Health is about so much more than heredity, environment and lifestyle.  Given my genes, the fact that I live in New Jersey and that I consider cheese to be its own food group, I expect that my days are numbered.  Looking beyond those traditional factors that influence health there are others that are just as important.  In health circles the theory is called “Social Determinants of Health” — it posits that the interplay of social, political and economic factors, compounded by the traditional factors, means that certain groups of people have worse health outcomes than the general population.  It is used widely in discussions of racism and health but when I educate people about LGBT issues, I use it to explain how systemic heterosexism and homophobia negatively impact the health of LGBT people and therefore result in poorer health outcomes compared with our heterosexual and nontransgender counterparts.

There are a host of diseases for which LGBT people are at higher risk than heterosexual and cisgender people.  However, even when our risk is exactly the same our health outcomes are worse.  Why?  Because there are other factors that are really making us sick: compared with the general population, sexual and gender minorities are more likely to be unemployed (no wonder since we can be legally fired in half of the states in this country simply for being LGB and the number increases for T); are less likely to have health insurance (most people get it through their employer or their spouse’s employer – and we’re rarely covered by a partner’s insurance); and face discrimination at the hands of health care providers who are uncomfortable treating us (to avoid the extra stress and humiliation we don’t seek care until diseases reach critical stages if we go at all).  I am a highly educated middle-class white lesbian who has spent the last 16 years working in a health sciences setting and I haven’t had a mammogram since my baseline, which was almost 9 years ago.  If I avoid health care providers like the plague then just imagine the gravity of this situation for LGBTQQI people at large.

I am fortunate to work at a school that is committed to addressing health inequities.  The Dean encouraged me to start a LGBT Health Working Group, which now has 30 members composed of faculty, staff, students and administrators from 3 health professions schools at my university.  This group has a three-fold charge: integrating LGBT Health throughout the curriculum so we graduate culturally competent providers; pursuing funding and conducting research related to LGBT Health; and addressing the needs of SGM patients through our clinical services and community programs.

America is not a perfect place by any stretch of the imagination for LGBTQQI folks in 2012.  But there are people all over the country who, in whatever ways they can, are working to address LGBT health disparities and social determinants of health – from the White House to your local public school, we are making every day better than the one that came before.  I am hopeful that one day people will look back at this era and wonder how SGM people could ever have been treated differently from anyone else, much less denied the basic human dignity of full marriage equality.  I may need to cut down on the cheese and get a mammogram to live long enough to see that day but I firmly believe that it will come.

I’ve been single for quite a while. I don’t believe that there’s one perfect person out there for me. In fact, I’ve learned that there are many perfect people — they are perfect for the me who I happen to be in a specific period of my life. When I was in college I met a woman with whom I fell in love. We made a commitment to one another and lived that love until after sixteen years it became painfully clear that we had both grown in ways that made it impossible for us to continue on as we were. It was an ending that nearly ended me but ultimately it was what was the best for us both; I am grateful to her for doing what I could not. After about six months, although I was not ready for another relationship, I went in search of one anyway. I dated a dozen women in half as many weeks in an attempt to try to discover what I wanted. I fell hard for Lucky Number 13, who was perfect for me in that moment – over several years together she restored my self-confidence, helped my broken heart to mend and showed me that I was worth loving. Again, that relationship ended; and, again, the end was what was best for us both but this time neither of us suffered and we were able to transition successfully from lovers to friends.

It’s been a few years and I find myself ready to consider the possibility that there is another perfect person out there for the me who I am today. This time, though, I am taking a more active role in creating her. I’m doing this through a deep appreciation of the people in my life who care about me and who have qualities that I desire in my next partner. I definitely have “a type” and at the moment I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who embody components of that type. I spend time each day focused on those people and the things about them that I love and appreciate. This morning, instead of sleeping late, I was up long before the sunrise because I could feel that my next perfect person is out there – I may know her already or I may be poised to meet her soon but my vision is clear, my heart is full and my expectations are high. It’s only a matter of time.

