Tag: depression

  • Starting a Contemplative Practice

    Starting a Contemplative Practice

    A contemplative practice includes meditation, prayer, mindfulness, yoga, tai chi or qigong, journaling or anything that helps ground you. Some people use affirmations while others use music to help them ease into a more tranquil state.

    Shameka Andrews (pictured above) shares her meditation experience with individuals and organizations and even at a local farmer’s market in upstate New York. Positive affirmations and mirror work have helped Shameka move through feelings of depression and isolation associated with having a physical disability,

    Gareth Walker talks about finding mindfulness meditation and how it’s helped him cope with Multiple Sclerosis.

    Mary Holt, RN, went through a mindfulness meditation training that changed how she works with patients and families dealing with neurological conditions like muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease.

    Melissa Felsenstein used sound meditation to help her move through depression and anxiety. Here’s a sample of Melissa’s work.

    Molly Lannon Kenny, a yoga therapist and graduate of a program in Christian mysticism, discusses similarities between prayer and meditation.

    Author Toni Bernhard offers her Buddhist perspective on meditation and how it has helped her deal with a chronic illness.

  • Ha Ha, Hee Hee: Laughter Therapy, Laughter Yoga

    Are you feeling stressed out? With all that’s going on in the world — pandemic, civil unrest, job loss, hurricanes, wild fires — it’s difficult to avoid stress.

    Laughter therapy, or laughter yoga, might help alleviate some of the stress. It’s free. It offers numerous mental and physical health benefits. And it’s fun.

    In the field of psychoneuroimmunology, laughter has been studied and found to lower blood pressure, strengthen cardiovascular function, improve circulation, boost immune function, trigger the release of endorphins, and produce a sense of well-being.

    You’ll meet Annie Goglia, a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, who shares her story how laughter transformed her life. You can even join her, virtually, at her Laughter Club.

    To delve deeper into your exploration of Laughter Therapy, check out the Comedy Cures Foundation and Association for Applied & Therapeutic Humor.

    The University of San Francisco Osher Center for Integrative Medicine offers classes in Laughter Yoga as well as the Founder of Laughter Yoga, Dr. Madan Kataria.

    For more laughs, check out these podcast episodes: Life After Cancer, Laughter is the Best Medicine; and Put a Pink Ribbon on this Actress

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready we can all use a little more laughter are you agreeing i mean this is a tough time and that’s coming from a normally optimistic person me most of you listening likely have some type of chronic health condition that presents challenges for you with every day living now if you are more vulnerable like me with respiratory issues or maybe a compromised immune system you’re on high alert during this pandemic even quote unquote healthy people are at risk and maybe you’ve also lost your job or your work hours have been cut or like me your spouse has suffered a job loss which impacts your household and then we’ve got a lot of civil unrest and maybe you’re in the path of a hurricane or the air quality is super unhealthy because you live near wildfires like myself jesus episode is about laughter what am i doing going on and on like this the fact of the matter is we are all stressed out and if you’re not stressed out what in the world is wrong with you okay so we’re in agreement right you’ve gotten stress i’ve got stress people across this whole world are all stressed granted some have a bit more stress than others i can’t even imagine what it’s like to have to evacuate my home because of fires on its trail it’s a totally different enough to crack and i don’t think laughter therapy is the best antidote not yet ironically and here’s how i bring us back to the topic two years ago i was scheduled to interview a nurse about laughter yoga she teaches laughter yoga and meditation at the university of san francisco’s school of medicine

    the day before our scheduled interview she sent me an email message that she needed to cancel because her cabin in lake county california was under evacuation orders for the fires the good news is that she’s fine i went to one of her laughter yoga sessions earlier this year pre-coded my intention was to return to her class again and reschedule the interview but that didn’t happen but i do have a guest and she’s in fact the very first person i experienced laughter yoga with

    there’s a field of research about after therapy this type of research lies within psych neuro immunology which is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body i don’t know when this term psych neuro immunology was coined but the scientific research has found laughter to be really good medicine some of the health benefits include lowering blood pressure strengthening cardiovascular functions reducing stress hormones and improving circulation increasing muscle flexion oxygenating the body by boosting the respiratory system immune function by raising levels of infection fighting t cells disease fighting proteins called gamma interferon and b cells which produce disease-destroying antibodies triggering the release of endorphins the body’s natural painkillers and producing a general sense of well-being pretty convincing results don’t you think so with all of this stress upon us maybe we should try working in a little healthy so what is laughter yoga it’s a fairly recent phenomenon an indian physician madame kettarian developed an exercise routine he calls laughter yoga it’s a combination of laughter and yoga breathing laughter yoga practitioners do not use asana or yoga poses as part of the routine so if you can’t do a great down dog don’t worry dr catorius started the first laughter club in 1995 and today there are more than 20 000 free social laughter clubs throughout 110 countries

    my introduction on laughter yoga was several years ago i probably had read about laughter yoga and then i did a little research to find a local practitioner and that’s how i found annie golia my guest for this podcast episode i was facilitating a monthly support group for adults with neuromuscular disease we would meet at the kaiser permanente hospital in oakland california and annie happened to live nearby in oakland and she graciously joined us one sunday and led us through several laughter exercises it was not until many years later when i attended my next laughter yoga class at ucsf and during coven so far i’ve attended a couple of virtual laughter yoga sessions so anyhow here’s annie my first question and you know i don’t even know if i asked you this years ago when you came to the support group but how and when did you discover laughter yoga ah well i think it was 2005 or 2004 and i was living in the boston area and i i was very i was pretty shy when i was younger and as i got older i realized humor and laughter were things that helped me connect with people and get over that shyness and i i became quite the laugher and people with friends would tell me you should become a professional laugher or i knew you were in the room because i could hear you from from across the room so when so i thought well that’s funny professional laughter there’s no such thing and then i found out about laughter yoga some friend told me like there’s this thing that adults do and they get together and laugh together and i’m like that sounds spectacular to me so i joined a group and near where i live near boston and i loved it and then i moved here about a year later and i found a training and that’s and then i took a training with dr qatar it was the founder of laughter yoga and now i and then i also started to train other people to lead after yoga so that was almost 14 years ago is he in india or is he located in the united states he is in india he was then and originally he was in mumbai but now i believe he’s in the kind of silicon valley area of india and do you actually travel to india to city with him no no uh he does do trainings there but i at that time he would travel to the u.s to do trainings so it was near la and sierra madre oh okay and so previous to this when you said you were shy have you you know in high school or college done any kind of acting or improv or any of that not so much then uh i did i i think it was later on i got interested in when i was in my 30s i started to do storytelling and that’s before and after yoga yeah yeah and that really got me out of my shell a lot and then i started to take some improvisational classes too movement and storytelling improv so yeah it all kind of comes together in life together it’s very improvisational and playful and creative and brings all my fun stuff together so may ask what did you study in in college i was an english major

    not literature did you teach did you go and teach after that or i eventually i got a master’s in arts and teaching and i taught for less than a year and that was the end of that oh my god did you hate it it was very very challenging and it was really hard to find a decent job in teaching at that particular time especially in english and so yeah it just did i wasn’t suited to it so then i ended up doing a lot of human service jobs for many years once you started uh you know working on laughter on your own and then discovering laughter yoga how did it change your life i think it’s it’s it’s kind of sneaky it kind of sneaks up on you you practice it the more you laugh the more you laugh we like to say and there’s a lot of things in left yoga that are intentionally meant to help you bring laughter into your everyday life we call them values-based exercises so for instance there’s something called argument for argument and forgiveness laughter so we argue with laughter and then we forgive with laughter and that’s a great way to just remember when you’re having a disagreement with somebody in your life like is it more important for me to be right or is it more important to have a nice relationship with this person i think things like that and then also just just remembering that laughter is a possibility when things are stressful especially minor things for instance uh one time i was carrying a plate of spaghetti with sauce on it down to the dining rooms in the kitchen and i tripped and of course i was in a hurry i tripped and i ended up all over this bookcase bigness and and i was really bummed out because i thought oh my god this is going to take so long to clean up and like first i was really pissed and then i’m like but i could laugh and it was much more fun and so i did and it made cleaning it up much more enjoyable and then one of my housemates was there and that person also started to laugh when he saw what was going on and it just like made both of our days more fun because of laughter yeah and and other things like like one time i was taking my bike out of the garage and i was going backwards with my bike and i started to fall on my back and before i hit the ground i started to laugh and because of that i i really didn’t hurt myself i think it just relaxed me and wow yeah so it’s really useful that’s this laughter thing yeah i mean over the years i have read you know different articles and i know there’s even you know peer reviewed scientific research about the health benefits of laughter yoga or laughter therapy which i’m thinking is kind of synonymous isn’t it laughter therapy laughter yoga pretty much yeah i mean it can be just like kind of entertaining and fun but there is a therapeutic aspect of it absolutely when when did you become a practitioner how many years have you been you know leading people i started leading into in january of 2007. okay mars you’ve been doing it a number of years and have you met people with different types of health conditions where they were seeking it out as a therapeutic you know modality yes um well certainly people have come who’ve been feeling i don’t know about depressed but down you know feeling down and needing needing something to cheer them up i mean i think people come to laughter yoga because they feel like they need more laughter in their lives and so and some of those people may have some mental health issues and they’re also you know people just want to be healthier they want some mode a way of becoming healthier and relieving stress i think really mean stress is a big reason people come to laughter yoga and certainly there’s plenty of stress to go around right now and stress causes inflammation in the body it causes the body a lot of wear and tear and it can cause heart disease cancer dementia so all of those things you know it’s a great preventative and if you have those things it’s certainly useful to help heal so i’ve done it a lot for elders who have all kinds of health issues i’ve done it for people who are on dialysis there was a study that we did i was part of a study that actually went in and did laughter yoga for people while they were on dialysis to see if that would help them and actually you could see their blood pressure on the machine and you could sometimes see it like going down wow interesting now so they were hooked up to the machine yeah and experiencing a class a section of laughter yoga yeah yeah that’s amazing

