Feast Days 3 & 4

Day 2, May 28

Movement: Cardio Salsa workout, Feldenkrais Lesson "Freeing the Hip Joint"

Food: Mangoes, Cherry-banana smoothie, romaine lettuce

Joy: I finally got the last of my melons planted! My baby is so happy to spend some time naked now that the weather is nice. Nothin' is cuter than a naked baby running about happy and free.

Day 3, May 29

Movement: Slim and Sleek Fast workout, walking

Food Nightmare!!! I tried so hard today. We only had 3 ripe mangos left, so I enjoyed those. I went to a different Farmer's Market, as I had a class to attend in a different town. No ripe strawberries yet. :( I went to the store after my class but could not get anything ripe, so the pile of "ripening" fruit in my kitchen has grown, but nothing to eat. I ate two pints of sour raspberries that were starting to mold on the way home. How can they look so pretty and be so sour?

I was really hungry and really annoyed by the time I got home. First I cut up a pineapple. Not ripe, too sour for me. I tried the papaya that was yellow as can be and starting to mold a bit. I knew by smell that it might need a couple more days, but I had to try. Unfortunately, some rot had gotten into the stem and invaded the seed cavity. I tried to salvage some undamaged fruit, but it was, of course, unripe. Then I tried the last watermelon. No good. Over-ripe, slimy, verging on fermented... I had one bunch of bananas that had sugar spots, but they looked a bit hard and green still. I tried. As I suspected, not ripe. With no options left, I blended 5 of them with some frozen sweet cherries. I also had some delicious baby bok choy from my garden, and some Freckles lettuce from the Farmer's Market. This tided me over for a little while, but not surprisingly, by dinner time, I was eating cooked lentils and brown rice and veggies because I was hungry and frustrated. Hey Universe, I need at least 3000 calories of good quality fruit per day!

I really start feeling despair when I spend so much of our limited resources on fruit that ends up in the compost. I have to predict how much to buy when my children's eating habits can be unpredictable. Some times I have too many ripe bananas, other times we run out. I have to order my bulk produce sight unseen, and pray that it is good quality and will be ripe in a reasonable amount of time... about half the time something goes wrong in this equation. And the worst is when I have to take a risk on buying unripe fruit, like pineapples, papayas and mangoes, and hope they will ripen before they rot. Or when I have to buy fruits, like melons, that might look fine on the outside but are horrible inside. Ack!

\

Well, chalk it up to a learning curve that I am going to master. (But I am afraid the real solution here is to move to a farm in a semi-tropical location, or become moderately wealthy and increase my produce budget by 300%.)

In other complaining news, I stepped on a bee today and was in horrible pain for about 2 hours afterward. And so, no gardening.

Self-Love: I love that I am a work in progress. I love that I am beginning to have clarity about some of my stumbling blocks in my raw journey, so that I can start to attract solutions.

Joy: Got to reconnect with some good friends at the Farmer's Market today. And I got to see Trudi Temple speak. She is a fabulous, funny, inspirational firecracker of a person.

Feast Days 1 & 2

Day 1 5/26

Food: Mangos, bananas, blended strawberries and tomatoes, romaine lettuce. Not enough ripe fruit in the house today, so I didn't eat enough.

Movement: Walking and Feldenkrais Lesson #3 Rolling to sit.

Love and Joy: Dancing with my cute baby. Reading my 5 year-old's kindergarten portfolio and seeing how much she has grown this year. Today is the kids' last day of school and summer fun begins.


Day 2 5/27 My dear husband's 35th birthday.

Food: Mangos, banana/ sweet cherry smoothie, cherub tomatoes, avocado and romaine, cooked food from my husband's birthday dinner (not happy about that one... but it gave me an opportunity to practice self-acceptance and compassion)

Movement: Walked with the children to the park and chased the baby around for awhile.

Healing: Was feeling a lot of shame and sadness early in the day. Was later able to pinpoint what had triggered that and name my needs around that, but I still could have used some more... something. Was feeling stressed. But, last night I was able to offer my daughter some empathy when she got really upset and scared at bedtime. She was really receptive to it, and calmed down. It was so nice to be able to help her. She hugged me really tight and told me she loved me, and then went right to sleep.

