mental health

plant health, mental health

March 24, 2023

Fourth grade Garden Club is always a delight. Every time we gather, the kids inspire belly laughs, and I appreciate gardening from a kids-eye-view all over again. On Facebook lately I have been sharing their zingers here and there, Kids Say the Darndest Things type stuff, but today I want to share something that encouraged me in a whole other sphere.

In addition to planting mustard seeds and checking the progress of our sweet peas and onions, the Garden Club lesson this week called for reviewing the basic needs of a plant and how those compare to what humans also need: Shelter (or location and soil), sunlight, fresh air, water, and nutrition.

Our lead volunteer displayed a potted plant that was pretty obviously neglected and canvassed the room for ideas about what might have gone wrong. A smattering of well informed answers rang out: “Not enough water!” “No nutrients!” “Couldn’t breathe!” Then, just as we were switching gears, at least four little voices from around the room suggested, “It’s depressed!” This garnered a mix of giggles and agreement. To be fair, every answer garners a mix of giggles and agreement. The whole group is constantly poised, for example, ready for one particular classmate to say, “My name is Christopher and I like chicken nuggets!” It literally slays every time. Christopher is jockeying for his own Netflix comedy special.

So. The moment passed quickly, as do so many high vibration moments in fourth grade, and I thought little of it until later in the afternoon. Seeds watered and tiny gloves and plastic spades shuffled away until our next meeting, the kids retreated to their regular classrooms. The Master Gardeners were debriefing a little bit. The school counselor happened to join us that day, and she seemed to enjoy hearing what we thought of our experience with her kids, who she clearly knows well and loves very much. I recounted the cuteness of their depression hypothesis for the ailing plant. She smiled, nodded, and gave some insight.

The school counselor has been teaching the entire student body ways to recognize that someone is not feeling their best, even when they don’t say so. They are learning to recognize signs of suffering in each other, simple clues that their friends or family members are not having their needs met. She has been offering them new vocabulary for describing how they feel, for understanding how others may feel, and for finding help from adults when needed. In other words, they are destigmatizing the human experience of not being okay; and they are building some pretty serious emotional literacy in the process. I was floored.

This focus on emotional literacy and recognizing when others are struggling is crucial, especially as we deepen our understanding of mental health. As we continue to break down the stigma around not feeling okay, it’s equally important to explore the many ways people can find healing. One such avenue that has gained attention is ketamine therapy, which is being used to treat conditions like depression, anxiety, and PTSD in innovative ways.

Unlike traditional treatments, ketamine offers a rapid relief from symptoms, often within hours, giving hope to those who haven’t found success with other methods. For individuals dealing with treatment-resistant mental health issues, options like Avesta Ketamine Wellness are providing groundbreaking care, offering a path forward for those who feel stuck in their struggles. What makes ketamine therapy so promising is not just its effectiveness, but also the way it allows people to regain control of their emotional health. By addressing the chemical imbalances in the brain, ketamine helps patients reconnect with themselves and the world around them in ways they may not have thought possible.

This type of treatment supports the idea that, much like the students learning emotional literacy, we all have the capacity to learn, heal, and grow—sometimes we just need the right tools or therapies to get there.

Just imagine the idea that a plant might be depressed. And imagine that meeting its basic physical needs will help it thrive again. Then apply that loving wisdom to human beings. Friends, can we please bookmark this topic for a longer conversation soon?

This curriculum would be amazing in any setting, and how much more thrilling to see the students naturally translate their knowledge over to plant life! Children tend to have an innate sense for wellness or discomfort, way earlier than they can verbalize it. This student body will have such an advantage in life.

I am so encouraged that this fresh new batch of humans is being armed with empathy, insight, and vocabulary to walk through the world more aware of themselves, more able to live kindly with others.

All of this plus, of course, the skills to grow a garden.

(How young is too young to recommend reading The Well Gardened Mind?)

Thanks for visiting this happy topic with me, friends! If fourth graders can learn to tend their emotional gardens, we can too. Hang in there.

Spring is here.
Every winter has its end.
xoxoxo

HE’S ON A BOAT YO

April 15, 2021

A year in pandemic spurred many of us to reevaluate life in unexpected ways, and maybe we made some adjustments or adopted new hobbies; but how many of us uprooted ourselves and moved across the country to buy a boat, and then live on it? Please meet Steve.

In late February, 2020, Steve was in Boston at a large gaming industry convention when pandemic hit the United States. In fact, he was in a huge, closed building filled with more than 80,000 people just as that city was being identified at a covid-19 “hot zone.” News spread quickly, and he soon received a call from the company’s CEO offering the option to shut things down early and get home. Steve was already a stickler for personal health and hygiene, citing long standing habits to ward off the dreaded “Con-Crud,” so he decided to close out the show as planned. His own journey back to his then home in Los Angeles overlapped just two or three days with the country’s fast and hard shut down. Looking back on that week, he considers it “wildly lucky” that neither he nor any of his colleagues contracted the deadly new virus.

