Leslie Glass's Blog, page 318

What To Eat Before And After Yoga, According o Top Nutrition Experts

From Yoga Journal:

Here’s how to stop eating mindlessly—and instead learn to eat mindfully— for your best yoga practice ever.

I’ve often heard yoga teachers talk about yoga being all about learning to get your mind and body in balance—about finding inner peace and stability. If you follow that logic, it seems that eating mindfully and healthfully should actually be a huge component of yoga, yet it seems to me like it barely gets a nod.

Even though I do have a regular yoga practice, I often find myself grabbing takeout, eating quickly on-the-go, or chowing down at my desk while multi-tasking and sending e-mails. And while I look forward to my practice, I don’t think enough about what I’m actually putting into my body before and after my practice.

“The beautiful thing about yoga practice is it helps us to connect to our bodies,” says Kara Lydon, registered dietitian, yoga teacher, and author of Nourish Your Namaste: How Nutrition and Yoga Can Support Digestion, Immunity, Energy and Relaxation. “Practice listening to your body before and after yoga class to determine when and what to eat. Your body holds all of the wisdom to help you eat intuitively, you just haveto create the space to listen.”

To help me kick start a new plan to eat more mindfully before and after I practice, I asked Lydon—as well as other expert registered dietitians who are also yogis—when and what to eat. Here’s what we should all know about how to eat for an ideal yoga practice.

What to eat before yoga class …

Before you practice, you want to aim for snacks that are easy to digest and that will help you stay loose while you practice. Of course, what works for your body is specific and personal, which is why we asked multiple experts to give you all the information you need to make a good choices. Here are their recommendations:

1. Simple carbs.

“Think simple carbohydrates with small amounts of protein, fat, or fiber for staying power and energy,” says Lydon. “Some of my favorite pre-yoga snacks are banana or apple with peanut butter, avocado toast, or hummus with carrots or crackers.”

2. Energizing snacks.

“It could be fruit and nut butter, a smoothie, toast with avocado, or anything that feels energizing to you,” says Lauren Fowler, a registered dietitian Nutritionist and yoga teacher in the San Francisco Bay area.

3. Easy-to-digest foods.

“Before yoga, choose foods that digest easily and give you balanced energy, such as a combination of whole grain carbohydrates, protein, and fat for staying power,” says Kat Brown, a registered dietitian and yoga instructor.

4. Eat two hours before you practice.

“I recommend having a full meal two hours before a yoga class,” says Alisha Temples, a licensed dietitian and yoga teacher in Virginia. “If eating within two hours of a class, choose a light snack.”

5. Avoid spicy, fatty, and acidic foods.

These can upset your stomach, says Temples. You’ll also want to avoid foods that digest slowly, says Brown, as they could make you uncomfortable while you practice.

6. Give yourself time to digest before you practice.

As a general rule of thumb, allow yourself one to one and a half hours to digest after a light snack and two to three hours to digest after a light meal before your yoga class, says Lydon. “But the most important thing here is to experiment and listen to your body to determine the timing that works best for you.”

What to eat after yoga class …

Having a balanced, satisfying meal or snack with some carbohydrates, proteins, and fats will help re-fuel your mind and body. Here, our experts make some suggestions for how to refuel after you’ve gotten your flow on:

Choose carbs plus protein. After yoga, especially if it’s a vigorous flow, you’ll want to refuel with a meal or snack that has a 3-to-1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein, which can help repair muscle tissues and restore energy levels, says Lydon. Some of her favorite post-yoga snacks include a Greek yogurt parfait with fruit, nuts, and granola; a quinoa bowl with veggies, tofu, or legumes; or a smoothie with frozen wild blueberries, banana, mint, Greek yogurt, and kefir or silken tofu.

 

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Even Though Opioids Are In the Spotlight Meth Hospitalizations Are Surging

From Time:

The number of people hospitalized because of amphetamine use is skyrocketing in the United States, but the resurgence of the drug largely has been overshadowed by the nation’s intense focus on opioids.

Amphetamine-related hospitalizations jumped by about 245% from 2008 to 2015, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That dwarfs the rise in hospitalizations from other drugs, such as opioids, which were up by about 46%. The most significant increases were in Western states.