    so you also do it in corporate settings right i have a little bit yeah and so is that are you brought into like hr and is it like some section of the staff and often it’s a manager who’s like i want to bring some stress relief or fun for the staff a way for them to cope with the stress of the job and so i try to always customize it for people so i find out what are these people’s stressors or challenges and also what do these people need to celebrate because life yoga is just about relieving stress it’s all also about learning to celebrate what we need you know and not just the big things in life but so important i think what one of the things i’ve learned from left yoga is celebrating the little things in life so we can say yay very good very good yay over like you know i i got up and took a shower this morning i mean i’m like it doesn’t have to be i’m still breathing it’s all relative though you know it is especially now in the pandemic exactly so so are there are there in your experience are there certain types of people that you find are more receptive i think there’s some people who’ve just decided for themselves i’m too serious i need more laughter in my life or i’ve got some issue and i think laughter would be good for me so there’s those people and then there’s the people sort of more like me who are like oh my god i want a place that i could just laugh like crazy and people don’t think i’m crazy you know um so i think those are the two biggest groups i think that come to us but and then there’s other people too but i think those are probably and is there any kind of generalization you can make about people that just don’t uh you know it’s just not they’re not their thing well i mean truth be told i i’m so i think you were the first experience of laughter yoga for me and then over the years i attended a couple of other sessions at ucsf yeah in person and then since the pandemic i’ve done a couple online classes and i don’t know how much you know about me but i embrace all modes of non-invasive healing modalities and for some reason it’s i’m i have not it just it doesn’t i mean i don’t have an adverse reaction yeah but i’m just not fluid with it yeah i think it depends totally on somebody’s openness and also on their personality i think some people just have a really hard time letting go and getting silly because i think silliness is really and feeling safe enough in the group is really really really important so i think that some people just you know i think it’s as as when we’re growing up we’re told when we’re told to grow up when we’re little what does that mean it means get serious get responsible it doesn’t mean have fun have a good life you know it means so we learn that being an adult means means getting serious and being responsible and those are not bad things to be but it kind of leaves out a whole other part of life so i think laughter local calls on us to have a more childlike approach and to see that to open up that side of ourselves to be silly to be playful and for some people that’s really hard i’m not saying you are like that but for a lot of people that is very challenging and they’re just like kind of frees up and they they’re like oh this is too silly for me or uh it’s too embarrassing um or it feels fake that’s the other thing i hear sometimes yeah i mean i’m you know i’m i’m open to still you know because every once in a while i come back and i’ve often wanted to do a podcast on it you know what works for me isn’t going to work for someone else and vice versa i mean they’re just um many different paths to hopefully the same goal of just leading a better life yeah but i tell people if they feel like that kind of sense of embarrassment or or inhibition to think about it as an exercise i’m doing an exercise for my health and hopefully elevating my mood as well because we still get that we still get the benefit out of it even if it’s intentional laughter even if we’re not laughing spontaneously so a lot of times i don’t feel like exercising i have to push myself to exercise and so this is a form of exercise and so i encourage people to take that bring that kind of experimental or decision of deciding to laugh because i know it’s good for my health and then often almost always people end up spontaneously laughing in the group there’s this sense of safety and sense of connection and and they say that actually most people laugh not because of humor not because of jokes but because they’re with a group of people they feel safe with and they’re just they’re just really kind of laughing just because they’re together that’s interesting so in the in the laughter clubs that you’ve been affiliated with is there a sense of community that’s fostered yes i i mean i i can’t speak for all laughter groups but i i do feel like the woman who ran the group that i went to in boston really worked on that and had regular people and and really tried to get people to share and connect with each other and i really tried to nurture that in my group so there’s regulars and then there’s new people we try to welcome the new people and that’s fine and but i do try to make sure people feel like they get to connect in a real way even if it’s um even if they’re there for the first time that they get to have this connection with a group that’s safe and enjoyable that might be the key for me you know is that in you know it did feel a bit like artifice but had there been more time where i actually got to know the people um and and the idea of like building that safety i mean because it is you know one it isn’t opening up to laugh freely and you know kind of that whole full-body jewelry experience is certainly yeah kind of intimate yeah it is oh absolutely it is and i tell people like to try to channel their their their childlike self that because when we’re kids we generally most kids don’t say oh i have to talk to this person to get to know them first before i want to play with them

    i have to know what work they do or where they live or whatever they just like let’s play let’s play and so i try to like encourage that like getting to know people on a different level than the intellectual one or the the verbal one it’s getting to know people on a very human level that’s that’s just like we’re two human beings together we can play together without really knowing each other on that verbal level so are you are you able to achieve that online now have you been doing that it’s more challenging somewhat more challenging but i’m amazed that we’re able to it does work for a lot of people and it we’re still able to do it yeah so i’m very grateful for that for everybody some people in my group don’t come to the zoom and then some people never come before and hop down and and love it on zoom so you know i can’t say you know it obviously is not for everybody but i’d say it works for a lot of people i mean everybody should try it you know no harm done no no no i don’t know anybody who’s died from laughing

    that’s a good testimonial

    and most people come out of it saying they feel both more relaxed and more energized yeah nice combination yeah no i definitely did feel more energized i mean because you are really exercising your lungs and the one i did online we were moving around a little you know so yeah it is uh oh yeah a lot of movement moving clapping um breathing a lot of yogic breathing and of course laughter and i also do uh when we have a we so we do these playful after exercises we get people to connect and laugh with each other and we also do um some warm-ups before that some physical warm-ups and towards the end we do a time when we just laugh for a minute or two because you really get more benefit out of a more extended lab more health benefit helps with the blood pressure helps with the immune system which we really need right now right yeah

    and as a natural pain reliever which is lovely and then uh at the towards the end i do a guided or eliza or i do a guided relaxation because it’s in the evening and we want to leave people in a peaceful place oh yeah that makes sense right you’re unwinding and gonna go to sleep soon so you want to come down a bit

    great well thank you so much oh you’re very welcome my pleasure yeah i feel like i haven’t bumped into you somewhere since kaiser yeah i think we did but i don’t remember where that’s another way i use laughter is because it helps my dog my memory when i forget something i laugh and it’s amazing because it kind of it cuts through the brain freeze and i can think better and i almost always remember it what it was i was forgot wow i recommend trying them oh man can you jar that that’d be good wouldn’t it yes you’d get an arp magazine you know you’d make a fortune

    hey guess what you too can experience laughter yoga with annie she has a groupon meetup i’ve provided the link in the podcast notes on the glasses website and if you’d enjoyed if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard in this episode i invite you to check out the other links on the glass apple website that are related to laughter therapy there’s an organization called comedy cures foundation that provides therapy therapeutic comedy programs for children and adults living with illness trauma depression and disabilities there’s the association for applied and therapeutic humor which is was founded by a registered nurse in the sev in the 80s 1980s meta organization provides and disseminates information about therapeutic humor and there are also links to the ucsf laughter yoga program and dr kitarya’s website so take care of yourself as best you can and when you’re ready consider exploring how some intentional laughter can help ease your stress thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online.online

  • Learned Helplessness or Empathetic Empowerment: Patients, Relationships & Psychologists

    What do you do as a patient with a progressive health condition that renders you unable to do certain tasks? Do you ask for assistance or find a work-around to accommodate for that situation? Once you ask for help, how does your relationship with your helper change?

    Empathy word cloud

    Learned Helplessness is, according to Wikipedia, “a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression.”

    Psychologist Martin Seligman coined the term, learned helplessness, in early research he did with animals, and eventually humans. This New Yorker article, “Trying to Cure Depression, but Inspiring Torture,” briefly describes different applications of the research.

    In this podcast episode, Mike Hamlin, a man with myotonic dystrophy, sets the tone with a friendly rant. Melissa Dixon, Ph.D., a researcher and professor (Psychiatry and Behavioral Health and Pediatric Neurology) at the University of Utah, discusses learned helplessness with children and adults and how it impacts relationships and suggests empathetic communication styles.

  • Let’s Rant: Unhelpful Advice

    Let’s Rant: Unhelpful Advice

    It’s April Fool’s Day so we’re mixing things up with an unhelpful advice rant. One can’t be positive 100% of the time. Now is the opportunity to share about all of the weird things people have said about our health conditions — whether it was a friend, an aunt, or even a health care professional.

    Perhaps well-intentioned but definitely not insightful nor helpful advice. Most people with some type of chronic health condition have had this experience.

    A panel of three previous podcast guests share their stories — from the hilarious to the frightening. Nancy, Melissa, and Laurel let it all out.

