Today's Meditation: Trusting Your Own Instinct and Running With It.

In the past, it has occurred to me that I don't like recipes because of how restrictive they are. A recipe leaves no room for your own instincts, no respect for your own voice saying, "do this," and "use that." This is dangerous because  your inner voice (which urges you to favor one ingredient over another) is very, very well in tune with what your body needs nutritionally, whereas a recipe is like a guess from someone you don't know.

You want more protein because you're working out. Your body wants more carbs, but you've decided carbs are bad because some diet you half read about (and yes, reading the method of a diet without researching the criticisms is only HALF reading about a diet) is counterproductive to meeting your goal of being healthy. Cutting out hummus because chick peas contain carbs is silly. If you want to cut out carbs, stop eating tortilla chips, french fries, and candy. Do not lump the carbohydrates from the former in the same category as the latter when chick peas contain an abundance of nutrition that, if you're craving hummus, your body is telling you it needs. Dip some carrots and/or sliced peppers in your hummus and enjoy.

Diets are a huge pet peeve of mine in the same way that recipes are: they devalue your inner knowledge of yourself, cut off communication from your instincts, and deny you the opportunity to listen to what you really need in order to to give yourself what you subconsciously already knew you needed to be healthy.
Don't diet and exercise for a "beach body" because any body in a well fitting bathing suit is ready for the beach. Dude.

Eat healthfully and exercise so that you are better in contact with your inner voice, with what your body needs and is asking for - do it to be healthy inside and out. It'll work out, vanity-wise, but that really shouldn't be a goal. Released endorphins and permanent giddy-lik-happiness, guilt free lifestyle, pride in your accomplishments: may those be your health and physical goals.

Today, I overslept, still ran for 15 minutes (total distance: 1.37 miles). After I returned home, showered and dressed; I started craving something different from my usual greek yogurt with chia seeds. I started craving a blend of banana, peanut butter, and chocolate. So, trusting my inner voice, I put a banana, some PB, and a heavy splash of chocolate soy milk into the blender and ran that. Then, I scooped it into tupperware to eat at work, mixing in a moderate sprinkling of chia seeds. The mixture had thickened by the time I made it to my desk, and the chia seeds had transformed into a gelatinous tapioca-like consistency. This little breakfast was sooo good.

Sure, I couldn't eat it every day, but there was something about the way I was craving it - this mixture that I hadn't even really known existed until I made it - shows me that I have an ability to listen to my body in a way that benefits my taste buds and my nutritional needs. Yay, me.

My little vegan-tapioca concoction totaled 504 calories, 27 grams of fat, 58 grams of carbs, 17 grams of fiber, and 16 grams of protein. So, while I'm not exactly cutting back on the carbs, calories, or salt; I also didn't think about food again until 1 pm. For those four hours, I didn't need a snack, my body was content - happy, even - and healthy because all those things have nutritional value beyond numbers and a small part of the impact.

How degrading to food to be classified do crudely. Nothing should be broken down and defined by small parts of what's inside them; especially when the chemical compounds that lead to those classifications all react differently inside the body than similar chemical compounds found in other foods which lead to the came classification. Beyond that, even; when ingredients are combined, the body digests everything differently.

The same claim of degradation could be said for recipes. The same recipe that makes an excellent tomato sauce made from fresh ingredients in Plainfield, New Jersey with taste very different in Cross Plains, Wisconsin. That is because the ingredients grown locally will have different minerals from the soil and the water, resulting in a different taste. Everyone knows the basic ingredients to a tomato sauce, even if they think they don't. The best meals happen without a recipe, but from an instinct.

Your inner voice knows what your body wants - not what is easy, not what is simple, but what nutrients your body truly wants - and it tells you every day.  All you have to do is listen.

the Importance of Annonymity, PART II

 Ugh.

After reading this I feel dirty; and no, not the kinky/fun kind of dirty, but the kind inspired by annoyance and severe eye rolling.

The Importance of Being Annonymous

There's not enough honesty in this world.

My boss once brilliantly said, "If truth were deodorant, most people would stink." She's onto something there.

People feel so much pressure to be good, passive human beings; but how many of us can be passive? I'm no Alpha, but I'm no Beta, either - surely, I cannot be alone in feeling that way.


