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Balancing Body, Mind, Spirit (etc.): Old Year's Reflections Make Way for New Year's Resolutions
Sun, 12/30/2012 - 4:23am
The recent snowstorm was wonderful, in my mind. It fell gently yet substantially between winter solstice and Christmas, and provided something for the body, mind, and spirit. Balancing body, mind, and spirit (and etc.) is the key to the wellness/illness teeter totter. I prefer to have days in the time from solstice to the new year comes to reflect on where I am at, what the last seasons brought since the beginning of the year, and before.
"Integrative medicine" utilizes the mind, body, spirit approach, as you likely know if you're a frequent visitor to Lumigrate, or have looked around on this visit. Since Lumigrate and I are 'intimately connected', my time naturally also goes to looking at where Lumigrate is and where it has been in 2012.
Integrative medicine has caught on increasingly since I set out five years ago now, to create an educational website about integrative, "mind, body, spirit" medicine, as insurance-based occupational therapy practice was leaving me frustrated professionally, financially, and frankly concerned about the well-being of the patients I worked so hard in my 20s and 30s to learn how to "serve". Five years ago I was making the decision to 'surrender' my contract with a very good physical therapy clinic within a very good allopathic medical building here in the acclaimed city of Grand Junction, Colorado.
It was a big decision, and it literally felt like a military surrender to me: unless every variable went in my favor every month, we couldn't be in the black. The only way to get my revenues high enough to support myself AND all the overhead of employees, technology, space, etc., and give myself money for health insurance, health care, and salary would be to hire an aid to work with the assistant and free me up to be seeing more patients. But there wasn't enough 'room at the inn' for that, as the PTs had to max out aids and assistants and -- it was a dead end! Sadly, I had to realize that it was impossible for me to 'do' occupational therapy with the ethics and morals and "M.O.", and perhaps 'personality' that I have.
So this year was really time for me to reflect on having make the leap to the Internet and melding a website that's an amalgam of all my professional experience -- from the basics I learned at my first job tending to my family's commercial kennel, through administration of a world-renowned air quality research program, health education at the student health center at Colorado State University, then being part of various medical teams as an OT, from hospitals to skilled nursing facilities to driving rehabilitation, home health and finally outpatient which lead back to education and 'hooked me' into what you now see as Lumigrate.com.
Again, five years later. Much water under the bridge, or in this case maybe it is snow or slushy ice. It is winter, boy is it winter! Sub zero temperatures are on the way, even here in the 'banana belt' of Colorado, which is actually the grape, apple, peach, aprictot, cherry belt.
My mind, body, and spirit were nourished and inspired by the snowstorm. I initially enjoyed watching the snow fall as I talked with a prospective client who had found me on Facebook and asked if I could do a phone call; people's mind, body, spirit concerns don't stop just because it is Christmas, as a matter of fact, there tends to be a little surge, perhaps brought on by the winter and pressures of the season. I realized the roads had gotten pretty bad so we'd better just make due with what was already here, fortunately I had done shopping in preparation for holiday obligations already.
I looked out, as the snow poured down and blanketed the world around me with the hush only a heavy snowstorm can, to the area where there are normally deer. One of which, a doe, I tended to not long before, and stood with in spirit while it's life ended as the news of Sandy Hook sunk in earlier this month, leaving everyone with guns, whether legal or not on their belts or in their cars so concerned they were conservative about using them, leading me to wish I had taken 'everyone's advise' over the years and gotten a gun. The situation was solved by a cowboy with a legal-length knife who was a skilled passer-by that night. I'd just learned of the tragedy in Newtown and was quickly running to the store to pick up something fast and come back to watch news -- it just seemed like something significant to be the first responder to try to keep other cars/occupants safe and prevent more trauma to the deer than necessary.
So this day in the snowstorm, midday, the deer were coming, what a STRANGE time for them but wait ---- are those ---- cows? It brought a smile, just the surprise of it not being large, dark deer. I thought I needed new glasses, but I fortunately had just gotten new ones, the first in six years. Glasses for me, having had a brain injury at birth and other learning disabilities, are an expensive item taking specialized optomety experts hours away from where I live, and a month to manufacture. But worth every bit, they were life-changing to get back in my early adulthood when this was all finally diagnosed and therefore treated properly, for the first time in my life, thus allowing me to get the grades required to get into a difficult, esteemed program like the CSU OT program (I was the class of 1994-1996, the end of the 'reign' of the good old days of that type of program and medicine.)