  • Coping with a Coronavirus: Trees, Yoga, and Essential Oils

    Coping with a Coronavirus: Trees, Yoga, and Essential Oils

    A retired nurse, physical and yoga therapist, and mental health professional offer strategies for coping with uncertainty, anxiety, and all those other emotions caught up in this season of the pandemic.

    Verla Fortier, author of Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Prevent Dementia, and Control Your Chronic Illness, speaks about her experience diagnosed with systemic lupus and the discovery of the healing power of trees.

    Tianna Meriage-Reiter, DPT, C-IAYT, and owner of the Mind-Body Movement Center talks about her new live streaming yoga classes available at her YouTube channel.

    Lee Greenstein-Wein, MSW, shares how specific essential oils can help with situational anxiety or depression. An earlier podcast episode features other healing benefits of essential oils.

  • The Power of Prayer

    The Power of Prayer

    What is prayer and how do we do it? How does prayer differ from meditation? How can prayer impact healing? These are a few of the questions addressed by three podcast guests. The Jewish perspective of prayer from a rabbi who has faced cancer and chronic pain. The Christian perspective of prayer from a Baptist pastor whose late wife battled autoimmune disease and young son is in remission from cancer. And the perspective of a yoga therapist who has studied Christian mysticism.

    To learn more about the Unity World Day of Prayer (September 12), visit their website.

    Guests featured in this podcast episode are Molly Lannon Kenny, Rabbi Robin Leonard Nafshi, and Pastor Jay Holland.

    An earlier podcast episode is with Dr. Lamar Hardwick – The Autism Pastor.

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready you ready welcome to the glass half full podcast if this is your first time listening i hope you’ll check out some of the episodes from the past three and a half years this is our 75th episode if something you hear resonates for you then it’s quite possible that many of the previous episodes have something to offer you as well i’ve wanted to tackle this topic of prayer for a while in fact we certainly have talked about the power of faith and prayer in other episodes a couple of years ago i spoke with the autism pastor dr lamar hardwick in georgia and in one of our caregiver themed episodes we spoke about faith but we’ve never focused specifically on the power of prayer i chose now because thursday september 12th next week is designated as the unity world day of prayer this happens every year but i was able to plan ahead this time so on september 12th for 24 hours there are activities you can engage in either virtually on the internet or perhaps in your local community you’ll have to check out the links i’ve included on the glass apple website to learn more so for this episode i spoke with three people about prayer i’m often curious about the differences between prayer and meditation two of my guests address this the first guest is molly lennon kenny who is a yoga therapist teacher writer you’ll learn more about molly in a later interview i was reading her book to prepare for my interview with her about bedside yoga something she’s been doing for nearly 20 years and i realized during the interview that she’d be the perfect person to reflect on the similarities between prayer and meditation

    the second person i interviewed is an old friend from college new york university rabbi ramen letter nafshi i can’t recall what robin was studying in college but she went to law school soon after her undergraduate time and for years robin worked for nolo press writing self-help legal books here in san francisco she was active in a local synagogue and was a big help to me when i made my documentary film on women rabbis but at that time she wasn’t a rabbi and i don’t even know if it was something she was considering the last guest i have is a man i met recently at a podcast conference i attended in orlando florida we were at a speed networking event for podcasters it was insane and very loud in the hotel ballroom but jay holland stood out he didn’t introduce himself at the time as a pastor but he made great eye contact and shared with me how his son had battled cancer so i’d like you to sit back and relax and i promise you a very thoughtful and heartfelt show it’s a little longer than many of the previous podcast episodes but it’s worth it before you meet molly let me tell you that i did meet her in person several years ago i attended the northwest yoga conference in seattle and she taught one of the extended sessions i i can’t tell you the name of the session but i remember really liking her so i bought her book skip ahead for so years and i noticed a post she wrote in an accessible yoga facebook group i’m in this is in the last couple of months i saw this she was promoting a bedside yoga program that she was teaching and that piqued my interest and i got in touch with her so this fall you’ll learn more about her work in her conversation she told me how she had just graduated from the living school for action and contemplation which explores the heritage of faith from the christian mystical tradition and i know this sounds unusual but it will make sense once you hear the interview but molly’s sister had recently passed away before she attended this program living school for action and contemplation

    if we’re coming from the yoga side we understand this is completely different and i would also say a lot of where my work is moving into especially after having finished this two-year program with father richard rohr is i think a lot of times in the yoga world we are like we’ve sort of run away from and kind of eschewed anything that smacks of abrahamic religiosity or like the judeo-christian religions that most of us grew up in so we’re kind of we kind of steer clear of those so i think from that side when we when we think about meditation we think of meditation and prayer as being something totally different and in many ways prayer is something that we wouldn’t do or we wouldn’t facilitate from the yoga side i actually don’t think that’s true or correct um and i think that also in different traditions so for example in christian mysticism what they might call prayer in many ways like centering prayer for example is uh one of the primary practices of christian mysticism centering prayer is essentially meditation open meditation right but they just use different they use a different term for it so i think it really i think it’s a lot about defining what those terms mean i think also a lot of us who grew up with prayer we still tend to think of petitionary prayer like you know please god like make my mom get better or let this tumor go away or you know whatever it might be those kinds of prayer whereas mystic prayer is more um i would say it ends up being more on the listening side of really sort of listening to the still small listening for the still small voice of god um or when i was just when i was just at my i just graduated my program last week and so i was up in albuquerque with my cohort and one of the people in my group was saying i hate when you know when i want people to pray for me i hate asking them because i feel like why should you be praying for me you know there’s so many other people who need to be prayed for and all of this kind of thing and and i shared with him that i had had an episode on my way to albuquerque um where i’ve been reading texts from my sister that were still on my phone and they actually it wasn’t a positive idea to do at the time and it sort of sent me into a panic attack i guess would be the closest that i could come to and i just um was changing flights and i was kind of losing it in the airport in the dallas airport to the extent that actually it’s a little embarrassing a little vulnerable to say but some of the people from the personnel from personnel from the airport came out and they were like are you okay you know do you need anything in that moment i texted two of my siblings my husband and my best childhood friend and i said you can’t do anything for me but can you just let me know that you’re there and my friends who were in at the living school with me had been talking about how he didn’t like when you know to ask people to pray for him they said well that’s that’s really what prayer is that like you’ve just defined prayer prayer is really the act of reaching out whether to a uh quote unquote real person a material person or to a divine presence and saying can you bear witness to my suffering so that i don’t hold it alone and i think that that is an extremely powerful and useful tool for for all of us to whether you know whatever way we want to define it or whatever religious orientation we might connect with or or push away um the idea of being able to just open ourselves up and ask that we are witnessed in our suffering is is a prayer modality that is extremely healing and useful i’ve already told you that i met robin years ago when we were in college she now lives in concord new hampshire and is in her 10th year as the rabbi for temple beth jacob a congregation of 200 families

    so what is prayer in judaism how how do jews pray when what is the importance and and what are the variety of ways that prayer is part of one’s life

