More about preventative health screenings

health

In this post I’m going to give a broader view of my perspective, my reasoning and thinking behind my decision to decline routine health exams at this stage of my life.

The first reaction to me choosing not to do routine health screenings may be to think that’s somewhat reckless and irresponsible.

What I think is irresponsible is handing over your health and the quality of your life to someone else. I want to use resources thoughtfully and judiciously, not just because someone from the doctor’s office calls and tells me because of my age it’s time to do something.

I’m not giving medical advice to anyone else. I’m certainly not denying the value of accessing those with more experience and knowledge as partners in your health. I advocate and practice a preventative lifestyle in which education and knowledge are central, and don’t believe in being oblivious to or ignoring issues.

If you have a concern, go get it checked out. Then if a health concern is revealed that you need to address, research and make a decision based on all of that knowledge as to what is best in your situation.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to take responsibility for your own health. That is part and parcel of my mindset and how I live. I appreciate any and all help from others, but try not to expect others to save me from myself.

>>As for having health checks such as blood tests, mammogram over age 40, blood pressure and more, unfortunately they are vital and save millions of lives daily. It would have been so easy and ideal if health was all about how we feel, though many illnesses begin silently and erupt suddenly, without the person ever having previous noticeable health issues or discomforts. If those tests are available and don’t provide side effects, we should be grateful for them…<<

Please don’t think I’m picking on the person whose question I am responding but since people often make statements like this – are you certain that millions of lives are saved daily as a result of these checks? Statistically it’s hard for me to believe that claim is true.

Here are some questions I would suggest you consider:

  • Is it possible that sometimes these tests are inaccurate or flawed?
  • Is it possible that these tests/or treatments have side effects?
  • Is is possible that the treatment for whatever has been diagnosed may cause a worse outcome than taking a different approach?
  • Do you assume that if the doctors are doing it, it must be right, it must be documentably the best course of action, and it must lead to the best results?

Perhaps some of your presumptions as to the benefit of widespread allopathic testing and treatment may be flawed.

The third leading cause of death in the United States is medical error. It is preceded by cancer and heart disease, both strongly impacted by diet. Based on those brief facts, doesn’t it make sense to: 1) invest a lot more time learning about and implementing proper nutrition so you can take a preventative approach and minimize the chances of dying of cancer and heart disease, and 2) stop using the medical system as the first stop for every question or concern so as to minimize the danger of medical error and prescription drug misdiagnosis or contraindication?

When it comes to routine tests, I want to know what the purpose of the screening is, how it works, what the accuracy rate is, and then consider what steps will be taken if a health condition is uncovered.

The screenings are generally for signs of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Here are more questions: What leads to cancer? What leads to heart disease? What leads to diabetes? None of them suddenly or randomly pop up, even if a sudden diagnosis may lead us to believe that.

Are any of those things you can control? Are there any things you can change about what you’re doing to lower your likelihood of getting them? What are those changes? Can you proactively make those changes before getting a hard diagnosis?

There is so, so much that you can do to improve each area of your health. You can participate in testing, or preempt the testing and take proactive actions before there’s a reason for concern, which is what I do.

I believe you can pay attention to how you feel and you don’t need to rely on someone else to tell you how you’re feeling, any more than a woman in labor needs someone else looking at the monitor to tell her she’s having a contraction.

>> I am not sure that not going to health care clinic just because we feel good and healthy. I did not know I had high blood pressure until I had to go to doctor. So how safe, by not going, will be?? I prefer to be checked as I’m getting closer to 60’s. <<

If you feel comfortable doing these screenings, then by all means, do them! Again, I’m not telling anyone not to do something they think is important.

I’ll address the point about not knowing you had high blood pressure, but first, some things to consider.

Here are questions I would ask about high blood pressure/hypertension: What causes high blood pressure? What are symptoms of high blood pressure? How can you treat high blood pressure? What happens if you don’t treat high blood pressure?

I’ll help you out and save you some research time 🙂 -primary hypertension is caused by hyperinsulinemia, the excess of insulin in your blood stream.

Here’s a link to a typical cardiologist’s recommendations for lifestyle changes if you have high blood pressure. What does it say?

“Avoid smoking.
Eat a heart-healthy diet, especially one that is low in salt.
Exercise under the directions of your doctor.
If you’re overweight, talk to your doctor about weight loss options.
Limiting alcohol consumption to 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men.
Manage stress.”

These are standard guidelines that are telling you, if you don’t smoke, drink alcohol in larger quantities, if you move your body, manage your stress and eat a nutritious diet (important to note that the diet recommended in the link on that site will not improve high blood pressure so obviously all ‘healthy’ diets aren’t created equal and in my opinion avoiding salt isn’t a good idea), then it’s highly unlikely you’re going to have high blood pressure.

As someone who follows those healthy lifestyle recommendations, is it irresponsible for me to not regularly get my blood pressure tested? (In case you’re wondering, my blood pressure has always been on the low side of normal.)

Back to not knowing you had high blood pressure – eventually, a person with high blood pressure will show symptoms. That goes back to my comment in my last post about being in touch with yourself and noticing if something changes in the state of your health.

Now that you know you have high blood pressure, what are you going to do with that information to empower yourself and become a healthier version of you?

>>I have the same question. Aren’t there health conditions that are easier to treat if caught early, and that don’t present symptoms at early stages? I’m curious to understand your perspective<<

Absolutely it’s easier to treat something if you learn about it sooner than rather than when it’s more advanced. I am one hundred percent a proponent of being proactive and not waiting for issues to show up, or treating something when it’s small rather than waiting for it to get bigger.

The question might better be asked, is screening the only way to be proactive and careful about your health? Is screening really the best way to be careful about your health?

Let’s think about diabetes (which is reversable), for which we do screening. What are some subtle signs of blood sugar that’s getting too high? Weight gain, moodiness/anxiety, rising blood pressure, cavities/dental infections, frequent infections. There are signs that something isn’t right before you get diabetes. It doesn’t suddenly happen.