I thought about my surgery that was six years ago, preventing me from shoveling snow for a couple of months and also preventing safe travel 'home' back when I had family to spend Christmas with, my father has since passed, and for the first time, having to fend for myself on Christmas. It was preparing me for being 'an orphan' as we middle aged people semi-jokingly call it nowdays. I survived just fine, coworkers and friends took up the slack, and it prepared me for being the orphan I am this year. Patients were so kind, one with Huntington's Disease made and froze soup for me, even -- how nice is THAT?
It is actually a liberation in a way, to be able to not be 'cramming' too much in at this time of year, and perhaps that is a lot of why people have so many illnesses after the holidays. I compare notes on how I was then to how I am now wellness/illness-wise, and look to the future for what I intend to do and 'be'.
In some regards, the effects of having a computer-based business instead of one where I'm flying around in a clinic, up and down stairs to talk to other offices, etc., and the structure of the schedule has not been the best for my health, I see areas of my life which are not as I want them to be, and must do my 'self-work' to make changes. So I write and share this today to as YOU to think about where you are at, and I will be putting this out there for the experts at Lumigrate to add their perspectives. I thank you all in advance for reading, and particularly the experts for taking the time to provide their expertise here, with you in mind.
My time for reflection ended with the sound ouf scraping of sidewalks, so I ventured out with the others to shovel the driveways and walkways, seeing neighbors who were in the holiday spirit, and someone generously suggesting we all get together for dinner. By adjusting who ate what and pooling our resources, it worked out beautifully. "We could not have planned this better!" seems to happen a LOT around me these days. I hope that means I'm doing something right on the spiritual side of the mind, body, spirit wellness wheel.
My body was tired, but in a good way, from the exercise of shoveling, something I was in shape for in my younger years growing up in the mountains of Colorado on a "hobby farm" with much shoveling, including the kennel runs. And I am grateful to still be one of the more capable shovelers around my suburban area, but it strikes me how many people have lower back issues and just have resigned themselves to that is how it is for people as they get older.
I get to see the results and the 'payoff' for the investment I have made in time, energy and money (the three resources every has to work with) from 'integrating' my health care team since my 30s to include someone who is working regularly on the maintenance of the structure and nervous system of my body, such as doctors of chiropractic, osteopathy, physical therapy, and even naturopathy learns these skills. I believe it 'pays off', and as I always tell people, I shifted my vacation budget to health care and now every day is a relative vacation for me living in my body!
I invite you to look at the Lumigrate You Model and as yourself, for 2013, who do YOU want to have on yours? Hey, it's NEW YEARS -- dream big! Make up your dream team on a piece of paper, just draw it out. Put it where you'll look at it on a regular basis, work throughout the year on steps toward having that, and if you find the process heads you in a beneficial direction, which I believe it most likely will, do it again NEXT YEAR, and come back here on a regular basis to get continuing education if you like the information we have. Set it up in whatever means works for YOU to do that on a regular basis. Lets do this together!
My heart was touched by the comaradarie of neighbors and the 'coincidences' that I saw unfold that evening, which to me, are simply feedback that things are right where they are intended by 'Spirit' to be. Integrating body, mind and spirit, to look at the "whole person of me", was much easier when spontaneously having the snow which turned to fun with neighbors who could be spontaneous and open to having a 'framily' celebration of the holiday, which was unique and delightful. 
I had planned to have more time 'off' from working to do things I wanted to get done inside my home, for me/my well-being. With the concerns raised again in December with the Newtown mass murder and suicide, on the heels of Colorado's July incident in Aurora, I'd flown into action right away and had added unexpected research and writing to my plate in order to have answers from my and Lumigrate's point of view about what was contributing to these concerning behaviors by our fellow Americans.
The source I found to link/refer to is a psychiatrist on the East Coast who is studying diet and mental health, who breaks it down very simply AND who takes a mind, body, spirit approach, referring to having fun, sleeping, drinking water, and eating foods that your body isn't reacting to.
I slept well after the fun of the snow and exercise, with a nice dinner with the nice people that surround us every day, and remarked about how my last year's resolution had included being a better neighbor; I perhaps am a better Facebook friend than I was being a neighbor. What I am finding as I look ahead to New Year 2013, there is a need more than ever to be kind to one another, those closest to us geographically, even when we have diffferent spiritual or political beliefs. Also, having your personal resiliency fortified on all three fronts: mind, body and spirit. There is increased dysfunction all around us. "Why" weighed heavily on my mind and on others'.
