Dark Nights Of The Year
Love Her But Leave Her Wild
Dear Ones,
These reports of life on this planet are from my heart. They are audience-inspired. Thanks to many of you for reaching out. To the many who like my photography journaling approach. I am thrilled to have a medium to share photos shot from around the world. The camera teaches me to change focus and perspective. I develop enhanced zoom-in and zoom-out skills. The hobby lay dormant during medicine’s hijack years. Save for my sojourns into nature’s sanctuaries.
Here is my confession: I am feral. I have Medusa hair and hobbit feet. I have the map of Iran on my nose. Throughout my lifetime, countless people suggested I change my loud nose. Change what I was born into. Hide my birthright. Shaped by my encoding.
That is what humans tend to do. Achieve acceptance through adoption and sameness. Manipulated to manipulate our bodies. I am okay with my imperfect face. Against-all-odds. What I am reckoning with is why it is anyone else’s business.
My bumper sticker agrees with me: Love her but leave her wild.
I am over here in the stepmotherland (U.S.) cherishing my freedom to show my feral hair. Why do they want me to cover my hair? Are the curls too dangerous? Is it their defiant collaterals? Their unpredictable expansion?
Freedom means something different for us all. For me, freedom is gentle. Freedom is mother nature. Freedom is a higher consciousness. Freedom is following the wisdom of my intuition. Freedom is the freedom to be me. Naturally and authentically me. Without shame or rejection. Freedom is to have the time and space for self-expression. The voice to express my gifts in a unique way. Freedom is freedom from all types of violence (including eco-violence).
Wild disobedience to the grind of the status quo is hard but breeds good things. New things. Nourishing things. It offers time for tiny self-care actions. Tiny actions add up. Take one and then another and finally change your habits. Bit by bit. Change your breathing to change your mind. Change your habits to change your mind. It is a luxury to change our beautiful minds. Minds with such valuable equity.
THE HABIT OF PRESENCE
Mindfulness is essentially presence. Meaningful presence.
I only choose quality connections now. To understand and to be understood is the greatest gift. Find people (and actions) who can, at times, submarine into the trenches of your dark soul with you. Find people (and actions) who help you find the light on the surface. Connection fostered with presence, deep listening, and authenticity is powerful. Genuine human presence reduces stress, enhances creativity, and improves focus.
Preserving our presence in day-to-day life demands attention to our sensations. Think of sensation acknowledgment as the opposite of disassociation. We disassociate to get through hard days and hard moments. As I’ve noted before, it is a useful life hack to disassociate but one we consciously need to be masters of.
Let’s get real. We can’t be wide open with 5 senses all the time. Trust me on that one says the “highly sensitive” human. My sensitivity is a superpower. I only recently discovered that. I am pretty much neurodivergent. We strive to learn to calibrate our emotional thermostat but it is harder for us to regulate.
When I first started my shadow work, I frequently drowned in conjured-up tsunami-like emotions. I still drown sometimes but I have new buoys now. The regulation part is a work in process. Emotional rawness gets you nowhere in this numb a$$ world. There is little scaffolding out there. We easily get lost under the rubble. Without titration of emotions, there is no safe landing during imminent sensory overwhelm.
*Nessa Tip* Pay attention to your senses next time you confront difficult life news. Practice staying in touch with your senses during the stressors. Think of your senses as a lighthouse. Watchful overseer. A refuge. Built to withstand harsh conditions. Hope that not all is lost. A beacon through difficult moments. A signal for danger. If your senses are the lighthouse then be your lighthouse keeper. Go easy on yourself, this is masterclass-level body-mind work.
JUNK FOOD
Let me take a wild guess. It is time for a post-Thanksgiving feast detox for the U.S. readers. Time to get outside for a dose of fresh mindfulness. Walk. Feel the breeze. Listen to the birds. Don’t forget the vital human tool of box breathing.
Mindfulness helps me develop healthy food choices. In my ruthless time-poor profession, I spent decades scarfing food down with zero awareness. I’m sure many doctors and nurses can relate.