If I stop eating foods that raise blood sugar, is it irresponsible of me to not screen for pre-diabetes? If I rarely get sick, have stable moods, no dental issues or infections of any kind – am I being neglectful not to do this screening? Or am I doing something that others can also be doing to take meaningful preventative action?

Is there something that concerns you about your health, something that is a low-grade worry but not something serious enough to check out? Pay attention to that. Don’t ignore that inner voice. Ignoring things doesn’t make it go away. What are you worried about?

You’ve seen me share the kind of questions I ask to get clarity about what steps to take. You can ask yourself those same questions, and then do something proactive to improve your health. I want you to feel empowered to take action to help yourselves, not to put the power onto a health provider or a test and certainly not to pretend everything is fine and ignore symptoms you may be experiencing.

————————-

Now the final question that I listed in the beginning is, what if a health issue is revealed? What will you do?

Hopefully all your scans and testing will come out just fine. But there’s a possibility that they won’t at some point in your life. Then what?

Then you’ll really need to take the time to ask some questions and learn, because the traditional allopathic choices will be medication that invariably comes with side effects or a medical procedure that you might want to avoid. These are valid options if you’re comfortable with them, but since my goal is health and wellness and not the management of disease, those aren’t the first line strategies that I would adopt.

That doesn’t mean declining treatment and wasting away. Fortunately there is always more than one way to treat a health issue, and some will be more effective and less toxic than others.

However, to be able to say, ‘thank you for the information and I’ve chosen a different way to address my health concern’ isn’t easy to do. Not at all. You’ll really need to be confident in the information and resources you’ve gathered to stand your ground, and at the core, you need to believe in yourself as a competent and capable person. You need to be able to trust yourself as able to make good choices for yourself.

As you can see, I don’t reflexively say ‘no’ and refuse to participate in standard medical screenings. Seeing myself, rather than my doctor, as responsible for my health puts the onus of responsibility on me. A lot of people feel that that’s too heavy a responsibility for them to take on, but whether you actively accept the responsibility or not, it’s your life and it’s therefore your responsibility.

Avivah

PS – I’ll address some other questions asked relating to cancer in my next post.

You as the expert in you

personal development

I had a fascinating conversation yesterday.

A woman I spoke to shared that she been struggling in a certain area and was looking for resources to help her. As she looked in depth at different programs available, she began to feel concerned about the meta message inherent in the various products she was looking at. That message was, you can’t improve or grow or figure out an issue you’re having without a professional telling you how to do it.

In the end, through a lot of introspection and conversation with a trusted family member, she was able to work through it on her own. She found it very empowering to come to a positive resolution on her own, and after getting clarity on what the real issue was, is confident that the program she was considering enrolling in wouldn’t have helped her deal with it. She would have missed out on all that personal development if she had gone the route of enrolling in a course.

Obviously, there are lots of great courses out there that can enrich someone’s life. And since effective marketing is often about telling people how badly off they are without your product and why you’ll be better with it, there’s going to be a message of ‘buy this for your life to be better’.

She wasn’t questioning if these courses can be valuable at times, and obviously there are times that you can benefit by turning to professionals for targeted assistance. She was expressing concern that the overall message is disempowering and leads people to stop tuning in to and trusting themselves.

Someone else recently shared with me that she’s taking yet another personal development course and she ‘hopes this one will be everything I want it to be’. ‘Of course it won’t,’ I told her with a smile.

How do I know that? Because she has a lot of things to deal with in her life and there’s no course that will give her the results she’s hoping for. The answers she’s looking for are inside of her, and she’s not going to find them by taking one more course and one more and one more and one more.

There are two different components in this message of disempowerment:

  1. You need professionals to help you improve your life and can’t trust your own instincts and thoughts, because you aren’t a professional.
  3. You start looking for the answers outside of yourself and stop seeing yourself as the locus of control. If something isn’t working, then you need to find a different resource, a different advisor – it’s about them, not about you.

This is an incredibly disempowering attitude to adopt, but it’s one that is becoming more prevalent and we don’t even realize the subliminal messages coming from all directions that lead us to think like this.

As a special needs and foster mom I regularly speak with therapists, psychologists and social workers who express surprise at my understanding of human psychology and child development, and ask me how I know what I know.

Here’s something mind bending to consider: Did you know that you can learn a lot about a topic, even acquiring a high level of knowledge in an area, without getting a degree in it?

While we may intellectually believe this, we somehow still tend to believe that the average person needs an ‘expert’ to tell him how to best live his life.

I got a call a month ago from my health clinic letting me know that the tests I haven’t done that they recommend for someone my age are building up and strongly encouraging me to come in to have them done. I told the nurse calling that I’m concerned about my health, take appropriate steps to care for my health, and if I feel in need of testing in any area of concern, I’ll come in.

Then she asked me, “But how can you know you’re healthy if you don’t do the testing?”

Her response is a perfect example of the ‘expert is outside of you’ paradigm. It’s irrelevant how I feel or what I know after a half a century as to what living in my body feels like – if I haven’t taken a test to tell me I’m okay, I can’t be okay.

In my view, how do I know I’m healthy? I look at myself in the mirror, I see myself, I live in my body – if I’m free of pain, if everything works well, if I think clearly, if I have energy – I’m healthy. There are symptoms that indicate that imbalances are beginning to present in one’s health; disease doesn’t occur overnight. If you’re paying attention you’ll generally notice when something isn’t feeling right, when something is changing.

It’s unfortunate when we accept what others tell us about ourselves as more valuable than what we think or know. Even when you turn to the experts, a doctor can’t make you healthy, a therapist can’t heal your childhood traumas, a coach or course can’t give you self-esteem- they can only support you in taking care of yourself. They would be the first to tell you that you have to do the heavy lifting yourself; you have to make the effort and invest in yourself.

Often you can make those same or better efforts for yourself with your own insight and your own research, as the woman I referenced at the start did. Your success is in your hands; don’t discount who you are and what you know.

When you selectively turn to someone for assistance in furthering your development in any given area, remember that the magic is in what you do with the knowledge they share.