I suggest people make adjustments, such as my example of realizing many people don't have proper tires and would be 'having' to get shopping done since everything was going to be closed on Christmas Day, making it not very safe on the roads, so I adjusted rather than 'sticking with the plan'. I remember in my mid 30s turning around at the Interstate to go to Denver for a friend's birthday party, where I was to bring ALL the liquid refreshments, and deciding to turn back and go home when a trucker at the fuel station said 'Ma'am, if you don't have to go, don't, it's really bad' -- and he saw my vehicle and tires, it was very equipped for Colorado winters. My gal pals in Denver all 'woosed out' also, as we affectionately call it, and since the birthday girls' family all braved it, the party went on but they had to make do without the things I was going to bring. And I was 'shamed' for my decision in a way, and can reflect now that the types of friends I have made and kept has shifted as I change the way that I value myself, my mind, body, spirit. I share this for our readers' benefit, perhaps it will resonate for YOU related to that aspect of your well-being, the social aspect.
The deer that was hit by a vehicle was the victim of a medically impaired driver whose family came back, explaining the driver wasn't processing "psycho-motor" (mind/body) well due to a medical condition, but as for 'spirit', ironically, was distracted by the religious music playing in the car which was having to be learned for a performance the next day at chuch. No alcohol having been consumed/involved, just medical/mental problems -- can you really separate the body wellness and the brain/mind? Not in integrative medicine's 'book'. So for 2013, in light of my researching and writing in 2012 about these tragic events happening so regularly now with guns in the hands of people whose minds/brains/bodies are not working properly, I hope we at Lumigrate can break that barrier of 'mental' and roll it into 'whole of body/mind/spirit' and integrate that into the core of every person reading this article. My position related to mental health is that it has to do with the nutrition, not just of the current generations but our prededecessors, epigenetics and genetics research shows increasingly that genes are affected by foods. So for 2013, starting this moment even, look at nutrition for YOU and those you serve, for that reason alone! Hopefully you'll look and feel the way you want physically as well.
I look forward to 2013 with Lumigrate, since we were all balancing our lives and the many demands and customers we have, the new website will be up in the new not the old year, that's much to look forward to and much 'to do'. We have more focus on my role as a health concierge and being able to do functional strategy sessions for those who wish to undertake 'peeling the onion' with me helping YOU in that YOU role, and utilize the appropriate Lumigrate experts or find others who 'fit' your needs.
As we go into the New Year, I want to particularly point out our coaches: health coaches, life coaches, spirituality coaches -- we've got one of each with Dr Paula King, Gwen Pettit, PT, and Beth Patterson, respectively. (I need to ask when she will become a Dr. Beth, as she is in a doctoral program for religious sciences. Lest you think we're all serious spirituality, on Christmas she posted a FB photo she snapped of herself with a 'naughty and nice' expression and asked the question and made the statement that she didn't think St. Nicholas would get confused, as Santa has, about naughty and nice not being opposites. She dressed up in humorous attire while delivering meals on wheels to people and got a cute photo of herself in her car.)
Balance, as represented with yin/yang: 
We had no NEW experts join us in 2012, as we had such GRATE ones going into the year and I wanted things to just 'settle' and prepare the new website and this "return of focus" for me, finally, on what I was intending to do from the beginning of my time after leaving occupational therapy and insurance-based medicine: consult with people on their life history, peeling the onion, finding stones unturned or turned over wrong, and directing them to resources so they can have a more time-, energy- and cost-effective life related to their health and well-being.
Lastly, I want to close with how the Grate group ended out the fall, saying our goodbyes on Lumigrate to our comrade in arms here, Gary King, with Yenta kicking off a lovely tribute where all who 'knew him' through Lumigrate or otherwise, commented and added onto. We will leave 2012 with best-selling author Dr Jacob Teitelbaum being our last NEW registered user, motivated by the opportunity to post on the topic we created in Gary's honor. It was wonderful to see his face on that thread, I was very proud of what Lumigrate offered in that regard, and really, overall. These five years have been a lot of work, a lot of learning, a lot of change for me, but I trust that we are making an impact on the lives of those who embrace our mind, body, spirit 'integrative medicine' approach.
I hope that you make Lumigrate a part of your 2013. Contact Us about whatever your needs are and I'll personally help connect you to an expert or information to help you make 2013 what YOU want it to be. And now, I turn it over to other experts here to add their expertise for YOU for 2013!
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Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
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Interesting update, Mardy. I thought it was a good place to 'integrate' what I posted here on Jan 3, 2011.
Resolution List- Do you start out the New Year with a long list of things that you want to accomplish?
Here are some ideas to help you feel good about your resolutions.
1. Think big
for every day that you accomplish one of the big items.
Have two or three overall themes that guide your actions all year long. Post them up where you can read them every morning and reflect on them every evening. Give yourself a gold star
Here are my personal favorites-
Spend more time with fun people and less time with people who complain
The second plan I have this year is to focus on one area each month. January is energy month.
