In the spirit of Winter Health Week, I am interviewing Beliefnet’s Health Editor for this week’s “How Do You Move Beyond Blue?” segment.
Who is that? Why, she is MY editor, Holly Lebowitz Rossi. Until I checked out her homepage on Beliefnet’s Community (click here), I thought I was the center of her universe. But no, Holly has many other things on her plate in addition to monitoring Beyond Blue. A freelance writer and reporter who specializes in religion and spirituality (check out her writing at HollyRossi.com), Holly edits both the Health & Healing and Relationships sections of Beliefnet. She also runs two groups on the Beliefnet Community: Foods to Feed the Soul, and How to Stress Less.

1) Hey Holly! I’m so glad I had this opportunity, because I learned things about you I didn’t know. Like how you processed your grief when your sweet dog, Noodle, died. (I reprint a piece Holly wrote about her special pet in a later post.) You’ve told me a few times how important pet stories are to Beliefnet readers. And I’ve read studies from Johns Hopkins on how they can sometimes lessen or treat depression. Why do you think pets are so important to our mental health?
First of all, Therese, thank you so much for honoring me with an interview. I don’t have to tell you that in addition to feeling proud to be your editor, I’m simply a fan of Beyond Blue!
On the pets question, there are many levels on which pets help our mental health. Several immediately spring to mind – pets are warm, furry creatures that adore you unconditionally. You don’t have to try to make pets like you. Pets don’t judge you or hold grudges. They accept you into their lives and want nothing more than to be in yours. Then there’s the spiritual aspect that appeals to so many Beliefnet readers. Pets can seem intuitive, plugged in at some primal level to everything that’s good and important in life, and they can just sort of “get you” in a way that, let’s face it, human beings might not.
Noodle was that kind of dog.
There’s also, as you mention, something scientific going on here. I’ve read that petting an animal can lower blood pressure, leading to relaxation and better overall health and happiness. My mom brings her toy poodle Scooter to my grandmother’s assisted living from time to time so people can experience some of that. Also, my uncle once gave me a stuffed cat with a battery inside that makes it purr. It’s not the real thing (thankfully, since I’m a dog person!), but I have to say that there have been times when pulling out that cat has helped me slow down and breathe a little. One day, when I have a yard, I definitely plan to have my own dog.

2) You say on your Beliefnet homepage that you try to make the Health and Healing area an exploration of “that precious ground where body, mind, and spirit come together.” Because I know that you do both water aerobics and yoga, I know that you practice what you preach. Which tools are most helpful to you in order to stay spiritually, mentally, and physically well?
One reason that I love my job is because it gives me the chance to measure my own life against the holistic healing ideals that we feature on Beliefnet. And though keeping that balance is a constant challenge, I’ve come to see it as rich with opportunities for growth.
For example, with food. I try to eat fresh, whole foods, organic meat and dairy, local and in season whenever possible. But at the same time, I’m a passionate baker, and I can’t live without my cakes, cookies, breads, and pies. Instead of trying to give up baking so as to adhere to some definition of “good eating habits,” I see my baking as a meaningful, even meditative activity that I derive great pleasure from. So it’s staying in my life. And hey, I can always send leftovers to work with my husband, or bring them to a friend.

