Tag: Wellness

Seeking mellow

I believe that spas are one of the best things ever invented.

If we have time on a journey, I love to check out a spa in a different location. The best massage therapist I’ve ever had works out all my kinks and knots at a great spa within 15 minutes of my house, but there’s something so relaxing about checking out of life for a few hours in a location far, far away. It feels extra-removed from all the minute little cares and irritations back home.

While all my travelling spa experiences have all been great, visiting a spa in a foreign location can be an eye-opener.

My first travelling spa adventure took place at the Boulders golf resort in Arizona. Our long-weekend package included one activity per day for each of us. My hubby elected to play golf each day, while I alternated between rounds of golf and either sleeping in and having fresh coffee and blueberry pancakes delivered to my casita, or having a spa treatment — so much more relaxing! At the time the treatments were based on Ayurvedic principles, and I lay blissfully on the massage table while warm herbal oil was drizzled onto my skin and infused into my pores during a 20-minute wrap.

I wanted to have try out the spa at our beach resort in Bali, but we underestimated how strong the sun was just two degrees south of the equator and got burned out body-surfing, even with sun screen. Instead of a massage I spent most of the evening in a wicker chair under the ceiling fan trying to bring some coolness to my fiery shoulders.

The most unique, and strangest spa experience I’ve ever had was on the island of Mauritius. Our resort package included a complimentary spa combo of a coffee scrub, using coffee beans grown right on the island, followed by a massage.

Let me start out by mentioning that Mauritius spent 95 years of its history under French rule, and it still retains a strong French influence.

Entrance to the spa at Legends Resort, Mauritius
The Source Thalaspa entrance at the Legends Resort in Mauritius

I happily trotted over to the spa one afternoon. The serene entrance had intrigued me from our first day checking out the grounds. The spa was small but lovely. I was given a locker and a fluffy white robe — nothing unusual there. Then I was led to my treatment room and introduced to my therapist, a lovely woman who gave me a pair of tiny paper panties to put on and told me to lie down on the table face-up.

Beg pardon? Where was my cover sheet to hide my no-longer-20-year-old body?? I hesitated, but this seemed to be standard practice, so I did as asked, trying to appear nonchalant when the therapist returned. She then proceeded to scrub all of my exposed skin from the neck down with what seemed to be coffee grounds in a light oil. I looked and smelled like a giant coffee bean by the end of it, and cringed internally when she told me to put my pristine white robe on and return to the change room to rinse off. Well, I thought, it’s their laundry budget, so off I went back through the gardens to the change room.

When I arrived there, the two shower stalls were in use, so one of the attendants suggested that I could use the shower in the courtyard instead of waiting around. Having seen men wandering through the courtyard earlier, I asked “Is it a private shower?” Well, no, she replied. I refrained from saying “Are you nuts?”, because that would have been extremely impolite, and merely replied that I didn’t mind waiting.

After I rinsed and returned to my treatment room, I was given a short but very good massage with nothing more surprising than some different positioning of my arms as the therapist attacked all the knots in my back. The coffee scent faded quickly, and my skin was incredibly smooth for days afterward.

The spa at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel in the Andean cloud forest was arguably my favourite spa experience. We didn’t hike the Inca Trail — not physically feasible for either of us — and instead we took the train to Aguas Calientes, the small town along the Urubamba River that serves as the base for most people visiting the compelling ruins at the top of Machu Picchu mountain.

If you ever have the chance to stay at this hotel, set into the cloud forest that surrounds Machu Picchu, I highly recommend it. Unfortunately since we visited the hotel has become a National Geographic Stay of Distinction and the rates have gone up considerably, but it is a wonderful place.

After several strenuous days adjusting to the high altitudes in Peru, I thought a relaxing massage was in order. The hotel makes all of its own botanical products from plants right on the property, and I’d already tried out some of the soaps and lotions in our casita.

