Time to reflect on '22 and daydream on '23

Here we are in the final days of 2022! These past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind making big plans for my practice, marking my oldest child's 6th birthday, celebrating Hanukkah, and then driving to Washington DC and back to celebrate Christmas with my husband's family.

In these next few days I plan to reflect on 2022 and start dreaming and planning for 2023 in earnest. A few years ago I started a practice suggested by Gretchen Rubin of making a fairly long list of different goals/ideas/projects for each year; this past year was 22 things for 2022, the year before was 21 for 2021 and now I'm starting to think about 23 goals for 2023. These goals span my personal, professional, and family life and range from really small tactical things to bigger, more long term projects. One goal of mine for 2022 was writing one of these newsletters each month, and with this entry I have achieved that!

The goal I am most proud of reaching this year is that I walked 900 miles. 900 is 50x18 and in Jewish numerology the number 18 represents chai or life. I picked this number as I knew the distance was attainable but still a big stretch that would need consistency to achieve, and the power of 900 as a number tied to life and luck felt like an even deeper motivator. Some of these walks were with my family and friends, some miles were logged in the many half mile commutes from Back Bay station to my Beacon St office, but the vast majority of those steps were taken in the quiet early morning hours through the woods near our home. I woke up before my kids to walk this beautiful now familiar 3 mile route most weekdays this year. I witnessed the Summer solstice, snowstorms, rainstorms, full moons, new moons, shooting stars, and sunrises. I said 'good morning' to deer, rabbits, owls, and even a few coyotes. This walking practice helped me start my days with peace and helped me connect to the natural world outside my door and her rhythms. It is absolutely a practice I will bring with me into 2023 and for years to come.

Colds, viruses, and more.

Like many of you recently, I was home at the beginning of this week with my sick children. This time of year is always a juicy one for viruses and respiratory illnesses but because of covid lock downs and masking policies these past two winters, generally our kids have been way under exposed to these super common germs recently. Which means that many of our kiddos are getting exposed to these germs right now for the first time in their lives. And because our immune systems use prior exposures to elicit future protection, their immune systems are figuring out for the first time how to fight these illnesses, which means they are having more symptoms and needing more time for their bodies to heal and recover. Further, if you have a pandemic baby like I do, they literally have NEVER had a fall or winter without masks indoors, so this might be their very first exposures to many many germs.

This can feel like a brutal onslaught to our children and also to our own schedules/working lives/sanity. It's important to remember it is normal and common for young kids to get sick often; that in the best of years, an average young child will get a virus about once a month. And this is not the best of years.

So what is a parent to do???

1. Focus on what we can control. Prioritize sleep, nutritious foods, plenty of fluids, and regular movement of our bodies. Get adjusted by your chiropractor! See your acupuncturist and massage therapist as manual therapy helps support lymphatic drainage and immune function. If you have a baby under 6 months old, getting a upper respiratory infection or virus for them is much more complicated, so you might consider limiting your time in crowded indoor spaces and wear masks indoors when outside your household.

2. Expect that your kid will get sick. Even with all the fish oil supplements and hand washing in the world, your kid will get sick. At least a few times before Spring. Make a plan with your partner ahead of time how you will divide the childcare when they can't go to school or daycare. My husband and I have different 'on call' days throughout the week which helps avoid tense decision making at 6:30am on a sick day.

3. Practice gratitude. This is tough when your kid is miserable, your day is upended, and you have no idea when they will be allowed back into childcare settings. After witnessing a client of mind recently spend 5 days in the hospital with her newborn for RSV (he's back home and fine now thanks goodness), I can tell you that I was so grateful knowing that despite my kid being sick, I knew she was going to get better soon and get over this. I am grateful that I have flexibility in my job to stay home and care for them. I am grateful we have a safe warm home and food to nurture them back to health. And yes, I am SO grateful for streaming services and wifi to help entertain my kids when they barely have the energy to get off the couch.

4. Know you are not alone. So many parents are going through this right now. You are doing a great job with a really hard situation. Deep breathes, this too shall pass.

Stay healthy everyone!

Countering antisemitism: looking inward and outward

Me and my great grandma Sarah, Thanksgiving 1986

The blatant and audacious antisemitism that has been all over all social media streams and the news this month has affected me in such a visceral way. As a Jewish woman raising Jewish daughters, the decimation of women's bodily autonomy and rising voices of Jewish hate in our country are intersecting in a very scary and intense way right now.

The counter the overwhelm, I've been looking inwards and outwards. 

