Kate Loving Shenk

Old Style Pedometer

I love my pedometer!

America On The Move has come to the hospital where I work, and all my friends
as well as myself are getting free tiny pedometers that attach to our waist bands
and measures every step we take.

Over the years, I’ve entered similar programs. One pedometer fell off in my pasture
land, only to show up a year later, rusted and disabled.

I remember getting another pedometer that measured ten steps for  every one.

After that I just let go of the idea of ever having one again.

This pedometer is perfect! It does the job it was designed to do which is to count my
steps, one stride at a time.

Since my choice and goal is to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, which surprisingly is only 10,000
steps a day from 11/16 to 12/28, I need to hustle to get those steps in, nevertheless.

10,000 steps measures five miles.

My dogs and I walk 2-4 miles a day. I often take 7,000 steps at work, and lately at home,
as well.

If I have to go to the other end of the hospital or my home to complete a task, I do so
happily now, knowing that my steps are getting me closer to my goal.

What is my goal?

Besides completing the Pacific Trail hike, getting my free pedometer, and rumors have it,
getting a $30.00 bonus, I like the idea of moving my body actively, getting up and moving,
stepping and dancing my way through the day.

So do all my friends who have a pedometer. This is where the fun begins.

I was talking to a fellow pedometer owner last night, and we spontaneously broke into steps,
dancing to a tune that was transmitted through the hospital sound system.

Another of my fellow pedometer owners is a stalwart Republican. I admittedly represent the
other side of the spectrum, politically speaking.

It would seem that I have nothing in common with this woman, and the 2008 election certainly
accentuated our opposing viewpoints.

Then we both became obsessed with our pedometers. We chose the same trail. When she
told me she slept with her pedometer, so that when she gets up in the middle of the night to
go to the bathroom and those steps are measured, too, I loved the zaniness of that confession!

So now we have something we can talk about without feeling the need to wring each others neck!

The pedometer creates common ground between people who ordinarily would have nothing
to do with each other!

It all began when I took my dogs to the Vet and asked the receptionist if my dog Ulysses was over
weight.

She instructed me to look straight down upon his standing body and if I saw obvious bulges,
then I would have to take him on more walks.

So I looked down at him, and saw a protruding bulge on both sides of his body. I knew then that I would
be taking Ule and my other dog Mukunda on daily disciplined walks.

About one week into our new routine, a four mile walk along the Mill Stream in what is called the
(Lancaster) County Park, I heard about the pedometer and thought that recording steps would
add a little excitement to what I had vowed to do for my dogs, and also for myself.

Five days of walking melted those bulges off both dogs.

My bulges vanish ever so slightly every day.

I notice we all sleep better; Mukunda in particular loves his food more than he ever did
(if that is possible)!!

I take deeper and more conscious breaths.

Ulysses snores more contentedly when he sleeps.

Muki used to jump in and out of the bed all night long but now he stays in one place for
hours, as we all snuggle together on these wonderful long winter’s nights, as the days
grow shorter and the nights grow longer.

And we vow to reject a sedentary life this year, one day at a time.

The pedometer serves as a motivation tool to keep moving throughout the day and night.
The America On The Move web site allows me to log the number of steps I take every day,
then shows where I am along the Pacific Crest Trail. Right now, I’m hanging out at Death Valley.
Soon I will arrive at Crater Lake. By December 28th, I should have completed the hike.

The trail map is a fun way for my imagination to play, but the exercise and activity that my
pedometer inspires is creating a daily walking and running habit, connecting me to people
and giving all of us a lifestyle we want to maintain.

Research shows that pedometer accuracy can vary widely, depending on the make and
model.

I am happy to report that the America On The Move pedometer ranks #2 as one of the best
pedometers on the market.

I can hardly wait to tell all my friends!!

Kate Loving Shenk

-=-=-=-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kate Loving Shenk is a writer, healer, musician and the creator
of the e-book called “Transform Your Nursing Career and Discover
Your Calling and Destiny.” The book is designed to stimulate
nurses to love their work and to prevent on-the-job-burnout.
Click here to find out how to order the e-book:
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/blog
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation
Check out Kate’s Blog: http://nursehealers.typepad.com
And the Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/katelovingshenk
http://www.squidoo.com/thinkriches
http://doganddolphin.ning.com
http://nursehealers.typepad.com/dog_lovers_unite
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Kate Loving Shenk Nursing Career Transformation Sign Up HERE For Your *FREE* Newsletter For Nurses And Healers Your e-mail address is safe with me–see privacy notice on my website!http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation/simplenewslettersignup.html

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/blog/kate-loving-shenk/2008/11/20/commentary-two-kate-loving-shenk

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Here is Commentary Two. My computer crashed a few weeks ago, and we got 2 Macs for the price of one, which put me back a few weeks. BUT, I am happy to say, each wonderful task learned with a Mac is a milestone in my Internet Marketing Learning Curve.

