Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 84
December 3, 2020
Coping with COVID through Groundhog Day, Total Meditation and Badass Habits
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Thank you to Thrive Global for publishing my article, “Coping with COVID through Groundhog Day, Total Meditation and Badass Habits”
2020 during COVID19 is the second time in my life where I have felt I am living in Groundhog Day, the movie. As you may remember in the 1993 film, Bill Murray plays a disinterested sarcastic chauvinistic weatherman from Pittsburg named Phil who hopes to move on to a bigger TV station and his vibrant enthusiastic producer, Rita, is played by Andie MacDowell. Phil becomes trapped in the same day. He lives through Feb 2nd a countless number of times.
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When I worked onboard cruises ships for Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean International as well as Renaissance Cruises, there were times when we could not tell one day from another. Certainly, I could tell the difference between Grand Cayman and Cozumel but sometimes we never left the ship and our duties repeated over and over.
[image error]Lisa Niver working for Princess Cruises
In fact, on one ship at midnight, the carpets in the elevator where changed from Monday to Tuesday and so on each day. I figured that made it Groundhog Week. If it’s Wednesday, we must be in Jamaica. Each day of the week repeated its special menu but when you were there for months, it stopped feeling so special to have Italian night on Thursday or Island night on Friday.
I channeled Murray’s character, Phil, as I went through many of the same stages he did while I worked onboard and now at home for COVID19.
At first, he is confused and thinks he has déjà vu. How can it be the same day again? He steps in the same cold puddle of water in the street, he talks to the same people, he freezes in the cold shower and is just not sure what is happening.
He asks Rita for help and while she thinks he is making it up; eventually he goes to a physician for x-rays and a psychiatrist who offers more sessions next week which is exasperating to Phil because he cannot leave this day. In this moment with the uncertainty of COVID, many of us are also getting quite irritated.
One night with his new drunk friends at the local bowling alley, Phil ponders, “What if there were no tomorrow? What if there were no consequences?” They decide to break all of the rules. From now on, he will not clean up his room, be nice to his sister or follow any of society’s orders, he is going to take chances like driving on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. The group are in jail at the end of the night but in the morning, he is back in his bed as if he nothing happened. All sins are washed away.
I have friends who during quarantine chose to eat everything in sight and stay up all night binging on Netflix until it says judgmentally, “Are you still watching this show?” Personally, I watched all nine seasons of 24 and that was a lot of late nights and early mornings. I heard from my friends and myself, “I cannot go out. I cannot do my former work. I feel all alone.” This despair can be felt in the film and made me turn to two new books for ideas.
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In Jen Sincero’s Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick, she talks about “that most unsavory of human habits: focusing on the negative.” Her book is a “a powerful 21-step process to either anchor in your new habit or permanently banish an old one.” Sincero explains that: “The first step to making any major change in your life is always awareness.” And it turns out that Deepak Chopra’s new book, Total Meditation: Practices in Living the Awakened Life, is all about awareness.
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Both Sincero and Chopra agree with what Sincero says in her book, “Living an awesome life is all about making choices that make your heart sing, and in order to do this, you must become aware of the choices you’ve already made.”
In the movie, Phil is making choices and trying different strategies but he is not getting happier and he is not getting to the next day.
Phil starts to do whatever he wants: kiss a lady, punch a man, eat all the doughnuts, steal the money, dress in costume. For some time all of the excess works for him but then the depression sets in. He tries to kill himself by being blown up, shot, stabbed, poisoned, electrocuted, hung and burnt but always wakes up unharmed. I know many people have been very depressed by the uncertainty, the lack of jobs, the loss of family members, the lack of interactions. Hopefully, you are not taking a bath with the radio but reaching out for actual help.
Phil’s efforts in the movie to date Rita are foiled by his falseness. He memorizes her likes and dislikes. He recites French poetry which she loves but his efforts to impress her fall flat each time because she can sense the set-up.
Phil tries to live without rules, to deceive Rita, to kill himself and then suddenly his character shifts to the self-actualization stage of Abraham Maslow’s pyramid. He begins to better himself and starts to belong. He saves the child who is falling out of a tree, he helps the four ladies with a flat tire, he does the Heimlich maneuver on a man who is choking. He takes piano lessons and learns to ice carve. Instead of focusing on making Rita like him, he becomes a more interesting person.
While I lived on the ship, I thought about this movie often. I started to take piano lessons from someone in the band. I read all the time. I practiced Spanish. I took scuba diving classes and I volunteered in many other departments. I used the time to try new things, make connections and it changed my experience from feeling trapped to feeling thrilled. I taught yoga, I made my own prayerbook for Friday night Shabbat services. It found a way that worked for me.
