Calm in the Chaos

A new, soothing feature on Pied À Terre Life

Soothing sunset walk on the River Po, Turin, Italy

Hi Friends,

Welcome to a new column on Pied À Terre Life.

This new feature has been in the works for the last few months and it seemed very appropriate to launch it today. While I have been striving to not anticipate or experience the future of what this next US administration will feel like, four years has not been long enough to forget the constant dread I felt daily during round 1, which seemed like a decade. Combine this with all that is happening in the world, non-stop anxiety inducing headlines everywhere we look, and what I have been experiencing personally since late 2023: anxiety disorder - menopause - panic attacks (to name a few) and it is not a great mix for, well, existence. But while going through my own personal journey of being on high alert and in a perpetual state of fight or flight, I have found bright lights and solutions.

In the last 12 months, I have read at least two dozen interesting, life-changing, helpful books on anxiety, menopause, mental health, meditation, mind-body syndrome, chronic pain, spirituality and more. I’ve sought out health practitioners - traditional western - Chinese medicine - holistic; found calming and regenerative content including YouTubes; podcasts and writers here on substack to help me not just cope but to feel empowered by my own capabilities in this increasingly chaotic world.

While I’ve been “going through it” I’ve shared a bit on the practices or information I have personally found to be helpful, grounding and even life-changing. When I’ve shared these things here or on social media I’ve gotten overwhelmingly positive and thankful responses so I decided to make space here on Pied À Terre Life to share them regularly.

My hope is that the community here will find value for themselves but also for us to have a space, in the comments, to offer calming support to thrive in our swiftly changing world.

I’m going to be recording a piece on my audio-journal, Life Off-Script, with more details of my recent health journey (mental-physical) and how I have managed while living in different countries, as several people have asked for more information so stay tuned for that coming soon.

For this column, I will be regularly sharing the following:

Exercises for calming and nourishing the nervous system

Books and book excerpts

Podcasts

YouTube channels for physical exercise and more

Music

And more….

I will still be writing about travel life, mid-life, and making it up as I go. I am actually leaving Italy soon, as my 90-days flew by, and while I will say I would not leave Turin if I didn’t have to (it has been incredibly wonderful, easy and delicious to live here the last 3 months) I am headed somewhere entirely new to me and am excited to explore and share more here.

I hope you find ‘Calm in the Chaos’ useful, interesting and most of all, soothing. I think it is so incredibly important to create and nurture supportive and calm communities and practices for the good of us all.

Here are a few CALMing things for your day/week*:

#1 - the most life-changing 1 minute exercises: Vagus Nerve Nourishment

These exercises are the most life-changing discoveries I made in 2024. A quick story: by September 2024 I was kind of a wreck. I was so anxious and fearful of my body and mind, my nervous system was shot and I had developed intense dizziness that was present daily at different levels, with the worst being an “11”. I had landed in Scotland, which is a place I love, and found myself in survival mode most of the day. A trip to the shops would exhaust me trying to manage my dizziness and lightheadedness. I spent ALL of September in a heightened state which I had never experienced before. I ended up in Scottish hospital ER for 16 hours, cared for and looked after, but discharged without any solutions.

Then in early October, when I was crying daily with frustration and increasing fear (would I ever feel normal again?), I found this book and these exercises. 4 minutes changed me and changed my trajectory. On this day I had been bracing myself to run an errand that was a 25-minute walk each way into the city. My early morning walk had been challenging, with vision issues and intense dizziness. I think I was searching ‘nourish your nervous system’ when I found these exercises. I thought well they can’t hurt. I did the ‘Basic Exercise’ and the ‘Half-Salamander’ which took 4 minutes total (60 seconds each). Could something so easy and short really help?

Vagus Nerve Exercises

30 minutes later I headed out the door for my errand and I immediately noticed a very big difference: I was not as anxious or tight in my body and my dizzy/lightheadedness had gone from an 11 to a 6. The more I walked the better I felt. I was amazed to the point of crying, but this time in relief. When I returned from my errand I searched for more on these exercises and found Stanley Rosenberg’s book ‘Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve’. I read the entire book in 24 hours.