Avivah

Why I changed my diet to zero carb/carnivore

health, nutrition

A couple of weeks ago I shared about the health improvements I’ve seen since upgrading my nutrition, and naturally a number of you asked me to share what I’ve changed.

Eight years ago, I encountered a dietary approach that was new to me. I did some brief reading on a personal website of someone sharing her experience, and while I appreciated it was beneficial to the individual sharing about it, I didn’t read more deeply with the intent to understand.

A year later, I came across information about this same approach, but this time I was intellectually curious enough to do a LOT of reading. After a deep dive, I was intrigued by the level of healing I had never seen before on any eating plan I had investigated – not whole foods, vegetarian, vegan, keto, WAP (Weston A. Price) – all of which I’ve experimented with personally at length.

What was most fascinating and surprising to me was seeing the healing of significant mental health issues that are assumed to be treatable only with medication. I had never seen testimonials of people with issues like these healed by any other diet. I also saw a tremendous amount of physical healing of many issues that generally aren’t considered dietically related (everything, everything, everything about your health is impacted by what you eat!!!). It was just amazing.

My husband has a much more sensitive digestive system than I do and as a result, has to be very careful about what he eats. I told my husband about the many testimonials of physical healing I read about, and it was about seven years ago that I suggested he consider following these guidelines.

My husband has a lot of faith in my research, and began immediately without even reading any more about it. I began with him and felt great for the five weeks I did it but budgetarily it was a strain for us and since I wasn’t suffering any health issues or discomfort in any way, wanted to direct our food budget resources to him. He stayed with it for two and a half years before shifting back into GAPS due to finances.

Since then I’ve continued learning and reading about this approach. When I first came across it, it was known about by a relatively small group of people who had tried everything else to heal and were desperate enough to do something different. I came to believe this was an ideal way of eating but almost never spoke of what I learned: I wasn’t doing it myself, and secondly because it was completely opposite all mainstream nutrition advice so there’s so much to explain. I expected it would remain far outside of the social norms forever.

However, there were some high profile individuals who shared about their success eating like this. As a result, interest in this approach has grown and particularly in the last couple of years it has really gained traction.

This way of eating has become popularly known as the carnivore diet, though the term I originally heard used and still prefer is zero carb. I follow the guidelines of the original group where it’s kept really simple: meat, chicken, eggs, fish, beef fat and butter. I stay away from dairy for the most part (the hardest thing for me to give up was our own raw goat dairy, and why I took a very long time to commit to trying this).

I’ve been eating this way for ten months. Despite my reticence to share about this, this is something that can help with so many health issues and it would be selfish to keep it to myself.

Unfortunately our public nutritional guidelines are so completely corrupted that there’s no way for a person to achieve good health long term by following those guidelines. The official guidelines will lead to the doctor’s office and long term medications for physical and psychological diagnoses.

In contrast, zero carb eating can reverse many chronic conditions and keep a person healthy with minimal input from the medical system in most cases.

When I began researching this topic, there was very little available online. Most of the information was in Facebook groups. But now you can find so many people with lots of experience with this way of eating talking about it at length, including medical doctors from all disciplines.

If you want to know about why not vegetables (Dr. Anthony Chaffee), or what about cholesterol/ won’t this give you a heart attack (heart surgeon Dr. Philip Ovadia), or how does it affect your mental health (pyschiatrist Dr. Georgia Eades), how to eat for fertility (Dr. Robert Kiltz), how it affects your eye health (Dr. Lisa Wiedeman), or every aspect of general health (Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Shawn Baker) you have so much information available. I have listened to hundreds of interviews of people sharing their personal health transformations (No Carb Life has eight hundred so far; a number of other Youtube channels have many great interviews as well).

I believe this is the way of eating that will give the most health benefits to the average human, and though it’s not necessary for everyone, in that vast majority of people it will be very beneficial. I was in pretty good health but still have seen improvements in hormone balancing, joint pain, metabolism, energy and mental clarity.

It’s wonderful that something so simple can make such a big difference, and maybe that’s the hardest part about it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that achieving good health is complicated and difficult, when actually our bodies are intended to be healthy and move towards healing and wellness when given the nutritional building blocks it needs.

Avivah

Eliminating joint pain by cleaning up my diet

health, nutrition

Nine months ago I sat down and made a list of health concerns, however small they seemed.

The main thing that concerned me was a pain in my hip. I’ve written here about going to the osteopath for that and getting relief from it. He said it was caused by misalignment, and I noticed it happened whenever I was very busy. So I would rest more often. Then it started happening more often. To compensate, when standing I would shift my weight to my other leg.

As a result of my compensation, I began getting discomfort in my left knee, which then travelled to the bottom of the left foot and manifested as a tightness of the muscles. When the osteopath worked on my foot, he said something about the plantar fascia, and then I realized it was the beginning of plantar fasciitis. Oy.

I asked him what I was supposed to do to stay in alignment, but I was doing everything suggested and I still needed regular appointments (about every 4 – 6 weeks). Then I heard an interview with a doctor who was asked how she chose her specialty of endocrinology, and she said she had been an osteopath and began noticing how many of her patients in their forties and fifties were coming for weekly appointments because their bodies couldn’t hold the alignment. She wanted to study hormones to help women stay in good health.

I don’t remember what she said after that, but realizing that me not being able to stay in alignment was something others in my age range were experiencing was a jolt and got me thinking.

(I also felt stiffness when standing up after sitting for a while, and mild soreness in the joints of my hands periodically. It seemed minor but I included this in my list. )

It occurred to me that the pain I was having might be caused by internal inflammation rather than the localized muscle discomfort I was assuming it to be. If so, I was making a mistake by treating the symptoms of pain rather than addressing the underlying cause.

Along with my thoughts about the possible physical causes, I reflected on my expectations of what it means to get older. I didn’t want to internalize the societal belief that getting older means more pain and less mobility, and I was ready to actively challenge that belief. I wanted to create a new expectation for myself, that as I get older I will be active and energetic, flexible and healthy.