At the beginning of COVID19, when all my travel plans were canceled, I thought about what I could do. I have been reading books and writing about them. I use the app Duolingo to practice my Spanish every day and I am now at 231 days. I work on my photos, my videos and all of the pieces of my once busy travel journalism career. I am learning a new video editing program.
Many days feel like a rollercoaster where I go through all of Phil’s emotions in one day. I want to break all the rules, I want COVID19 to be over, I want my old life back. But there are days when I see that I have made progress.
If you need help with getting through these stages and finding a way to make peace with the ongoing uncertainty of living in 2020 with COVID19, I highly recommend both Jen Sincero’s book, Badass Habits, and Deepak Chopra’s Total Meditation.
Sincero explains that when “we wake up and realize that we can choose to question our beliefs rather than spend our lives blindly playing victim to the ones that no longer work for us.” I know she is talking about how we live during normal times, during COVID times and in reaction to Phil’s early tantrums in the movie. When he changes his habits, he ends up getting what he wants which is to start a new life with Rita.
In order to have the life we want, Chopra explains that: “meditation isn’t something otherworldly. It is quite natural. In fact, we have all been meditating since birth.” We can have mindfulness, concentration, self-inquiry and a quiet mind.
As Chopra states, “When you act unconsciously, you are asleep. When you act consciously, you are awake.” We want to be more awake. You could say that Phil was asleep in Groundhog Day until he choses his best life and wakes up to the next day.
“You need to live in the present moment with certainty about your purpose. You need to allow life to unfold without knowing in advance what the future holds. You need to trust that, at some level, consciousness is taking you in the right direction. These are the basics, the foundation, of being awake.”
In his book, Chopra shares ten total meditation exercises, a 7-day meditation course to increase insight with three questions to focus on: “What am I doing right? What isn’t working for me? What is my next step?” and “fifty-two mantras that can be used as a year’s course in mantra meditation or chosen one at a time to spontaneously enrich your inner life.”
Here are a few examples of the mantras:
9. Dum [Doom] I am fearless and strong. This seed mantra’s sound supports the energy of maternal protection, encouragement, strength, and empowerment.
26. So Ham [So Hum] I am. This mantra is so simple that it is hard to see its real significance. “I am” means that your true self exists. It has never not existed. It will never cease to exist.
41. Om Shrim Maha Lakshimiyei Namah [Ohm Shreem Mah-ha Lahk-shmee-yay Nuh-mah] I invite abundance and prosperity. This mantra is about the fullness of life. Nature abounds in all good things, and your true self connects you to the infinite abundance of pure consciousness.
52. Om Shanti Om [Ohm Shahn-tee Ohm] I radiate peace. Shanti is the sound for peace in all its facets: peace in the mind, peace in the world, peace in existence itself.
I hope that you find a path in the uncertainties of COVID19 where you can walk in consciousness and feel awake. I believe that Phil in Groundhog Day reminds us of how we get stuck, have stumbled and find our way. Perhaps, Sincero or Chopra’s book can offer guidance out of the darkness of this season and this virus.
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The post Coping with COVID through Groundhog Day, Total Meditation and Badass Habits appeared first on We Said Go Travel.
November 30, 2020
Thankful during COVID: We Said Go Travel News Nov 2020
Nov News 2020 with We Said Go Travel:
I hope you had a Happy COVID19 Thanksgiving. 2020 has been a year filled uncertainty and changes. I hope that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy and you are taking care of your physical and emotional health. I bought myself flowers and it has made my desk much more inviting. Small changes can have big results! I am thinking about this quote: “The bad news is that time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” by Michael Altshuler from Hoda Kotb’s book “I Really Needed This Today!”
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Thank you to Thrive Global for publishing my articles!
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Coping with COVID through Groundhog Day, Total Meditation and Badass Habits!
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Escape into Fiction this Fall shares one dozen books to read and discover! I hope you find one to fall in love with!
.@KTLA travel reporter @wesaidgotravel is grounded due to the pandemic so her escapes these days come through fiction. She gives @thrive her top picks for the fall, including INVISIBLE GIRL by @lisajewelluk and FORTUNE AND GLORY by @janetevanovich https://t.co/fkMVO8U5Yq pic.twitter.com/b6AkzFdNHd
— Atria Mystery Bus (@AtriaMysteryBus) October 26, 2020
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Thank you to Southern Travelers Explore Conference for inviting me to be their Keynote Speaker! I am honored!
My talk is called: Grateful For The Journey! As the King would say,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” And I will be sharing secrets to start filming video. As Elvis would say, “It’s Now Or Never” so get started today!
This year for Penn Homecoming–we celebrated #HomeComingAtHome! I shared about all the places I took Penn Ben (like Flat Stanley!) including the United Nations in New York and The Gates Foundation Conference at Lincoln Center! Click here to see all of the photos! Thanks to the Penn Gazette for sharing so many of my photos in Pictures of Penn!