Love and joy: Got my kids a little kiddie pool that they have been asking for. They were so happy! Felt lots of love for my husband who is having a mini midlife crisis on his birthday. LOL!

40 Day Feast

Connie at Naked Food Cafe has inspired me to a 40 day feast of self-care. Just what I need right now. Here are my 40 day goals.

1) I will love myself deeply and sweetly no matter what.

2) I will eat the foods that my body was designed to digest and use for fuel.

3) I will continue to move my body joyfully for at least 45 minutes per day.

4) I will continue to focus on my healing work, and I will celebrate each tiny bit of progress and accept that it may take time.

5) I will take time to express gratitude and love often.

I really want to blog more, but I often feel that I have so much going on, and my emotions are so up and down, I don't know what to share. Here's an update on the last month or so:

My eating has been up and down dramatically, but fruit is my main source of calories. My exercise is consistent. (Walking, rebounding, cardio videos, jumproping, dancing!) My garden is ambitious and I am nervous but excited about it. I planted 7 varieties of melons this week and have more to plant. My snow peas, sugar snaps and potatoes are 2 inches high and baby lettuces, beets, beans, and carrots are poking out everywhere. So far I am keeping my potted baby fruit trees and my tomato seedlings alive. Fingers crossed.

I want to share that I have been turned on to the amazing benefits of Feldenkrais and have been really enjoying doing some of the free lessons found here. It is changing my life!

I am so grateful for the sunshine, and for my beautiful family, and for the fresh local organic strawberries I have been enjoying this week.

I will try to post my progress regularly on this feast.

Joyful!

I have been enjoying all the things that I have begun creating in my life... a closer relationship with my husband and children. Friendships. Improved health and fitness.

I am spending much time working through and healing past trauma. I am spending much time dreaming and planning the beautiful, bountiful garden that I will be growing this year.

I grow happier and happier! I am so practiced giving words to painful emotions that at times, I feel like I have nothing to blog about when I am happy. But as I grow, I am sure I will find a way to express myself more clearly.

So I will spend some time telling you about the mundane in my life...

My sweet little Qian hangs out with me every day, like a little shadow watching me as I go about my housework. He is a curious little being, with a strong sense of himself. He likes to climb, but this week, he has finally figured out how to go down the stairs as well as up. If I open the dishwasher when he is nearby, he rushes over and grabs the biggest knife (why not the wooden spoons?). Having older children and a baby can sometimes be a challenge. He wants all of their toys. I keep finding the girls' beads in his poop. :( But he is never shy about getting into their games. The other day they were wrestling on a mat on the floor, and he dived right in the middle, laughing.

I have been spending some time each week with my sister-in-law. She is a cool chick. I've meant to befriend her for many years but never found the time or courage. Now, we get together once a week. Our goal is to do some kind of craft project, but so far, we just hang out and talk. They have a lovely brown lab mix, a sweet, somewhat hyper young dog named Abbie. She puts her nose right up to Qian's nose, but he does not get scared or back down. He looks right back at her with the same curiousity that she has for him.

My husband is still doing raw... mostly citrus juice with a salad in the evening. He has occasionally cheated, but seems to be in a really good place about the whole process right now.

I am on the cusp of finally finishing this years-long transition, I believe. I finally realized it is not about "discipline" or force in any form. It is about joyful embrace! I need to ALLOW happiness. It is my birthright, no matter what I was taught as a child. I can let old beliefs that no longer serve me fall away, and embrace my full power.

Love thy neighbor as thyself

Everyone loves themselves best, don't they? Not really. Many of us Earthlings are swimming in insecurity and self-loathing most of the time.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself..." Perhaps Jesus (or his ghost writer) assumed that most people naturally had a high self-esteem. Or perhaps, this teaching is much more profound than initially meets the eye. To love one's neighbor, one must first love himself. I know what you're thinking... you've heard that so much, it's practically cliche. But I heard it with different ears today.

I am reading Mary O'Malley's awesome book, The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing. If you have ever wrestled with eating as if fighting a mortal enemy at any point on your raw journey, I highly encourage you to read this book. It is helping me! Today I read and reread the chapter on "Loving Yourself from the Inside Out." This quote hit me right between the eyes,

"Trying to be different from or better than what you are in order to be okay will never work, for it is based on the belief that you are not okay right now."

