IMPERFECT Lady

Don't Put Time First.

We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves. ~George M. Adams

I love this phrase. How we think we are only wasting time, when what we are doing is wasting ourselves.

As you look upon the day, we are asked to make choices by what life offers up to us, we can vote yes or no and that will decide how we used up time.

I now know it is not a waste to sit by the river, to just be with singing birds, to experience the vast array of nature, but for me, it is a waste to be barraged by negative energies.

I don’t mind messes and a good crisis, but I do mind people unwilling to change or look at things in a new light, and who are just giving commentary from a mud puddle.

It isn’t a waste of myself to lend a hand while someone is changing direction, but it is to just watch him or her sit.

I focus less and less on time and more and more on what I am doing, where I am and how I feel.

I used to race time on my mail route, for we get paid salary, and it seemed like I was beating the system to go fast, yet I missed the ride, while focusing on time.

Now I experience the route, the people, the animals, the changing landscape, the weather, I am on the route. I am there in each moment and time passes unnoticed and at the same pace.

It is amazing how your life will change when you don’t put time first.

Supporting Me.

Listening to Eve Ensler on the Ted Conference about Security was amazing. I know she is right, that those of us who lost our security are the ones who will actually take the steps to make a difference.

With nothing left to lose, we lose nothing.

We can speak up and speak against what we suffered, our strength and courage comes from all that we lost and have experienced.

We become strong when we can speak up as to spare another.

My voice isn’t always accepted, my truths are not easy to hear, yet who better to listen to than one who has already been there?

Inner security knows you can survive for you have.

I am secure in knowing there is no security.

It can’t be bought or orchestrated, life happens.

Like Byron Katie, I am comfortable now in the don’t know life, where before I had rigid boundaries of knowing and in the end all the knowing I knew were proven wrong.

Now I have security in the Universal power supporting me.

Treat the Mail Lady

After 7 months of delivering mail, I have come to conclusion I will never be 100% accurate, for no matter how hard I try, there always seems to be letters that cling to each other and one gets filed wrong into the wrong box or I get names and addresses transposed and there they sit waiting for the owner of the mailbox to discover my ineptness.

Of course my errors always land in mailboxes of perfect people, people who have never made an error in their lives, and instead of just putting my error back in the box and gently put up the flag for me to pick it up, they hand deliver it back to the Post Office so my boss can see.

It is like I have a club of tattle tellers! For luck would have it, I am a repeat offender to the ones who are not willing to keep it just between us.

As a mail lady, I can tell you a few things you can do to make the mail lady’s day.

If I make a mistake, just slip it back in the box and raise the flag, I will pick it up and understand why you didn’t want it.

When you do get one of my errors, I would appreciate if you didn’t write on the envelope, “Wrong Address” for the real owner will know it has taken a detour along the way.

Running a mail route is like filing letters but our files are miles apart and when we make a mistake there are people in the files hollering at us. Okay, not all but a few loud mouths.

And these loud mouths are usually owners of mailboxes whose doors don’t stay shut or are hard to open, have red flags missing and then complain when I don’t pick up their mail, have boxes set too far off the road or tilted too far back that I can’t retrieve their mail easily.

It seems they take joy in finding my mistakes but overlook their own.

However, there are some delightful people who are kind and have the patience and understanding and just slip my mistake back in the box in silence…and even put notes reminding me that their mail is on hold.

Most are good caretakers of their boxes and actually worry about making it easier on me…and are very empathetic.

I deliver a fair amount of packages to a woman who lives alone on a farm overlooking a lake. She has gardens and many bird feeders and a real tiny sauna, a few barns and a smile with bright eyes. Her face is unlike most, for scars of a long ago injury or illness took most of it, yet she is always apologetic for the packages I carry. I would bring her the moon…and feel no strain…I don’t make mistakes on her mail, but feel she would be kind if I did.

There is a talkative positive older woman who paints and is willing to show me her latest picture, she rides an exercise bike, gets her hair done on Tuesdays, for Wednesday is senior lunch day and gives me oranges and cookies…she too would pooh away my mistakes and just put them back in the box…life is too short for grumpiness. She was sick a few weeks ago, and she didn’t like the way sick felt in her…she gave me glowing reports of the kind treatment she received at the Doctors office…she only meets kindness.

The lonely folks wait for me, idling along; waiting to say a word or two…our conversations have one-day gaps, we learn about each other bit by bit, stretched out over months of daily one minute visits…slowly we are becoming friends.