Once I was honest with myself about what I was feeling, I resolved to do something different. If it was possible my hip pain was caused by inflammation, then I needed to reduce the inflammation. How could I do that?

By changing my diet.

I resisted this for a long time because my diet was pretty good; most people would say it was very good. But once I was willing to be honest with myself, I knew I needed to make some changes.

I eliminated every possible source of inflammation, and soon began feeling more energy. I began losing some of the weight I put on after the car accident that had left me completely sedentary. But the hip pain didn’t go away as quickly as I expected.

In the first three weeks the plantar fasciitis disappeared, then the pain in my left knee, but I still had some periodic discomfort in my right hip. But I began noticing my overall movement became much more comfortable and fluid; I easily and quickly shifted from sitting or laying down to standing up. I got up and down from the floor without thinking about it. My hands never felt any soreness.

The pain in my hip faded and I don’t know when it completely disappeared because I stopped being aware of it. It might have been a month or even six weeks until it was completely gone.

One day my husband and I took the kids for a walk and he lagged behind me with one of them. When he caught up to me, he asked me if I was aware that I was walking differently. Again, changes happen over time and he hadn’t noticed my gait had changed as a result of the pain until he saw me walking without pain. He commented on it again a week later, marvelling and saying the difference was miraculous, that I walk with the same fluidity I had in my twenties.

Recently over the two weeks of holidays, I ate some foods I don’t usually eat – things you would call ‘healthy’. I had some moussaka – with eggplant, ground beef, homemade tomato sauce and a coconut cream ‘cheese’ topping. I ate some halva ice cream – made with dates, coconut cream and tahini. I had some fresh fruit and some compote, some slices of cheese, three small pieces of potato. These were the only changes to my usual way of eating, all seemingly small quantities over a two week period.

The homemade ice cream was clearly a sugar overload for me – I napped afterward as if I had taken a sleeping pill. As far as the other foods, my digestion wasn’t as perfect as it usually is.

What took a little longer was for my hip to begin hurting again.

It didn’t happen immediately after I ate a peach or a slice of cheese. But the pain is a powerful reminder of what I used to feel and I’m so glad for the reminder. It’s remarkably easy to forget the negatives when they’re no longer part of your life and to take good health for granted. I didn’t intend this to be a test of what I’m sensitive to, but that’s what it’s been.

I have been blessed for many months now to consistently feel very good physically and emotionally, and have taken that for granted. Now it’s easy for me to see when something I eat detracts from that, and I’m glad for the motivating nudge to recommit to giving my body the fuel it needs to feel its best.

Avivah

Not giving up but letting go and renewing a sense of purpose

parenting

I’ve been deeply reflective and feeling pensive about the foster care system for the last few days.

I shared with my social worker earlier this week how difficult it’s been for the last several months; I’m constantly dealing with emotional outbursts and one particular child who is seemingly oblivious to boundaries; it’s very draining and demands enormous patience. Ds7’s behavior has gotten quite obnoxious and all of us are finding it hard to be around him. (The therapist was happy to hear about this and told me they usually hope to see these behaviors at 2 – 3 years after placement so he’s ahead of schedule at less than a year and a half; I laughed and told her she’ll be even happier to know that dd7 is doing the same kind of things but less often.) It’s challenged me because there are things I have no tolerance for – specifically disrespect to parents – and his behaviors trip over that.

With the schools being closed and no other outlets outside of the home available due to the war, I’ve been stretched thin emotionally.

Usually I’m allotted additional babysitting hours during the summer or holiday months from the foster care agency. Since the kids can’t go to school because of the war, I requested additional hours, but this time was told I could have only a minimal number of hours, with the explanation that implied that I didn’t deserve more. I told the social worker I understand if they don’t have the funding now because everyone wants extra hours, but it’s very frustrating and invalidating to get the response I did, and I wonder if they understand the reality of living with emotionally needy and intense children.

I reminded her that we committed to what we were told would be involved, but more and more continues to be demanded of us without any additional support or even understanding of the difficulty of what we’re being asked to do being recognized.

She responded that she genuinely understands and any time it’s too much for us, I can tell her and they’ll rehome the twins (the likely placement would be to an institution).

I don’t know if the intention was to be reassuring – this is the second time I was told this, the first was after the harassment from the guardian ad litem – but I really wasn’t happy with this response.

I said very sharply, I’ve never said I want to find a new home for them, that’s not at all my intention and that’s not the point of anything I’ve said. Don’t you see the absurdity of spending 10 – 20,000 shekels a month on a dormitory school per child, but there’s not enough funding for even a few hundred shekels a month for respite for foster families, especially when everyone knows the outcome will be much better with a family than for children placed in institutions??

I’ve come to the realization that as well-intended as some in the foster care system are, the system itself is not there to help or support me as a foster parent – and that’s not the primary goal for foster children, either; in fact, their policies can work against the wellbeing of children. I see this again and again, that in the focus on minutiae the big picture is lost.

Here’s an example. The above conversation began when I was notified a couple of days ago that ds7 and dd7 won’t be getting therapy in school due to a shortage of in-school providers, despite the expectation that would be available for them. I was informed that as a result of this, I need to take them privately. To do that, I need to take each child to therapy, then drive them afterward to school, which is an hour away, and then come back home. That would be one entire morning every week of my time spent on one therapy appointment, for just one child.

But there are two children, so it’s not one morning, it’s two mornings. My schedule is already filled with commitments (like weekly speech therapy for ds7 and ds12 that takes one full morning, therapeutic horseback riding two afternoons a week and regular orthodontist appointments for two children). I have to go to parenting sessions as a foster parent because of the challenging situation we’re in so as to document our case and protect ourselves. That’s also hour away, every other week. Every other week I take the kids for visitation with their parents in the morning because there are no longer after school hours available at the mediation center, and then have to drive them to school. That’s four hours each time, so two more mornings gone.