Soaps and oils at Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, Peru
Toiletries in our casita bathroom at the Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, Aguas Calientes, Peru

The spa was located in its own white-walled casita surrounded by the lush cloud forest. I took a few photos of the treatment room, softly lit with candles, with the floor covered in a springy rush matting, so that every step was like walking on a rush-strewn cloud.

Treatment room at the Inkaterra hotel, Aguas Calientes
Treatment room at the Inkaterra hotel, Aguas Calientes

My massage therapist then proceeded to work her magic — for a petite lady she had lots of strength to knead my tight muscles into mush, working those scented oils into every pore amid the soothing sounds of the jungle.

While I haven’t been able to manage a spa visit on every adventure, the explorations have been as fascinating as they were therapeutic. The spas all seemed to run on similar rules; if you need to bone up on spa etiquette, read this handy article by Trip Savvy — but go with an open mind and be prepared for some interesting surprises the further you get from home.

Bucket List – Forgiveness

Forgiveness can bring peace - photo by E. Jurus
Forgiveness can bring peace – photo by E. Jurus

What baggage do we carry around with us in our lives? Sometimes the emotional baggage, residue from episodes of anger, hurt, disappointment or betrayal, can weigh us down enormously. Forgiving someone, while sometimes a seemingly impossible task, can do us a world of good. Even if we only make it as far as letting go of the emotions, that’s a substantial step in the right direction.

When I was in my twenties, an arsonist set fire to my parents’ home. They were lucky to make it out alive. The insurance company rebuilt their house, but it couldn’t rebuild their lives.

The police never caught the perpetrator, although we had our suspicions about a miserable neighbor and some union involvement.

The ripples from that event lasted for the next decade and a half. My dad’s health went downhill, and my mom started drinking again. I cursed the arsonist for years for all the pain he/she caused to all of us.

It was only after my parents had both passed away and were free from the event’s clutches that I was able to let it go myself and move on. I haven’t forgiven the arsonist for what he/she did, but I don’t really think about it any longer, and there’s no longer bitterness associated with the memory. The Mayo Clinic website has the following thoughts on the process:

” Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you deny the other person’s responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn’t minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. Forgiveness brings a kind of peace that helps you go on with life.”

So by that definition, I’ve found forgiveness.

It’s been far less easy to forgive myself for hurts I’ve caused others. There’s a subconscious sense I have, right or wrong, that I need to pay for those hurts by my continued pain at having inflicted them.

forgiveness-is-a-giftOn May 4th, the Global Forgiveness Challenge begins. It was created by Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho, who live in a country where there are decades of grievous hurt and stored resentment. The goal of the challenge is to encourage you to let go of your emotional baggage and begin the healing process. Once you sign up for the challenge, you’ll receive a daily inspirational message by email from Tutu and his daughter, daily exercises to practice, articles to read and the support of an entire community of fellow sufferers.

I’ve signed up for the challenge. Perhaps with their help I might even be able to forgive myself.

You’ll find more information about the Forgiveness Challenge here.Let me know if you’ve joined the challenge, and perhaps we can all help each other.  

A change of pace – literally

 

Post-surgery breakfast with accessories - photo by E. Jurus
Post-surgery breakfast with accessories – photo by E. Jurus

Life throws us a lot of curve balls. Even when we see them coming, though, we don’t always know how fast they’ll arrive, or how steep the curve will be.

Arthritis runs in my husband’s family, so it seemed inevitable that he would develop knee issues at some point. Perhaps as much as 15 years ago an orthopedic surgeon told him that at some point he’d need to have his knee joints replaced.

Yet it wasn’t a knee that he had replaced last week, but a hip. Both his hips have deteriorated to the point where there’s no cushioning at all, just bone grinding on bone.

This condition has been brewing for a couple of years, but it recently took over our lives practically overnight. One autumn we were hiking around Machu Picchu, and a few months later we seemed to have turned into our parents. Wasn’t really expecting that for another decade or so.