I now eat smaller and more frequent meals with the goal of eating until 80% full. Thanks for this tip from blue zone folks. Don’t ask me how we humans can tell that we are only 80% full. I’m still working that one out. If you know secrets, please do share.
Junk food also refers to what we do, read, watch, hear, and who we spend our precious time with etc etc. We likely need these kinds of detoxes now as well. Go easy on your senses these days. It is perfectly fine to dial it down 10,000 notches. It feels like the dead of winter right now. I’m in California’s 60 degrees. Sorry New England readers. California spoils my year-round garden soul and fills me with gratitude.
WINTERING IN
Winter solstice is less than a month away. We feel it in our bones. I love fire, soup, and sweater weather! Dark nights of the year are here. 2023 is a pivot year. A spin you on your axis year. A ripening. ‘Tis the season of new insights. The season of daring to journey under the hood. Of bending toward change. Of blooming possibilities.
Why on earth does 5pm feel like midnight these days? Does this happen every year? Why do we have amnesia each time? This is so perplexing to me. I think our collective memory tends towards amnesia. Probably as a protective mechanism.
Either way, it is time to cozy up with great tips from Katherine May on fighting the gloom. It is a good time to burrow or do what is called “denning.” I like that word. “Denning:” to live in or retreat to a den.
The term “hibernation” is derived from Latin and it refers to “spending the winter in a lethargic state,” said Brian Barnes, professor of zoophysiology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
I don’t know about you but I do not mind entering a dormant state right now. To do absolutely nothing or to contemplate a slew of questions. You will find me denning and growing on these pages. I plan to emerge again in early spring. With my native wildflowers. With or without answers.
2023 WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR IN 125,000 YEARS
2023 was the hottest year in 125,000 years. 125,000 years. With warmth comes the development of new pests and diseases. Horror stories galore for an infection doctor.
Can we humans make a vow to preserve a livable planet for our descendants? Check out the info on the current COP28 conference. Worry not, dears. I plan on offering tangible human climate action items in a future post to help temper our eco-anxiety.
WRITING FOR HEALING
Writing is a fantastic wintering-in exercise. It seems to be all the rage now. It is life-shaping. Are you sick of me raving about it by now? It helps me gather haunting thoughts and gently shoo them away. I want the same for you!
Check out this recent high-yield Huberman episode on a beneficial writing protocol. The podcast discussion is so very intriguing. Turns out, I have been doing versions of this writing all along without even knowing it.
I write for truth. I write to clear the air. The act is like an ultimate thought percolator. Everything softens. As if each time the pen stroke releases another harsh layer, innate tenderness ignites from within. The benefits far outweigh the risks.
Studies have shown that truthtelling literally rewires our brain (increases the activity of our prefrontal cortex.) Writing also increases lymphocytes to boost our immune system. We can develop a stronger immune system just by writing! If that doesn’t prove the importance of body-mind collaboration, I’m not sure what does.
How cool is all that? Mindblowing factoids.
The following is a disclaimer.
There is an emotional cost to writing for healing. Well worth it. Since the practice will strengthen your body and mind connection, it enters precarious territory. You will need to build time for emotional guardrails and boundaries. You will feel it in your body and the key is to take note of it and address it. The podcast gives practical tips or click here for my prior biohack post. I recommend establishing a good support network prior to heavy emotional lifting. Feel free to ask questions about what tools help me.
WOUNDED WOUND HEALER
Infectious Disease docs are wound healers. Microbe metropolis experts. We confront the physical kind of human wounds.
Conventional medicine obscured the other kinds of wounds and severed our body-mind connection. I do not know why or when that happened. We humans carry around with us bypassed emotional wounds. They weigh us down like dumbbells. We normalize the behavior of suppressing our emotions. I do not know why or when that happened.
Bypassing our hidden emotional wounds disempowers us. It leads to uncontrolled inner storms. To reckless rulers inside. It breeds poor brain health and all that accompanies this terrible widespread affliction.
SENSATIONS FOR PROTECTION
Did you know that in patients with Diabetes Mellitus, the most common body parts infected are the feet?