I’ve had wacky blood test results for over a year.  I have a team of four crack physicians, an internist and three specialists, and none of them have been able to figure out what’s wrong with me.  I was relieved when the hematologist/oncologist declared that I did not have leukemia but was less enthusiastic when he followed that with, “there’s definitely something infectious or inflammatory happening but I have no idea what.”  I wanted to reply, “well, isn’t it your JOB to have SOME IDEA what, Mr. Top Doc?”  Instead, I sighed and hoped that when I returned in six months my test results would be closer to normal.

I should preface this with one more piece of information: the week before this office visit I landed in the ER in tremendous pain and barely able to take a breath.  Two docs (I caught one on the last leg of his shift and the other on his first) ruled out a pulmonary embolism, told me it must be muscular, patted me on the head and sent me on my way.  I told Top Doc this as soon as he saw me and then after reviewing my test results he confessed to the absence of all ideas.

I work in a nursing school.  A friend and colleague who was an Emergency Department nurse stopped by my office soon after my ER and Top Doc encounters, asked me to describe the pain, had me point out where (on her back – so she wouldn’t hurt me by pushing on mine) I was experiencing pain and told me that it sounded like my gallbladder.  I told her about my test results and she said that they were consistent with gallstones.  I’m white, a woman and in my forties – a prime candidate.  She advised me to get an ultrasound.  Not wanting to return to any docs immediately, and just being a generally stubborn person, I waited six months until my next appointment with Top Doc and grimaced through intermittent periods of stabbing pain and prolonged dull ache.  I also did some basic research on the gallbladder and gallstones; my friend’s five-minute diagnosis made absolute sense.

When I returned to Top Doc six months later my test results were as screwy as ever.  He was still without ideas.  I reminded him of my ER experience, listed all of the irregularities that the last year of tests had revealed, and asked if maybe it just might possibly perchance be my gallbladder.  I actually saw the giant light bulb over his head switch on – POP! – like when a stadium is being prepared for a night game.  When he recovered his powers of speech, Top Doc stammered something about gallstones being one of the most overlooked blah blah blah … and he wrote me the ultrasound order.

Gallstones.  I have my consult with a surgeon in two days.  After almost eight months of nonsense I’m really looking forward to getting rid of my gallbladder.  If they didn’t suck it out in pieces, I would have my gallbladder bronzed and present it to Top Doc as a reminder that perspective matters and the ability to see both the forest and trees should be required of anyone who holds people’s lives in his hands.  A physician who is out of ideas should be out of practice.  Thank goodness for nurses!  8)

How many of you have settled for less than your heart’s desire – ever – in any area of your life? I’d wager a good sum of money that every human being has settled at some point. Settling can feel good, secure, comfortable and reassuring, right? But when we settle what do we lose? I’ll demonstrate with an example from my own life since I can think of so many times when I’ve settled!

Intimate relationships. I’ve had long ones, short ones, real and surreal ones, hot and steamy as well as cool and breezy ones. And, although several involved potential or actual life-time commitments, ultimately none have stood the test of time. There was a period of my life when I would have, and did, sacrifice essential parts of myself in order to maintain my settled existence. The last thing that I wanted was to shake or be shaken! But, eventually, I learned that a good shake-up is just what I’ve needed to get out of my rut, wake up to the yearnings of my highest self and get moving again. In my forties now, I find that I’m open to viewing every relationship as an opportunity to learn, grow and expand my horizons – often in some very surprising ways! – rather than as a chance to settle down.

