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[juliaallison]

Yep.  It's tonight ...

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"Home is wherever I'm with you."

Lilly curled up on my bed tonight.

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Check out my new obsession: Pinterest!!!

So far, I have inspiration boards on fashion, home design, makeup & hair, weddings and PINK (of course).

:) feel free to send me images I can post there!

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As people spend less time dealing with day-to-day functions, according to the Dustin and Justin theory of productivity, they have more time for things they care about. They get clearer minds too, says Rosenstein, which puts them closer to perfect focus. “It’s that state you get into when you’re working, when you’re doing something creative, where you lose track of time, you forget who you are,” he says. “You’re just in the zone working on that one thing.” Psychologists have a term for this state of mind: flow. The Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced “me-high chick-sent-me-high-ee”) has studied flow for decades. While in such a state, people take deeper, more regular breaths. Their heartbeats slow. “Whether it’s music, rock climbing, painting, or whatever, the same conditions apply,” says Csíkszentmihályi, who teaches at Claremont Graduate University. To achieve flow, people need a clear task that’s challenging but not beyond their abilities; clear feedback; and an emotional state somewhere between bored and stressed. “When all of these conditions apply, you start being able to concentrate on what you’re doing, and you know exactly what you want to do,” he says.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Justin & Dustin's Quest for Flow

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Some people would say, ‘you have hundreds of millions of dollars, obviously what you do now is go live a hedonistic lifestyle or retire.' What we want to do is contribute to the world.

Dustin Moskovitz

Would that everyone with money felt as he does.

[juliaallison]

How one reader solved her debilitating migraines by going gluten/dairy/sugar free

From a reader ... I found her story really inspiring, and I hope you do too.

From: A Reader Date: November 2, 2011 1:10:31 PM EDT To: Julia Allison <julia@nonsociety.com Subject: food allergies - read your blog post

Ok!

This is going to be an Infinite Jest-length email, so bear with me if you can!

When I was in my first year of college I started having these debilitating migraines out of the blue. I had them all through college. One time I had a migraine straight for 32 days. It was awful and I saw a number of different neurologists, tried a zillion different medications, did physical therapy, etc. I tried running, tried birth control, tried whatever I thought would help and nothing did. They eased up a bit, so after college I moved to New York. Everything went well for about six months and they came back even worse. I saw a ton of different doctors in New York, who all prescribed me a bunch of really strong medication: hydrocodone, cyclobenzaprine, this muscle relaxer called Soma, seizure medications, etc. And still nobody could figure out what was causing them...not even the migraine specialists at Columbia. I was having injections in the base of my skull to block the nerves going into my head. Anyway, the only thing that made me feel better were the drugs. So very quickly I became addicted to painkillers. As addiction goes, I was rendered incapable of working. Luckily I worked at this publishing company and my boss was awesome and super understanding.

Anyway, I ended up having to move home to and back in with my parents (yikes). I went to an addiction specialist who was helping me get off of the painkillers and I went to the world-renowned Mayo clinic, but still nobody could figure out what was causing the pain. At that point I was sure I would never be able to have a career, have a family, etc. I gave up the idea of ever having kids; in the event that this condition were somehow hereditary, I would never want to pass it on to my children. In short, this was a major low point. I was totally depressed and was set to go to a drug rehab/pain clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and someone suggested that I see this local doctor who specialized in Eastern Medicine/Acupuncture. I was very, very skeptical at first (there are a bunch of doctors in my family and we have always been incredibly confident in Western medicine, particularly for diagnoses). She had a PhD from Oxford and an MD from some medical school in China, but I still wasn't convinced. In about 5 minutes she figured out what was wrong with me. She tested my Ph and told me I had too much acid in my diet/yeast in my system and I would have to give up gluten, dairy and sugar. Also, I had to stop eating any raw vegetables (no salad), and I had to stop drinking coffee and alcohol.

I really hated the idea of this. I was a sugar addict, my big weakness was sugary drinks like Coke. Loved candy and cupcakes too, and off course I had coffee every morning (latte's). I wasn't a huge egg person, but ate yogurt every morning. 

So I tried the diet, and within 3 days, my migraines were GONE.

I wish I could tell you that the diet doesn't suck, or there are g-free/d-free/s-free alternatives that are just as good, but there really aren't. It's awful. My advice would be that you really just have to mourn the loss of the life you used to know and try to move forward. This sounds dramatic, but it's true. It's not cancer, but it's really disappointing, especially if you love food/cooking, entertaining, etc. Three months before I went on the diet, I had to give up alcohol, which was very, very difficult as well. Again, at the risk of sounding dramatic, giving up alcohol and good food is depressing and very socially isolating. Don't feel guilty or let anyone make you feel guilty about complaining about it, and if you need to vent, you are welcome to vent to me at any time. :)

The only reason why I was able to stick to it was because I had no other choice and it genuinely did make my migraines go away. I SO hope it works as well for your skin/digestive problems because you have to have your health to motivate you to stick with it.

Another wonderful motivating force that kept me going was that the diet makes you SO skinny. You literally cannot keep weight on because you aren't eating any fat. Also, eastern medicine doctors will never tell you that you are too skinny. They think Americans are fat, so they have an entirely different standard they are working with. It's awesome. Plus, it's easy to defend your low weight when you are genuinely eating really healthy. 