The surge in hospitalizations and deaths due to amphetamines “is just totally off the radar,” said Jane Maxwell, an addiction researcher. “Nobody is paying attention.”

Doctors see evidence of the drug’s comeback in emergency departments, where patients arrive agitated, paranoid and aggressive. Paramedics and police officers see it on the streets, where suspects’ heart rates are so high that they need to be taken to the hospital for medical clearance before being booked into jail. And medical examiners see it in the morgue, where in a few states, such as Texas and Colorado, overdoses from meth have surpassed those from the opioid heroin.

Amphetamines are stimulant drugs, which are both legally prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and produced illegally into methamphetamine. Most of the hospitalizations in the study are believed to be due to methamphetamine use.

Commonly known as crystal meth, methamphetamine was popular in the 1990s before laws made it more difficult to access the pseudoephedrine, a common cold medicine, needed to produce it. In recent years, law enforcement officials said, there are fewer domestic meth labs and more meth is smuggled in from south of the border.

As opioids become harder to get, police said, more people have turned to meth, which is inexpensive and readily available.

Lupita Ruiz, 25, started using methamphetamine in her late teens but said she has been clean for about two years. When she was using, she said, her heart beat fast, she would stay up all night and she would forget to eat.

Ruiz, who lives in Spokane, Wash., said she was taken to the hospital twice after having mental breakdowns related to methamphetamine use, including a monthlong stay in the psychiatric ward in 2016. One time, Ruiz said, she yelled at and kicked police officers after they responded to a call to her apartment. Another time, she started walking on the freeway but doesn’t remember why.

“It just made me go crazy,” she said. “I was all messed up in my head.”

The federal government estimates that more than 10,000 people died of meth-related drug overdoses last year. Deaths from meth overdose generally result from multiple organ failure or heart attacks and strokes, caused by extraordinary pulse rates and skyrocketing blood pressure.

In California, the number of amphetamine-related overdose deaths rose by 127% from 456 in 2008 to 1,036 in 2013. At the same time, the number of opioid-related overdose deaths rose by 8.4% from 1,784 to 1,934, according to the most recent data from the state Department of Public Health.

“It taxes your first responders, your emergency rooms, your coroners,” said Robert Pennal, a retired supervisor with the California Department of Justice. “It’s an incredible burden on the health system.”

Costs also are rising. The JAMA study, based on hospital discharge data, found that the cost of amphetamine-related hospitalizations had jumped from $436 million in 2003 to nearly $2.2 billion by 2015. Medicaid was the primary payer.

“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t see someone acutely intoxicated on methamphetamine,” said Dr. Tarak Trivedi, an emergency room physician in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties. “It’s a huge problem, and it is 100% spilling over into the emergency room.”

Trivedi said many psychiatric patients are also meth users. Some act so dangerously that they require sedation or restraints. He also sees people who have been using the drug for a long time and are dealing with the downstream consequences.

In the short term, the drug can cause a rapid heart rate and dangerously high blood pressure. In the long term, it can cause anxiety, dental problems and weight loss.

“You see people as young as their 30s with congestive heart failure as if they were in their 70s,” he said.

Jon Lopey, the sheriff-coroner of Siskiyou County in rural Northern California, said his officers frequently encounter meth users who are prone to violence and in the midst of what appear to be psychotic episodes. Many are emaciated and have missing teeth, dilated pupils and a tendency to pick at their skin because of a sensation of something beneath it.

“Meth is very, very destructive,” said Lopey, who also sits on the executive board of the California Peace Officers Association. “It is just so debilitating the way it ruins lives and health.”

Nationwide, amphetamine-related hospitalizations were primarily due to mental health or cardiovascular complications of the drug use, the JAMA study found. About half of the amphetamine hospitalizations also involved at least one other drug.

Because there has been so much attention on opioids, “we have not been properly keeping tabs on other substance use trends as robustly as we should,” said study author Dr. Tyler Winkelman, a physician at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.

Sometimes doctors have trouble distinguishing symptoms of methamphetamine intoxication and underlying mental health conditions, said Dr. Erik Anderson, an emergency room physician at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif. Patients also may be homeless and using other drugs alongside the methamphetamine.

