Aha! moment
March 3, 2010 | Filed Under Consider this, Pay attention, Random, Thoughts | 2 Comments
“I love my body.”
February 8, 2010 | Filed Under Health, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
In a country where at least 67% of the population is overweight or obese, body dissatisfaction is extremely common and indeed fuels the $50 billion weight-loss industry. Additionally, since eating disorders and body dissatisfaction are no longer only associated with women, it’s not often we hear, or maybe even say, the phrase “I love my body.”
The break down
February 3, 2010 | Filed Under Consider this, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
There is a common social paradox that often escapes discussion, so let’s bring it up. It’s called self-absorbed and self-unaware. You don’t need to search high and low to locate it; more than likely you know some folks who live in this paradox. Maybe it doesn’t apply to you, but it definitely used to apply to me. Know who you are, how you are, and why you are the way you are. There’s little point in being self-absorbed and unknowlegeable about those things.
Be mindful.
Running away
December 14, 2009 | Filed Under Consider this, Pay attention, Thoughts | 2 Comments
I was raised in a city I hated. When exactly it occurred to me that I didn’t like it, I’m not sure. Perhaps my mother’s feelings rubbed off on my sister and me, but for as long as I can recall, I wanted to be elsewhere. Where? Just somewhere else.
I’ve spent the last few months of my life, not elsewhere, but in my hometown, precisely where I didn’t want to be–not for this long anyway. While it takes just a short matter of days to be reminded of all the reasons that prompted me to leave, my family is here and spending an extended amount of time with them after being away for eight years is warming. Both positive and negative emotions have confronted me and I’ve been somewhat conflicted as to what my next move should be: Stay? Go? Where? For how long? The vision for my immediate future is fuzzy; I haven’t been able to place myself anywhere. In the past, this indicated moving somewhere new.
This morning, South Korea invaded my mind. Teaching English there is an idea that’s visited me countless times over the past five years. Maybe I should just do it, I thought. Do it, so I won’t have any regrets. A longstanding desire to travel the planet resurfaced and immediately I was taken by this idea of journeying foreign lands. Would it take me closer to what I want to be my life’s work? Hmm…no. Not really. But I would get to live in another country and see some of Asia. My haphazard life adventures have always taken me places…but what if this time, I’m not supposed to go anywhere?
The end of complaining
August 14, 2009 | Filed Under Consider this, Read this, Thoughts | 1 Comment
A Complaint Free World issues a 21-day challenge to halt all complaining. Author Valerie Frankel responded to the challenge by enlisting her family. She even offered her daughters $100 at the beginning of the week. Each complaint they made during the week cost them $1. Whatever remained at the end of the week was theirs to keep. Here she documents their first six days on the challenge, including her insights and observations.
It’s pretty interesting. Since last week’s revelation, I’ve been working on nixing complaints. Frankel considers it to be a viable and perfectly acceptable form of communication and ultimately found herself limiting her own expressiveness by not complaining. While I do believe it’s important to express the full range of one’s emotions, it’s not what you do, but how you do it. There’s a difference between pointing something out and harping on it. We can express dissatisfaction without being consumed by the act of doing so.
Lost and found
May 29, 2009 | Filed Under Consider this, Moment of Truth, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Sometimes you have to lose yourself to truly find yourself.
We’re always going to go through things in life that challenge us, that put us face-to-face with the idea of ourselves that we have and the real version of ourselves that we’re being. Make it all worth it by taking from it all the lessons, all the good stuff, and dropping the rest. Don’t beat yourself up. If there was ever a time to be your own friend, it’s when you feel lost. Be honest with yourself. Decide what changes you want to make and why, then hold yourself accountable.
Hunger = poor thought process
April 6, 2009 | Filed Under Give time/money, Thoughts | 1 Comment
After a work out, typically, a ravaging hunger awaits me. Tonight, I came in and ripped open a pack of tuna while I checked my email. I laid the packet of tuna down on my desk only to discover minutes later that all the juice in the packet spilled all over my new magazine.
The lesson: I can’t multitask when I’m hungry.
Apparently, I can’t think either. Read about another hunger snafu.
