. Setting my Garmin and snapping a few photos, I was off.

I planned on doing 3.5 or so miles to the east, then back and 3 miles down and back. I set off on the sand, and ran the entire thing on the beach. Thankfully I was able to find a good amount of hard packed sand, though the way the tide runs in and out creates shallow sandbars with little ripples of sand covered in a thin layer of water, with occasional rivers traversing down.

Though I did try to keep my feet dry at first, as I crossed the beach it was impossible to keep them dry. At the easternmost end, I believe past Fox Red I ran into a bunch of rocks with kelp. This whole time on the bluffs I didn’t see any pillboxes or big antigun batteries like at Calais, though I knew they were on top of the bluffs beyond my view from the tour we did. At the westernmost end, past Charlie, I again ran into rocks though less kelp.

Basically from the surf, you just see a lot of damn sand. Sand and sand and then bluffs. A lot of it. It’s so much to cross. I know it looks different today than 75 years ago, as the shingle is gone and the shelter it provided. The greenery on the bluffs is probably grown up more, and of course the mines and concertina and Belgian Gates and hedgehogs are no longer there. Still, looking at the bluffs from all parts of the beach, I can’t imagine the terror.

The swells also weren’t as bad on this day, I believe it was 5 foot swells during the landing but as I ran it was only 1 foot or so. I know of the stories of bodies rolling in the surf, and how fast the tide came up and down to drown wounded men, however today was a different ocean.

It was hard to imagine what took place here. Maybe I rebelled against it, though I tried to force myself to remember what really happened on this sand as I listened to accounts through my headphones. Blood in the sand. Boats lowering the ramp and you had to advance while the person to your right and left are immediately killed. Body parts and dropped guns, guns which would be picked up by following waves of Infantry, many of whom had to drop their gear or drown while offloading from their landing craft. Mass confusion, sights enough to cause hysteria and vomiting even on top of the seasickness, not to mention the hypothermia from the English Channel.

As I wrote this 3 hours after my run, a hot shower already taken, my wet feet and wet socks through the run were miserable. Definitely part of the experience, but miserable. I can still feel them aching, throbbing from the cold and uneven sand I had to cover.

I can’t help but compare this to my Bastogne Half experience. Alone in the pastures and woods, I felt like I was closed in by the history. Reminders and odes of thanks were written in stone at numerous points. Also as a run goes, the scenery changed numerous times from pastures to fields, towns and woods.

Omaha beach is a giant flat wet unscenic run. While there were D day remembrance Jeeps going up and down, a few people waved as I ran past, Blackhawks flew past a few times… It still felt bleak. In the best and worst way possible. I can see more how soldiers and sailors looked out at he bluffs and had little hope. I tried to imagine gunfire and blasts and shelling and the cold fatigue, but it was too much for me to comprehend.

Even running there, cold feet, exhausted, ankle a little twisted, hungry because I forgot two GU energy gels… I still have no clue how those men did it. The extreme fortitude, the resignation to the only path they were given, fighting against that complete cold, wet, all consuming fear while watching death all around.

All I can do is say thanks. Try my best to be better, for their sacrifice. I’ll never be able to imagine or understand but I can teach my kids to appreciate it. Freedom is not free, and today I got a big reminder of that.

Bastogne Half Marathon

It wasn’t an organized event, just my own way of paying respects to the soldiers who died defending Bastogne. In traveling to France and Belgium, my husband and I made a special trip to the Ardennes region, seeing Bellau Wood on the way. My husband is a prior USMC Captain, I being former USN LCDR medical corps, we have learned about the history of these battles through our military career but also books, Netflix, and the HBO show “Band of Brothers.” I had no real planned route, I just knew where I wanted to start, where I needed to end up, and freely ran where my feet decided to go.

So on the morning of 02 June 2019 I set my alarm for 5:00 am and drove from our Air BnB, leaving behind my husband to care for our two kids age 2 and 4. The summer morning fog rolled through the green hills as I weaved through sleepy little towns until 45 minutes later I pulled up to the Bastogne War Museum and Memorial.

No announcer, no balloons, no crowds, just me and my jogging hydration pack, headphones, and shirt from my deployment to Afghanistan from 2013. Turning on a Jocko Podcast I had downloaded ahead of time, I set out on my run to remember.

