‘Nuff Said

“I treasure my physical being. Treasure your physical being as a vehicle that houses your soul. Once you have the inner way, the outer way will follow.”

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

Calming the Stormy Riot

“My soul is dark with stormy riot,
Directly traceable to diet.”
Samuel Hoffenstein

I saw this quote and at first had a bit of a giggle, then the deeper meaning hit me and I immediately realized the vast implications of those simple words. How many of us struggle daily, some every single second, with what we will eat, when we will eat, how we will eat, and where we will eat? I could go on and on. Even when we are going about the business of our daily lives we are constantly holding the thoughts of food just under the surface. I realized that when we allow ourselves to live under the control of food, our soul IS “dark with stormy riot” as we constantly deal with the barrage of thoughts and feelings swirling around inside.

What if just for one moment we dropped all our rules about food and eating and just stopped, took a deep breath, and asked our body just one question- “What food would show you the highest love, honor, and respect right now?” Or “How can I love you the most right now?” Word the question in a way that is comfortable for you at this time in your journey. It may be as simple as “What do you want?” The point behind this question is to really (REALLY) listen to the answer. Sometimes we might get the answer of CHOCOLATE!!!! or ICE CREAM!!!! But check and make sure that this is your body talking and not your emotions. If it feels like it’s your emotions, ask the question again or ask a different question. Get really quiet and go deeper. Ask your body what would be in its highest good right now. The answer may surprise you. Try it and see if it helps to quiet some of that “stormy riot” inside.

The 12 Inch Gap that Stretches for Miles

(hey! If you read this on my other blog…it’s a bit different in here! Gotta shake things up a bit, you know!) ;o)

I grew up hearing the saying, “Most people will miss heaven by 12 inches–the distance between the head and the heart.” It implies that many have a head knowledge of God, but haven’t made the vital heart connection yet.

Taking that phrase and applying it to our daily lives moves us into a whole other realm of living. Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but it will only take us so far. We know many things about life and we sort and file that knowledge into all the little compartments in our brain. All that knowledge is stored and safely tucked away. We might pull it out here and there as needed, but basically it lies dormant and unused.

When we take some of that knowledge and allow it into our heart, we create a completely different connection. Suddenly, that knowledge begins to come alive and fill with an energy that was lacking before. It can create a momentum all its own. This momentum carries us into action. That emotionally charged thought now leads us down a particular path of action.

For example, we think, “I need to eat in healthier ways.” That’s a great thought! If we go no further with that thought, what are the possibilities that we will begin eating healthy foods? Very likely, we will continue to eat the same way month after month. It was a great thought, but there was nothing under it for support. Much like a seed tossed onto a rock, it has nowhere to go and no way to do what it was meant to do…grow. Now take that same thought and bring it down into your heart. How would eating healthy foods look/feel? What could we create? With this simple movement, we now have a stronger connection and we can feel the impact that eating healthy foods would have in our lives. This in turn creates a strong desire to eat in healthy ways and before we know it, we are making healthier food choices!

What are some thoughts filed away that need some action supporting them? Building a bridge between our head and heart will help to shrink that 12 inch gap that seems to keep our goals miles away. That bridge will help bring us closer to the healthy lives we crave.

‘Nuff Said…

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? ….. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do….. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

~ Marianne Williamson

A Little Catching Up

Ok….I didn’t win the money. I’m still broke! lol The teacher who won lost ten pounds. Now keep in mind that they were going by the percentage of weight lost rather than actual pounds lost. She won a tidy sum!

I, on the other hand, have flipped back and forth within the same ten pounds all year after gaining quite a bit at the beginning of the school year. Sooooo…..I’m pretty much at square one. But that’s ok. I haven’t made a super effort at taking care of myself. This probably would have been a great year to develop some other coping skills besides food, but let’s face it, in our deepest hours of distress, we usually turn to the familiar. For me that’s food and lately, lots of margaritas! It’s been a stressful year at work and I have allowed myself to give in to the stress and use my typical coping strategies. They just aren’t working as well as they once did and they aren’t enveloping me in the numbness I have craved. All they are doing now is making me feel like a stuffed slug. Beautiful picture to envision, I know!

I have been able to change one thing in my routine at night and that is the tv. Often I have come home and played some easy listening music (I like moodscapes on dish network) and just sat down for a while to unwind. This has helped a lot to relieve some of the stress and tension that has built up during the day. I have a few more things I’d like to try and we’ll see how those go. School ends next week and my schedule changes for a while, so I will be able to try out some new things and build some new patterns and habits before I’m faced with a new school year. Bet when you were a kid you never realized how stressed out your teachers could get each day!!! I know I didn’t…..lol ;o)

A Routine Shakeup With Hopes for a Weighty Result!

A friend’s blog series (http://www.annettecolby.com/blog/) about changes she is making in her office inspired me to make a few changes of my own. A while back, I posted about how much I am a creature of habit and routine. For quite some time I have known that I needed to change some things in that routine, particularly what I do when I get home from work, but I have been ignoring that little voice. Lately, that little voice has been getting quite a bit louder and the costs of ignoring it have been rising right along with my weight. So….that said…I’m changing my evening routine and getting out of my well-worn rut. I am expecting it to help me change some of the ways I handle eating at night.

