Give a Little Love

I always know when I’m just about to come out of period of hibernation: I buy a lot of books and start working out harder. It must be part of some deep, subliminal urge to push my mental and physical edge and bust out, literally, of a rut. This week, as I begin to claw my way out of the fog of having a new baby and losing a father, I started a new book, Quantum Wellness. In the first chapter, author Kathy Freston outlines the “eight pillars of wellness.” You will not be shocked to learn that exercise and meditation make the list, but she puts a refreshing spin on the other usual suspects. Instead of commanding readers to diet or eat well, she urges you to “eat consciously.” This means paying attention to not only where the food was produced, but how—with peace and healthful intentions. (Skip the veal and factory-farmed pork, please.) She’s also a big proponent of visualization and having fun. What’s not to love about that?

Most of the eight are already on my personal Sanity List, with one big exception: service. Plenty of studies have shown that giving to others boosts our immune systems and triggers the release of the feel-good hormone serotonin. In other words, when you help others, you help yourself. This isn’t a new concept, but it’s new to me: For the past year, I’ve been plagued by a nagging desire to make a difference beyond my own front door, but I haven’t yet figured out how to carve out the time or where to put my energy. There are too many worthy causes!

But recently I heard from an old friend, Amanda, founder of an organization called Shine that empowers women and girls around the world through service, art, yoga, and travel. Amanda went to Uganda last year with Off the Mat, Into the World, a non-profit that uses yoga to inspire grass-roots activism, to help build a solar-powered birthing center in Nsaasi Village. When I read that the first baby was born at the Shanti Birth House and Learning Centre, in late January, a little spark went off in my brain, connecting all the stories I’ve been reading about sub-par birthing conditions in developing countries with my love for Africa and my own two births. After hatching two tiny squirrelly newborns, I’ve come to understand that birthing is probably the most powerful and unifying of all human experience. It should also be the most hopeful: There’s no good reason why half a million women should die in childbirth each year.

under african skies, 2006

Amanda’s going back to Uganda this spring, and I’m itching to go. I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me this year, but I do know that this year is going to be the year in which I finally figure out how I can best help others. It may be women’s health or it might be the environment—don’t even get me started on the ways in which we’re completely trashing the climate for our children (reading about Mark Hertsgaard’s new book Hot scared the pants off me). Either way, I’m going to follow my inspiration and trust what emerges—shadowy and, with any luck, promising—out of the fog. Wellness for all, I hope.