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on losing weight – “make life what you want it to be”

My heart goes out to anyone dealing with obesity. It can’t be easy. Could it be not easy because there’s too much information-too many books, too many “experts” with different opinions, too many magazine articles, too many family and friends giving advice, too many tv shows speaking about the big “problem” in America today. Too much junk food in the supermarkets. Too many chemicals added to foods.

How does one begin to shed pounds? Get information, perhaps at a bookstore or library. Prepare to stay until a book that feels right captures your attention. If one is suggested, be sure it feels right for you. It could take time to get the right information. Observe your body and be aware of the foods you eat. Are some foods causing allergies, e.g. soy, dairy, nuts, wheat? Feeling bloated or uncomfortable in any way after eating? What did you eat that’s causing it? Watch closely.

Let go of guilt. Let go of guilt. Let go of guilt. You need to put your energy into losing weight, not badgering yourself. No time frame needed either. It’s your life. It will take time to establish a new way of eating, and step-by-step learning is a way to be comfortable and confident and to understand how you want to go about losing the weight. Ask yourself how you became obese. Keep asking. The answers will come. Understanding will help keep the weight off. It’s a journey. People who are thin have no magic pill. For them, too, it’s a journey – eating the right foods and finding an exercise program that’s manageable. If one person has lost and maintained that weight loss, so can you. Once established in this new way there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it.

Agree with yourself that carrying excess weight has been a burden, and you want to get rid of the burden. You can begin the weight loss while learning about the how of doing it, or learn and then proceed. Discover what the best way is for you. Talk only to people who support and uplift you in this endeavor, and people who make you laugh. Find ways to keep yourself laughing.

Begin a love affair with fruits and vegetables. You were hoping perhaps this sentence would take a different turn? Start experimenting with the many, simple, delicious ways there are of preparing fruits and vegetables. There’s a well-stocked health food store with friendly, knowledgeable employees, books, and a good selection of organic vegetables and fruits waiting for you. You just have to discover where it is.

No more embarrassment about having this excess weight. Simply learn what it will take for you to lose it. The old way of living needs to be abandoned until the new way takes root. That could mean spending time at the library or bookstore instead of watching TV, and, if taking courses is your style, do it to add to your knowledge. Learn what works for YOU.

Do it your way and be in control all the way. Others have succeeded. You can too. Don’t beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon. Get back on and keep getting back on until you don’t fall off anymore. No fuss. Understand that any new endeavor takes time to master. Some can do it more quickly than others. No comparing your progress with another. It’s not fair to you.

It’s not going to be easy. It does get easier as you go along. There are lots of things in this world that are not easy. People are diving right in and learning the how of whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish. All you need is a good enough reason for wanting to do this.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Goethe

“Make Life What You Want It To Be” – on a poster at the library in Beacon

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winter’s coming

Hmm, I’ve mixed feelings when looking at the gorgeous foliage. It’s beautiful. There’s no denying it. The fallen leaves are a golden carpet on the ground. I passed a wooded area today, and the trees were decked out in a beautiful costume matching the golden carpet on the ground. And I see winter peeking behind the foliage.

You can always tell the ones who really enjoy cold weather. They say that they feel invigorated and they look dressed for summer no matter the temperature. They make me feel a bit warmer with their light clothing and, in passing them, I usually say to myself, “Look at that. What’s the matter with you?” And with all my might I try to like the cold. These people are my cold weather inspiration. They keep me on my toes. They give me food for thought.

I know there are endless ways to greet cold weather and keep the body warm – adding lots of cinnamon on steel cut oats, or other foods that marry well with cinnamon, as cinnamon is supposed to rev up circulation, and eating hot and spicy foods. Mexican delivery men ride bikes in very cold weather wearing light clothing. I’ve seen from restaurant experience that their intake of spicy foods “warms their innards.” As I thought more about this, I began to remember that as a child I wasn’t a cold-weather wimp. I’d roll in the snow with friends, clothes soaked, mittens so wet they could be wrung out. And there was ice skating on the bitterest of cold days, playing games like Whip with wind and face meeting. The word cold never mentioned til it was time to go inside and strip the wet, cold clothes from our bodies.

After all those years of frolicking in the cold and snow, whatever happened to me? Actually I think I know, and I don’t believe it has anything to do with age. I’ve met some old young people, and seen some young old people. I feel it’s this, in my childhood there was no weatherman on TV announcing the cold and telling us to bundle up because it’s mighty cold outside. We had no one whispering in our ears morning, noon and night. No stores crammed with “cold-weather gear.” Sure, we had clothes for winter, but nothing that would suggest we would freeze and needed to worry about the cold. This and similar reasons is what happened, I feel. I decided this year to do what we all did once up a time. Get dressed for a winter’s day, go outside and enjoy whatever kind of day it happens to be, no matter the temperature. It’s time for a shift in mind and not let the word cold have an impact. I’m not gonna let it happen anymore. Winter, I’m waiting for yer.

In the sky there is no east nor west.
We make those distinctions in the mind,
then believe them to be true.

Everything in the world comes from the
mind, like objects appearing from the
sleeve of a magician.

-Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra

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a late night caller

She had married for the first time in her forties to a man she loved. He died when she was in her fifties. She had lived in the same town, a small, quiet New England town, all her life. The job she’d had for so long no longer satisfied her.

Late one night when heavy rains pounded at her house she found herself in a deep state of unhappiness. She’d been sitting with her unhappiness for some time unable to shake it or to even think of her next step when suddenly a name popped into her mind. She’d gotten the name from someone awhile ago, but never followed up on a call. The name belonged to a highly-recommended counselor. As if in a trance she looked for the number and found herself making a phone call. Had she been in her usual state, and had put more thought into making the call, it never would have happened since it was past midnight. Luckily she wasn’t in her usual state. Althought it was late the woman answered her phone and agreed to see the caller. It would be another hour or so for the caller to get to the counselor’s house since she lived in another city. It was all right the counselor had said. “Come.”

They met on that stormy night and the caller’s life was forever changed. This is all she told me when I first met her in New Mexico. I’ve no idea what was said in the wee hours of that stormy morning. I think she has no desire to relive that part of her life, but whatever it was it was like a healing pill for the unhappy caller. From the east coast to the west coast the caller traveled. An interesting step since she’d never traveled any where except in her own home state before this time. At the time I was fortunate enough to meet the caller she had gotten her college and master’s degrees and went from pastoral training right into the ministry. Of course, it wasn’t an easy road. Did she mind? It doesn’t seem that way. And I don’t think she knows what the word unhappy means anymore.

I marvel at what was set in motion because a compassionate counselor answered a phone call late one night and said, “come.”