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.

What am I trying to tell me?

I am considering how we communicate with ourselves.  This started today when considering that we use food to communicate love or hate to ourselves.  We eat poorly, things that are bad for us and then we feel bad...guilty, disappointed, frustrated, ashamed.  Or we eat super healthy and feel proud, energetic, centered, peaceful.  Food doesn't have the power to make us feel these emotions.  Our food choices are the product of our feelings.  And our feelings are here to tell us something.

Can we track those feelings?  See if we can trace where they began, and let them go?   Just let them go.  Let them go.  Let them go.  We can.  We can stop them from choosing our food for us just to exaggerate the feeling and get our attention.  We can cut out the middle man, go directly to the feeling and say hello to it.  Listen to it.  See it.  Honor it.  Talk to it.  Say "I hear you and I see you and I feel you...and I am in control of your place in my life."

The Knowing of today

iTunes shuffle is my Magic 8 ball.  When I don't know what to do, I open iTunes and hit shuffle and there is an answer in whatever song comes on.  Today I thought of starting a blog.  When I signed on blogger.com and was asked me to title my blog, I hit play and the song that came up was "I want you to want me" by Cheap Trick.  Hey, that'll work as well as any other title.

I am going to be famous.  I know this.  I will be famous because of how my story will impact women.   It's not my goal to be famous.  My goal is to follow the path that is set out for my soul.  I intend to follow that path with integrity, openness, and grace.

Starting a blog is another step forward on my journey.  Love will lead the way for me.  My only role is to remain open and be the hollow bone for spirit to flow through.
Come into me.