Mind,
Body, and Spirit – Week 1
This
will be my first non-PBP post. I realize that the contents are terribly
personal and may be all together uninteresting. However, I feel that it will
help to reinforce my objectives and keep me on yonder “straight and narrow”. On
with the show!
The
last two years of my life have been rather amazing. I took a step out of my
comfort zone and decided to network with a group of like-minded individuals in
the immediate area. This group consisted of witches and a few interested
parties who were seeking to network and form some sort of community to study
with and celebrate Wiccan holidays. The original plan had been to gather once
monthly at a local restaurant and share ideas. This quickly transformed into a
study group, led by a woman who has become a very dear friend to me. She and
her husband are taking the Temple of Witchcraft courses provided by Christopher
Penczak. Her work and dedication is of such quality that Mr. Penczak has
allowed her to form an offshoot of his studies, while he provides the end
certification throughout the courses. This has been a very exciting time for
all of us. We've seen our small group, which in the first year began with nine
individuals including our teacher and her husband, first shrink down to four,
and then explode to quadruple in number of students and participants in our
public rituals.
I had, in the
past, been in a coven of sorts. We were really just a small group of eclectic
solitaires bumbling around and trying to make sense of our spirituality. These
women became sisters to me. But eventually, our happy little group split apart.
It had nothing to do with a loss of friendship or power struggles. I simply
took a job three hours away and had to relocate. The others ended up moving
away after Katrina tore our coastal hometown apart. In the eight years
following the move, I sort of drifted, unable to make a solid connection with
the divine or even with like-minded people.
Finding the new
group was like a reawakening, only I've come to realize that I’d been sleep walking
even back then. I miss my old friends dearly, especially a lady whom I consider
a second mother. But I have forged new friendships and gained even more sisters
(and a few brothers) since the onset of this little movement, which has now
extended beyond the classes and transformed into a budding spiritual
organization. The class that started it all, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, was presented in an orderly fashion;
the information was rather eclectic and fairly unbiased. Through a combination of
the exercises, guidance, sharing with peers, massive introspection, and of
course the aid of my guides and gods, my mental and spiritual health is vastly
improved.
That being said, I
realize it isn't quite time to toss confetti and cue up the rainbows and
unicorns. I’m having a hard time balancing it all. While mind and spirit have
been reaping the benefits of my hard work, body has been suffering. Not that it
was terribly healthy to begin with. Being an introvert and a fairly ungrounded Pisces,
I never really understood that whole “my body is a temple” thing. I've been an
on again, off again (mostly on) smoker for the past twelve years and a yo-yo
dieter for even longer. I’m aware of the wonderful resources at my disposal and
have educated myself as to what aids one can use to remedy these issues. I’m
well versed in the various drugs and techniques used to kick the smoking habit.
I’m schooled in portion sizes and fat and calorie counts as well as the dangers
of sugar and sodium. Over the years, I have joined websites, bought food
scales, frequented gyms, enrolled in programs, and even started a weight loss
blog in fruitless attempts to change my unhealthy lifestyle. While these things
worked for a little while, they were not able to magically transform my mind so
that I was able to enjoy my veggies more than a greasy slice of pizza.
I
tried the Adipex thing for a while. For six full months, my mind and body ran a
non-stop marathon. I couldn't sit still long enough to meditate and couldn't sleep more than five or six hours at a time. I went to the gym five times a
week and ate like a finicky toddler. I lost thirty pounds and went from a size
18 to a curvy (and very sexy in my opinion) size 10. Being a pear shape, I
ended up replacing every bra I owned and my waist had gotten so thin that my
rib cage was clearly visible. Unfortunately, becoming thinner did nothing to
cure my psychological problems. I thought my self-esteem has improved, but in
reality, my ego was far more fragile than when I’d begun the process. I’m not
sure how it was even possible, but I became even more obsessed with my weight
and looks. I formed a habit of checking myself out in every shiny surface
available. I constantly worried that my tummy was poking out, which was
ridiculous considering just how much weight I’d lost. I became a narcissistic
bitch, teetering between extreme self-confidence and crushing depression. It
all came tumbling down when I decided to blame my emotional problems on my boyfriend
and nearly left him. I still look back upon that time with shame and even a
sense of awe when I consider what he put up with and the fact that we were able
to salvage our relationship. Not a high point in my life, to be sure.