Unlike opioid addiction, meth addiction cannot be treated with medication. Rather, people addicted to the drug rely on counseling through outpatient and residential treatment centers.

The opioid epidemic, which resulted in about 49,000 overdose deaths last year, recently prompted bipartisan federal legislation to improve access to recovery, expand coverage to treatment and combat drugs coming across the border.

There hasn’t been a similar recent legislative focus on methamphetamine or other drugs. And there simply aren’t enough resources devoted to amphetamine addiction to reduce the hospitalizations and deaths, said Maxwell, a researcher at the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. The number of residential treatment facilities, for example, has continued to decline, she said.

“We have really undercut treatment for methamphetamine,” Maxwell said. “Meth has been completely overshadowed by opioids.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Holiday Expectations

Reach Out Recovery Exclusive by Merle Honsa: Holiday expectations can break your heart. As the youngest of four children I was automatically labeled “The Baby” and thus began my journey of being left out.  My older siblings treated me as the Baby even now when I am old enough to have grandchildren of my own.

A Lifetime Of Unfulfilled  Holiday Expectations

My siblings have chosen to exclude me from much of their lives for their own reasons: I wasn’t old enough; they thought I got special treatment from my parents: we have different religious, and yes, different political views. Then, when they were getting married and having children, I had the pleasure of always being at the “kids” table because I wasn’t old enough, or didn’t have that special person in my life.  My siblings get together to see each other without me, and don’t even ask if I’d like to be included.  If any of the above resembles your family interactions, maybe these four tips will help you get through the holidays.

First Ditch The Holiday Expectations Of Happy Unified Family

I have decided rather that wasting my time on being hurt because I am not included that I would adjust my expectations of them. Realizing that this is how they are and not to expect better behavior or manners from them.  Putting my expectations of how I want them to act is not fair to them and no, I have never told them how much the exclusion has bothered me over the years. It goes back to you can’t expect others to make you happy, it comes from within.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point and realize that I wish someone had told me these things years ago.

So, when your family is gathering for the holidays, think about these things instead of relying on your expectations, adjust your thinking to what you can control:

Be happy and thankful that you have a family. Enjoy the time you can with them, as we all know they won’t be around forever.
Accept family of origin as they are, and hope that they do the same for you. We all have our flaws, and they may have their own expectations that you don’t meet too.
If you have to be with them, put a smile on your face. Most likely it’s for a short time, you can handle it!
Remember that you can’t choose your blood family, but you can choose to spend time with “family” you choose, those who bring you joy. I have a whole separate “family” from my relatives. Make sure you set aside time for these people too and don’t feel the slightest bit guilty for giving yourself that time!

These expectations apply to all aspects of your life.  When things aren’t going the way you “expect” them to, stop and make sure you aren’t forcing your expectations onto other situations.

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Using Skype To Beat The Blues

From Science Daily:

Imagine your family has moved across the state or across country. You’re retired, and your spouse has passed away. Lacking the social connections previous generations once found in church or fraternal organizations, it doesn’t take much time to begin feeling isolated and alone.

Social isolation and depression have become commonplace in older adults, with estimates suggesting almost 5 percent of adults aged 50 and above lived with major depression in 2015.

What if you could address the problem through communication technology?

A new study led by researchers at OHSU in Portland, Oregon, discovered that, of four online communication technologies, using video chat to connect with friends and family appeared to hold the most promise in staving off depression among seniors. Researchers compared four different types of online communication technologies — video chat, email, social networks and instant messaging — used by people 60 and older and then gauged their symptoms of depression based on survey responses two years later.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

“Video chat came out as the undisputed champion,” said lead author Alan Teo, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry in the OHSU School of Medicine and a researcher at the VA Portland Health Care System. “Older adults who used video chat technology such as Skype had significantly lower risk of depression.”

Data were obtained through the Health and Retirement Study supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Since 1992, the nationwide study has surveyed seniors every two years.

The researchers identified 1,424 participants from the 2012 survey who completed a set of questions about technology use. These same participants also responded to a follow-up survey two years later that measured, among other things, depressive symptoms.

