Monday, September 28, 2009

What is the purpose of this blog? Plus, physical inventory

Given my intentions, outlined in my last post, you may be wondering what purpose this blog can serve toward those ends. Mainly, I intend to use this blog to help me keep track of changes and progress (or regress, I suppose) and to keep me focused. It will also allow me a place to form and write ideas, so crucial to growth. This is my self, watching.

So, it seems to me that taking an inventory of where I am currently and a direction I'd like to go seems like a good idea.

Physical situations are the easiest to put into words, so let's start there.
Physically, I am far from perfect health. I am out of shape and have not had a regular exercise regimen in over 4 years. I don't get enough sleep and I handle stress much more poorly than I would like. I am addicted (yes, addicted - addiction to food is a topic for another post, though) to a number of foods that I am well aware, intellectually, are unhealthy for me, such as products made from wheat/other gluten-containing grains, corn, dairy, etc., and chocolate. These foods in turn hurt my body's ability to maintain balance and health. I suffer from headaches, allergies - which manifest in many forms, including itchy, painful eczema that comes and goes in varies places on my body - joint pain, poor concentration, lack of energy, ennui, physical depression, indigestion, nausea, reoccurring infections, bladder pain, and to top it off - hypothyroidism. I am slightly overweight, with no stamina and occasional difficulty breathing, and my skin and hair do not have the luster I remember them once having. All of these are symptoms of a body that is overtaxed and undernourished.

What would my vision of myself as truly healthy look like? This is an ideal collage project - I suggest you try it!
-I would have radiant skin, smooth, springy and full of moisture and life. My hair and nails would have natural shine to them and be far less prone to breaking and peeling.
-I would have abundant energy to do many activities, and feel tired only when deserved, as after a long hike, or at the end of the day.
-I would have little trouble staying focused on a project - at work or a personal pursuit - for long periods of time.
-I would be able to run without stopping or feeling horribly fatigued and out of breath after a short period of time.
-I would have no joint pain.
-I would no longer have headaches from allergies, food, fatigue, or poor posture or eye strain.
-I would have comfortable, light-feeling digestion with no nausea/indigestion and healthy, regular, easy bowel movements.
-I would not feel like I depend on food for satisfaction or comfort (this is getting into emotional areas!) and would eat truly nutritious meals and snacks every day, even eating out.

Essentially, Healthy Me would have a ton of energy and look and feel great!
Gosh, that sounds nice, doesn't it? But so, so far from where I am! Ah, how will I get there??

Well, really, I believe it is so much simpler than most people think. In my mind, there are really only four steps:
1) Increase intake of nourishing foods in your diet.
2) Decrease intake of foods not nourishing to you.
3) Move your body, in many ways and often.
4) Cleanse old toxins and build-up out of your body.

You'll notice nothing about calories, specific foods, exercise quotients, or anything like that in there. That is because our needs and abilities change and when we set strict numbers, it's easy to sabotage ourselves. And our progress is never linear, so we can't say "Always do better than the week before!" The best we can say is, "Keep going!" If we waste too much time thinking and focusing about our failures, we don't devote time and energy to SUCCEEDING! So stay focused on improving, not on getting to a specific goal. Only chose specific goals if they help serve YOU... you are not and should not be a slave to an arbitrary goal! Sure, I would love to lose 10-20 pounds, but I'd much rather be radiantly healthy and energetic, whatever my weight, so I'll take or leave the weight loss!

Alright, that's a good starting point for the physical inventory. I'd like to get some hard numbers to look at, too, namely my current weight and body fat percentage and possibly some other numbers, such as how many push-ups I can do and how long I can run without stopping. Possibly some pictures of my current physical state. These will give me a baseline so I can assess my progress in a more concrete way, to keep me going, and to remind me of some of the things I'd like to improve going forward.

Emotional/Mental/Spiritual inventories and goals to come!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

What is my intention for this blog?

Have discussed intention and what it means, I hope I've made it clear that I think deciding on a clear intention for any project before you start is crucial to that project's success.
In that light, I want to write on my intention for this blog. I believe that the intention/purpose of this blog will change and grow as I do. Let's look today at what I want to accomplish with my life; later we can look at how this blog can help. I'll start with the sub-header for the blog, since it is a summary of what I have in mind going forward.

