The Body Practice

The last several weeks, I have been listening to this book on tape, while I make my way around town.  It has been my own private investment into my personal growth.  Several years ago, after my divorce, when I first started living on my own, I left the marriage without a television.  My ex was tech savvy, so we had either a TV or a computer in every room.  He lived day and night in one and I in another.  So when I became a single woman, I decided to experiment with living TV FREE….yes, buddies….one of my dark secrets.  That was about 6 years ago and for the most part I only watch DVD’s.  And that, I don’t do all too often.  When Hubby and I sit down to a movie, it is done with intention.   We also read a lot and listen to books on tape….among other entertainments.

So I came across Why French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano at Half Price Books the other day.  I snuck it off the shelf and into my hand.  I had found an article with a comparison between French eating and American eating in a magazine years ago and had stuck it on a discrete corner of my fridge.  My eyes trace over the words in the morning as I am taking my vitamins or as I am cleaning the counter.  Something about the cultural difference opens up my mind to vitality and wellness.  I hoped the book would spur similar feelings.

  (here is the author) 

I must say, my favorite part of this book on tape has been listening to the author read the book out loud.  Her accent is as smooth as dark chocolate.  I find myself rolling her words around in my mouth as I practice engaging the French Woman way of life. “Bon Vivant!”  My lips have found a certain energy to them because of the way the accent comes from the front of the mouth rather than the back as it does in my mother tongue, “Texan”.

I can’t help but marvel at the synchronicity of this book finding its way to me at this time in my life.  I have been writing about loving myself, about eating mindfully rather than limiting myself from certain food types or even entire food groups.  I can see the value in balance and awareness. 

The difficult part of that for me is that I feel like I have had to INVENT the way I eat, without good role models. And what is funny is that I didn’t realize that was my hang up until I found Guiliano’s nicely packaged suggestions.

Now I have grown up eating like most American women.  This book lays out the mindset behind eating as I have been feeling called to eat; it show the how’s and the why’s.  The only thing I have to do with it then is to make it my own, which is part of the French way as it turns out.

So what is the book about?   As the author points out, it is not something that is easily boiled down to chart to be followed.  Eating like a French woman is  a paradigm shift (it is an entirely unique way of thinking about food, dieting, and really, living). It is not a diet or a prescribed course. It feels more like opening to a relationship with food. It is a paradox…French women don’t diet but they don’t get fat.  So…

 (from bonappetite magazine)

To give you a peak into some of the tenants of the book, let me show you what it has looked like in my life this week. First of all, I did these things in a very private way, not spouting my FRENCH WOMAN DIET intentions. I simply observed what it would be like to do as the author suggested. So at dinner one night, I started. We were eating Mexican Food at my favorite neighborhood restaurant. Now usually, I would order and then munch on the chips and salsa that precede the food. My favorite are fried flour tortillas….can you say NAUGHTY! But French women don’t eat the bread before their meal. They eat bread, but they eat it with their meal. So there the naughty little chips sat in front of me, my companion, enjoying them. And I, curious about the French way, simply watching what was going on inside me. The truth is, I liked knowing that I was waiting for the food that I had hand picked for my dinner….green chicken enchiladas, hold the cheese, whole beans instead of refried. In the mean time, I focused in on the conversation. I let that satiate me. I spoke to the waiter and began scanning my body for what was going on inside it. Ah, some tension here, what do I do with my hands…think I am thirsty…drink. When the food got there, my hunger was nice and healthy.

Now the next trick is actually tasting the food and being aware of my surroundings. Fork to food, food to mouth…mmmm, warm, spicy, dee-lish. I look around at the décor, offer conversation, taste the water in my glass, another bite. Reach beyond the building to the emerging Autumn outside. Whole beans, yum. Chewing with purpose, showing up to my life. American Woman, Mexican Food, The French Way.

I went on eating this way for the week. I left food on my plate when I was full, turned down my favorite dishes so that I could splurge on new tasty treats, enjoyed more conversation and never once felt guilty or left out, even when what I ordered wouldn’t be on someone else’s diet, I cut corners a little tighter the next day.

