Spiritual

Yes, I'm still here! I have not written in a few days. Too much work at work, so my brain is fried when I get home. My morning walks have provided few thought-provoking thoughts, so I have skipped a few days of writing. However, I have been thinking about spirituality.

There's a phrase, "lifted my spirits," that reflects when we feel happier and lighter (as if someone is lifting us upward). The other day my sister's blog referred to her witnessing a beautiful sunrise. She called it "God's blessing." I got the impression that the sunrise lifted her spirits and it lifted mine just reading about it. My spirit is lifted when I witness a great view or sight and my spirit is further lifted if I can capture that view on my camera.

Other things that lift my spirit are kind words spoken to me, laughing, and having a good time. Watching a child having fun and enjoying themselves can lift the spirits of most anyone. I think that allowing myself to have fun as a child (of five years old that I once was) would, can lift my spirits. Don't get me wrong, my spirits are not low or I don't feel sad, I just think we should always take the opportunity to "lift our spirits" more! I plan to do just that tomorrow when we go to SeaWorld.

There is a phrase in the old hymn, How Great Thou Art, that says ".... then sings my soul." Having my soul sing is like having my spirits lifted, they both feel sooooo good!

Elephants

There is alcoholism in my family, my father and sisters have the disease. I have inherited the traits myself... traits that sometimes result in drinking too much and most of the time results in eating too much.

In the world of alcoholism, there is an analogy of how the alcoholic is a big elephant living in a family's house and how, due to it size it breaks china and rampages through the house causing havoc. Yet everyone in the family/house ignores the elephant. They tread lightly around the elephant. They don't say anything.... especially they don't say anything to cause the elephant to get upset and go on another rampage... or binge.

The world of over-eating is just the same. Our family and friends see us, the elephant, getting bigger and bigger... yet they ignore the elephant. They don't say anything, they don't want to hurt our feelings. They don't want the to cause the elephant to get upset and go on another rampage.... or binge.

Binge eating and binge drinking, the basis is the same... uncontrolled. Every time I allow my emotions to control my eating, I allow a binge to occur. A binge for me could be eating a bag of chips or it could be eating a cookie that I don't need. Large or small binge, a binge is a binge is a binge... let's call it what it is.

Getting back to elephants, my sister's blog yesterday tells of her nine-year-old son's wise words to her as she was frustrated with frantically trying to find paperwork in her "cluttered office." He said, "Mom, how would you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You would need to chew and swallow before you could take another bite. So you can't run around doing a million things at once or your mouth is too full. You need to bite one. Get done and do the next one. OK? No more anger."

How true! How do we deal with elephant in our life - be it drinking, over-eating, or too much to do at work? One bite, one step, one day at a time, that's how!

Emotional

After yesterday's blog and the personification of the aspects of my PES Project, I realized that I am an emotional eater. Emotional has become quite the enabler for me! Physically, I have not really craved food much, I have not been hungry much and I even enjoy the walking. However, that emotional side of me is whining, complaining, throwing-a-tantrum and wants to let me eat what I want, when I want and how much I want! If you could imagine.... Emotional is force-feeding Physical, shoving food in her face. Emotions are very strong.

Star Jones (formerly of The View TV show) says in Glamour magazine, "..... transparency is not humiliating - it is humbling..... In fact, true freedom and healing started to come when I began to talk about my (gastric bypass) surgery with strangers..... I'm not saying that in order to be happy, women need to be a certain size, but I am saying that we should all strive to be healthy.... When I feel myself reverting to that place of insecurity.... (I) remember what I know to be true: God did not bring me this far to leave me."

Lots of people like Star Jones and myself deal with our emotions, questioning how much do we show others? Yet our over-eating shows to everyone. Again Star makes a good point, "Funny - or sad - how we "thick" girls can justify being excessively overweight."

Mirrors don't tell the whole story, pictures do! I can look in the mirror every day and justify my rolls and bulges. But show me a picture of myself and it's "Oh my God! I'm that big?" Then my emotions take over and suggest food to comfort me, de-stress me, celebrate me. Funny, how ME is so prevalent in emotions and that first two letters of the word emotion is E and M or M and E. Yes, emotions are very strong and I'm going to need to take a strong stance to not give in to every emotional cry, whimper or shout. I'm going to need to do some tough-love self talk to my emotions. Emotional is a tough ol' girl, wish me luck!

We had a PES Project team meeting this morning. We were reviewing how the team has come along since we started this project six weeks ago. To refresh your memory, we have three "people" on the project and their names are Physical, Emotional and Spiritual.

Any time you start a project, the people on the team have different functions depending on their personality. Projects start with a goal in mind and then everyone gives their input and help. The project usually start with brain-storming of ideas, suggestions, thoughts. Well, so much for "usual" in the PES Project.

We had Powerful (or Power-hungry) Physical was ready to get out the door before we even had a chance to brain-storm. She had her agenda, walk and weigh. She was bound and determined that would meet the goal of peace and balance for Rayna. Excited Emotional was on the band wagon quite quickly too. Thinking of all thoughts, feelings, and fears that Rayna would come up against. She decided that doing a daily blog would be beneficial to finding peace for Rayna. She grabbed onto Physical and off they went for a walk. Physical providing the power and Emotional providing the thoughts that excited Rayna and got her writing almost every day. They left behind Sleepy Spiritual complaining, "Why do you girls have to meet so early? I'm not ready to wake up yet, much less participate in this project." Spiritual was wondering, "Where is God in Rayna's life? Will she find what her heart and soul needs?"

