Facing Losses

Today, I saw a reminder on Facebook that a friend of mine from high school was having a birthday today. Sadly, she is not here to celebrate that birthday.  She passed away from metastatic breast cancer over a year ago.  This sad memory came on the heels of some devastating news that another friend of mine from high school just passed away from metastatic breast cancer last week.  While I hadn't been close to them since graduation, these were women I spent a lot of time with in my youth. They were not that different from me.  

I also lost two members of my peer support group in the past few months.  In the end, they had so much pain that they were ready to go, but it doesn't make it any easier.  

All but one of these women were diagnosed after me.  They had less time than I have had with their families. They suffered greater complications from the disease and corresponding treatment.  And it doesn't seem remotely fair.  I have moments of feeling guilty.  How am I still here when so many others have not made it this far?  And in my lowest moments, I have to admit that I wonder when the bubble might burst for me.  

And so I find myself writing, because that is what I do when I feel a bit conflicted or out of sorts. I find that writing helps me to work through some of the painful feelings and to find a way to sit with them so that they don't feel quite so heavy on my heart. Sometimes, words, and the action of pulling them together, can be healing. It lets me put on paper and release from my head the things that are troubling. I think writing is also, in many ways, a sign of hope.  It embraces the idea that I have something worth saying. And it leads to the hope that you'll find what I have to say worth reading.  

It is not always easy to have the sword of damocles that is cancer dangling over your head. But hope is a muscle that gets stronger the more it is worked.  And then it becomes something stronger than hope. It becomes a sense of well-being about myself and the world, despite observations to the contrary.  It allows for me to be present with the way things are, but to look without fear at what may be down the road. I've learned we must let fear go if we want to make progress.  

I mourn the loss of these amazing women who lost their lives too early.  Their memory encourages me to cherish the present moment all the more, and to say yes to the future plans that are offered up. To say yes to vacation plans, to say yes to dinners with friends.  I am grateful that vaccinations are going to make such things possible again. And I'm saying yes to this beautiful life and to the future. I know there are no guarantees,  My scans next week will say what they say.  But I will not be afraid about them. 

What Doesn't Kill You...

Humans are interesting creatures.  I watched a couple of documentaries the last two weeks that really made me think about the nature of physical suffering.  Nobody wants pain or suffering, right? But yet, we actually kind of do.  Sometimes we purposely seek it out.  Why is that?

One of the movies I watched was about Bikram Choudry.  He is the founder of Bikram yoga and popularized the whole hot yoga trend where people practice in rooms heated over 100 degrees.  I've tried it three times, and each time I felt utterly depleted afterward and decided it just wasn't for me.  But people get really addicted to it and swear by it. The interesting thing about Bikram is, not only is the room miserably hot, but his style and personality are quite abusive to his students and he has since fled the country due to litigation over allegations of sexual assault and abusive behavior. Still, thousands of people happily forked over thousands of dollars to train with him, and they still do today. 

The other documentary was about the mountains and the draw that they have for us.  Mountains are not welcoming places. They are starkly beautiful, but they are not places you go for quiet rest and relaxation. In ages past, mountains were forbidding places of deep mystery, and nobody would go there on purpose. Mountains are cold, hard, unforgiving environments. How many people have been injured or died while trying to cross passes or reach summits? Still, the mountains draw people in. People will pay dearly for the opportunity to experience some of the most intense suffering of their lives in attempts to climb the highest peaks in the most heinous conditions imaginable.

I'm no stranger to the joy of suffering.  Each summer, I purposely, and with great delight, weigh myself down with many pounds of gear on my back so that I can go out into the forests or mountains and  expose my fair skin to the punishing effects of the sun (or perhaps rain or wind), put up with all manner of biting bugs eager to make a meal of me, and generally make myself quite exhausted with the effort of it all as I find myself counting down the steps or paddle strokes until I can make camp and sleep on the cold hard ground.  And I love it.

So why do we do it?

Maybe its the old adage, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  While modern life has its challenges, most of them are not physical challenges.  Life is pretty cushy for most of us in the western world who are not manual laborers.  I think we all long to test our mettle in some way. There is something deeply satisfying about doing something really, physically hard, and somehow getting through it. Smooth seas never made for a skilled sailor.  Muscles don't grow from sitting in the easy chair. We get better, and stronger, when we are challenged.