This video is a Congressional Testimony given to the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives to persuade politicians to pass HB 1660 and SB 300, a single payer, guaranteed health care for all legislation.

If Pennsylvania passes it, other states will follow.

Blessings to all,

Kate Loving Shenk

Dr Jill And her Beloved Mother, G.G.

After reading “My Stroke of Insight,” by Jane Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., and watching Oprah interview Jane on the Oprah Soul Series, I began to think of my mother’s stroke on June 19, 1987.

I just completed an intense dyadic four month period completing phase one of my Nurse Practitioner training.

Now phase two would begin in a week, and I was relaxing with my parents after not having a chance to visit with them for several months.

Something was wrong with my mother. All she would say was, ” I am not feeling very well,” and she looked quite serious, unsmiling and preoccupied.

My dad almost died from pneumonia  about a month before, so he was in a great mood, still gaining back his strength and grateful about Life and a renewed sense of gratitude regarding the fact that he was still alive.

The near death of my dad was stressful for my mom. My parents were married almost
fifty years, and they loved one another. They were involved in the same activities over the years
such as the Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Vietnam War activities, environmental issues,
First Amendment preservation, as well as a deep interest in metaphysical pursuits.

My mom loved the study of Astrology as well as all things psychic and enjoyed an intellectual
curiosity about life. She was a free thinker, dissected ideas, and had a library of the Classics, lining the entire wall of her living room, more than 1,000 in number.

Over the next few days, my mom took to her bed and seemed to lose her ability to articulate words.

What she did instead was laugh at everything like she was having a great joke with herself. No matter
what my dad or I said, she laughed hysterically.

Dad and I got into the spirit of her mood. When she laughed, we laughed with her, and I marveled at her strange transformation, although over the years,  when ever my mom thought something was funny, or crazy such as, say, the election of Ronald Reagon, she laughed in this exact way.

When she said to me, “Oh, Kate, do you think I am trying to die??” and laughed for 10 minutes more, I called the doctor.

She was having a stroke. During the CT scan of the brain, the professionals gave her too much anesthesia, and she went into a coma, never to return.

Although when the doctors at the teaching hospital kept asking her questions during the neurological exam, I noticed she refused to cooperate because when the people she loved showed up, she responded silently, wordlessly and lovingly.

Mom always called Ronald Reagon “that fertilizer head!!”

Once the doctors brought in a picture of Ronald Reagon and showed it to her.

“Who is this?” they asked.

“Shit head,” she responded.

I surmised my dear mom did not want to be patronized, by anyone.

And that she wanted to die in peace.

Jane Bolte Taylor describes her stroke as feeling at one with the universe, as her body having no boundaries, and feeling as if she had reached the state of nirvana, heaven on earth, great peace and happiness.

When mom laughed and laughed, as her stroke was taking hold of her brain, I could tell she, too, was at peace and had obtained a childlike state to her consciousness.

I am happy to say that I was able to meet her there, to be with her, to allow her to be who she wanted to be,and who she was becoming.This served me well as I learned to meet my patients exactly where they are, without judgment.

As I read and listened to Jane Bolte Taylor tell of her spiritual experience during her stroke experience, I realized without doubt, that my mom was having a spiritual experience. She gave my dad and I a contact high.

She was ecstatic and so were we.

She connected us to our right brain, expansive and transcendent selves.

I remember coming back to my left brain with great effort when I realized it was my responsibility to get her help even though we were having the time of our lives.

Yet putting her in the hands of the doctors didn’t save her life. But it did give all of us who loved her a chance to say our goodbyes.

For now.

Kate Loving Shenk

-=-=-=-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kate Loving Shenk is a writer, healer, musician and the creator
of the e-book called “Transform Your Nursing Career and Discover
Your Calling and Destiny.” The book is designed to stimulate
nurses to love their work and to prevent on-the-job-burnout.
Click here to find out how to order the e-book:
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/blog
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation
Check out Kate’s Blog: http://nursehealers.typepad.com
And the Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/katelovingshenk
http://www.squidoo.com/thinkriches
http://doganddolphin.ning.com
http://nursehealers.typepad.com/dog_lovers_unite
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kate Loving Shenk Nursing Career Transformation Sign Up HERE For Your *FREE* Newsletter For Nurses And Healers Your e-mail address is safe with me–see privacy notice on my website!http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation/simplenewslettersignup.html

How It Feels To have A Stroke

Jill Bolte Taylor, Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle have the same
thing in common: all three had a powerful experience of awakening,
and all three have been contented and happy ever since.

Jill had a stroke at age 37 and the illness changed her life. She no
longer was the same person.

