Thank you Dr. Roberta Lee. We all need to be reminded to think about ourselves and our health. I have seen stress really do numbers on some of my friends, and family.

The problem I see is this. When people start to feel stressed, they go to their doctor, their doctor gives them a prescription, and they pop a pill in their mouth for the answer. I realize that sometimes that is the right answer, but they have a pill for everything these days. And most people would rather take a pill than to do a little exercise or change they way they eat.

My husband takes cholesterol medicine, so he thinks he now can just eat whatever he wants. I asked him did his Dr tell him that the medicine works better with diet and exercise, he said no. Sad, really sad.

Great advice and so important. Girlfriend time (in person) is indeed really important. The computer is great, emails, blogging, but nothing beats face to face interactions with human beings! To be able to hug someone and look them in the eye is as important as breathing.

It definitely is a stress reliever. All of Dr. Lee’s advice is spot on. I walk to work everyday. And on crisp, cool mornings like we have been experiencing lately in Wisconsin, it is relaxing and physically beneficial at the same time. A good walk, some cool music in my ears and I’m ready to take on the world.

Thank you.

 I am in the midst of a hell year - death, death, death and relationships ending and beginning. My friends, men and women, have been very understanding and enormously supportive. I sometimes "turtle" or "go dark" and while they accept that; they call too. They show up. Also, I have had the opportunity to be a good friend to a new friend who has lost love recently. The value in this is immeasurable. While I comfort her I am comforted myself. Giving at this time of loss is healing me and my new friend.

What an experience. I sometimes feel that I am watching this from far away and I am overwhelmed by the beauty and transformative strength that loss has and brings out in us. "Death shall have no dominion" but it along with other loss, can bring an aching and powerful connection along with the most tender kind of openness. 

Gianna;

My mother is one of the people I lost this year. It was and is very painful but transformative and freeing. Cancer is destructive but the experience of caring for my mother as she died, and watching her spirit or essence leave her body, was the most profound experience of my life. In fact, I feel, it actually made me a better and more substantial person. I hope you don’t lose your mother but if you do I hope her death gives you what my mother’s passing gave to me. There has been a new kind of courage and clarity but at the same time a baffling confusion. Who the hell am I? I lost 50 pounds, left my long time partner and found new love. I look in the mirror and I wonder what happened to the stymied, fat, scared woman who took up so much space in my body not even a year ago. I miss her a little (she was not all bad). 

I am so glad you were able to feel a little better from my experience. Know that anyone who has been through this understands that it is like being an emotional Hercules to get through the days. I don’t know if you believe in god (I’m not sure if I do) but on the off chance there is one - god bless. On the off chance there is not, and this is more what I mean to say, I am so happy to connect with you and I think it is a little bit of the magic of the world that we are able to do this.

KC