But what if my trying is important? I think to myself. I need to be better, healthier, more moral, more successful. I have to. I can't love myself until I am worthy...

Uh, who said that?

I realized that in the past, my attempts at self-love weren't real. They were strategies. They were tricks I was trying in order to convince myself to do the things I thought I had to do in order to be worthy of my own love. Whoa!

Then I got scared. Well, if I don't have that motivation, those moralistic judgements about myself, then won't I just turn into a fat lazy selfish slob who does nothing but eat chocolate and watch bad reality t.v.?

Well, let's look at the results of my strategy. Years of struggle and pain and poor health. Hey, I still eat a lot of chocolate and watch a lot of bad reality t.v. Hmm...

What if I just accepted and loved myself as I was, with no agenda? If I just loved myself and had no demands or conditions on that love, wouldn't I eventually start choosing things that would be gifts to myself. I would choose health because it feels good. I would choose exercise because it feels good. I would choose the yummiest food (cuz really, it is. Trust me, after you leave your favorite junk food behind for a few months and then try it again, it really ain't that great. In my experience anyway.)

But the most important lesson is perhaps that if I do not love myself, then I have wasted my chance here on Earth to give to others.

I'm baaaack!

I admit it, I've been a chicken... Since my last post a year and a half ago, I have spent most of my time struggling with myself and hiding from everyone.

So many changes, it would take a book-length post to update you all on them. But here's the highlight reel. I tried to force myself and everyone in my family in a journey of radical self-development, some of which was documented on this very blog. I ran smack-dab into my deep emotional wounds and lack of interpersonal skills. Homeschooling crashed and burned. My family life crashed and burned. I broke up with my husband Jason (meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, we had conceived our lovely baby boy Qian, pictured above). Our children moved with Jason to the small town where he teaches and went back to public school. I began working 50 hours a week at two new jobs, and spent the weekends with the children.

We planned to divorce and give the baby up for adoption, but by the third trimester we could not bear to do either, and chose to reunite and welcome our baby to our family. Meanwhile, Jason had a very serious health crisis which left him insulin-dependent and suffering from severe neuropathy. He has only partially recovered. I have moved back with him and am down to one job, about 10 hours per month. I am just enjoying my family immensely. But the struggles and compulsions that I have wrestled with my entire life are still present daily. I want to engage them with curiousity and compassion, rather than an endless cycle of self-violence.

I have been exploring my emotional health in new ways, and am finally ready to rejoin the world. I missed my community here, and hope to reunite with you all.

Quick update

Spring has finally arrived here in Northern Illinois. Thank goodness! When it snowed on April 2nd, I thought I might snap. The next day, it was 50s and sunny. Whew.

We are STILL moving. Our projected move date was going to be March 1st, and most of our stuff is in the new house, but we have had a plumbing delay that required the ground to thaw. I have been relaxed up to this point, but now I am beginning to feel a little frustated, because most of our stuff is already there, and my busy season approaches with planting and such. However, I feel optimistic that the delays will soon be over, and I will then have to find something else to complain about.

At the farm, the cows have begun to calf. There are four so far. And we have had some animal excitement here in town. A groundhog has moved in under our gazebo, and has been munching on our irresponsible compost pile. The kids and I have enjoyed watching! My husband has given the little critter a ridiculous name (can't remember it right now), and it prompted us to do a little research. Did you know that "groundhog" and "woodchuck" are names for the same animal?

The kids and I have been getting much more active... walking, gardening, and playing outside.

I am still not back to 100% lowfat raw where I want to be. I have some more to learn about loving and accepting myself. But I am confident that I am going in the direction I want to be going, so it's just a matter of continuing to walk forward.

Increased Self-Awareness, Contrast, and other Blessed Irritations

When I went raw, I was shocked at how sharp my sense of smell and taste became. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that many symptoms I took for granted disappeared. I hadn't noticed them because they were so much a part of my life... That achy, lethargic, groggy feeling I woke up with every morning? Turns out it's a "food hangover", not just a result of turning thirty, or bad genes, or "not being a morning person."

So, imagine my dismay, when I began eating poorly again, at having all of my gains disappear and all of my symptoms return. Actually, they seemed worse. Are they worse? No, I am not being "punished." It's just a matter of noticing these things more now that I know what it's like to feel better.

