Experiments

Wow what a weekend.

First of all, Sara did great with her tests or what often feel likes experiments on her. Her oncologist was very please at what he saw. The Ultrasound was clear, we don't find out about he blood work and urine stuff till later. Her 24hr blood pressure went well too. But what amazed me the most about this weekend was how raw it felt for me, let me explain.

A dear acquaintance of mine bought me the book Women Food and God by Geneen Roth so I started reading it. This is not the first time I have known about this book I first heard about it at my Lifestyles Retreat in May 2010. Then I saw it was to be on Oprah. Now I was very hesitant at first because I DO NOT LIKE any thing really that has to do with fads, ie fad diets, hairdos, clothes, food, and so on. It is not that I don't like looking trendy and in style but I do not agree with extremes in anything. BALANCE is my main goal in life some of you might say I want to be a "Fiddler on the Roof." I am sorry if you do not get that reference please go watch the movie again! So I read chapter three "Never underestimate the inclination to bolt", on Wednesday before leaving with Sara to go to the Children's Hospital. I felt as though I had been skewered, I don't know a lot about this Lady but what she said in that chapter was me. It was like someone had lived in my head and then wrote it down. Let me begin to quote.

"....if compulsive eating is anything, it's a way we leave ourselves when life gets hard. When we don't want to notice what is going on. Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be. I tell them that ending the obsession with food is all about the capacity to stay in the present moment. TO NOT LEAVE THEMSELVES." ... "..compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive." "...those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of depravation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all of this is by the simple act of bolting-of leaving ourselves-hundreds of times a day."pg 37

"Staying where you are with what you are feeling or seeing or sensing is the first step in ending the obsession with food. Obsession gives you something to do besides having your heart shattered by heart-shattering events. Like watching your children get sick, like living while your spouse dies...Obsession gives you a plane ticket out of a particular kind of heartbreak....It creates a parallel world, a hologram of emotions, passions, breathtaking reversals. It gives you the illusion of feeling everything without having to be VULNERABLE to anything." pg 39

"...This is the very thinking that evolved into the obsession with food...The belief, unconscious as it was, that I couldn't handle, couldn't tolerate, didn't have thick enough skin or a resilient enough heart to withstand what was in front of me without fragmenting....we compulsive eaters wouldn't have an obsession with food if we believed that life was tolerable without it." pg40


Ok I know that is a lot but like I said it was very important to me. This reverberated in my soul this screamed truth to me. She continued.

The answer to the question "I have no idea how I am going to get through this is: You allow yourself to sob, to heave, to feel as if your heart has a boulder crashing through it. ...You get help from friends. And you notice that at the end of everyday you are still alive. And you notice that when you don't use food to shut yourself down, to leave your body, you actually feel more alive. That feeling anything, even grief, is different from what you thought it would be. That when you don't leave yourself, a different life is lived. One that includes vulnerability and tenderness and fragility and changes the landscape - makes it verdant, wider, breathtaking-of life as you know it."pg41

So as with all things worth knowing and doing I go forward with faith and put these principles into action or at least experiment with them. First I go to friends I made a name for them which they don't even know yet but I guess they will now. I call them my "Double D's" ohhh yes I know how naughty that is but it is their name. Dixie and Dawn funny thing is those two don't even know each other. Last Sunday I went over to my friend Dixie's house and we sat on her porch and talked I really needed to talk she listened and empathized I really cannot explain how much it meant I am sure she doesn't know but hopefully she reads this to find out. I called Dawn and she immediately says I will be there to have lunch on Thursday with you and Sara. Honestly, I do not understand fully how and why these two incredible people are my friends it is not that I am not worthy of them, but I guess they are just two people in my life that remind me that God knows who I am and loves me because he sent them into my life. There are several others in my life too in fact to many to name but last week it was those too that did it for me.

Next step on the way to the children's hospital with Sara there is NO FOOD IN THE CAR. None, I realize to some this might not seem like a big deal but don't forget I was literally driving into a very stressful situation. Because I have changed habits usually there would be veggies in the car but I was practising something. After making it through Forth Macleod without stopping for surplee's or root beer. I took some deep breath's and dived into the pain. It was quite physical it really hurt. More deep breaths, and the seeping of tears, not too many though so Sara wouldn't think something was wrong. There I drove for what seemed to be a waste land, I do remember some kind of something saying "Remember the Power behind you is more powerful then the problem ahead." Which seemed to help relieve it for a while. Past Clareshome without suplee's and homemade buns at IGA. Stilling driving but feeling lighter, hit Nantan, and feel like I wouldn't stop here even if we had a flat tire. I drive until the pain weakens, I drive until I notice a lightening storm in the distance. Maybe that's my storm over there that I just drove through who knows, but it sure looks astonishing from this angle.

So I find my self here, in the moment, I am all of a sudden enjoying holding hands with my little girl, walking and looking at store windows, and tasting what seems to be my first frozen yogurt. I am really here, I am really in the moment, and it is sooo peaceful.