"On a Journey" - I am on a journey called life. Cliche, perhaps, but true, and oddly enough, a hard concept to remember. Like many people I have long been obsessed with the end goal rather than the process. The process and the journey are the point. What's the end goal of life, anyway? Not the end of life, generally speaking. No, generally our goals for life involve things we do while living! But we also tend to put those things off in some vague future, i.e. "Someday I will travel to Japan," "One of these days I'll get back to exercising regularly," "Once I find a good tutor, I'll learn a new language..." etc. The problem with putting these things in the future is that, well, the future never comes! You don't live in the future! You live in the present. You can plan for the future, but you can't do anything in it. Eventually those future plans have to happen in a Now for them to happen at all. If they stay in the future, they will never happen. So it is important to remember to do what you can NOW to achieve your goals. Planning is important, but without doing, your journey is going to be awfully boring.

"Adventures through physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual growth;" - Adventures! It's important to remember that, no matter what, life is an adventure. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, but it's interesting! And life is all about growth and change. Let's break this clause down a little more:

-Physical: I've suffered from a number of minor chronic ailments over the last several years, including headaches, fatigue, joint pain, depression, lethargy, allergies, eczema, migraines, muscle aches, etc. A couple of years ago I committed to learning and trying new things in an effort to improve my health, and I've learned a number of things. For example, I found I have a number of allergens I'm exposed to almost daily, hence the headaches and eczema, and I am trying to reduce exposure to them. I also found out I have hypothyroidism, and getting on supplemental thyroid hormones has helped tremendously with the fatigue/lethargy & depression. I can't tell you how amazing it is to have the energy to do things other than SLEEP again! But this is definitely an ongoing issue and a journey I'm still on. My physical health is, shall we say, less than radiant.

-Mental: I believe in life-long learning. I like to learn from other people but I LOVE reading books. So I'll probably be talking about some of the books I read in this blog. I like anything that gives me more to think about. I like expanding my mental landscape... but like all growth, boy, this can be hard sometimes. It's not easy to have ideas you believe in challenged. Just remember, those established ideas were new once too. New ideas may be good for you too.

-Emotional: This can be one of the easiest areas to sideline or underestimate, but it is very crucial as it determines how much you are ENJOYING this adventure called life. Additionally, without working on emotional healing and growth, you can't progress in others. When you ignore this area, other areas of your health, including physical, can and will suffer. Above all, the most important thing to do for emotional health is to be honest with yourself about your feelings. From there, you can determine how to handle them. Be honest with others about how you feel. Keep a journal. See a therapist. Mediate and practice detachment. There's a lot of ways to grow, and recently I had the universe give my self-righteous self a big smack. Universe said, "Hey! Stop assuming you know everything about how you work! Here, look at THIS! Bet you didn't see THAT coming." Oh. Gee. Whoa. Yeah, this isn't always fun or easy, either. Ow.

-Spiritual: I believe that humans are inherently spiritual beings. I also believe there is a huge difference between spirituality and religion. I'm not a fan of organized religion. The moment you try to organize spiritual teachings and make a religion out of it, you get people who use that religion for their own purposes or misunderstand it and hurt themselves and others. Religion is a way of organizing and controlling people. Now, it can also be used positively, as a means to help people connect, build community, and remind them of something more important, but the moment the dogma of what's right and what's wrong enters the picture, I want none of it. Yes, there is such a thing as ethics, and I think our spiritual sense is part of how we discern what is right and wrong. I believe we should discern the truth for ourselves rather than accept what another human being (even one who wrote a holy book) says is right or wrong. Anyway, my spiritual life has been on the back burner for a while now, and I think it's about time I started giving it a good, long look and figuring out what it is I really believe and feel is true and what works for me.

