Intentional Food for Thought
Haha… I’m laughing! My first intention is to eat better!
I woke up this morning after sleeping in. The sleep-in was planned, and luxuriously fantastic, but I did feel VERY guilty – esp after logging on here to seal in my eating “better” intention! I just re-read the call topic I posted last night, and it’s the proof of the reason I intend to eat better this year. I was definitely sleeping when I wrote that. It’s hilarious, embarrassing, and 100% preventable.
(I edited the call topic for this public site. Private site gets to see my silliness!)
The absolute point of approaching the new year this way together, with intentions rather than resolutions, or pointed towards abundance rather than away from lack (yo), is to start 2017 on the ideal foot. I certainly know what I want out of life this year, and it yes, it means me operating optimally, but more specifically, it means me allowing myself to operate as intended. I am certainly intending to reap the rewards of the hardcore labour of this career-love romance I’ve been in since 2009. To use ski-touring as an analogy, it has been a long and steep up-track, and although I do love the grind, I climbed all the way up here to enjoy the fluffy turns and the spectacular view of life.
And here I am.
So what that means, in this scenario, in this facet of my life, my career, is that I have not only figured out how to write for a living, but I have figured out how many people can write for a living. I’ve created the structure. It’s incredibly rewarding. Now, what’s left, is to actually be enjoying the personal benefits of building this platform. I get to write for a living! I have the potential to have my dreams come true.
How does this relate to eating well?
Well, my body is really sensitive, AND really strong. Any stress lands in my guts, and somehow my body muscles through it, until I am suddenly and irrepressibly tired. This shows up as physical, emotional, and mental fatigue. It’s a complicated process, and can absolutely be boiled down to anxiety, and for me, that anxiety has been not living my intended life – the life of a writer. BUT. No longer true! AND my body is really sensitive…
Over the holidays, there was lots of no-good-for-me eating and of course some extra imbibing. My fridge was full of wheat, cheese, dipping sauces, and three kinds of beer. Total heaven. 2 nights ago I ate cheese and crackers for dinner, and washed it down with a Guiness. I can do this once in a while, love it, and not skip a beat, but honestly, it’s been 2.5 weeks of this. I’m puffy, sleepy, forgetting things, and falling asleep writing my dreams! It’s not optimal, and how I feel today is one heck of a great reminder of how some of my daily indulgences – coffee in the morning and then a beer at the end of the day – don’t lift me up, propel the grind of success, or celebrate a day’s hard work, they prevent me from enjoying my purpose, and perhaps my one true love, writing.
Fortunately, I do this health thing for a living, so I have some secret tricks and literally the best resources you can find. It’s easy and I have earned that luxury. Yesterday I ordered some state of the art probiotics to wash out and rebalance the indulgences, the “joy” of the holidays. I added these things to my regular order of supplements. Yes, I supplement, and it has enabled me to heal my bad ass self concurrently. I am hardcore, after all, and “healing” my body meant re-mapping my life path at the same time. It was complicated and the supplements made it possible. I couldn’t get the strength I needed from just food alone, to spite the fact my diet is pristine.
… except for 2 things: coffee, beer. The cheese and crackers fest is unusual, so not the usual…. BUT when I am thread-bare, I also use them to self-medicate in this weird way. It’s all about the up and the out. Cheese and coffee for the up, the umph. Beer and crackers for the zen-clarity. For those in the know, that’s a “speedball” for the hyper sensitive. Cocaine and heroine folks. It’s very chic.
Last night, I crashed, and as I was falling asleep, thinking of what intention I would share today aka ground into the spectacular new year that is already unfolding, I thought: “ooh, good, probiotics will be here on Friday and I will feel much better by Monday.” That’s how it works. Hmmm, then suddenly in that almost sleeping dream state, what flashed before me was the cartoon probiotics landing in my digestive assembly line. They arrive just after breakfast, get plugged into 1000 volts with a 3rd cup of coffee, zip around frenetically all day, and then get literally disinfected out of commission at beer o’clock.
It’s almost pointless, treading water, and definitely not allowing me to function optimally. And again, ad nauseum, I am not operating as intended. Its like having one huge strong hand tied behind my back. Ha – better one huge strong hand hanging at my side; it’s no longer tied to illness. Very brawny indeed, but imagine if I was playing the game with both hands. I think that’s what they mean when they say “thunder and lightening!”
So, to bring this around, back to the top of the year’s intentions, I want to be clear for myself that this is not a decision made in fear for my life because of the connection to my guts and my head – there was once that, and that fear was definitely the fuel for this life change that I have celebrated and rolled intentionally into the following year for 7 years, but this year is different. This is year 8, and I am starting it accomplished, the structure built and running beautifully.
My intention is to fuel a body that wants to do it all, have it all, live it all, and experience it all. That’s what I want to write about.