    so in in traditional judaism a jew prays three times a day morning afternoon and evening and prayers are essentially made up of three kinds there are prayers that praise god or bless god there are prayers that thank god and then there are prayers that make requests of god and for most of our prayers outside the sabbath all three kinds are a part of the prayer service on the sabbath however prayers of request are generally removed from the prayer service the idea that the sabbath is a day of rest and if uh god rested on the seventh day when humans rest on the seventh day we continue to allow god to rest and so we don’t ask for prayers we don’t ask for things we don’t make requests of god the only exceptions and these are interesting are prayers for peace and prayers for healing we can ask those questions and ask for those things even on the sabbath so three types of prayers three times a day that we pray but that’s the formula and the formality of prayer i think prayer for jews is as individual as each jew is prayer can be a way to speak directly to the divine prayer can be a way to speak directly to oneself and particularly if one thinks that god is within prayer can even be an expression of aspiration what what i’m hoping for right when we pray for peace or may the one who makes peace in the high heavens brings peace to us we don’t know that there’s peace in high heaven we’re we’re hoping there is but it is what we aspire to on earth and for our own lives and for our family and community so we have lots of prayers for peace and again it’s not that we do it because we think each time we say it it’s gonna um it it’s either we’re frustrated because it feels empty because it’s not being there’s no response because there’s so much war and hatred in the world but again it’s something to which we aspire or it may be something to which we seek ourselves we also note that the word for peace shalom shares its root with the word for healing and wholeness which is schleimut and so really healing means to be at peace i i will often somebody tells me that their loved one is perhaps you know in hospice or dying and i’ll ask them if they want to be on our healing prayer list to which the person will say to me they’re not going to get better and you don’t need to put them on the list and i said a healing prayer is not is not about curing healing and curing are two different things one can be healed by dying at peace with the illness one’s had or the cancer or being able to leave one’s loved ones behind or whatever it is that is that is a peaceful you know a way of healing and bringing about peace but that’s not curing those are two very different things and we don’t pray for curing when when when someone is sick we pray for a refuga is like a complete and whole healing so it’s complete you know completeness and wholeness and health and all wrapped up in that sense of peace so the idea of praying for peace with you know where the person is at not necessarily some sort of miraculous cure there’s like that rational mind knowing that that perhaps can’t happen we’re not looking for magic exactly exactly we’re looking for acceptance we’re looking for you know it’s it’s sort of what i think i don’t remember who wrote about it but somebody wrote about the good death right where you know where you have this sense of i’m not in a place of regret i’m not i don’t have um unfinished business i’m not leaving relationships ugly you know all of those kinds of things where you you come to where you’re completely at peace with with the diagnosis and your ex you have an acceptance of it and you know you you’re able to move forward in a place where there’s really a sense of peace and wholeness to you um but but you know that isn’t to say that when somebody has a kind of you know a chronic condition um which isn’t necessarily a death sentence that is the you know those kinds of prayers for peace are for remission their prayers for a particular course of treatment to work successfully even if we know that the person will come in and out of uh flare-ups to their illness um we still pray for you know you know sort of the receding of the of the uh of the condition you know so yes we can we can ask for things that seem not miraculous but i think most people pray quite frankly for themselves whether or not they’re seeking a connection to the divine prayer helps a person feel centered prayer can help a person feel of that sense of peace many people and i think this is really interesting with the yoga practitioner is that you know peace and prayer and meditation often for some are one of the same and they wake up in the morning and they have a practice that involves prayer and it involves breathing and it involves maybe yoga positions so you know it’s all along a continuum and particularly for those who are not traditional jews orthodox jews who who will wake up and say a set of recite a set of prayers that have been predetermined and and many of them you know that is a deep spiritual connection and they feel that connection to god by doing this and they feel that sense of wholeness and completion for others it feels like an empty recitation and they’re you know they do it because that’s what they’re supposed to do but they don’t always find meaning and i’ve had many a conversation with orthodox jewish friends who say sometimes like they admire the liberal denominations where you can focus on a particular prayer or a particular chant or something that brings you meaning in that moment without feeling like you have to go through a whole whitney of things just to get through them because somebody said you were supposed to do that what about community prayer as a community versus prayer alone or someone coming to you and you praying with them how are you what are the differences there so i think for for most people they are overwhelmed in a positive way when they think about the fact that a community is praying for them so people will very specifically say to me can you include my name on the healing list the prayer list i have three people on there in fact one had a stroke around the time she turned in her early 70s she just had her 80th birthday wow she’s probably yeah she’s probably about as far along as she’s going to get in her rehab she has to live in a nursing home probably for the rest of her life but truly knowing that people were praying for her every time we came together as a community and that we still do gives her so much uh joy and hope and possibility um that you know she’s taken up piano she’s taken up a little bit of painting you know she really has found reasons to live and and it helps her so much knowing that her community is praying for her every week every week every time we join together in a prayer service so it’s fascinating and and fabulous to me and i and i have some other congregants similar i have one who has chronic liver disease and she is on registries and lists waiting for a liver transplant she goes for um treatment three or four times a week um and she is you know she too loves coming to synagogue when she’s able to which she’s usually not she’s usually able to she’s usually so exhausted but it gives her strength feeling and knowing that her community is praying for her and even people in a communal setting where they may say a loved one’s name silently so it’s not even said out loud or they say their own name silently there’s this sense for many people that all of these voices together rise up to some place you know the source the divine call it god whatever and from there goes out into the universe and brings healing to all those in the universe who are in need of healing so many many many people nowadays come to synagogue to say a healing prayer whereas a generation or two ago they would come on the anniversary of the death of a loved one now it’s more to say a healing prayer for their loved one i was reading something yesterday uh because i’m trying to do a little research you know like actual scientific studies um about the power of prayer and i was introduced to the term and i don’t have it in front of me so i may be mispronouncing it intercessory prayer yeah yes you’ve got it intercessory prayer it’s that is where you’re praying for people when they don’t know you’re praying for them and the the the attempt is to figure out if it makes a difference in a person’s life are they going to be cured or healed or whatever measurement the uh whoever is doing the study uses when people who you don’t know we’re praying for you pray for you it’s very controversial as to whether or not uh there is a success rate to it you know someone will point out oh well this showed you know more people with cancer were healed or went into remission than in another study the overwhelming majority of studies show no difference at all and i think that’s partly because for people to get a sense of healing or feel an improvement and therefore then report an improvement they need to know they’re being prayed for so as soon as you add that element to it then most definitely the rate of reported healing or feeling better or even possible cure or remission tends to go up because i think people do really benefit from knowing people are praying for them it’s when you do it without their knowledge is a very controversial part of it of whether or not it’s really has any efficacy i’m glad you’re familiar with that you see you’re very i when i was in rabbinical school i did an independent study with a theology professor on and it was entitled you know why pray for healing and so it was all about it was partially about intercessory prayer but it was also about communal prayer and individual prayer and why we pray you know why go into a hospital room and stand by the side of a bed and ask a person if you can pray for them or you can join them in prayer and pray together why do that why do it in a communal setting all of that and i was trying to i was exploring in that paper of whether i could come up with a theological reason for it and i ultimately decided that no i could not because it was so incredibly individual whereas you know someone was seeking god and someone was seeking community and someone was seeking not to be alone i mean they just wanted to know that somebody cared about them and loved them and held them in their hearts and were willing to pray for them and it was just a way to counter loneliness which i think anybody who has had any kind of a chronic condition a debilitating condition knows exactly what the loneliness of illness is

    so it just happens that i have a history with you but you’re certainly the right person to talk to about all this oh great

    yeah this has been a great interest of mine for a very long time before i moved up to new hampshire i was both a part-time rabbi in a synagogue and i was also a rabbi chaplain for a jewish healing center across three counties in new jersey so i’ve done a lot of this i i’ve worked as a hospice chaplain i’ve i’ve done a lot of it i’ve thought a lot about it i’ve researched it it’s so i mean prayer in general is so individual and i think praying for healing does even more so and i think it’s more so because each one of us reacts to illness so differently so many of us are private people we don’t i remember a member of my congregation a number of years ago had breast cancer she did not want anyone in the congregation to know she did not want to be on the healing list right so i actually keep on the healing list like initials at the bottom where you wouldn’t where nobody would know who they are they you know like say rc maybe there’s probably you know a bunch of people in the community now with the initials rc and it doesn’t even have to be from the congregation that can be somebody i know of and you know in in my family or in you know somebody else who’s just said you know please pray for my uncle richard who doesn’t want to be announced publicly anywhere but so i’ll have those initials down there and i and i will do that with people because even though they don’t want the community to know and they’re very private people they still benefited from knowing that someone was praying for them that someone held them in their heart and you know asked literally asked god for healing each you know so it’s very very very powerful but so individual and it’s so hard to generalize therefore you know you and and we want to allow people to have their prayer life reflect who they are um and especially in a time of illness when everything else in your life is generally not in your control if you’re sitting in a hospital bed everybody else controls you know who comes in when when they poke you when they take your temperature when they do everything when they feed you what you eat everything so if there’s something about it that you can control uh it’s very powerful so being being prayed for by whom when in what capacity is often just the smallest thing to give a person control over well for how how about this um i don’t know what the best term would be i want to say disbeliever that that sounds so negative but someone who is identifies as atheist or agnostic and they’re certainly you know cultural jews or jews who no longer identify as jews but are so jewish have have you had any experience where you know they’re in a time of grieving whether for themselves or some other suffering and they can’t pray but perhaps they are more open to you know meditation or other forms of energy that are less oh oh definitely definitely and that’s where i also as i know somebody i try to either characterize prayer or where the prayer is directed in a way that might resonate with them so as one person once said to me who had a absolutely no belief in god and this was just a general conversation about prayer he said to me you know when i come to synagogue and i say the words of the prayers it’s not because i believe them to be literal he said i just think it adds to the source of energy in the universe that then goes out and touches each one of us she said i don’t think there’s any kind of divine who’s directing it or taking it all in and sending it back out but i do believe in sort of universal energy that our prayers can be added to that energy and so you know when i say the words of a prayer i don’t take the any of the god language literally another person said to me in our house we just add an extra oh and instead of god we think in terms of goodness and so when we pray we’re praying for the good and the well-being of each person we’re praying for goodness in our world and he said and that’s how we practice our judaism you know very active member of the synagogue um it’s it’s not that it keeps anybody from being connected but they’ve made peace with where they have where they are theologically when they have no no belief in god or no sense of god but it doesn’t mean they’re not gonna not gonna participate in prayer because they they recognize and i try to teach that that prayer that prayer is metaphor and i’m not going to tell you what the metaphor is i want you to find it right because because again for each person the metaphor is going to be different that’s why i try to say that people recognize that prayer is often aspirational it’s not a reflection of the way we see the world to be in actuality i know you had your own health scare uh i’m not sure how many years ago but how did that impact you as a spiritual being how did it you know change your relationship to others who go through you know a health scare so um in 2011 i was diagnosed with endometrial cancer so that was one thing but i actually do have two chronic conditions as well so i live with health conditions and scares or you know going in and out of things all the time it has been a challenge to me at times it really has i mean i have to take my own advice sometimes and and think of the metaphor not think literally i remember one time a colleague of mine who was working on his doctorate in in in philosophy and theological philosophy and he asked the question of uh to a whole bunch of people ask the question of what are you most afraid of and the end you know people had you know the climate you know collapsing from climate change and nuclear war and you know all these sort of large catastrophes that could happen and i said to him you know i’m a rabbi and i have something called sjogren’s syndrome that weakens my joints it’s in the family with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus i said you know my biggest fear is my biggest fear is that one day i will open the ark and not be able to pick up the torah scroll that my health will be at some place where i can no longer do what i love to do or what helps me with my sense of identity in the world this is core to who i am and what i do and so prayer for me it’s not the miraculous stuff it’s really that schlemut that that i will have the wisdom to know what tasks to follow that my doctors will have it um that i will keep myself as strong and as possible that i can continue to do these kinds of things i mean i’ve already accepted the fact that the role of what we call hogba which is the person that lists the taurus role at the end of a torah reading i can’t do that i can’t lift it that high above so that the congregation can see it and turn around with it i’ve already given that up but just to pick it up out of the ark that’s what i want to continue to be able to do because my illness mostly affects my hands um that’s where i feel most of my joint pain i also have fibromyalgia so i suffer from muscular pain a lot as well i mean i just sort of have systemic pain throughout my body and so it is for me it is uh um you know a relationship with god who i do believe in who is a source of strength for me uh but really not so much that i expect god to quote unquote do the work but that i do that my loved ones are there for me that my medical providers continue to be wise and caring and things like that that i was going to say that’s the same thing i was seeking in prayer when i had cancer as well you’re open with your community i assume because you’re talking about it on a podcast yes i’m very i’m i’m very open with my community what sjogren’s is how it really differs from the other connective tissue autoimmune conditions is that it is dryness coupled with the muscle pain and the other joint pain and so i have severe dry mouth and dry eye and so every yom kippur i stand before the congregation and before the service begins i actually take a sip of water and i explain that i have an autoimmune condition in which i have severe dry mouth i have to drink or else i will not be able to function and then i talk about the obligation to fast but it is incumbent upon a person if for medical reasons that they must eat or drink that it will be a greater sin for them to fast than to eat or drink and then i recite a meditation prayer written by rabbi simko weintraub that is called a medication for one who cannot do a traditional fast and i offer it to anyone in the congregation who has to eat or drink over yom kippur