In a way, this increased self-awareness has been the one thing that my detour to SAD land can't erase. And I am grateful for that. Grudgingly grateful.

I know my detour has been temporary, because now I've seen the promised land and want to go back.

Struggling

I have been working on a lot of personal issues and it is hard work, let me tell you!

I have been binge-ing on junk food fairly frequently and feeling generally bad about myself, which is why I haven't been posting here. But I feel like I am ready to stop feeling horrible and start feeling good again. It is AWEFUL to know what it's like to feel good, and yet to continue to make yourself feel bad. Sigh.

To add insult to injury, I have had an itchy rash all over my face and sores in the corner of my mouth for the past 4 days. Enough! Really...

There are exciting developments in other areas of my life, however. My husband has joined Path of Health and has been eating 80-10-10 raw for almost a week now. We are reading the Nonviolent Communication book Language of Compassion. We are working on our homeschooling vision as well.

And, I have been offered a job opportunity to work with my farmer friend Phil next summer. Will I do it? The successful class I had with young children in the community garden seems to be leading me to make some changes in that project as well.

Stay tuned.

Two-Week Detour

Two week detour, much like the famed "Two Hour Tour" gone awry, only without the Skipper and Marianne.

Seriously, though, maybe you've wondered where I've been. It hasn't been a happy place!

Two weeks ago, in response to feelings of frustration, anger, fear, and loneliness, I decided to eat some SAD "food." I knew that I would get sick, but I still chose to do it. However, I had a new awareness of my body's reactions to taking in these foods that I had not experienced before when I ate them fairly often.

Within an hour, I could feel my entire body rapidly dehydrating. My throat and mouth got very dry and then my lips. I could feel my hands and feet swell. I felt a comfortable numbness throughout my entire body for about the first hour--a heavy (but not unpleasant) sensation in my stomach, a slight fogginess in my thinking, drowsiness. Then, however, I got a knotted, painful sensation in my stomach. I heard gurgling noises. I also felt unsatisfied. I felt like I "needed" more SAD food. So I ate more. I went to bed feeling heavy. I slept fitfully, waking often to drink water and remembering strange dreams. My stomach hurt but not as much as I had worried it might.

However, the next morning, I threw up and had diarrhea forapproximately 6 hours. I was incapacitated for the whole day. Iimmediately had increased vaginal discharge (something I had since puberty but went away on 80-10-10). Also, I got a mild yeast infection for a day or two. Then next day, I craved more SAD foods. My stomach was still visibly bloated and gurgling. I later ate more SAD foods throughout the next two weeks. I noticed less symptoms--my body no longer produced diarrhea or vomiting--but I got severe heartburn, which felt like someone was literally kicking me in the esophagus. I gained about 10 pounds in one week, which I assume to be mostly water-weight and colon backup. My hands are slightly painful and swollen in the morning. My skin is oilier and I have some minor breakouts. My scalp is also oilier and a little flakey. My workouts were more difficult and I had less energy. My bowels were immediately irritated. I had gas and a bit of constipation.

The other annoying thing I noticed is that I never felt satisfied after eating the foods I "craved." It was never enough!

The interesting thing about experiencing these physical and mental symptoms was that they were all familiar. I had experienced these symptoms before with regularity before, but never paid much attention. Some of the "milder"symptoms I attributed to age or the natural course of things. The more severe symptoms I chalked up to a bug, such as the "flu." The dissatisfaction and cravings I had attributed to my weak willpower or "stress." Somehow, adding back all these symptoms made me appreciate more clearly how I had not been experiencing them at all in the past 3 months of 80-10-10.

So, self-love, where are you? I feel like I was doing great and then I just fell into a pit of despair and self-loathing. Now, I gotta claw my way back outta here.

Today was Day 1

10 a.m. 1 cup of heirloom cherry tomatoes (a gift from a friend)
11 a.m. 3 large Bartlett pears
Noon Smoothie with 7 med. bananas, 2 cups frozen raspberries
3:30 p.m. (Having baaaaaad cravings!) a large quantity of lettuce and 2 cups cherry tomatoes
7 p.m. About 2 mangoes and 2 C. tomatoes blended into a soup

Total: About 1700 cal. (I can afford to be a little low after a week of eating 3000 cal. a day)