I don’t have two mornings a week to dedicate to therapy. It’s not a question of unwillingness. I simply can’t. I told her I only have Friday mornings available – this isn’t exactly a free day; it’s the only day that my husband and I have that we don’t have commitments other than Shabbos preparations. Last year dd7 stayed home from school every Friday because I had to take her to therapy, and I’ve been really, really looking forward to some relief from that. While I offered to take them both on Fridays, which will take up my entire Friday morning and necessitate making all of my Shabbos preparations the day before, I can’t take two children to two different therapists in two different areas at the same time and the working hours on that day are limited. (Currently dd’s therapist is reaching out to other therapists in her area to see if anyone has availability so I could coordinate them both at a similar hour.)

There’s no possibility of anyone agreeing to them not having weekly therapy, because the law says the kids need to get it, and this is a good thing. It really is. They deserve every bit of support they can get.

What’s not good is that the system loses sight of the forest for the trees – if I can’t get them to their appointments, then I’m not fulfilling the necessary requirements as a foster parent. It isn’t relevant that we are a home that provides much more therapeutic emotional support than is usually available for foster children, and as a result, the children have been doing much, much better than the norm. In order for them to get a weekly 45 minute session of play or art therapy, they would be placed somewhere else if we can’t take them to these appointments – and this is intended to benefit the child. But when looking at the whole picture, it brings up the question if that really is to their benefit?

I can twist myself more and more into a pretzel to do all the things I’m told I need to do, none of which are unreasonable but have become very burdensome for me when taken as a whole. It’s hard to add these things in when the schedule for the year was planned and committed to, each activity having been considered for the value it brings and the price it will exact, before I was told about the changes for therapy and visitation that necessitate at least an additional ten hours a week of my active involvement.

Or I can tell them to take the kids and I’ll go back to living my more peaceful life that was quite full but had more white space.

But there’s no point in talking to anyone in the system, in sharing my thoughts or opinions or experience about anything. I thought that communicating would have some benefit, that some adjustments could be made, there would be some understanding or willingness to adapt or find solutions, but now it’s clear that they really have no help to offer except to rehome the twins. They aren’t being callous or unfeeling to offer that – it’s literally the only way they can offer support. It would devastate the kids and everyone knows that, but nonetheless that’s the only offer.

I’ve felt disappointed that due to the extremely full days with the kids home I haven’t had time to do a yearly cheshbon hanefesh, a spiritual review of the past year and make a plan for the areas I want to work on in coming year. But working through so much to move past the compassion fatigue and burnout, to remind myself why I’m doing this, and to renew my commitment to be the best parent I can to all of our children is my spiritual process at this time.

G-d knows I’m doing my best in a challenging situation. There’s so much I want to be doing that I can’t do, and I’ve had to work on letting go and putting to the side what I wanted to be doing at this time. I’m accepting that G-d has different plans for me than what I planned for myself. I can fight it and be frustrated and annoyed that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, this isn’t what I committed to, this isn’t how I want to be using my time. Or I can go with the flow and consider that there are new ways to grow and learn that will benefit me on this path that I’m surrendering to.

The therapist gave me a gift today, a book called The Man Who Planted Trees. She said since the first time she met me she’s been continually reminded of this story when speaking to me. (Here’s a free pdf of the book – it’s a short and inspiring story.) It’s about planting seeds for the future at a time that those efforts seem small and unlikely to effect change, while holding on to the vision of the future results you want to have; small and consistent effort in the direction of your goal will yield beautiful results.

May we individually and collectively experience the coming year as one of peace and abundance of all sorts.

Avivah

The war is on and the kids are home

parenting

As residents of the north we are affected by the war with Lebanon, though thankfully here in Yavneel not too dramatically so.

I’m grateful we haven’t had any sirens, though we do hear and see the missile interceptions. (**Edit at end of post) I feel like we live in a cocoon of safety; the adjoining towns have had sirens and even missiles landing, but we’re in a blessed island of safety. At the store today I chatted briefly with a woman who lives a twenty minute drive from me, who told me a missile fell on her next door neighbor’s home. But for us, our involvement has been limited to hearing the interceptions.

Here are more interceptions again as I’m writing this – three, four, five, six, seven, eight…nine. It sounds like that’s it for this round. I’ve only counted nine or ten at a time but on this same day my son heard and saw twenty two in one round. It’s miraculous that there have been so few injuries and I feel Hashem’s protective hand over us all.

I wasn’t talking to my children about the war because I didn’t think it’s necessary at that point but then a neighbor’s child was here when the booms of the interceptions happened, and he started excitedly exclaiming, “They’re shooting missiles!” The twins ran after him and repeated what he said very excitedly. Then ds7 stopped and asked me, “What does ‘shooting’ mean?” I wasn’t appreciative to have this concept introduced to them but now that it’s been said, it had to be addressed.

Before the kids weren’t aware of what the loud noises were – a new home began being built right across from us on the Sunday morning that the war began, and since since the machinery was so very loud, they didn’t realize that the sounds in the sky were something different from the heavy equipment. But now they’ve become aware of the interceptions, which in Hebrew are called ‘boomim'(booms).

I explained the booms by telling them, “Those are the sounds of Hashem protecting us.” Whenever we talk about anything related to the war, I keep it very low key. My message is, everything is okay and we’re not going to get excited about it. Kids take their cues from the adults around them, so it’s important not to project anxiety because they pick up on it and internalize it.

School hasn’t been in session in the north for the last week and a half, and no one has any idea when the kids will be returning to school. Three of the younger four kids have Zoom classes set up but I’m not interested in having our children participate. I don’t have any positive feelings about young children using Zoom as a substitute for school. Zoom is a decent option for adults who are very interested and motivated in their learning, though nothing compares to in person learning. But for kids, particularly in the earlier grades? I can immediately see their energy become more frenetic and disorganized when they get on a Zoom call.

Ds7.5’s teacher set up a phone line where she leaves a recording each day for the students, and they can call in and listen at their convenience. I like that much more. A couple of times I called for ds7.5, and he enjoyed hearing his teacher greet each child individually and then he davened out loud with the recording. I’ve only called in twice, and each time he listened for under ten minutes before he asked to hang up.

The kids have asked why they aren’t going to school, and I explained that there are children who would be scared if they were far away from their parents when they heard the booms, so all the children are staying home until there are no more booms. That was easy for them to understand.

