Mindful Grey

Color names are intriguing and sometimes rather amusing.  Imagine having the job to name colors!  The paint color we chose to unify the office space  walls was Mindful Grey.  We liked the color before we knew the name but when we saw the name , we knew this was the one.
 

“Grey has no agenda. . . . Grey has the ability, that no other color has, to make the invisible visible.” ―author Roma Tearne
 

The mindful grey color was used in the hallways and in all the rooms.  Each room then has an accent wall in a distinctcolor.  To select those colors we looked to nature.   A peaceful lake green in one treatment room and a soft early dawn blue in another.  The conference makes the boldest color statement of all with a teal green reminiscent of Traverse Bayon a bright summer day.  David’s office and the reception area are painted in a vibrant copper rust.
 

We all perceive the world in our own unique way.   I am quite sure that we all see color in unique and specific ways too.     Have you noticed when trying to describe a color to another person we make up and use adjective likeblue-ish green or peachy-pink.  The diversity of our perceptions about color and all things really, is what makes living together in this world both fascinating and frustrating, limited and limitless.
 

Like our walls, our  own mindfulness (grey or whatever color it is) can lead us all to create unity.  Unityis something we all crave.  When we are being mindful we are connecting to the source that really does indeed unify us all.

Quiet Room or Noisy Room?

As many of our patients know, here at the office we have two treatment rooms that are lovingly nicknamed The Quiet Room and The Noisy/Windowed Room. They are as diverse as their names suggest, and patients cite unique benefits from each.

The Quiet Room receives less light and so is darker, is outfitted in neutral greys and blues, and has a coziness that a room with only one transom window provides. Even the art is just a little quieter in this room; a misty Redwood forest scene, a contemplative ballerina, and a photo from space of the Earth, serene and all-encompassing.

By contrast, The Noisy/Windowed Room is vibrant and busy, with soaring windows facing the hustle of Cedar St. and Preuss Pets, deeper and brighter colors that resonate more in the ample light that filters in, and a bookshelf chock full of medical tomes and children’s toys that hint at the diversity of his patients.

When I am able to, I like to offer both rooms to patients and watch closely to which one they choose. I feel through this I can tell what they may subconsciously be needing that day. Are they feeling the need for the kind of healing that requires stillness, closeness, and feelings of safety? Or are they here today ready to grow, to flourish, to exult in life and all that it offers?

I notice also when room preferences change, and when they stay the same; when we are ready or needing something different, and when we still need more time where we’re at.

So, how are you feeling today? Quiet Room or Noisy Room? 

Written by Jenna

Form and Function

A year ago, I was presented with the opportunity to shape the space of our suite.  It was wide open.  There was one wall three feet thick and a couple of posts strategically placed in our corner of the building.  The west side has those lovely tall windows looking out over Cedar toward the river, and the north side has fewer windows with less light, which to me feels quieter. 

As an Osteopath, I have something in common with an Architect.  We both have a deep understanding of the interrelationship between structure and function. 

In nature, the shape of things allows you to understand their function.  Rivers meander, trees branch in a myriad of beautifully symmetric patterns to let their leaves catch the sun, the nautilus grows following the golden ratio to form an ever-enlarging spiral.  It is a beautiful dance of forms:  spheres, arcs, spirals, branches, honeycombs….  It rarely forms straight lines.

Of course, this is repeated within us.  Look at your beautiful hands with their perfectly proportioned fingers, the way veins and arteries branch all the way into tiny networks to provide life to every cell within us, and notice the awesome gothic cathedral-shaped arch our hips and pelvis create to support our spine.

Well, I had to have some arcs and circles and spirals happening in that office.  I wanted it to reflect life.  It needed to have flow.  The outer square-ness of the building didn’t dictate the inner shape had to look like a bunch of boxes in a row.  Working around the posts and in one case through the three-foot wall, we came up with some arcs and a hallway that opens like the bell of a clarinet into the beautiful abstract spiral Nicholas Sanchez painted for us.

Nick is a talented artist now living in NYC who grew up with our kids.  When we started working on our lifestyle education program and seriously thinking about how to help people transform their lives, we sat down with him and told him about our work.  We asked him to create an abstract piece that would reflect our intentions and hope for our practice. 

Now you can walk down that hallway, see his painting, and make choices about your life.  We invite you into this organic space to follow your own path to healing.

The Doors in our Office

According to Wikipedia…  “A door is a moving structure used to block off, and allow access to, an entrance to or within an enclosed space, such as a building or vehicle. Doors also have an aesthetic role in creating an impression of what lies beyond. Doors are often symbolically endowed with ritual purposes, and the guarding or receiving of the keys to a door, or being granted access to a door can have special significance. Similarly, doors and doorways frequently appear in metaphorical or allegorical situations, literature and the arts, often as a portent of change.