    jay holland the man i met at a podcast conference is the senior pastor at covenant fellowship baptist church in stuart florida he has a podcast called let’s parent on purpose i spoke with jay shortly before the hurricane dorian approached the bahamas

    so let’s say you meet someone in one of these you know events that has nothing to do with your church or your community and they find out you’re a pastor and they and they’ve never been affiliated with any sort of religious group and they ask you what is prayer how would you explain that i would say uh on just the most basic level prayer is talking to god it’s the way that that we interact with god um which is a pretty incredible privilege if you think about it i mean i it would take me a few weeks to get an appointment with the mayor of my little town here in stuart it would take me some real connections to meet the governor of florida and and i don’t even know how i could meet the president of the united states but the creator of the universe allows us to come before him anytime we want that’s a a humbling and awesome thing so prayer is prayer is talking to god and are there different ways to pray you know such as alone as a community silently reading scripture how about those different pathways sure yeah absolutely i think um you know when you ask other different ways to pray you think about your relationship with with anybody else are there different conversations that you’ll have with them you know i’ve been married for 12 years and and i love having really engaging conversations with my wife but sometimes i just like being by your side you know we sometimes our time off is just happily being next to one another enjoying the presence of each other even if we don’t have a lot to say so um you know i think prayer a really healthy way sometimes is you know if you don’t know what to pray uh realizing that the book of psalms in the bible it’s it’s a song book it was ancient israel’s song book to god and and most of them are prayers to god and what’s really interesting as you start to get into them is there was a lot of complaining and and i and i actually appreciate that that god found it worthwhile in in his scriptures to show us so many examples of prayer where people’s lives were very messed up where they could not see the other side um where they weren’t just giving god a bunch of false platitudes but they were saying god how long is this going to last i feel surrounded you know there’s one of them that psalm 88 that even ends with you know and darkness is my only friend so there’s some real depths of despair sometimes in prayer but i think i think some of those are the the greatest acts of faith that you can have because to to go to god and say i don’t know what’s going on i don’t trust you know i don’t even know how to trust right now but i trust enough to still come to you is is a pretty extreme act of faith so can you speak to the power of prayer as

    an action of practice for people who are going through

    some sort of chronic uh challenge be it emotional physical

    spiritual yeah absolutely as a matter of fact i can and give you uh just three examples and and and you feel free to use what’s helpful to you uh the first is i i this i’m actually in my second marriage my first marriage i married my high school sweetheart um after five years of dating right after we graduated from college and had a good happy marriage and you know had its bumps just like every young marriage does um that we really loved each other and were doing really well and then she came down with an autoimmune disease called ulcerative colitis and this girl who was full of faith and full of love you know spent days after days of misery and complete agony and every time we would try a treatment she would have an allergic reaction to it or something would go wrong and i mean that the number of different weeks we spent in the hospital and and between that just the number of weeks that she spent at home unable to go out unable to travel um you know there’s some real depression that hit in there and i remember one of the things that that christie would do is she would write out prayers and she would tape them all around the house so you know i would go to the bathroom and there would be prayers and bible verses taped up in there i would walk down the hallway like anywhere anywhere that you’d been it was like a breadcrumb of prayers of just calling out and hope and a lot of it was like lord i don’t understand what’s happening um i don’t know what you’re doing through this but but i still need you and um there’s some incredible comfort in that of of just realizing you know you don’t have all of the answers but you can go to the person who does now she ended up actually dying of the complications of that sickness and so that would be my my second one is um you know leading up to her death as a husband as a caregiver watching the the person i love so much just have everything go wrong there’s a there’s a lot of crying out to god in prayer but also just finding my strength and soulless in that time and i can tell you that just the regular disciplines of of going to god of making that a regular habit and not just going when things are bad but going on a normal basis uh those were things that that prepared me for when she died to be able to walk through that time it was almost like it was almost like in my life god had used her sickness to prepare me for the bombshell of being 27 years old and a widower and so you know i remember during that time just simple prayers of you know and i had a little three-year-old girl with her um and so it was like i i’m in a time where i remember one of my prayers during that time being god i just have a lot of decisions that i have to make but i am just so emotionally and spiritually drained i know i could make some very bad decisions that would affect me and my daughter right now and so god i’m just gonna i’m gonna walk in faith i don’t have enough strength to just sit and discern the right path in every way so i’m going to move and walk and lord i’m just going to ask that you close any door that might be harmful in my life and and i looking back see that god answered that and he did it over and over again not that i made every right decision but it was just amazing with hindsight how many doors he closed that would have been really foolish or harmful and so just as a caregiver of in that depths of loneliness uh a lot of complaining prayers but also gratitude and and thankfulness and how knowing that other people were praying for me and their actual prayers not just the knowledge of it but the fact that people were praying for me lifted my soul and helped me to move on and just gave me great healing able to just celebrate the life that we did have together and the fact that that you know christie is is dead on this earth but that she’s not dead that that she’s alive and with jesus and uh you know knowing that that’s not the last time we’ll see each other was was an incredible help it you know it didn’t make the day-to-day missing her easier but it it made it to where grief was not the monster that could completely consume my life and then the the third example that i would give you is uh just over five years ago in april of 2014 my little five-year-old boy elijah spiked a fever one weekend and on monday when we got him into the emergency room we found out that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and so you know from from that morning to mid afternoon that day just the complete floor fell out from underneath us but i even remember being in the back of the ambulance because we were in a little you know small town hospital emergency room and they said the ambulance is coming to take you to the children’s hospital in west palm beach and and i had just let two or three people know you know i’d let my pastor know and my parents and you know my wife was with me but just driving in that ambulance in the back and and starting to get texts from this friend saying hey tell elijah we’re praying for him hey tell elijah we’re praying for him and i feel like that just did not stop for three and a half years of um i i i don’t know that i don’t know that we win a day i know that we never went a day without somebody praying for us but i don’t know that we went a day without somebody reminding us that they were praying for us and um and god used that and i think one of the things that god does is it’s it’s hard to pray for somebody and then not get emotionally and spiritually invested in how they’re actually doing and so you know people would ask what can we do for you it’s like i don’t know you can’t cure my son from cancer so you know just pray and in praying they came up with things to do to help our family um i mean we it was like we went through an extreme makeover homeowner addition when we were down in the hospital we had we had people swarm into our house rip up all of the carpets lay down hardwood floors bought a new heating air conditioning system that had one of those uv lights in it to kill bacteria um i mean that like they they probably put 20 000 in remodeling in our house in the first two weeks that we were in the hospital and and i think all of that was really launched from prayer from just people lifting up to god you know lord help him and sustain this family and what can we do and then god puts things on their hearts and they and they walk so you know that’s the i think that’s one of the beauties of prayer is it’s not a one-way street i have never had god audibly speak back to me but i i mean my my life is just littered with the trail of god stepping in and speaking and you know i’ll sometimes lament about something in prayer and somebody will come along that day and give the answer that i was looking for and and even if i can’t like even if even if my prayers of that day you know like if god doesn’t answer it um sometimes i’m just able to let go because of being able to to just give it to god you know jesus has cast your burdens upon me and cast all your cares upon me and so being able to do that is uh it’s freeing like i don’t have to control the world and i don’t even have to control everything in my life i realize that that there’s somebody who loves me even more deeply than i love myself who i get to interact with and and to lay things at his feet and you know jesus told a parable about god the father saying you know which of you who’s a father if his son asked him for a fish would give him a snake and uh and saying if you being evil know how to do good things for your kids how much more of my heavenly father will do good for those who love him and so i just you know trusting that if i don’t see the answer that i’m looking for right now it’s because because in the grand scheme of things god has something bigger and greater and you know and i’ll be honest like i’ve been really really not happy with that answer in the moment but but over the course of my life you know given a little bit of depth and perspective i just i see the hand of god and what a joy to get to go to him not just when things are bad but also when things are good and when things are just normal you know like one thing about thinking you’re going to lose your son to cancer is is every day is a gift you know the most normal mundane day when nothing remarkable happens is an absolute treasure and remembering to go back and thank god for those treasures um is just something that that i think we fail to do quite often like you know when’s the last time you thanked god for your opposable thumbs well you know wait till you hurt one of them and then all of a sudden it’s a big deal but um we’re just so littered with gifts in our lives and and i think prayer lifts our soul

