All of my life summer has been associated with leisure. It means down time, and fewer tasks and taking space and permission to do fun things with your friends and family. It has been difficult for me over the last decade to learn that summer is now the busiest time of the year. Keeping busy is not hard for me. What is worse is remembering to take an equal and opposite, long breath in the winter.
When the world around me goes screaming back to work in the fall regaling tales of a summer well spent, we are wiping our brows and praying for the light at the end of the tunnel. Even for those that carry on for most of the summer, there is solace in a weekend that comes consistently once a week (something about the name I suppose). As Friday evening approaches and everyone around us is gearing up for time with their friends and family, time to celebrate, time to visit and play, we are ramping up for Saturday’s Farmer’s market. Friday night and Saturday morning is the most intense peak of our weak.
So now that the snow has fallen and the car doors are frozen shut and the skis and snowshoes have been taken down and dusted off, there is finally time to take a holiday. As vacations go, we won’t be getting very far this year. There will be no airplanes or trains or taxis to take us anywhere. There will be no suitcases packed. Getting those chunks of money aren’t easy for us at this time in our lives. Getting those chunks of time away with the risk of water troughs freezing and wood furnaces being abandoned is even more impossible.
But out our door is a haven of snowy trails waiting to be made, and sunshine waiting to warm the skin even in the worst of winter winds. I like to move my body in the winter because it is something I can do – there is more time for it and I give myself permission to do so. In the summer, I do not feel I have this luxury. Instead I allow myself to go into a steady-forward robot mode and forget that I am a human being.
All summer long I envy families packing their tents and canoes onto their vehicles and heading off for small or large stints of escape. Now I appear to be the envy of those privvy to my schedule. I take my children on adventures where possible (swimming or skating). We go to matinees and sit alone in the theatre with our treats. I go for long walks or runs with my dogs or my neighbours. I do creative things and bake because I feel like it (and not because I have to save a bushel of something). I explore new ski trails. I snow shoe over the mountain behind my house. I have even been keeping a regular squash date (the game, not the vegetable) in the town nearby once a week. Life feels glorious.
The only problem I have is that this schedule is lonely. This is not the way most of the people I know operate. Winter is not a time of rest. I am forgiven for my repose by the darkness that hits ever so early in the day. Yet I am still alone in my leisure. Even my husband is chained to rat-a-tat-tatting on his keyboard all day doing consulting work for an organic farmer’s co-operative.
There is a benefit to taking your holiday during other people’s busy workdays. There are shorter lines and thinner crowds in public spaces. Sometimes admittance is even free or cheaper on the odd weekdays. My daughter still climbs onto the school bus most days in the week. My son is visiting his friends in day care a few days each week
Truth?
There is not enough guilt to cover how it feels to be the only one in the family (and seemingly the world) with no pressure on the day. Even though I spent my summer reminding myself to rest in the winter so that I could be renewed for the next season ahead, it still feels wrong to do so while the rhythm of the people around me is so very loud.
This brings me to something I know to be true about myself. I have always done better with a schedule. I do better with a general order in my day than I do with unending choices. Though I tried to establish some kind of writing routine, I found myself repeatedly without anything to say. Looking back on the times that ideas and words have oozed out of me, there had always been a number of other commitments going on around me when they came.
It seems I need the momentum of the world to drive myself forward in my own endeavours. It matters to me whether I am part of a pack. The ability to choose what I do with my time is indeed a luxury that I value ever so much. But too much time can lead a person to wander far off the path. I know this is hard to believe. If you are drowning in a schedule of meals, work, laundry, extracurricular activities and family commitments you are likely wondering what the hek I’m doing complaining about my situation.
Firstly, I’m not complaining. My life is so ridiculously fantastic right now I can’t quite put words to it. Some days I feel I am at the center of a perfect happiness storm, where multiple factors keep colliding to create euphoria and pleasure every single day. But I have recognized that I am nowhere near meeting my potential. Not as a woman, a mother, a wife, a farmer and most of all, my ability to contribute in the world. What it seems I need most in a week is some kind of routine to act as a flag-pole for the wild rope swinging that serves my creative whims.
