What has our society done to breastfeeding?

Better yet: what has our society done to the female mind!?

I believe, the societal thought surrounding breasts is so perverted that some women struggle with the idea of breastfeeding. Women’s breasts have been THAT over-sexualized in the media (and by other people!) that, to a lot of women, their true function seems foreign, unnatural and “rotten” (according to a woman that used to be on my facebook.)

How can someone refer to feeding a baby, the way it was intended, as “rotten”? Would this same mother be terrified to change a poopie diaper? Baby poop (especially bottle-fed baby poop!) is much more “rotten” than an infant suckling a breast for nourishment.

I just don’t get it.

(babys first breastfeeding moment, my second baby.)

I was 19 when I had my first baby (I planned and prayed for 5 months for her!). Right from the start of wanting a baby I knew I was going to breastfeed, because well, really, I was in-tune with the natural life force of my body, it was the most natural thing to do.

I was lucky that I had an aunt who breastfed her baby.

I was around 10 when I walked in the living room and saw a babies face reaching toward her breast. (I can still see it in my mind after all these years, this kind of transcendental moment sticks with me!) It was the first time I had ever seen breastfeeding. I don’t even know if I hadeven heard of it before that moment! I was mystified. I was overflowing with love and joy at this new, delicate sight before me (as I turned my head away real fast, because I didn’t want her to think I was weird for wanting to stare (again, due to societies pressures and effects!)
It was at that moment I finally realized the point of boobs. That they weren’t just proof that God was a perverted old man who violated women’s bodies by putting those multi-sized bags of fun on the front end of us—they actually served a purpose! A beautiful, once-in-a-life-time purpose!

I couldn’t wait to have a baby to breastfeed.

Breastfeeding is as natural as the heart pumping blood. It’s a bodily function. The same mentality that would crack up laughing at multiple fart jokes reminds me of the mentality that makes fun of and is uncomfortable about breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is the human thing to do! Our bodies do a lot of strange things, a lot of things that could be considered ‘disgusting’.

For example: breastfeeding is as natural as, and much more beautiful than, puking up your guts. And I get that some people don’t enjoy puking and wouldn’t choose to do it 5-10 times a day everyday for a year or more, but there is a purpose in puking—it saves our lives! Therefore we should do it!

Thank you Creator, for giving us the beautiful functions of purging and breastfeeding!

Breastfeeding can have moments of discomfort, like many bodily functions. But that’s no reason to write it off and never do it.

It is truly a joy, once you get passed the week-long nipple burning/stinging hump, when the sight of a towel is threatening and you have to bite your knuckles or punch yourself in the face when the baby latches. (I wonder, does every mother endure that part? or just some?)
However, after that week, that scary painful week, it is amazing! Natural! Relaxing! And full of loving bonding moments! (and "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? After that week, your skin pretty much turns to cast iron, strong-GER!)
(NOTE: there will probably be more random, overwhelming moments throughout the duration of your breastfeeding career— don’t feel bad for wishing you could rip your boobs off just once! Just once!! To give to dad, or someone else, to fed… or you could just pump a bottle ;)

But breastfeeding is easy! It’s sooo easy! There’s no way I could manage doing laundry while safely bottle-feeding! But strap my baby in a snuggly- front on- and I have two free hands to sort the clothes!

(----> dont lemme hear you say breastfeeding limits you! This is me and my 2nd daughter breastfeeding during a 4 hour a hike! ;)



It’s also much cheaper than bottle feeding (provided you spend money on ensuring you are eating healthy, which also benefits YOU and BABY! Two for one babeee!)

It also includes all the necessary health factors for baby and for mom. (Reducing risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and a truckload of other benefits!)

Also, if you are concerned with getting rid of the extra baby tub you’ve gathered over the last 9 months (or the tub you’ve had most of your life!) then breastfeeding is better than spending 5 hours at a gym EVERYDAY. It burns about an extra 500 cals… minimum-to-no exercise required!

If you are pregnant, or plan to be someday, I suggest you educate yourself on the topic, instead of shying away thinking it's not for you. Read things, watch things, and try to find mothers who are breastfeeding who don’t mind being starred at or being asked a hundred-million questions.

