Lifestyle

Follow the light/Vitamin D

Part one-Musings from watching my dog.  

As a society, we have almost completely moved indoors.  We eat and sleep indoors.  We transport ourselves indoors.  We work indoors.  Much of our play is indoors and we even exercise indoors.  

This wasn’t always how it was!!  Centuries ago, the main thing humans did indoors was sleep.  Most cultures have a history of cooking outside. They hunted outdoors, foraged for food outdoors and played outdoors.  In colder climates this changed for a season, but only for that season, and still, much more activity was all done outside.  

We have replaced that with living behind brick and glass walls. Even when the temperature is perfect or even hot and sunny, we are inside all day in buildings that are now cooled off to the “perfect temperature”.  

And all this indoor living interferes with our Vitamin D production.  We need sunlight directly on our skin for so many bodily functions!   (More on that in Part 2)

I was pondering this one day, when I noticed my dog, sitting in the ONE PATCH of sunshine in the house. It was early spring, and the sun was just becoming brighter and coming through different parts of the windows as it snaked its way around buildings and trees outside. And he was constantly finding that teeny tiny patch of sun to sit in.  

When I would open the back door of my house, he would go outside and sit in the sun until he was cold, then come in and warm up.  Umpteen times a day, I was letting him in and out of the house to seek the afternoon sunshine. Unless it was too cold, then he would find the one square foot of sunshine left in the house and sit there.  

I thought about how so many of us in Canada are so Vitamin D deficient that, in Alberta at least, the government will only pay for testing of Vitamin D under specific circumstances.   They simply acknowledge that we are all D deficient and need a supplement.  Sunlight, however, is nature's source of Vitamin D. We should be more like my dog and seek the sunshine whenever we can.

And then the text popped into my head: “I am the light of the world”.  

It was so easy to make these connections: When we do not get enough sunshine, we are alive, but we are just not full of energy.   And when we do not sit in the glory of our Father’s light, we are still breathing and functioning, but we lack something.  We lack the light of His energy.  We lack power and we lack the Spirited life that we can only get through the light of our Father.  

I love connecting thoughts like this, because when I see my dog seeking light, it reminds me first of all to seek sunshine, for my own health, because God uses sunlight for specific biological functions in my body. But then, watching my dog seek sunshine also reminds me to seek Gods word, God’s light and truth. Even better yet, I choose to often do my seeking of God’s truth and light in his sunshine.  

If you are interested in learning more about light or Light, check out my free health minded community!  

Stay tuned for more blog posts on sunlight and Vitamin D.  

Do you have a Jones’s friend?

You know that saying, about how “we are just keeping up with the Joneses”?  Yeah… we often use that in conversation in talking about keeping up with others in terms of “stuff” or wealth.

Well, that is not exactly what I am talking about.  My "Jones" friend and I, we keep up with each other in a much more important way.

          But I digress….

What makes her a “Jones’s friend”?  Well, it is this…. Every time that one of us, steps out ahead of the other, in personal or emotional growth, in a business adventure, in a course that will benefit us, or even in another mild education “side thing”… we reach out to each other, and encourage the other gal to jump on as well.  

And here is the thing… Sue and I are VASTLY different people…. She is organized, I am creative.  (Read between the lines!)  I am a drama show much of the time, and Sue is demure and more quiet.  I laugh LOUDLY at the slightest bit of fun.  Sue, however, has this amazing quiet dry sense of humour, that is often offered with an almost flat affect except for a slight turn of the corners of her mouth and a sparkle in her eye.  So although we do so much together… we are VERY different in our abilities, as well as, our likes and dislikes.  We each tend to have the bit of personality that the other does not and we fill in each other’s gaps.  When we are together, I create the fun and Sue makes sure that I still have all my belongings together when we leave…..EV UH RY TIME.  

But the MOST SPECIAL part of our relationship, the part that I cherish the most, is not the quiet times of contemplation, or the fact that she keeps our trips organized, or the fun that we have together…. It is that she is my JONES FRIEND.  

When I lag behind, she sets me straight.  Then she proceeds to tell me with organized clarity what she is doing.  When she finds something beneficial to her life, something that helps her emotionally, or personally, or with her business, I get a text, message, phone or video call, while she tells me, (again with organized clarity) what it is all about, and there is always that expectation that I will jump on that band wagon to improve my life.  And I usually do.  And I do the same for her.  

I laugh and tell her… we are like two teen girls that have to go to the bathroom together.  

And Sue’s opinion of this… offered in her usually bland flat voice, filled with meaning…

“Yeah, it seems to be effective”.  😂

First of all, you need to ground yourself.  When you have a flare, you need to bring yourself back down to earth!  

1. Look around and name 5 things that you can see.
2. Then name 4 things that you can touch or “feel” on your body.
3. Name 3 things that you can hear.
4. Sniff the air and name 2 things that you can smell.
5. Lastly, name 1 thing that you can taste.  

The second thing to do, is to practice breathing. Often when we struggle our breathing becomes quick and we tend not to breathe deeply enough. We generally breathe with our “chest” and not our diaphragm, which is a large, dome-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs. Diaphragmatic breathing (also referred to as abdominal or belly breathing) helps the full exchange of oxygen-more oxygen in and more carbon dioxide out. This type of breathing slows the heartbeat and can lower or stabilize blood pressure.  

1. Sit in an upright but comfortable position.
2. Place one hand on your upper chest and one on your belly, just below your rib cage.
3. Breathe in slowly through your nose, without raising your shoulders or expanding your chest. You should feel your belly expand.  This may take some practice and time to get this right. Count to four as you breathe in.  
4. Hold your breath for four counts.
5. Breathe out through your mouth as you tighten your belly and allow it to fall inward towards your back bone.  Count to four as you breathe out.

MANAGE YOUR THOUGHT PATTERNS.