If the past is any indication, having a commitment outside of my home is the very thing that has driven me to contribute to the world in other ways. Otherwise, it seems I’m willing to take shelter from the snow squalls of life and lose my momentum altogether (and confidence along with it).
If you’ve ever known extended time away from the world, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it grows stale very quickly. Two weeks or one month is lovely for disengaging from the chaos of our lives. I would deem it absolutely necessary. But there is something about being able to do it as a tribe. Ebbing and flowing as a group can help define our place in the world. It can also render our worth, whether we like it or not.
Not every farmer gets to experience this lull in the workload in the winter and not every working-from-home parent manages to find time to breath. But for me, the combination of the monotonous requirements of running a household and the feast or famine nature of our vegetable business and food processing activities has left me missing out on one important thing in my life. I am without connection to the rhythm of the people around me. There is still entirely a closeness to people. We just don’t move in the same patterns.
If I were a member of a band right now I’d be that girl in the corner dancing to the beat of her own drum. I get it. It sounds wonderful right? Only sometimes, just sometimes, it sounds terribly out of tune.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Your Predictable Life
Did you ever find out that your credit card has been put on hold due to erratic activity? First you head for your wallet (and hopefully find it) and see if the card is where you last put it away. Either way, your heart sinks into your stomach. It is terrible to imagine being violated in this way. That someone has tricked you, stolen from you, deceived you, and taken advantage of you. There is nothing comfortable about this process, including the part where you have to cancel the card and get a new one issued.
For me, once the logistics are over, a thought finally takes hold that I believe to be the most uncomfortable of all. I am being tracked and monitored. And I am predictable. Apparently, it is ever so obvious to someone when I stray from my normal routine. Just when I thought I lived a pretty fun-filled existence, chasing myself around in ways that keep my family and me stimulated, challenged and entertained, I am forced to face one simple fact. I am easy to read.
This week we finished the first part of our Holistic Management course. The material was nothing I hadn’t seen before. But seeing it all together, in the context of building farms and families as a unified whole was extremely powerful. The course had a lot of tools to offer and left no stone unturned with respect to ways of finding solutions to life’s little and big problems. Examples of decision-making tools included: asking five why's in a row when stating a problem (much like a child would) until you can get to the real source of it, budgeting and planning around family vacations and profits instead of waiting for the show and hoping for the best, brainstorming for ideas of solving problems or expanding enterprises that may not be evident, ways of determining what the weak links are in family systems or farm operations (or both!) and building solutions towards these rather than throwing money, time and energy in random directions in hopes that everything will work out okay.
Some of us watch our lives every day. We monitor our progress. We write things down. Blog posts, exercise charts, work schedules, diet rules, children’s lessons, family commitments, dreams, goals, ideas. We brainstorm. We calculate. We ask questions and seek advice. We take courses. We also enjoy denial, or stubborn acts of holding to our original thinking. When it comes to farming and parenting, it is ever so important to stay on the ball, always being open to real ways to move forward and through problems that arise. Otherwise the whole thing can topple down pretty quickly.
Today I attempted to put my entire life into a spreadsheet. I trusted that I would have the endurance to complete such a thing. That it would be pages and pages long and take days and days to get right. I have a big choice to make in the coming weeks (more on that later) so I needed to weigh out the factors that would be affected by my decision. Down the left hand side of the sheet I brainstormed all of the considerations at play. I imagined an elaborate scheme where I would score them and plug them into a complicated equation that would spit out an answer.
The list contained all of the things that are important to me. Everything I value. Everything that I couldn’t do without. And much to my surprise, the list was short. And then I noticed that once I had made that list, and added a few small details about timelines and income, the story was complete. There was nothing more to say.