It is your (and your child’s) natural birthright! Your breasts have an evolutionary purpose! Fulfill it! (pun intended…they get REAL FULL!)

i dont kill bugs...

There was a time, many years ago, when I'd scream "KILL IT!" at the sight of anything crawly, except for maybe babies or drunk people, some drunk people. Anything with more than 4 legs would creep me out to the point of begging someone to end its life. What a waste of energy that was! (Not to mention the waste of a lil life force!)
Then one day, about 6 or 7 years ago, I asked myself: wtf is my problem? Why do I act like a sociopath at the sight of a bug? Why do I imagine these things crawling in my orifices, laying a billion eggs that will hatch a billion babies that will chew through my skin to escape? Why? It's irrational! Completely!
SO then I started to love them... from a distance and on the internet, at first.

Then I got closer, in real life. (--> check out the beautiful detail of this spider that was in my mothers window for an entire summer! IT'S GORGEOUS! And builds its house from its BUTT!)


One day, sitting on a back deck, an ant, an inch worm, and a fly all started to crawl toward me (no doubt testing my pledge of love!). I forced myself to suck-it-the-heck-up and let them crawl on my feet (while clenching everything I could clench!) and LO AND BEHOLD I didn't die and there was not one egg laid inside me anywhere! WOW! I fell in love (for real time!) right then and there! Wherein, began my protest of not killing bugs and never allowing anyone else to do it around me (if someone wants the bug gone, I'm happy to escort it back outside).

I even express the rule in my house: no killing bugs in my house! (I've wanted to make a sign that reads something witty like: if you kill a bug in my house, I will kill you. But that's not "witty" so much as it's "threatening" and a lil crazy.)

Me and my partner fell madly in love with spiders one early morning, laying for hours, wired on love. We let a teenyweeny baby spider crawl around our hands, letting it explore from my hand to his. I had been letting them live in random places in the house for a while at that point, but when I noted the remarkable contrast of that itty-bitty bug on his big strong human hand, it really warmed my heart! Bugs (as well as humans) are truly amazing beings! They have purpose and beauty just as anything does. And they are defenceless against us. Which is why I take a stand against the unconscious cruelty of random bug killing (Tho, I still eat chicken? yeah. I'm working on it. It's helping to picture chickens as big feathered vegetables).

(For the record: if your house is being infested with bugs to the point of them crawling on your children and eating all of your food, then yes, a lil genocide might be called for. But be sure to do it from a place of love in your heart, no anger on your tongue... or maybe let them have the house and you move? (Tad overzealous with that last thing?-maybe.))

'no, mom, dont take a picture of my berry-juice face!'

(raspberries, cherries, and strawberries: and it didnt stain her face, wow! lol) (it's even on her nose) ♥

caterpillar go potty too?

she thinks: if i gotta do it, the sprinklers gotta do it too...

sister action shot!

when you lay on the floor, it's an open invite to be POUNCED ON!
(see the fear in the big sisters eyes? ;)

a fish named zen...

she naps in the strangest of places...

the face of an evil sand-throwing baby:

punk.

OverZealousBlog: the end scene of the zeitgeist film...

OverZealousBlog: the end scene of the zeitgeist film...

I realized I’ve been traumatized by the media.

We learned an exercise called Trauma/Addiction Clearing in the Enlightenment studies group. (*British accent*: For to learn how to help others, one must help ones self first…*end accent*: which is why we do all the work on ourselves.)
We were asked to choose something from our past that was traumatizing, something that is affecting us somehow in the present moment, and intend to feel it directly. I went into my list of traumas (most of us have a list, right?), but nothing seemed deep enough (and I had already cleared some of the “big ones” earlier in the year). So I kept pondering…

Then we were asked to focus on something we are addicted to today. And the process was to seek the trauma that is at the root of the addiction (all addictions have a root cause).
I didn’t think I was addicted to anything anymore. After giving up smoking and other things years ago, and completely changing my eating habits (which means: my addiction to junk food was broken (or ok, loosened a great deal ;).

We were then told it could even be a thought or an idea, some kind of mental pattern we were addicted to.

That’s where I found mine.