This is exactly why I've started challenging myself with the Wim Hof method. Wim Hof is a slightly insane Dutch guy who is also known as the Ice Man.  He's done some pretty astounding feats such as a climbing to the death zone of Mt. Everest and running a marathon above the Arctic Circle, both times wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. He holds records for swimming under the ice and immersing himself in ice water for a couple of hours without his body temperature dropping. Through experimentation, he has learned how to hack his body so that he can control his autonomic nervous system and charge up his immune system.  He teaches some specific breathing exercises and controlled cold exposure in an effort to help people improve their health and well-being. Even people with chronic diseases like Parkinson's and cancer have found better health through his method.  Hof believes that humans evolved to be able to handle cold temperatures, but in our modern lives, we have climate controlled ourselves into a state of weakness. By exposing ourselves gradually to the cold, we can turn on all kinds of mechanisms within our bodies that help us regulate body temperature, build stronger immune systems, metabolize fat more efficiently, and reduce chronic inflammation.

I already practiced a lot of breathing exercises, so that part wasn't hard to add to my daily routine, but the part I really had a hard time with was the cold exposure. Wim Hof suggests cold showers and ice baths as part of the methodology. Yes. Cold showers. In the middle of winter.  Did I mention this guy is a little bit crazy?  I have always hated the cold, so why was I even considering this?  But somehow Wim Hof kept turning up in just about every podcast I listen to and I kept hearing how awesome it was to experience this cold therapy.  It took me nearly two months of just doing the breathing exercises before I finally summoned up the courage to try the cold showers. So I'm as surprised as anybody to say that I am finding that I almost enjoy it. 

OK. Enjoy might be a strong word, but there is something pretty empowering about it. Despite the fact that the outside temperature is now below freezing, and the water coming out of the pipes is tremendously cold this time of year about (50 degrees), I have been taking a cold shower nearly every day for the past two months.  I start out with warm water, and then I shut off all the hot water so that only the cold is running.  The first few seconds are the worst. But it is surprising how, if I stay calm and just keep my breathing steady, my body knows how to handle it. I turn the warm back on when I feel I can't do it anymore, usually after about one minute, and then I end with another 15 to 20 seconds of cold.  It is very bracing, to say the least, and I am, most certainly very AWAKE by this point.

Will it make a difference for me in the long run with my health?  I have my quarterly scans at the end of the month, and we will see.  But even if nothing changes with my scans, the plain fact of the matter is that I do feel better. I'm finding I've become much more tolerant of the cold weather this winter, and I don't feel nearly as cold as I used to feel. My skin is in better health with less itchiness (itching is a side effect of one of the drugs I get), and I have really good energy and focus.

But mostly, it makes me feel powerful.  And that feeling, I think, is what it's all about. Having cancer or any kind of illness can make you feel like you are somehow weak and frail. So often, though, our mental challenges are far bigger than the physical challenges.  If we can just get out of our heads sometimes, we find that our bodies have the wisdom to know just what to do. These bodies of ours are pretty amazing. Just the fact that you can think about scratching your nose, and then make it happen, is a feat of neurological wonder.

When I take that cold shower, I see how quickly my body warms me back up the minute I step out. It's quite remarkable. We focus so often on the things that are wrong with us, that we forget about the millions of things that go right every single moment. It helps me to recognize that we are so much stronger than we think we are and that every challenge just makes us a little bit stronger for the future.

Health is Not the Absence of Disease

Today was treatment day for me. Every three weeks I go into the cancer center and get an IV infusion of Herceptin and Perjeta.  These are targeted therapies that are meant to keep the specific type of breast cancer cells that I have from growing.  The drugs target receptors on those cells that keep the cell from dividing.  They have kept me stable for over three years now with minimal side effects. I am beyond grateful for them.

Every three to four months, I get a CT scan and an echo-cardiogram to see how I'm doing.  The drugs can be hard on the heart, especially for those taking them long-term, so the the echo checks to make sure my heart is still pumping efficiently. The CT scan checks the state of the lesions that have shown up on previous scans, and they measure them to see if there are any changes or to see if anything new has popped up. I had a scan at the end of November, and it was not entirely good news.  The scan showed a slight enlargement of one of my axial lymph nodes.  These are the nodes right in your armpit. We don't like changes in the scans unless they show that there is a reduction of size. That kind of change is A-OK, but bigger is not better. If there is progression, that could mean that my cancer has stopped responding to the current treatment. This sort of thing happens a lot with cancer which is what makes cancer such a tricky thing to manage.

