A Great Carpal Tunnel Exercise

So I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome several months back and it was this exercise that made a huge difference. Make sure to repeat the hand positions 10 times, 2 sets a day. If you're working all day do a set before you start, in the middle of your work, and at the end of the day:


The other thing that really helped, when I was in the thick of a writing storm on my laptop, was wearing wrist braces that I purchased at a local pharmacy. If you're not typing a lot, I would just stick to the exercise above, two times a day for a while. It's very nourishing and lubricating for the tendons in your wrists.

The other thing that helped was to take a small rubber band, put all my fingertips of one hand inside it, and stretch them out 10 times in a row. Do this on both hands and make sure to do it two times a day. This is a good resistance exercise to build up the right muscles in your wrists to fight carpal tunnel.

Spiritual Moments In India

One Of My Average Days In India

Eat Pray Love Encounter With Ketut Liyer

On Saturday, I was at a coffee shop with my husband, working on some web design for my own site, www.lizgrover.com After a while and a few sips of spicy tea, a woman sat down in front of me and proceeded to read a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. Since I had my computer with me, I thought I would interrupt her to show her the picture I took of Ketut Liyer, the mentioned shaman/palm reader in Eat Pray Love. I posted it on my Flickr account, so it was easy just to turn the screen around to show her. I know that she was "in" her book, but I find it fascinating to meet and/or see the faces behind book characters, like I did with Ketut in Bali. I thought she would appreciate it.

She didn't mind the interruption and thought it was so cool to see a picture of him. She said that it was almost exactly what she thought Ketut would look like, so I think that means that Gilbert did a great job describing him in her book. It's a fun and amazing world.

Interesting Portland-My Next Talk

I will soon speak about my experience in Afghanistan at Interesting Portland on April 9, 2009 at Norse Hall. I will talk about what drove me to go to Afghanistan with $100 US dollars in my pocket, a one-way plane ticket and no promise of a job. I will have a time maximum of three minutes to talk, just like the other speakers. You can check the lineup here, learn more and buy tickets at their website.

Strange Love Live Interview On Video

I was interviewed on Strange Love Live on March 13th, and it was a blast! I suggest you tune into this show to hear some of the most creative and intelligent voices of the Portland tech community and beyond. Here's the video if you missed it:

The more techy talk:

Strange Love Live-After Hours On Video

After Hours Baby! Anything goes:

Strange Love Live on Friday the 13th!

So the lovely beings at Strange Love Live have invited me to come hang out this coming Friday, the 13th. Please show some love and tune in if you can. I'm still not officially blogging, but I have made my blog a little flashier with bells & whistles. I'm now writing the LAST chapter of my book. Yay! Unfathomable to write a whole book, but here it is.

xox,
Liz

Dare to Go Where You Fear, or How I got to Afghanistan With $100-My Presentation for Ignite Portland

Photo credits for presentation:

Lina Abirafeh
Marie Frechon
Liz Grover
Aykut Tavsel

Love is the Answer

I recently stumbled upon an episode from This American Life called "Unconditional Love". I found it to be so interesting and it really helped to open my mind to the broader history of childhood bonding and its significance in America and Hands to Hearts International's work.

The episode's intro discussed the research of Harry Harlow. Between 1963 and 1968 he ran a series of tests that took baby rhesus monkeys away from their mothers and put them in a cages, each equipped with one mother made of terry cloth and one made of wire which provided food. Please watch the experiment in the video below:



As you can see from this video, even baby monkeys need to be nurtured. I was especially intrigued when Harlow said that the baby monkey would spend 17-18 hours with the cloth mother as opposed to the wire mother.

This might not seem surprising, but as Ira Glass said, before the 1950's, American doctor's, psychologists, and the government believed that too much childhood bonding was a bad thing. Public messaging would discourage mothers from kissing and holding their babies too much. Influential Psychologist of the time John Watson even said that "Mother Love is a dangerous instrument".

Ira's monologue was shocking to me and made me think on a grand scale. One thing was obvious; I knew that not all mothers listened to this messaging, but I shivered when I realized how many mothers did listen to the society's ignorant warnings about bonding. Who out of my 20 something generation would think that the American society was against mother and child bonding until the 1950s.

This made me wonder how this affected the childhood of my grandparents and their generation. I found myself thinking if I could connect this story to some of the more dysfunctional traits of my family.

