Sacred Life Weekend: Feed Your Head....

Friday afternoon, I received "The Power of Myth" DVD set from Netflix. Needless to say, I couldn't wait to watch it and found it so entrancing that I listened to it the entire day. Listening to it is like having the richest, healthiest most satisfying meal.

Taking a break from that, I read "The Yoga of Eating" which really changed my thinking about so many things. It is a gentle, kind approach to feeding our souls so that we don't have to feed our bellies in quite the same way. :)

He speaks against self-denial and discipline, citing the origin of that type of thinking, and instead suggests that we begin to see our bodies and our minds as the same, not separate. It is not a battle between the body and mind - it is not a dichotomy - but instead learning the language of our bodies so we can provide for them and care for them more effectively.

I've just begun "Ascent of Humanity" by the same author. So far, it is wonderful! I'll write more when I've finished it.

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Weekend Chatter.....

I've made the decision to surround myself with positive books and positive thoughts for a while. This is like anything else. It's a habit. Thinking negatively and my own personal downfall, cynicism, takes a deliberate effort to change.

I ordered a few books this morning based on the recommendations of Olivia at Happy Luau. Any of you who have not visited her blog, please do. She is someone whose thoughts resonate very well with my own - but she has the added advantage of being good at translating motivation to action which is not one of my finer honed skills.

So I am following her lead on the books. I've ordered "The Yoga of Eating" and "The Ascent of Humanity", the latter of which I suspect more succinctly says what I've been trying to say on this site for the past seventeen months. The difference of course is that Charles Eisenstein is an educated, clear thinker where I am tangential.

This changing.. this changing our thinking.. I've never believed is a matter of simply choosing to do it differently. It's a process of education, of learning. We have to learn to think differently. Saying "I refuse these thoughts" is useless unless we replace it with something else.

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On another issue, I was reading a blog this morning that seems to be promoting bigotry. She says (the only reason I am linking is for verification, not because I want to give her the link or unknowingly promote her blog.) that learning to say (and teaching others to say) "I hate fat people" will be one way to discourage people from eating too much, from getting fat to begin with. I find that manner of thinking to be small-minded and utterly hateful. In a way that is not typical of me, I left a snarky comment.

It wasn't anonymous. I own the comment and am willing to defend it.

The dialogue continues. Please feel free to come by and join. It could get interesting.. but please be nice. :)

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There are a lot of people who believe that shaming works, that we can shame people into changing patterns or doing things differently. Shame and fear. "I better not be fat because people will hate me and I'll be shunned" is very different than "I don't want to be fat because I respect my body and my life. I want to be healthy."

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So.. what do you do to stay positive?



~Chani