So, I encourage each of you to think about what you really want and what you may have, consciously or unconsciously, given up to retain a settled existence. What can you do, right now in this moment, to shake things up a bit, remove the blinders from your eyes and see your heart’s desires clearly again? If you can feel your way into a state of uncompromising fluidity then I can pretty much guarantee that the only things you’ll lose are your regrets. 8)

When I got to work, I signed into SurveyMonkey to explore options for distributing course evaluation summary reports to our faculty.  I found a way to generate summary reports as PDF files automatically but it wouldn’t include the narrative comments that students made — only the quantitative results.  I asked my evaluator to contact the company to request that they integrate quantitative and qualitative results into the PDFs because I really, REALLY wanted this functionality.  She looked at me like I was nuts.  In fact, as I spoke with her about this, I could feel the tremendous relief that would result from this time-saving feature — it was as if I already had what I wanted and it felt great.  The next morning, as soon as I walked in the door, the evaluator said (I’m paraphrasing), “You’re not going to believe this but I signed into SurveyMonkey to contact them about what you want and they added it yesterday!  You should have wished for something really big!”

Well, I wished for two things that day and got them both.  Why?  The primary reason is because I felt rather than thought.  Pure positive emotion is a powerful manifesting tool and when you frame your desires such that they contain 100% of what you want and nothing of their opposite then nothing stands in the way of you getting what you want.  For example, I wanted only to hear that song again so that I could keep the fun going — I didn’t think to myself, “oh, but that’s highly unlikely given the fact that my iPod is on shuffle and I could play it for over a week nonstop and never hear the same song twice.”  If my desire had also contained its opposite then my iPod would have shuffled as usual and I wouldn’t have heard that song again.  Another reason that I got what I wanted and I got it immediately is because my desires were pretty low-stakes — if the song had not repeated then my world would not have come crumbling down around me.  But this was an important lesson for me: no matter how high or low the stakes may be, the process is exactly the same: if I get out of my own way and just revel in the pure positive emotion that comes from getting what I want, whether or not I have it yet, then what I want will come and it will do so quickly.

I invite you to play with this in your daily lives — start small until you feel like you can wish big without any qualifiers — and post your results as a comment below.  Make your life, as you really want it to be, the gift that you give yourself this holiday season.

I used my George Foreman grill to make dinner in the hope that it would set off my hard-wired smoke detectors and at least interrupt the party.  For once the alarms didn’t go off.

I tried to drown out the shouting and pounding music by running my dishwasher a few hours ago; they pumped up the volume and it gets progressively louder as the night wears on.

I don’t want to get dressed and face down a home full of drunk people who won’t be at all happy to see me.  Neither do I want to call the police because I like to reserve the PoPo for emergencies and this isn’t one.  Yet.  But if I need to listen to this racket for another hour it may become one.

I called my community’s management office about an hour ago and left a message describing my problem and hoped they could hear the noise as well as my voice.  Maybe that will help to prevent future Frat House Follies but it doesn’t do me any good right now.

So, what do you do when your reality is not as you would hope?

Abraham afficionados would say something like, “Wendy, the more you resist in this situation, the harder it will be to attract the conditions that you desire.  By focusing on what you don’t want (i.e., partying neighbors) you continue to attract more of the same (i.e., even more obnoxious partying neighbors).”  So, here I sit, typing away, trying to acknowledge my present reality while sending the message to the Universe that I want something vastly different.  I could lie and say that it’s working but that wouldn’t be at all like me.  So, I called the coppers.  I feel better already!

There is an analogy to this paradigm in the world of wine: dry-farming.  Dry-farming is just what it sounds like: no irrigation is used so the vines must fight to survive.  According to Gregory Dal Piaz of “snooth,” (http://www.snooth.com/articles/commentary/wine-words-dry-farmed-669/) “the struggle for survival puts stress on the vines, and stress, if you ask some folks (yours truly included) equals flavor, complexity, and balance in a wine.”  This begs the question: does stress produce the same beneficial results in people?

How many of you have ever emerged from a series of harrowing, nail-biting, nerve-wracking, gut-wrenching experiences and thought immediately afterwards, “Gee, that was terrific!  I feel completely invigorated, energized, balanced and in control of my life!  I can’t wait for the next totally horrific thing to happen!  WooHoo — bring it ON!”