That plane ride back to LA was the last time he flew all of that year. Compared to 2019, when he logged 170 hours in flight, that was a steep nosedive and one that precipitated a series of hard questions and life changes.

Leading up to that trip to Boston, he and his girlfriend Audrey had been planning and preparing for a big, Irish style party aimed at Saint Patrick’s Day in March. They had already purchased thirty pounds of corned beef, almost as many pounds of potatoes, a case of Guinness beer, and four bottles of Jameson. They were seasoned hosts, old hats at feeding and entertaining their large circle of friends (the Girl Gang, as Steve called them) for frequent cookouts. The Irish party was nothing new, except that it was also meant to be a belated housewarming to celebrate the pair having put down roots together the year before. When the pandemic changed everyone’s plans, Steve and Audrey found themselves suddenly over-supplied with meat, potatoes, and alcohol. Their freezer was packed! That, plus good general home organization and a bizarre bequeathment of specialty Japanese toilet paper from Steve’s late grandmother (this very good story probably merits its own blog post), meant that emergency shopping was unnecessary. They simply thawed small amounts of corned beef every other month and supplemented their potatoes with grocery deliveries from local companies.

Steve is the Vice President of marketing for a successful video game company. They occupy a fascinating niche focused on making a positive social impact on the world and interfacing with education and documentary-style entertainment. They have earned prestigious awards for their efforts and were invited by the BBC to develop a game related to The Blue Planet series. Most of his job keeps him traveling frequently and networking with people by the thousands. When travel came to a screeching halt, he felt lucky to have already pivoted to a fully remote environment two years earlier. The digital predisposition of the entire industry translated well. In June, 2020, in response to pandemic, the rest of the Arizona-based company also went fully remote. That same month, their newest video game released.

In fact, throughout the first half of the pandemic, his industry enjoyed booming business. He told me about deep sea divers who couldn’t get to the ocean but could suffice their appetites somewhat by playing his games. He clearly seemed proud of the family-oriented, education based material. “It filled a need” so many people were experiencing, and “it has a soothing soundtrack.”

Quarantine life in Los Angeles was a mixed environment, “a whole wishy washy, push-pull situation.” Much of the public was resistant to wearing masks and staying home, so Steve felt thankful that his peers took it seriously. They talked on Zoom plenty, had a handful of small lunches in backyards, and made front porch soda bread drops just to do wellness checks on each other. His main focus for much of the year was keeping his people safe and looking forward to vaccines when they became available. His parents are in North Carolina, and like many people in our generation Steve found himself in the brand new position of “parenting upward.” His nagging and shaming tactics worked, and eventually they did come around to take their own healthy seriously.

We talked a little bit about politics, but Steve was guarded. He displayed a mellow, almost neutral view of how politicians at large handled the pandemic. Or maybe he has strong opinions and hid them from me, choosing instead to express compassion for people making tough decisions. Regarding specifically the vaccine rollout, he said, “There were no real winning solutions for politicians.” We waded ankle deep in other political topics, and if time ever allows I want to hear more of Steve’s thoughts on how the then-President and his cabinet could have better led the country during shut downs, social upheaval, and more. His public relations education and background provides a great perspective: “I think the pandemic was bungled by most politicians, particularly the guy in the white house at the time, to the detriment of our entire country.”

While staying home did not hamper his effectiveness at work, the sudden lack of travel did reveal a need for something, a need that could not be filled with backyard lunches and baking bread. He began to feel restless and ached for something far off. What illustrated and proved the idea to him was a long road trip he made to Virginia Beach in September. His best friend from college, and his wife, had just welcomed their first child during quarantine, so Steve rented a car and drove east for four days, not stopping to see any sights, treating every hotel room like a crime scene and bringing much of his own food to avoid restaurants and retail exposure as much as possible. It was an out-and-back trip that afforded him many hours of self reflection. He soon realized how heavily he had been relying on travel to soothe an itch. It was hardly a lack of love for the people in his west coast life, but maybe just for the place. Maybe it was just the far removal from the east coast waters where he was raised. As beautiful as California was, as filled as it was with his beloved friends, it wasn’t where his heart needed to be. And he decided to face that.

Steve had grown up not just near the Atlantic Ocean but on it. Native to New York, he and his Dad spent years sailing together competitively. Steve has lived in a life jacket since he was a little boy. Boats and saltwater and a wild competitive streak were in his bones. All of it was part of him.