Mile 1 took me around the memorial pretty quick, then down to the city of Bastogne. Seeing the Liberty Cones for the 75th anniversary, I also passed the town plaza where we would later drink Airborne Beer out of mini “helmets.” I turned to go past the 101 Airborne Museum, which has a photo of my co-workers grandfather Frederick Becker who was 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. I also snapped some photos at the entrance of the Bastogne Barracks which is where HQ was.

Around mile 3 or 4 I’m listening to the podcast and Dick Winters talk about planning an attack on Foy. Just then, I come to a fork in the road and see a sign indicating that to the left is that same town, 5 kilometers up. Well I guess I’ll go check that out. Sometimes trusting the world and the path laid before me leads to amazing things.

By now I’ve found a path I think is for cyclists, or just some paved road that goes North West and is nice and tranquil, quiet, not crossed by many roads, and the flowers and morning sunlight are all I have to appreciate. However as I’m running, I realize this idyllic landscape was a harsh winter to many miserable men just 75 years ago. Each step I’m taking was fought for with blood and gunfire and fear and ferocity.

Suddenly a road is in front of me, and I see a memorial to my left. It’s the 506 PIR Easy Company monument. Apparently I have been running through an area hard fought for all this time. After snapping some photos, I figure I may as well see the town of Foy, so I take a left. It’s only 1.7 km, and I’m at mile 6 or so.

Now I start to see the pine trees recognizable from the TV show. Also I am listening to Jocko talk about Charles MacDonald’s book “Company Commander” where he describes running from the initial assault of Battle of the Bulge and the trees exploding over and next to him, losing his men through the brush.

To my left now I find another memorial. I learn this is the Bois Jacques (Jaques Woods), and the memorial says this was an area of unusually heavy fighting. I run in to see what it looks like from inside the woods. Then at a clearing overlooking Foy, I see holes dug in, and I can only surmise they must be Foxholes. Later on I would take my 4 year old daughter here and tell her that people died in these Foxholes. She began to sing a soft song, and I didn’t recognize it. I asked her what she was singing, and she said it was a song for the people who died here.

Well my heart just shattered in a million pieces and grew back stronger when she said that. I am lucky to be her mother.

Back to the morning of my run however, I continue down to Foy then head back to the memorial and north on the trail again. Now I’m at mile 8. Now I’m listening to “Memorial Day 2018″and tears start to come. My face crumples up and the gut wrenching sobbing starts. Crying, heaving breaths, out of gratitude. For all who died here as I run. All the men who will never be fathers. All the men who were fathers. A debt that can never be repaid. What I have gained from that sacrifice. I keep running as tears fall.

I’m running with an American and Belgian flag the whole run as well. I debated whether to do this. Honestly the reason is that I felt like for those men who died, if their ghosts are hanging around and turn to see this crazy combat veteran running through their battlefield, they will see the Stars and Stripes boldly held alongside the flag of the citizens oppressed by the Nazi flying high and proud and strong. A banner of freedom, one for the USA and one for the Belgian people.

So mile 8 and 9 pass, around mile 10 I beging to hear through my headphones from Jocko Podcast #67 at 4:07 “When a warrior falls… Get on your knees and praise what that man has sacrificed and acknowledge the supreme and uncorrupted Eminence of that soldier, of that warrior.” Trust me, you have to hear the whole speech to understand why, at that moment, looking back over the Eastern front of Bastogne, I dropped to my knees, and prayed. I thanked the men and their spirits and their history in that dirt under my knees and knew I had no words eloquent enough besides “Thank you.” Here now writing this I know that my words are not enough. My measly 13.1 mile run is not enough. But I can be thankful for every minute of my freedom, every moment I have with my family, every small liberty that I have, to men like this. To those who died and those who lived but still bore the scars. Who came home, but never the same.

But the world carries on and so did I. Running towards Bizory I passed a sign for the Peace Woods and lazy cows in the morning sun, now nearing 9 am.

Finishing my 13.1 miles at the top of the memorial, overlooking Bastogne and the plaque to all the soldiers and the remembrances offered, I took a deep breath and appreciated it all. Each footstep, each turn that led me to the next, feeling as if guided by chance and intuition, or maybe something more, was a blessing for me to take. Each step was my prayer of thanks, each breath one of gratitude. Your sacrifice is not forgotten.