I Want to Go To Green Mountain

I am going to write a post about the wonderful comments you wrote on my Valentine's Day post and what I learned---so check back soon!

Instead, tonight I wanted to share with you a post about why I want to win Karen C.L. Anderson's big Giveaway for a trip to Green Mountain at Fox Run. Tomorrow (Feb 16th) is the last day to enter, so if you are interested, enter right now! Anyway, here is the essay I wrote about why I want to win:

"I think that self-love, self-acceptance, self-validation--the lack of these are the roots of my almost half-century of disordered eating. I have tried numerous other ways to approach my relationship with food and none have been helpful in any long-lasting or real way. Of all of the ways I have tried, constant dieting and food restriction has been the most destructive.

I have resonated with the work of Geneen Roth and Mary O’Malley on compulsive overeating. I have tried to apply their processes with varying degrees of success at different times in my life. I do believe that they have the answer, and I need to work with myself to learn to become skillful and mindful in the way I eat. Although I’ve read widely on self-acceptance, mindful eating, and intuitive eating, so many questions remain. I think that there are many things I need to discover for myself and many things that I can only experience with others. 

I enjoyed re-reading Karen’s posts about her Green Mountain experience and have a couple of reflections: 

Karen included in one post a quote from Darla Breckenridge: "Abusing food cuts our heads off from our bodies.” I think that this disconnection is what I’ve wanted somehow, or at least not minded. Unfortunately, it is also the reason I avoid yoga and meditation and most activities that involve my body--because the body becomes one with the mind and heart, and for me this still feels like too much to bear. But yet I want to go there…

I would so like to reconnect my head to my body, even though I also fear it! I know that I have been stuck in a destructive cycle of self-loathing for most of my life. I know that a childhood of physical and verbal abuse as well as abusive adult relationships have affected my ability to be whole. I am at last working towards reparenting myself, learning to value myself, and finding love, acknowledgement, and safety--especially from myself. 

I would see my time at Green Mountain as a chance to focus on applying what I know in a safe, supportive environment with others on the same journey as I am. I can actually practice there with support. I would love to take the classes and take the time to look within to find answers to my questions."

It's easy to enter the Giveaway, and the winner is chosen at random based on entries, so you don't need to write the best essay. I spent some time on this and posted it because I wanted to be clear about where I am currently with my problem with emotional eating. And of course, because I would be sharing it with you. Karen has links on her blog to several posts she wrote about it if you want to find out more.

Wellness Wednesday: New Practices

I am preparing for vacation, not yet packing, but arranging for our house-sitters, the garden, the chickens, and most importantly, picking my books and audio for that time, which is what I mostly do on vacation: read, walk, write, listen to my iPod.

This time it will be different though because it will be a time of listening, and inward time. My intention is to develop a regular meditation practice--something I've "tried" before and never continued--and to develop a light yoga practice--twenty minutes a day of mostly relaxing poses--something I used to do but not in the last the few years.

Being in Hawaii is the perfect time to learn yet again to be present.

I am someone who has lived in her head her whole life and likes it there. It is comfortable, and it is busy. Noisy.

Recently I discovered that it is also kind of mean in there. My self-talk is not compassionate...it's very critical...I have begun changing this and the meditation and yoga will help tremendously in this, as will the being present. Breathing. Slowing down.

One of my best visits to Hawaii was one in which we went to a conference for LoveHubbie's work. I sat on the balcony of the Sheraton in Waikiki looking out at Diamond Head and read Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness". I checked the book's Amazon page and noticed that this was six--SIX--whole years ago. To my chagrin, I am still as anxious and as unmindful as ever. Thus, I'm grateful for some extra time to focus on the opportunity to apply this important teaching and to do it in Hawaii. Of course, this can be done anytime at all, but when you're breaking lifetime habits, it's helpful to have some intensive time to immerse yourself.

In the spirit of this, I'm going to unplug totally, like I did when I went to Brazil. No email, no Facebook, no Twitter, just my cell phone for emergencies. Instead, I'm taking a large blank Moleskine and planning on writing...I wrote pages and pages in Brazil...for me this was better than any entertainment I could ever imagine.

I am starting to turn away from daily tasks, letting go of things here, and preparing for the change...

~Photo is actual picture taken with my phone from the balcony.

Breathing in Bellvue

Well, I'm now in Bellevue Washington, home of Microsoft, staying at a hotel and taking a special breathing/yoga seminar here tonight and for the rest of the week. It's only evenings, and then all day on the weekends. I'm working on my book as well, plus re-invigorating my yoga practice. And learning Microsoft Vista...and how to use a laptop. Lots of learning. But it's peaceful and I'm sure I'll get a lot done.

I wanted to take a personal theme for this seminar---Resilience. I hope to be thinking about this and posting about this topic while I'm here. I haven't been resilient...and want to explore becoming so.

Webster's defines "resilient" as:
1. springing back; rebounding.
2. returning to the original form or position after being bent, compressed, or stretched.
3. recovering readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyant.

I'm hoping to do all three. Not necessarily over the next six days, of course, but I hope to get a great start.

Yoga is great for depression. So is breathing. The course is with the Art of Living Foundation, which I knew nothing about, but read about them in this book and then again several weeks ago in this book. I'm a wee bit nervous, but quite excited to take a healing step in my personal growth. So by focusing on learning these new skills, I hope to increase my resilience.

I had this trip planned before my May Day crash. Good thing!

Here's a peek at my surroundings. It's 2:24 long. It's been a long time since I've done a video!