The preoccupation I adopted at a very young age: my obsession with my appearance. (which I contest: started when I began watching TV and became in contact with other media (which is why I have cable, radio and magazines banned from my house, my quest to save my children in some way.)
Namely and initially (when I was young) it was feeling ugly and inadequate compared to the rest of the world, the people in my real world and the people in the fantasy/media world (actually: mainly the people in the fantasy world!)
Thankfully, that obsession no longer has the strong hold over me it once did, even though there are still issues surrounding it.
Today, it has slowly evolved into repeated questions in my mind: am I ugly or am I beautiful? And what does it mean to be either?

I am addicted to that thought. That’s my addiction.

I obsess over it at times. I really don’t know the answer, or if there is even one answer. Because I, logically, know that beauty is subjective and it really matters none what this exterior vehicle, the human body, looks like; and that it is all in what one feels on the inside that radiates out that is important… blah-blah-blah... I know this “intellectually”, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still have that obsessive thought.
How do I stop the dysfunctional thoughts? How do I evolve my mind from brainwashing that ran so deep in my youth?
Will there always be a shadow of it or can I completely remove the imprint and release the hold it has had on me for so long?

My trauma lies in my distorted perception of what “beauty” is.

All the images and messages I have seen in movies, on TV, in magazines, on websites; things I hear from other people (who are no doubt twisted on some level of thought by much of the same dysfunction!), things in music and even in radio ads! It is truly EVERYWHERE. A distorted idea of what it means to be and look like a woman.
(DISCLOSURE: I am not saying women have it worse than men, or that men don’t have some of the same issues, or that women are better than men. No.
I’m not saying anything to really “compare” women and men. I am merely stating a female perspective of the affect of all the images and ideas of women (and men) I have gathered over the years, from the media and also from the people around me. So don’t get all defensive about it. NOTE: the only people that will be upset at that last comment are the people who are feeling a little defensive about it ;)

I was a lonely, self conscious, unguided youth. As much as there were many people coming and going through my life, none seemed to let me in on the self-esteem secret, and I always felt lonely and different from everyone else.
It seems this loneliness really solidified in 5th grade. When my feelings of being separate really sunk in to my existence and became the norm for me; when I really started noticing other people, and myself in relation to them, and when other kids started picking on me and making me feel hideous.

This seems to correlate strongly with my increased viewing of television, movies and other forms of media. (To use a fitting cliché: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Both sides have great arguments.)

Now that I know all of that: how do I change it? How do we fix broken thought patterns or beliefs? Is it even possible? Or are we doomed to think the way we first learned?
I don’t believe that last thing. I believe we are supposed to evolve the messy mind and its distorted beliefs it developed in its younger days. And that hardship builds character in the human mind. So: the more trauma, the more character? Lets hope so.

During the Trauma/Addiction exercise, I released a lot of charge in relation to the trauma of being brainwashed by the medias portrayal of women and its effects on me as a young female. I am now in the next phase: watching my minds daily reactions and noting anything that may seem to stem from the past trauma and then release it, mindfully, with the intention of letting it go and seeking the truth.
Like yesterday, I felt much too “ugly” to go out in public (that’s normal right? *looks around for someone to agree, I mean, validate*), but I shook that off and went out anyhow and realized the world didn’t end when it saw my face. What a relief.

(kill your tv image found here: www.peersunited.com/tv-effect-on-teenagers )
(fakebeauty image found here: www.nowfoundation.org (national organization for women)
(the other two are my own)

has proven evolved, without a doubt...

that one can change ones thinking about spinach and can actually start to enjoy it, to the point of which one used to enjoy a bag of chips! that's evolution baby! ;)

(We mostly use Raspberry Vinaigrette salad dressing as a sweet, refreshing dip!)
(see all the different sizes!? mmmm!)

I used to judge… and get bullied.

I remember making jokes about people. People my age at the time and adults (…mostly. Unless, there was something really funny or awkward about some child or baby.)

For the most part, I was making “jokes”, not meant to insult or hurt.
Though there were times where my egoic inner scowl cut a little deeper than a joke, I’m sure. And at times, the “jokes” may have sounded much worse than I intended them to be, but really, could any one tell the difference? Could I?

I got picked on and bullied by many people. Starting when I was really young, by teasing cousins and joke-making relatives; and then it expanded into kids from school. When THEY started “making jokes” about me was when I began to feel the most self-loathing. (I got so paranoid for a while, that any comment or noise in the classroom felt directed at me, that somehow everyone was constantly talking crap about me. I felt I was the punchline of every joke.)

And who knows, maybe they were only "joking", not meaning to traumatize me. I’m sure my own collection of traumatizing experiences made every new comment feel even more painful for me. For some reason, the words would stick to me as if they were the sharp, scratchy side of the Velcro and I was the fuzzy, mess they clung to.

After while, in grade 8, I started to notice how certain kids, who I’ll label “the bullies” (ok, back then it was “the idiots”, but I don’t want to be as harsh now!) were picking on other people too, it wasn’t just ME they were picking on!

I was torn.

On the one hand: I was relived that other people were hated just as much as I was! That I wasn’t the most un-liked person in the world! That felt good—for thirty seconds…

Because, on the other hand (after I was done feeling happy about other peoples misery), I felt such a huge amount of sadness for those people. I felt so much love and empathy towards them- I knew exactly how gut-wrenchingly awful they felt because of those other kids. It was probably the first moment I fully felt empathy to its highest degree. And it was then I decided to become an unofficial, self-titled bully-killer and spoke up most times I saw people picking on people (I was told I even punched a guy in the face repeatedly that year, I dont recall it, though---apparently, being a bully-killer involved some black-out moments.)

Though, don't think I was completely enlightened, I hated those bullies! I would judge them about anything I could find about them… but that didn’t last either, I saw how hurtful I was thinking, and how sometimes they felt hurt and got picked on (mostly by each other!)… I tried to let the hate go… I didn’t always succeed.

And there were times when I was completely wrong about a person who i thought was being a bully. Meaning, a friend would tell me: so-and-so said this about me.. where, in turn, I would get enraged (see? not enlightened!) and go "talk" (or yell?) at the person in my friends defence. Which resulted in my losing more people as friends. Not good.

I remember I started to look at the other kids who were getting picked on, and wondered: why do we get picked on?

I made a list of things that might have been the cause (which, for a long time, added to my paranoia and a caused major decrease of self esteem):

1. Do those people look different? (Wait. How do I look? (From then out: obsessed with mirrors and searching for my ugly- and back then, always finding it!) (HAPPY NOTE: everyone looks different! and it's OK!)
2. Those people don’t really talk a lot. (Neither do I, why don’t I!?!? What’s wrong with me? Am I stupid? Why don’t I have anything to say? In ways, this lead me to saying anything that popped into my head and especially saying some things other people wouldn’t say (which made people laugh, and I liked that). However, in other ways, it caused me to vow to never speak again- times when I really sould’ve used my voice, I didn’t.) (HAPPY NOTE: I found my voice and i hope the other people did too!)
3. Do those people dress different? (what’s wrong with how I dress? *looks down*

Then, I spent the next 4 years going in godawful fashion directions, on-a-budget (I didn’t have a lot of money back then to spend on clothes), desperately searching for the style that wouldn’t get me picked on. And LORD there were some awful disasters that warranted getting picked on! (HAPPY NOTE: it shouldnt matter to anyone what anyone else wears. What's the big friggin deal!?)
4. Maybe they don’t have money, like I don’t? (To me, it seemed the people who didn’t get picked on: were rich.) (HAPPY NOTE: can't think of anything, but be happy anyhow!)
5. Those people must be awful human beings like I am, they aren’t as good as the other kids who have fun and happy moments with each other in class. (yes, seeing my bullies act all sweet and funny with the other girls in class, obviously, made me compare myself to them. What’s so great about them? What’s so awful about me? (Being left to do all this ‘sorting out’ on my own, brought me to some sad, pathetic thought patterns about myself and the world around me- I could’ve been guided, shown how to see things more helpful to me… but I wasn’t.) (HAPPY NOTE: I wasn't awful and neither were any of the other kids who got picked on. The bullies weren't even awful, they were just off track.)
(but. maybe. we all just had shit going on at home that caused us to be insecure and lack confidence, and bullies thrive on people like that!)