I no longer believe there will come a time of no mistakes, nor do I believe I will become friends with folks who are forever looking at me to fail…and perhaps I am making them happy by giving them something to complain about.

What is so odd is that the ones with a legitimate complaint have spirits of goodwill…and the others find a misfiled letter a cause to complain.

It is peculiar to ride along the same route day after day, seeing the same people and learning who they are by how they respond to life and life’s mistakes…you can tell a lot about people by how they treat the mail lady.

My body knows

David Hawkins writes in his book, “Power vs Force” the experiment he preformed on the body’s reaction to artificial sweeteners.

First of all here is the test.

“It takes two people to perform a kinesiological test. Choose a friend or a family member for testing. We’ll call him or her your test subject.

1. Have the subject stand erect, right arm relaxed at his side, left arm held out parallel to the floor, elbow straight. (you may use the other arm if you wish.)

2. Face your subject and place your left hand on the right shoulder to steady him. Then place your right hand on the subjects extended left arm just above the wrist.

3. Tell the subject to resist when you try to push his arm down.

4. Now push down on his arm fairly quickly, firmly and evenly. The idea is to push just hard enough to test the spring and bounce in the arm, not so hard tha the muscle becomes fatigued. It is not the question of who is stronger, but whether the muscle can “lock” the shoulder joint against the push.

Assuming there are no physical problems with the muscle and the subject is in a normal relaxed state of mind, receiving no extraneous stimuli (for this reason it’s important that the tester no smile or otherwise interact with the subject), the muscle will “test strong” – the arm will remain locked. If the test is repeated in the presence of a negative stimulus (for instance, artificial sweetener), “although you are pushing down no harder than before, the subject’s arm will fall to his side.”

“Initially, the most striking finding of kinesiology was a clear demonstration that muscles instantly become weak when the body is exposed to harmful stimuli. For instance, if a patient with functional hypoglycemia put sugar on his tongue, upon muscle testing, the deltoid muscle (the one usually used as an indicator) instantly went weak. Accordingly, it was discovered that substances that were therapeutic to the body made the muscles instantly become strong.”

Below is another example of the reaction of the body and artificial sweeteners.

“In addition to its inclusive applicability, the test was quick, simple and easy to perform, and highly decisive; all researchers confirmed the absolute replicability of test results. For example, an artificial sweetener made every subject test weak, whether placed on the tongue, held in its package adjacent to the solar plexus, or hidden in a plain envelope (the contents of which neither the tester nor the subject knew).”

“That the body responded even when the mind was naïve was quite impressive. Most practitioners did their own verification research, placing various substances in plain envelopes and having a naïve second person test a third. The overwhelming conclusion was that the body would indeed respond accurately, even when the conscious mind was unaware.”

“ The reliability of the testing experience never ceased to amaze the public and patients – and, for that matter, the practioners themselves. When I was on the lecture circuit, in audiences of 1,000 people, 500 envelopes containing artificial sweetener would be passed out to the audience, along with 500 identical envelopes containing organic vitamin C.

The audience would then be divided up and would alternate testing each other. When the envelopes were opened, the audience reaction was always one of amazement and delight when they saw that everyone had gone weak in response to the artificial sweetener and strong in response to the vitamin C. The nutritional habits of countless families across country were changed due to this simple demonstration.”
David Hawkins

What I find so fascinating and thrilling is that the body doesn’t need a mind per say in order to understand what makes it strong or weak. It knows what is true and what is not.

It doesn’t even care about what it is that is brought in front of it, it merely responds favorably to truth, always.

It has no story or past belief, it just knows. It doesn’t care about a future disappointment or promise, it just responds.

Put something artificial in front of it and it goes weak.

I have a greater faith in my body responding without prejudice than my mind.

My body knows...

Willing to Hear.

Two years ago on Easter Sunday I began this blog. At the time, I felt that I would have something to say to help other women who found themselves lost in their own lives, and instead I have found it was all for me.

The amount of clarity that I have gotten from asking questions with an open mind, willing to explore and delve into thoughts and beliefs is beyond what I could have imagined.

The blog seems like a very trusting confidant and yet the key in keeping it real is that it is wide open for all to read.

Writing to me has become another Art form and something that I believe will now be part of who I am…an Author who helps me be me.

The truth arises when you are willing to not know the answers...but willing to hear.

Surprises Me!