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I have been honored to publish articles by Elwood Hopkins, Cherice Flanagan Taylor, The Book Truck and my art studio, Members Only LA.
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Over 200 friends, students and family gathered to Celebrate the Life of Joannie Parker. You can watch the event on Vimeo and also see the Tribute created with words about her!
I am thankful for all of your support. I am missing traveling but want to keep myself and my family as safe and healthy as possible. Please enjoy my Galapagos videos from my adventures in December 2019. I hope we can all wander around the world again someday!
WHERE CAN YOU FIND MY TRAVEL VIDEOS?
Here is the link to my video channel on YouTube where I have over one and a quarter million views on YouTube! (Exact count: 1,275,312 views)
Thank you for your support! Are you one of my 2,915 subscribers? I hope you will join me and subscribe!
For more We Said Go Travel articles, TV segments, videos and social media: CLICK HERE
Find me on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and at LisaNiver.com. My social media following is now over 160,000 and I am verified on Twitter.
My fortune cookies said:
“In the midst of a busy life, take some time to be a kid again.”
“Pick a path with Heart!”
Stay safe and healthy! We will travel again….
Lisa
[image error]Santa Monica Beach, California Nov 2020 by Lisa Niver on #LGV60ThinQ
The post Thankful during COVID: We Said Go Travel News Nov 2020 appeared first on We Said Go Travel.
November 26, 2020
The Lucas Project: How You Can Help Boys with ALD
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When Lucas was 3 months old we were notified that he tested positive on the newborn screen panel for Adrenoleukodystrophy, otherwise known as ALD. If you were to Google it, you would likely find a movie called “Lorenzo’s Oil”, or stories of young boys diagnosed with ADHD, who then lose their sight, speech, ability to walk and move, and ultimately die from brain lesions by the age of 7. That was the fate of boys diagnosed with this disease until it was added to the newborn screen. Sadly, many states still aren’t testing for ALD and will continue to lose their sons to this horrific disorder. However, the fate of boys with this diagnosis has been dramatically changed. With early detection, boys are living full, long lives.
ALD is a rare genetic disorder in which the ALD protein is missing or malfunctioning in cells. When this happens, it creates elevated fatty acid levels that can potentially cause problems. There are many ways this disease can manifest. One is through adrenal dysfunction, also known as Addison’s Disease, which can easily be managed with medication. Another is problems with the spinal cord. It is possible that over time, a person with ALD will have gait and walking issues and/or could potentially be wheelchair bound, but continue to live normal lives. However, there is one very serious form of this disease called Cerebral ALD (cALD) in which the brain is affected and can ultimately take a person’s life quite quickly. cALD usually occurs in childhood with the average onset of 4-10 years old. It is possible for this to occur later in life, but less likely.
Tragically, many families before us have lost their sons at a very early age to this disease. However, because of these courageous families, there have been so many advances in treatments. Specialists have found that if we can detect brain lesions early, a child can receive interventions to halt the disease in its tracks. This is the very reason it was added to the newborn screen. Monitoring a baby from birth will allow doctors to catch the disease early and intervene before it becomes problematic.
This rare disease was added to the newborn screen panel in California in September 2016. Lucas was born in April of 2017. Had Lucas been born just 8 months earlier, we would never know this information. Currently, there are only 11 states that have added detection for ALD to the newborn screen. We are very grateful that we live in a state that approved it and that Lucas was born at the right time.
What’s next?
So, what now? Lucas will be monitored with bloodwork every 4-6 months and MRIs every 6 months until he is about 12 years old, and then it will move to every year. If Lucas should develop adrenal dysfunction, he will go on medication. If he should develop a brain lesion, he will need to have a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, or he will have gene therapy. This is not a cure, and it’s risky, but it’s a promising treatment. (Consider becoming a marrow donor: http://bahbad.org/)
Currently, Lucas is doing very well. No adrenal issues to date and he has had 2 MRIs with all clear results. He is just like any other 3-year-old, but we would argue he is more of a superhero, as nothing holds him back.
What can you do?
Lucas is a part of a study on the preventative interventions for ALD. His neurologist, Dr. Van Haren, is a national leader in ALD research and is studying the effects of Vitamin D on the prevention of ALD (among other studies). Lucas currently takes 2,000ius of D per day. Additionally, because of Dr. Van Haren’s advocacy, ALD was added to the newborn screen in California. He played a critical role in allowing us to know about Lucas’ diagnosis. Dr. Van Haren and his team spend countless hours working with ALD patients and researching advancements. We are so grateful that he is leading this and other studies on ALD.