Feet are often bacterial targets. I know. I know. Who wants to talk about feet? I mean I love how my feet literally take me all over God’s green earth. How they are my lifelines. So I thank them for that and for so much more.
Here is where it gets interesting.
Loss of sensation in the feet from Diabetic neuropathy contributes to increased infection risk. If we cannot access our sensations, we cannot feel when we injure our feet. We cannot tend to our wounds. We struggle to prevent them from worsening. Being disassociated or disconnected from our senses is similar to the loss of sensation in patients with neuropathy. Our sensations and our feelings are designed to protect us. Heed them.
In my work, I study the environment of microorganisms. To try and outsmart them. I study how best they thrive and how best they die. My detective work helps me understand macro and microcosm connections that affect breeding grounds. I believe that Infectious Disease doctors truly understand the importance of interbeing as taught by the late Zen Buddhist master/teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh.
I tell patients that bacteria, like humans, love sugar. If there is more sugar than usual in human blood, bacteria will throw a party and go to town. The bacteria travel deep into the bone marrow rendering the bone dead. Sawing off the bone offers the only cure. Sorry for the butcher shop visual. There are record-high amputations at the moment.
These days, humans are much sicker for a variety of reasons. Foot infections are often beyond cure with antibiotics alone. Not to mention there are way more multi-drug resistant bacteria now- thanks to our lovely human behavior (insert sarcasm). More on these juicy topics later.
UNWHOLESOME FOOD INDUSTRY
Speaking of human sickness, human behavior, and human-built systems: Why is the food industry so unhealthy here? For crying out loud, why is there a fight to get wholesome foods when on the go? Why are there so many malnourishing unwholesome junk food options?
There are places in the advanced world where fresh and wholesome is the most visible, accessible, and convenient option (Norway, Japan, etc). Real-life examples of wholesome public and environmental health systems do exist. It is possible.
TEN CHALLENGES FOR US ALL
Challenge to be radically honest despite subtle and obvious rejection.
Challenge to live more authentically and protect our innate gifts.
Challenge to deepen our mindfulness practice with small actions daily.
Challenge to remember and find all the beauty and wonder in the nature around us with 5 senses open.
Challenge to choose wholesome options as opposed to unwholesome ones in our day to day and take note of societal manipulations.
Challenge to recognize silent rulers of our behavior.
Challenge to understand what makes us do what we do minute by minute- to journey under hood.
Challenge to change our minds.
Challenge to choose to exist in environments that elevate us and not hold us down.
Challenge to be kind and gentle to ourselves.
LET’S FIND OUR IKIGAI
Ikigai (ee-key-guy) is an amazing Japanese concept (color me shocked) that combines the terms iki, meaning “alive” or “life,” and gai, meaning “benefit” or “worth.” In French, it is our Raison D’etre or reason for being.
It is about finding fulfillment, balance, and joy in this thing we call life. Look at the intersections in the diagram below. Such a brilliant concept. Imagine if we all leaned towards our Ikigai.
*Nessa Tip*: Find your Ikigai. Find and begin to slowly disband obstacles to achieving it. Baby steps add up! Put a spotlight on your relationship to your thoughts. To your philosophy. To your meaning of life. Check out all the stories you tell yourself. That others tell you. This helps you get to the core of your true aspirations.
This practice helps because we see how our existing beliefs affect our chosen actions. It casts light. On what subconscious thoughts influence our behavior. On how we permit ourselves to authentically exist in the world.
Let me know in comments or by email what tips you use to find your Ikigai and what rituals get you through dark months!
I age myself by guiding you to this link for a wise song by The Cranberries called In the End. This song resonates with these times.
May we turn to what magnifies (not tames) our spirit.
May we honor the unique differences among us.
May all beings find peace.
Nessa
Nessa, forgive me. I'm commenting long before finishing your podcast. I am struck by your mention of sticking out like a sore thumb (under your second selfie). Nessa, my dear, you don't standout like a sore thumb. You stand out like who your are: A nature-loving beautiful sensitive creature. You stand out like a unique one-of-a kind loving, lovable, and loved individual, because that's who you are.