“What is so interesting is that your quilt Lady has no body and your blog is all about the body…” is an insight a woman shared with me about my Art. “I don’t think you even see what you do…”

I was so shocked and surprised at the way this woman was able to see and understand so clearly my Lady…and I was shocked she put the two together and seen the opposite.

My lady quilts are all about feelings but there isn’t a body or even a face to be seen on the quilts. In fact it is a challenge to create them minus actually having a body, you make the clothes move like a ghost is wearing them.

And the blog is totally different; it is all about the body, the mind and the soul…all things missing in the quilts.

On my way home, I was thinking about the Lady not having a body and it struck me deep within, it is how I lived for so long, just clothes. That within me lay a ghost of me, but not one that was able to express herself.

How curious or not, that my Ladies still have no body…yet are filled with expression or feelings…free enthusiasm a woman owning her life.

I love that my blog is the missing body from the quilts and that each stand strong alone, but become greater together, like the blog is the background story or the Lady the pictures in a book.

How interesting to be the author and the artist and learn about your work from another.

I love that my work surprises me!

I can see how this quilt is the emerging awareness!

Unravel

In the past few months my teeth have been falling apart, broken teeth, fillings falling out and just this past Monday a root canal, all signs that my eating machine was breaking down.

At one point I had 6 teeth with issues, both sides of my mouth and top and bottom, which created new challenges in eating, I could no longer just eat, I had to be aware of what and how.

How interesting that I became aware of this Pac Man like eating machine only when it broke.

And it took 7 broken teeth to get my attention and one root canal, but I am seeing it now. It slowed me down the only way it could by busting the Pac Man…the eating machine.

When the eating machine was broken I saw my eating in slow motion.

The frenzy pace was brought into focus…I became aware of how much I was unaware.

How incredible is it that the Pac Man is the control center of eating instead of it being a team of mind, body and soul…this cavity of teeth and tongue is the ruler and the rest of me a victim of its poorly developed palate?

Changing the palate to fit the fitness of my body is my latest adventure, to begin eating from the body and using the teeth instead of the teeth using me.

I am sure in an uncontrollable environment, we control what we can, and eating uncontrollably gave us control, as well as the feeling of being satisfied in an unsatisfied world.

What also linger at the fringes of my out of control eating are recollections of me being out alone with my father. I don’t recall anything but us eating alone. I was young, I was special I was out on a date. Yet, knowing he is a pedophile, this isn’t a nice scene…however the food was normal or more normal than what happened before or after…was I bought by a malt, was that my price? Did my life become normal again with food? It is funny how I can’t recall the abuse, but I can recall the food and can picture the restaurants and booths and even the swirling stools…

Each part of my world is complicated with abuse.

How I used food to normalize or control myself is the mystery I will unravel.

Familiar isn't Good.

“Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.” ~Henry Miller

I seem to have an eating person and then a person who sees the affects, but the two haven’t met.

My eating person calls foods delicious and has cravings for sweets and she lives above my neck. She enjoys the tastes and eats as if the food will fall on the ground after she chews, paying no attention to the body underneath.

My eating is similar to smoking without inhaling, or so my mind has me believing, but the mirror tells a different tale.

What is so odd is the body that needs better eating is not in control of the eating and the eating mouth cares less about what happens after it tastes, chews and swallows.

While some diets look at the food and other people are telling the person to exercise, what I am thinking needs to be changed is the mind.

It is the town crier calling scrumptious bakery delicious, but who is it delicious for, A thought in the head?

My thoughts about food and what is the reality of food is a world apart, not even in the same room.

My awareness is never in both places at the same time, yet my head is attached to my body. My body is not welcome in the boardroom when decisions about it are made.

It shocking to know that my head lies or fails to acknowledge how the words and food don’t match, that there is a huge contradiction going on.

Yet my head is the first to complain as I stand in front of the mirror, Like it had nothing to do with the weight upon my thighs!

It is insane, the one that is craving and eating is now berating or feeling disappointed in the body…when the body is simply a dumping ground or garbage bag for the head.

I am right in the middle of calling its bluff, and trying to stop reacting to eating choices and instead bring the body to the table and eat for it and not for my head.

It is a fickle head…for it slurps up food, burps and then turns on its self when it sees the affects, like the traitor it is.

This lying eating head is the same head that wanted me to stay in bed and not do yoga; it is a part of myself that sucks the living out of me.

Within my food palate are vestiges of dysfunction, camouflaged in pretty cakes and candy, the pretty sounding names and tastes I have become accustomed to, my way with food.

My immature food palate will take time to adjust to eating food that the body can use for energy and nutrients instead of pleasing a childish mind set.