Also, I’ve really become “religious” about my exercise schedule. I take these two classes in my town, water aerobics and yoga, and each has become a mini-community for me, full of friendly faces and healthy activity. It feels like a treat to go swimming in the dark of winter, and I swear that my best night’s sleep is after my yoga class, when my body and mind are both relaxed. I’ve found great comfort in establishing routines around exercise, it’s made that part of my life-balance as easy as keeping an appointment (not that that’s always easy, but you know what I mean!).
3) You run two groups in the Beliefnet Community: How to Stress Less and Foods to Feed the Soul. You told me a month or so ago that you were really having fun with the groups, that it gave you a chance to be creative. Is that still true? Are the groups a kind of creative outlet for you?
They definitely are, chiefly because they’ve allowed me to connect with and learn from Beliefnet members on a real level. The Beliefnet community is brimming with creative people and ideas—it’s hard to keep up sometimes with how much is going on! Also, for me, it’s a chance to take the idea of “spiritual health” out of the ether and see how real people in their real lives experience that concept.
The way that we all use the Internet is changing so fast, and what I think is emerging is that people are looking to connect to each other, to feel part of something. In our lives, we feel more and more disconnected, as cell phones, email, and text messages are more the norm than going over to a neighbor’s house for a chat or a cup of tea.
Online, what our community (and others) offers is the chance to fill in some of what’s missing there. What a comforting thought to be able to post a prayer or a thought or a worry or a heartbreak, and know that someone is going to hear you and respond. It’s a beautiful thing.
4) I wanted to ask you about the How to Stress Less group in particular because, well, I need some help with that. First of all, you have 550 members of that group. Why do you think it’s so large? And second, if you could give me like five things that would help me stress less, I’d be most appreciative.
I don’t think it’s putting too fine a point on it to call stress a scourge of modern society. It’s everywhere, it affects everyone, and as life gets faster and busier, it feels harder and harder to escape from. That’s why so many have joined the group, to share coping strategies and just try to learn to live in this stress-heavy world.
I recently read that the word “stress” in its emotional context is borrowed from the term “stress” in metallurgy, the study of how metals can be changed at an atomic level. Learning that reminded me of a very basic reality of stress: it changes bodies; it affects our health. So though it can’t be stopped, it absolutely must be managed. And we can do it.
Ok, on to 5 things to help you stress less. I don’t think I can make better suggestions than those in your famous Depression Busters gallery, but here goes:
1. Laugh – keeping perspective on life’s stresses by seeing the humor in them, even if you have to dig deep to find it, helps stop any one stress from ballooning up to an unmanageable size.
2. Walk – putting one foot in front of the other can feel like an insurmountable task sometimes, but taking some good breaths of fresh air and walking, even around the block, can help you clear your head and feel ready to face your stress.
3. Vent – whether it’s in the Beliefnet community, on the phone, in a journal, or to your reflection in the mirror, talking about your stress helps fight it via the “better out than in” principle.
4. Eat – this is one of the basics in the “HALT” principle you write about a lot (never get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired). You might feel like you don’t have time to eat right, or regularly, but trust me–you do. And definitely sneak in some comfort foods from time to time.
5. Say ‘No’ – this is a biggie in the group, the fact that many stressors come from our collective inability to say no or set boundaries when someone needs our help, time, and energy. Learning to respect yourself and your time enough to say “no” is a difficult journey, but such a worthwhile one.
5) Your series of pieces on NPR about your husband Rob’s 2003 Army deployment were poignant, intriguing, and totally candid. Did airing your doubts, fears—emotions of all kinds–on national radio and in print, (like your Beliefnet article entitled “Lucky/Cursed”) help you process your feelings, especially your fears, during that time? Also, you’ve told me that many people lambasted you for being “selfish” in wanting him home. Was the support you got from the other side worth exposing your insecurities to the mean guys as well?
Before you answer, I want to excerpt two paragraphs from that piece. They are so powerful. You write:

I’d never before felt the tickle of a scream at the back of my throat as I watched the nightly news, never used to walk around carrying sometimes a pinprick of anger, sometimes a huge blazing ball.
The anger is the outward expression of an internal moral conflict that is continually going on in my mind, pulling me in two directions. One is that this is part of the greater good of serving your country. The other is that the Army is being so unfair it defies logic.

I confess that the negative comments I got on my pieces really surprised me – not in a good way. They made me feel alone and wrong and dumb at a time when I was truly struggling to get through each day without melting into a puddle of worry. Publishing personal essays is always a risk, and even though I often feel I have the most pressing things to say about events that happen in my own life, I always go in knowing that people might not hear me in the way I wish they would.
But as you know well from Beyond Blue, there’s infinitely more satisfaction in feedback from readers who relate to and are touched by your writing than there is hurt from those who are angered by it. I wrote those pieces for other Army spouses who were in my same boat, and for others who are carrying around constant worry and trying to figure out what to do with it.
But I also wrote them for myself. I was lucky enough to have had the chance to share my feelings with an audience, but sorting through the confusing emotional tumult of a period like that is always worth doing in writing, whether it’s for a national media outlet or for your eyes only.
6) And finally, one of the other things I learned from your website (www.hollyrossi.com) is your love of sea shells from Cape Cod. I saw the different crafts you’ve made with them. That really impressed me because the nurses at the psych ward kept telling me how important a hobby like that is to your mental health. I have still to develop one. I’m such a heady, analyzing, cerebral person, they said, that having a hobby like sewing or scrapbooking or collecting sea shells, like you, would really help me to decompress. Is that what collecting shells does for you? And does it having anything to do with patience, the quality that you are always working on, according to your New Year’s resolution video?
Oh, wow, yes. Walking the beach looking for seashells (scallop shells are my favorites; they have such a pleasing shape and such lovely, muted colors) is a meditation to me, a guaranteed head-clearer. It’s the search and the collection process that’s meaningful to me; the crafts part is just a fun way to use my collection.
I will say that taking an hour-long walk and coming home with two shells is certainly an exercise in patience. But it’s an exercise in hope as well. I find great comfort in the fact that tomorrow, that ocean will still be there, the beach will be waiting for me, and perhaps, a fresh set of shells will be lined up in the sand ready for my eyes to see as I walk along.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh so beautifully captured what I’m striving for in her “Gift from the Sea:”

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.