    and your son elijah five years right five years uh this august actually i think maybe the day we met leslie was was five years from the first cancer-free diagnosis that he had so we keep having celebrations and with his it’s actually five years post treatment before they consider the very uh he’s very high risk for relapse but you know every day we go on as a is another victory day and lowers the chances of relapse so we’ve got another two years of um that cloud kind of being over us but but it’s you know what i’ve got four kids and i’m not guaranteed tomorrow with any of them so elijah’s just the one that gives us perspective on all of that there’s one more thing that i think especially coming from a uniquely christian perspective that is so empowering in prayer in the book of hebrews uh it talks about how jesus is our great high priest and the role of the priest was to come before god you know in the old testament the role of the priest was to come before god on behalf of the people but now we get to go directly to god but we do so alongside jesus and and in hebrews it says we have a great high priest who understands us because he has suffered in every way like we have yet without sin and when i really realized what that meant it meant that you know because like i know jesus was god and i know he was fully man and fully god but i sometimes think that he didn’t live the kind of drudgery life that we do sometimes but he was born into an impoverished family he grew up you know as a day laborer basically as a carpenter he you know in his ministry he was homeless he knew hunger he knew pain he knew betrayal by best friends he knew people in his family not understanding him and laughing at him and thinking he was crazy and so you know one of the confidences that i have in in going to god in prayer is that i you know as i go in jesus name you know and jesus represents me he understands my suffering and and to me that’s having a god that understands our suffering is is pretty profound and i think is is one of those calls like why would you not pray if that’s the case well thank you jay yes ma’am i wish you and your family peace during the storm and i’ll be watching the news and and sending my prayers to i appreciate it yeah i appreciate it and leslie how could i pray for you i just i don’t know that’s a that’s a good question but just recognizing me and who i am and when i do is is uh solace to me

    well good what can i pray for you right now sure all right lord i just thank you for this time with leslie i thank you for putting us in front of one another at the podcast movement and having listened to her podcast some and hearing what she’s doing i just thank you for her i thank you hal she has not fallen into letting this this condition that she has letting letting those challenges be her story and and she’s not fallen into living the rest of her life as a victim and god i pray that as she puts together these podcasts that she uh mentors people god i pray that you would help her to see the goodness of god in her life i pray that that jesus would be very real and evident and i pray that you would help bring the the very people to this show that can be most help we know that there’s so many people out there just on their last ropes so many people in despair and i pray that they could find the show that they could find great comfort in it and that you could help leslie know that she’s doing a really worthwhile work and i pray that you would make it very fruitful in jesus name amen amen thank you jay thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online glass half full dot online

    you

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    Psilocybin is also being used for end of life care.

  • Self-Care Challenge Month 4: Emotion Regulation

    Sometimes I see Facebook posts from high school classmates reminiscing about the “good old days.” I did have some unbridled fun back then but I far prefer my adulthood. Even with a chronic health condition. Back in high school and college my emotions ran the intensity gamut from I’m on top of the world to If I only had a gun, I’d end it now! And that could be within the same hour. It was exhausting.

    I knew nothing about regulating my emotions. I felt…deeply….and often. Anger was no stranger to me. Anger easily led to sadness which could take hold of me for awhile. I was depressed intermittently throughout both high school and college. I tried anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications to help regulate my moods. It offered some relief but the side effects were annoying.

    Eventually I developed tools to help manage my emotions. I don’t mean I got rid of them, I just felt them a little less intensely and I was able to achieve a sense of balance more easily.

    So how does one begin to regulate their emotions?

    I think the first step

    is an awareness…developing a mindful attitude about an emotion. Realize what that emotion is and how your behavior has changed. You are not that anger, sadness, or ecstasy. Or at least that’s not all of you. Try to step back and see it. Examine what has led you to that feeling. Realize that this feeling is temporary and that you will experience this and other emotions again.

    As I developed a more refined self-care regimen with my diet and exercise, I realized that not only was my physical health impacted, but so was my emotional health. What we feed our bodies also affects our emotional selves. I’ll explore these connections in our Facebook group during the month of September.

    To help you get a perspective on your emotions, use the Health Storylines app to monitor your daily moods, food intake, and physical activity. Be diligent for a couple of weeks and then download a report to see if you detect any patterns. Remember to track any medications you take as well.

    I am definitely not an expert on this topic but over the years, and a steady practice of yoga and mindfulness, I have become more resourceful in regulating my emotions. I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

  • Sound Therapy: I had to do this every day if I wanted to become well again

    Sound Therapy: I had to do this every day if I wanted to become well again

    Sound Bath? Sound Meditation? Sound Symphony?

    Sound therapy has become a wonderful tool to access deep relaxation. For many, it is a gateway to meditation. Melissa Felsenstein of Inner Sounds Meditation shares her story of how playing crystal bowls and metal gongs helped her heal from symptoms of anxiety and depression. A self-proclaimed Nervous System Advocate, after several years of exploring these musical instruments, she now shares her process to help others.

    Check out a video from this Summer Solstice Sound Bath.

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready welcome to the summer if you listen to the last podcast episode about nature i hope you’re now trying to get a daily dose of it vitamin n that is this past week i was quite fortunate to get this great double dose of vitamin and at the university of california’s botanical gardens in berkeley on wednesday i attended my first forest bathing led by a certified forest guide but the two and a half hour experience ended in a redwood tree grove and on thursday morning i found myself in the same grove i didn’t sleep there overnight and i was not kidnapped and taken there but i returned for a solstice sound math i would assume most of you listening out there have never been to a sound bath but it’s an experience i bet will come your way soon my first sound bath we always remember our first time right was nearly three years ago in july at a yoga studio in oakland california sound practitioner was melissa felsenstein and she is my guest for today’s episode so perhaps you’re wondering just what is a sound bath is it always experienced in nature and how is leslie able to read my mind

    often i use wikipedia as my go to web page for a solid definition of something but there is no entry for sound math i’ll have to rely on my experiential knowledge so you know when you’re in a bathtub you’re enveloped in water for me this is a truly relaxing experience well in a sound bath you allow yourself to be enveloped by the sound not any sound like i don’t think any cdc concert would qualify but you know who knows melissa uses crystal balls gongs and chimes to create her sound math i’ve been to several sound experiences with different practitioners sometimes it’s called a sound meditation or sound symphony where other instruments in addition to bowls and gongs are used such as a harp wooden xylophone and even a human voice each sound experience is unique many factors contribute to the overall experience who is the practitioner what is the environment like if it’s indoors what are the acoustics like how close to the practitioner am i seated or am i reclined do i shut my eyes and let myself be carried away or do i remain seated so i can watch and listen on thursday i chose to have my eyes open it was a gorgeous sauce this morning in a redwood tree grove and i wanted to videotape portions of melissa’s performance best to keep my eyes and ears open for that what you’re listening to in the background is from that day in the redwood grove you can hear birds communicating in the background and actually when melissa stopped playing the bulls and gongs the birds really went crazy i think they were beckoning for an encore you can already tell i’m partial to melissa’s sound performances i’m a fan shall i say her journey to this work and you know and now after three years she’s making a living as a sound practitioner or healer anyhow her journey is what this episode is all about you can watch a video of the solstice sound bath on the glass half full youtube channel but it’s a best experience live a link to the inner sounds meditation website is in the podcast notes and that’s melissa’s website so i was introduced to sound as therapy in 2008 and i was traveling india and i was at one of those bazaars there was this big market i walked into one that i had i’d known about the tibetan bowls the metal ones they’re metal bowls that are handmade in tibet and in india this was in rajasthan so it’s the northern part of india and so i i went there i saw i saw this this shelves and shelves of metal bowls and i thought oh that’ll be a really fun thing to have and i started talking with the man the store owner and i kept kind of coming back to it like we were there for a couple of days and i kept just wanting to be around this man and just sort of talking with him and i helped him with his business card and some other things and we were just kind of becoming friends and eventually he told me that he used these bowls he used the sounds to help heal children specifically of different ailments and that’s what he was known for and i remember i had this moment like oh my gosh like i’ve always been interested in music i was a dancer so the idea of sound as a way to help people i was just so blown away and i thought and then he was showing me some techniques and i eventually bought a bowl from him and then i convinced him to give me his mallet you know he didn’t want to give me like his mallet but i really wanted his mouth i felt like he was infused with this like power you know and he was very reluctant but somehow i convinced him um and i uh yeah so i came home and i was so inspired from that trip and i thought i’m gonna become a sound healer and then i got home away from india back in the grind of los angeles and i was like that is a crazy idea like who who would ever want that you know i completely denied the dream like i felt the dream and then i i denied it and i was working a corporate job and i just continued and then it’s interesting how you know you have this little if it’s meant to happen it will happen right so i i said i said no and then of course you know a short time later it came back to me like a boomerang i think i just felt like it was just too wild you know and anyway so needless to say um a few years later uh my father fell mentally ill so he was dealing with bipolarism and he was on lithium but then the lithium was really hurting his kidneys and so he was abruptly taken off the lithium by a really bad doctor i don’t know you know someone is a certain way and then you have no idea what might happen really when they’re taken off their meds you just assume it’ll be fine kind of you’re like well what’s gonna change really well everything changed for him everything changed he became manic and he just never recovered he was manic for eight years until he died so uh in the beginning you know he was on the street and it’s interesting how the system i i’ve said this before but the system doesn’t really care that that person was an mit graduate on a scholarship i mean my father was brilliant he worked for hewlett-packard his entire career starting right when he graduated from mit just this really brilliant man very kind and soft-hearted and always taking in stray animals and just a very introverted introverted quiet genius and but the system doesn’t care it doesn’t care that what you were you’re just like another person you’re another number and so he was lost in the system of just mental hospitals and um all sorts of situations that i i don’t really want to go into too much too much detail because it’s um it’s painful but we’ll just say that it was it was a really bad time and so i was very close to my dad i’d say we both had this kind of wild adventurous self that we both understood and we were both a little bit weird and we liked like kind of things that were a little different from other people and he really encouraged me to be an art major he loved the arts he loved that i loved music he loved that i danced so it was really supportive and just i don’t know fun we were like pen pals during that you know my college years so anyway when he got sick um i was doing yoga i was doing kind of your typical exercise and but my nervous system was becoming so