He missed it, to say the least, living in Los Angeles these past five years, and moving around the country before that for college and various jobs. Sailing was a fundamental part of his identity which he had been neglecting, and the stillness of those months in pandemic helped him see the personal neglect more clearly. He realized that he wanted to move back east and buy a boat, a legitimate, seaworthy, liveaboard cruiser.

This began a long, painful process of unearthing his deepest desires and presenting some new truths to the woman he loved, with whom he had just barely missed celebrating a Jameson-soaked housewarming. As he described some of this process to me, those first sad, difficult conversations, he was visibly moved and spoke tenderly. This life change is still fairly raw, and he obviously still holds deep affection for Audrey.

Steve turned forty in October, so he had to actively eliminate the possibility that this was a classic mid life crisis. He examined himself. He asked himself all the good, hard, necessary questions and did not rush into anything. “This was not a flight of fancy.” Steve took this so seriously that he also consulted with his mental health professional to kind of run it up against their wisdom, make sure he was making a sound examination of his own heart.

“If not now, when?” In February, 2021, he made his final drive east, “this time for keeps.” Pandemic not only caused him to feel uncomfortable; in many ways it also proved to be the perfect time to make some big changes. Once Steve decided to uproot himself and begin this new chapter, the Universe started dropping pieces into place like magic.

Audrey was supportive and loving about his move, though they both were heartbroken. They sought to make a conscientious uncoupling and are trying to remain friends now. She even sent him an inflatable pirate ship to keep his newly purchased slip from being vacant while he waits for his real boat.

His parents were also supportive of his return to the nest, offering good, aka free rent for the space above their garage. Steve and his two rescue cats are living there while he remodels his boat. All he has to do in exchange for room and board is cook the family meals. Citing the vacuum of good Mexican food in North Carolina, he favors that and Thai food for expanding their culinary horizons. So far the reviews are mixed. If his Dad says a dish is “interesting,” that means he likes it. If, however, he calls it “different,” that’s a clear down vote. I asked Steve whether his gracious parents have enforced a curfew on him. He burst into slightly aggressive laughter, leaned all the way forward way to the computer screen, and almost shouted “Marie there is nowhere to go to NEED a curfew!” He came from Los Angeles, with a bustling population of ten million people, to a small town with just thousands, and at 40 is lowering the average age there considerably. Ha!

Adding to the synchronicity, Steve found his dream project boat almost immediately upon deciding to move and just a few weeks before he did finally head east. An online group conversation led him to a 1984 boat in New Jersey, whose previous owner had just retired to Puerto Rico. The buyer-seller timing was perfect, the vessel is thirty-eight feet long and well suited for living on, and it needs exactly the kind of refit-and-restore modernizing Steve craves to do. Also? He got a great deal.

After one brief hiccup with the CEO of his gaming company, who did not immediately understand that Steve was moving east for good, all is well. He is smoothly working remote, has the boat title in hand, and should receive it to his slip this May. In the meantime, he is in remodel planning mode and practicing a streamlined kitchen routine. He and his Dad also raced together recently, placing second after a decade long hiatus!

“It is wildly surreal,” Steve said, gushing. He is no longer just thinking about this dream; he is acting on it. He never planned to be at this point in life, so young, and he is grateful to be getting after it while he is healthy and able. We chatted about the pitfalls of waiting too many years to live fully, but then he surprised me. He gently suggested that every chapter can be valuable, that everything we do leading up to (what we think of as) our dreams can serve us. He seemed to be saying that we don’t always have to dismiss chunks of time as delays, because they are all part of our story. They all have immense value.

I was big time intrigued by this remark and asked him to indulge me. I wanted to know what he would say to high school seniors or college graduates, to young adults about to launch. Steve’s own college path was pretty fascinating, leading him from one interesting major to another, specializing him eventually in public relations and politicking (ahhh that’s where the diplomatic answers came from). Then his career took lots of meandering, but always fruitful, curves. So how does one know he is on the right path?

Steve spoke firmly about striving to “balance better from the word go,” rather than focusing solely on either work or relationships, or any other single aspect of life. They are both important. It is all important. We are complex creatures. He said you have to “chase your happy,” regardless of what’s going on around you. His advice was different from a typical motivational speech, because he pressed into balance. He pressed into the satisfaction of a good, meaningful career as well as fulfilling relationships. He talked about being honest with yourself and living with authenticity. “The judgment of others is an utterly useless currency.” He said he would urge kids to not be scared of change and that if they crave something, it is always worth looking into. It’s good to be okay with being uncomfortable, he repeated.

