Published in 65 Degrees Magazine
Winter 2008
Columnist Joy Colangelo doesn’t care if you like her. In fact, she would prefer you didn’t. She isn’t in the business of writing to gain your approval; she’s in it to challenge traditional ideas and bring about change.
“I feel like if people agreed with me, I’d be on the wrong track,” says the fast-talking, silver-haired Pacific Grove writer. “People have already read all the nice language and I’m not going to be sweet about it anymore.”
The “it” she is talking about is living more consciously. Colangelo, an Occupational Therapist for twenty years, uses her column to talk about how disconnected many of us are from our bodies, and the affect that this disconnect has on our culture as a whole.
“If we lived right and moved right, we wouldn’t need this medical system, this food system and this economy,” she says.
While her bi-monthly pieces in the Monterey County Herald are only 550 words, Colangelo jams as many ideas into the column as possible. A recent article titled “Prisoners Can Teach Us A Lot About Toilets” made connections between excessive water usage, over-incarceration and the health advantages of squatting versus typical toilet posture. “I have a weird mind and I connect a lot of things together,” she says.
This connection between social, environmental and physical aspects is at the center of Colangelo’s world. She’s even written a book about it—Embodied Wisdom: What our anatomy can teach us about the art of living. Like her column, the book is a flurry of ideas. “It’s a dense book and difficult to read, but some minds really get into it,” she says. “It’s sort of three books in one.”
It’s not only her writing that incorporates the connection between body and environment; it’s also her life. When Colangelo reached what she refers to as her “fu**ing fifties”, she made some drastic changes: she traded her car for a bike and her traditional hospital job for one that was more holistic.
“I changed everything to make it more meaningful,” says Colangelo. “I wanted everyone on board—brain, heart and body—the whole thing.”
Walking the walk is what Colangelo says makes her more than just an angry columnist spitting ink onto the page. She says she realized she had to get tough with herself or she would never grow. “I found I wasn’t budging unless I used really strong words with myself.”
One of her choice words: Liar. Calling herself a liar is the impetus for much of Colangelo’s action. She says she was lying to herself that she needed the possessions she had and the car that she drove. Once she started being honest with herself, Colangelo says she could face the demons and grow into who she wanted to be.
In a recent column, Colangelo addressed the common lies that we tell ourselves. She wrote that we lie to our body when we caffeinate it instead of sleeping and lie to our minds when we subject ourselves to terrifying images while curled up comfortably on the couch.
Colangelo says that the biggest lie is that you can’t do what you want. “I don’t ask for permission and you can do that too,” she commands, adding that you shouldn’t wait for “tumor time”—when the doctor tells you you have only two months to live—to do what you want.