    it was becoming so severely imbalanced because i was so afraid all the time for my dad i was afraid for his health i was afraid for my mom’s safety i was afraid for everyone else’s safety he became kind of a dangerous man he became an angry man so um and his his own safety for himself and uh it just became too much you know there’s a certain amount of stress you can deal with but then when that stress keeps going like whether it’s a chronic illness right you understand that and just dealing with this something that’s relentless it doesn’t it doesn’t ever let you go and you don’t know what’s down the line you don’t know what’s down the line you have to become it’s very uneasy it’s unsettling you can’t ever get kind of grounded and feel confident or sure and i think about that like chronic illness or or cancer treatment and sort of my experience too there’s a lot of commonalities and i think a lot similarly this happens for everyone’s nervous system that’s under chronic intense stress you know basically like everyone else i stopped sleeping i was insomniac um because i just couldn’t rest my mind at night so that and then i stopped sleeping then i wasn’t able to eat and digest you know i could barely eat anything i was losing weight i felt sick all the time and bloated and it just felt awful i had migraines i had tmj i had teeth grinding and eventually it got to the point where i had like a shake as well like like and i was losing my hair i mean it was wow severe anxiety severe severe anxiety and as that started to compound i was also greeted with depression because you start to really feel down when you can’t get yourself healthy and you’re seeing you know i think depression it’s different from sadness i mean i was sad about my dad but depression is this there’s a quality to it that’s um so gray it’s so bleak and i could feel that with just this idea that tomorrow is going to look exactly like today right and when you look into the future and that’s all you see is a broken body and sadness grief you know at the time i didn’t realize i was grieving the loss of my dad right like i had lost my dad he was here but who he was was someone like completely foreign to me occasionally over those seven years i’d see this little spark and i’d remember who he was and he’d do a little joke or something and it gets me like teared up just thinking about god it was such a hard time um but was there also an element of fear that this could be your future oh yeah that’s a really good point yeah like i looked into my own future and i was like oh wow this could be it because i was still going to yoga classes and i remember being so like angry and i was very bitter a lot of the time because i was so um mad that my life was lost and my dad’s life and my family my family you know we were sort of broken up by the situation as any family would it’s very very hard to deal with mental illness i asked melissa about her reintroduction to the sound work how did she recapture that dream she originally had in india so i would go to these yoga classes and yoga had always been my savior it always been my refuge and i would sit in shavasana i would just steam i was just so mad because like i kind of felt like even that was taken from me like no matter what style of yoga i did it didn’t work i was doing acupuncture which i always felt exhausted by like i felt like it took something from me to show up to get there to receive treatment and then afterward i was always super tired reiki same thing i tried talk therapy i tried some western medicine i was basically just doing anything i could and i just i just didn’t have any extra energy for anything i was barely able to kind of just show up in my life and just kind of just get through the hours of every day so a few different people um encouraged me to take some time off and i and i did and one person actually said she was like you know i really she was my my therapist and she said i think you should like go to an ashram so i did i did and it was a brilliant move because they’re so disciplined there’s a lot of chanting and that’s kind of when i opened up to this other side of yoga that wasn’t just asana you know asana is the movement it was the chanting and then the meditation um and you know just kind of broadening out what what this concept of of yoga was and at the same time i was taking some classes around my neighborhood and i walked into this class and little did i know at the very end in shavasana she plays a crystal ball and i just had this moment where i could feel my whole body responding to the sound you know that deep deep relaxation and i could feel even my nervous system kind of calming down and it was really brief you know it was only like a minute or two and i just thought i don’t care why or how i’m just going to i walked up i was like what is this i didn’t even know what it was she’s like this is a crystal ball and i was like what and then i just bought them and i had them delivered and i taught myself how to play i bought i bought three of them from home shop in florida no they don’t make them there no no almost all the bowls are made in china actually but um so uh and they were delivered in like you know eight business days and i just unpacked them and just started to play them because i just at that point i was like i don’t care what it is i don’t care what tool it is because i i think i think the pivotal moment too wasn’t just how i felt when i heard the ball and i think it also was that it created hope for me a hope like that future that i saw before that we were talking about where every day is the same and you almost just want to give up you know it’s like why keep living why do i want to live i don’t want to live like this you know and i think a lot of people are confronted with that um often in our lives uh but so it brought me this tiny bit of hope like maybe it could be different maybe i could just try and use this so the sound came back to me under much more rough circumstances um and you know unlike some sound healers uh sound is taking off right now and there’s a lot of different healers out there but i think the thing that makes it slightly different for me was like it was necessary this wasn’t a choice it wasn’t like i like gongs these sound so pretty they’re fun they are fun they’re outrageously fun to play to feel it in your body as you play it’s amazing and i could see that draw but for me it was necessary like i had to do this every day if i wanted to become well again

    i don’t know i just feel like the gongs what what they did for me i felt like you know i started for like a month or two with just the bulls and they really rewired my nervous system but i was missing the jump for my depression like i still couldn’t quite mitigate that and um i think the gongs really help with that because they take you into this ethereal meditative open space so when i got the gong it’s jupiter jupiter was the gong each of each of the gongs have a um they’re a certain note that’s aligned with the orbital properties of each planet and they have they have the base note and then they have two overtone notes as well that’s how they’re different from orchestral gongs which are not tuned at all so when i have eight gongs or something i can set them up to be very harmonious based on notes or feelings or dissonant you know but orchestral gongs you can’t do that they’re all just set they they’re tuned to sound pleasant but that’s about it so these are really special instruments and they’re so high quality they’re all made of an alloy of of metal oh okay so they vary in what they’re made of well depending on the maker yeah every maker has their secret recipe so piste’s got a recipe and meinel has a recipe and um nobody wants to give up their secret recipe because it’s a combination of different metals okay to make the sound and of course you know there’s also there’s gong gongs have been around for thousands of years um so there’s chinese gongs and tai gongs and burmese gongs and how did you know you wanted to go to gongs like yeah that’s that’s a good question i don’t know there was an intuition that just you know i did go to a few sound meditations at the time in l.a and i would go and i would feel this like distinct calling like if if i really really want to feel healthy i’m going to need this and i i think it was so it was intuitive but once i got it i did notice a big difference in my healing experience

    it’s very hard to describe this the state of being

    i always struggle with it on paper and through voice because it’s like a place that’s beyond time i don’t know it’s a place beyond words it’s a it’s a feeling it takes you into this almost like to the soundless place that’s where the gongs take you it’s like you’re you’ve got to prepare the the mind you got to create the pathway in into the silence and i think the gongs really help with that and when we can find silence in different ways rather than just through meditation which is so hard for most people including me i mean i became a meditator after i used sound as meditation as a meditative tool but um so we all struggle with sitting there you know and in yoga they they have you do pranayama first so that way you can do a little breathing technique and then hopefully get your mind ready well in the same way that’s what the sound is doing the sound is stimulating your mind it’s stimulating your senses it’s stimulating your cells it’s vibrating everything it’s unpredictable the gong i don’t even know how it’s gonna show up you know some days i do a hit that i’ve done a million times and it just looks like crazy um so it’s very unpredictable and so the mind can’t um the mind relaxes in that actually it doesn’t it doesn’t grasp it’s not able to grasp to rhythm you know it sort of has to deal with unpredictability which is good because it makes it more flexible but the the sounds i think or this is what i know the sounds of the gongs