Looking inwards, I am connecting to my own family's past and calling upon my ancestors for strength. While it is a hard time to be a Jew, I know my foremothers have lived through much harder times to be a Jew, and thrived regardless. The picture above is me and my great grandmother Sarah, who immigrated from Minsk to Manhattan in 1907 fleeing targeted attacks and murders of Jewish people. Her Dad immigrated to the US first, and then Sarah joined him when she was only 10 years old, traveling without her parents on a ship all the way across the Atlantic to escape the pograms of the Russian empire. 

As a child hearing this story, I was in awe of the bravery of my great grandmother making that journey all by herself as a child, enthralled by the adventure of it. Now as a parent reflecting on that story, I can't even imagine the desperate fear her Mother (my great great grandmother) must have felt as she sent her 10 year old daughter on a long dangerous journey to a foreign country by herself to protect her from the brutal antisemitic realities of her home.

Looking outwards, I've been "looking for the helpers", connecting with my current day Jewish community both in person and virtually, and trying to focus my attention to the beautiful Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, or healing the world. Part of being Jews is to work to repair the world seeding peace, tolerance, and charity. One reason I love my professional work is that I feel like I am practicing tikkun olam every day in my practice. Helping bring peace and calm and physical healing to families in their most vulnerable time. Being here to listen and support as we all navigate through this wild world side by side. Helping babies start their lives thriving. These little gestures add up and are part of my little offering to help repair the world.

Collectively, we cannot ignore the antisemitism as it boils up around us. But we can all do our own little work to repair the world and balance this hatred. I choose to counter it with love and pride in my ancestors and the community that their strength and resilience created.

10 years later....

In a few days my practice will turn 10! As this auspicious milestone approaches, I find myself reflecting on this past decade of my professional and personal life. I've spent my entire career caring for pregnant people and their babies; supporting, listening, and comforting people in one of the most vulnerable and transformative experiences of their lives. And during that time, right alongside side of the many hundreds of you all, I also got married and became a Mother to my two girls. As your chiropractor I cared for you all, but you also stayed with me and quite literally supported me through huge transitions and challenges in my own life like the marathon bombing, two pregnancies and maternity leaves, illnesses, and a global pandemic.

I am so proud of the practice I've built and its strength ten years in. It's not easy to keep a one-woman-business running in an expensive city. There were many who doubted me early on (at times even myself to be honest) and I'm so pleased to have proven them wrong. Moreover, I am profoundly grateful to each and every one of you for your trust, support, and willingness to share yourself and your families with me for the past ten years. Thank you. I am so looking forward to what the next ten will bring.

Don't leave me Summer!

No matter if you have school aged kids or not, this time of year is a big transition from Summer vibes to Fall, and shifting routines for all of us. I'm mentally preparing to send my oldest child to kindergarten next week 😳 and to take back over the morning routines with my girls solo as my husband returns to work as a high school teacher. 

When change is upon me, I feel more anxious and less settled. So many unknowns starting our daughter in a school system for the first time, and all that comes with that new chapter. I also know there is much work ahead of me. Logistical work of getting two kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door on time for me to still get to the office or the train station. The emotional work of helping a 5 year old transition to a new school with new routines, expectations, and faces. All the other work of parenting and house management that doesn't stop when new things are put on our plates. And oh yes, let's not forget my paid work of being a chiropractor and practice owner! 

It's easy for me to spiral into anxiety just looking at it all. To counter this stress, here are a few strategies I'm employing to ride through this tumultuous time with as much ease and grace as possible.

1. Keep up the self care routines that work. For me this is keeping up with a weekly yoga class, taking walks on the trail by my home, making (and looking forward to, and enjoying) future kid free plans with friends and my husband, and going to my chiropractor every other week.

2. Go to sleep early enough to get enough rest. I aim to start heading upstairs to get ready for bed around 9:30 or 10. This doesn't always happen, but I'm always better off when it does.

3. Don't overbook the weekends. So much competes for our limited time on the weekends between kid's activities, birthday parties, social gatherings, events, etc. This is also the time when my husband and I do the grocery shopping, meal prepping for the week, when I sneak in that yoga class, and other random errands and chores that didn't fit into our work weeks. I know many people enjoy being busy and doing things out of the house all the time, but I am not that person. I am a homebody and really need the quiet, unstructured days of the weekend to recharge. I'm getting much better at saying 'no' to invitations when we already have something going on that day, but I can always be better. I want to ensure a few completely open days each month for a spontaneous family adventure or just to have a quiet day to play in our backyard.

4. Be kind and gentle with myself and my family. This is the most important. Transitions are hard, so be patient with yourself and your kiddos as you all get used to the new routines.

I'd love to hear any tips or strategies that you have for navigating this back to school time with ease! Let me know what works for you!

Focusing on the sweet stuff.

This Spring and Summer I've started a new hobby: beekeeping. Over the Winter, I enrolled in a very comprehensive class run through the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association that taught me all I need to know to get my journey started with actual real live honey bees! The girls moved in at the end of April and I have been observing, inspecting, managing, and learning since then.

