For the Love of Food

I feel energized.
I feel excited.
I feel motivated.
I feel cared for.
I feel accomplished.
I feel alive.
I feel like I matter.
I feel confident.
I feel unstoppable.

This is after a good workout.  My focus is to remember these feelings to keep me going back.

I eat what I want.
I love what I eat.
I can have chocolate.
I can have fruit.
I can have bread.
I can have cheese.
I love these foods and I get to enjoy them whenever I want.
It's up to me to choose what's good for me at any given moment.
I am in control of how much I eat.

It's all this simple.

For years I was like a dog on a leash, fighting to get off and run.  If I was let loose I would take off running, but ya know, after a time I come back to where I am supposed to be and hang out, maybe run some circles now and then.  The leash is a belief system about "should and shouldn'ts" with food.  Freedom is being off the leash, and knowing I can trust myself to be right where I am supposed to be.  My inner genius wants me healthy.  My brain and my heart agree that feeling good is a desired state.

I can love food and love myself at the same time.  No drama, just joy and care.  It's that simple.

That trickster

A dear friend once told me about Trickster energy, and since I have had a week with many moments of depression, self-pity and emotional eating, I decided to take a look and see what this trickster energy is about and determine if that's in action here.  This is what one site had to say:

Although trickster's actions and personality may seem ridiculous or extreme, some scholars have noted that he/she serves an important purpose in traditional and contemporary narratives. Trickster may work as a kind of outlet for strong emotions or actions in which humans cannot indulge. These actions are at the margins of social morality and normal behavior, so humans can express and feel things through the trickster that would be unsafe to express or experience outside of stories.  In this sense the trickster is a kind of "escape valve" for a society.

In spite of his/her flaws, the trickster often represents the introduction of good things to society.  He/she might bring to the culture important knowledge, food, medicine, customs, clothing, and other good things, often in spite of his/her intentions.  http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~mmagouli/trickster.htm

So, when I am wondering why I'm behaving in a way I used to behave, that doesn't serve me, I can look at it as trickster energy and work at finding what it's pointing out to me.  What is the old way of being?  What is the new way I'd like to be?  Am I there?  What subtleties of the old behavior still linger?  What's my next step?  What blessings does this tricky energy bring to my life and learning?

Exploring.

What do you choose?

I am here to serve.  The greatest fulfillment (and I like fulfillment) comes when I am giving my gifts in a way that benefits others.  Through the process of getting sober something started shifting and now, 3 years later, there are not many actions I take that are without meaning.  I work in service fields, gear my college course work to making a positive impact, I volunteer, and I spend a lot of free time coaching and supporting people on how to live even better than they already are.  Most of what I do these days has meaning.  I am profoundly blessed and humbled to be trusted with these duties.

Colors are brighter, tastes are richer, music is sweeter, air is cleaner and my heart feels, my heart feels deeply.  I am connected.  And it is because that's what I choose for my life.