Those who used email, instant messaging or social media platforms like Facebook had virtually the same rate of depressive symptoms compared with older adults who did not use any communication technologies. In contrast, researchers found that people who used video chat functions such as Skype and FaceTime had almost half the estimated probability of depressive symptoms, after adjusting for other factors that could confound results, such as pre-existing depression and level of education.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a potential link between use of video chat and prevention of clinically significant symptoms of depression over two years in older adults,” the authors wrote.

Researchers said video chat’s appeal isn’t necessarily surprising. Video chat engages users in face-to-face interactions rather than having them passively scrolling through a Facebook feed, for example.

“I still maintain that face-to-face interaction is probably best of all,” Teo said. “However, if we’re looking at the reality of modern American life, we need to consider these communication technologies. And when we do consider them and compare them, our findings indicate that I’m better off Skyping with my dad in Indiana than sending him a message on WhatsApp.”

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The Best Brown Butter Sauce EVER

Brown butter is life changing. I drizzle this butter over steamed butternut squash, broccoli, and mashed potatoes. It is also great on turkey or chicken. It’s so good, that I have been known to eat it plain straight from the saucepan. Plus, butter is healthy. Per Dr. Axe, butter is:

An excellent source of vitamins A, D, E, and K
Rich with manganese, chromium, zinc, copper and selenium, a powerful antioxidant
A perfect blend of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats
Is a source of good cholesterol

The Best Brown Butter Sauce EVER

Ingredients:

1 Stick of Butter (real butter, not oleo, or margarine)
2 Tablespoons of Walnuts
2 Tablespoons of FRESH sage, chopped or rosemary (Sage is my favorite.)
Salt and pepper to taste
1-2 cloves of garlic
Optional – 1 small shallot thinly sliced (Best used on days when you really need help setting boundaries.)

Put all of the ingredients in a saucepan and melt on medium-low heat. Let the butter simmer, stirring occasionally until the butter starts to brown.  Browning brings out the natural sweetness in the walnuts and garlic. The sage gets deliciously crispy. Just keep an eye on the sauce because black butter is bad and burnt garlic is worse.

As a recovering codependent, I’m extracting myself from enmeshed relationships. This week, in my recovery, I tackled my boundary problems and how they showed up most often in the kitchen. You can read about that adventure here.

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Would The Spin Instructor’s ‘Love Yourself’ Approach Motivate You?

From The Washington Post:

I had barely clicked my riding shoes into my stationary bike pedals when the spinning instructor — one part Richard Simmons, one part Delilah — started waxing poetic about all the internal struggles each rider surely was facing. I had little interest in whatever pop psychology he was serving up. Yet, the more I pedaled like a frantic lab rat, the more he peddled self-help wisdom seemingly borrowed from HomeGoods wall art.

I had not hoarded my ClassPass credits for this, to be told to look in the mirror and “fall in love” with myself in a room full of sweaty strangers. I was here for a solid calorie burn and maybe some triceps toning — not therapy.

But annoyance aside, the experience made me wonder: What does motivate people to schedule and push themselves in a workout? It’s an especially apt question at this caloric time of year. Lots of folks turn to exercise after piling on the pumpkin pie and downing too many peppermint mochas, but the desire to shave off seasonal pounds is seldom enough to sustain a successful workout routine.

I decided to turn to a few fitness experts for motivation guidance. Not one suggested that telling people to fall in love with themselves is effective. But, oddly enough, they also didn’t agree on what the answer is — and promoted starkly different approaches.

Bradley J. Cardinal, a sport and exercise psychology professor at Oregon State University, views fitness through the lens of positive psychology. The president of the National Academy of Kinesiology, who has been studying student motivation in exercise arenas since the early 1990s, thinks that instructors who instill their students with the beliefs that they can meet goals, build confidence, “bounce back from a setback” and expect good things in the future have the best chance at keeping their students motivated.

Sports psychologist Mark Aoyagi, on the other hand, thinks being hopeful and optimistic shouldn’t be a prerequisite to a great workout. The director of sport and performance psychology at the University of Denver, who works with the Denver Broncos and has trained Olympic athletes, says he instructs clients to focus less on finding inspiration and more on their commitment to long-term goals.

