“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe.”                                                                       

Albert Einstein

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I’m back on the North Fork of Long Island in the old rental house that my daughters and I have summered in for over 10 years now.  I’m on my own for a few weeks of late summer, enjoying a particularly warm and dry September so far. It feels a bit strange being on my own again after a summer in which I enjoyed my daughters’ company (either one or the other or both), along with their friends and a few guests of my own almost nonstop. This new-found quietude has given me the opportunity to reflect on just how transformative a time it has been on a few fronts.

Summer has always been the source of my fondest memories as a child. We had a small bungalow near a lake in New Jersey, and the carefree days there were magical. It was also where I have the most memories of my father, who died when I was 7. To the extent possible I have tried to create that carefree summer magic for my daughters here on Long Island, even as I experience it myself. Even when I’m stationary, I’m not good at “doing nothing.” Summer and weekends, when other people are off work or on vacation, afford me more time to be myself without feeling guilty about staying busy and needing to be doing something all the time, which is how I have spent much of my life. My mind is usually rushing or anxious.  My current “retirement” from all that affords me an opportunity to see that nonstop busyness with a new set of eyes.

At the beginning of summer, a number of small, physical issues were bothering me. A sore iliotibial band in my right leg with attendant right knee pain would come and go. I also had a problem with my neck, which has troubled me on and off and which I had thought was manageable. It began bothering me again, particularly after exercise. I was also feeling sluggish, and my digestion wouldn’t feel right from time to time. Plus, I had a vague sense of being ill at ease and subdued, which is usually a precursor to some inner change working its way through me. In this case I felt it was related to how much I like being on my own and living alone, while still enjoying people’s company in short bursts, but feeling like I might be too solitary.

On all fronts, I tried combinations of more rest or more activity, more food or less food, and talking things out with friends, looking for guidance or inspiration to fix these issues. Everything mentioned above—my physical issues, my thoughts about being solitary, and my introspection—led to realizations on three fronts: healing, peace, and insight.

Healing

For my leg pain, an osteopath explained that something going on in my right leg was causing instability in the knee. The doc said I should wear a compression sleeve on my knee when I exercised to stabilize it, and give it time to heal. I also decided to go back to the basics with an approach I used to heal my legs after a period of inactivity after I had Lyme disease and babesiosis several years ago (and several years before that when I had a torn meniscus in that knee). This back-to-the-basics solution was doing weight-bearing leg presses in ever-increasing increments, starting out at about 60 kilograms (about 132 pounds) and eventually reaching 1½ times my body weight, or roughly 110 kilograms (about 242 pounds).

I also started attending yoga classes where I learned some stretches that helped this physical issue, along with providing a benefit of being more social. I was mindful that overdoing it might cause more instability and that this needed to be a gradual process, so unlike my usual “go for it” attitude I took it easy if anything felt strained. The result has been a slow healing process, not fully realized yet, that I am very pleased with.

The healing generated in my leg gave me comfort that my body had responded to my efforts (and prayers) and was in a healing mode. I was taking care of myself, the first step toward becoming healthier. And voila, the problem in my neck gradually receded as I listened to my body and found some areas of stiffness in my upper back that, once mobilized, eased my neck. (Resolving my neck issue might also be related to the healing my right leg and restabilizing the entire right side of my body.)

I have often called on this inner voice of healing, this amazing power that exists in all of us if we just let it do its work, to help guide me on my health journey. I realized that wanting to heal is as much of the process as finding and applying the particular resources that enable the healing process. I’m convinced that once healing starts it doesn’t confine itself to only one segment of the body but embraces the entire system of body, mind, and spirit. This idea leads to the next section of my post.

Peace

There were several days in mid-summer when it was just my younger daughter Lollie and myself. We had no schedules, woke up and went to sleep whenever it was comfortable for each of us, and did whatever we wanted whenever it suited us. We spent those days in peace and spontaneity. I remember telling her how, as much as I like to imagine otherwise, I wasn’t used to feeling comfortable doing nothing. My mind is always on the go and usually on high alert to something new or an anticipation of something to come. But for those few days I was able to just let all that go. It brought a feeling of inner peace that I honestly don’t remember ever having as strongly. I have since been able to reclaim it because of that experience, not always, but I know it’s in there ready to come out if I give it enough space. This is a particularly important piece of my attitude toward myself at this stage of life-—letting myself reclaim peace and a sense of universal self that eluded me during my hectic working years and overly stressed childhood years.

I’ve read many books, particularly by Zen Buddhists and yogis, that say the goal of the pursuit of enlightenment is this sense of inner peace. Thich Nhat Hanh even has a book titled Peace in Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. I have felt this oceanic feeling of joy in glimpses, while experiencing something beautiful. But it has never visited me in such a sustained way, and it has never visited me as strongly from inside, on its own, not tied to anything I was doing or experiencing.

While I still went to the gym most days and did my morning routine every day, the rest of our “activity” those days was simply based on enjoying ourselves, not getting caught up in activities that felt rushed or even necessary. We sailed a bit, paddle boarded, played boules and croquet on the lawn, and often just slowly walked down the beach looking for beach glass and taking leisurely boat rides around Shelter Island.

We ate at least one meal a day together, often out. When we cooked it was usually with ingredients from local farms and shops, fresh from the farm or sea. During all this we talked about whatever we felt like, or not. In this new, peaceful mode the pleasures of these simple activities, which have formed the basis of most of our summers here, were enhanced for me as they seemed to slow down and generate a new kind of wonder.

Insight

All this combined to have a pretty big effect on me that is still in the process of happening. It has to do with being the person I am, not the one defined by the accomplishments of my life, my “story” as it were, but a newer version that is more self-nurturing and genuine. I have been hard on myself for most of my life. The trauma of my childhood left me very self-critical, something I have been challenged with all my life. To the extent I felt “wanted” (or loved) back then, it always had something to do with what I did or how I behaved. Being wanted just for who I am, unadorned, simply by the fact that I exist, is a feeling every child born on this earth deserves from their parents. I have spent much of my life seeking this kind appreciation, and I was now feeling this kind of compassion for myself. This has had a profound effect. I am rewriting the story of my life, looking back on it through the lens of forgiveness for things I had no control over but reacted to in ways that ensured my survival and protection.

In my journey of health and longevity that I describe in my book, which was prompted by trying to give that kind of unconditional love to my daughters for as long as I live, I now realize how much this same loving energy I wanted for them was also meant for me and my own life. It is the win-win of self-love and love for others. Each enhances the other.

I heard something in a recent longevity podcast that seems relevant to all this. They said that both physical and mental decline happen as we age and can be measured. (And that we can train with movement and diet to slow down that process considerably!) Our emotional lives, however, show no appreciable decline and remain active and vibrant throughout our lifespan. I have certainly found this to be true. Physical healing now takes longer but my emotional healing seems endless. That process of self-nurturing and self-realization knows no boundaries, and the insights generated in this kind of work have, for me at least, been realized as a vast increase in freedom and possibility in this wonderful time of being alive.

My hunch is that the fruits of my summer vacation—healing, peace, and insight—have ushered in a new chapter of feeling that my universe is fundamentally a friendly one. Let’s see where it takes me.