”We have some very special doors here in our office.  They are the original classroom doors from the building when it was the Cedar Street School.  The school closed in the seventies, and sat vacant until the current owners purchased it in 2007 and did a LEED renovation that was completed in 2009.  During the time the school was vacant the doors underwent quite the transformation.  Decades of sun and rain and temperature change had quite an effect on these doors.  An interior designer would call them distressed or weathered.  

We call them WONDERFUL!

You can see the decades in the layers of color. 
The drab light blue, maybe from the 40s, remain- 
The mint green from the 50s peeks out around the edges-
The mod orange of the 60s boldly emerges- 
The olive green and harvest gold of the 70s shine through brightly- 
Cracked and marbled, mismatched and perfectly coordinated, they are a work of art.  They have been hung on barn door sliding hardware, which makes their opening and closing even more dramatic.  

All of the practitioners in this space are about walking with their clients and patients through the transformative process of seeking health. Walking through a doorway is always a transition, but walking through these doors, we are reminded that who we are in this moment is indeed a compilation of our lifetime of experiences.  Everything shapes us.  And just like these doors, that is beautiful indeed.

Written by Beth Grimshaw

RECEPTION

Your first view of our beautiful suite comes from our window in the corner of the shared waiting room. From here you get your first glimpse of the sweeping arc that is our reception circle and my desk area. I love the shape and size of my desk because of its accessibility for me and patients, and how it reflects the openness we have here as a practice. We want patients to feel really seen and heard when they are here, and my desk being open to the waiting room, hallway and treatment rooms helps me do this on a daily basis. I personally find it very important to connect with patients on a level deeper than just patient care, and the shape and scope of my desk area has made it easier to have a conversation or a laugh with patients, which I love to do.

Structurally, above the desk you’ll notice the beautiful wooden art piece that was hand made here on site by the ridiculously talented finish carpenter who lent his myriad skills to us in other parts of the office, Marshall Kirk. (His work can also be seen in the shared waiting room in the shape of a gorgeous latticed circle suspended from the ceiling). This piece mirrors and reinforces the arc of the desk, adding to the grand scale of the reception area. It is a beautiful, powerful piece of art, and we are thankful to have it.

We hope that what we’ve been able to accomplish up front is a dynamic, open and welcoming space that is as much about excellent care as it is comforting and inspiring for our patients.

Written By Jenna Morgan

Old School, Old World, Old Town

Why did I pick Old Town? I think the most important reason is that when I am in Old Town, I simply feel more comfortable; it is where I feel most at home, where I belong.  That has to mean something.  It is a way of listening to and honoring my spirit. It is an intangible, and though there are many tangible reasons for moving here, I am an intuitive person and I have learned to listen to my intuition.  It has some wisdom.

I am a great fan of history.  I especially love the Old World (Europe) and the even older writings and teachings of Yoga philosophy.  Being in touch with things that have lasted a long time makes me feel connected and gives me more assurance that what I am learning and applying to my life now has been tested and honed by hundreds of generations of thoughtful people.

One thing I learned from several of my mentors that really stayed with me was that the basics in the practice of medicine; listening carefully to the history, keen observation, palpation, and a thorough physical exam (no short cuts) are the things that make great physicians great.  The basics are what I have spent years trying to get better at doing.  I would call that Old School Medicine, and I still believe it is the foundation of any great physician’s practice.  We have a lot more ways to obtain further information, but if we don’t know our patient, we’re going on a fishing expedition without any wise guidance to know what to look for.

I believe in being a participant in community, not an observer in the stands watching.  I see that  kind of participation amongst the people I have come to know who are part of Old Town, and I want to be with others who are of similar mind and are practicing community. 

I believe that we need to come to terms with how divided and polarized our culture is on matters of race, class, gender, sexual preference, and access to things we all need to be safe and healthy like food and shelter and healthy relationships.  I see Old Town as a place that celebrates art, creativity, and diversity.  I want to be part of the effort to dispel the fear and intolerance that is poisoning our culture.  I think Old Town has a critical mass of people who want that as well.

Finally, I like being next to an old river flowing.  That imparts an energy that keeps me going; this continuing tense is needed to sustain our work and attention to our vocational calling.  Nature shows us fecundity. It continuously demonstrates creativity in abundance.  This is our directive.  Listening and responding to the lessons of nature is what keeps us from forgetting why we are here.  I am in a place of renewal in my life now working in a building that has been graciously saved and renewed by its owners.  I am grateful for this!