“When one of my kids wakes up crying at 2 in the morning, I’m not motivated to go help them. But I’m committed to it,” Aoyagi says. “Commitments are values-based, and values are ongoing statements about who we want to be and how we see ourselves in the world. And they’re not reliant on a particular thought or a particular feeling.”

Robin Arzon, vice president of fitness programming for the indoor cycling company Peloton and author of “Shut Up and Run,” describes her instructional approach as “direct, with tough love.” She occasionally posts blunt messages to Instagram — “Replace ‘I don’t have time’ with ‘it’s not important,’ and see how that feels. No challenge. No change.” — and told me she has “a very low threshold” for excuses.

I had one vote each for positive psychology, commitment and tough love as instructional strategies. Each approach theoretically made sense, but did research back them up? Turns out, scholars have studied motivation in group fitness settings for decades. And, as with the experts I talked with, results have varied; no single instructional strategy has conclusively proved to be the best at motivating participants.

One running theme, however, is that students perform better (and are more likely to return) when they’ve formed a connection with an instructor. As Aoyagi told me by email: “The connection a fitness participant feels with the instructor would likely be a strong predictor of all positive outcomes, including motivation to continue the class and actual classes attended.”

Another thing to consider, I realized, is the role of peers. In one study, led in 2014 by Jingwen Zhang, an assistant communication professor at the University of California at Davis, researchers examined whether online support or competition would be more effective in motivating 790 students at the University of Pennsylvania to exercise. The students were organized into groups that were offered incentives to compete with their peers, raise a team score by expressing support for their peers or compete on a team level as well as express support for their peers.

Social comparison proved a “surprisingly effective” motivator, the researchers concluded in their summation, published in Preventive Medicine Reports in 2016. Those offered incentives to compete, whether on an individual or team level, exercised more frequently than those giving and receiving support from their peers. “So as long as you had this social-comparison mind in your head,” Zhang told me, “you could achieve better exercise outcomes.”

Does that mean I should go sprinting to the nearest Orange­theory or CycleBar, which have television monitors that display how each individual or group is doing? Not necessarily. Zhang warns that comparing yourself with someone who performs better or worse than you in class may be detrimental. Instead, she says, find a peer in your class who has shared goals and baselines, and look to that person as your competitor, perhaps even tracking your workouts together — essentially, a dedicated exercise frenemy.

The only aspect my research has made clear is that there’s no one way to help people get the most out of their workout. And I’ve realized that different occasions might call for different approaches. If I’m determined to finally enter that marathon (by which I mean “5K”), I might reach out to the trainer who reminds me that my commitment to the finish line, not my lack of enthusiasm about 5 a.m. runs, is what matters. If I need to blow off steam after a fractious work meeting, I might attend a boot camp with my girlfriends for a bit of friendly competition. And if I’m feeling defeated, perhaps I could benefit from letting go of cynicism and letting in some mushy spin-class psychobabble. As long as I focus on finding instructors with whom I connect and environments in which I feel both welcome and challenged, it seems, I’ll be well on my way.

 

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New Twist On Traditional Pumpkin Pie

These days, almost everyone is allergic to something. Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free. Collectively, when we consider everyone’s potential allergies and preferences, green beans are often the only thing left standing on the menu. This year, I updated the traditional pumpkin pie recipe to make it a gluten free, lower sugar option. It calls for coconut milk to appease those with dairy sensitivities. Don’t worry. It’s still delicious and very easy to make.

Pumpkin Pie Crumble

Pie Filling Ingredients:

1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey or sugar
3/4 cup coconut milk or milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Oatmeal Crumble Topping:

2 cups quick-cooking oats (a.k.a. minute oats)
5 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup sugar
A pinch of sea salt

Hand mix the pumpkin, eggs, honey, and flavorings in a large mixing bowl. (This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to drag out your mixer.) Add the coconut milk and stir until blended. Pour into greased pie pan.

Next, place the oats, butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Batter will start to form small crumbles. Sprinkle crumbles on top of pie filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Check to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife near the center of pie. The pie is done if the knife comes out clean.

An important note on oats: they are naturally gluten free but often cross-pollinated by wheat. Unless you specifically buy gluten-free oats, they may trigger someone with a wheat allergy.