After my posts about my appreciation of my schedule, now that’s all changing. It’s not only school that is cancelled. Our speech sessions are in an area where they are having a lot of sirens, and the therapist told me it’s not safe for us to come. I thought we’d be able to continue with horseback riding since it’s just a ten minute drive from here, but they are acting in accordance with the security recommendations for the north and also cancelled.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to dissemble the pool since the weather is getting cooler, and my son finished taking it down first thing last Sunday morning – yes, the first morning of the war. Now the kids are home, the temperatures are close to 100 degrees and they are so irritable. When we took the pool down, I thought that if the weather shifted and got hot again, I’d take the kids to the Kinneret. But now the beaches are closed because of the war, so that’s not an option.

During covid I embraced everyone being home for an extended time and deeply appreciated that period. That’s not my experience now.

Last year was very challenging for a number of reasons and most days at least one child stayed home with me. That was followed by a long summer with everyone home that demanded a lot of patience on my part. It wasn’t an easy year and it wasn’t an easy summer. I’ve gotten through it all with a good attitude but have very much looked forward to everyone being in school and having time to myself.

When the cancellation of school was announced, I couldn’t find any feelings of positivity about it, and I didn’t want to try to be positive. I was frustrated and resentful that my long awaited time was being stolen from me. After a couple of days I realized I needed to let myself feel the disappointment and everything else that was flooding me, before I could move into acceptance of the reality.

I’ve done some journaling about my concerns about losing this time, my distress about of losing my momentum and even my motivation to pursue my other goals, my fear that I’ll never do those things. I let myself be with that for a couple of days, and every day have been more able to be with the kids without thinking about what I should be doing instead percolating in the back of my mind.

At this point I’m in a place of acceptance. I’m letting go of expectations for myself and what I thought I would do, and also for the return to school. Maybe after Rosh Hashana the kids will go back to school. Maybe this will be a long term situation. No one knows. I’m able to honestly say I’m okay with that now.

Am I embracing having them home? Not yet. I’m at a stage that parenting is demanding and intensive, and takes a lot of emotional and physical energy. One child in particular is challenging from the minute he wakes up and it takes a lot of conscious effort to stay loving towards him. Right now he’s having a time-in with me, sitting in my room with me as I write this, stroking the dog as I have relaxing music playing in the background. It’s been twenty minutes so far and he’s finally moving from defiant and obnoxious to calming down and becoming sweet again. At 8 am, this is the first intervention for him of the morning, but it won’t be the last.

Acceptance is a good place to be for now.

** Edited to add – Ten hours after writing this, numerous ballistic missiles were sent from Iran. As I got home from errands, I saw them in the sky and heard them exploding before I the warning siren sounded to go to a safe room. Thank G-d, we continue to witness unfathomable miracles – how can there be so few deaths after a countrywide barrage like we just experienced? I will be going into Rosh Hashana with heightened appreciation and gratitude for Hashem’s overwhelming kindness. May we all have a good, safe year of many blessings!!**

Avivah

Building margin into a busy day

homemaking

After sharing my morning schedule and seeing the comments, I was concerned that it gave the inaccurate impression that all of my time was equally structured. I’ll share a little more so you have a fuller picture.

>> Oh dear. You wake up really early. Really, really, early. No wonder you’re tired at night. If it works for you – so great. For myself it would never work. I can’t function well when I’m tired.<<

I don’t think any of us function well when we’re tired!

For years I used to stay up very late, then wake up between 8:30 – 9 am – as a homeschooling mom I had that flexibility – and every morning before my eyes were open I felt behind schedule and undisciplined. I stayed up late because that’s when I had time to myself after my teens went to sleep, but it made waking up early impossible. Nine years ago I very consciously changed my sleep habits to get up earlier and go to sleep earlier. It took a lot of consistent effort but I felt good about how I was using my time when I woke up.

I gradually evolved to a wakeup time of between 5:30 – 6:30 throughout the year. I don’t set a timer; whenever my body wakes up, I get up. This summer I chose to get up at 4:45 and that was a gift to myself, a way that I prioritized my needs at a time that my schedule was so packed that I wouldn’t have had any possibility of quality time for myself otherwise. I deeply cherish my morning time. This is the foundation that give me the inner quiet that I draw on for the rest of my day.

I usually take a nap daily from 1 – 2 pm, though that didn’t happen regularly during my hectic summer period. So my energy is fairly stable throughout the day. But by the time the kids go to sleep, I want to be by myself. There’s a lot of togetherness when all of the kids are home and I need some space to regroup. Even if I can do more at that time, I don’t want to fill my schedule that full. That means leaving dinner dishes in the sink almost every night to be tackled in the morning when I’m fresh. I don’t like waking up to them, but I like even less the idea of working from dawn to dark. 🙂

>>Also, when your time is budgeted so closely, what do you do when the unexpected happens, or, worse, when you’re not feeling well? It doesn’t look like there’s much slack in this system.<<

I have to differentiate between unusual times like this summer’s intensity and my normal schedule – during the summer there were about six weeks when I needed to push myself to use all of my time well, to get things done and to feel calm and relaxed about it all, from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep. That was the Superwoman period, and that was a much better way to handle it than to collapse or be resentful of all the demands on me. But that’s not my regular schedule, it’s definitely not my ideal, and with summer vacation, the wedding/sheva brachos behind me and my course in it’s final week, I’m now easing into a more typical daily schedule.

I very much value margin and consciously build it into my schedule. I’m the one who creates my schedule and I’m the one who can make changes; I’m not tied to anything that doesn’t work for me. If one day I’m tired and want to sleep in, I can do that.

It’s true that my morning routine is very structured, but it’s full of activities that energize me and give me the ability to go through the rest of my day in a positive way – they don’t stress or deplete me. I feel relaxed as I go into actively getting the kids ready for school, knowing I’ve already done the most important things for myself.

The later morning has less structure, because it needs less structure – that’s when I do the things that need to be done, and they’ll get done without careful scheduling. My self-care activities won’t.