Now I see why I would be able to track me so very easily. Did she exercise today? Did she sit on the floor and do a puzzle with her children? Did she head to the barn? Pet the dogs? Make a healthy meal full of farm fare?
Across the top of the sheet I wrote three scenarios. In each of the boxes below the scenarios I wrote down how the thing I valued would be affected in this situation. Seeing my life spread down the side of an Excel worksheet was extremely satisfying. Despite my concerns, the process was not that complicated. It was easy to see what was important to me, and therefore, easier to make a decision that would keep the things I valued intact. Just when I thought that my life was really intricate, that nobody would ever be able to figure out where I was coming from and where I was headed, I realized I was actually an open book.
I recommend this exercise even if you don’t have a decision to make – and especially if you do. I suppose it need not be a spreadsheet. It could be a vision board, a mind map, a 3-dimensional mobile if you like! You would record your greatest assets, thereby protecting them. Holding everything that matters to you, all in one place.
Is it reading a little bit of a book every day? Taking your dogs for a long walk? Making time to bake cookies with the little people in your life? Getting time away with your partner? Whatever you care about the most matters because it makes you who you are. It is as important as your income, your child’s dance lessons, your weight, upcoming birthday celebrations or any thing else you might track in writing.
Go away right now and make me a list. Use crayons on the back of a cereal box. Use markers on your bathroom mirror. If you want to, make a column in an Excel spreadsheet. You’ll see what I mean. They become more real when you put them down. Hopefully, no matter what happens next, yours to keep.
It turns out the things that matter most to me can’t be tracked by a credit card company. But if I was to be predictable and my life was that simple to read, let the story be something that reflects what I value most. And let us learn to put more importance and track these things with the same vigour that a credit card company would track our spending. Because it should be a darned big deal if something comes along and steals them away from you.
For me, once the logistics are over, a thought finally takes hold that I believe to be the most uncomfortable of all. I am being tracked and monitored. And I am predictable. Apparently, it is ever so obvious to someone when I stray from my normal routine. Just when I thought I lived a pretty fun-filled existence, chasing myself around in ways that keep my family and me stimulated, challenged and entertained, I am forced to face one simple fact. I am easy to read.
This week we finished the first part of our Holistic Management course. The material was nothing I hadn’t seen before. But seeing it all together, in the context of building farms and families as a unified whole was extremely powerful. The course had a lot of tools to offer and left no stone unturned with respect to ways of finding solutions to life’s little and big problems. Examples of decision-making tools included: asking five why's in a row when stating a problem (much like a child would) until you can get to the real source of it, budgeting and planning around family vacations and profits instead of waiting for the show and hoping for the best, brainstorming for ideas of solving problems or expanding enterprises that may not be evident, ways of determining what the weak links are in family systems or farm operations (or both!) and building solutions towards these rather than throwing money, time and energy in random directions in hopes that everything will work out okay.
Some of us watch our lives every day. We monitor our progress. We write things down. Blog posts, exercise charts, work schedules, diet rules, children’s lessons, family commitments, dreams, goals, ideas. We brainstorm. We calculate. We ask questions and seek advice. We take courses. We also enjoy denial, or stubborn acts of holding to our original thinking. When it comes to farming and parenting, it is ever so important to stay on the ball, always being open to real ways to move forward and through problems that arise. Otherwise the whole thing can topple down pretty quickly.
Today I attempted to put my entire life into a spreadsheet. I trusted that I would have the endurance to complete such a thing. That it would be pages and pages long and take days and days to get right. I have a big choice to make in the coming weeks (more on that later) so I needed to weigh out the factors that would be affected by my decision. Down the left hand side of the sheet I brainstormed all of the considerations at play. I imagined an elaborate scheme where I would score them and plug them into a complicated equation that would spit out an answer.