"through intentional food choice, reading, gardening, yoga & meditation, my furry little cat-children, fibercrafts, and random strokes of insight;" - I believe everything we do has the possibility to help us grow. I believe the food we choose to eat is more vital to who we are than most would believe and so I believe in showing intention in how we choose our food, rather than habit, cravings, the food pyramid, what's on sale that week, etc. I am (mostly) vegetarian/vegan for this reason as I believe such a diet is much healthier for human beings. Reading, as I mentioned before, is an important way to learn more about the world and yourself. I love gardening - it is an important part of my life and I see it tieing into all aspects of health. Yoga and meditation are proven to be excellent for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and allow one to practice mindfulness and intention actively. I am also a mother of 6 little cat-children (my cats are like children to me) and find that my ever-changing relationship with them always challenges me to think differently. I am also a fiber-crafts enthusiast and find that it improves my dexterity physically, challenges me mentally, connects me to others emotionally, and give me quiet and peace to be spiritual. These are just a few, dominant aspects of my life currently, and as such, I'm open to whatever strokes of insight the universe has to offer... even if they leave me feeling a little raw!

"With the goal of health, joy, and radiance of being." - This isn't really an "end goal." Like I said, it's about the journey, not the end, so I'm hoping to find health, joy, and radiance of being along my journey and keep them as much as I can throughout my life. I know they will come and go, but that is what I want. And who doesn't want health, joy, and radiance of being?

So, you may be asking, how is a blog supposed to help accomplish all of that? Well, that is for a later post.

For now, go about your day and remember to love for no reason. "The heart has reasons that reason does not know."

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Get back up and keep on dancing

I hoped to write more of my own thoughts before resorting to posting links to other blogs, but one of Diane Sylvan's recent posts is just too apt.

The Beauty of 52nd Chances

Love,

Kasi

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

What is intention?

One of the most important concepts I've had the pleasure of learning more about in the last year is that of "intention." Regardless of what we say or what we plan, if the full weight of intention is not there, if we hold back in any way, we cannot succeed. If we make a resolution to achieve a goal, assuming it is a reasonable goal, there are two ways it could go:
-We say we will do it, but we don't believe we will succeed, we aren't willing to do the really hard work, and/or we believe we aren't worthy and sabotage ourselves. Because our full believe and will are not behind the statement, we fail. And then we get the perverse right to belittle ourselves even more (which, for anyone with chronic body image/self-esteem/depression issues, can be quite the addictive cycle).
-We say we will do, and we KNOW we will do it. When it gets hard, we say, "Well, we are going to do this one way or another, and hard work is necessary for growth, so let's buckle down and DO this!" We may get discouraged, but we never give up. We believe we are worthy of success. We believe in ourselves!

Intention is about believing in and OWNING your own success, before it ever happens. Without the full weight of intention, we give up before we have even started. How can we help but fail when we set resolutions that inside, we do not believe or want to keep? We just say we will really try, and then when we fail, we have the cop-out of saying, "Well, I really tried, and I failed, so obviously I'm a loser/I'm too lazy/the world is out to get me/God(dess) hates me..." and so forth.

And that realization - that it is YOUR responsibility, your life, your success or failure - that is so hard to fully own. Your "lack of willpower," "laziness," etc. is an excuse, a falsehood preventing you from dealing with painful truths - or perhaps it is simply comfortable, a habit. But if you wish to grow, you have to be willing to face tough truths, you have to be willing to feel some pain. You will sometimes feel worn raw, like a skinned knee you can't see, but you learned as a child that skinned knees heal, and so do all wounds, eventually, even if they leave us changed. Pain passes; let it wash over you, be present to it instead of resisting it, and then the growth you so desperately need will come more easily. That growth is going to come whether you resist or not, so why make it harder? Not everything you need in life is easy or enjoyable or even what you want!

Put your full intention behind your decisions, and you can move mountains!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Why "Raw Growth"?

"Raw" and "Growth" both have a lot of connotations and a lot of meaning for me.

-There's raw as in raw food, which by my blogs followed is clearly an interest of mine. I have found integrating more raw fruits, veggies, and nuts into my diet helps with some of my many minor, chronic ailments, such as allergies, fatigue, headaches, and indigestion.
-Raw can also be used to describe emotions and feelings at a very primal, intense level
-Raw is the way we feel when a painful truth about ourselves has been revealed. Ouch! But it's also the only way to grow...

Stasis is death. As they say, the only constant in life is change... Without growth, we stagnate. And isn't stagnation boring? Therefore, one of my life goals is constant growth, progress, and change, even when it is hard... even when it leaves you feeling raw and tender. So let us tend to ourselves and to those beings around us so that we may all grow - together.