While I am an extreme novice, and will easily spend decades learning more about these fascinating creatures and their habits, here are a few fun facts I have picked up so far.

Honey Bee colonies are almost entirely female.

Out of tens of thousands of honey bees in a single hive, only a handful are the male drones. The rest of the hive from the foragers, to the architects, to the guards are all female. These male drones play a role in fertilizing Queens from other nearby hives, but other than that they are basically useless sperm sacks in terms of the role they play in the hive. Come Fall the ladies kick out all the drones to die in the cold as they use up too much resources without contributing to the hive.

Honey Bees move through different roles throughout their life as they age.

As I alluded to above, there are many different roles that a bee plays in the hive throughout her short life. The youngest bees act as nurses to the growing eggs and larva. The oldest bees are those who take on the dangerous task of foraging in the wild open world for pollen. Some never make it back to their hive on their final flight. If you see a honey bee buzzing on a flower, she is an elder of the hive.

It's all about the collective survival of the hive.

As a first year beekeeper my primary goal is to help my bees survive the harsh New England winter. These preparations that ensure the hive is healthy and robust start in early Spring. Life in the hive is not about the individual, it is about playing your part in concert with your community to ensure collective survival.

So many lessons to be drawn from the humble honey bee!I'm excited to learn more on my beekeeping journey and look forward to sharing more in the months to come.

Let the sunshine in.

Today I am home with my two girls, and so, not typically, I caught the news almost in real time today of the Supreme Court decision striking down the federal right to an abortion in our country. Although I was anticipating the news, it felt like a punch to the gut, and I am angry and scared for our country and our people. But I spent the last newsletter raging about reproductive rights, so today I want to write about something more peaceful and bigger than all of us, the recent Summer Solstice.

I've been paying more attention in recent years to the cycles of the moon and how they relate to my body and my internal rhythms. I've also been thinking more about the Druid Wheel of the Year, the Jewish lunar calendar, and how natural calendars provide touchstones with Mother Nature and her cycles.

This year, I've also been taking early morning walks about 4 times a week along the same path in the woods near my home, another way that I have been witnessing and embracing the ever changing landscape of my neighborhood throughout the year, from darkness to light, bare branches to buds and leaves, and quiet stillness to singing birds and nibbling bunnies.

I was out on one of my walks on Tuesday morning at 5:13 am at the time of the Solstice, and it brought me joy and peace to see the sun rise and shine brightly on the longest day of the year. A good reminder that through all of this, the Earth keeps spinning and the cycles of the year continue whether we take moments to notice them or not. The more chaotic, stressful, and angry the World seems, the more of these moments I want to take and appreciate.

My body, my choice, my story.

I am enraged by the continued decimation of our reproductive rights in this country. This particular issue impacts me on a very personal level as a professional working almost exclusively with the perinatal population, as a woman with a uterus, as a mother of two girls, and as someone who had an abortion as a young adult.

Learning that we are losing the federal right to terminate a pregnancy that we cannot or do not want to continue is a huge abuse in itself, but amongst the backdrop of the hellscape that is parental support in this country it feels like a searing personal attack.

The government that can essentially force people to remain pregnant and birth babies against their will is the same government that every step of the way makes it nearly impossible to raise babies here without going broke, suffering crippling anxiety, or both.

Our federal government is doing nothing to reform a healthcare system with the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world and soaring out-of-pocket costs for parents. It does not provide any guaranteed paid parental leave or subsidized childcare. Right now, it's struggling to supply our country's existing infants with enough baby formula to survive. Our federal government can't even make progress on laws that would protect our children from getting murdered by assault weapons in our public schools.

Like many of you, I'm feeling so angry, overwhelmed, and also helpless. But there are two action steps I keep hearing from expert activists that I'd like to share and encourage you to do the same if you are so moved.

Donate to an abortion fund.

Share your own personal story with abortion.

We all know someone who is touched by abortion, although we may not realize it because it is so stigmatized and women often go through it silently. But, I won't be silent or ashamed any longer, and neither should you.

Reader, I had an abortion. When I was 21 years old I got pregnant after two different methods of birth control failed (broken condom and morning after pill). While it certainly didn’t feel that way at the time, I was so lucky. I felt safe talking to my mom who supported me as I decided I wanted an abortion. I had access to a safe abortion with a skilled OB/GYN in a clean hospital. I had follow up care. I even could have it quick enough to return to college for the start of a semester and not miss any classes.

The fact that I was able to have an abortion opened up even more opportunities to me, international travel, graduate school, a carefree young adulthood, the ability to start my own business, the chance to meet my life partner untethered by a child from a former relationship, the CHOICE to become a parent when I was emotionally ready. The fact that I was able to have an abortion enabled me to be where I am today, writing to you as your chiropractor.