>>You are doing an incredible amount, and getting it done through a combination of efficiency/good planning, dedication to the cause, mental conditioning, and sheer physical grit. If it was me, I would have burnt out long ago. I hope that you find a way to get done what needs to be done in a way that’s healthy and nurturing and forgiving for YOU, not just for all those around you. <<

Yes, I do a lot. Some of what I do I don’t have a lot of say about, but there are other activities that are my choice, and I’m careful about what I take on. I think about each activity before committing to it, to be sure it justifies the time invested.

I’ve begun taking the four youngest kids to horseback riding two afternoons a week, and the time needed to get the paperwork set up was significant, in addition to the actual time spent at the riding lessons. I paused for a while before moving forward with this to reflect on if it was going to stretch me too far in combination with other things I have going on. But I value that so it’s worth it for me.

The same thing with taking ds12 and ds7 to private speech therapy every week – it’s important to me so I make time for it. Last year they stayed home one day a week to make this possible. This year I thought about how they could get the benefit of the therapy and I could still have some time on that day for myself.

I decided to send them to school on their van; I pick them up from school an hour after they get there, take them to therapy, bring them back to school an hour before they need to go home, and they go home on the van. Though this adds an additional forty minutes of driving to my day, it gives me two hours – an hour after they leave and an hour before they come home. I also use the two hours when I’m driving by myself to listen to my course lectures or something else of interest to me that I wouldn’t be able to listen to with kids in the car.

Doing a lot for others doesn’t mean that I don’t have time for myself. I must have me-time. It’s not possible to give to others without filling ourselves up constantly and consistently, or we absolutely will feel burned out.

Last week I requested a change of the speech therapy day, because it coincides with a women’s monthly activity that I really enjoy. Last year I jumped at the opportunity for the boys to have sessions at this clinic when a spot for them opened up, though it meant giving up this women’s activity. This year I’m putting the women’s activity it into my schedule at the beginning of the year and building other commitments around it.

School in the north has been cancelled because of security issues due to the war, so the kids have been home this week. None of us know how much longer the schools will be closed due to the war, and I find it slightly ironic that I’m writing all about how my schedule is working so well for me….and now I need to create a new routine for having the kids home all day, with the limitations the war places on activities outside the home.

Now that my husband and I can’t have our daily walk together, I’m especially glad that I prioritized scheduling that time from the very first day that school began, and we had three weeks to enjoy spending that time together before it was cut short.

I eat really well, I think good thoughts, I take time for myself regularly, in addition to being available for others – life is full but I’m not stressed or deprived. If someone looks just at what and how much I do instead of how I do it, they could come to the conclusion that I’m depleted or on the edge of burnout, but I’m not at all. I love my life!

Avivah

My morning schedule – what’s working and why

personal development

As a prelude to creating my morning schedule, I sat down to consciously decide what areas of my life are most valuable. Then I plan those activities in before planning in any other activities. I’ve talked about this idea before, using Stephen Covey’s explanation of putting in the ‘big rocks’ first.

Here’s one way I did it recently: I filled in a pie chart with each sliver representing possible ways to spend my time. I then rated each slice with the value (from 0 – 10) I place on it currently, and then give it a rating for where I want it to be.

Some of my categories: marriage, health, children, extended family, financial management, exercise. There could be many more. They each have their own number value assigned to it.

When there is a discrepancy between how I spend my time and how I want to spend my time, I consider what needed to be better balanced to reflect the true value.

For example, since I did this exercise during the summer, when the kids were all home, my husband and I didn’t have much quiet time together. My ‘marriage’ slice was imbalanced. So I planned that beginning the very first morning that the kids went back to school – before I filled my time with any of the smaller actions that are always available to fill time – we’d take a morning walk together. That’s been wonderful and now I feel realigned in that area.

Here’s my current morning schedule for every day except Shabbos:

4:45 am – wake up, get dressed

5 – 5:30 am – morning pages – write three pages of stream of consciousness by hand. This is from the book The Artist’s Way, and the purpose is to clear your mind. This is new to me this summer, not something I wanted to do at all but was strongly recommended by someone whose input I very much valued. I did it even though I had a lot of resistance to the idea, and when I shared with my husband the value I was getting from it, he started doing it as well. On most mornings we sit outside together when it’s still dark out, each busy with our own writing. It’s become something I really appreciate.

5:30 – 6:15 – meditation/visualization exercise, followed by davening/prayer.

6:15 – wake up the four youngest kids, get them ready for school – ideally I would pack lunches the night before but I haven’t yet gotten myself organized enough for that, so that happens first thing while they are waking up.

7:07 – 7:19 – be outside with kids waiting for pickup by school vans

7:20 – 7:30 – speak to a friend about three actions towards my goals (in whatever area of life) for the day. We’ve been doing this for almost six years, though usually later in the morning and that was hard because it sometimes felt like an interruption to the flow of my day. I really like speaking briefly at this time.

7:30 – 8 am – take a walk with my husband – this has the added benefit of both of us getting exercise and enjoying being in nature, since we try to stick to the quieter back roads as much as possible.

By the time I get home at 8, I’ve already had time for personal reflection, spiritual connection, spousal connection, focus on goals with a friend, and physical exercise, in addition to getting the kids up and out, which always feels like an accomplishment. I usually throw a load of clothes in the washing machine right before waking the kids up, and as soon as I get back from my walk I hang it up.

Though the house always needs to be organized at this point, and I don’t like to do other things when things aren’t in order, I’m disciplining myself to sit down and work on whatever actions are most important to me while my mind is still fresh and I have a good bit of ability to focus. There are always phone calls to make, dishes to wash or arrangements of some sort to take care of, but I put them off until I’ve done the things that require concentrated focus. This slot is what I reserve for working on bigger personal goals that need time and focused attention.

My mornings set me up for feeling good about my day as soon as I get up, and this schedule is working really well for me at this point.