The list contained all of the things that are important to me. Everything I value. Everything that I couldn’t do without. And much to my surprise, the list was short. And then I noticed that once I had made that list, and added a few small details about timelines and income, the story was complete. There was nothing more to say.
Now I see why I would be able to track me so very easily. Did she exercise today? Did she sit on the floor and do a puzzle with her children? Did she head to the barn? Pet the dogs? Make a healthy meal full of farm fare?
Across the top of the sheet I wrote three scenarios. In each of the boxes below the scenarios I wrote down how the thing I valued would be affected in this situation. Seeing my life spread down the side of an Excel worksheet was extremely satisfying. Despite my concerns, the process was not that complicated. It was easy to see what was important to me, and therefore, easier to make a decision that would keep the things I valued intact. Just when I thought that my life was really intricate, that nobody would ever be able to figure out where I was coming from and where I was headed, I realized I was actually an open book.
I recommend this exercise even if you don’t have a decision to make – and especially if you do. I suppose it need not be a spreadsheet. It could be a vision board, a mind map, a 3-dimensional mobile if you like! You would record your greatest assets, thereby protecting them. Holding everything that matters to you, all in one place.
Is it reading a little bit of a book every day? Taking your dogs for a long walk? Making time to bake cookies with the little people in your life? Getting time away with your partner? Whatever you care about the most matters because it makes you who you are. It is as important as your income, your child’s dance lessons, your weight, upcoming birthday celebrations or any thing else you might track in writing.
Go away right now and make me a list. Use crayons on the back of a cereal box. Use markers on your bathroom mirror. If you want to, make a column in an Excel spreadsheet. You’ll see what I mean. They become more real when you put them down. Hopefully, no matter what happens next, yours to keep.
It turns out the things that matter most to me can’t be tracked by a credit card company. But if I was to be predictable and my life was that simple to read, let the story be something that reflects what I value most. And let us learn to put more importance and track these things with the same vigour that a credit card company would track our spending. Because it should be a darned big deal if something comes along and steals them away from you.
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Weight of Food
Happy New Year to everyone! This is my first 2012 post. My husband and daughter both celebrate their birthdays this week so we are always delayed in launching some kind of post-holiday routine.
Have you set some hefty resolutions for yourselves this year? Have you decided for the four hundredth time that THIS year you are going to get the body that you love? You’re going to quit with your cookie hiding habit and stop kicking the weigh scales across the room every time you step on them? Me too.
Body issues. For me, this is the mother ship of all subjects. It is the Big Cheese of blog post topics. Every thing I have ever written centers around this - food, faith, farming, form. I don’t talk about it much because its deeply personal. But then again, I don’t think I’m alone with these issues. And as always, I think sharing my thoughts slightly outweighs the desire to keep them to myself. Maybe there is a noodle in here somewhere for you. A carrot, so to speak. Maybe not.
I learned not very long ago that getting the body you love is far more about loving your body than changing it. Ironically, I have been ‘trying’ to lose weight for over 25 years now and have managed to put on many tens of unwanted pounds in the process. I’d like to say that I can blame my pregnancies or age but I can’t. Unless of course you include the fact that I am pregnant with an eternal desire to feed every kind of hunger with food. Emotional, spiritual, and most of all the desire to love and be loved.
What does that Elton John song say? The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return. For me this means that when you learn to give and receive love is precisely the moment that you let God in. Or whatever you want to call it. And one day you look up and realize you stopped scarfing down half the tray of brownies. I’ve seen glimpses of this phenomenon. Glimpses of not craving brownies. And what the face of love really looks like.
I am the kind of person that heads straight to the food table at any gathering. I find comfort there, if only temporarily until I feel so stuffed I can’t breath. If I’m tired, I eat. If stressed, I nibble. If excited, I grab for something too. No occasion is unworthy of sharing it with my beloved food.