She is a neuro-scientist who found the stroke to be fully dimensioned
and instructive. She remembers every detail of the experience.

Ms. Taylor became interested in the workings of the brain because of
her love for her schizophrenic brother. She strived to know more
about his mental illness.

The morning of her stroke, 12/10/1996, she arose to go to work with
a throbbing headache behind her left eye. Thinking she could relieve
or ignore the pain, she got on her exerciser and went through the motions.
She looked at her body as if out of body. She noticed her hands looked
like claws. Her body appeared strangely to her inner eye. Her thoughts began
to slow down.

She got off the machine and when she walked across the room, her body felt
rigid.

As she took her shower, she marveled at the amplified sound of water hitting
the shower stall. When the shower water hit her chest and felt like tiny
bullets, she knew something was wrong and that she needed to get help.

Yet she felt perplexed, intrigued, almost ecstatic, feeling a new respect for
“Life! I am Life! I am cellular, molecular life!”

Jane Bolte Taylor saw her body, her form as light, as flowing energy, as a
beautiful world within. She said her being was a conglomeration of trillions
of organisms, and she felt it all.

Oprah then asked Jane if she saw herself as a stroke survivor or a stroke
triumphant!!

Jane was delighted to say, “A stroke Triumphant!”

Jill’s stroke was a left brain bleed due to a congenital malformation in the brain,
leaving her right brain intact.

The right brain represents the Big Picture, the left brain logic, language, detail orientation,
and analytic thinking.

She lost all memory of who she was, Harvard Brain Scientist, and also lost
her identity.

She wrote a book about her experience called, “My stroke Of Insight.”

Jane said her first stroke of insight was a sense of peace, and she said she
experienced nirvana, heaven on earth, love and compassion of mind.

But now she needed to find the motivation to come back from this feeling of total
bliss, and seek help.

She managed to call her co-worker, by matching forms in her head with the
numbers on her phone. But she couldn’t speak. Her co-worker recognized
she was in trouble and by the sound of his voice, she knew he was going to get
help.

Her experience in the hospital gives doctors and nurses something to think about.

1) Be responsible for the energy you bring to your patients.

2) Show up 100% for your patients. Do not be hurried or rushed.

3) Be a safe haven for your patient.

4) Soften your voice and be gentle.

5) As you care for an elderly patient or parent, know that they are still
here. Speak to them eye to eye. Be with them.

At this point, Oprah cried a little.

Jane experienced a quiet mind before she had her surgery. Some of the
people around her seemed to be thinking, “Poor Jane, she had a stroke.”

But she was experiencing euphoria, a deep place of happiness, even
though she could not feed herself, speak or communicate.

Her mother, G.G., came to take care of her. G.G. was not negative, did
not pity her, and taught her about life, how to get up and walk and
count and talk again with a cheerful and persistent attitude.

As Jane was learning it all again, she said she felt perfect, whole and
beautiful as well as determined to master the intricacies of this physical
dimension once again.

Even as she learned her own name again, who she used to be had died,
never to return. Her family and friends had to let go of the person she once was and
accept her for who she is and allow the freedom for the new Jane to replace the old.

It took her 8-9 years before she remembered her old life. She lost all of her old
emotional baggage and was determined not to regain or accumulate any more.
When people laid their “old stuff” on her she said, No! I won’t do this
anymore.

She lost her pain body, as Eckhart Tolle calls it. (The pain body is emotional
pain that adds up in a person’s life, and can cause tremendous physical pain).

Jill said she changed the rules and created a new game with new rules.

She changed her neural circuitry.

She said all of can do this without having a stroke to accomplish the same thing.

Do this, Jane says, by paying attention to your thoughts. You are not your thoughts.

By purposely living in the present moment, you are allowing the right hemishere
of the brain to take over, and the mind will quickly create restoration to the
physical body.

Also, by concentration on an attitude of gratitude, the right hemishere takes the reins,
and you function from a place of joy and connection.

Jane adds, Choose the thoughts that feel good and weed out those that cause resentment,
and a belaboring of past hurts.

Let go of all of that.

Jane says that when we die, we leave behind a memory of who we were.

What is most important is: was I kind, did I love, did I treat all people and
living creatures with compassion?

Jane said that as a patient, she needed the people who took care of her to recognize:

1) I am wounded, not stupid, please respect me.

2) Repeat yourself and be patient with me.

3) Take your time.

4) Connect with me.

5) Bring your positive energy.

6) Do not raise your voice.

7) Touch kindly and appropriately.

Be with.

9) Allow time to answer.

10) Listen deeply.

11) Be a cheer leader!!

12) Expect complete recovery.

As care givers, we must take complete responsibility for our energy.

This is a great lesson, taught by Jane Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

Kate Loving Shenk