February 2020 At the Heart of Wellness

Message fromMaria

Maria CoutantSkinner, Executive Director

Dear friends;

After my mom died inOctober of 2012, I did allthe things I knew how todo to cope with thatgrief. I wrote, went forruns, spent precioustime with my family anddear friends, cried andprayed. I did a LOT ofall those important andhealing things…andthen, I jumped back intomy busy life with bothfeet. In fact, I keptmyself SO busy, I hardlyhad time to continuegrieving – which I nowrealize was the point. I’drationalize this. After all,I was helping my kidsthrough their heartache

The Power of PresenceYou may have heard that mindfulness - paying attention to the presentmoment, on purpose and without judgment, with an attitude of acceptancecuriosity and kindness—has many benefits to your mind, body, and soul. Mindfulness can decrease stress and depression and increase happinessand energy. Mindfulness is also a powerful tool in recovery. It is a toolthat’s with us all the time and everywhere we go, and we can use it at anytime in order to support ourselves in the moment. Mindfulness helps usdiscover who we are in a way that provides comfort through the ups anddowns of recovery. There is no “one size fits all” in mindfulness. Forsome, it is as simple as awareness of breath, something that can be doneanywhere and anytime. For others, mindfulness comes throughvisualization practices including meditation, which can be done in a quick2-minute session in a quiet space (sometimes created simply by using anoise-canceling headset). If you have more time and a quiet, uninterrupted space, meditation cantake on a more in-depth form. After 10 to 20 minutes of mindful meditationyou can come away refreshed with a greater sense of the patterns ofthoughts that run through your mind. For those who are new to meditation, an auditory guided meditation maybe just right; there are many free smartphone apps that provide guidedsessions of various types, subjects, and lengths. Mindfulness can take many other forms as well. Sound therapy is atechnique in which musical frequencies and tones are used in physical,mental, and spiritual healing. A study published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine found that an hour-long session of soundmeditation helped people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety,and depression while increasing a sense of spiritual well-being.

at losing their Gram,helping the families Iworked with here atMcCall deal with theirvarious challenges,going to importantmeetings--and on andon. Oh, and I kept onrunning. No matterwhat, that morning runwas my salvation. And itworked--it got methrough some very darkdays. The problem wasthat I never stoppedrunning, metaphoricallyspeaking. I’d run andrun and run all day long,evading the stillness. Until one morning Islipped on a patch of iceand broke my leg. As in,‘really did a number on it’kind of break. As in,needed surgery and awhole lot of hardware toput me back togethersort of break. No morerunning, my friends. Fullstop. Oh yeah, it was my rightleg so I couldn’t driveeither. I had to do thisthing that’s super hardfor so many of us; I hadto ask for help. To doeverything! And thatgrief I was running sofast to evade? There itwas, waiting for me. Inthe forced stillness, wowdid I feel it. And, here’sthe thing, it was thegreatest gift I neverwanted. I had to be withmy sadness, my grief,my raw vulnerability. Ispent time in the cars ofmy family, friends andco-workers and wetalked about everythingincluding the fullexperience of grief. Ibecame mindful of how

Mindful eating, paying attention to our food, on purpose, moment bymoment, without judgment, is an approach to food that focuses on theindividuals’ sensual awareness and experiences of the food. According toan article written by Joseph B. Nelson and published by the AmericanDiabetes Association “It has little to do with calories, carbohydrates, fat, orprotein. The purpose of mindful eating is not to lose weight, although it ishighly likely that those who adopt this style of eating will lose weight. Theintention is to help individuals savor the moment and the food andencourage their full presence for the eating experience”. As more and more studies are completed and evidence produced, itbecomes ever clearer that mindfulness has a valuable role to play increating and maintaining good health. After all, our ability to listen toourselves and be comfortable in our own presence is central to ourwellbeing! At McCall, we offer mindfulness-based recovery groups and we integratemindfulness into all our programs. We see wonderful results. But this isn’ta practice that’s restricted to the walls of treatment clinics. It’s accessibleto us all at any point in time. It’s a way of being. Give it a try… and pleaselet us know how it goes! Be patient with yourself—everything worth doingtakes some practice.

my body was processingall these overwhelmingfeelings and what I hadunwittingly been doing totry like hell to avoidthem. The result? Myrelationships deepened,my self-awareness grew,my grief, while still verypresent, found a place inmy heart to reside andcelebrate myextraordinary mom. Since then, I’ve madesome good strides,working at movingthrough my days in amindful state of being.I'm committed to creatingstillness - especially inthe day to day rush. Iwork to be present. I’ma work in progress,though and I know mydefault is to fill up mydays and run throughlife, especially whenthere are those tough,heavy things I’mwrestling with. My bodygives me the signalswhen I’m in that state,and, when I’m payingattention, I listen, I stop,focus on the momentand readjust to thatawareness. A gift I knowtreasure. All my best to youalways.

Maria p.s. I’m still running –more slowly and not asfar – but it’s still myfavorite way to start theday.

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