As a recovering food-loving codependent, I developed this recipe to help me get over toxic memories of Thanksgivings past. You can read about that adventure and the four recovery tools I use here.

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Is It Use, Misuse, Or Addiction?

While the current DSM-5 focuses on the level of substance use disorders as mild, moderate, and severe, it can still be valuable to look at  alcohol and drug use in these three categories: use, misuse, and addiction.

What Does Use Look Like?

Use is the category of social users of a substance, such as a social drinker. Social users do not have any problems related to the use; they:

Can ‘take it or leave it.’
Have no desire to become intoxicated
Use because they enjoy the taste, the ritual, and perhaps, just feeling a bit more relaxed from the use
Don’t use the substance to cover up emotions.

For example, they may have a glass of wine with dinner. At this stage, drinking one glass of wine doesn’t cause personality changes. Nor does it lead to any type of consequences. Some social users may only partake at a wedding or a toast on New Year’s.

What Does Misuse Look Like?

This category is often tricky.  At times, one may present as a social user. At other times, he appears to be sliding into a problematic use.

One hallmark sign of misuse is a personality change such as anger or depression.

For example, Jason may have started as a social user of marijuana, but begins to slip into misuse. He finds that using heavier helps him to cope with emotional or physical pain, and starts using more heavily. As he likes the feeling it gives him, he begins making up physical health problems in order to get his medical marijuana card so that he can use legally.

Similarly, for those who misuse alcohol, they may find start missing work due to a hangover, having more fights with a spouse, and perhaps, getting a drunk driving charge.

We see the similar mood changes and increased dosage with substances like pain pills. Karon was prescribed Norco after a knee surgery. She quickly learned that she liked the feeling of the drug. It helped help her deal with the emotional trauma of being a sexual assault survivor. Because she continued to use it after her recovery for non-prescription use, she began to doctor shop.  When that didn’t work, she got her drugs from a dealer. Her misuse had grown into an addiction.

What Is Addiction?

“An addiction is an unhealthy relationship with or to a mood-altering substance, event, person, or thing that has life-damaging consequences.” – Unknown

This is a pertinent definition as one has to meet three criteria; unhealthy relationship, mood-altering, and life-damaging. Here we find that the use of substances (as well as other addictions such as eating disorders, self-harm behaviors, codependent relationships) has now turned significantly problematic.

The woman who used to drink occasionally is now drinking up to 2 bottles of wine a day. Her personality changes through her isolation and anxiety. She may have had a couple of drunk-driving charges and ended up in jail, with her kids taken away from her.

Those using highly addictive drugs such as crack, often quickly move from use to misuse to addiction. Others may skip the misuse category. So many variables affect this progression, including family history and addictiveness of the substance.

Fortunately, there are many ways to recover if one is in the abuse or addiction stage. Counseling, 12-step meetings and other support groups, treatment centers, and healthy living practices can help. If you feel you or someone you love is in danger, please follow up with help in your local community.

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Triggers Of Toxic Thanksgivings Past

Eight years ago, my mother-in-law and I had a huge Thanksgiving feud. She said some things, and for the first time ever, I said some things back. The argument escalated. I called her a name, and she slapped me. She no longer threatens me, but Thanksgiving triggers this memory. I use these four tools to enjoy the holiday and keep the toxic Thanksgivings of the past in the past.

Triggers Turn Into Reactions

Unfortunately, these feuds with my mother-in-law weren’t isolated incidents; they were only two of many scenes from a 20-year manipulative and toxic relationship.

Researchers at the University of Iowa found that memories associated with acute stress and trauma get stored in the part of your brain responsible for survival where they serve as a defense mechanism against future trauma.

Ergo, some of these triggers have been hard-wired into my brain, and my first response is to react protectively even when the danger is no longer present. So, how do I come to terms with the holidays without eradicating fall related traditions? Fortunately, in the rooms of recovery, I found some tools to help handle my past hurts:

The Serenity Prayer helps me find peace in accepting my past as something I cannot change.
I’m aware of triggers like pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkeys. I can accept that those items are things here in the present, and then take a healthy action – like reminding myself I am safe and she is gone.
I am not my story. The things she did to me did nothing to change my eye color, my love for cheesecake, or my ability to solve quadratic equations. She didn’t change me.
One day at a time – Living in these 12 hours of today let me focus on the good things in my life now, like my wonderful family.

