Overcoming Mental Illness & Anorexia

Thanks to my dear friend 

Cindy Ashton 

for having me on her 

Monster-Kissing Secrets internet radio show.

It's because of dear souls like Cindy 

that I can passionately tell my tale 

while sharing insights about crawling out of seemingly bottomless pits.

Best part of the whole story is the 

part about how Nia was 
(and still is) 

a major part of my wellness plan.

Listen to the interview here 

Hey, why not be be inspired in print? 

Purchase Cindy's Monster-Kissing book!

Sunday Scribblings #102 - Tattoos

I have a couple of tattoos and a few piercings. I like them for the individual I feel they make me. Yet I giggle inside about the fact that one day I'm sure to be in a long term care facility and that I'll be sagging all over the place with this unique body art that will surely be lost on whomever is wiping my ass at that time (graphic, yes, but come on, it's true!)

Here's the story of my body art: 

Tattoo #1

Tattoo: "Made in Canada" framing a maple leaf. How patriotic! (and true! I was "made in Canada" I verified it with my mom just to be sure!).

Location: Inside my right ankle. It got a little messed up when the needle hit my ankle bone and I flinched with a WTF kind of reflex! As a result it reads "Nade in Canada"!

Date of Tattooing: I'm a little fuzzy here. I'm guess-timating it was in the summer of 1989; possibly 1990)
City of Tattooing:  Near Springdale, Newfoundland, Canada.
Location of Tattooing: A stranger's basement. No, seriously. There were no tattoo parlours in NFLD in those days!
Accompanied by: Matthew Hancock, boyfriend at-the-time. He was born in Springdale NFLD.
Occasion: Hancock family homecoming trip to NFLD .
Side notes: That same day, Matthew had a tattoo with an outline of the province of NFLD which said "Home Sweet Home".   I still think it was kind of cool that we were country/province-loving first time tattoo recipients!  Also, my "Made in Canada"  tattoo is what I lovingly refer to as my HIV / HEP RISK tattoo (when I was too young to know/understand hygiene and risks of lack there-of),


 Tattoo #2 

Tattoo: A rabbit made of stone.  A rabbit. NOT A BUNNY! I made sure there was to be no bunny-like being on my body....

Location:  On my back, between my shoulder-blades.

Date of Tattooing: Christmas 2006. It was a Christmas gift between Paul and I. He and I both had that rabbit permanently embossed on our bodies in the same place.
City of Tattooing:  Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Location of Tattooing: Yonge St. Tattoos.  Eric who did the drawing and the work, but he's no longer there : (
Accompanied by: Paul Kralik, my loving husband who got the same tattoo in the same location.
Occasion: Christmas, bonding.
Side notes: Paul and I chose to have rabbit tattoos emblazoned on our backs.  Paul's last name (Kralik) means "little rabbit" in Slovak.  That's the basic meaning behind them.
But there's another part of the "deep meaning" of the tattoos: I had been *desperately* attempting to draw an Inukshuk verison of a rabbit in my drawing class. (An Inukshuk is a man-made stone landmark or cairn used by the Cairn, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of Northa America, from Alaska to Greenland. To me it represented northern Ontario where I spent a lot of time as a child).
I was, at the time, pretty serious about being able to draw my own future tattoo. But I had to come back down to reality eventually! I gave up and handed over the idea to Eric who came up with what he did.
Eric also informed me that I happened to be allergic to the red ink of my first tattoo, which had kind of gone brown a little at the red edges....

I love the body stories I carry!

Do you love yours too?

Nia @ the Veggie Food Fair

~ It's not too late to join in~ 

 

 

TOMORROW

 

 Nia is on-stage at the Veggie Food Fair
(Sunday Sept 13 12:30-1:30pm)

I have been working on getting Nia to be part of the Fair for 2 years and so I'm thrilled to have been offered a spot to showcase the JOY OF MOVEMENT this year!