While these exercises didn’t make everything disappear, they have been one of the most impactful solutions in my healing journey. I now start my day, from bed, with the basic exercise to set myself up for success and to be in rest and digest/social engagement mode instead of freeze or fight/flight.

#2 - Morning Qi Gong Practice

After suffering from stiffness and soreness in my hips and shoulders for over 2 years and drove me to my GP and several physical therapists without any conclusive diagnosis (but was likely attributed to menopause that no one ever discussed with me as a possibility) I found this Qi Gong practice in early 2023 and it has been a non-negotiable for my life ever since. I use this practice to start my day and wake up my body, stimulating my nerves and get my blood moving. I find it soothing for body and mind. The more present I am during the 20-ish minutes the better it works.

#3 - Dr. Joe Dispenza

I have been a fan of Dr. Joe and his work since 2020. I dove into his meditations during Covid and the horrific Oregon fires in autumn 2020 and return to his work consistently. I do his morning/bedtime meditations daily and have recently restarted one of his longer meditations: you are the placebo with incredible results.

Here is an excellent podcast to listen to and a link to Dr. Joe’s website. I finished his book ‘You Are The Placebo’ earlier this month. I highly recommend it as there is infinite goodness to be found. Here is an excerpt I have highlighted and now read several times a week:

“Imagine a world inhabited by billions of people, just like a school of fish, living as one - where everyone is embracing similar uplifting thoughts connected to unlimited possibility, and these thoughts allow people to make more inspired choices, demonstrate more altruistic behaviors, and create more enlightening experiences. People would then no longer be living by the survival-based emotions we are so familiar with now: feeling more like matter than energy separate from possibility. Instead they would be living by more expanded, selfless, heartfelt emotions - feeling more like energy than matter, connected to something greater.

If we could do this, then an entirely different world would emerge, and we would be living by a new credo based on the open heart. That’s what I see when I close my eyes to meditate” - Dr. Joe

#4 - My 13-Minute Reset Meditation

I will break from working (or scrolling) when I’m feeling anxious or off at least once a day to grab what I call my “reset”. I set my timer for 13-minutes, roll out my yoga mat (or a towel will do) and settle into my reset position, which is on my back, head cradled by a pillow, and my legs up a wall (above my heart). I turn on a binaural beats playlist from Apple Music and focus on this thought “1-inch behind my skull in the middle of my forehead”. This completely calms my mind, clears my mind, brings down my BP (legs above heart) and refreshes me.

#5 - [Trust Me] - This Wonderful Magical YouTube Channel - Lizqi

Instead of scrolling, watching the news or the ghoulish inauguration today (this is me speaking to ME not lecturing you, by the way) I recommend taking some time with this beautiful, calming, magical YouTube I discovered in December: Lizqi.

I learned of her through Tim Ferris’ newsletter (that I have subscribed to for over a decade) and could not have been more delighted and charmed to tune into her beautiful films, as I would call them. There is some interesting history in that she just returned to posting after “disappearing” for 4 years after setting the world record for subscribers to a Chinese-language channel with 14.1 million subscribers. She now has 23 million and returned with new posts this past autumn. I LOVE these videos so much - they make me dream and give me hope for the world. That is all I will say.

I will leave you with what I am currently pondering per the philosopher Baruch Spinoza:

“…you are just a fleeting moment of the infinite. You are a temporary manifestation of the mono substance. Eventually, your mind and body will disintegrate and you will rejoin the great ocean. But the substance won’t vanish. It will transform.”

“….you are not just a human. You are the universe momentarily expressed as you. And one day you will rejoin the infinite substance, not as a loss, but as part of the eternal flow of modes.”

Here is to finding calm in the chaos together and lifting each other up.

Thank you for reading, my friends.

*MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor. The content of this substack including but not limited to text, graphics, images, all materials are provided for reference and educational purposes only. This content is not meant to be applicable to any individuals medical condition or be a substitute for working with your own physician.