I am finding it odd that I have a iron grip on my sweets and feel less without them in my mail jeep. I like knowing they are there. It is odd to have this ‘value’ in no value items.

Like clinging to love that is really abuse.

I am holding on to the food that is keeping me overweight and out of shape, tired and lazy...and pushing away the good.

This is a repeating cycle in my wellness...holding on to what hurts me…fear of letting go of familiar even if familiar isn’t good.

Body, Mind and Soul

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ~Buddha

What I find so interesting about eating, is we don't eat what the body needs, we put items into it that do not work with the body, but actually against it.

My backward eating habits reflect my old thoughts and beliefs and now I have to find new eating habits that match my new mindset.

It is interesting that I use sweet treats as something that makes me feel good, yet the outcome has very little goodness IF any. I feel tired, dragged out, lethargic and my body is oversized from the useless calories I consume.

There is a separation between how my tongue tastes the food and how it affects my body, like the two parts of me that don’t intersect.

My head says its good and my mouth likes the taste, but once I swallow all hell breaks loose, my sweet treats wreak havoc once beyond my taste buds.

The sweets are really saboteurs in disguise and I have programmed myself to discount the affects while enjoying the snack.

The separation is critical in not linking the culprit and the feelings together, it is keeping the mind and body separated.

Isn’t it incredible that the mind and body are not aware of each other, and instead of working together; they are fighting with each other, a civil war inside?

Bikram speaks of bringing the mind back to the body for 20 seconds during each yoga pose. What yoga is teaching me is to pay attention to my body.

When I eat I am not paying attention to my body, it is like my head is eating alone…until I swallow and then after my head has had its fun, my body then pays the price.

It is so odd that we can ‘believe’ we are enjoying food that literally isn’t good for us. How is it possible to enjoy something that will cause us harm?

What will it take to flip this around?

I can’t seem to care while eating and enjoying the flavors that the affects after are not enjoyable.

It seems like I am more addicted to the feelings afterward, that my natural state is to be sedative and unfeeling instead of feeling alive and alert and in touch with my feelings.

We don’t even seem to have the feelings of being full or near full or tasting and appreciating the scents, the taste, the texture, let alone the incredible journey some food has taken to get from plant to table or even seed to plant.

This is a new frontier for me to become more aware of what I eat, how I eat, when I eat and how I feel during and after eating and how it all impacts my body.

It is time to stop eating as a head alone and eat with my body, mind and soul.

My expectation.

There are two ways to live, one with your expectations packed and ready for each day and each encounter… leaving very little room for surprises or impromptu circumstances, a very rigid needy control expecting life to follow your lead.

You have plans and life works much better when life falls into step behind you. You are the mover and the shaker and all need to bow to your expectations.

Expectations are very selfish little things that steal freedom from others, one little need at a time. Especially if you throw a tantrum when they are not met, or spunk or sulk in silence.

The odds of our expectations being met are slim to none, unless we have become a tyrant and have stolen the lives out of those we love making them march along with our expectations.

The other way is to follow life without expecting a certain flow, without scripts written and people’s parts picked out, instead it is all improvised as you go.

When I found my freedom within to say no to others expectations of me, I also have freed others to be free of mine.

It wasn’t an easy won battle within me, but I simply became overjoyed with my newfound word…NO and the freedom it brought to me.

I loved not having to meet expectations of others and in disappointing them I grew to like me more and more.

Each time I find myself unhappy, I look and see where I am stuck, what am I saying or doing that is stealing my freedom and whose expectations am I catering to?

You would be surprised how much of life is lived with an expectations floating out ahead of us, a little thought that becomes a giant storm.

Mostly the landscape ahead of me is blank. I have no expectations planted out ahead of me.

I can’t plan the weather so that is out.
I don’t own others actions so I am free there.
I can’t even know for sure if I will do what I plan for what I know for sure is that there are a million things that can waylay me along the way.

Greeting each day and each moment without expectations allows you to have your hands free to carry what comes in.

If you are standing there with an armload of expectations…how open are you to receive?

I didn’t on my own get rid of expectations, but rather all my expectations were unmet and unrealized, so it was either suffer or drop them.

I thought confusion and mayhem would erupt if I had no expectations and instead peace, love and joy grew inside of me.

When I let go…I was free.

I was free to receive what is.

What is is enough for me, no matter what it is.

My new expectation is to be a peace with what is.

To have no more expectations above what is or beneath what is.

What is, is my expectation.