YOU are a big part of sharing

Nia's joy with Toronto

Here are the details about the event

1. The demo is on Sunday September 13.

It's at:

Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West

and is on

The Redpath Stage (a round stage in the middle of the Ann Tyndal Lawn is surrounded by vendor and activity tents).

Transportation:

From Union Station
Take either the 509 Exhibition or 510 Spadina streetcar west from inside Union Station (to exit from the subway platform by the correct stairs, look for the Harbourfront signs). Get off at the Lower Simcoe Street stop.

Both the 509 and 510 streetcars stop directly in front of Harbourfront Centre.

From Spadina Station
Take the 510 Spadina streetcar south.
 

 Bike Parking is available on site.


2. The demo is from 12:30-1:30pm.


3. Please arrive between 12:10-12:15pm.
I am available at 416.573.4911 after 11am if you need to contact me for any reason.

4. I will have a Pink Nia "I love my body" T-shirt to loan to you to wear on stage.
We'll match! How fun!
Please wear black or dark bottoms (pants, skirt, shorts) if possible.

5. When you arrive, I hope you will find me/us without difficulty. You'll probably see a bunch of people with pink t-shirts milling about ~ and hopefully a few Nia signs!

If not, please ask for Scott Penner at the stage.

6. Please enJOY this experience as you would any other Nia class.

This is NOT a performance ~ in presenting Nia at this fair, I simply hope to showcase the JOY the is possible through a typical Nia experience.

If you know of someone who might be interested, INVITE THEM ALONG! It doesn't matter if they have never experienced Nia before. The point is to show Toronto (and beyond) that Nia is for everyBODY!!!


7. If you have a photographer or videographer in your life, please invite them along!

Footage of ANY nature would be so welcomed!

Questions? Please email or call (416.573.4911)

Julie Devaney - My Leaky Body

I have a friend named Julie Devaney.  

Julie talks to people about her body, which literally leaks. 

Really.

Julie shares her experiences dealing with her leaky body to help her audiences 

gain insight into experience of illness 

and the impact of sometimes not-so-positive encounters with our health care system.

My Leaky Body is a theatrical story-telling performance by Julie Devaney based on her experiences spending five years in and out of hospitals, propped up on operating tables and in bed in pain for weeks and sometimes months at a time. Pretty cool, huh?

Last week, I received an exciting message from Julie.  

My Leaky Body the book will be published in 2011 

by Key Porter Books!!!

Yay! Hurray Julie!

As I was thinking about her success at creatively illuminating critical issues in our health care system, my mind soared dreamily into the future.

I suspect that a few years from now,  I'll be writing something similar to the following reflection in my journal:

"MacLean's Magazine. I NEVER read it because the print is so small and I kinda feel a little stupid reading it (I'll admit it, I'm a little outta touch with a lot of pretty important issues). But today was different. Today I DEVOURED that pretentious magazine.  It was the LEAKY BODY issue!

Can you believe that that I USED TO TEACH Nia to JULIE DEVANEY! JULIE DEVANEY!
THE Julie Devaney who created a powerful consciousness raising career out of her own health crisis? Out of all the Nia classes she could have attended, SHE CHOSE MINE (only after Samantha semi-retired)!  I remember when Julie wore these really funky skirts to class; she danced so gracefully in them. I never had the courage to be as free as her in those skirts. Oh, yeah, she also had this awesome yellow streak in her hair. And then it was white. Cool.

The greatest thing was that MacLean's profiled Julie as the model for using a personal hell to create change. They described her as a 'luminous and scholarly edu-actress who took a bite out of patient silence and complacency'.  Not only did Julie educate scores of health care professionals about the patient expereince, but she was also the driving force behind getting Disability Studies added to the high school curriculum.

And you know what? That girl really knows how to shake her booty too!"

Sunday Scribblings #101 - Key

Keeping true to self

Practicing compassion 

and gratitude.

That's the key.