Right now, I come home, take care of the kitties, sit down in front of the tv to eat, then hit the computer or school work. Blah…boring…monotonous…need I say more? A few weeks ago I got an unexpected interruption in my routine. Due to some cable box switchover glitches, I was without tv for a couple of days. DISASTER!!!! It’s not that I watch that much tv, it’s just on in the background constantly from the time I get home till I go to bed. But the truth is, I even sleep with the tv on. Yes, I’m one of those. I just have it on for the noise. You’d think that after spending all day in a school full of screaming (I mean that literally) kids, that I would want some peace and quiet, but I’ve gotten used to having that low hum of voices in the background for all these years. Let’s be honest…my entire life…it was the same way when I was growing up. The tv was on pretty much constantly even when no one was watching it.

Truthfully, my intuition has been telling me exactly what I need to do to change my life and changing my evening routine is a huge part of it. It is the foundation on which everything else will be built. I know that deep down and unquestioningly. So now it is just a matter of doing it. I’m excited, but honestly, a bit nervous at the same time. I’ll let you know how things go particularly in the way it helps to change my eating habits. I’m anticipating great things! Ok…maybe a few growing pains, too… ;o)

‘Nuff Said

You already have every characteristic necessary for success if you recognize, claim, develop and use them.

~Zig Ziglar

Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!

Ok…change that to “I’ve fallen and I CAN get up! I’ll admit it. I’ve fallen off the wagon (was I ever really ON it?) Now it’s time to get off that pity party fence (see my other blog and read about my olympic medal in fence sitting…http://peacefulliving.wordpress.com) and bring myself back to life.

I have been ignoring those messages that my Spirit has been sending me about taking care of myself. I have paid a high price for ignoring those messages. I am sure that the price will go even higher if I continue to ignore them. So I am back to paying attention to the messages that come into my awareness and following through with the suggested actions. I am back to listening to my body’s signals and paying attention to its requests.

Action step number one…go to the grocery store for REAL food.

Sneaky, Sneaky….

“Everytime you sneak food, you give yourself the message that you cannot be seen. You tell yourself that “if they really saw me, they wouldn’t love me. Therefore I must hide. Therefore I must sneak.” Since you cannot say anything to yourself on a physical level that does not affect you emotionally, sneaking food translates to sneaking your desires, sneaking your hungers, sneaking your heart. It perpetuates the belief that who you are is unlovable, too intense and must be hidden.” Geneen Roth

I read that and it jumped off the page and grabbed my heart. I was a food sneaker from a very young age. I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t sneak food. By the time I was in high school, I could have won an olympic medal in sneaking food! The tricks I used were tried and true, things that over the years had passed the test of my mom’s watchful eyes. She laughs now and can’t believe some of the things that I used to do. I could even scoop ice cream out of the container and leave the same scoop marks she had left behind! Of course, there are some not so funny and not so pretty food sneaking stories, too. I could sneak food with my family just over the counter in the living room and they never knew what I was doing.

The last sentence in that quote really got my attention. I definitely believed I was unlovable. I knew I was too intense and way too sensitive and I absolutely wanted to be invisible and hidden. Funny thing about my personality though…I was never meant to be hidden away and my soul knew it. So the more I ate to try to squash down who I REALLY was, the bigger I became physically. My body had betrayed the secret my soul knew all along.

So now it’s time for my body and soul to match. It’s time for me to allow those parts of my soul that I have safely kept hidden away to come out and speak their truth. I am lovable. I am wonderfully intense and sensitive and I am meant to be seen, but not because of my body. Because of my heart.

Inside Out

Years ago, someone told me that I am incredibly adept at comparing my “insides” to others’ “outsides.” It took me quite a while to figure out what they meant and even longer to admit they were right. I am really good at allowing all the mind chatter that goes on in my head (which is usually not particularly positive) to control what I believe about myself. I allowed all those beliefs about myself to become the basis for the choices I made throughout my life. I would look at the things happening in my life (and in my mind) and look at others and ask, “Why can’t I live a great life like that?”

I was constantly wondering what I was doing wrong. I was a good person. I had friends. I had a job that I liked. I was fairly “popular” in the circles where I traveled, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Why wasn’t I happy? Everyone else seemed to be so happy all the time. I could put on a great front, but no one knew how I really felt. It took me years to figure out that I was looking at the world through the veil of my internal dialogue and it was drowning out everything else. It never dawned on me that other people could be experiencing the same insecurities and doubts that I felt. I never realized that maybe others were putting on a good front, just as I had been all those years.

Looking at my world through ultra self-critical eyes made me miserable. It still does. I’m a perfectionist about so many things in my life. The standards I have for myself are so incredibly high I’ll never live up to them. I’ll never be perfect! So…where do I go from here? What do you do when you know you’ll never live up to that perfect ideal you’ve created in your mind?

Surround yourself with love. Ok…sounds a bit woo-wooish, but it’s true! I am beginning to discover that the only way I will be able to create the life I want to live is to start from love. I surround myself with the light of God’s love. That Universal Healing Light will go wherever we ask it to go, enveloping Itself around the darkness. Whenever I hear that internal war going on, I surround it with love. If I hear a thought about myself that is less than uplifting, I surround it with love. Am I able to do it all the time? No, but every time I am able to envelope a “dark” thought or belief with love that is one more time than I was able to do before. It puts me one step closer to the life I want to live.

I realized a while back that I prefer the word “dark” energy as opposed to the term “negative” energy because darkness can be dispelled by the light. Darkness cannot exist in the light. So when a thought flies across my consciousness, I acknowledge it (pretending it’s not there is pointless…it only returns louder later), thank it for doing the job it did, let it know I no longer need its help/protection/etc., and I envelope it with light and love.

Try it and see how you begin to feel clearer, brighter, and a bit happier.