The truth is, abortion will always exist for those of us privileged enough to travel to get one safely. But I believe this choice should belong to everyone who might find themselves pregnant at any stage of life, and their partners if they have one. Not just the wealthy or those privileged to live in states where abortion will remain safe and legal. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", said Martin Luther King, Jr. And right now, we have raging injustice towards women in this country and it is threatening the rights of us all.

I encourage you all to share your abortion story with those who will listen. To donate to abortion funds to make abortion accessible to those who need one today and cannot get one. To contact our state legislators and implore them to protect our lives with reproductive rights and comprehensive gun law reform. To vote for leaders who will fight for these rights. Because if you don't think abortion affects you, you're wrong.

Spring Cleaning.

Both my husband and I are the youngest of three children in our own families of origin, which among many other things, helped us amass enough hand-me-down baby gear and clothing to outfit an entire daycare. We have been incredibly grateful not only for all the money we saved in not having to buy so many things for our two girls, but also for the inevitable sweet nostalgia that comes when your baby sleeps in the same bassinet as her older sister, nieces, and nephew did or wears the same adorable outfit that once fit those other kiddos when they were that tiny.

I've been collecting, washing, folding, and storing these items in SO MANY PLASTIC BINS for over 5 years. Until this month! The time has come in my own Motherhood journey to say goodbye to the infant stage and pass along all of this baby gear. I kept a few special items for sentimental reasons, mailed a few of the nicer clothing pieces that weren't stained to my cousin and her baby girl in Idaho, and the rest I donated to this amazing local organization called Room To Grow. After making this donation, I felt about 1000 pounds lighter, and now have made a little room in the girls' closet for bigger kids clothes and toys.

Is it time for you to let go of any of those baby items? Spring is a great time to make space and room in your home by donating unused/unwanted items. This really can help us mentally too. As Gretchen Rubin always says, "outer order leads to inner calm."

"A Day of Feasting and Joy"

Today Jewish people celebrate the holiday of Purim. This is one of our most joyous and raucous holidays where holy rabbis literally tell us to get totally drunk in celebration.

Why do we celebrate? Because thousands of years ago, a Jewish queen named Esther successfully stopped the plot of her husband's evil adviser to systematically murder all the Jews in their city. Esther devised a plan, stood up to her non-Jewish husband the King, and saved the lives of all her people in the city. For this we party, we drink, we eat, we dress in costumes, we listen to this amazing Book of Esther, and we yell and boo and make noise whenever the evil adviser's name is spoken in the story.

We celebrate life with abandon.

I share this with all of you because the world is dark right now. The horrifying news from Ukraine, along with the threats that it bring us is enough to make any of us shut down in anxiety and fear.

We can help by doing what is in our control. Not only with money and resources that we can share with those in need, but with choosing to take moments to celebrate life amidst this death and fear. By putting love and good energy into our communities. By investing in our own and our children's emotional and physical health. By calling on the strength of our foremothers and forefathers who faced hardships in the past and persevered.

By living life with joy and purpose.

Twos-Day.

Today is 2.22.22! And it's a TUESday! A writer and podcaster I admire, Gretchen Rubin, suggested to mark this day of twos by celebrating meaningful twosomes in your life. Today I'm sending love to my other halves in my own twosomes who help keep me balanced: my husband and my best girlfriend especially.

I am also reflecting on all the amazing twosomes I am lucky enough to witness in my life. As Mother to my two daughters, I strive to nurture their bond in Sisterhood as they walk through this world together. As a chiropractor, I am so fortunate to care for and support so many amazing mother baby dyads and help them thrive through the perinatal period together.

Every day is a good day to nourish and make time for the twosomes in our life, but 2.22.22 is an especially perfect day to think about and celebrate your own kindred spirits.

Hello, 2022.

Over the past year that I've been practicing during the pandemic, I've been struck with the at times overwhelming demand and need for my services.

The pandemic has been an emotional roller coaster for all of us, as we weather ever changing situations, long disruptive periods of isolation, fear, uncertainty, and political division.

Gentle chiropractic care offers so much of what we need right now: a place to process our experiences, unwind from the incessant physical and emotional stressors, calm and rebalance our nervous systems, and take steps towards healing amidst this time of global trauma.

I know I could not have made it through this pandemic without my own chiropractor, and I am so grateful to be able to continue to support and comfort so many of you. While there have been times I wish I could do my work remotely, getting to connect with my patients in person and witness the beauty of your lives through pregnancies, births, and all the other joyful milestones that persist despite it all has given me so much strength and hope. Some of that stuff just can't translate over Zoom.