Like most people, I figure, I have personal issues I am working on healing. I’ve done a lot of healing over the last several years, and feel really good about a lot of the stuff that used to challenge me. One of the challenges that still confronts me on most days, however, is my body. I haven’t made peace with it (this human vehicle) yet, I guess. I’m working on it.
I’m determined to find a spiritual solution to this challenge. Throughout my life I have gone through many different periods of dieting and “eating healthy” and “just” making “lifestyle changes” (these are code words for dieting, I think!). I’ve been healthier and less healthy. I’ve been heavier and less heavy (I don’t think I’ve been “thin” since before puberty, though). I’ve been extremely unhappy and just delighted with my body. I’ve been accepting of and very disapproving of myself.
I’ve worked on healing the emotional causes, too – I consider this to be “mental” and “emotional” work. And through the ups and downs and trying to deal with my body issues in a myriad of physical, mental and emotional ways, I’ve started to believe that it truly comes down to finding a spiritual solution.
I am now embarking on a new journey around finding that spiritual solution, and I plan to share that journey – so stay tuned! But as I am starting down the road, it occurs to me that this spiritual solution must start with what I think about, what I focus my attention on. So, I want to share something I’ve been thinking about today, with you.
I have been spending a lot of time on Pinterest these days. I look at all the amazing pictures of food, and I read the recipes and my mouth waters as I think about all the great new ideas for cooking and baking that I see, and how I could make all of that in my own kitchen (I used to cook and bake quite a lot while the kids were growing up). But I read something the other day that makes me pause. It was just a little blurb, and it said something about how the calorie-counts on most of the recipes people pin to their boards are huge.
Anyway, I find this recipe for what seems to be very delicious gluten-free chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, and I think, “this I’ve got to try” – calorie-count be damned! Off to the grocery store I go, to pick up the ingredients I need that I don’t have, and I just keep thinking, as I’m shopping… no matter how high the calorie count is, it has to be better for my body than anything I might buy at the grocery store bakery… or worse yet, at the convenience store or fast-food restaurant!
So, this is where my thoughts end up – we (and I mean me, as well as so many of us in this culture), often eat out of fast-food restaurants, and the deli (and bakery) at the market, and when we do cook, we get mixes and quick fixes. All of this food is basically lifeless. It is started in factories and is completed by either mostly unhappy workers or by ourselves in a hurried and mindless fashion. I wonder what would happen if we quit eating all of that stuff, and only eat whole (naturally intact) foods, and food that we make, from recipes (instead of boxes) in our own kitchens – with love, mindfulness and positive intention?
I bet that if we did this, we could eat ALL of those high-calorie dishes made from ALL those mouth-watering recipes on Pinterest, every single day, and still be healthier and lighter in our shoes than most of us are right now. Even if we eat cupcakes that have Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups baked into them!
Well… I’ll let you know how the cupcakes turned out!
Blessings and JOYFUL eating to you!
Donna
PS – You can find the recipe (and the original of the above picture) for those cupcakes here:
http://chocolateandcarrots.com/2011/05/chocolate-peanut-butter-cupcakes-gluten-free
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