I asked about his spiritual life, because so much of his journey seems to have been directed and touched by unseen forces. He was raised Catholic but now identifies as mostly atheist (whoops, here comes rent!). He does not believe in visualization per se, but he does seem intrigued by the undeniable patterns in his life. He definitely supports self reflection and asking for help when you need it. He also believes in self discipline. “If I say the thing, I’m gonna do the thing.” As we talked a little more about his difficult but already rewarding journey this past year, he blew me away with his version of something I think all the time: “I will honor the difficulties of the decision.” He intends to do everything he can to not squander the opportunity, for everything that was lost to get here. He trusts that everything will work out, that he will be better for it all, and that others will be okay too. In fact his concern for how he affects the people in his life was palpable.

A year and change after that last flight home from Boston, Steve is still not craving corned beef anytime soon, but he does still love to cook. He still has his two cross country cats with him in North Carolina, and so far has not suffered a parental curfew for living above their garage. He still works remote for the video game company and is actively fascinated by how the industry might evolve in the post-pandemic world. Will massive public conventions return? If so, will they establish a proof of vaccine policy? Time will tell.

His boat project is coming along nicely, though, appropriately, she is nameless as of this writing. As with drivers of classic cars, a boat captain has to become acquainted with the vessel, has to understand her personality and “have a serious conversation,” before suggesting a moniker.

Steve remains close friends with Audrey, and he dips into the LA Girl Gang Zooms as often as possible.

Most inspiring to me, he stands wide eyed and responsive to the ongoing Truth of his life. He wrangles discomfort, determines his own path, and follows it thoughtfully. His voice sometimes shakes, but his resolution does not. And I love this.

“You don’t want to outsail your boat,” is one of the last things Steve offered me before we said goodbye. He described the lifelong learning curve of sailing, of how a person can be experience-heavy but knowledge-light, as he assesses himself right now. He was electric when he talked about it, about the competence, physical ability, and wisdom needed to face down challenges on the water, and how a captain can easily discover himself “outclassed by the situation,” so he has to prepare.

He is excited to race more often, live on the water, and explore the coastline. He is excited for every challenge, and I have every confidence that his brave honesty, steadfastness, and work ethic will braid together for an unforgettable adventure.

“I’ll be alright,” Steve said, even if this idea fails. And I agree with him. He posses that inner compass that will make sure he finds his way, always.

May we all find that compass and never let it go.
XOXOXOXO

globe trotting & soul searching

April 14, 2021

Kaanji granted me a Zoom conversation on her Saturday morning (in Oklahoma I was Zooming on my Friday afternoon). She had just woken up in her childhood bedroom, in Melbourne, Australia, where she has been staying since last autumn. It was raining there. She was looking forward to a quiet day and a series of other Zoom calls with her friends in far flung places, including Gen and Julia, who I have to thank for this fun introduction.

As soon as we exchanged excited pleasantries, Kaanji grabbed my hand and without warning took me screaming and laughing on a wild jump over her mile high cliff of storytelling. I barely knew which end was up. Speaking in her irresistible Aussie accent, she told me about why she fell in love with Los Angeles, why she isn’t there right now, how the rest of the world views the United States’ handling of the covid pandemic, and what might happen next in her life. She told me about care packages to herself and hotel quarantines and hot cross buns in cold weather, as well as manicures, celebrities, online dating during a global pandemic, and more. She made me want to stay up all night just listening to her stories!

Her year in pandemic has been in many ways as frustratingly typical as anyone’s but also very unlike any other, because at the height of it all, she flew halfway around the world and got stuck. Let’s rewind a bit.

About six years ago, Kaanji came from her native Australia to Los Angeles, for a birthday vacation. “Obsessed with Vanderpump Rules and Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” she was happily seduced by all the celebrities and American pop culture. She even met Will Smith on that trip. Just five months later, she moved to LA for work, never met another celebrity, but began putting down roots anyway. By then, it was something more genuine that grabbed her. The diversity and melting pot environment, the great big city with “a place for everyone,” had captured her heart. She also found her community.

As an auditor, then, and having previously worked for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Kaanji crossed professional paths with Gen, who then worked for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The two forged an instant friendship. Even after Kaanji left that job, the two remained close. Gen absorbed her into the warmth of the LA Derby Dolls social circle. The “squad” as Kaanji affectionately refers to them, became her family that filled up her home away from home. Just no book reading for her, thanks, no matter how many book clubs the Derby Dolls attend. She continued flying back and forth between the continents, visiting loved ones and living a full and happy life.

In February, 2020, when covid-19 was barely on anyone’s radar, Kaanji and a few friends were in Melbourne to watch “The Tennis” (also known as The Australian Open). People were sanitizing seats and surfaces everywhere, and rumors were flying about food shortages, but Kaanji wasn’t buying into the hype yet. She thought, “Whatever, hoard away.” That sentiment would change in just a few weeks, back home in LA.