It also reminded me of my travels in Asia when I felt my own frustration for a lack of bonding. I remember when I lived in Nepal and I had several children who I spent time with. I used to bring them crayons and teach them games like leap frog and how to build a kite. We had fun and it was a precious time. Then, when I had to leave for America, I wanted to hug them goodbye but it wasn't acceptable by the Nepali cultural standards. It made me a little sad to leave without a proper hug, but there wasn't much I could do.

The radio program went on to discuss an example of attachment disorder. Heidi and Rick adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage named Daniel. Daniel lived there for 7.5 years and didn't remember much from the experience. He didn't go to school and just stayed in his crib during most of his days. Daniel did remember never having a desire for family.

Heidi and Rick recalled how they enjoyed the first 6 months with Daniel but that period unexpectedly came to a screeching halt. Out of thin air, Daniel became a violent child. He would throw things in the house and intentionally aimed physical attacks at his mother. The attacks brought police to the house twice a month on average. One day it got so bad that he held a knife to her throat.

Heidi had tried so many therapies with Daniel along the way, but this tragic and frightening incident pushed her to search harder. Thankfully, she found what she was looking for, and for the first time, Daniel was officially diagnosed. He had attachment disorder and the remedy for this was for him was to be treated with love and nurturing as if he had gone back to being a one year old again.

That's right. The attachment therapist prescribed that Heidi and Daniel would have to spend 3 months together, side bye side, with no more than the distance of three feet apart. Also, even though Daniel was 10, both of the parents were ordered to cradle him like a baby every night for 20 minutes, while looking deep into his eyes and holding him tight.

This sounds crazy to most, but it changed Daniel dramatically and his violence toward Heidi ceased to exist. At the time of this interview, Daniel was a teenager and he had just been awarded as a model citizen in his local synagogue. Quite a change from the day when he held a knife to his mother's throat. The love and physical bonding cured him.

So, I'll bring it back to my work and my own environment. I now work with Hands to Hearts International. Laura Peterson is its executive Director, founder, creator etc. and she has just reached over 10,200 children with her message of the importance of childhood bonding. From what I have seen of her work, of the video footage, the photos, the stories, and people such as parents who adopted a child from an orphanage where HHI's program is strong, I am convinced that HHI is the answer to all of the problems that I have just mentioned. I have seen a lot of disasters in this world. I have worked as a humanitarian aid worker in war-torn countries. I have worked in non-profits big and small, and I have to say that HHI is the most effective thing I've seen. Why? Because it starts at the core of children's lives, with love. It's so simple that I'm afraid that not everyone can grasp it. It's true though. Just imagine how things would have been different for Daniel if he had HHI trained caregivers at his orphanage in Romania, singing him songs and cradling him to sleep as a baby. Is it resonating yet?

I don't think healing people, a country or the world is about a new democracy, newly elected presidents, the greatest new technology, or fancy billion dollar aid packages. It's just about love and I'm waiting for the day when more people understand this. HHI gets this and it gives me hope.

Viva Timor-Leste

Presidential Candidate Lu Olo aka Sammy Davis Junior




Presidential Candidate Avelino Cohelo aka Che Guevara

(Yes, Sammy Davis Junior and Che Guevara live, and they currently reside in East Timor. I saw them the other day! Well, kind of. At least they have some pretty good look alikes who both ran as candidates during the country’s Presidential Election this year.)

East Timor

I'm now in East Timor and, believe you me, I never saw this one coming until 2 weeks ago. It all started when a job I found in Portland, Oregon didn't work out--I worked at a web design company for one week, and my manager could not give me the hours he originally promised.

I immediately went to Craig's list to search for a job. That lasted about 5 minutes because a strong feeling in my gut told me to stop searching and wait for a job that was about to come to me. I paid attention to the feeling, and the next morning I received an email from my former manager in Kabul asking me to design a website for East Timor's parliamentary elections.

It's really bizarre yet comforting when these things happen. I know I can always rely on the universal flow to guide and take care of me.

It's now my second day ever in East Timor. I'm staying in Dilli, the capitol and there's a monsoon down poor out my window right now, making it's presence loudly known on the many tin roofs that saturate my neighborhood. Because of colonization that lasted for 450 years, locals speak Portuguese and 18th century European architecture is spread throughout the city. Coffee plants and sandal wood cover the island and the fishing couldn't be better--my friend Toby said the prawns here can sometimes be the size of telephone receivers. The bulk of the population is Roman Catholic with a few animists living inland and, other than beaches and a desolate tropical mountain scape, that's about all I know for right now.