Another plus is that you will never feel that uncomfortable "stuffed" feeling. Without the bread and dairy (cream-based) foods, you just don't feel stuffed. Conversely, sometimes it is difficult to really feel FULL at first, but eventually you will. 

Hello? Are you still with me....? There are a few more things!

So, what do I eat? Breakfast was easy. I just eat oatmeal with no sugar. It sounds gross, but I got used to it. Dinner is pretty easy too. I eat chicken/fish with a vegetable and usually roasted potatoes or basmati rice. The problem is lunch. If you can have salad, that will be good, except it may be hard to find a sugar-free dressing. Do you know how badly I want to eat a f-ing sandwich? Really badly. Lunch is the worst, but I just end up eating dinner-type food for lunch. I live on these Lundberg rice chips. They are delicious.

Also, my nutritionist allowed me to drink Apple Cider which was a really good substitute for the sugar/sugary drinks. Sounds gross but I got used to it and now I drink it all the time (cold and hot). Also, my nutritionist let me have goat cheese and goat milk (I hate milk, so I don't drink it), but it is so nice to at least have ONE sugar item or dairy item to eat. It really makes a world of difference. Ask your doc if you can have at least something. 

For caffeine, I drink black tea. It's not a latte but it does the trick. It is still torture going into Starbucks and ordering a black tea instead of the pumpkin spice latte. FML.

I wish I had a lot of awesome recipes to give you, but I'm a terrible cook and haven't had much success making great dishes on my diet. I know there are probably some out there, though. I really just reached out to you to encourage you to at least give the diet a diligent effort. I was so skeptical about what a I thought was this quack doctor with a quack suggestion, and she really saved my life with this diet. I still do believe in Western medicine for certain things, but I think for overall preventative/digestive health, the eastern diet is the way to go. If you are like me, you will genuinely feel better all around. I never had skin problems, but my skin looks way better, I feel better, and  my life is back on track - I went from almost going to rehab to being in my 2nd year of law school. Hopefully your problems are solved as well! I have also heard SO many stories about this diet curing all types of conditions. My mom's secretary had sinus problems and started this diet and they went away entirely. I've heard it works wonders for Chron's disease and ulcerative colitis as well. I never thought my digestive health was connected to my head, and my western doctors never even asked what I ate, but it was!

Oh, I saw someone on your blog say to be skeptical about buying the vitamins. It may seem like they are trying to push these vitamins on you, but these practitioners sincerely believe in their efficacy, so I would at least try them unless they try to get you spend a ton of money on them. 

So I guess that is pretty much it. I hope if nothing else I have encouraged to to stick with it. It sucks at first but overall it is much better. And eventually I have added certain things back into my diet, some sugar, some dairy, but very little wheat. I hope you will be able to do the same. 

Please, please let me know if you have any questions or you want to vent about it. I wish you the very best of luck!!

PS. One more thing, and i hope this doesn't bore you, but I thought this was so interesting. I spent about 90 days getting sober/clean before I started the diet. As a result, I was as to compare the struggle of getting sober with the struggle of the diet. Of course I thought the diet would be a cakewalk after dealing with substance abuse and it shocked me how similar the struggle was. It really shed light on how much I was "addicted" to certain foods, particularly sugar and coffee. It's the same biology & psychology behind it all in my opinion. Also many of the social consequences are similar...the same loss of camaraderie you feel when you quit drinking is evident when you are unable to go out to eat and talk about food with people. 

[juliaallison]

What choices have you made that are genuine expressions of who you are and in alignment with what you want from life? What choices, in hindsight, took you away from the person you really are, into an image fabricated by your mind and your society?

Martha Beck asks in Oprah's Life Class

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I'm always excited to meet new people, because every now and then I come across someone who has the ability to change people's lives and the way they see the world.

a new friend of mine just texted this to me.  Now THAT'S the right attitude!!!

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You think you can minimize risk by playing out all the scenarios and running hard from the ones that look especially difficult. But you'll never be able to completely eliminate pain from your life because IT IS AN INEXORABLE PART OF LIFE. Trying to control it only results in it boxing you into ever tighter, more uncomfortable spaces, until finally you're not living much of a life at all.

(an email I wrote to a friend of mine last night)

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People always ask me when I'm going to settle down.

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AH HAHAHA

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Check out my the cover of Florida's City Link (one of the papers in which my weekly column "Social Studies" appears)!

Here's the column - on Burning Man - that goes along with it!

I loved that hammock.

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Michael Ellsberg is a friend of mine, and his book, The Education of Millionaires, is just brilliant.

I highly recommend ordering it today!

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We are the first generation bombarded with so many stories from so many authorities, none of which are our own. The parable of the postmodern mind is the person surrounded by a media center: three television screens in front of them giving three sets of stories; fax machines bringing in other stories; newspapers providing still more stories. In a sense, we are saturated with stories; we’re saturated with points of view. But the effect of being bombarded with all of these points of view is that we don’t have a point of view and we don’t have a story. We lose the continuity of our experiences; we become people who are written on from the outside.

Sam Keen

(Sent to me by one of my best friends. I think I might print this and tape it to my bathroom mirror so that I can read it every day.)

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