(Part 1 is here)

Imagine a world… a world in which you get to finish a thought. Several thoughts. A world in which your day doesn’t start out with a bombardment of finding out who wants what via email, doesn’t have multiple people during the day asking you, “Can I ask you a question?”, and doesn’t have a child interrupting you with “Mommy/Daddy! Look! Look! Look!” A day without phones ringing, email beeps, text chirps, or any electronica at all. No newspaper, TV, or reading of any kind. In fact, a day without speaking to anyone or being spoken to — times seven. That was my week of silent retreat.

And to say it was lovely is an understatement. For the first time, I was in a group of 84 people who did not know my name, were not going to know it, and I wasn’t going to have 84 other people saying, “You’re from Texas? What a long way from here!” (it was in Massachusetts), or “What a fascinating job you have!” and then give me their health history and ask for nutritional advice. It was kind of bizarre, really, to realize that you were actually dealing only with yourself, because then all sorts of interesting things came up.

Like my instant judgment of people — not without some reason, of course ;-) But how I would typically deal with that would be to interact with the person to see if they really WERE a jerk and then decide from there. But now I couldn’t do that, so Mr. Walks Heavy Like Elephant did not endear himself to me after a week of making the floorboards shake, and I wanted to slap the woman I saw give a completely annoyed look to an innocent person blocking her way, and say, “Hey! Remember we’re supposed to be practicing Loving Kindness?!?” There was Mr. Bangs Dinner Plates Unnecessarily, Man Who Huffily Thought I Was Cutting In Front Of Him For Dinner (I wasn’t), and Ms. Is It COMPLETELY Necessary To Wear Skin Tight Yoga Clothing? as well. I’m still struggling to let go of my judgments of them obviously ;-)

But what an unbelievable luxury it was to be able to rest so completely. I didn’t realize how much and how often people and noise don’t allow you to relax — I noticed this one day when I was lying on the bed in my room. The window was wide open for the breeze, and the door was open as well. But all I heard was birds and the sound of the wind in the trees — people were around, but nobody was carrying on some conversation, walking from one place to another, there was no music coming from other rooms, and no one “dropped by” to chat. I could just lay there in peace and quiet — it was amazing.

I realize I’m sounding rather antisocial, and it’s not that, God knows. But it really pointed out to me how often most of us can’t finish a thought and then we start calling that ADD, when really, it’s mostly just that we’re never not distracted. When have we ever been trained to focus?

We meditated (if you chose to) multiple times a day, and did walks, and rested, with the request that we not have brought reading material (another distraction), which meant that you were really with yourself, 24/7. Which for some people brought up lots of shit, but for me, I’ve worked through a lot of that stuff, which allowed me to just practice the meditations, and think. And think I did — I solved several problems, had several insights, and am already trying to figure out how to go back.

I’ve told my staff that if they want a happy Marlene, I’m going to need to do something like that a couple of times a year AT LEAST!

Insight Meditation Society —Barre, Massachusetts. Five stars for sure.

I have this list of 50 Things I want to do in my lifetime (that’s a whole other post) and things on it include everything to running a marathon (did it), jumping out of an airplane (did it), to taking an Ikebana class while I was in Japan (did that, too). I want to take a performance driving class (haven’t done that one yet), go hot air ballooning (that one either), and travel to Alaska (did it), the Carribean (not yet), Japan (yes), and Australia/New Zealand (no). I want to go on a cruise (yes, I could knock that out with the Carribean thing at the same time, but I haven’t done that yet either), and I want to write a book (much closer on that one).

But one thing I’ve always wanted to do was a silent meditation retreat. I don’t know why, exactly, except that I know that I’m a bit overstimulated with everything that’s gone on, and really, I could use a break from everything. And what could be better than not only going someplace that restricts not just computer use, but phone use as well?

Not just computer and phone use, unfortunately — if you do a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts, you also aren’t going to be doing any reading, or even any writing, and obviously no chatting. I suspect everyone’s got their breaking point, and not being able to read is mine — immediately I was trying to figure out how to hide my Kindle in my bag, and if I could squeeze in a few pages before bed.

I then drag myself back to the thought that if I’m going to go up there and practice meditation, and be quiet 98% of the time (I think there are a couple of conversations to be had during the week, but basically totally silent), then really, I should get a grip on myself and go whole hog into the thing. Because if you think about it, in how many different ways do we distract ourselves?

We gave away our TV at the end of last year, but now I just play DVD’s in my computer. Or read my Kindle. Listen to my iPod in the car, or at the gym. Check in on Facebook several times a day, or read other blogs, or check out lolcats. I write lists and lists of things I need to do or remember. I honestly can’t think of the last time I wasn’t trying to balance about 27 things all at once and not forget anything, and I use any myriad of distractions to give myself a mental break.

People have told me that they learned things about themselves on these retreats that they never would have uncovered; that they finally got peace and quiet in their minds around the 5th day. Honestly, I wish desperately for that, and can’t imagine it. And since I’m making the effort to do this, I’ll play by the rules and leave my electronics at home. Like not just bring them and leave them in the car, or have them turned off in my room. I will actually leave them in NY and drive 4 hours away.

It starts in 3 days, and I’ll be sure to post when I return. I don’t know what to expect either, although one of my office assistants was slightly worried that I’d “lose my edge”, as she put it. Fat chance of that — although I personally think I’m walking on some sort of edge and not necessarily a good one and could use a little blunting, personally speaking!

I’ve always wanted to do this, and the opportunity never arose until now. If you don’t know what Rolfing is, it’s basically like undoing all the muscular adhesions in your body that start to build up over time. And they cause things that you probably think aren’t reversible, like your bum shoulder, or your stiff low back, or your knee problems. Rolfers undo all the stuck bits so that your muscles actually can move the way they’re supposed to. Which, magically, clears up all sorts of stuff.

I’m as guilty as the next person with “putting up” with stuff because… I get busy, or I think stretching enough will fix it (and since I’m not stretching enough, that’s why it won’t go away), or it doesn’t ALWAYS bother me, so I forget about it. For a while. The premise of rolfing is that things get screwed up muscularly because we’re always fighting against gravity. Look at yourself the next time you’re at the computer. Gravity is pulling your shoulders forward and down, so your head starts to jut forward to see the screen, and you might be raising your shoulders because your keyboard is too high… never mind how you stand during the day! That’s why the Rolf Institute’s logo is like this:

If you go whole hog, Rolfing is in 10 sessions, with each session focusing on something specific: chest and shoulders, or outside line of your body, or back line, or neck and head, etc. I remember hearing about this nearly 20 years ago — how Rolfers would actually release the muscles of your jaws. At the time, I wasn’t so sure about it, but after nearly 2 decades of running my own business, I’m thinking my jaws could use a break ;-)

I’ll have to let you know about the jaw session — it’s next week. The guy I’m seeing here in Austin is fantastic — Christopher Horan. You can’t call these people “deep massage therapists” — it’s really a disservice to the level of training they have to do. They have to live in Boulder (poor things) and go to school at the Rolf Institute for, like, ever before they graduate.

And people have some association that Rolfing is enormously painful, and it could be, but Chris does a great job of getting results and not giving me the experience of torture. In fact, I’d have to say that walking around uncomfortably 24/7 is more than anything he could dish up.

I have to tell you, though — he’s started fixing things that I was certain would never go away. I’m hoping he’ll take me back the proverbial decade in physical mobility — while I can’t actually get my foot behind my head, yet, I can definitely see some movement in that direction!

I don’t know why this still amazes me, but I’m always impressed? confounded? made a bit speechless? by the presumption of people. By that I mean, the certainty with which people have statements fall out of their mouths. You’ve heard these before — in fact, you may have even said versions of these yourself:

• “She’ll never agree.”

• “He doesn’t do stuff like that.”

• “I KNOW how that social event/class/country/opportunity of any kind is going to go or be (even though I’ve never been there, done that before) so I don’t want to/am not going to do it.”

And my personal favorite:

• “But I’ve tried EVERYTHING.”  and it’s cousin, “I’m not actually here for X (because it’s as good as it’s going to get), I’m here for Y.”