Keeping in mind that Australia had just wrapped up a long, horrifying chapter of devastating bushfires, some people there were already accustomed to wearing masks, never mind that they were ineffective against smoke inhalation. Kaanji remembers hearing about masks to mitigate the virus and thinking, “Oh my god so dramatic!” That was the response many people had in the beginning, but her friend, whose dad is a physician, convinced Kaanji to take two spare masks which they found at the hospital. She accepted them but did not wear them on her flight back to Los Angeles.

Upon landing at LAX, she witnessed just one employee wiping handrails with alcohol and towels and thought that was odd. Already she could see that people were behaving so differently in LA.

She resumed her California dream but watched with everyone else as covid updates began picking up steam.

On March 15, she was enjoying a proper manicure, one of the few personal indulgences she cannot do without, when news came that lockdowns in California were imminent.

Kaanji was absolutely caught off guard for food supply and toilet paper. Being a single girl often at work or on the go, she never had a need to stock pile much in her apartment. When the city plunged into its first serious lockdown, she was startled by the empty shelves at Ralph’s grocery. Exactly one onion remained in the produce aisles! At CVS, she found nothing in the freezer cases and resorted to buying offbeat foods, whatever she could find. She somehow managed to make a single roll of one-ply bamboo toilet paper last her for four months.

Even once she was able to replenish her groceries, stress snacking was unique for Kaanji. She had a long standing custom when she traveled of shipping herself packages of her favorite Australia treats. Having just been home for The Tennis, she soon benefitted from that trip’s shipment and spent lockdown enjoying her favorite Australian chocolates, among other treats. (I forgot to ask her about vegemite!)

Entertainment in quarantine seems to have crossed over plenty with personal grooming, and it was the most relatable thing ever. She minimized being out and about as much as possible, but one private indulgence remained: She had to have her nails done professionally. “That is one thing I cannot do without!” she laughed generously, and showed me her pretty hands, temporarily bandaged for protection from cooking. “I draw the line at not getting my nails done.” Months into shut down, she cautiously paid a friend to come to her apartment, both of them masked and stretching their arms as far as they could, to file and shine her nails. (I curled up my own fists in my lap and made sure Kaanji could not see my gardening, animal- tending eyesores as we spoke.)

While California (and much of the United States) at large was not locking itself down nearly so strictly as, for example, Melbourne was, Kaanji and her friends took the virus seriously. They wore masks now, when they had to be out. They avoided crowds and sanitized judiciously. During those first months of the covid pandemic, they all worked from their respective homes and stayed apart but connected with Zoom calls at least every other week. “This is the only constant I have in my life,” Kaanji said a bit pensively. Living for several years separated from one set of loved ones or another, she had learned to communicate electronically, which was now serving her well. She even had a friends’ Zoom open in the background several months later, the day she packed to fly back to Australia.

That spring and summer, the atmosphere in Los Angeles was tense for more than worries about the virus. Political and social conflict simmered hotly then boiled over, and Kaanji happened to live in a neighborhood where some of the biggest, most violent protests took place. She laid out for me her decision making process of whether to attend certain rallies and why, of which human responsibilities were most urgent at different times. “There were bigger issues,” she said, almost pleading with herself, clearly conflicted. She told me about witnessing a woman being shot with rubber bullets, plus other firsthand accounts of violence. I could hear the compassion in her voice, could see the worry on her face for how people were being treated, for the social values at stake. She told me about a night she tried to help monitor a small business in her neighborhood, hoping to ward off rioters and looters, and the National Guard followed her aggressively. All the humor and novelty of pandemic drained out of her when she shared these memories. It was obviously a heavy chapter for her, for everyone.

As the year wore on, these stressors plus some personal losses caused her to reevaluate her life in Los Angeles. She had enjoyed an online romance with a man, but it ended before they ever met. Then a close friend of hers died from cancer. By midsummer she was thinking about spending Christmas in Australia. This was also around the time that she, along with everyone else in the U.S., was anxiously awaiting the results of the presidential election. The prospect of a holiday trip was welcome distraction.

It was a collision of perfect timelines and a little serendipity. Just as she was weighing her options, Kaanji learned that the Australian government was offering paid hotel quarantine for people returning home within a narrow window of days. Remember that Australia’s version of lockdown was from the beginning far more extreme (and effective) than anything we have seen here in the United States. Their freedom to move about was truly eliminated, making it almost a police state; but this did result in unbelievably low infection rates. She trusted that she was headed to a much safer part of the world than Los Angeles.

As it happened, she was able to find deeply discounted airline tickets that fit the required window, so she took the leap and booked a flight home for November 29^th. This would begin her long, somewhat open ended absence from the melting pot city she had come to love.