Then two evenings ago both the people I live with told me, I can tell a difference. You are losing weight! Interestingly enough, I feel more peaceful with food than I ever have in my life. I understand how to let food be part of my dinner, not the totality of it! Dining is becoming a ritual that I share with my family or even in just a solo moment of my day. It is one of my favorite parts.

So tonight, I did what French women do. They indulge. That is a story for my NEXT blog. The author of Why French Women Don’t Get Fat says that love makes you look skinny. Well, I am feeling very French!

Bon Appetite!

Rae

Hey Buddies,

I have to say that blogging on buddy slim has made me fall in love again with writing.  When I was younger, I kept a journal that recorded the guys I had a crush on and all the inequities and delights of the life with my girlfriends.  In college, I discovered my inner artist.  My journals became sketchpads and eventually bookart.  After my divorce, I began writing poetry and performing at local open mics.  For awhile I was known as the Queen of Erotic Poetry around town. 

 Most of the writing I have been doing this past year has been for grad school.  I enjoy it and have gotten compliments from my professors, but sometimes I get so excited about the ideas and connections that I am making that I want to write more.  Buddy Slim has provided a great outlet for that.

I have decided to start an additional blog that can have a broader scope of subject.  If you would like to keep up with it, I would invite you to visit me there.  I have the address below and should have it show up in my blogroll on my buddyslim blog for you.  I will still be keeping up with by blog here…and with yours as well.  http://curiosityquest.wordpress.com/

Thanks,

Rae

OKay Buddies,

I have a continuation of Dawn Renee’s blog for you…THANK YOU for the great discussion!  Looks like I missed the whirl wind. By the time I logged on to make my point, they had all been made for me.

I would like to point out that discussions like these are important so that people can create a framework for their opinion based on many perspectives rather than on just their gut reaction.  Also, this is how SOCIAL CHANGE happens, at a grass roots level.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving was a bunch of women hurting because their children were hurting, and they made a difference.

So, let me talk about perspective for a minute.  In the counseling classes I am taking at school, we are learning to look at addiction (like the addiction to food that spawns OBESITY) from different model perspectives.  The Moral Model is definately one! 

So I would like to offer another perspective to look at this problem.  The model of social change.   I am of the mind that it doesn’t matter WHO is to blame.  Rather than pointing the finger at the problem let’s look past the finger and point at the solution.  What could be done by either parents, schools, cities, corporations, the nation, or just you and I to make a change toward wellness in the area of obesity for adults or children?

Let’s pretend the sky is the limit.  So be a creative as you wish, think outside the box.  That is how magic happens.  And let’s say it doesn’t matter if we ever do it, we will each be touched by the discussion itself.

Ready?  GO…..

It’s mid-day and I am feeling pretty good.  This isn’t my typical blog, but I just wanted to give a shout out to all of you who are tip-toeing through your food and movement today.  My cheeks are rosy with vigor from the stimulating shower I had this morning, the well-rounded…but very quick breakfast I grabbed as I ran out the door, the hour workout I had giving a massage to a new client (if exercise and meditation can go hand and hand, they do for me with giving massage.  It is relaxing and a great workout.) I have had 4 glasses of water already today and more veggies than anything for lunch…although that meal was well rounded to. 

Now I am off to see the chiropractor to hopefully fix my knee and then to the therapist to fix my head. heheheh. 

 Healthy living for me is moment by moment.  And when I can live in the now…and not on auto pilot, I do better. 

Thanks for letting me tell you about my day.  What are you doing to fill you moments with wellness?  I would love to hear!

 Rae

Tonight, at dinner, I spent sometime at one of my favorite Mexican food places, Garabaldi’s.  The food is good; I didn’t spend all too much; and the waiter has a great sense of humor.  I had every intention of doing lots of homework.  But realized I had left the books I needed behind.  But, in my car, hiding under the back seat was a paperback copy of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.  Frankl was a prisoner at Auschwitz.  A studied and practiced psychotherapist, he processed his experience in terms of the mind and its ability to adapt to even the harshest of circumstances.

I am familiar with his work because he helped to develop a way of looking at life that I have been studying in school.  His premise is that no matter how bad things get, you still have freedom of what and how you think.  He also talks about the power of love.

I have always known that my need for extra food was linked to times when decisions about my body were taken away from me.  This might be something as simple as my father and mother judging my wish to dye my hair red, something more painful like being punished with a belt or even worse, being too young to know to say no.