(I always have to restrain myself from saying, “Really? You’ve tried everything? Because I’ve never seen you in my office before.” The sarcastic monologues in my head never cease to entertain me.)

Now, I’m not talking about the people who don’t know what they don’t know, and who arrive at our office open to new thoughts and ideas. I’m talking about the people who are essentially saying this:

• “I’ve tried everything I WANTED to try, and when it didn’t work (fast enough), I gave up and decided to come here for a magic pill. Do you have one?”  Or:

• “I’ve tried everything my M.D. recommended.” Or:

• “I’m here because my spouse/parent/good friend thinks I should be here.”

Hey (as I mentally shrug my shoulders), as long as their mind is like a parachute (functions better when open —surely you’ve seen that bumper sticker?), then we can get somewhere…

But the point of this post (and I do have one) is that I think we have very little practice in being comfortable being uncomfortable. Like stepping outside of the box, entertaining a different idea, questioning or being skeptical. So instead of researching, or talking to others, or trying something first and THEN keeping it or discarding it, we stay within the confines of our box.

I have a patient who came to me with MS. She’s in her 30′s and having lots of symptoms and pain. We ran a detailed panel for celiac disease (it even includes a DNA sample), and she came back positive. Her neurologist wouldn’t run the test — he said he rarely saw a correlation. (We, on the other hand, nearly always see a correlation). In a mere 4 weeks of eating gluten-free, she feels fantastic. She wants to get off the drugs. She simply cannot BELIEVE the difference. And I’m thinking, maybe she doesn’t actually have MS. Maybe she just has celiac and now she can manage it.

Or the people who come in with “high” cholesterol, and we run a blood test (the VAP test) that tests for the sub-particles of the cholesterol, the TRUE test of what’s dangerous or not. And their tests come back that they have the good kind of sub-particles, and that their “high” cholesterol is not dangerous, so they don’t need a statin. And they ask why their doctor doesn’t run those tests, and I don’t have a good answer for them, since those tests are just as available to MD’s.

And the doctors who share cancer and auto-immune disease patients with us, who, (on our recommendation) run a Vitamin D test and shocker! it comes back frighteningly low and the doctor then recommends getting on a D supplement. There are over 800 studies linking low Vitamin D to cancer and auto-immune disease. And yet both the patients and the doctors haven’t researched it at all.

If I got a diagnosis of something, or my marriage was falling apart, or my (hypothetical) kid was ill, I’d turn the world upside-down looking for whatever might make a difference. I’d read whatever, talk to whomever, try everything. I’m not talking about waving crystals around and hoping that’ll do it (although if the research showed it helped…) — but I AM talking about being willing to be uncomfortable and keep an open mind.

Because that MS patient? She gets a new life because she tried something different.

Where do you KNOW how something or someone is? CERTAIN you know how it’s going to go?

(And just so you know, it’s not like I don’t do this, too. I’m positive I’m never going to go bungee-jumping, even though I haven’t done it before. I KNOW how my stomach is going to feel ;-)  )

Just when I was thinking things were starting to get calmer around the office, my new-by-only-4-weeks office manager gave me notice this past Wednesday. She realized that, although she had asked me for the job, that she hadn’t really known how… detailed? brain-intensive? complicated? it was, and she realized that she didn’t have enough brain cells left for her college courses afterward. I can totally understand that — I just wish “we” had known this before I spent 5 weeks training her. I had just started to relax a micron and this announcement made me lose my appetite again.

I bit the bullet this time and posted a detailed job listing on Craig’s List. I explained exactly what I wanted — someone with office manager experience, insurance billing experience, detail-oriented, ability to manage multiple projects at once — I thought if I at least asked for EXACTLY what I wanted, maybe I’d actually get it this time.

What I DID get was 150 resumés in 36 hours, before I pulled the ad. And I learned a few things, noticed a few things, and was left speechless by many.

For example, I asked for three things: a cover letter, a resumé, and references. What I got was often NOT that. I’d get a blank email, with just the resumé. I got multiple people who said “References upon request.” Hello? I JUST ASKED FOR THEM! You do NOT want to make someone going through 150 resumés work any harder, believe me. DELETE!