I am tracking the situations and jobs that I get excited and energized to do.
I am also paying attention to the things that I ignore or put off again and again.
I am going to let that list guide how I spend my time and what things I agree to do for others. I want to learn what things are of the highest value for me and what things I need to give away or stop doing all together.
You can find this at my blog at this link, for future reference --
gpspiralcoaching.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/new-years-resolution-chart/
AND I have a new topic this fall at my blog site, which fits well here, too, at gpspiralcoaching.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/pay-attention/
Gwen is a life transitions coach who looks forward to your email at gpspiral@gmail.com. You will gain balance in health, life and play from coaching with Gwen. She is a regular contributor to Lumigrate's forum on life and health coaching (www.lumigrate.com/forums/integrative-medicine-parts-make-whole/therapy-behavioralmental-health/life-and-health-coaches) and has her own website presence for more learning if you follow to www.gpspiralconsulting.com
I'm also adding a previous stand-alone topic from the old days here at Lumigrate, as it applies here so well.
For most people losing weight is a trying experience. Trying every diet that comes along, trying what each and every weight loss expert says you should do, trying to stay away from the “bad” foods, trying to exercise, trying to eat the ‘right” foods, trying to stick to the plans and goals you’ve set for yourself, trying again to lose the weight you regained after the last time you tried to lose it.
Yes, it’s about trying, trying, and trying some more. Many people who are "trying to lose weight" say they are doing so because they need to for health reasons, or they have to because their doctor told them so, or theyshould lose it because everyone tells them they should. Certainly there are times when your physician says your health, even your very life, is dependent on losing weight. When someone who is told this loses weight and keeps it off, it is because that person has had an internal shift of values and has decided their health is more important than their old relationship to food and exercise. They have stopped trying and started doing.
'Trying' is a word used to describe the period of time in which a person is experimenting with something to decide if they will commit and actually do what is necessary to behave in a new way. 'Commitment' is about doing something that is extremely important and for which the reasons underlying that importance can be clearly stated. Lasting change requires a commitment to action based on what you personally desire for your life, what you personally have determined to be of value. Commitment cannot be imposed as a 'should'.
In almost every situation the words should, have to, must, need to and got to are associated with trying, and are ultimately de-motivators, stopping lasting change from happening by immediately, or eventually, creating an inner rebelliousness that says, “No one can tell me what I have to do!” And, no one includes you saying these words in an attempt to get yourself to do something.
Rather, in order to stop trying to lose weight, and begin to do it for keeps, ask yourself what you value about changing your body and your health. What do you want, desire, prefer and/or value that will be a result of making a change in your relationship to food and to exercise?
Make a list of what is important to you and remind yourself daily of what you intend to do for your life and how come it is important to you to make the changes you have decided you want to make. Then you can stop having a trying time and start doing weight loss for keeps.
Dr. King, a licensed psychologist, relies on her profound belief in each person’s unique inner wisdom to guide the individualized discovery and growth process. She brings to her work a varied background which includes: A doctorate in Psychology and Adult Education from Arizona State University, health coaching certification from the Hudson Institute, certifications as an interactive imagery guide from the Academy for Guided Imagery and as a HeartMath® biofeedback practitioner, a bachelors degree in physical education, with over 25 years exerience in a general psychology practice and over 10 years as a performance specialist working with professional and amateur athletes.
In addition, Dr. King authored "A Trust Walk: Mindful Golf", and her articles have often appeared in The Arizona Republic (the Phoenix daily newspaper), The Grand Junction Free Press, and a variety of national magazines.
She is available to see patients in Grand Junction, Colorado at Healing Horizons Integrated Health Solutions (www.hhacumed.com) and we look forward to developing her appearance on the Internet via Lumigrate's information at the website (Forums and Videos), as well as our YouTube channel, iTunes channel, and Facebook / social media outreach.
It's very metaphorical, 'cleaning your house' on titling this piece I wrote a long while back here at Lumigrate, about my brother Hi, a philosopher who also worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as bringing Occam's Razor to me, which I shared with you at Lumigrate, bubbelehs. Go, follow the link, I think you'll find it fits here. It can't hurt!
Your
Yenta
www.lumigrate.com/forum/how-clean-your-house
Yenta Tellabenta is truly a 'creation' for outreach and education with Lumigrate.com through storytelling and reinforcement of key concepts related to body, mind, spirit. Written by a very talented and somewhat mysterious younger wise woman who found her way to Lumigrate the summer of 2009, we hope you enjoy having your own Yenta with us at Lumigrate! Yenta (meaning 'town gossip' or 'connector') has a dedicated Forum at Lumigrate at http://www.lumigrate.com/forums/health-issuesdis-eases/fibro... and can also be found on facebook.