I have been to plenty of therapy, so that today I can look at my experiences the way someone views and old but familiar scar, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that your wrist or knee wouldn’t be yours without it. 

Frankl explains how the prisoners were able to do things they never imagined possible.  For example, someone who was accustomed to sleeping with just the right pillow found they could fall fast asleep using only the crook of their arm while sharing a twin bunk with 5 other men.  He also shares the deep spiritual possibilies that came from the torturous conditions.  He paints a picture of one agonizing morning when he was forced to march for hours in the freezing cold with only a misfitted pair of shoes to protect his swollen feet from the snow.  He remembers having his companion whispered that he wondered what their wives might think of them that morning.  Frankl’s mind raced to an image of his wife so perfectly clear and strong that he felt as if he were communication with her.  Now Frankl was not the type of man to uphold foo-foo spirituality, but he confessed that this made him understand the transcendent quality of love.

I call the journey I am on “The Body Practice”.  It is a practice of having a kind of relationship with my body, one that is based on being present and on loving kindness.  Sometimes behaviors formed in less safe times taunt me to follow them once more.  They were placed there by some inner wisdom of mine.  What would the abuser care about my body if it were unpleasing to the eye.  Marvel at how the feelings go away when my stomach is filled with this or that.  What magic exists in the repetitive craving for these foods; beloved preoccupation. 

 The Body Practice invites that inner wisdom into a deeper place.  A landscape where feelings are allowed to bloom and where the wind whispers out the careful utterances of hopes and dreams both new and those gone bye.  The Body Practice caresses the hurt, calms the storms, and witnesses the pain so that healing and the will to thrive may come in and rule the day.

I would never place the path I have been down as equaled to the torture and indignities of Viktor Frankl, and yet, I do find his thoughts on love to be a salve to my own hurt.  Only through Love am I able to overcome the past.  Only through Love am I made new.  Only through Love can I stand to be what I have been, what I am, and look toward what I wish to come true.

This blog is dedicated to all who have lost the voice to protect their bodies, even if for a moment.  This blog is not about being a victim, but about using the power of love to thrive.  Don’t feel sorry for me.  I am who I am because of all I have lived through.  I am grateful for my life.

Rae

Is anyone else feeling addicted to Buddy Slim?  The new joke in my family is that I need a support group for my support group!  I know it is funny, but I do spend a lot of time around here.  And sometimes it keeps me from getting stuff done.  It’s like have a whole nother responsibility…but this one is to myself.  I am going to look for a way to get what I need but not let it take more time than is good for me. 

 Night all.

Rae…p.s. Guess there are worse things I could be addicted to!

Dear Buddies,

Autumn approaches and the first cool of the Seasonal year has arrived in town.  It is glorious to have a break from the beating heat of the South Texas sun.  Living here, you pretty much prepare to be hot the whole year with gifts of coolness delivered occasionally. 

The front is just on time to welcome in the Autumnal Equinox.  Tomorrow marks a time of equality between day and night, calling forth the coming of Winter.  This is a time of balance and introspection as the sun’s changes call us into our homes, close to our families and closer even to our own selves.  That time of year when the bear prepares to enter her den for her nap, the time when the trees drop their leaves and blanket the ground, when the butterflies emerge from their coccoons and make their way to warmer climates and the time when geese sing their sky-high songs as they trek South. 

 This is my favorite time of the year because it is like a doorway to the Winter when we tend to draw close to our loved ones and think back to the traditions of yesteryear.  I feel young and frisky in the cool breeze and find thankfulness for the past season’s blaze with an outdoored chilled Summer-sunned shoulder. 

 My home begins to call to me more, like my own bear’s den.  I tend to this corner or that.  Straightening my nightstand with books of inspiration.  Putting potpourri on the stove to scent the entire house with spice and sweet vanilla.  I bring in treasures from the outdoors to remind me of the beauty of Mother Nature.

Yesterday found me at the coast, driving the beaches with their storm shaped dunes.  I marveled at the strenghth of Ike.  It hit so far North of us and yet the waters it displaced haave changed the face of our beaches. Not only did it carve away at the dunes and make unusual sandbars in the surf, but it has taken some landmarks that served to stir my memories as well. 