Having support at that age, someone to talk to me about all of this stuff, may have helped me think more positively about my self, and my life, and could’ve helped me avoid a lot of pain, sadness and tragic rebelling.
Instead, I had movies and t.v shows to “gimme some truth” (-john lennon), and, where I came from, we didn’t get “Truth Tv” or rent “truth” movies.
Most of what I saw in movies and on TV only strengthened the limited beliefs I already had (in fact, I’m pretty sure, movies and TV mixed with my limited guidance in real life, was largely the cause of my limited beliefs and tragic rebellion.)

As much as I was empathic towards people who got picked on, there were times where my mind would judge the crap out of people just because it was the pathetic egoic thing to do, a survival mechanism created for the mind to not fall collapse under the pressure of feeling useless. Making me think that other people were ‘worse than me’, was probably the mind saving itself from me killing myself.

Sadly some victims of bullying are pushed past that limit.

It’s a clever trick of the ego. It is beneficial in some ways… but if we don’t get control over it at some point in life, it can keep us hidden in a dark, unhappy, judgmental place, or lead us to full-on self destruction.

I titled this, “I used to judge”, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that I am completely without judgment now- because I’m not! There are still moments that someone will walk by or say something and my mind goes: WHOA that’s weird in some way!

However, I have learned how to spot my judgmental moments more. Therefore, as much as I have judgmental thoughts, I don’t judge people in light of them (for longer than 10 seconds at least).
When I see a judgment flash in my mind, I question it: why did I think that? And then I make myself look at the person with love. Look at the amazing things about them.
May sound cheeky, but it is truly more beautiful than leaving it at the judgment.

Do you recognize when you are judging?








"We choose our destiny in the way we treat others." -Wit

Life of a self analyzer…

"Think, think, think" Winnie the Pooh.

Pooh seems to only "think" when he needs to figure out something: how to find more honey! Thinking is a problem-solving tool. Used to figure out where and how to get honey. Thinking is our way of planning. It is our way of developing actions steps, to figure things out, and more deeply, to fulfill our lifes purpose.

This leads me to the question: what is he doing when he isn’t thinking? How does Pooh spend his days in between his search and plan for honey? Well, he just IS. He is living fully present, in all his Pooh-ness, each and every moment. Just being a friend, loving, laughing, and lazily offering his gift of wisdom, complex in nature, yet simple to the ears.

Some people say: you think too much! You can’t live and be happy if you're thinking all the time! Thinking too much is bad for you!

So I say: but then, wouldn’t ‘thinking just enough’, be good for me? And how are you to know what is “too much” or “too little” for someone else?

So far, my purpose has always been figuring things out; my self and my relation to the people around me (not so much them, but who I am in relation of what I see of them. I believe, we can’t ever fully “figure out” another person, but we can have glimpses and ideas of who they are by what the reveal to us, and what that reflects of us personally).
I have always felt that I am meant to “figure out” the workings of my life. Searching for the higher purpose. My metaphorical “honey” is my mind right now; how it works, what it’s been through and where I can take it and how I can (re)shape it. (I also 'think' we have multiple purposes throughout life- as our realities shift as we grow, so too, does our individual purposes, therefore our incentives, pots of honey, all seemingly change throughout our lifetimes. But our “honey” as a whole, our ‘greater honey’, is our search for the truth, the higher purpose of life. To be of service for the evolution of that- whatever that may mean to each of us individually, matters none.)


To contradict myself a little, there may be some truth to 'thinking too much". That if one thinks too much about every single thing, or about certain distractions that life offers, it could lead to a life of thinking, not living, therefore: not being of service to the higher purpose. I will have to admit that I've had moments in my life where "thinking" was my living... I didn't DO much else. It was all really an unconscious mess! (and, well, for the purpose of truth: I still have moments where I am lost like that, though not near as plentiful as some years ago!)
But I feel it was prep work for the work I am 'thinking' now.