What's funny, though, is how people regard you before they know who you are. It's like that girl at work who I would sometimes see walking around the building. Without fail, she would always eye me up and down, smirk judgmentally and, if we had to communicate for some reason, speak condescendingly to me. That changed the day she realized what team I work with and what role I happen to have within it. Her initial behavior was the truth. She didn't like my forever-unkempt hair, or maybe it was the lack of make-up on my face or my eclectic style. She judged me on that, and, while initially I found it amusing when she suddenly avoided eye contact and her tone changed to a polite whisper, after a while, I kind of preferred the judge-y behavior. At least it was honest - someone who takes a lot of time to look impeccable maybe wouldn't have much respect for someone who would rather spend her morning running than sprucing up. She had no problem being aggressive before she found out my name, when I was still anonymous to her. It gave me a chance to raise an eyebrow at her superficiality.

My name, ha! Like anywhere outside this company it means anything. I am neither famous nor actually important. The label I work for is exceptional, and through this job I shine, but what is Pedigree without a little pretension? Perhaps we all let it get to our heads a bit and maybe that's dangerous.

If I ever did create something worthy of being judged by others, I don't think I'd put my name on it anymore. There was a time I would have, but that ship sailed as I learned how people change their tone when they know they're speaking to you regarding your work. I even want the gender of the pseudonym to be androgynous and left to interpretation. I want the harshest criticism spoken plainly and in an impassioned manner.

I want that regarding anything I'd create.

Better Left Forgotten?

I had a dream about a dress. I fell in love with it there, in the Land of My Subconscious. I awoke and, though it was 3AM, I took a lesson from instances before when I dealt with dream designs and immediately began sketching what I'd "seen." I do not keep a sketch pad and croquis on my nightstand, which means I had to leave bed, walk across my apartment, find my rarely used sketch book, and draw what had floated into my brain before it returned to the unknown forever.

When I finished drawing, I took a really good look at the dress and decided I didn't care for it after all. By then, I was wide awake and couldn't sleep.

New lesson: maybe it's OK to dream about something you could create and forget it the next day. The possible creation itself may not be what's important about the dream, or else there would be no problem remembering it, which means it would have floated to the subconscious from any bit of random inspiration. If the creation itself is forgotten, then the important part may be the emotion it sparked within you in the first place. That part remains in the memory banks, even if the idea that sparked it has gone off into the abyss of forgotten ideas. The motivation it stirs within is actually the purpose of the dream. It exists to light a fire for creation, not to give out free ideas. This gives the chance to consciously connect the final outcome from the inspiration - it allows for the creation to stem from a place of deep & critical thinking. And, well, isn't that better, anyway?

Perhaps it is just better to remain asleep.

Oh, hey there.

  

I passed along the web address of this blog to someone I love and respect today. 

Last time that happened - the last time I shared the blog I'd been writing - things didn't end so well. 

.

.

.

.

Let's hope it doesn't bite me in the butt. 

Today's Meditation: Cope in Your Own Way

My morning's headache is passing, I must exercise. After Tim returns with an iced hazelnut liquid perfection, I'll be headed to the gym for an hour of laps.
One of my favorite parts about swimming is the meditation that naturally occurs when the body has been pushed to the physical point where endorphins are released but also while the exercise is far from over. The brain starts looking for something else to concentrate on to make it all bearable. These are the moments I use for prayer, mediation, self reflection, or to clear my mind of anything blocking the formation of creativity. It's like shuffling a deck of tarot cards - I go in asking a question or concentrating on a problem and I push myself until I have an answer.
Today, I'm going in with a thought from Piers Morgan, spoken while complaining about the brutality he has experienced from people who didn't understand him or the way his brain worked.
"One thing you, who had happy or secure childhoods should understand about those of us who didn't - we who control our feelings, who avoid conflict at all costs or seem to seek them, who you call compulsive, a workaholic are, above all, survivors. We are not that way from perversity. We cannot just relax and let it go. We have learned to cope in ways you never had to."
When I reach the point of endorphins-based creativity, I will think of his quote and use it to harness the way I feel about others from my past who didn't get me, who didn't understand why I wasn't or couldn't be like them. I will forgive them, which will be difficult because there's a heavy load of misdeeds, infringement, disobedience, trespassing, and offenses. I will not forget what happened (because you can't use what hurt you for empathetic moments unless you remember what it is that hurt you) but I will dissociate the experience with the person involved. Hardest of all, I will forgive myself for any role I played, whether I was aware of it or not, in the devastating times I faced.