My oncologist was pretty concerned. This might mean that we would have to change things up with my treatment, which I wasn't excited about at all. Most of the other treatments are not as free of side-effects as the one I'm on. But she didn't want to make any rushes to judgement. There could be lots of reasons why a lymph node might be enlarged.  I had just had a flu shot the week before. Could that have been the reason for it? Maybe I was fighting a cold. So, we decided we'd take a "wait and see" approach and scan again in three months.

The three month re-scan happened last week. I knew that this one, depending on the report, could make a big difference in what my treatment might look like.  I knew I might have to put in a little more effort into the outcome I wanted to see.

I've done a lot of reading this past year about how absolutely powerful our thoughts are.  We've all heard someone say "just thinking about it makes me sick." It's true, though, isn't it?  We've probably all had the experience of worrying so much about something that we got a stomach ache, or feeling so stressed out that we get a headache. We can, most definitely, make ourselves sick.  So, it stands to reason, that if we can make ourselves sick by our thoughts and emotions, couldn't we make ourselves better too?

So, I focused my meditations on feeling the emotions of a positive scan report.  I visualized the smile on my doctor's face as she told me that things looked good.  I imagined healing love energy flowing into my body and filling up every corner of every cell with a beautiful golden light. I visualized myself doing a happy dance and sending that love energy to everyone around me. I imagined telling people the good news. I filled my heart with positive emotions and a sense of well-being. Our brains and bodies produce chemicals based on our emotions, and I wanted my body to know that everything was totally good.

The morning of the scan, I had a thought that popped into my head. "I want to see a monarch butterfly today." If I saw an image of one, I would feel like that was my sign that everything was going to be just fine. And then I went to work and forgot all about that thought.  Before I knew it, afternoon was upon me and I had to head over to the clinic to get my scans. As I was waiting for the CT nurse to call me in, I pulled out my phone to while away the minutes. Facebook is always a reliable way to kill time, and I was scrolling through to see what my world of friends and family have been up to. All of a sudden, I scrolled upon a video that a good friend of mine had posted. And what do you suppose was in the video? Not just one butterfly. The video showed hundreds of monarchs flying against the backdrop of a bright blue sky. It was simply beautiful, and I found myself overcome with love and appreciation and a sense of great awe and wonder. It was almost as if the universe was saying, oh you wanted a butterfly, did you? I'll show you so many butterflies that there will be no mistaking this sign.

As I gazed at this slow-motion video of butterflies dancing across the sky, I had this sense that each one was picking up whatever troubles I did not need and carrying them away. And I knew that, no matter what, everything was going to be okay.

The next day, I thought I'd play around with the universe again. So I asked for an image of an angel as another sign. I didn't see one all day and again forgot about it until evening. We had plans to see a movie that night, Apollo 11, at the Imax theater in Roseville and as we walked into the theater from the parking lot, I realized I had not seen any angel images. Just as I thought that, my son said, "Hey, Alita, Battle Angel.  My friend saw that and he said it was really good."  I had not heard about this movie at all, but as we walked into the theater, the first thing I saw was the poster for Alita, Battle Angel, with an image of her front and center.  I laughed to myself and thought, OK, so it wasn't exactly the image of an angel that I had in my mind. But sometimes the universe gives you what you want in ways you did not expect. You just have to be open to things as they come your way. 

I met with my oncologist today.  It took her a good long while to get around to telling me about my scan results.  We talked about how Stage 4 in one person, isn't the same as Stage 4 in another person. If we just checked off the boxes that say "this is what you do when you see a change" I would probably already be on a different treatment. But she understands that she's not treating cancer. She's treating me. She is treating someone she knows. Yes, I have metastatic breast cancer, but that is not who I am.  I am not a diagnosis. We are not defined by the labels assigned to us by a system that wants to check off boxes.  I may be labeled as stage 4, but I also snowshoe, and I backpack, and there is nothing keeping me from living the life that I want to live. Just as my angel didn't look like I expected, "health" does not always look like you expect. Health is not the absence of disease.  It's about how we are able to live our lives. Are we able to do the things we want to do most of the time? Are we able to give something to our communities.  Are we part of something bigger than ourselves?

We talked about how cancer changes us and makes us see life in ways we would not have imagined.  She sees it all the time - people who say, I'm actually a lot happier and healthier post cancer than I was pre-cancer. Of course, none of us who have cancer or have been touched by it would ever wish it upon another person, but there is something about the experience of it that changes you. It makes you understand that life is so incredibly beautiful in all its many guises. It makes you take better care of yourself. It makes you appreciate and see each day in a whole new way. It makes you wonder how you can make the world a better place.

That lymph node? It's still enlarged, which I wasn't wanting to hear. But it hasn't changed since last time. Everything else is perfectly stable as well. No changes at all. So my Dr. doesn't think we should make any changes to my treatment because I'm doing so great and everything still looks good. So I didn't get exactly what I expected, but it was still the exact outcome I wanted. My doctor did have the happy smile I had imagined.  I did feel my body full of light and love. I did do that happy dance I had visualized and excitedly shared my scan report with the nurses and my family. It all transpired just as I had imagined it would

So it's all good. We will scan again in three months to keep an eye on things, and as we wait for the next scan to come round, we will all just live each day the best we can, and imagine and feel deep in our cells what we want our future to be.  And if we open our eyes, I bet we will see unexpected angels everywhere. Or a hundred butterflies. You never know. Spring isn't that far away.

https://www.facebook.com/pato.moreno.71/videos/1879461472182424/?t=2

Believing in Impossible Things

This weekend, we watched a terrific movie called The Dawn Wall. It tells the story of American rock climbers, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, who drew worldwide attention as they attempted to free-climb a 3,000 foot rock face on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

El Capitan is very popular with climbers and many routes up the rock have been explored over the years, but the face known as the Dawn Wall was considered much too difficult to free climb.  Free climbing is where a climber can use ropes and equipment to protect themselves from falls, but not to actually aid in the climbing itself.  Free climbers use only the strength of their bodies to make the ascent. The Dawn Wall is particularly difficult to climb because it really is a wall with sheer rock faces that provide almost nothing to grab onto.   This photo from the movie gives you some sense of how truly difficult this climb is. It's pretty much a straight wall with some little bumps in it. Even Spiderman would have some challenges with this wall.



To make things even more complicated, this is not a one-day climb. They would need to complete 32 pitches (sections) to reach the top.  Some days they could do several at once, but some difficult pitches required days to finally get through.  To make the climb truly count, they had to do it all without coming off the wall. They lived in a porta-ledge for the duration of the climb, never coming down to the ground but hauling up everything they needed to live for days on end as, each day, they banged up their bodies and tore up their fingers on the rock, moving careful precise inches at a time. Sleeping and living life from a piece of nylon and tubing hung against a rock thousands of feet above the ground, in the middle of winter, is not a recipe for achieving peak performance in most situations.

The fact that they both achieved their goal is a marvel of human achievement. But that isn't even the half of it. You see, not only were they attempting this impossible climb, in the winter, with no comforts at the end of each grueling day, but Tommy Caldwell does not have all of his fingers on his left hand. He accidentally cut off his pointer finger with a table saw many years ago. Everybody said that he would probably never be able to climb again. You kind of  need all your fingers to climb, right? But the thing is, he didn't want to find a new career. He wanted to be a climber. And so he worked at it, and worked at it, and developed his own ways of climbing to compensate. To do this climb with ten fully functional fingers is super-human.  To do the climb with nine fingers?  I don't even have the words for how amazing that is.

There is something deep in the human psyche that looks at an impossible problem, and then says, "I wonder."  I wonder if we can climb this rock face?  I wonder if a person can run a mile in less than four minutes? I wonder if we can fly across the ocean in a plane?  I wonder if we can send a human being into space? I wonder what is at the bottom of the ocean?

When we humans start to wonder, some truly wonderful things can happen. Seemingly impossible things can happen. They may seem miraculous, but they are the result of trying, and failing, and trying, and failing, and then trying again and then failing again.  The miracle, then, is not really in the achievement. The miracle is in the never giving up. The miracle is in opening our eyes in the morning, getting up and trying again, and again, and again. And some days it does seem like it might just be impossible as setback after setback occurs. But then one fine day, something clicks into place, and the impossible becomes possible.

We've all been told that certain things we might want to achieve are impossible. Almost every human achievement started out with somebody saying, "it will never work."  "It can't be done." "Don't even try."  But, I think we all have that sense of wonder within us. Maybe we stop listening to the doomsayers, and start believing in impossible things. Maybe we start to take those first unsteady steps towards finding out that nothing is really impossible. Maybe we commit to the daily miracle of trying. And then trying again.