The Australian government paid for her to quarantine in the Sydney hotel, and it was a true quarantine, unlike anything we have seen here. People in town needed a permit to move about past a three mile radius, and she could not leave her room at all for two weeks. Three times per day, meals were delivered with an impersonal knock at the door, and the food was rarely good. The rooms boasted questionable hygiene, and she was lonely. She also suffered an ear infection during this time.

Still, true to her go-with-the-flow spirit, Kaanji summoned her creativity and networking skills to get through those strange days. She found a Facebook group comprised specifically of Australians in hotel quarantine (because of course this exists!). She salvaged brown paper bags from food delivery and used tiny scissors from a travel sized grooming kit to painstakingly fashion a Christmas tree decoration for her wall. She grew a lighthearted “Keeping Up With Kaanjo” social media following, just to maintain her sanity. Stuck between her two homes, it all had far from a holiday vacation vibe, but she was safe. Eventually she did get to join her family for Christmas.

Sadly, just two days after Christmas, Kaanji learned that her aging aunt had contracted the deadly virus. Her aunt lived in London at the time and had been using a hospital transport to attend weekly kidney dialysis treatments. Since she had been extra careful in every other area of life, the family surmises this is how she was exposed. Due to her already vulnerable health and advanced age, she succumbed to covid-19 after a long, difficult month of suffering. “She was so weak,” Kaanji shared.

Suddenly, the importance of family nearness, however altered because of travel restrictions and a lack of large group gatherings, was underscored. Although they felt angry to have lost their loved so few weeks before the vaccine was made available, it was good just to be a little bit closer to each other. It somewhat lessened the sting.

We talked about the vaccine and the sharp contrast between how the United States has behaved during pandemic, compared to the rest of the world. She shared that most Australians, for example, have been fearful of the virus and content to stay put. They readily dismiss travel in order to stay safe. The restrictions are just accepted, perhaps because they have lost their freedoms before. Moreover, they see the rebelliousness of Americans as a bit selfish, as risky beyond what we need. In Australia, just one positive case can shut down a city, as we will see later. Extreme contact tracing is a foregone conclusion, not a debatable intrusion to anyone’s privacy.

Kaanji is rightfully proud that her home country has handled public safety better than we have, but she also admits that she is envious of our vaccine rollout here. Their cases are zero, but they are unable to leave. They have “no empathy” for anyone overseas, and overall there is definitely an “us-versus-them” mentality.

Kaanji has reached a gentler conclusion about it all. She spoke in the same mellow, loving voice she used when remembering the riots in Los Angeles: “You can’t control anyone but yourself.”

She continued working remote for a time, but that had to end too. By early 2021 Kaanji had to tell her employer she was not returning to the states any time soon, and she began the long, arduous process of not just finding a new job but also fully undoing her life from another continent. She offered personal possessions to her friends then paid her regular housekeeper once more to clean her LA apartment and sweep through, taking whatever she might want from what was left. “It was the least I could do,” Kaanji almost whispered. Her friends helped at every turn. Gen took care of loose end banking business in LA and eventually helped return her leased vehicle. It was a lot for Kaanji to organize, but the activity was helpful. Kaanji found that all the list making and short term tasks and goals kept her busy in a good way, kept her from over thinking things that were outside of her control.

And so Kaanji’s life in Australia has pressed on in limbo, under these bizarre quarantine circumstances. She is living in her childhood bedroom, happy to have reconnected with cousins and appreciating the time with her Dad, enjoying daily walks and no snakes (unbelievable). But she is also weary of isolation and missing her life back in Los Angeles. “My life is a distraction,” she said with a smile and a little bit of surrender. In recent months she has taken up cooking elaborate, picturesque meals like Japanese Katsu curry, though she rarely eats the food. She just makes it for the Instagram photos, ha! She once ordered $60 worth of yeast and that never arrived then spent five hours teaching herself to make hot cross buns, one of her favorite seasonal treats.

By this January, 2021, Australia no longer had a mask mandate. Kaanji described a whole new kind of culture shock, in adjusting to this. The short plane rides when they actually served meals. She accepted a position at a firm in Melbourne and had to acclimate all over again to the old ways of riding in elevators with others, shaking hands, and speaking face to face without masks. She said that a year later, it all finally hit her, when she began to feel normal.

In March of this year, Kaanji and a few friends were back at the Tennis. She was actually at a match when another eerie announcement was made. A single positive case of the now familiar virus sparked the city’s shut down. Officials dropped a midnight curfew which was enforced by patrolling officers and hefty fines. Kaanji and her friends spontaneously crammed three days’ worth of tourism into a “one epic night,” barely making it back home before midnight. She said it felt like a scene from an apocalyptic movie, running away from the train station.