I’d just come from the gym. Opened the fridge, and pulled out a new carton of large cage-free brown eggs. Poured olive oil in the wok and turned it on. Open the carton of eggs, pulled one out, cracked it and opened the shell, allowing the contents to drop into the wok. Reached into the carton to pull out another egg, except the shell broke, spilling over into an empty compartment. I removed the pieces of the shell, put my hands over as many eggs as I could, knowing I couldn’t cover all of them, but for some reason continuing with the plan of transferring the egg in the carton into the wok. As the cracked egg fell into the wok, an egg that my hand wasn’t covering dropped right out of the carton and onto the carpet. I looked at it and finished cooking. Sprinkled a little salt and a little 21 spice seasoning on them. When they were finished, I put them on my plate, sat down and started eating. After about four bites, I thought, “I guess I should clean that up now.” My very next thought was “why didn’t I turn off the wok and clean up the egg right after it fell?” It never occurred to me. Priority number one was eating.
As I cleaned up the egg, I played back the scenario and came to an interesting conclusion:
While I agree that students at schools in low-income areas don’t necessarily have adequate resources to perform well, I’m convinced that many of them don’t perform well because they can’t think. Because they’re hungry!
That said, please support your local food bank. Many of them have the BackPack program that discreetly provides children with backpacks of food for consumption over the weekends and during vacations. It’s a wonderful program. The San Antonio Food Bank also participates in this program. Volunteers are always needed at food banks, as well as, well…food and money. Please be aware that the food bank has greater purchasing power than the average consumer. For instance, $1 is worth $13 if the San Antonio Food Bank purchases the food. Give what you can or do what you can, even if that’s simply spreading awareness.
Let’s feed the children. People can’t think when they’re hungry…at least some of us can’t.
Challenge: Find the good in where you are
April 5, 2009 | Filed Under Challenge, Thoughts | 4 Comments
Right now, I live in San Antonio. Been here for about seven months and can’t say that it’s been the most exciting time of my life. I can say that it’s been a very therapeutic time for me. Not too long ago, I realized that everywhere I’ve lived has served a different purpose for me, acted as a sort of theme, if you will. I was raised in St. Louis, which served as the framework for my understanding of the world. In Chicago, I really grew into my own. Became more of that which I already was. I moved to New York and really began to understand my work ethic. If I care, I’m all in. If I don’t, I’m pretty much out. The second time I was in Chicago was the most broke and probably depressing time of my life. I realized that I needed to make some changes. When I moved to California, I began to make some of those changes. Insights about my family structure of my childhood, or the lack thereof, became clear to me. Shortly thereafter, I moved to Philadelphia and the overarching theme of that period was love. L-O-V-E. As is the case with many relationships, my beau at the time served as a mirror for me, allowing me to see myself as I was and decide which changes I wanted to make. My time in Texas has been very introspective. Not a lot of activity, but necessarily so. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to grow the way I have in this time if I were in a city that really had my attention. So, yes, I’ve been ’stranded’ on the West side of San Antonio, but I’m better because of my relatively dull evenings and weekends indoors.
Operating with the understanding of why I’m in Texas, in terms of the larger theme of healing, has been incredibly helpful. I no longer hate being here or think I made a mistake in moving here. Very often, we condemn parts of our lives because we don’t understand their purposes. Everything can be used. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Meaning is never inherent; it’s always created. Find the value in the experiences you’ve had and the experiences you’re having right now. If you haven’t done this already, it will change the way you understand your world.
Find the good.
Allow me to reintroduce myself…
March 17, 2009 | Filed Under Consider this, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
I wrote this post two years ago, still it resonates with me and my current position in life. Just further evidence that moving in circles means there’s lots of room for growth. The lesson: empower yourself by learning from life.
I’ve been running a lot in my life. From myself, from my past, my dreams, my fears, my dirt…just running. I’m constantly on the go. What sitting still feels like is foreign to me. When I’m here, I’m there and when I get there, I’ve already gone somewhere else.
Today marks a new beginning for me. I need new decision-making paradigms, new criteria with which to determine the best way from point A to point B…it’s not always a straight line.