Nothing is impossible. Impossible is an opinion, not the truth. Audrey Hepburn stated it beautifully.  "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I'm possible".

I'm possible. And you are possible. Anything is possible. Isn't that wonderful?

Amazing and Awful

Today was a hard day. I went to the Midwest Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference. It was a well organized conference, with some great speakers and presentations, and I heard a lot of very valuable information. I met some really lovely people. 

But it was also really hard. It was hard to hear about one of the valiant organizers of the conference who succumbed to this disease just a few weeks ago. It was hard to hear about the difficulties that so many people with this disease face.  And it was hard because it was an acknowledgement, a reminder, that I am still dealing with this disease.

It was hard because we lost a dear family member yesterday. My kind and gentle aunt passed away from complications from treatment for lymphoma. It's a devastating loss for my uncle and cousins, and she will be so deeply missed. I was thinking about them all a lot today.

It was hard because I also found out this past week that a very good friend of mine was just diagnosed with breast cancer. And I hate to think about her having to go through it. I thought about her a lot today and the many other dear people I know who have had to face a cancer diagnosis or who have lost a loved one to cancer. It is too high a number.

It was hard because I was reminded of how cancer has stolen so much from so many and caused so much suffering. And today, it is breaking my heart just a little bit.

But this is what it is to be human. And those broken places in our hearts somehow get filled up again. I don't know how it happens, but if we allow grace in it just does. The breaks, of course, can never really be repaired to their original state. But those cracks, they remind us that we can break, and then we can be put back together again.

One of the best things that came out of the conference today was the quote that I shared at the top of this post. It is so beautifully and tragically true. Life is, indeed, amazing, and then it's awful, and then it's amazing again.

Life is full of suffering. But it is also full of overcoming it. And that gives me hope.

Wish upon a Power Port

Do you know what a Power Port is?  It is not anywhere near as exciting as it sounds. If you are not familiar with these little devices, you should consider yourself very lucky because that probably means that neither you nor someone you care about needed one. They are also called port catheters and they are used primarily for people who need chemotherapy drugs or have need to frequently access the veins. The port is placed under the skin (usually in your chest) and is attached to a thin tube that is threaded into the superior vena cava vein above your heart. They make it so much easier to get infusions, draw blood, or be injected with contrast solutions for CT or PET scans. They help protect the skin and tissues from potential leakage of caustic chemotherapy drugs, and they also mean you don't get poked in the arm a million times by a nurse trying to find a good vein to use for an IV.  They make infusion day so much easier.

But they are also a huge annoyance. The seat belt runs right across where the port usually goes and rubs against the skin.  You can't really wear certain types of necklines or the port is exposed and the bump under the skin is not particularly attractive. But mostly, it is a daily reminder that something is wrong with you. I had my first port back in 2007 during my first go-round with cancer, and I was so glad when I was finally able to be rid of it after my treatments were done. When I had to get another one after the cancer had spread, I had to face the realization that this time there would probably not be an end to treatment and the port would be a permanent part of my life. I wished I could get rid of it, but didn't see any way that would happen since I couldn't imagine my doctor being OK with me removing it.

But sometimes we get what we wish for in the most unexpected ways. 

The port catheter tube that goes into the heart is just underneath the skin and right by your neck jugular vein. They have to make a little incision by your neck so that they can guide the tube into a vein. The incision heals, of course, but it's hard for it not to be brushed against all the time and irritated.  I am guessing they also don't really expect people who have Power Ports to be out backpacking a lot. Unfortunately, with all of my activity this year, my incision site started to open up and the tube became exposed.

It's kind of a big problem when a tube that goes directly into a major heart vein is exposed to a world full of germs.  My doctor declared that it needed to come out as quickly as possible. And since my cancer is staying stable, and I don't need chemotherapy drugs, I would NOT have to replace it.  My wish was coming true!

I still go to the clinic every three weeks for infusions of Herceptin and Perjeta, the two drugs that are instrumental in keeping me stable and preventing the cancer from growing. That isn't going to change anytime soon unless something new comes along or those drugs stop working for me. But my port?  I had it removed today! Yes, it means I will have to have my arm poked a bazillion times, but I decided I would rather have a few minutes of annoyance every three weeks than the daily annoyance of a port.