So was the guy who wrote back, asking for the name and email of the person to whom he should send his resumé. 149 other people simply responded to the email — you want special treatment? DELETE!

Or the person who wrote “Dear Sirs” — I couldn’t delete that one fast enough.

How about, “I’m wonderful at mulit-tasking?” Hello! Any good at spelling as well? DELETE!

Or the person who wrote: “If you could please send me details of the company, as well as job requirements, etc. at your early convenience, it would be greatly appreciated.” Did you read the job description IN THE AD? Ever heard of the internet, where the business (which was named in the ad) has it’s own website? DELETE!

Then there was the cover letter that started out with “Dearest Merritt Wellness Center…” and was signed “Love, Staci” (with an “i”, of course — although no heart to dot the “i” <smirk>). I can appreciate less formal, but really? DELETE!

At least she wrote me specifically — I wanted to beg people, Please! Make me feel special! Write a cover letter JUST FOR ME!

There was the guy who sent me a cover letter from a job he had apparently applied for four days before, since it had the wrong date on it, and clearly stated it was for a Warehouse Manager position. Did you REALLY just do that? DELETE!

Maybe other employers don’t care about attention-to-detail, but I really REALLY need someone who is (I wrote that specifically!), so why, oh why did I get so many typos and spelling mistakes and grammatical mistakes, not just in cover letters and emails, but also in the actual resumés? Has anyone noticed those red lines underneath some words? Because they mean something and they’re all over your document. And those green underlines? You might just check those as well. I tell you, it made me mourn the loss of… I don’t exactly know what, but something. My editor/writer father is turning over in his grave.

Then there was the category of YOU’RE BEING HIRED TO MAKE MY LIFE EASIER, SO MAKE YOUR HIRING EASY FOR ME.

Because, of course, someone sent me a resumé in 9-point. I don’t yet wear glasses, but apparently you think I should.

Or this cover letter that was the body of the email:

Ever heard of bullet-points? DELETE! I got a resumé like that too — all in paragraph form. That was a delete too.

Then there was the person who wrote in her cover letter that she looked forward to working in “a positive environment that appreciates diversity”. I was immediately suspicious — enough so, that I wrote her back (really just to see what she would say) and asked her what exactly did she mean by that? She wrote back (expressing surprise that no one ever asked that of her general cover letter) and said that she had had “experiences where employers had “isolated” her or tried to change her, or thought she shouldn’t be in the forefront of an office because she didn’t fit a particular mold or look”. Now I’m suspicious with some evidence. DELETE!

I could go on and on…

What I did start to notice was this: if someone had lived in a foreign country, or had lived even outside Texas, or did volunteer work, or was in any way interesting, they got extra points. If they took some time to stick a graphic in their resumé, extra point. One person got multiple extra points because she not only looked us up, but then addressed the cover letter to all three practitioners. Extra point if they worked in a different field than business administration, or retail, or real estate — that stuff all ran together, so I tended to delete them. These might be good people, but they all look the same on paper.

After 100 resumés, people also started getting extra points if their documents were PDF’s and lost points if it opened in anything less than 150%, since at some point, my eyes felt like they were bleeding.

After all that, I might have found the perfect person. But first I had to jump to some bizarre conclusion about the person’s name — it’s one of those names that could be either gender, and for some reason, my brain decided this person was female. No particular reason, other than I suspect I thought that Office Manager = female, quite probably because every other office manager I’ve had has been. How sexist of me ;-) So when I interviewed the person on the phone, she sounded kind of butch (which I didn’t care about), and she interviewed great, so I googled her. Turns out she has a Twitter account with what looked like a picture of her brother? OK, my brain says, maybe she doesn’t want her picture on her account and put someone else’s there. You can see where this is going. Unfortunately, it had to continue all the way into me being on the phone with one of the references, and me asking, “Is there anything in particular I need to know about her?” with the former boss responding with a completely different pronoun.