New Traditions Also Help

Everyone in my house loves pumpkin pie, and we eat it year-round. I love that it’s actually a vegetable posing as dessert, and my son loves it for breakfast. I, however, associate the pie with that dreadful night. Because I refuse to let pumpkin pie be a casualty of war, I created a new recipe, which you can find here. New traditions are an excellent way to continue celebrating without reliving the toxic past.

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A Recipe For Sweet Amends

I’ve reached the point in recovery where I need to make amends. My husband thought this day would never come. He’s been waiting for over a decade for me to admit I was wrong, but before I address his concerns, I must make amends to one of my closest friends. I was actually in charge of caring for this girl for a number of years. To hold me accountable, I’m sharing this letter with you.

Dear Kay,

This is the hardest letter I’ll ever write. Where do I begin? How can I ask for your forgiveness when I know I don’t deserve it?

I’m Sorry For Calling You fat

I’m sorry I said you were ugly, and I don’t hate your nose, like I said so many times. When faced with a choice of praising you or being critical, I always criticized. If I tell you I love your hair, how it’s dark brown waves naturally wrap into beach-blown curls, will that begin to erase the hundreds of hurtful things I’ve said? Does it help that I think your cheerful smile is reminiscent of a younger Julia Roberts?

I Confess I May Have Lied About The Food I Served You

Ok, that’s still not true. I totally lied to you; I’m so ashamed. I completely dismissed your special dietary needs. That gluten-free blueberry pie wasn’t remotely gluten free. Neither were the gluten-free waffles. I feel awful, but gluten-free foods are so expensive. As I watched you eat those unhealthy foods, which were mildly toxic to you, I saw your health decline, yet I said nothing. In fact, I encouraged you. Not only did I dismiss your wishes, but I discounted your physician’s advice.

Even Worse I Stole Money From You

I knew you were building a savings account for emergencies, and I sabotaged your efforts. More than once, I took money from your grocery fund and treated my husband to Starbucks, or I bought a new toy for my son. Sometimes when I was tired, I borrowed a little here or there to eat out so I wouldn’t have to cook. Most of the time, I meant to pay you back, but that never happened. My irresponsibility often left you short on money for gas and food. Your nest egg is gone; your credit card is maxed; and you have nothing to show for it. I’ve cost you thousands over the years.

I Was Ruthless About Home Improvement Projects

Regarding our home-improvement “projects,” I didn’t give you enough time or money to complete them, yet I demanded perfection. I should’ve known laying tile was a skilled trade. Or that you really can’t cut hardwood flooring with a utility knife. I taunted you to the point of tears, and I was ruthless if you didn’t deliver.

I Forced You To Negotiate With The Evil One

Even though it should have been your husband’s job, I forced you to negotiate with your mother-in-law. But you were the only one selfless enough to keep peace. When I realized your happiness was worth more than appearing happy, it was too late. Above all, I regret talking you out of standing up to her. I don’t know why I stopped you. She was awful.

I Must Make Amends

The words, “I’m sorry,” are hollow and have little value; still, they need to be said. In the rooms of recovery, I’m learning to make living amends, so from now on, I’ll be putting you first. Your feelings and values are my top priority. If you say “No,” I’ll respect you. It will take time, but I will change, one day at a time. From now on, my love for you will match my actions.

Love, Pam

This Is A Letter To Me From Me

For years, I put everyone else first and was hardest on myself. Treating a child or a spouse like would be abusive, but self-abuse is difficult to see. In recovery, I’m learning self-care isn’t selfish, so I’ll be making living amends to me. I have books to read, nails to polish, and naps to take. Most importantly, I’m setting myself free from my self-imposed prison.

Gluten-Free, Easy on the Budget Hot Cocoa

A cup of milk
1 Tablespoon of baking cocoa
1 Tablespoon of sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla
1 pinch of salt

Pour milk, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and salt into small sauce pan. Heat on medium, and whisk ingredients together. Whisking eliminates bitter clumps of cocoa and makes the milk frothy. Enjoy with a good book.

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