Category: Deeper Meaning

What has been your experience with tidying up a corner of your house or office?  Please, reflect back  now.  Have you been thinking as you’ve tidied up,

“This is sure taking a lot of time.  I’d much rather be doing A or B or C.” 

Perhaps you were thinking,

“Is this really something that’s going to help?  I could really differ this particular activity until tomorrow.” 

Have you thought as you’ve been tidying up,

“Oh, I really need to go and do that other, important task that I promised myself I would do right now.” 

In other words, as you were attending to the challenge of tidying up, were you actually living in the future or the past and not in the present?  Were you actually not attentive to the experience of what it means to put everything back in its proper place?

The challenge of the week is to invite you to reflect on your reactions doing something that you typically would not do.  There is, however,  a deeper and much more profound implication to this particular assignment.

Our egos are extremely effective at sabotaging our intent to get well.  We have all sorts of rationales that we use for why we should not attend to doing what it is that we well-know will help us feel significantly better.

How many times have you said,

“Yes, yes I know I need to exercise today. I know I’ll feel better but I just don’t feel up to it.” 

How many times have you said that to yourself? My hand is raised.  I use that rationale all the time.  Or how about,

“Oh, I really should go out for a walk but it’s drizzling outside.  I don’t want to walk in the rain.  It might make me sick.” 

You see, we have very intricate and extensive rationales that we use for why it is that we cannot attend to the tasks and the duties that we know will help us feel better.

How about eating well?  How many times have you said,

“Well, I don’t feel like eating that fresh, live food today.  I think I’d much rather have steak, potatoes and macaroni and cheese.” 

Yes, that is yummy food for the stomach. For some people it is comfort food. But is it really going to help you feel better?  You know the answer.

“No, I’m not going to feel better if I eat those foods.”

The challenge then is to simply acknowledge when we offer to ourselves those seemingly rational reasons why we should not be doing what it is that we know is in our best and highest good.  We really do know what we need to do to feel better.  We really do know what we need to do to help ourselves reverse symptoms. Yet, we continue into the same rut of habits that undo our ability to recover and become symptom-free.

Becoming mindful then of physical tasks is a golden opportunity to transfer those same rationales over to our decision-making moment to moment about what we can do for ourselves.  One common rationale is to say

“I have to work.  I have to make money.  I really don’t have time to be able to go to these appointments with these health care providers.” 

Does that rationale sound familiar to you?  You see, it is the same as deciding you need to leave the dishes in the sink.

Enjoy then, continuing your assignment and accepting the challenge to become totally and completely mindful of tidying up.  When you tidy up that sink, when you tidy up that bathroom or whatever corner of the house you’ve chosen to focus on, you actually transfer the same skill set over to being able to assure that you will be tidying up all of the imbalances that are currently present in your body.

It’s an approach that is positive.

• It will guarantee that a strong life force will begin to flow through every cell of your body. 
• It will ensure that you are focused on the moment. 
• It will guarantee that you will act on the intuitions that you have about what is necessary to begin feeling better.

Have fun as you continue tidying up that corner of the house that has been full of clutter for all too long.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

What have you learned about yourself after becoming mindful of the sensations in your stomach as you ate a meal?  Some people discover that their habit has been to eat upon first arising in the morning because that is  what they were taught to do when they were kids.  However, it is possible that the better time for you and your body to ingest food is much later on in the morning, like 11 or even 12.

Or, perhaps you always wait until 10:00 am to eat something. It is possible that the best strategy for you is to eat something immediately after popping up out of bed.

You will know the best time to eat first thing in the morning by listening carefully and connecting in with the sensations that your stomach sends out to you.  Become mindful of your eating habits. It is possible that the your long established habits of eating are not in tune with the needs of your body.  Some people need to graze throughout the day and the idea of having two or three full meals is simply not well-suited to the needs of their body. Every body is different.

Research clearly shows that the less that we eat, the longer we live and the happier our body actually is.  There is a saying that if we stop eating when we are four-fifths full, we will maintain a state of continual balance and wellness.  If we, as a habit, eat until we are full; that last fourth or fifth of food will guarantee that we are feeding our doctors and our healthcare professionals.  We don’t need to eat until we are totally full, Our stomach – and the sensations therein – tell us when to stop eating. We just have to pay attention, to become mindful!

Being mindful of the sensations in the stomach, then, yields incredible insights about what our bodies need from us.  Believe it our not, there are mindfulness workshops that involve the challenge of eating one single raisin. The task is to take time to connect in with the texture, the flavor, the aroma, the temperature and the color of the raisin.  Many people who attend those workshops report a great surprise with the realization that they are full after eating one single raisin.  Why is that the case?  It’s because they have engaged the full experience of pleasure in eating rather than simply crunching down food mouthful after mouthful without being mindful of the full experience of the:

• colors
• smells
• temperature
• flavors
• textures

of the food we choose to eat and place inside our body.

A second most important reason to be mindful of the sensations in our stomach is that many people confuse anxiety and loneliness with being physically hungry.  If we really connect with our stomach and the sensations that our  stomach sends to us, we can disengage the feelings of anxiety from the sensations of hunger.  Clearly, it’s not going to help the anxiety if we try to override that with eating when the body does not need to be fed.  Similarly, it’s not going to help loneliness to over eat. The loneliness will still be present.

A resolution for both challenges is to be mindful of each and every bite that we take of the food that we choose to eat.  To be mindful of the true essence of what it is that we put into our body, to acknowledge the difference between food that is live and food that is dead; to acknowledge and honor the difference between food that nourishes our body and food that damages our body.  Once that food reaches our stomach, we know the difference because the sensations of our stomach will tell us what our body needs to nourish us back to health.

Many blessings and may you have a marvelous time as you continue to be mindful of the sensations in your stomach before you eat, during the course of eating and after you eat, always asking the questions –

1. What’s there? 
2. Am I too full? 
3. Am I not full enough? 
4. Did I eat when I was hungry?

Or, did I eat for other reasons, because –

• I was anxious
• I was afraid
• I was lonely

Disengaging the motivation to eat out of fear from the motivation to eat because we are hungry will bring you a long way toward coming into full balance, health and wellness. Become mindful of the stomach and lo and behold, you will reap humongous rewards.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery