Monday, January 31, 2011

I want this: Salt & Chocolate

    This sounds too good - Salted Chocolate. So many gourmet salts are around - fluer de sel, that famous french salt, himalayan pink sea salt, grey salt, salt from Hawaii - and they all taste amazing on chocolate. It goes especially well with caramel, which I find sometimes overly sweet - and incredibly good with dark chocolate (but not too dark - that stuff has it's own tartness going for it). 
    Lindt makes a tasty bar that is at the grocery store, but it's not quite like the following ones. Yum. 




    A fun blog about chocolate - famous San Francisco Chocolatier's Salt & Chocolate Event

Friday, January 28, 2011

Thoughts on Anger

    Have you ever gotten really angry about something actually very slight, not very important at all? Of  course you have, it's human nature. What is it about anger? Why does it feel one up then make us crash so badly?
    I've often heard that anger is a masking emotion. A mask, to cover fear - pain - or even perhaps a mechanism, a survival one, to be a catalyst of change.
    Apathy is something I feel all too often - and sometimes a sharp dose of anger is what is needed to propel me out of the apathetic state and into a pro-active, living state.
    What about the one's that never allow themselves to feel or acknowledge their anger? Who even claim, they never get angry? To me, this promotes a victimized mindset. Healthy anger, expressed appropriately, is a great tool of the human psyche - to deny it is to repress, and repression only leads to further pain.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Getting out of the ditch

    Mom called it "being stuck in a rut." I like to call it the ditch. That dark spot when the bad days outnumber the good, when I don't want to do anything, when the grey winter sky matches my grey blah mood. Apathy turns to isolation, which turns into pain and fear. 


    Getting out of this is hard - but here are some ideas.

  • Yoga. Just your basic stuff - little sun salutes and so on. From a video (they are everywhere) or the web - or a book. I prefer a book actually, but a class is best. The class really makes it impossible to completely shut down, isolate, and though it uses up a ton of energy - to leave my grey cloud - the benefits are amazing.
  • A Funny Movie. Think Adam Sandler. Or Jim Carrey. Something stupid can do the trick, or something sophisticated. The key is to laugh - alot. Laughing releases endorphins.
  • A little bit of super dark chocolate. This seems to especially help with the nightly serotonin drop. 
  • A meditating walk. Breathe in the air, feel your body - stop being numb in the shell of panic attack, anxiety, depression. Move your muscles, feel the cold.




Yummy Organic Lip Balm

    I found this yummy lip balm at Ulta today. For Christmas my husband got me the Summer Fruit kind (with a Fuchsia container) - which my kids promptly got into. I'm guarding it closer now cause this stuff is awesome. It's not too strong. It's mostly organic. And the shape is intuitive and artistic. The price ain't bad either. (It's a ton of lip balm). 



Welcome

     Ten years ago I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression. I was 19, and not surprised at all to learn about the diagnosis - it runs in my family just like hazel eyes and long toes. I was promptly placed on the popular SSRI of the time - Prozac. In the years that followed I went on and off different meds - SSRI's targeting serotonin, nor-epinephrin, dopamine, and so on. Meds for anxiety, meds to sleep. Meds to wake up. All these drugs made for a messed up me - more messed up than I was prior to the diagnosis.
    In the early days I discovered a few things that helped. Things like sunlight, meditation cd's, and shopping. Yes, shopping. For that special something - that gave me a lift and kept me going for awhile. 
    Later on I would discover other things - service, exercise, and special combinations of vitamins that helped me get off most of the meds. And of course, Art. As time goes on I learn more and more how to be happy - because it takes a lot of effort for me, but is vitally important to my existence. 
    So this blog is about my discoveries - what I like, what works, what brings a smile, what hurts. For more info about shopping as therapy, check out this Discovery Health article, Good Health Comes In Small Packages.






 
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