I was thirsty to know how Kaanji remained buoyant in the midst of so many changes and plot twists, so much fear and upheaval. She had been smiling almost constantly as we spoke, sharing her stories matter of factly, only occasionally dipping into shadows. So I asked about her mental health. She boldly expressed her gratitude for the Derby friends who provided constant support. They certainly bolstered each other. “No words can thank them enough.” She also shared that at some point during this strange year she reached out to her former therapist in Australia and rekindled a good dialogue, virtually. “Telehealth is the greatest thing to come out of pandemic!”

Kaanji’s heart is in more than one place at a time, but for now her body lives in Australia. She expects to stay there for the next year or two, and now that pandemic is winding down she has some soul searching to do about how to spend that time. She is already campaigning hard for the Derby group to visit her for “the trip of a lifetime!” when it’s safe to travel. Eventually, she plans a return to California, to live in a house on Manhattan Beach in California, adopt a midsized rescue pup, and take up paddle boarding.

When I think of the meandering path Kaanji’s life has taken, especially this past year, and the exuberant ways she chooses to live, I feel excited for her. She strikes me as the kind of person who can flow with purpose and self determination through and around any obstacle, like the strong, roaring Thompson River in Colorado, using the rocks to direct her considerable energy and maybe carving gently away at them, too. Shaping the rocks themselves with her will.

However she chooses to spend the next couple of years, I know she will extract goodness from her life. I know that when her California family comes to visit her in her homeland, she will absolutely give them the trip of a lifetime. And when she moves back, I hope to meet her on Manhattan Beach and discover what breed of pup she has rescued.

XOXOXOXO

she is full of freedom

March 18, 2021

On March 6, 2020, Kellie Sperry went with friends Roanne and Rose to the Lauren Daigle concert in Oklahoma City (it turned out to be the second to last live concert Daigle performed before shut down). The night was filled with inspiration, emotional release, and some much needed connection to God and faith and peace. That next week was when the Thunder basketball game emptied out before tipoff and everything changed overnight.

A licensed counselor by trade, Kellie’s already heavy job was about to take on brand new weight. Add to that, the traumatic ending of her marriage of almost 25 years, and everything was in flux.”Flux is the story of my life,” she claimed peacefully.

To borrow her metaphor: When a person’s life is turned upside down and all the contents tumble out of so many boxes all over the floor, it is messy. Decades’ worth of memories, habits, effort, fear, values, hopes and dreams, loves and hurts, plans and mistakes and victories and so many other things, are strewn about in unpredictable, sometimes startling new shapes and piles. Some forgotten things are exposed to the light of day in new ways. Some things are beaten and crumpled a bit more than others, maybe shattered beyond repair; some things need to be either purged forever or dusted off , polished, and quickly put back in order. Many things can wait while the storms rage. Flux.

Kellie’s past year has been like this and then some, but she is flourishing in all the colorful chaos, despite the added layer of pandemic storms that roar all around her. Forty-five years old, newly divorced and living alone for the first time in her life, rebuilding friendships on her own terms, helping clients navigate an unprecedented time in history, she is centered in Love. She is looking honestly at the overturned boxes of her life and feeling a delicious calm, no trace of panic for all the mess, in fact, some excitement for her sense of autonomy.

“So far I’ve landed upright, and that’s all that matters. And everything else will be where I place it.” When she said where I place it, I got chills. It reminded me of the power, the responsibility, of deliberate living.

So many people are in flux.

Without a doubt, this past
year has taken a toll on people’s mental health. Groups and individuals of
every variety, everywhere, have been pushed to new thresholds and challenged in
ever compounding ways. Historically, this pandemic may even surpass the OKC
bombing and the 9/11 attacks, due to its global scale, sustained force, and ongoing
traumas. “This is unprecedented,” she said, more than once. And for
the first time in her career, counselors were walking their patients through
trauma that, largely, they themselves were also facing. “Both of us are
coping with the same stressors,” she said, a weirdly unique situation.

The pandemic has made it clear that mental health isn’t just about what happens in therapy sessions—it’s about the daily rituals, the self-care practices, and the holistic approaches that help people regain balance in a world that often feels unsteady. For many, this means turning to alternative therapies that complement traditional mental health treatments, providing an additional layer of healing and resilience.

One such approach gaining attention is acupuncture. Rooted in ancient Chinese medicine, acupuncture has long been used to address physical ailments, but its benefits for mental health are just as profound. By targeting specific points in the body, acupuncture helps regulate the nervous system, reduce stress hormones, and promote relaxation—something desperately needed in a time of heightened anxiety.

Those searching for acupuncture near me are often looking for relief from chronic stress, insomnia, and even depression, seeking a way to quiet the mental noise that has only grown louder over the past year. As people explore new methods of self-care, acupuncture offers a gentle yet effective way to restore equilibrium, helping individuals find moments of peace amid the ongoing uncertainties of modern life.