It was only days before the storm that Hubby and I stole away to the picnic tables along one stretch of sand, late at night to watch the stars and satellites make their lighted trek across the sky.  Those places of sanctuary have all been wiped away.  The places where I sunned my toddler toes and flirted with adolescent highs and lows, where I last kissed my lover under moon-lit sky, the pic-nic benches along the shore….good-bye, good-bye. 

And so with a forward looking heart, I peer ahead to the year’s close end.  What shall I make the focus of this season?  I am holding fast to claims of health and wellness.  Determined to improve my financial state with the pursuit of a better paying, better benefits job.  Endulging in the family that has drawn so close to me this year.  And reaching out to friends….sowing seeds of love. 

And if I find myself looking forward, from here I might better find myself looking back.  The gifts of this year have been so many.  Gratitude for body strength, for a sharp mind proven by my good grades and heightened intrigue for the subjects I study; grateful still for a room mate to share our home with and for the match there that feels like family; for walking down the stairs in the morning without pain in my feet, legs or knees; for food in the fridge and wisdom in the kitchen; for fur babies to hold and cuddle; gratitude that the state of the economy has me honing my skills a home maker and wise woman…and oh so much more! 

Graditude for this place…Buddy Slim.  In the good times and in the bad, I get to decide how I will react.  I can always take what I like and keep the rest.  I will keep all I am grateful for and bless the rest. 

 Thank each of you for your part in my journey, for your wise counsel, for your days of jest, for sharing your pains, woes, and wonderment!

With sincerity,

Rae

Stacey inspired me to write about my relationship with the economy.  I started to respond to her blog and realized I was writing enough to create my own.  Thanks for the inspiration, girlie. 

I have been experimenting with finding gratitude for the stresses that have come with the shift in the economy.  I feel it in my gas tank, the way I purchase and prepare food, and in the entertainment choices I make.

 These are some of the ways I have chosen to let the economic crunch inspire me to be more creative.

• I am learning to be a primo penny pincher.  (And I know I can do even better.) I enjoy the challenge of being more frugal….living a more simplified life.  My hubby is reading Fahrenheit 451  by Ray Bradbury.  Bradbury talks about living a life with less distractions.  This economic crunch gives me an incentive to do that.
• My hubby and I eat at home much more.  We make meal time more of a time to connect with one another.  We like to invent dishes and name them.  We have hippie tacos some nights or a crow’s nest in the morning.  We seldom watch TV while we are eating so that the thing we are focusing on is the food and each other.  It is quite nice.

• I shop garage sales, junk shops and Good Will.  This is SO much fun.  Last weekend, hubby and I went into a junk shop in a sleepy little one horse town and named off a list to eachother of treasures we were hunting for.  On the list was a large soldering iron, solder and flux, (those were all for me) and a glass jar for a terrarium (for him). We found it all for under $4 and then added two garden plaques for another $2.  BARGAIN!
• Biking, instead of driving… planning, instead of just cruising …saving gas to save the Earth.  That’s a good one.

• Living in the now.  This one is perhaps one of the hardest, but I think it is by far a good way to both deal with the fear of the economy and a worthy practice.  When either one of gets into the WHAT IF’s, we try to redirect the other or ourselves into better possibilies.  We never know what is in store for us.  Good or bad.  So we try to stick with what we know and prepare for success as best we can.  May be easier said than done, but for us it is a trick worth investing in.  I don’t know how much sleep I would lose or how much food I would eat to cover up the fear of what if…. and what if it never happened.  I would have wasted part of my life for that.  I try (not always successfully, but the intent is there and so is the practice) not to give fear that much power. 

So even though the economy can be a booger, I have been trying to see it as a teacher.  How can I become better.  I think of my grandmother, Mommy Duff.  She was an awesome woman.  She was the most creative spirit I have ever known.  And she didn’t paint or draw or sing or write.  She used her life as a canvas.  She had, of course, lived through the Depression.  But she had a whole house full of kids (8 total)…. helped build the house with her own hands (and it is still standing!)…. she would crochet around anything if it stayed still long enough…and could turn a toilet paper tub into a thing of beauty.  She didn’t get down; she got creative.

That’s how I am trying to do it.  With creativity…an eye toward the positive and as one blogger online puts it…with Cheerful Frugality.  One day at a time.