I'm a little jet lagged and it's hard for me to absorb too much at this point, but, as the election moves closer and I start to explore, I will definitely keep you all posted.

Ciao,
Liz

Sweet, Sweet Dharma

Official Definition of Dharma
a. The principle or law that orders the universe.
b. Individual conduct in conformity with this principle.
c. The essential function or nature of a thing.

My Definition-
The unexplainable force that pulls me to this moment and beyond, teasing, loving, playing, protecting, teaching, and guiding me through this crazy thing called life while creating the most heavenly design. To ignore its magnetism is to ignore my only truth.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For...

"It is said that when the earth is weeping and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth. A people of many colors, who by their actions and deeds shall heal the earth and make her green again. They will be known as the warriors of the Rainbow." -- Old Hopi Prophecy

Microcosmic

I recently reminded myself of how blessed I am to live in L.A. when I visited a Cambodian Buddhist temple about thirty minutes from my house.

I instantly felt unbound by time and space when I entered the temple because everyone was Cambodian. Monks were chanting mantras in Khmer, the large room was filled with mats where people sat cross-legged and focused in silent prayer, and a large, gold leaf Buddha statue with a neon flashing light behind its head rested in the middle of the room. Smells of curry, a Cambodian version of pho, and incense mixed and lingered in the air. All of these pieces, including the tacky Buddha statue, would only make sense in Cambodia.

I sat down in the back of the room, tuned into my Cambodian flashback, and joined the rest in prayer.

After the procession, I was warmly welcomed by the Cambodians and sat down for a communal lunch. Most of them could barely understand my English and happily chattered away in their own tongues. Strangely enough, they never realized that I couldn’t understand their stories as I used the little Khmer that I knew to supplement their monologues.

Yes, it’s quite amazing to be here. I haven’t had many opportunities to explore all the microcosms of L.A., but I know that anytime my wanderlust flares up, I can always find another spiritual center like this (whether it’s a mosque, synagogue, temple, or church—it’s all here), restaurant, or marketplace of any international flavor. In this sense, I’m always at home, and never too far from the rest of the world.

Bewish

Yesterday I met a man who wittingly declared to be Bewish, which is a combination of Judaism and Buddhism. He said that this amalgamated state enables him to say things like “Om Shalom” and eat curried gefilte fish. I was at a party when we crossed paths, and after his declaration, he pulled me aside as if the others couldn’t process his philosophy, and whispered, “And honey, let me tell you that I am God, because to make it outside of myself would be codependent”.

He then told me how I need to write the first chapter of my book soon, and that's exactly what I was thinking during the week leading up to this encounter.

Yet again, I attracted an external reflection that confirms all these crazy ideas floating around inside. I like this concept of “the one”. It suits me well.

Banned!!!

Yesterday I chatted with a friend who is currently living and working in China, and he said that he can’t read about any of my galactic travels because the Chinese government has blocked all blog sites on the internet. So I’ve officially been banned! It's harder to burn books or words online, and apparently this is my writer’s passage or milestone in my development.

I think it’s an honor since it means I’m speaking the truth and that’s what the Chinese government fears. The funny thing is that, in my own experience, running away and denying the facts sometimes brings the truth faster. I think this falls under the laws of negative attraction.

It makes me wonder what it's like to get on the internet in China. I can imagine just one accessible website that is the official site of the Chinese governent. No need for search engines or "surfing the net". Makes it easy, doesn't it?

Afghanistan, Take One!

Today I met an actress whose latest gig is to run around the desert with 150 other actors and actresses, playing the role of a Muslim woman, burka and all. This isn’t the set for Hollywood’s latest politically incorrect terrorist movie, but a role play used by the US military.

She told me how she does this once a month. She gets to live in a shack without electricity, sleep in the cold night, get harassed and accosted by military men (in a pretend way, I guess), and even receives Arabic lessons and cultural pointers from actual Afghan and Iraqi refugees, all while participating in these reenactments on an old native American burial ground.

Hmmm… Other than the ancient burial ground, this sounds a bit familiar. I’m in L.A., but there are many vortices about. The world is a funny place, no?

I wonder...

How do we effectively dream together and stoke the fires of universal consciousness to a roaring and wondrous blaze? This is what I want to know. I believe it comes from the truth, that we are one and we all dream of the basics—love and peace. How you find it is your own localized experience because, as a wise man on a backwoods Himalayan road once told me, some may walk, some may bike, some may take the bus, and some may fly, but we're all going to the same destination. I honor the unique path of all, and ask how to support each other during this journey. The answer is within.