Turns out the person is male, has never been anything BUT male, and my brain just took me down some road that had nothing to do with reality. I actually told the new guy, because it made me laugh so hard when I figured out what I had done! I’m hoping he doesn’t hold it against me ;-) but it seems like he’s got a great sense of humor, too.

When my sister and I were kids, I remember sitting at the dinner table watching my parents quiz her on geography. I don’t know why I escaped this (I can only assume that, at the age of 7 or 8, she must have demonstrated some grossly obvious lack of knowledge) so my parents took it upon themselves to test her nightly. It’s a pity parents don’t do much of that now, because my sister is frighteningly good at geography, even 35+ years later.

Unfortunately, she’s not held up as a shining example of Americans and geography. By all accounts, we’re GHASTLY at knowing anything about anywhere else (although I have to tell you, I felt all better when once I was playing Trivial Pursuit in England, and the people I was playing with didn’t know where Montana was. They changed the card to Northern Ireland ;-). On the other hand, now that I think about it, I’m not sure I know many Americans living outside of Montana who could pick it out on a map…).

We have examples like this to horrify us:

I suppose it could get worse than this, but it’s hard to imagine.

Sometime after this, some video floated by with a Frenchman on a similar game show being unable to distinguish if the moon went around the earth or vice versa. Made me feel much better.

Then, of course, there’s Sarah Palin, and her infamous comment about knowing foreign policy because she can see Russia from where she lives. Really? 2000 miles away? No wonder she’s so good at shooting things from helicopters.

Now, all that being said, it’s not like I know where everything is either (although I know enough to NOT say I can see another continent from my house ;-) ). So when my friend in England (hi, Louise!) invited me to come to Spain with her this summer, I laughed out loud when I read her email. It included the flurry of terms and towns that seem natural to someone taking the ferry from England to Spain (there’s a ferry that goes THAT far?!?) and threw in English-sounding (apparently Spanish) towns like Santander and, just when I was getting lost as to where A Coruna was, she wrote (in parentheses) “the top left of Spain”.

Ah, bless you for knowing I was clueless. Spain I can find. Small towns somewhere IN Spain? Not so much.

I sometimes have to describe for people where Austin is, and my best explanation is that it’s smack dab in the middle of Texas. But if I had to describe for people where NYC was, I’m thinking saying, “the bottom right of the state, by the ocean” would get them really close.

Because help it did – after that, I pulled A Coruna right up on Google Maps.

View Larger Map

I don’t think it gets more top left than that.

So yes, that will be my summer vacation (I’m going to pretend that volcano in Iceland doesn’t exist). You may all be envious starting… now. ;-)

-

I was at my gym a couple of days ago, and as gyms go, it’s pretty nice. Considering I fork out $60 a month for it, it should be pretty nice. It’s got great equipment, location is awesome, I have my own locker there so I don’t have to drag stuff around, and they give you towels, which was one of my deal-breakers, since I LOATHE carrying around damp towels.

Anyway, I was leaving the gym and this kid stops me and asks if I can fill out this survey. Sure, I say, but after reading the first question, I looked up at him with some exasperation.

“1 – 5: Rate how important it is to you that the front desk staff of your gym is courteous.” Seriously?

He explained that the owner of the gym (it’s a local gym, which is also awesome) had come to his graduate business class, and as a thanks, the class put together a survey for him, just to give him an indication of how he was doing. Which would have been fine, except that none of the questions were ever going to tell the guy ANYTHING.

“1 – 5: Rate how important it is to you that there is a good choice of cardiovascular equipment.”

“1 – 5: Rate how important it is that your personal trainer know your name.” (I swear it said that.)

“1 – 5: Rate how important it is to you that the showers and rest room are clean.”

Yup – 30 questions. Not a single one any more challenging than that.

You must be fucking kidding me. Which is pretty much what I said to the guy. He grudgingly admitted that maybe there wasn’t any critical thinking in these questions (duh!) and my first thought is thank God no taxpayer money is going towards his “education”. I mean, really — how much would it have taken to ask questions like “1 – 5: Is your gym fulfilling your exercise goals?” or “Have you ever used any of the personal trainers? If not, why not?” or “1 – 5: Do you wish there were easier yoga classes?” Whatever, but not this Pablum.