Thank you all so much for your insight on self-improvement and facing the New Year. I always receive great value from Lumigrate and the GRATE resources here. :)
I had written along a similar vein this past week on New Year's resolutions and goal setting. It all started with a graphic posted on facebook by a dear friend. She has been working through fibromyalgia symptoms exacerbated by back issues from a car accident last spring. Here is the graphic and an exerpt from that newsletter:
For the past few years, I have boycotted making a list of resolutions that are easily forgotten as old habits and life challenges take over. Instead, I focus on the purpose for achieving my goals, whether they be health or business related goals. Sometimes people call this purpose their WHY, others call it their VISION.
Resolutions are generally goals that are short-lived and ultimately unsatisfying. Either you make the goal easily, or more frequently, you get frustrated because you DIDN'T hit the goal, so you quit, and your health or your finances swing even more out of control... AGAIN.
I am not saying not to have goals for self-improvement. It just takes much more than merely writing them down on Jan 1 to make a true difference in your life. When you find your PURPOSE and choose to live everyday with that PASSION, you stay committed to your journey without focusing on the destination, and you never give up on yourself!
6 Tips for Sticking with Your Goals
The ideas posted by Gwen, Dr. King and Yenta all fit within these steps. Again, I want to Thank you all so much for your wisdom and sharing.
Warmly,
Robin
Robin started contributing to Lumigrate in August 2010. "Meet Robin Thomas", a topic in our biographies/vitae forum is at http://www.lumigrate.com/forum/meet-robin-thomas to read all about her journey, which was greatly influenced by the need to help solve her youngest son's significant health challenges. For those who want just the overview here: After working over 22 years in medical research at the University of North Carolina on chronic inflammatory diseases she switched her focus to preventive health in 2004 when she was introduced to USANA Health Sciences. Robin is passionate about helping others improve their health, have more energy, manage their weight, and improve their skin.
I love meeting new friends !
LIKE me on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn
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"I dream of a world free from pain and suffering. I dream of a world free from disease. The USANA family will be the healthiest family on earth. Share my vision. Love life and live it to its fullest in happiness and health."
-Dr. Myron Wentz, Founder and Chairman, USANA Health Sciences
I am encouraged by the enthusiasm for this topic based on the number of reads that are showing, it lets us know that we're reaching people with information they are looking to find!
I am going to invite Martine Ehrenclou to add on here, as she was very busy at the holidays and over New Yars, taking some well-deserved time to herself and with those she loves at home and not on the Internet, and so she hadn't caught the thread to add onto here. But she did write early this month about going on a brisk hike and having heel pain afterward. It was a great accounting which perhaps she'll post here or summarize and link to for the full story, essentially talking about the advise she gives in her book, The Take-Charge Patient, which she didn't follow when in the position at the podiatrist's office.
I read what she'd written and had my own feedback about my impressions of the provider's treatment choices ... red flag to me was for the diagnosis there was none of the usual home program that is provided/suggested/prescribed for plantar fasciitis -- only treatment the doctor would make money off of. Boo, hiss!
So I provided some information to Martine that sparked her to think from a different angle, and today she called me to thank me for that, as she has gone to one of her long-time and entrusted providers, she just had not thought about a chiropractor for her foot pain.
Again, old habits dying hard. And getting in the way of our health goals and ideals, costing us money, time and energy. I have found the same thing myself; a urinary tract infection and I call up the GP in order to go to the laboratory and find out what's going on. But other providers on my team, in retrospect, would have gone to the reason for the infection and suggested a supplement.
In the end, I ended up in 2007 with a humongously taxing run around of expensive tests that my insurance and I paid for financially, and I missed work for, and underwent really unpleasant tests, such as a barrium enema, only to got to the final page of that chapter of my health saga and look back and be able to see how I ended up having a specialist about infections and functional medicine somethign I could have gotten at the health food store on day #1, had I consulted with any of the providers who would have taken that approach.
I want to suggest people look at their health histories and see where they perhaps were following old patterns rather than taking a fresh look at each new situation that comes along and saying 'who is the best person/provider/business to help me with this?'
And what I'm hearing more and more is that people are turning to their chiropractors, pharmacists, naturopaths, homeopaths, etc. I'm curious what the other experts at Lumigrate are seeing related to this, as we're heading into the end of our first month of 2013 at this point in time. ~~ Mardy
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!