Participatory Medicine and Health 2.0

I am increasingly aware of the powerful role social media and networks play in how we are communicating with each other about health and healthcare issues. Spending the day in the charming Saugatuck/Douglas public library, I happily found an informative and well-written book that addresses this phenomenon! It is Laurie Edward’s In the Kingdom of the Sick: A social history of chronic illness in America. (Walker and Co, New York, 2013).

She writes about the stigma and misunderstandings that surround chronic illness, especially for those that defy diagnosis through clinical tests or have no known cure. These are now the leading health-related problems Americans face and want help with overcoming. I think this is a crucial topic to explore.

Our understanding of chronic illness is hampered by the limits of science and by society’s throwback belief that people who are sick have weak character or aren’t trying hard enough to be well. We have Lyme disease, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorders, ADD, ADHD, Depression, Sleep Disorders, Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue, and Fibromyalgia (to name a few), which are incredibly challenging. If you have these problems, Conventional Medicine has little to offer, and Complementary and Alternative approaches to treating them are a bewildering quagmire that feels overwhelming to enter. Then there are the regular issues of our time. It’s hard to go to a social gathering without hearing the cry of folks who wonder how the heck did I get ...arthritis, or diabetes, or high blood pressure? And why does everybody seem to have high cholesterol and low Vitamin D?

Increasingly, my patients come well prepared from doing their research on line, and they are getting their information from a wider range of sources. Edwards calls this phenomenon Health 2.0: the explosion of networks and social media tools that allow patients and health professionals to share health information. She quotes several in her book.

Becoming wired is an antidote to the alienation, isolation, and skepticism so many of us are feeling when faced with a health problem that seems to baffle our doctors and defy our attempts to overcome it. I hear people say their doctors don’t seem to care about why they have the problem. That is frustrating, and it erodes their confidence in the treatments their doctors are offering them. If you don’t know why you are sick, how can you make an informed set of decisions about how you would like to go about getting better? The trouble is, a lot of the time we don’t know why. The science of medicine has its limits, and we don’t want that to be true. Lewis Thomas called it the youngest science. Medicine right now is kind of like your 15 year old who you are sure was abducted by aliens and reprogrammed; you long for the day when he or she once again becomes recognizable. I think it is emotionally easier for doctors to ignore questions they do not have an answer for than to speak honestly and say, “I do not know.” Better to say I do not know.

As a physician, I am basically grateful to my patients who have the initiative to go exploring. I look to see what they’ve found, and try to be sure we are using credible, peer reviewed health resources upon which to base our shared decision making. I invariably learn something from this process. Moving forward in this age means we both show up and participate together in the shared agenda of improving our health. I say our because I recognize unless I am doing the work along with my patients, I am no longer being responsible or authentic as a physician.

Edwards says, “Participatory Medicine holds the premise that technology can fundamentally benefit patients and the doctor-patient relationship and when used appropriately, that information can be the bridge that connects both parties.” Let’s face it; I don’t want to feel isolated within the medical community. Believe me, you don’t want to spend your lunch hour inthe hospital doctor’s dining room. I learned that sad fact 33 years ago. I spend my days with patients. Patients don’t want to feel isolated or placed outside of the access to health information either, but they need reliable sources and education in critical thinking skills for this subject.

Unfortunately, networks and social media can be divisive, creating and us vs. them mentality. This is part of human nature. We have to be responsible to the overarching goal of helping each other and our society collectively toward better health. I see no value in the perpetuation of a mentality that does not move one toward unity with each other and the earth.

When someone wishes to take more responsibility for his or her health, I am happy to help. Brene Brown says we are wired to be connected. I think we are also born to collaborate. It’s the key ingredient. There needs to be transparency between us for this to work. We have to be honest, trust our own wisdom, and be willing to share. We share from what we know, and we have to do the work of learning to have authentic knowledge. We also share from our own experience—which is always valid---and has made us who we are. This kind of collaboration— when we are being authentic and wholehearted—is the true joy of being part of the solution to the mysterious and arduous journey toward healing.

We are all on that journey. I say we walk it together.

DNG 5-1-15

The truth behind why the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I had a wonderful experience last week participating as a member of the Musician’s Wellness Team from Michigan State University’s College of Music. We led a five hour workshop on the four topics the National Association of Teachers of Music has made a priority for our nation’s Music Programs: Hearing Conservation, Neuromusculoskeletal Health, Psychological Health, and Vocal Health. We were in Salt Lake City, Utah at the American String Teachers Association meeting.