Her group practice made the switch to Telehealth (remote counseling
sessions) around March 24th. This of course brought its own inherent challenges, but overall Kellie describes it as, “an extraordinarily rewarding and more intimate” setting. She misses the intimacy of sharing physical space with and reading body language and energy from her clients; but that has been traded for glimpses into their homes, quick appearances from pets and toddlers and partners, not to mention her own physical safety and comfort in her newly feathered, solo nest. It is all “complicated, beautiful, challenging, and rewarding.”

However, the move to Telehealth does raise questions for those interested in starting their own mental health practice. For anyone wondering how do i start a mental health business, the shift to virtual services has created both opportunities and challenges. Starting a mental health business today requires an understanding of the technology involved, how to maintain client confidentiality in an online space, and how to build a strong rapport without in-person interaction. With the right tools and approach, though, Telehealth can offer a unique way to connect with clients while ensuring their safety and comfort, both physically and emotionally.

How wonderful that our society is changing its outlook on mental health! How wonderful that more of us are seeking therapy in proactive ways, without the old stigmas, as an integral part of our human experience.

This year, of course, many people are seeking help to cope directly with, well, all of 2020, including but certainly not limited to the virus itself. Kellie and her colleagues have seen a dramatic uptick in anxiety disorders and trauma responses. People have been stirred up by the political divide and social unrest. There is just a lot to process, and most people’s mental health has fluctuated wildly all year long. All of that is normal. In fact, Kellie hopes we can normalize talking about our feelings more, acknowledging them, and seeking to understand each other better. “I am okay, even though…” is a phrasing exercise she shared with me. She even bravely suggested that we face all our fears and express gratitude for what we discover in the pit, when we land there sometimes. Because we don’t stay there, and we can learn from it.

Besides counseling, what can people do to improve their mental and emotional well being?

Kellie advocates strongly for physical activity, not just for the obvious bodily rewards but also for “how it impacts mental health.” I asked her how much we need, and she answered swiftly, “As much as you can get.” She mentioned again the widespread prevalence this year of anxiety, depression, grief, and trauma; and she affirmed that moving your body can help with all of those ailments. Her own regimen has been a steady dose of walking every day (in the sun as often as possible) and attending Orange Theory. “OT Fitness is a gift,” she said blissfully. The gyms were closed for several months, of course, but now she is attending classes three or four times per week and loves it. She loves it for the endorphins and the muscle conditioning, and she loves it for how it helps her release pent up emotion. She also values the community there, all of which contribute to her overall well being.

She and I commiserated on other basic human needs like drinking lots of water, practicing good nutrition, seeking sunshine in all kinds of ways, and feeding true human connections. Connection is a big one, kind of a headline this year. “Go deep or go home,” she said, smiling and shrugging. The value of deep interpersonal connection is huge. We all have felt its absence then enjoyed its happy return, maybe this past year more than ever. Cultivate it in your life.

Kellie also urges everyone to consider what self care looks like, specifically to you. Be honest with yourself, test your instincts and hone them over time, then go ahead and tend to your needs. It’s ok. Maybe learn about the characteristics of introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts. The best self care you provide “will come from a place of truly knowing yourself” and “noticing the moment, being truly present in it.”

I wanted to hear some details about Kellie’s personal pandemic memories. Her favorite stress snacks were miniature chocolate-peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s. Yes, she always had more than enough toilet paper. Yes, she started a new hobby, gardening, though that is an example of how pandemic woke her from what she called “sleep walking.” She had been craving to start a garden for years, but a brief inkling of food scarcity in the grocery stores plus an abundance of time at home finally prompted her to just start. Yes, her first garden was beautiful and rewarding, and she plans to continue! Yes, she did plenty of baking, but more batches of cookies than loaves of bread, as she is still getting acquainted with the unfamiliar counter space in her new home. Did her view of essential work evolve over this past year? “I love the UPS drivers. I want to say thank you so much for working!”

And yes, she too is weary. She is weary of missing people, of missing community. Pandemic woke her up to many values, perhaps chief of which is that of defaulting to “Love my neighbor.” She has struggled with how some Christians resist masks and assert their beliefs in unloving, selfish ways.

Kellie is more intentional these days and is working to squash some people pleasing tendencies, choosing instead to listen to her gut and live authentically as much as possible. This has been empowering, and she does not bemoan the process. “Pain makes us grow,” she observed.

Kellie is in such a wondrous stage of metamorphosis, I wanted to capture the moment while anticipating what might come next. I asked her for a message she would give to her future self. She took a deep, calming breath then said, “Be present. Listen. Have fun. Chase sunshine! And Love your neighbors.”

Amen, my beautiful friend.

“I am full of freedom.”
~Kellie, November 2019
XOXOXOXO

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