Rae

Sometimes my body hurts because my heart aches.  These are the worst aches in the world to me.  It is where my heart can barely turn and face its own emptiness, so my body reaches out to fill the void up with food.  Tonight the hurt came from my womb…the body reached out with pizza. 

 A SLICE OF CHEESIE MOON PIE. 

We were at Chuck E. Cheese’s and I was there for my nephews birthday.  He is adorable and hugs me so sweetly, then shoots me with he ray gun so that I know he really loves me!  The little boy at the other table standing between his g-parents turns around to smile with a buffulo wing tucked in his tiny mouth.  He taps Hubby to say hello.  I watch my love turn to face the little one and how his face lights up.  Another little soul, his eyes seem to say.  And because of who we are, the little soul is just as important as anyone else in the area.  My heart drops a bit.  I want a baby, a child, a little soul of our own. 

My little cousin comes over, walking quickly over the booths when he sees me.  I love this kid and he knows it.  He is confident and giving around us.  Let me go with you to order pizza….he is showing Hubby around. And they take off like old pals, even though they are really just getting to know eachother.  He trusts Hubby because he can tell we think he is important. 

I sit at the table and watch the little lives around me.  I feel conspicuously without child.  All the structure I have created for myself to guarentee my emotional safety begins to take hold.  Heart to brain, heart to brain, we have a possible emotional storm forming in the bay of lost dreams.  Please take heed and prepare to engage emergency precautions.  My mind floats back into my head.  My heart engages shields, stomach prepares to take the flight controls.  Roger that Brain! Operation Stuff It, EZ1 initiated!

FOOD FEELS LIKE HEALING…BUT ISN’T.

The world slows down, all the cuteness around disappears into the muddled mesh of emotional fuzz.  The pizza arrives and the numbing takes over.  I become one with the booth as others come and go from the table.  I am frozen, stuck, secure.  I don’t have to interact with the children and risk more heart ache…I am disengaged.

Then suddenly a squeek from behind me.  An rosie cheeked blue eyed, blonde drool pumpkin in pink stripes with her hand on her toes looks up at me and dares the dream once more.  She is about the age of the little girl we were to adopt in April.  She has the same coloring.  She is the g-daughter of my brother’s neighbor.  I begin to move again…like a coma patient coming to.  Hi baby.

She is in her car seat and the g-mother is making all kinds of ick talk about the teething.  Inside I want to slap her. (I know…very PC and very compassionate!…but that is how I felt.)

ANGER ISN’T PRETTY…BUT SOMETIMES IT IS WHAT IS REAL.

 I want to push her down and put my finger in her face.  What are you complaining about!? Drool?!  Slobber?!  Give it to me.  Give me the crappy diapers and the long nights.  Give me the doctor bills and running all over for soccer practice and ballet and chess.  Give it all to me….drool?!

And then before I could help it, I broke one of the safety rules.  Seriously, I don’t go there.  I think most of the time I hold onto a cold bug in my body just so I can manifest it quick enough to save myself from this! Can I hold her popped out?  What did I do? That is really asking for it.  The sting is guarenteed. 

CLOCK TICKS AWAY & MY SEEDS ARE DISAPPEARING.

And there she was in my arms.  Leaning her sweet little head back and looking at me with those pretty little eyes.  I just tried to relax.  Felt her soft baby skin in my hands and read the curiosity behind her eyes.  I cooed and showed her my tongue and did all those old tricks I used to do with babies before I started hurting so badly.  When she drooled, I considered it a blessing.  Then the momma came.  She was bored with her child for the evening…not far from a child herself.  And as I handed over the pumpkin baby, my spirit tapped the momma on the shoulder to say…don’t take her for granted.  We are not all as lucky as you, hon. 

And my knees ached as I walked away.  Not a tear shed.  Til now.  And I thought…thank goodness I don’t have a baby…how could I do it with aching knees.  Isn’t that convenient?! 

My hubby reminded me of advice I had given him last week when he was feel far from his dream.  Do the NEXT RIGHT THING.  If you can’t have your dream today….do the thing that brings you closer to it.  So I am in school getting my degree.  Tomorrow, I will study.  Tonight I will get enough sleep.  I will continue to be kind to my body and do my best to express how I am feeling so that my body can come back to peace again. 

