Prepare

Skin and Bone

I had an interesting conversation recently with a former victim of Anorexia Nervosa.  The discussion revolved around distorted thought patterns and processes that cause people to go to extremes with food and fasting.

A point that I found thought provoking was that while people seem to easily label someone as ‘sick’ or having severely distorted thought patterns when they are obviously underweight,  these labels are not usually given to people who may indeed be suffering, but do not yet resemble the ‘sick’ image.  This pattern of labelling seems to mirror the pattern of descent into sickness.  It starts off minor, and then spirals out of control. 

As we talked about what initially seems to trigger and fuel the problem, inevitably, the media was put in the spotlight.  Magazines, in particular, were a trigger for this person.  What was interesting was that it ceased to be about sex.   Attracting men had nothing to do with it.  The celebrities on the magazine covers were pictures of complete control – being thin resulted in control, being in control meant that you were a powerful person; powerful individuals have a higher status and are more successful.

Now of course, there are many…many other psychological factors and triggers that can be involved with something like this.  This is only a snippet of one point of view, but I think it shows just how strongly something like this can take hold of someone, even in the very early stages.

I suppose I am writing this because there seems to be a lot of general misconception when it comes to diseases like this.  Much to my disgust, I recently heard someone tell an anorexic person to ‘get over themselves and eat some fucking food’.  Nice.  That will do it….

It really highlights how badly a lot of people misunderstand the deep rooted psychological issues that go hand in hand with this disease. 

Be more aware.

Stillness Speaks

When you walk through a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life all around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step. Wherever you look, you will find death as well as life.

Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this?

Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.

-Eckhart Tolle

Simplicity

If you find yourself overwhelmed.  Go simple.  It is good for the soul.

Iundicium

Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality. 

This seems like a fairly obvious statement, but it is surprising how people can be so deeply affected by another’s negative perception, judgement or opinion of them.  I struggled with this for a long time myself – letting go of other people’s negativity is….I won’t even say liberating….it is just medicinal. 

If you let go of the negativity you can pursue what you want to pursue.  You can take chances and believe in yourself wholeheartedly.  Caring too much about the negative stuff, other’s perceptions, judgements..all it does is hold you back. 

I think that solely associating spirituality with things like church, crucifixes, prayer beads…..objects…..this is selling spirituality short.  Seeking a calm, centred and whole state of mind is spiritual.  The mind not being out of sync with desire because of other’s judgement – that seems spiritual to me.

People often say that life is too short.

Life is long enough.  Unless you are playing it safe.

Skillet’s Bacon Jam

Now that is advertising.

Voice

How we converse with ourselves is a lot more important than how we converse with others.

My own internal dialogue has prevented me from doing things I have wanted to do in the past.  I can remember countless times where I have talked myself out of doing something and have allowed myself to become comfortable or satisfied with certain situations.

This is destructive because, essentially, you are letting inner voice prevent you from pursuing goals.  Procrastination, convincing yourself the time is not right, ‘you’ll do it next time’ – all self-destructive devices manufactured by an unhealthy inner voice.

Someone once told me that you get in life what you are, not what you want. 

So be deserving.

Be motivated.

Be positive.

Actively pursue things, even if it may not feel comfortable.

In the words of a very motivational individual:

If you are not willing to risk, you can’t grow.  If you can’t grow, you can’t become your best. If you can’t become your best you can’t be happy.  And if you can’t be happy, then what else is there?

Control your voice.  Don’t let your voice control you.

Ego and You

What is it called when you only start wanting something previously available to you once it becomes unavailable?  There must be a name for the phenomenon, but I can’t find one – all I know is that it annoys me.

When confronted with this type of situation recently, I realised that it is probably all about ego.  A girl who might have been interested in you gives up, moves on, starts seeing another person….suddenly you feel more available then you did when she was interested in you. 

You start to feel like you missed out on what could have been a good relationship opportunity.  You feel a tug of regret…why were you so unavailable before?  Your mindset does a 180 flip.

It’s all bullshit.

Nothing changed other than the fact that there was a blow to the ego.  The word ‘blow’ is probably too strong – your ego is being stroked by one less person. 

It is so child-like.  It reminds me of when I was 6 years old and mum would be trying to convince me to do something I really didn’t want to do like get a haircut or go somewhere.  She would give me her full attention; ask me to do it just for her.  Stubbornly, I would continue to refuse, until finally she would become angry and storm off.  Now that she had taken away her attention, I wanted it back, so I would run to her and say that I would get my haircut or do whatever it was that she wanted me to do (even though I still didn’t really want to get my haircut).

The reality is that the reasons for not wanting whatever was available did not change.  You simply enjoyed the attention or accessibility.  It fed the ego.  Even writing this I still feel some regret about the situation and feel annoyed that I can’t mange my own impulsivity. 

Don’t let ego get the better of you.  Let go.

Food

I. Feel. Hungry.

Faith & Freedom

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

I want to preface this by saying, I do not hate religion.  Religion interests me greatly.  I think there are a lot of positive principles that can be taken from many different religions, but the concept of blind faith seems curiously archaic to me.

People close to me, particularly, seem irritated by my unwillingness to have faith in a set denomination, simply because they said I should.  Often I am bombarded with the parrot-like spouting of Bible passages which are supposed to enlighten me, or am lectured on what priests have said, with the expectation that I will accept a priest’s view without question, because they are specialists in the area of faith.

It seems to me that common sense and the view of a specialist, are often mutually exclusive.  Never have I seen a better example of this than religion.  It is quite amazing to me how very sensible people often wall up their sensible side when it comes to faith.  This seems to happen when they have been raised in a particular religion from birth.  The faith engrained as a child seemingly circumventing the process of critical thinking.  We were told it is, therefore it is.

I have time for people who want to discuss faith.  I find the topic interesting.  But I feel pity for those who attempt to overwhelm me with memorised Bible passages and religious sayings.  Usually people have committed these to memory, but have not given them thought; have accepted them, but neglected the dull tug of common sense when putting them in context.  If you believe it, okay.  But at least think about what is being said before repeating something like a mantra.

It is robotic, lacks substance and will not successfully bully me out of my common sense.

These people often say to me it is liberating and comforting to have faith in a particular denomination. If you are unable to exercise your common sense, are you really comfortable?

Are you really liberated if your ability to appraise the validity of a certain Bible passage is suppressed? 

Thought Police.  I hate police.