Of course, when there was a blank box at the end for Comments, I couldn’t restrain myself. “Is this REALLY a survey?” I wrote. “Are you really in grad school? Because this was a remarkable WASTE OF TIME.” OK, possibly a little harsh, but I wouldn’t hire a kid like that in a million years. A lack of critical thinking is one of my biggest complaints about people (see my post about being a lemming).

God knows how that class of “graduate students” is going to survive in the big, bad business world.

**Update**
I was in the gym again this morning, and there was yet another grad student there, who, yet again, asked if I wanted to fill out a survey. Poor thing — I had just written this post and she was just standing there, all hope and vulnerability… which I then (somewhat ruthlessly) quashed, since there was no arguing about the imbecility of those questions. She got real sheepish, and I got clear where with what most annoyed me:

At some point while they were putting this together as a team, someone somewhere probably had a thought like, “This sounds like a bunch of third-graders!” but then said nothing for reasons of laziness or wanting to fit in or whatever.

And the other annoyance is that the “instructor” is allowing this third-grade work to parade around like it’s graduate level. And those students know it as well, but let it slide. And this is the supposedly world-class university located here in Austin? Lovely…

This past weekend we were in Albuquerque, speaking at a national conference for acupuncturists. You might remember my post (aptly titled, “They Want WHAT? WHEN?”) about nearly throttling Will when we applied for this opportunity back in August — now we were finally here and (hopefully) ready to produce the goods. If you’ve read my past few posts, you might have seen we had a lot of other things to deal with, and since this was a topic in which we were really fluent, we might have maybe been slightly less prepared than I would have liked…

The thing is, we had no idea what to expect. We were talking about something not really related to Oriental medicine — insulin resistance, to be specific, in relation to infertility and PCOS, and for all I knew,  we could have been lecturing to 12 people. I wasn’t sure if those die-hard acupuncture purists wouldn’t necessarily be interested in a topic so “Western”.

I started getting a sense that maybe things were not what I thought when I was talking to a conference participant on Friday (we were speaking Saturday afternoon). I was looking down at something in my hands when she said she couldn’t get into our course because it was full.

My head swiveled around. “Full?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It closed three weeks ago.”

That’s when I thought I should get some numbers as to what “full” meant. Apparently it means 120 people (fire code prevented more). Well now, that’s a LOT more interesting than having some little table chat with twelve.

I’ll post pictures if I can get some, but (and forgive me if I’m waving my own flag here — really what I’m doing is jumping up and down, screaming) it was a huge success. I guess you could measure that by seeing that the room was still full by the end, since they didn’t wander away during the breaks, and that it was standing room only, but I prefer to remember it from the throngs of people who crowded us at the end, and the huge applause we got, and the multiple people who came up to us later, saying that this was the best lecture of the whole conference.

We had several MD’s in the course, and one of them came up to me and said that he wished someone had explained blood sugar like we did in his medical school training — very high praise, indeed.

I supposed you could also measure it by the enthusiasm of the conference head, who said that she wanted more people who could bridge the gap between Western and Eastern like we could, and that she’d love to have us in the conference next year, and would we be interested in submitting an article for their journal. Um, yes, of course.

I’m not saying these things aren’t stressful — I woke up Monday morning, in my own bed, more relaxed than I had been in several days weeks, but I have to say, it’s intoxicating to 1. see the difference that we made, and the feedback we’ve gotten since, and 2. have made such great strides in life’s popularity contest ;-)

On a different note (although somewhat related to the popularity contest), I’ve heard from many, many people that they love my blog! they find me so funny! so insightful! Well, that’s great new for the person who feels like she occasionally just hurling words out into the bottomless pit of the internet. So if any of you want to leave a comment now or then, that would probably cause me to exclaim in glee again, as I burrow daily out from under the spam comments that are constantly generated by the lovely interwebs. If you’d like, I can make sure that my exclaiming includes some swear words for emphasis ;-)

I finally succumbed and bought a pair of these. After I made fun of Will (who also has a pair) for about 3 weeks, of course, and also banned them from the office, since they make you look like a complete DORK.