Teaching always helps me learn through multiple pathways. It is the connection with my students, the curiosity I have for my subject, and the synergy of being in an ensemble of amazing people. For the 15 years I taught for Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine’s world renowned Manual Medicine Series, I enjoyed being part of another impressive team of teachers that inspired me and acted as a catalyst for my professional growth. I have missed that environment and longed for a similar experience.

In every life there are times for going out and times for staying in. After that 15 year rocket like start to my professional career, I realized I was missing multiple opportunities to be with my kids, wife, and extended family. I had three briefcases: one for teaching, one for research, and one for my role as Medical Director of the Clinic where I saw patients and supervised residents. At the turning point I realized…too many briefcases!!! I felt desperate for time and space to rest and play. Something had to change.

I had neglected a whole sphere of my life. I began to study yoga with an inspiring teacher in Montreal, and Quebec became a place of refuge and deep learning as I repeatedly returned to the Ashram, a pilgrim on a spiritual quest. I left the University and went into private practice and gradually learned to slow down and pay attention to progressively deeper and wider spheres of the rich and full life I live.

Now the kids are grown and launched, and we even have a grandson who is 7 months old. I feel ready to go back out and be part of a team again. Last week, when we put 6 people from different and varied backgrounds together to teach about Musician’s Wellness, it was magical. It was Alchemy. I credit our fearless leader, Judy Palac, who has tirelessly campaigned on behalf of this team and this idea for many years…decades, actually. She is the true north of our group. Her vision has crafted a beautiful and talented ensemble.

You can learn more about us: Musicians' Wellness Team

On our refrigerator at home we have written with those cool magnetic letters a reminder of a truth we have learned in 33 years of marriage… “It is in the doing of it.” Mastery of any skill in which we may have a natural talent occurs through the clarifying process of practice. But it is only manifested in the world when we use our gifts in concert with others so that the gift can be shared. In the sharing it multiplies and sends ripples out into the world. This is a deep truth that is just part of learning to be a useful human being.

We are part of a greater whole, and our gifts are best used in concert with others. I am grateful to be part of another wonderful team where our cultivated gifts can multiply and be spread to land on fertile soil where they can be of use to a culture hungry for authentic and meaningful teaching that informs our living.

The Wisdom of the Body

Is there a hidden bias in our view of human nature that stems from a view of the body as hierarchically inferior to the mind and spirit? Where did we get the idea that we could not trust the nature of ourselves?

Arguments for the inherent wisdom of the body come from all areas of study within the biological sciences and medicine. In anatomy and physiology, we learn about the inherent qualities of how an organism functions as a unit, how structure and function are integrated, interrelated, and self perpetuating. Living things have the amazing quality of being able to move matter from a state of disorder into order!

I could go on about this! THIS WONDROUS INTELLIGENCE THAT IS PRESENT IN EVERY CELL OF OUR BODY CALLS OUT TO US DECLARING THAT EVERYTHING IS PART OF A GREATER, COHERENT WHOLE.

If we are loved, if we love ourselves wholly, our body will respond with gratitude and be a vehicle for us to use to function in the world. The exaggeration of tendencies toward inertia and excess are a result of the collective and accumulated violence we have performed toward each other over many centuries in many cultures. We have sadly come to see our lack of balance as normal and even expect it in each other and ourselves, calling it our "nature" and accepting it as such. This is a harmful shared delusion that does not further peace in the world or our collective evolution.

The body is a wonder and a teacher. Why would we choose to treat our body with less respect than we would treat a cherished child or grandchild? The path to peace is to love: first yourself, body, mind, soul... --and then it begins to spread.....

May it continue to spread.

dng

Understanding….bonus or bogus?

“No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show
that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.” ---Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve spent most of my life looking for understanding. In school, I studied to understand. In
Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, it was essential to understand the mechanisms that drove
the chemical reactions. In Physiology, it was essential to understand the mechanisms that
determined how our bodies function. In Anatomy, it was essential to understand the relationship
between the parts of the body and how they interact with each other, how forces were
distributed, how structure influenced function. This has been my path.

And then, in practice, helping people to understand what was happening to them was such a
great gift I could give to them. It helped give meaning to their suffering, and it gave them ideas
to gather their strength and put together a plan to overcome the illness. At the very least, it
helped them to understand why they needed to take a medication, or have surgery, or undergo a 
treatment to help steer the course of their illness back toward better health. At times, it helped to 
inform people or their loved ones about what it was going to be like as they approached death. 
That can be a blessing, too.