As with all projects, all the team members are usually excited from the beginning. They come up with ideas and plans to meet the goal of the project. Then the planning is over and work must begin. Physical and Emotional started fighting about the best way and who's pulling their weight around here and who's not. Physical said, "This is no fun anymore, we have to work. It's not coming along as easily as I thought it would." Emotional was running on fumes, no more new ideas, it was hard for her to motivate any longer. They were both getting tired just as Spiritual starting waking up.

"Come on girls, there is hope for Rayna," Spiritual shouted. "Don't give up on this project!' Physical and Emotional raised their eyebrows and looked at Spiritual and said to her, "It's about time you did something on this project. What did you say? There is hope?"

"Yes, hope." Spiritual replied. The team members decided to pull themselves together and renew their efforts to get the PES Project back on track and going towards its goal. In fact, Physical walked 3 miles today so that Emotional had lots of time to work on the the minutes of this meeting. Spiritual was the cheerleader! :)

Expectations

Expectations are the thoughts, feelings that the likely or for certain will occur. Such as when you take off in an airplane, you expect it will rise in the air and come down safely at your destination. You expect that your car will take you 60 miles in one hour down the roads of your journey. You expect that the bridge you are crossing will get you safely over the river. We expect those things to work for us. We take them for granted so much of the time. If we don't have these expectations, we probably live in fear and worry.

Isn't a bridge, an airplane, or a car just a miracle? Think about what man has created that assists us on our journeys to our destinations. The ingenuity it took man to create and continuously perfect the car, airplane and bridge. But as we all know, bridges, airplanes and cars don't always work the ways we expect. We expect that using the airplane, car or bridge will keep us safe and lead us to our destinations. However, we expect Mother Nature to give us floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts or heat waves now and then. Since we can't control Mother Nature, we are so much more accepting of it's fury and what we'd call Mother Nature's negative aspects. Isn't it ironic that those things that man created and maintains, we expect only the best and most perfect from, yet those things we can't control such as weather, we expect the worst but hope for the best.

There is a verse in the Bible and I can't remember where, but the concept is about NOT putting your trust/faith in things made of man, but trust & have faith in God. Even long before cars and airplanes, man was being admonished to get their priorities right!

I don't think that getting our priorities right means that we need to fear getting into our cars and airplanes and traveling on the ground and in the air. I don't think that we need to fear going over every bridge we encounter. In fact, as much as the news about the bridge collapse in Minnesota saddened and concerned me, the next morning I got in my car and I went over several bridges (overpasses) and never once felt fearful, in fact I did not even think about the bridge collapse.

Getting my priorities right may mean that I need to expect that airplanes will sometimes fall to the ground, that a car will stop working or crash into another, that a bridge will fall. Getting my priorities right may mean that I need to believe that God was there holding people in His arms as the airplane, car or bridge crashed. I need to trust and hope that God was there for them. Getting my priorities right means that I need to believe, trust and hope that God is here for me. No matter what happens!

FRAGILE

FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE

Now and then we will see a package with this label. We know to pick it up carefully, not shaking it up. We are careful to open it so that we don't break or cut into the contents of the package. We are concerned about the contents, regardless if we know what's inside the package or not.

Now and then we will see the phrase, "life is fragile, handle with care." Is life easily broken? Is our connection to another person's life easily broken (fragile)? Yes, it can be... easily broken that is. We never know from one minute to another when a connection could be broken. Sometimes we have to just shake our heads at the enormity of the concept of losing someone in a split second.

Tonight, you may be watching the news channels and viewing the devastation of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have traveled that bridge many times and hubby was on it twice each day when he commuted to his job in downtown Minneapolis for a year. It's been months since either of us was on that bridge, so I can rightly feel "safe." But Tim, my nephew, was on that bridge this morning and every morning that he travels to work. What if the bridge would have collapsed this morning instead of tonight? What if he would have left work late and decided to take that bridge to get home? What if I'm not aware yet if there were cousins or friends on that bridge? The "what ifs" of life make it seem so fragile, so easily broken.

To handle something with care, you must touch it. Touch those you love, physically with a hug and kiss. Touch those you love by calling them and doing what the old telephone commercial used to say, "reach out and touch." Don't be tossing that fragile package.... don't be tossing the concept of how important life is really. Life is fragile, handle with care! God bless all those victims, their families, and the rescue personnel.

Stinkin' Thinkin'

Stinkin' Thinkin' is a term that 12 step programs use to describe the type of thinking that leads to actions like overeating or drinking again.

I have been guilty of stinkin' thinkin' in the past week or so. Last week on Wednesday, I got on the scale and rejoiced that I had lost a couple more pounds. My first thought was, "Let's celebrate!" Then I wondered what food I would eat with which to celebrate. I got to thinking that with all the walking I'm doing, I can eat anything or everything I want. I have been very sloppy in my eating habits this past week. And I don't mean sloppy as in messy, but sloppy in my choices and portions.

Yes, my clothes are getting loose and that is reason to celebrate, but not with food. I have become very aware that I am a celebratory or a stress-reducer eater. Feeling high or low, give me food! This thinking that I "need" food to celebrate or compensate is not appropriate, it's stinking. It's a tough one to accept and/or battle, as it's been this way for me since I was a child or at least a teenager.

Both the scale today and a picture taken of me last Friday tell me that I have a long ways to go. But it starts one day at a time. It starts with the choices that I make on what and how much food and drink I will partake. It starts with accepting myself and acknowledging my thoughts. It starts with not allowing all my thoughts to lead to the action of choosing too much or the wrong kinds of food or drink. It starts with changing my thoughts if possible. I have to believe and remember that anything is possible.