Instead, when you’ve been through the wringer, don’t you usually just feel, well, like you’ve been through the wringer?  Doesn’t stress leave you feeling tired, frustrated, depressed, overwhelmed or perhaps even ill?  If you emerge from the struggle victorious you’re probably too exhausted to celebrate your success anyway.  So why does humanity persist in romanticizing struggle, stress and the battle for survival? 

Doesn’t it feel wonderful when something good happens and you didn’t even need to “do” anything to bring it to fruition?  It’s a pleasant surprise, right – like when you pull your winter coat out of storage and discover a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket.  Unless you left the money there on purpose during the last cold snap then you feel pretty good about your find, don’t you?

If I labor under the assumption that I must struggle in order to succeed then guess what: the Universe will provide me with lots and lots of opportunities to do just that — struggle, fight, scrimp, stress-out, come close to losing everything and then crawl from the wreckage … victorious?  I don’t know about you but I want to live fully, joyously and abundantly — not just barely surviving but thriving.  Unlike grape vines, human beings need irrigation so I’ll see you at the watering hole!

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s your typical story of an unlikely hero who saves the day.  In this particular case an untrained, overweight, noodle-making panda defeats an evil Kung Fu Master simply by being himself.  This is a powerful message to reinforce with children, who for a variety of reasons may feel depressed, disempowered and disengaged.  But I’m willing to bet, and those of you who are parents can correct me if I’m wrong, that it’s even more challenging for adults to believe that they are good enough simply because they are themselves.

We receive a constant barrage of messages from the media, colleagues, family members and friends telling us that we’re not good enough no matter what we do.  If we’re pencil-thin we’re not thin enough; if we labor eighty hours each week and get paid for half of that time we’re not working hard enough; if we’re unpartnered we’re not committed enough; if we enjoy solitude we’re not social enough; and I’m sure you can think of a million reasons why you’re not good enough so I’ll stop there.

What if each adult who is alive during this slice of time that we call the present believed with absolute certainty that they were worthy.  Period.  No clarifications or disclaimers.  We are all good enough just because we are ourselves.  How would that change, for example, the so-called economic crisis?  If everyone felt certain that they were worthy of financial abundance could there be a recession?  Wouldn’t the emotional security that accompanied such certainty render an economic crisis an impossibility?  If we all knew we were good enough then there would also be no conflicts, interpersonal or international; war would be a thing of the past.  What else might change if we operated under the assumption that every person is good enough exactly as they are — and what is keeping us from embracing that reality?  There’s no time like today to choose self-worth.  According to a character from the movie, now is a gift, which is why it’s called the present.

… driving home from PA, I passed a giant billboard on 276 that shouted, “When You Die You WILL Meet God!” Not fearing death, I was driving far too fast to notice who sponsored the message that intruded on my peaceful musings. At first I was annoyed that people who apparently have both disposable income and a skewed sense of religious zeal chose to exercise their First Amendment right using such intrusive methods. But the more that I thought about their message the more I started to pity their very limited understanding of the human relationship with the Divine.

I find it rather sad that anyone would believe that one must die before meeting God. In my opinion, that’s a little late in the game. Most religions have some conception of a Divine/human link: humanity is created in the image of the Divine; humans contain a Divine spark; humans can access the Divine through prayer, meditation or other methods; humanity is one with the Divine; humans came from Divinity and will return to it; and some go so far as to posit that humans are Gods, whether or not they know it. Even people who label themselves atheists often experience a profound sense of awe while hiking through the Grand Canyon or walking on a glacier. In none of these scenarios must one wait until death to experience the Divine.

So, the next time that you’re tooling down the highway, I’d like you to think about the many ways that you interact with the Divine, however you conceive of it, on a daily basis. If you wait until death to meet God then you’ve missed out on life.