Don’t think I don’t happen to see the irony in the fact that I have invested enormous amounts of energy securing what I consider to be a perfect source of food for my family. From dairy to meats to vegetables, fruits and grains, we have attempted to make the best of the best available to ourselves with our own hands from our land. As a result we have partaken in a vast array of healthy, nutritious food options. I have obsessed about this perfection. If I’m honest, I think it helped distract me from the real issues. If I could surround myself with healthy foods, would I stop ‘using’ food in all the wrong ways?
Nope, I didn’t. Our emotional psyches can’t be fooled so very easily.
I even tried focusing heavily on the world’s food system. Blaming manufacturers of processed foods for my problem. Why did they have to go and make so much crappy food available to me? Why weren’t they honest with how about how it wasn’t good for me? Why is it all so addictive, so cheap and easy to access? Surely I was not informed properly. And surely if I could fix the food system I could fix my obsession with food.
Nope. That didn’t work either.
The only effective trick that I’ve ever had up my sleeve was exercise. As a young adult, I drove myself farther and faster, relishing in the strength and power of my muscles, capacity of my lungs and the quickened beating of my heart. Exercise made me hungry. And gave me permission to eat mounds of food fit for a giant. And I got away with it. I sometimes still do. A manufactured speedy metabolism has been the number one secret I stored in the box under my bed. If I focus on calories burned, will I stop caring about the calories I take in?
Nope. Not that either. For me, obsession with exercise could only survive in waves. A real commitment to one’s fitness is not an obsession but a lifelong relationship of healthy give and take. A desire to build our body to the best of its potential. It is not a race against naughty secret habits. And so between splurging on exercise and the contents of my fridge, I would become sedentary for weeks at a time, exhausted from my own drive. And add another ten pounds for good luck until the next round of obsession kicked in.
A couple of times in my life I have managed to drop pounds from my body as fast as a sudden heat wave can melt ice and snow. The only thing I remember about those times is my state of mind. They both lasted about a year in duration. There was nothing particularly wonderful going on in my life at those times. But for some reason I did not judge myself for the way that I looked. I accepted myself wholeheartedly, as is, and stopped caring what the weigh scales read. I would weigh myself, note the increase or decrease, and smile a Mona Lisa smile before stepping off. None of it mattered. The mirror and the scales became only a reflection of what I was feeling on the inside. Total self-love.
Oh boy, does that sound flaky. I see that. I get that pointing to love in these matters sounds a little too light and fluffy to believe. But those who know the feeling I’m referring to, know exactly what I mean here. It kind of just happens. One day you awaken and you’re just fine. And then the change you’ve been waiting for finds you rather than the other way around.
As Alanis Morissette once wrote in her song Thank You: the moment I jumped off of it was the moment that I touched down.
It is almost as though we need to let go entirely of the struggle to lose weight, and focus on the love and beauty that our bodies have to express. Only then is the fight no longer an issue.
I am making a second attempt to read Marianne Williamson’s ‘A Course in Weight Loss’ now. I tried last year only to find the messages in it were far too intense for me to bear, so I set it aside. The idea in this book that stands out the most for me is that eating more food than is required, or more often, or unhealthy choices is a direct sign of spiritual deprivation. Abusing food, or using it in ways that are not linked to nutrition and our bodies’ health, is not about a love for food. It is about a lack of connection to the source. Both the source of pain that drives us to want to eat for the wrong reasons, or the source of love that can heal us from all of our wounds. Some call this source of love God.
Now I do not believe spiritual deprivation to have anything to do with the number of times you’ve missed church. Or how many prayers you forgot to say. Or whether you’ve ignored the Ten Commandments. All these may or may not be your spiritual shortcoming, but the real focus here for me anyway is the inability to see your self, your body, your being as connected to something divine. The inability to know that it was not you who created your body. And, therefore, quite simply, it is impossible to hate this vessel that holds you. It isn’t yours to hate. It belongs to God. And God to me is synonymous with Love. Not Hate.