I have used this as a guidepost for the work I have done in my relationships with patients, my
family and friends, my business colleagues… I thought this was the way to go, and there was no
limit to what you can try to understand. But you know, there is a limit to understanding.

Who am I to have a conversation about the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, winner of a Nobel Peace 
Prize and arguably one of the most influential peacemakers in the history of the world?

It is true that the quest for truth and understanding is a noble one, and that a lifetime is a very
small amount of time in which to broaden one’s context of understanding. In reaching for
understanding, we get a lot of wrinkles on our forehead and around our eyes for sending out
the non verbal message to the world that we would like to hear what other people have to
say…(picture the face of one who is listening to you with interest… eyebrows raised, crinkles
around the smiling eyes encouraging you to continue your story….). but…

Things happen that we don’t understand. Contingencies collide in our world to completely
blindside us some days. Sometimes we remain disoriented for years at a time. Worst case: you
probably know someone close to you that has spent their life after a particular event-- bitter,
mean, and depressed. Maybe they are just withdrawn and shut down. Maybe they drank
themselves into oblivion and are dead now. Maybe they became the famous martyr in your
family. Things that appear to be bad happen to good people. Things that appear to be good
happen to people we don’t think deserve their apparently fortunate circumstances. The world
seems like a very dangerous and confused place. There does not seem to be enough (insert your 
favorite thought habit here)….money, energy, time, opportunity, help, compassion,
understanding, talent, ability, etc.-- to make it possible to change your life in the way you wish
you could…

Do you see the paradox between the wise words of wisdom about Understanding and our
common experience of having things happen that seem impossible to understand? It can be
confusing, yes? no? yes?

So what is UNDERSTANDING anyway?

Merriam-Webster says: first as a noun, understanding means these things:. a mental grasp,
comprehension. 2a. The power of comprehending, especially the capacity to
apprehend general relations of particulars. 2b. the power to make experience intelligible by
applying concepts and categories. 3a. friendly or harmonious relationship. 3b. an agreement
of opinion of feeling: adjustment of differences. 3c. a mutual agreement not formally entered into
but in some degree binding on each side. 4. Explanation, interpretation. 5. sympathy
But as an Adjective, it means: 1. Knowing, intelligent. 2. Endowed with understanding, tolerant,
sympathetic, as with a kind and understanding teacher who often helps troubled students.

That sounds like something worthy of a great life-long pursuit. But do you feel (as I do) that this
is a difficult and rarely achieved state for most of the people you know? The truth of it is that the 
world is really complicated and overwhelming. Understanding ourselves is a lifelong task that only
people like Thich Nhat Hanh actually manage to accomplish. Understanding someone else is
exponentially harder, and if we don’t understand ourselves, we are likely to project our own 
misperceptions upon them and get into a horrible, twisted mess of a situation.

AND SO MY COUNSEL IS TO LET GO OF THE ATTACHMENT TO UNDERSTANDING.

The important words here are the attachment to understanding. It is actually paramount that
we spend our entire life gaining an understanding of our bodies, our emotions, our mind, our
intellect, our spirit. That is the beginning of being able to love our self and others, and the
springboard for healing in the world.

But it is the attachment to understanding that can send us down the infamous rabbit hole of
misperception. And if we think we have reached understanding, we are most likely delusional.

Follow me here, this is going to expand your mind….. Here is where defining
Understanding and defining Yoga come together in a way that will leave you pondering
it for a long time…..

Patanjali, a 2nd Century Mystic whose Sutras are read by every person in the world who aspires
to become a yoga teacher, starts his treatise on Yoga called The Sutras (which is about the path
to union with God) with the definition of Yoga. Chapter One, verses 1, 2, and 3: “Now begins the
exposition on yoga. Yoga is the cessation of identifying with the fluctuations arising within
consciousness. Then the seer abides in his own true form.”

I invite you to study this work; it is one of the worlds’ great treasures. The key here is in the way
our minds tend to attach to things, like Understanding as a noun or as an adjective. We try, and
we should try to understand what is happening to us, to our family and friends, and in the
world, but we are woefully inadequate to have the capacity to understand these things at the
level of complexity in which they exist. I think as a noun, Understanding is not obtainable in our
present state of awareness--but as an adjective, it can be something we practice. That is my sense 
of what Thich Nhat Hanh is saying about how understanding leads to love.

Don’t fool yourself. Sometimes understanding is just not going to be possible today. Instead of
writing, saying, or believing some sound bite, spend more time listening, learning, asking how
you can be more kind and tolerant and slow down long enough to learn about your own and
your friend’s lives and circumstances. That is the road to Understanding, and it is a loving thing
to do with your time and your attention.