In a few years we will adopt.  I will have my school behind me and a career that will help provide for the little one.  That is all the next right thing.  And tonight that is what I can do.  That, and send love my child’s way…saying, I can not be with you in this moment…where ever you may be, but you are always in my heart and have always been there.  Bless you, baby. 

Rae …. PS. Today I used my own art.  Hope you like it. 

Good morning Buddies.  The air is slightly cool here in South Texas which is an unusual gift this time of year.  We would have the windows to the house open, but as it is they are covered with hurricane boards.  I can’t help but wonder if Mother Nature didn’t send the cool front to help the folks in Houston and Galveston who are living without electricity.  At any rate, the coolness in the air is refreshing and has me paying attention to my breath as I pull it into me, warm it with the body heat of my lungs and blow it out again.  Ahhh…

 ommmmmm….

The house is quiet (not too unusual for our house) but this morning seems particularly so.  I rose early to rush off to my counseling appointment only to find myself there a day early.  No worries though.  I decided to spend my hour with you.

So…. (as I settle down on the analysist’s couch)

Two things are on my mind this morning.  First…money.  Without getting into politics, let me say I was listening to a radio broadcast about the state of the race for the presidency.  No matter which side a person is on, it seems the economy is on the minds of most people.  This household is no different.  I have been feeling the pressure of finances a bit more this month.  Mostly because of university tuition and the preparation of Ike. 

I knew the Summer would be a bit of a struggle.  I had opted to slow down at work and ratchett up the time at school to help us get to the goal line quicker.  My hubby has been incredibly supportive.  Alas, I am beginning to value security and a dependable monthly income these last few weeks.  So I am contemplating a shift in jobs. 

In some ways this is not to be surprised.  I have been feeling undervalued at work and am ready to do something different.  I am also considering taking a break from working with kids.  I have been so blessed to have the job and the work that I have had these last several years, but am tired of harnessing all that kiddo energy.  I am feeling kinda worn out. Not up for the fight anymore.

I found a job that I am going to apply for.  Now there is always this part of me that struggles with the great “can my body do this job” thing.  Am I tough enough to walk the halls and how much lifting will there be.  And so on and so forth.  I am thinking of Robert as I say it all.  His trek through the back country is so inspiring…(read it if you have the chance).  Surely if there is an honest will there will be a way delivered to that. 

Do you know how amazing my body is?  No, seriously.  Not so many years ago I went from barely being able to stand for 15 minutes without shaking to dancing 19 hours in one week about a year later.  And it didn’t take all that much effort.  I simply expanded how I lived.  I pumped my life up with bliss.  And before I knew it, I was shaking my booty that week and wishing for more.  Bodies heal and bodies get stronger.

So that is the other thing I wanted to talk about.  My body image.  As you may remember, I declared a love affair with my body recently.  And I have been feeling pretty darned good about myself.  Last night, I went out with hubby and a friend.  We met up with those folks who dress strange that I wrote about in my last blog.  They had never seen me with my hair short.  And I think, I just generally look more relaxed and peaceful.  An honestly, although the scale doesn’t show so much of a shift, I think my body is different.  In a good way!  They just went on and on about how good I looked.  And I felt great….I mean the compliments felt great but beyond that!  I felt strong and confident and….well, sexy. 

Then this morning I hop on the scale.  It just really can not be the only way I measure the value of my body!  It can be toxic.  And in one of my beginning blogs, I claimed for myself that I would not have that kind of relationship with my scale.  So….. I am going to be a good Inner Parent to myself and just like I would do with those kiddos who might not say nice things to another….I am declaring that my scale is in TIME OUT!  It can go sit in a corner with its numbers to the wall and think about what it has done. 

And as far as I go…let me toot my own horn.  Buddies, I have been doing a good job of feeding myself healthy foods. I have made a strong beginning to the Lifestyle Shift that I am committing to.  I intend to continue in this vein and go through Lifestyle Shift stages to continually improve on the quality. So pat on the back for me…and keep up the good work! 

Well, that ends our hour together…hope the reading was quicker than the writing.  Thanks for being a great listener.  We should do this again sometime! 

Blessings on your journey!

Rae