We are all so very aware, and could probably write books on what a healthy diet would look like. What we can’t figure out is how such a resourceful, strong, intelligent human could not solve such a simple equation. Eat less, move more, choose better, feel just right and as a result, embody health.
So we are brought once again to the idea that everything in our lives functions as a system. Our problems cannot be isolated. We are given opportunities time and time again to learn the lessons we need to learn. Like in the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, we have to repeat our quandaries until we get them right.
In this lifetime I think the greatest mistake that I have continuously made is to not ask for help. To not seek support. To assume that I had to do everything alone. To assume that there was no higher power available to me. Not me. To others, but not me.
This time I surrender. I can’t do this alone. I have awoken for the 25th New Years day in a row wondering whether this year will be the year that I would learn to love the treasures I’ve been given. To love this body that I have on loan for such a relatively short time.
And Elton, I’ll take your word for it. This isn’t about a menu plan. This is about the process of cleaning your closets from the inside out (and not just shoving one more box in the small available spaces amongst the chaos).
The greatest thing.
You’ll ever learn.
Is just to love
and be loved in return.
Are you there God? Its me Julie.
Have you set some hefty resolutions for yourselves this year? Have you decided for the four hundredth time that THIS year you are going to get the body that you love? You’re going to quit with your cookie hiding habit and stop kicking the weigh scales across the room every time you step on them? Me too.
Body issues. For me, this is the mother ship of all subjects. It is the Big Cheese of blog post topics. Every thing I have ever written centers around this - food, faith, farming, form. I don’t talk about it much because its deeply personal. But then again, I don’t think I’m alone with these issues. And as always, I think sharing my thoughts slightly outweighs the desire to keep them to myself. Maybe there is a noodle in here somewhere for you. A carrot, so to speak. Maybe not.
I learned not very long ago that getting the body you love is far more about loving your body than changing it. Ironically, I have been ‘trying’ to lose weight for over 25 years now and have managed to put on many tens of unwanted pounds in the process. I’d like to say that I can blame my pregnancies or age but I can’t. Unless of course you include the fact that I am pregnant with an eternal desire to feed every kind of hunger with food. Emotional, spiritual, and most of all the desire to love and be loved.
What does that Elton John song say? The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return. For me this means that when you learn to give and receive love is precisely the moment that you let God in. Or whatever you want to call it. And one day you look up and realize you stopped scarfing down half the tray of brownies. I’ve seen glimpses of this phenomenon. Glimpses of not craving brownies. And what the face of love really looks like.
I am the kind of person that heads straight to the food table at any gathering. I find comfort there, if only temporarily until I feel so stuffed I can’t breath. If I’m tired, I eat. If stressed, I nibble. If excited, I grab for something too. No occasion is unworthy of sharing it with my beloved food.
Don’t think I don’t happen to see the irony in the fact that I have invested enormous amounts of energy securing what I consider to be a perfect source of food for my family. From dairy to meats to vegetables, fruits and grains, we have attempted to make the best of the best available to ourselves with our own hands from our land. As a result we have partaken in a vast array of healthy, nutritious food options. I have obsessed about this perfection. If I’m honest, I think it helped distract me from the real issues. If I could surround myself with healthy foods, would I stop ‘using’ food in all the wrong ways?
Nope, I didn’t. Our emotional psyches can’t be fooled so very easily.
I even tried focusing heavily on the world’s food system. Blaming manufacturers of processed foods for my problem. Why did they have to go and make so much crappy food available to me? Why weren’t they honest with how about how it wasn’t good for me? Why is it all so addictive, so cheap and easy to access? Surely I was not informed properly. And surely if I could fix the food system I could fix my obsession with food.
Nope. That didn’t work either.
The only effective trick that I’ve ever had up my sleeve was exercise. As a young adult, I drove myself farther and faster, relishing in the strength and power of my muscles, capacity of my lungs and the quickened beating of my heart. Exercise made me hungry. And gave me permission to eat mounds of food fit for a giant. And I got away with it. I sometimes still do. A manufactured speedy metabolism has been the number one secret I stored in the box under my bed. If I focus on calories burned, will I stop caring about the calories I take in?