Since joining the Yoga Enlightenment Studies program I have begun to loosen the grip of some of the fears I have had about my 'thinking' and my sense of a higher purpose. I have been able to let go of a lot of unnecessary things, like for example: the worry of people thinking I'm nuts for this “higher purpose” stuff (worrying constantly what people are thinking about me has been a flaw in my thinking for years! I've had stages of 'thinking' that reach beyond that of "paranoia"! Flat out insanity! The teen years were TOUGH!) There were nights I would lay and think,think,think in fear,fear,fear, about all possible sides to a million different things! I’m not sure any if that really served me… or if it was beneficial on some level, but it was my constant reality when I was young.

Since learning more about the mind and all its different functions and levels, through psychology classes and now from a yogic enlightenment perspective, I have been able to study my own mind more in depth and see it for what it has been over the years, I have been watching myself wake up. Other people also show me their minds, I’ve seen stuck areas and leaps in their evolution, it’s amazing to witness!

The journey of my enlightenment studies has been truly remarkable. Submerging myself into a group of fellow yogis, who are each on their own separate paths, yet we are tapping into the higher path of one. It is an amazing process.
I believe “the higher path of one” is Us finding our way home, and we do that most successfully by working diligently to improve the human conscience we chose to reside in while here on this earth.
It is up to us to take on that mission.
A quote that was born from my human mind: We are tools used by active evolution. We are. We are tools, each having their own purpose and function, which uniquely and collectively, aid in the evolution of this existence.

If everyone started opening his or her eyes to his or her own true purpose and ability, and diligently worked to overcome and release the mind that was developed in childhood, the power of life and love would finally be released and the vibrational energy would shift from the dysfunctional level to a fully functional level. We would see results in all areas to life, from our own minds to huge eco systems- everything would improve. The human mind was made in liking to the creator, meaning: we have the power to create.

Each of us came into the world with clear minds, raw potential, ready to be loaded up with information from the people and experiences that surround us as children and young people. Everything we experience, we learn from. We either learn directly from it, or we must learn to release information that doesn’t serve us.
Some people have life situations that never lead them astray of their higher purpose, their true gifts were always able to shine, their full potential seemingly laid out in front of them.
However, for others, they get muddied along the way. Things (and people!) happen that throw them off course, blind them to their truths.
It then results in those people having to drudge along for a few years. But there will always be hints and signs of their truth, waiting for them to notice, to reconnect. When they begin to notice, it is immediately up to them to collect those truths one by one, until the flood gates open and truth starts to pour out. The flood gates will open all at once for the first few times, but the mind will start filling in the flow with old patterns and beliefs, until the flow of truth is yet again slowed. Which is precisely where the search for "honey" comes in; one must then work on removing the barricades that the mind has put back over the truth. That's where the true work begins. Inside. The thinking begins: how do I find my honey- err- my truth? "Think, think, think."

And then “do”.




(For YES program information visit: http://www.thelotuscentre.ca/index.html )
(photo of human heart/mind was found at: www.fengshe.org/collaborators/Connell_Andrea/_Articles/Radiant_Mind.html )

What do YOU do about the moments that hit you so hard in the chest you think you will explode?

I’m working to figure out how to deal with those moments, how to build up my strength to be able to take more on, more of my own and more of other peoples.
I have moments when I read, hear, feel, do something that is full of pain and anguish. I wonder where it all comes from, the pain in life, and if there’s anything I can do.
There are times when empathy towards humanity, and life itself, swells so grand in my heart it feels as though it could burst all over the world (and I secretly I hope if it does, that teeny particles of love and magic would be spread around and somehow transform the pain and fear and damage, like some magical scene from a Disney film.)

Some people suggest simply enjoying, loving and expressing gratitude towards every thing that’s great in my life. Focus on my family and only the things surrounding me. I do see how positive and powerful that really is, and how it really couldn’t hurt and that it will uplift the vibrational energy of the planet, and I do hope most people live that way; but, for me… it doesn’t feel like enough. I’ve been trying that, to live that way. It just feels that I am sitting there, fingers crossed, hoping other people will figure it all out, and save us from ourselves. It isn’t involved enough for me. I want to do more. I want to connect more. I want to give back more.

Since I was a small child, I have always somehow felt as though “duty” was “calling me”. That there is something more for me to do, that I truly can help people, ease people’s pain. I think all the pain and anguish I felt as a child and teenager bestowed me with a threshold for empathy beyond that of most. But for years now, I have followed these feelings up with a question: how?