And so began the round of surgical appointments. What got us through the next few months was, ironically, that Mike was in so much pain trying to walk at all that he actually looked forward to the earliest possible surgical date.

We arrived at the hospital very early Wednesday morning and waited with the other hip and knee patients until the surgical floor opened for business. When the man at reception told us to head up, there was a communal chuckle at the eight people among us who shuffled slowly to the elevator.

The pre- and post-op care at Sunnybrook Holland Orthopedic Hospital in Toronto is exemplary. As nice and as dedicated as everyone was, though, we had trouble controlling our nerves waiting for Mike to be taken to the operating room – the anticipation leading up to the surgery was a killer. Everything went well, though, and Physio had Mike up and walking around the next day. On Saturday he was able to be discharged and we came home.

You think beforehand that the surgery itself will be the worst part. You don’t realize that post-surgery life is a bit like PTSD – there are lingering emotional after-effects. We’re both tired, over-reacting to highs and lows, and having trouble relaxing.

The first night back at home was rough, trying out various furniture configurations so that Mike could find a comfortable way to sleep (still one bad hip, plus a long and tender incision on the other side).

Every day is a learning experience as he shuffles around the house with two canes, struggles through his post-op exercises even though he’s tired, and uses a special gripping tool, like a virtual third hand, to change his clothes. He can’t prepare his own food because it’s too hard to carry dishes around while using his canes, so I make sure there’s always something on hand for him to eat when I go to work. There are dozens of little adjustments to make, and each day brings a few more.

It bothers me to see him hobble around. He gets frustrated when he has days that feel like setbacks. The light at the end of the tunnel is a pain-free hip in a few weeks, but the second surgery will follow after that, so we have a long road ahead for which we have to maintain our strength.

Our life has changed in myriad ways, but we count ourselves lucky to be able to rely on each other, and to have been able to accomplish so much on our bucket lists so far, and we work on being resilient through the next chapter. We look forward to doing more travelling, even if it might be more restricted than it has been. I’ve found over the years that bucket lists have to be flexible, and right now we’re focussed on wellness, so I’m planning activities that involve a mental escape from the day-to-day grind of coping with this latest challenge. Life goes on…

My two biggest pieces of advice for anyone still hale and healthy are: 1) Take care of your body. Whatever you do to it when you’re younger will come back to haunt you. 2) Live life to the fullest while you can. You never know what lies down the road.

Not taking anything for granted

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Erica & Mike boarding a tuk-tuk for a wild ride through the streets of Puno, Peru to get to our boat ride on Lake Titicaca – photo property of E. Jurus

Last week my hubby ended up in the hospital for several days with a heart flutter (hence my week’s hiatus). One of the chambers of his heart was beating too fast and too shallowly, so not enough oxygen was making it to his organs properly. He’d been having the odd issue with some minor shortness of breath, but one day I got one of the calls you never want to get: he was on his way to the hospital. The ECG confirmed what his high pulse rate (128 bpm) already indicated. He was put on some specific medications to regulate his heart rhythm, but they didn’t work, so the treatment was then to give his heart a mild shock to restore its natural rhythm.

That Friday I also found out that the 14-year-old son of a good friend of mine had gone missing for several days. Many people helped spread the alert through Facebook, but my friend was frantic.

Both of these stories had a happy ending — the electric shock on my hubby’s heart worked, so he’s back home and feeling much better, although his medications have been changed and there are some lifestyle changes required, and later in the day that the missing-child alert went out the police found the boy via a phone tip — but they could both easily have turned out much differently.

We all have things in our lives that we tend to take for granted over time, so I’d like this post to serve two purposes:

1) as a friendly reminder to make sure you appreciate the things in your life that you value, especially your health, and

2) to go after some of the things you really want to do instead of frittering away your life on daily clutter.