    are trying to prepare your mind for the sounds without the gongs to prepare it to kind of clear those everyday thoughts out of the way with sound because it takes over just it’s not going to let you spend a lot of time thinking about your grocery list

    melissa explains how her playing of the gongs was a healing process remember she was doing this on her own still the gongs and the crystal balls were tools for her own healing also getting a lot of strength from that space too right resiliency you kind of feel like you can get through these difficult points of our lives and you know my dad’s story you know as as i got better and better and better you know dad got worse so you know right as i was launching my business my dad was dying you know so um and i’m smiling right now which no one can see uh and it’s because you know he brought me the biggest gift like would i have found this if everything had stayed the same probably not or maybe it would come to me in a different way we don’t know um if you’re meant to do it apparently it comes back again again yeah but uh yeah i mean his he’s he’s he’s an inspiration for it and also i really felt like the sound as therapy and for myself really expanded my capacity to just handle more you know and so even though dad was going through so much i felt very robust and i let go of the need for him to be the way he used to be and i accepted who he was and i accepted his own karma if you believe in that his own path like i can’t change that it’s what his soul needs and i can just support him with love and kindness and caring and it really having those kind of realizations helped immensely with the guilt and the pain

    and i’d say i really started to feel better about a month into it and then really powerful changes in the nervous system three months later and i’d say the depression was really reigned in and sort of obliterated probably six months into it wow so yeah within a year i was already doing really i was a really different person and over the years people were like wow you’re so less gritty like you’re so much more soft i used to be really kind of intense and kind of feisty so it’s it’s it’s changed my pulse you know it’s changed my own vibration and and um but it was you know i started out with myself and i remember my friends they were like what have you been doing you seem different and i was like well i was kind of embarrassed about it i was like well i kind of do this stuff with sound and they’re like what i’m like they’re like that sounds cool like they’re all into it you know and i was like i don’t know and they’re like we should you should you should play for us and i was like i don’t know about that it really like i was pretty reluctant to share um for many reasons you know i kind of felt like well what kind of person is a sound a sound practitioner i’m even afraid to say healer it just feels too heavy what kind of person is that like who does that you know and i’m like that’s not me i like to eat hot dogs and hamburgers bacon i love bacon god if i could have that every day i would and i love to like drink wine and i i’m very standard in many ways just like i’m just a normal chick like you know who is this and so i was very um embarrassed and even when i first moved here you know that was a three years ago i launched my business full-time after doing a few of those events you know and then kind of growing a little bit in la but but i knew i just knew i needed to come here i need to come back home this is where i’m i’m bored i was born in south bay and now that melissa’s been sharing her healing tools with others for over three years she’s learned a lot about the instruments and how people respond to her performances i asked her to elaborate on this it’s organic and you’re really like for me i’m just listening i’m listening so intensely to wait and sort of find the sound that’s special because every sound meditation has several of them and it’s a it could be a rhythm it could be especially with the gongs the bowls are interesting how they show up every time too a little different but the gongs they definitely have their own

    individual way to them for each one and so i’m just searching i’m looking around and just trying to find okay where’s that nice and i hear it and i’m like oh what’s that what’s happening here and i’m like oh that’s exciting you know even after years and years and years and years of playing i have those moments every time or where one gong who normally plays very dark and deep is showing up right what’s this about what happened and i’m sure you could go into all sorts of like um the physicists are always like well it’s the temperature of the room and this and that but really i i think there’s something more to this that’s um less scientific and less rational because i could have the same exact two gongs playing for a private session and the person changes but nothing else does and they show up differently and i think that’s also me as a practitioner because like i said i i’m intimate with these instruments they were a big part of who i am and who i’ve become and i have a great respect for them so i’m really i could there’s many people who just want to you know aggressively go at the gong because it’s so exciting it’s so stimulating and it’s fun as a player it’s fun but as a recipient it can be create a lot of intensity and i’ve heard so many people go to these other experiences and say i hated it you know i will never do it again i found that to be like i was panicked the whole time and it’s because your nervous system you know doesn’t understand these sounds and they sound scary and they it just goes into fight or flight so as a player i’m very aware of that and because i’m a nervous system advocate and i’m trying to re-teach people how to relax i’m trying to calm their nervous system down and to clear their minds that’s my intent it’s like a healing environment i am mitigating the gongs quite a bit you know what i mean i i’m really working with them from that standpoint it’s almost like they know that that’s what they need to do and i know that’s what i need to do so but they will play very very very differently and we’re talking like nothing else in the environment has changed so you have to wonder well what is that about well it depends it depends how scientific you want to be or if you want to be open to you know the potential that there’s some greater forces happening that affect how they show up but it’s this idea that this is what i mean by there could be something more and i think there is i’m saying could because i’m being a coward well do you think the energy of the people yeah okay i think so the energy of the people that i understand right you do but you know the average person i don’t know um but yeah the energy of the people um and i get a lot of intuitive because i’m going into a very meditate meditative state i get a lot of intuitive hits as well about people so about like a stranger i don’t even know them but as i’m playing you know there’s a rhythm and there’s a feeling and i’m like oh

    i had a few questions from melissa that were less about her journey and more about the science behind the use of sound as a therapeutic tool i asked her to talk about brain entrainment a term i wasn’t familiar with but is often mentioned in this line of work so entrainment is the ability for our brains as animals as humans um and animals to synchronize and so this is how large fish can swim together as one organism or if you’ve ever seen a huge group of birds and they’re might and they’re they’re turning like a mass and it’s not because they’re talking to each other like let’s make a left no it’s because they’re entrained they’re near each other and they’re synchronized two heart cells placed near each other but not touching synchronize pendulums synchronize together um in a conversation actually there’s entrainment with body language so if i were to sit here and put my my chin on my hand you might eventually do that if i rub my nose you’re gonna rub your nose actually that happens every time because people are worried about like is this the whole mirror neurons yeah it’s mirror neurons yeah and yeah entrainment so um in this case your brain waves are synchronizing with the sound waves and the sound waves have tons of properties that induce deeper states of slower slower brainwave states or deeper states of relaxation some of it’s the tonal qualities they have high tones and low tones going together they have very low frequency tones as well that can help they aren’t pure notes so they’re normally flat or sharp by a random amount as your your brain receives these tones it entrains and naturally starts to slow down and it’s through that process that you can go into these deeper states so you can drop into the beta state you know relax tape and the theta lots of people drop into delta as you know so delta brainwave state is deep deep sleep so it’s the kind of sleep that you get after like massive travel right and you’re so tired and you’re like oh my god i’m exhausted boom and then 12 hours later you wake up so it’s like that but imagine getting that in just a one hour experience and say you get 45 minutes of it and it’s rich sleep

    my belief you know there’s been a lot of connection around sound healing and cancer treatment my feeling is you know with some of these conditions fibromyalgia chronic pain conditions where our sleep is affected i really it’s extremely nourishing because it’s that rich rich sleep and they find that people are falling asleep and sleeping eight hours but we wake up and we’re tired and there’s disputes about that right maybe it’s you’re waking up at the wrong time of your cycle of your sleep cycle but there has been some research um of late that says that actually it’s you’re not getting delta because we go to sleep and we’re thinking about all these things and we’re stimulated by the ipad and whatever else that we’re using which i’m guilty of and many others right we’re we’re on the line or we’re reading a book or something and we’re too stimulated and we sort of fall asleep thinking about our to-do list and then we wake up thinking about our to-do list and we’re not rested because we’re not actually getting that sleep but you can train your brain and that’s what the sound does so it’s cumulative so each time people they come to the sound meditations and their brain through neuroplasticity which is so amazing right we used to think that your brain was done growing at like 17. and now we know oh my god brains are changing all the time all the time and so you can get better sleep i mean i’m proof of it right like you can restore your entire nervous system from you know it was [ __ ] before to like robust and healthy and healthy immune system and everything just with sound that’s what i did but it’s not some kind of snake oil it’s through science you know if you can get into these delta brainwave states and your brain also starts to learn about the theta brainwave state which is so hard to describe that was the space i was talking about you know inner space a place that is boundless it’s free every time i walk in i it just gets bigger you know there’s so much space in there and there’s so much beauty and it’s a feeling um but your brain starts to get used to it it starts to unlock and become more comfortable with these states that we’re becoming less and less aware of and our ability to get into them on our own is becoming harder and harder simply because we’re being pulled in so many directions right like technology has been great but now we’re always kind of multitasking and the brain necessarily wasn’t made for that or the nervous system the nervous system hasn’t really improved in the way that technology has right it’s an old system so your nervous system doesn’t realize like oh actually i’m not being chased by a bear i’m just late to a meeting like it could be worse right it can’t differentiate but and the body responds in the same way either way and that’s where we get destructive with stress that’s when stress becomes destructive but there’s ways that are easy have no side effects you know sound has no side effects it has only benefit and you know when i said in the very beginning i was doing these other modalities and i felt like they took away from me and i had a private client say the same thing and he so beautifully said he’s like when i come to sound it always feels like it gives to me it doesn’t take it just gives and i love that about it as a therapeutic tool i hope you enjoyed this episode perhaps you might consider exploring this healing modality by attending a sound bath in your area or even trying to see how you react with different sound tools watch the youtube video segments on glass apple’s channel to learn more and check out melissa’s website thanks for listening thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online last half full dot online