I need to realize that I find comfort in ways the people who hurt me are unfamiliar with, that they hurt me because they didn't understand me. Maybe they thought they had to try to understand me but came up with the wrong conclusions. When I was working out my own issues and didn't have the answers yet, they saw dishonesty. When I tried to be creative in reaching out, they saw bravado. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they just hate me. One can only guess.

When most people say, "forgive but don't forget," they're claiming they have the magical ability to forgive someone but still resent them. What the saying should mean is to forgive, but remember how it was to feel so low, to be grateful for those who stood by you and, in turn, be there for someone else who needs it.

You have to be able to look someone in the eye, smile at them from your heart, and sincerely wish them well before you can say you've forgiven them. You don't need them to be in your life, but if you can't bring yourself to do the former, you have not forgiven.

As for my laps, no matter how far I'll actually get with all that forgiveness (because that's quite a load for one hour... I think I'll be meditating on this, swim-wise, for a while) I think I'll spend the last few concentrating on what or, more importantly, whom I am most grateful for. Isn't that what life is all about, anyway? We can't create peace out of turmoil without the love of one place within us spilling over into another.

Brain Garden aka My brain is a cofeehouse of internal dialogue.

I had a paranoid thought regarding a friend. It’s easy when you feel isolated from people, whether the isolation is caused by physical or emotional distance, to replay small things they said casually in conversations, take them out of context, and dissect them. This cannot be healthy, though it does appear to be a common condition I find myself in.

Before I explain about the conversation with B, I should explain as to why I have a hard time remembering conversations verbatim, settling mostly for the gist of what went down. The thing is, I constantly have a few conversations going on in an ever-going internal dialogue on top of whatever it is I’m talking about with those around me. One conversation processes everything I’m seeing. But then, I ask myself questions like, “Do I like the green hat because it brings out the butterscotch highlights in that girl’s hair or is this a color that is on the rise in popularity that I should probably incorporate into a top or some sort of accent, like binding?” 

While I’m studying the girl in the green hat, I’ll simultaneously be writing. I have had a list of characters filed away in my head to reference when I get to actually writing. Nevermind that I haven’t “actually written” anything in years. The list remains and continues to grow. At that moment, I was adding a character with chronic Asian hair envy to the list. This girl would notice something beautiful about asian girls everywhere she went; inspired by an earlier thought that only asian girls can bleach their hair and have butterscotch highlights and not have hair accents the color and texture of hay. Mediterranean gene FAIL.Although, that would be a challenge to translate into sci-fi.

While all that is going on, I’m also maneuvering how I can turn a conversation a certain way so I can casually bring up something I’m absolutely dying to talk about. It’s important to me to hear all about other people first before I dive into what feels like my MEmeMEme spiel. I don’t like to lose what’s important in life in the mix. There should be balance.

Oh, and on top of all that, I can sit on a bench with B, enjoying a hot, fruity tea beverage in the middle of a bustling Queens neighborhood, talking about politics. I do not think I can be the only person on Earth who consistently has multiple conversations articulating in my head. Also, those are not the subjects my mind is limited to while conversing; there are many, many issues on my mind at any given time. There is no back burner. There’s a massive garden and every person, place, or issue, big or seemingly small, has a flower pot containing it and that my brain feels compelled to feed. Nothing ever dies in my brain garden. As cluttered as that may seem, I’ve always preferred a baroque-esque garden with layers upon overgrown layers. 

However, those were just merely a few issues on my mind, the eternal coffeehouse in my head, me chattering away with myself and other versions of me, and sometimes actual physical people in the real world, like B when she called me a Republican even though I voted for Obama.

Why would I dissect that? I’ve admitted to being Republican in the past. Just lately, it feels like an insult; it no longer feels like part of me, or even relative. It’s another version of me, tucked away in the garden behind the thorny raspberry bush called Ex-Boyfriends. I forget about those plants sometimes. Why should it bother me if others don’t?

Why is this bothering me four months later?