Nope. Not that either. For me, obsession with exercise could only survive in waves. A real commitment to one’s fitness is not an obsession but a lifelong relationship of healthy give and take. A desire to build our body to the best of its potential. It is not a race against naughty secret habits. And so between splurging on exercise and the contents of my fridge, I would become sedentary for weeks at a time, exhausted from my own drive. And add another ten pounds for good luck until the next round of obsession kicked in.
A couple of times in my life I have managed to drop pounds from my body as fast as a sudden heat wave can melt ice and snow. The only thing I remember about those times is my state of mind. They both lasted about a year in duration. There was nothing particularly wonderful going on in my life at those times. But for some reason I did not judge myself for the way that I looked. I accepted myself wholeheartedly, as is, and stopped caring what the weigh scales read. I would weigh myself, note the increase or decrease, and smile a Mona Lisa smile before stepping off. None of it mattered. The mirror and the scales became only a reflection of what I was feeling on the inside. Total self-love.
Oh boy, does that sound flaky. I see that. I get that pointing to love in these matters sounds a little too light and fluffy to believe. But those who know the feeling I’m referring to, know exactly what I mean here. It kind of just happens. One day you awaken and you’re just fine. And then the change you’ve been waiting for finds you rather than the other way around.
As Alanis Morissette once wrote in her song Thank You: the moment I jumped off of it was the moment that I touched down.
It is almost as though we need to let go entirely of the struggle to lose weight, and focus on the love and beauty that our bodies have to express. Only then is the fight no longer an issue.
I am making a second attempt to read Marianne Williamson’s ‘A Course in Weight Loss’ now. I tried last year only to find the messages in it were far too intense for me to bear, so I set it aside. The idea in this book that stands out the most for me is that eating more food than is required, or more often, or unhealthy choices is a direct sign of spiritual deprivation. Abusing food, or using it in ways that are not linked to nutrition and our bodies’ health, is not about a love for food. It is about a lack of connection to the source. Both the source of pain that drives us to want to eat for the wrong reasons, or the source of love that can heal us from all of our wounds. Some call this source of love God.
Now I do not believe spiritual deprivation to have anything to do with the number of times you’ve missed church. Or how many prayers you forgot to say. Or whether you’ve ignored the Ten Commandments. All these may or may not be your spiritual shortcoming, but the real focus here for me anyway is the inability to see your self, your body, your being as connected to something divine. The inability to know that it was not you who created your body. And, therefore, quite simply, it is impossible to hate this vessel that holds you. It isn’t yours to hate. It belongs to God. And God to me is synonymous with Love. Not Hate.
We are all so very aware, and could probably write books on what a healthy diet would look like. What we can’t figure out is how such a resourceful, strong, intelligent human could not solve such a simple equation. Eat less, move more, choose better, feel just right and as a result, embody health.
So we are brought once again to the idea that everything in our lives functions as a system. Our problems cannot be isolated. We are given opportunities time and time again to learn the lessons we need to learn. Like in the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, we have to repeat our quandaries until we get them right.
In this lifetime I think the greatest mistake that I have continuously made is to not ask for help. To not seek support. To assume that I had to do everything alone. To assume that there was no higher power available to me. Not me. To others, but not me.
This time I surrender. I can’t do this alone. I have awoken for the 25th New Years day in a row wondering whether this year will be the year that I would learn to love the treasures I’ve been given. To love this body that I have on loan for such a relatively short time.
And Elton, I’ll take your word for it. This isn’t about a menu plan. This is about the process of cleaning your closets from the inside out (and not just shoving one more box in the small available spaces amongst the chaos).
The greatest thing.
You’ll ever learn.
Is just to love
and be loved in return.
Are you there God? Its me Julie.
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