A lot of people toy with dream-version bucket lists, but not every one makes a point of accomplishing the things they dream about, and with proper planning you’d be surprised what you can manage. We have a relative, for example, whose big dream was to return to England and spend a year there, living in a cottage and roaming through the country, but he never did make it back. In the meantime, in 4-10 day increments, my hubby Mike & I have been to different parts of England about half a dozen times. (Yes, it’s one of our favourite places to visit).

A good bucket list will accomplish goals that really mean something to you, including measures to maintain or improve your health — after all, what’s the point in planning ahead if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy it. Mike and I have watched so many people put off doing anything fun until their retirement, then not surviving long enough to actually enjoy their retirement plans. Here are two things you can do right now:

A little pampering is good for everyone

Spa at the Legends resort in Mauritius - photo by E. Jurus
Spa at the Legends resort in Mauritius – photo by E. Jurus

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘self-care’, you can expect to start hearing a lot more about it. Self-care is a concept that’s crucial in our fast-paced, stressful modern environment, and it’s long overdue to enter the public conscious. Basically the name says it all: to take care of yourself. While that might seem self-evident, how many people do you know who take good care of themselves? Do you?

Do you get enough sleep every night or are you always trying to shoehorn something else into an already busy and long day? Do you take any ‘me-time’ to decompress? When was the last time you had a massage, or have you ever had one at all?

Many of the chronic illnesses in today’s society are either a direct result of stress or are exacerbated by it. I’m currently taking a short course in mental illness first aid — i.e. how to help someone experiencing a mental crisis — and the statistics are enlightening. For example, 1 in 3 Canadians has experienced or will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. Twenty-three percent of all workers have had time off work from stress-related conditions. There are a growing number of resources to help people in crisis, but just as important are the initiatives to prevent as many crises and illnesses as possible with some self-care.

Nutrition is a great place to start. I’m always appalled to see so many people in supermarket check-out lines bringing home such unbelievably unhealthy food. In university I had a chemistry course that devoted an entire lecture to food additives, so I’ve made a point of eating healthy food ever since. The adage that if you can’t pronounce an ingredient listed on a label then it’s likely not good for you is true. I encourage everyone to read food labels — it will be an eye-opener!

Once you start eating better, if you do consume a processed food you’ll immediately notice the chemical taste; I stopped eating anything by Sara Lee decades ago for that very reason.

You’ll also notice that eating something full of additives will keep you awake. Years ago we visited some friends who made a fruit tart with a pre-made sponge base, strawberries on top covered with a packaged glaze, and Cool Whip topping. We were up half the night afterwards, too wired and fidgety to be able to get to sleep, and neither of us generally has a problem with insomnia.

When it comes to de-stressing, I have a few favourite techniques that I’ll be discussing in subsequent blogs, but one of my favourites is to spend some time at a spa, both at home and abroad — every country has its own spin on spa treatments. Massages are fantastic for unknotting tense muscles, and I also love facials. If you’ve never had a facial, run right out and have one done — they feel that good!

Confident Image Chez France at Pamperfest - from L to R, Jennifer Petherick of SharpLight Technology, certified aesthetician Katie Martin, owner France DiPaola - photo by E. Jurus
Confident Image Chez France at Pamperfest – from L to R, Jennifer Petherick of SharpLight Technology, certified aesthetician Katie Martin, owner France DiPaola – photo by E. Jurus

Recently I was sent an invitation by a friend to attend a local event called Pamperfest, “showcasing high-end exclusive merchandise & products from its receptive community of successful women entrepreneurs”. I’m compiling a resource list of local wellness purveyors, so I thought I’d drop in and see what was available. I had a great time — had a lovely hand and neck massage by the Alouette rep, for example — and was very pleased to visit the display by my friend, France DiPaola, the owner of Confident Image Chez France rejuvenating clinic. For any budding female entrepreneurs, it would be hard to find a better role model; France turned a passion for helping women take better care of themselves into a terrific small business.

You can find out more about Pamperfest on its Facebook page — there’s another one coming up in Hamilton shortly.

Watch for more self-care information in future posts.