spontaneous healing.

(my new vase + my first ever Iris. on our clean kitchen table... ahh serenity.)

Back in september, during my trip to Providence, while Jill-ji was teaching a morning yoga class, I lounged with Ang and Char (the pups) and read most of the book: Spontaneous Healing by Andrew Weil. I was fascinated by his stories on human beings who healed themselves through natural remedies and the power of the mind. Anyway, this blog is not about Spontaneous Healing(SH), although I highly recommend reading it.. It's about his follow up book 8 weeks to Optimum Health. In the back of SH, there's a mini-summary of 8 weeks. I started to take notes for week one/two, but decided I would go out and buy the book instead of trying to write everything down in my journal. Anyway, I haven't bought the book yet.. but my notes on Week One/Two (of Eight Weeks) has some suggestions for lifestyle changes, etc. For mental health, Weil suggests to buy some flowers to keep in your home where you can enjoy them. I thought about this for a long, long time. I had plants for a while (mostly Jade) and they all died over the winter. So I decided for mental health, I would start to either buy myself a weekly flower or find some trees with flowers and put them in my new vase that I bought recently at the local floral shop (Beautiful Blooms in No.Libs.)

Some other suggestions that I enjoy: Walk 10 minutes a day for 5 days this week. Practice breath observation. Eat fish at least once a week. Buy Japanese green tea, substitute it for coffee (I drink green tea and coffee..). Visit a park/nature. Spend as much time as possible doing nothing in particular. Eat fresh broccoli.

I'm definitely going to buy 8 weeks to Optimum Health. I don't think that every suggestion is right for me, but some are.. so that's where I begin.