I’m considering creating a relaxed evening routine that would ease into going to sleep, also something that I do every day so it becomes automatic. The purpose wouldn’t be to fill my evening with activities, but to support myself in consistently having a relaxed and peaceful evening that feels emotionally nourishing to me. While most nights I do a meditation before going to sleep, prior to that I tend to be unfocused and waste time due to tiredness and lack of clarity about what I want to be doing. So it would be helpful to sit down and clarify for myself what actions at that time would be supportive.

Avivah

Letting go of being Superwoman and setting goals for the new year

personal development

For years, people have thrown around the term ‘Superwoman’ to refer to me, which I’ve strongly pushed back against. There’s no such thing as Superwoman; it’s a false construct and believing someone can do it all is a fallacy.

But lately, for the first time I can remember, I’ve been thinking to myself, “I feel like Superwoman!”

The amount of things I’ve been accomplishing is off the charts, and other than a nap midday I’m going and going – really doing things, not just being awake – from 4:45 am until I go to sleep by 11pm. (Well, to be perfectly honest, the hours after 7 pm are low energy times and I don’t get much done then.)

I don’t generally find wedding planning daunting, but less than a month before the wedding it became apparent I would need to plan the entire wedding from scratch. That was during the most busy time of the summer with all of the children home, as well as having married children and grandchildren visiting, in addition to the many appointments I was taking children to.

The wedding took place on Friday, Sept. 13; it was beautiful. Thank G-d, another beautiful couple has joined our family!

My husband and me with our son

One thing that has been taking a good chunk of my time is a course that has been more intensive than I anticipated – the time I’ve needed to keep up has been double what I was told to expect. I’m enjoying it but the pace has been a stress at times.

Today I was at our weekly speech therapy appointment with ds12 and ds7.5 when I met a neighbor of the clinic. We got to talking and he mentioned he’s involved with alternative health; I asked him about what that means specifically and he said he works with energy.

I asked him some questions and he told me that some people are very closed, but then there are people like me who are easy to read. I asked him what he saw about me; he said a few accurate points, the first of which is that I have a lot of forward moving energy and it’s something that I need to balance.

For me this cautionary note very much resonated because with all that I already am doing, I’m thinking of moving into an arena that I’m very interested in but will require a lot of time and commitment. I want to do it as it aligns with goals that are important and meaningful to me, but at the same time it feels like a big push and I’m hesitant to pack my schedule too full. I’m efficient; I use my time consciously and well. Everything has gotten done and I don’t feel frenetic or harried. But I’m clear that I shouldn’t keep doing so much every day, even though I can. A high level of action was necessary for this season but I’d like to embrace a more relaxed schedule – time to say goodbye to Superwoman!

I love many aspects of my current schedule; I’ve prioritized the elements that are most important to me and my mornings are particularly fulfilling and productive. I have time for prayer, meditation, reflection, exercise, time with my husband, connection with a friend, and in the middle of it get my four youngest children ready for school with everyone usually in a positive state of mind.

This time of year is always when I think about goals and intentions for the coming year. For many years I knew I was moving forward but had no way to measure it or recognize the changes I made. Once I started setting concrete goals, it made it possible to see the improvements year upon year and that’s very gratifying.

I’m still in the process of setting my goals for the coming year. All of the above considerations are part of the process: am I trying to do too much? Can I move towards this significant personal goal without putting too much pressure on myself? How can I recalibrate my expectations of myself so I can make progress without getting discouraged if I don’t see the results I want as soon as I hope?

I’ve been repeatedly reminded that the focus shouldn’t be on the outcome, but on the process. We can’t measure our success by what we accomplish, but by who we become in the process of pursuing the goal. The effort is what matters, the end result isn’t in our control.

I’d love to hear if you have a time and approach to goal setting that’s been helpful for you – what do you do, and how do you do it?

Avivah

New wedding hall scheduled!

parenting, personal development

In the past I’ve been matter of fact when reserving a wedding hall, but this time, I cheered out loud after putting down the phone and finding out a hall was available for the date we wanted.

We found something quickly and easily, and I’m relieved and grateful to have a spacious and comfortable hall that will amply accommodate all of our guests. My hope is that everyone involved will feel it is a joyous and expansive event.

I have already reserved the hall and caterer, and sent the advance partial payment to each, and contacted the band to let them know about the location change.

In the last few weeks, every time I spoke with my son about wedding plans, he’d ask me what was happening and sounded stressed. I kept trying to be reassuring, saying, “It’s fine, I’m not organizing it but someone else is; this is what’s happening and it’s going to be done.” When I told him the night of my last post that I had spoken to his kallah and was considering a location change, I expected him to sound even more stressed.

I was surprised that he was very chilled and positive about the possibility. He had absolutely no concern about the location being changed at this late stage.

The next morning, I called my son to tell him I found a wedding hall available for the date we wanted. When I told him which it was, he told me it was the hall he liked most! I had no idea – after they got engaged I asked what he preferred as far as a hall, and he said he didn’t really care, as long as his kallah was happy.

But he did care. So finding out I was about to reserve the hall he was most partial to added to my happiness.

I spoke to him later that day and updated him, letting him know I had booked the hall and the caterer, and filling him in on some other details. He sounded pleased about it all. I told him, “I don’t understand. Every time I spoke to you about wedding plans, you sounded stressed; now I’m making these changes at this point, and you sound so relaxed and calm. Why?”

He told me that now that I’m in charge of arranging the details, he feels more relaxed because I have a lot of experience.

My energy has shifted from being uneasy about the wedding to feeling relaxed and positive again. It wasn’t easy for me to speak up – it really was unpleasant to bring up concerns that could inconvenience and frustrate others because of the late date – but I’m so glad I did. I was concerned there was a likelihood for a lot of frustration with so many different details to coordinate in making a non-wedding hall into a wedding hall. I hope that it will be a relaxed and enjoyable wedding for everyone.

Avivah

PS – You may be wondering about how much more this upgrade is going to cost. We’ll actually be spending a drop less for a much larger and nicer hall, double the guests for the meal and a couple of nicer touches that we weren’t going to have before, as well as the planning being much more streamlined. Isn’t that nice?