How do I help people? How do I ease other people’s pain, in the midst of my own?
How can I, if I don’t have a clear image of what that duty is, know exactly what to do. I do know I have accepted the challenge, in an act of surrender. I have dedicated myself to improving, trying to evolve for one and all. It’s not always a clear-cut image, but the power of dedication will slowly reveal it all. I have to trust more. I have to open more. I have to strengthen more. I have to study more. I have to connect more.
I have to also go easy on myself. I can’t help others if I stress over my moments of weakness. I must forgive myself more. I must dedicate myself. I must figure out more ways to do that.

I’m finding, in the early stage of this process, it can be very difficult to remain open, to remain fully trusting, to really grasp the idea of surrender and mix it with dedication. I’m still having moments of sheer human weakness, moments of scrambled confusion, blind acts of hypocrisy, complete break downs of fear.
I still get tangled up in thoughts. Wondering if I am where I should be. Wondering if I’m off or on track, wondering how many “tracks” there might even be.
I get annoying, egoic worries like: am I doing enough? Is there something more I should be doing? How come I don’t seem to doing enough? Do I love enough? Why don’t I feel like I’m loving enough? Are there things I should change? How do I change things? Are there people I should see right now? Are there people I can help? How come I want to help more, but I can’t seem to figure out how to? And, one of the biggest, most repeated questions: am I losing my mind? and wouldn’t that be a good thing? (The mind is usually so much of the problem when it comes to pain and anguish.)

I am seeking ways to empower and enlighten myself in order to offer that to others.
I need to build my strength and knowledge base. Be taught in order to teach.

It is proving to be a difficult, worthwhile endeavor.
One step at a time, will surely lead me down the path.

(photo: this is a mini Buddha, a gift from a very thoughtful friend.)

if you dont know, go ask a polar bear.

Recently, I was standing with two friends who were talking to a person whom I didn’t know. They were all slightly overweight (one more “slightly” than the others). They began talking about their intense desire to loose weight. “Oh I want it gone!” “I want to be able to feel comfortable this summer!” “I know we can do it!” (They were excited, and I was excited for them!)
Then one of them asked the other two: “So, have you heard of any new diets lately? One that would WORK, I mean?” and she rolled her eyes and laughed.
Here’s where I (a small, and in shape person) just HAD to poke my head in (because, well, I have some strong feelings towards the whole “diet” trend. First of all: eating is a diet, every time you eat anything, you are dieting. There’s no NEW diet, it’s just changing the way you eat. And some diets are ridiculous! And some are very unhealthy! And all diet needs exercise to accompany it, to maintain a healthy body size!) So, I, hesitantly, piped up and said: Well it’s all in what you eat and how much you exercise. You don’t need a "new diet" to eat healthy and be active, (no, i wasn't saying anything about how i feel about diets here, I choose my battles!) and eating a lot of nuts is very important, too! *insert supportive smile here*.
They all immediately gave each other “the look”, rolled their eyes, and laughed and scoffed things like: “Oh yeah, because I’m sure YOU have an idea of what loosing weight is all about” and “Why would we take weight loss advice from someone your size!” (They really were amusing themselves at my expense.)
And I mean, of course, if you wanted to know more about being a penguin, it would make more sense to ask the polar bears that see them, rather than the penguins themselves, hey?

It really annoyed me. I even had mean thoughts like: oh well, don’t listen to me, all in shape and healthy, keep being chubby there chubs. (but I forgave myself immediately, then wished them well and sent them love, as I re-turned away from the group.)

Personally, if someone who looked like something I wanted to be, offered me advice, I'd listen, pay attention, rather than scoff at the fact they aren't where I am right now. Like if i wanted advice about becoming rich, I'm not going to talk the other poor folk who want to be rich, and ask them if they've heard of the next "get rich quick" scheme. Nope. I'm going to trust the words of the people who are rich now! Same goes for weight issues. Small people are, more than likely, doing something different than bigger people. I think we can all learn a lot from each other, if we take out any unfavorable emotion and resentments.

I dont want to end on the word "resentments", it's too negative, so I'm going to end on something happier, like, "rainbows".