Here
we are, going on three years later and my self-esteem is better than it’s ever
been. Oddly enough, my weight has climbed right along with it. I’m back in a
16, seams screaming. I suppose it’s healthy to no longer attach my state of
mind to my pants size.
While
I’d love to return to that size 10, body image is not my only concern. In fact,
it’s not even my first. I’ll be 31 on Friday, and with age comes wisdom,
hopefully. Being an overweight smoker can lead to a plethora of health
concerns. I've got hearth disease on both sides of the family, and cancer on my
father’s. My mum combats high cholesterol while my dad struggles with high
blood pressure. With these things in mind, worries about how I look in that all
natural cotton or hemp blouse take a back seat. Rocking a healthy heart seems a
hell of a lot more important than those skinny leg jeans and UGG boots.
In
my experience, small, slow, and steady changes seem to work the best. In all
the times I've raged forward, full steam ahead, I've ended up crashing and burning
rather quickly. Admittedly, while the slow changes seem to last longer, I have
always ended up reverting back to the same unhealthy choices. I haven’t quite
figured it all out yet, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I've learned a few things in my Psych 101 class that might be useful. Hilarious, I
know! Psych 101 and she thinks she knows it all! I've done some light studying
on conditioning and neurons and how they function. I’m going to look at this
recent attempt to better my physical condition as something of an experiment. Instead
of simply halting my unhealthy behaviors, I’m going to try to actually replace
them with healthy ones. Novel idea! I know!
My
first step is a tiny one, though it has proved to be rather challenging in the
past. As of yesterday, I have begun to replace my soda intake with water. This
change will not only help in ridding myself of empty calories, but actually has
an additional health benefit. I have a condition called interstitial cystitis, IC for short.
People suffering with IC have pinpoint sized holes in the wall of their bladder
which can cause a great deal of discomfort and pain, urgency, and various other
embarrassing and seemingly non-related issues. My doctor has suggested that my flare-ups
could be linked to a dietary issue and recommended I eat less acidic foods. I
have noted that flare-ups occur more often following a period in which I've had
more soda than normal. One such flare-up, the worst yet, occurred a few weeks
ago. I ended up in her office twice, the later visit ending with a dose of
medicine injected directly into my bladder. That is not a good feeling.
I've done the
switch from soda to water a few times with varying degrees of success, but have
always ended up back on “the coke”. I don’t understand why I revert back to
this unhealthy habit after kicking it for so long. I've found that drinking a
soda after abstaining for a week or so is actually an unpleasant experience. I
can taste the sodium in the cola. It takes a special kind of stupid to continue
drinking it long enough to re-deaden the taste buds. I vow to be more mindful
of my slip-ups, and set the can aside if it happens again.
To
aid against the physical struggle, I will also combat the cravings in the
spiritual. In the next day or two, I will do a binding spell. I know it may
sound kind of odd to do a binding against a beverage, but I honestly cannot
think of a scenario in which I’d be regretful of the decision. The easiest
thing to do would be to remove the offensive product from my home. Unfortunately,
it’s the only thing my boyfriend will drink. I may brainstorm a bit and see
what other measures I can take, and I will of course ask my guides and gods to
help me with the issue. I've spend the better part of my life programming my
brain to enjoy Coka-Cola. I realize it will take a bit of time to get over this
breakup. I’m giving myself a full month before evaluating how I feel. If all is
well, I’ll move on to phase two, the dreaded cigarette addiction.
I've done pretty well with the no soda stint. I've had a few here and there, but
honestly it’s gotten to the point where they taste disgusting, and each time I
pick one up, I wonder why I bothered to pop the tab. Now we’re on to the biggie
(or rather, one of the biggies), quitting smoking. I've gone back and forth
with the idea of getting back on Chantix (sp?), but at this point, I don’t think I’ll
need it. I really haven’t been feeling well lately, and smoking seems to be
making the symptoms worse.