This is where we are focusing our efforts. If you could please help us reach our goal, we would be forever grateful as his research can change the fate of lots of boys. Unfortunately, because ALD is a degenerative disease, time is working against us. The more we are able to fund research, the closer we get to finding a cure. Lucas is approaching the window of his life that could affect him most greatly, and we want to do everything in our power to make every advancement possible. There is nothing more valuable to us and we are forever grateful for your support for our family and our sweet Lucas.
Love, Nic and Alison
#savetheboys
P.S. We have partnered with Dr. Van Haren and his team at Stanford to create the ALD Family Retreat. The retreat will take place at The Painted Turtle that was co-founded by Lucas’ grandparents, Page and Lou Adler. The camp is designed for children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses. Over the retreat weekend, the ALD community will come together to enjoy all of the amazing activities at camp and share experiences while also empowering families with knowledge and tools for living with an ALD diagnosis. We are inviting specialists in neurology, endocrinology, transplant, nutrition and alternative medicine to discuss the latest findings, best practices, and what the future holds for our loved ones.
Learn More
Learn more about Van Haren Lab.
Join the Fight
Make a gift to Dr. Van Haren’s Research. All donations are 100% tax-deductible.
Please mail checks payable to LPFCH to:
Lucile Packard Foundation
Attn: Development Services
400 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 340
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Please note: Write-in “The Lucas Project” in the memo section on the check. You can also enclose a separate note with this information if there is insufficient space in the memo line of the check.
WHAT IS ALD CONNECT?
ALD Connect is a non-profit organization that brings together patients, families, physicians, scientists, advocates, and industry.
Our mission is to improve health outcomes for patients with X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) by empowering patients, raising awareness, and accelerating the translation of scientific advances into better clinical care.
The post The Lucas Project: How You Can Help Boys with ALD appeared first on We Said Go Travel.
November 25, 2020
November 23, 2020
The Book Truck READ-A-THON December 6, 2020
WANT TO READ FOR A GREAT CAUSE? JOIN THE BOOK TRUCK 2020 READ-A-THON! 4TH ANNUAL READ-A-THON! On Dec. 6th, participants will spend the day reading to fight the literacy crisis for foster care, homeless, and low-income teens. This is a virtual fundraiser, so you can read from anywhere!!
“Your Future is an Open Book!”
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The Book Truck’s 4th Annual Read-A-Thon!! Dec 06 2020
On December 6th, Read-a-thon participants will spend the day reading to fight the literacy crisis for foster care, homeless, and low-income teens.
Show your support by donating – and thanks to an anonymous donor, your support will go twice as far!! All donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $5,000.00!!
Our fight to stop learning loss because of Covid-19:
Because of the pandemic, our teens have increased their demand for books now more than ever. Given the challenges of Covid, the already difficult learning environment for these vulnerable underserved teens has resulted in a profound loss of learning, especially for those at risk of dropping out. In response, we created an exciting new programming initiative, Lit Boxes. Though we have paused our event-based programming, we have been distributing Lit Boxes filled with free high-interest books and literacy materials to underserved teens throughout LA County.
How we know our programs works:
Our programming doubles and triples the number of teens reading in underserved communities, where dropout rates can be as high as 50%.
Why it’s important:
Higher literacy rates mean lower rates of teen pregnancy, incarceration, and poverty.
You can shape the future of teens in these communities by supporting our Read-a-thon!!
Are you a teen who loves reading and talking about books?
Become a volunteer at our teen literacy events! We’ll train you to become an official book expert to help other teens find and take home the perfect books. Once you’re trained, you’ll be able to volunteer at any of our teen literacy events across LA County.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by The Book Truck (@thebooktruck) on Sep 11, 2020 at 6:20pm PDT
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The benefits of reading are boundless.
Teens who read more perform better in vocabulary, spelling, writing, and mathematics (Sullivan & Brown 2013). Those with access to their own books also have significantly higher reading scores. Additionally, reading has been shown to produce the same health benefits as deep relaxation so readers have lower stress, higher self-esteem, and less depression than non-readers (Dovey 2015). In fact, research shows that reading enjoyment is more important for educational success than socio-economic status (OECD 2002).
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November 22, 2020
seedprod
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November 21, 2020
Handmade for the Holidays at MOLA
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We are thrilled to have another OUTDOOR Members Sale! What a wonderful time to support your local potters! Shop made with love at MoLA! Please wear your masks at all times. We will allow 3 people at a time in our shopping space and designate other waiting areas! We can’t wait to meet you!
WHEN: Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 11 AM – 3 PM PST
WHERE: 4234 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City, CA 90230
More info on Facebook: CLICK HERE
Learn more about Members Only LA Studio and about our sister studio, Good Dirt LA, where you can take classes!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Members Only LA (@membersonlylapotterystudio)
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Members Only LA (@membersonlylapotterystudio)
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The post Handmade for the Holidays at MOLA appeared first on We Said Go Travel.
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