Psychologically, it is also really wonderful to have the port gone.  It's hard to really see yourself as a healthy person when you have a constant physical reminder visible every time you look in a mirror or drive your car, or change your shirt. And we are so much a product of our thoughts.  I have been learning over these past two and a half years that the body achieves what the mind believes. If I place limits on myself and what I can do, that doesn't really serve me in any way. 

My last scans showed that everything was stable. This is fantastic news, and I don't mean to diminish this at all because it really is exactly what we all want to see.  But I can't help believing that there is possibility for more. I can't help but believe that there could be a day when I get to read a report that doesn't just say I am stable, but that there is no sign of any cancer anymore.  I know this is rare. I know this is unlikely, even. But we must believe that something is possible in order to achieve it.  If we don't believe it is possible, we won't even try to wish for it. Yes, wishes don't always come true. Sometimes, we are disappointed.

But sometimes wishes do come true.  And I don't have a port anymore.

A Walk in the Woods

This weekend, I was fortunate to be able to spend some time at our friend's cabin up on the North Shore of Lake Superior.  It's in a beautiful spot, heavily forested with birch, cedar and pine, a short walk to the lake, and a cascading river running through the forest providing a sound backdrop that manages to mask the sound of the nearby highway. It also lacks internet.

While I could occasionally get a cell signal, it was spotty and very slow, so we spent a lot of time outside. I can resoundingly say that this was a much better way to spend my time. We went on long walks in the forest and up to the ridge lines overlooking the lake, we kayaked, and we explored some nearby trails.

On one of our walks, we followed the river upstream to a beautiful waterfall surrounded by tall rock walls. Large boulders provided the perfect spot to sit and watch the water pour from above into the pool at my feet. As I sat there, I had no thoughts of the daily dramas of life. No thoughts of work, politics or war. No thoughts of pain, illness or suffering of any kind. I didn't have a phone with me or camera to try to capture just the right image. I was simply there. Everything fell away except that moment and the pure sensory experience of hearing the water, feeling the cool air, seeing the deep green, and smelling the intoxicating scent of the forest surrounding me.

As we continued to walk I found my senses becoming nearly overwhelmed by the heady scent of of the trees and the simple beauty of the spring wildflowers just coming into bloom. Each inhale was like breathing in pure, sweet joy. With every step, I was filled with gratitude such that I nearly burst into tears a few times. With every step, I began to offer thanks. Thank you to this tree. Thank you to the leaves and pine needles beneath my feet. Thank you little purple flowers for being so delicate and lovely. Thank you wild strawberry blossoms that I know will yield flavorful fruit in just a few weeks. Thank you to the sun for providing the warmth and light that made these trees grow.  Thank you to the powerful forces beneath the earth that created these rocks I step across.  Thank you to the rain and clouds for the water that feeds this river and that provides life to this forest. Thank you to the people who came before me who created these paths that I follow.  Thank you for my friends who so willingly share this beauty with me. Thank you for my son and husband who walk with me. Thank you to my parents for bringing me into the woods at a young age and kindling that spark within me of a deep love of the natural world.

It was a deeply satisfying walk, and I found myself full of energy despite the many miles I had walked that day.

There are many problems in the world, but sometimes we need to step away from them all. It was enormously helpful to have a news hiatus and to get back to the simplicity of the world that goes on without the artificial human drama that we create.  When we are always focused on the things that make us upset and angry, on the the injustices of the world, we will always be supplied with examples. Seek and ye shall find. If you look for problems, you will find plenty of them. That does not mean we ignore the problems. But when we spend so much of our energy focusing on all the problems, we have no energy left for solutions. We don't realize that most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine. I forget this sometimes, even though it's the name of this blog. It's good to be reminded.

Turn around. Turn away from the computer and the news. Turn away from your work. Turn away from your worries, your self-doubt, and all the shadows that you see in front of you.  Turn around and face the sun.  Let the sun shine on your face and let the shadows fall behind you. Walk in the woods and smell the pines. If you can't walk, take a drive into a forested area and open up the windows. If you can't do that, step outside after a rain and breathe in the air.

And if you can't do that, close your eyes and imagine it. Imagine the wind blowing gently through the trees. Imagine the water tumbling over the rocks. Imagine butterflies hovering over new blossoms, and imagine your heart full of gratitude.

And breathe.