Actually, this photo makes me a little dizzy — I could have probably lined things up a little better. The leaning over isn’t helping much either, I think…

Dorkiness aside, I find that people are simultaneously intrigued and a little repulsed by these shoes, until I explain the purpose behind them, and then they nod their heads and completely agree, and privately suspect that they could use a pair as well…

What I say is this: your feet have 4 layers of muscle in them, and what we do, instead of walking barefoot, is stick our feet into shoes that have lots of support, or little support, and walk (or not) all day in them, and over time, our feet get weak. Our arches fall. We develop feet problems and provide work for podiatrists and orthopedic doctors.

Ever notice the feet on someone who does a lot of yoga? Their feet are all tendinous, and strong, because they use them for balance. People even talk about how they get their arches back, as their feet get stronger. These shoes are designed to basically do the same things as walking barefoot, without the concern of stepping on something that will cut your foot — it’s training your feet to get stronger, with each toe learning it’s job, and all the muscles gradually strengthening your foot.

They (the people who make the shoes — Vibram, the makers of those Vibram soles on so many shoes) recommend starting with an hour a day of walking in them, and let me tell you — the first day I walked in the park with them, for a mere 30 minutes, my baby toe on my left foot WAS EXHAUSTED. Now THAT’S a bizarre feeling. When do you ever notice your baby toe, except when you slam it into the coffee table leg?

I’m actually doing all this because I’ve had a nagging case of plantar fascitiis for about 8 months (I didn’t run the Chicago marathon because of this) and while we treat it regularly in the office, all the standard things have not made a difference. So instead of babying my foot, and getting special orthotics and other crutches, I’m going to attempt to get my foot a bit stronger, and see if I can start getting an arch (or two), which I admittedly have never had.

Clearly, I’m not suffering from low self-esteem, if I can walk around in these shoes ;-)

I don’t know about you, but I LOATHE hearing recordings of myself, most pictures of myself (thank God for Photoshop) and, most of all, videos of myself. We’re always our own worst critic, aren’t we? Our voices don’t sound like they do in our heads, we think we should have said it differently, or God forbid, misspoke, and our own laughter grates on our ears. We’re sure everyone notices that it’s a bad hair day, that zit, or our awful profile. I could go on and on, but I can see you’re all nodding your heads in agreement, of course.

That being said, I sucked it up and got a professional videographer (who won two Emmys for CNN, actually — God knows what she’s doing filming small fry like me, since she won one of her Emmys in Somalia filming the Black Hawk Down incident) to film me explaining blood sugar and how we all ended up with apple shapes, muffin top, and diabetes.

Probably because I say this to nearly every new patient we see, it wasn’t that hard for me to say it all again on film — I did all the filming in one shot, with no cue cards and only one interruption. I had no idea, but apparently that’s a big deal.

Apparently I’m really good at explaining it. Or so a few people tell me :-)

Here are all four videos: http://www.youtube.com/merrittwellness They only take a few minutes to play and they flow from one into the next.

I refuse to look at the finished products, and instead have to have my office staff tell me if they’re OK. The same thing for the videos we did for our office, and the video we did as an example of our lecturing… I’m such a dork, I know ;-)

Anyway, the reason I agreed to do it is because I’m really DESPERATE (for lack of a better word) to interrupt what’s going on in this country regarding how we eat, and why everyone is fat, and how hopeless they all feel about changing that. Never mind actually being able to reverse it, which is what we’re doing in our office. And the response, thank God, has been overwhelming.

I had a patient who forwarded the videos to her diabetic father, who said that I was clearer than any of the doctors he had ever been to, threw out what was in his fridge, started eating like I recommended, and hasn’t felt this good in years.

Or the call I got from a perfect stranger yesterday, who found the videos in some search and said no one had every explained it like that, and how she saw all the things she was doing wrong, and no wonder she was obese!

Or the number of people who reposted the videos on their own Facebook pages after I had put them up, and the comments I got from perfect strangers – awesome.

That’s why I did it — because there are only a certain amount of people I can talk to in a day, or in a year. But Youtube? That’ll reach everywhere.