At one time, I decided that Neale Donald Walsch’s definitions of love and fear were a great way…and they still are, so what happened? Did it take too much time? Impede my impulsiveness? Spontaneity is overrated if it’s reckless or spontaneous for the sake of speed or spontaneity itself. Guess why I’ve been spontaneous? ; )
Well…all that was the past. I’m seeking evolution. When speaking of other people, I’d easily toss out how they weren’t growing. “If you keep talking about the same stuff over and over again, your life is moving in circles and you’re not growing.” Is it any surprise that I, too, have been moving in circles, foolishly marveling at the new scenery even as it tired quickly because the design eventually proved to be the same? No, it isn’t. What you fear, you attract.
I watched Munich the other night. Interesting Spielberg movie, even for Spielberg. No longer a believer in coincidence, this character, Avner, was working with the Israeli army to kill this list of people. In the process, more people than anticipated died and death became the major theme in his life. He became haunted with the idea of being hunted…the idea of the tables turning created a paranoia so strong that he couldn’t sleep. When he returned to his civilian life, his mind wasn’t there. At one point in the film, as he shredded his mattress in search of a bomb, I recall saying, “That’s not a life.” No…it’s not. Later, he asks his superior for evidence that the people they were killing had really committed crimes…after the fact. He asked, “Have I committed murder?”
Are you serious, Avie? Yes…he was. Cognitive dissonance is a mess. Under the guise of religion, all along he’d considered eliminating these people an act of righteousness. So did his family and so many others he encountered, adding to his ambivalence.
Yet, I’m not all that different from Avner. I haven’t killed anyone, except for maybe parts of myself subconsciously, but there’s always been this justification, these ideas that whatever I was doing wasn’t exactly what I was doing. Don’t pee on me and tell me that it’s raining. But that’s exactly what I was doing. “It’s just rain, Leandra. No worries.”
Aware of the infractions I commit against myself, just like Avner, I can’t sleep. My unwillingness to be a mere mortal and face reality eliminates the possibility of growth, thereby forsaking the point of the whole experience. I can’t continue to hide from my shadow if I want to bask in the sun.
The paradox of belief…it’s nothing and everything at the same time. How long would I have continued to deceive myself if my health and the rest of my life didn’t seem to be collapsing around me? Perhaps indefinitely…who can say?
So good thing my life is falling by the wayside. It’s the cosmos saying, “Hey, this isn’t working.”
Once I was fed up with my headaches and sought an alternative remedy, I discovered macrobiotics, the notion of food as medicine, and the wisdom of the body. The wisdom of the body.
For so long, I’d consider myself a migraine sufferer, implicating this idea of victimhood. But I wasn’t a victim. The headaches were a symptom, part of an equation.
A+B=C
Sensitivity + Ignoring Sensitivity = Pain
Is it really that simple?
Umm…yes.
So years later, here I stand, at a similar pivotal moment with the power to define my situation as it is or as I’d like to for temporary personal convenience.
The present condition of my life wasn’t handed to me by the fates; it’s the perpetual C. What you put in, you get out.
It’s time for the self-delusion to end. Or if that’s what it’s going to be, at least call a spade a spade.
My historical lack of discipline doesn’t mean that my future has to be laden with the same lack, so much as that it means if I want to be disciplined, I’d better cultivate it.
How do you cultivate discipline? Dedication to the goal. So…I set some goals.
“Thank you”
February 17, 2009 | Filed Under Random, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
On Twitter last night, I asked what inspired people. Only one person got back to me, but what she said was so profound. Her response was “the unbroken spirits of impoverished people around the world. essentially, love.”
In that moment, I realized I needed more gratitude.
Fast forward to today. A few weeks ago, I was speaking with someone who said she wanted to lose weight, so I emailed her last week to share a few resources I thought would be helpful for the beginning of her journey. This morning, I found out that I gave her the wrong date for something happening at the university where I work and emailed her to update the information.
Shortly thereafter she responded to tell me that my email came at the perfect time and thanked me for thinking of her.
Her appreciation really touched me. I found myself thinking, “thank you for appreciating it!”
So…gratitude. Maybe I need to be more appreciative of myself. Hmm…that’s a new thought. I’ll ponder on that.
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