Nobody is 'perfect', everyone is 'where they are at', and Oprah Winfrey is no exception. However, I find her 'exceptional' in terms of what she has done with the gifts she brought with her when her life began and in her 50-some years since. I was creating Lumigrate.com in 2008, about the time she was positioning herself to create her own network.
OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, is in it's early stages and I'm very comforted to see how she handles the situation, as well as her significant other, Stedman Graham, who was recently on a book-promoting media binge, so I happened to see his interview about his book rapidly turn to include 'what about Oprah and OWN, the talk is they're having their troubles there'. That coincided with when Lumigrate had it's third birthday, and we had 100 people at one time during the day and then hit that benchmark in the middle of the night in the United States within a week. I was just as open as Oprah about the struggles of Lumigrate and plan to continue to be as open as we move forward and presumably enjoy ongoing successes and trials.
I wanted to post about, and recommend you go and read -- really READ and 'digest' -- what this article I'm linking to says. I found it after clicking on something in the e-mail from Oprah.com, which was also a wonderful piece about your own version of 'hell'. I'll likely put a topic about it here as well since so many of the people coming to Lumigrate have chronic illness/pain (physical and psychological and spiritual).
Fortunately, only half of the people in the United States have been diagnosed so far with a 'chronic illness', meaning the others are still in the category of having the label of being 'chronically well', in my book. Let's hope they find their way to strategies for the body, mind and spirit to keep them that way. For the others, let's hope they find the strategies to get them back into the 'wellness' boat.
My personal belief system about what 'God' is, or "G-d" as our Yenta at Lumigrate writes the word so brilliantly, used to be about what this article's content describes. However, through the process of 'being in hell' from unmanaged chronic illness and pain, I became receptive to things which I was not previously. And that brought me the greatest silver lining of a belief system which isn't really even what this article describes as 'spiritualism'.
I believe I feel a connection to an energy which is what I call 'G-d'. Not that it's really important to anyone else what my spirituality is particularly, except I do want those reading at Lumigrate to know how it relates to Lumigrate.
I created Lumigrate.com for others. When you read the following 'article' from Oprah.com, the paragraph which I will bold below in the 'teaser' to entice you to take my word on this and follow out to this amazingly enriched and enriching website and read/experience what they have to offer IF you like what you find there.
My job, as I see it, is to only create a new wheel when there's not one out there already, which is what I did with Lumigrate.com, and then to link to others out there who are good wheels, and those providers who are 'good eggs' as the saying goes. This can streamline the process for anyone who finds Lumigrate. I use Lumigrate.com to set up education for my clients, and some of my providers learn about others and they can cross-pollinate for ideas as well as for suggesting someone else as a provider for what that person might need.
But I was to the point in my late 40s, exhuberant in having finally found what it takes to turn chronic illness back to chronic wellness, where doing something for others was what my "heart" or my "gut" was telling me to do. This article might explain what 'heart' or 'gut' is, I personally believe it is beyond what this particular writer has described. But many people might find these things 'a bit of a stretch' so I really REALLY like things at Lumigrate which will not offend/turn anyone off/away, and which will at least make people consider taking a step further in their path for the wellness of their mind, body, spirit.
Here's the link and below that the beginnings of it to encourage you to go and read the whole thing and interact with Oprah.com. Please come back here if you do -- we have much more we're always putting together about functional medicine and integrating mind, body, and spirit for the wellness of each person and the collective.
When you read the portion that I bolded, below, in my previous work as an outpatient occupational therapist sole proprietor, I felt that my patients were often times going to the medical system and coming back having been lion food, in a way! After all the monies were collected and the bills were paid, I felt I was lion food as well.
This, Lumigrate, was my solution for EVERYONE and by shifting to being a 'Functional Adviser and Consultant' I can guide people to information at Lumigrate and help them move along their path of health and well-being as functional people, whether a child or a person near the end of life or their families and friends (framilies) after. My wish is that it serves you well and you let others know about it so it can continue to grow and be part of positive change and 'health care reform' in my lifetime and beyond.
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better!! ~~ Mardy
A Harvard psychiatrist goes searching for the divine spark in us all—and finds it firmly planted in the part of the brain that's wired to make us care about each other.
George E. Vaillant, MD, knows the bad rap spirituality often gets: "People either confuse it with spiritualism—crystals and telepathy and bending spoons from a distance, all of which make many people uneasy—or they think of it in terms of contemplating one's navel and being very self-absorbed." n Vaillant is a psychiatrist, Harvard Medical School professor, and the director of Harvard's Study of Adult Development: not the likeliest candidate, on the face of it, for the job of spiritual cheerleader.
But in his latest book, Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith, he attempts to give spirituality new respectability and—in light of antireligion books like Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Sam Harris's The End of Faith—to find in religion something scientists, academics, and even atheists can stand up for. Vaillant's premise is that spirituality is simply the experience of positive emotions: faith, hope, love, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, awe, and especially joy—emotions for which humans are hardwired, and "the very emotions that are in the Psalms."
His ideas are optimistic, unpredictable, and engaging, as we discovered when we asked him to tell us more....
"When people experience joy and awe and love, they say there's something incredible going on inside them, and it must have been put there by some higher being. In the English language, 'God' is what we've chosen to call these feelings. We say God because it's the best we know.
"We have to confabulate words, because positive emotions occur in a part of the brain that doesn't have language attached to it. It's not unlike Freud thinking that what was important about early childhood was food because people who were deprived of their mothers lie on the couch and talk about breasts and ice cream sundaes. Later it became clear that what's important to an infant is eye contact and being held; food was just the metaphor.
"If you pay attention to what spiritual people spend their time doing—whether it's Saint Ignatius or the Buddha—you see that what they're doing is serving other people. The important thing about positive emotions is they're not focused on me, not focused on the individual.
"This is not about spirituality as some kind of self-help. It's more like a barn raising. Self-help is like tickling yourself. No one since the beginning of time has been able to tickle themselves or give themselves a massage. If you want to feel good, get another person to rub your back. Even better, rub someone else's.
"We know that human evolution was based on the need for better social organization to protect our defenseless young from getting eaten by lions. There was a need for unselfish relationships. The positive emotions serve the need of creating and consolidating community.
"When I was in medical school, I was taught that the hypothalamus was the part of the brain that held all the important emotions—the ones related to feeding, fighting, and fornication. Then we discovered the neocortex—the part of the brain that gives us the ability to talk and think and do multiplication tables. And then in the 1950s, the neuroscientist Paul MacLean came along and said, Here's this big area of the brain that mammals have and reptiles don't, and what is the difference between mammals and reptiles? Mammals care for their young. They trust their parents. They know how to play. That's the limbic system. It's the site of positive emotions—the site of spirituality.
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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!
