Say Yes

I was going to give this post a dramatic opening like, “Sometimes life gives you an opportunity to start over.”  But then I realized, Life is ALWAYS giving us chances to start over!  (I frankly think that Life has given me more “Start Over” passes than I really needed, but I’m not the Grand Hoohah in Charge of Everything.) 

Every moment, every situation is a decision point and we either say “yes” or “no” to it.  Most of the time, we just keep doing what we’ve done in the past, so it doesn’t FEEL like a “yes” or a “no” but it actually is.

When you got up this morning, you fixed your coffee.  You could have had green tea.  You could have had water.  You could have had Jack Daniels.  But if you’ve made coffee every morning for decades and decades, well then, you probably had coffee.  But it was still a decision. 

Let me more accurately say, then, that sometimes life’s circumstances more or less force you to make a decision to start over.  And it’s not easy, ever.  Even if you had the chance to move to the French Riviera and work as a sous chef while living on the yacht of a benevolent millionaire, it’d still be hard because you’d be leaving where your comfort is.  Your home, your friends, your habits, your niche in the world.  You’d be going out to carve a new niche in an unfamiliar place among strangers. 

Human beings resist change.  We just do.  In travail were we born, and in travail are we re-born. 

I believe most of you know that I have packed up my toys and moved back to Texas, where my family lives.  I had always planned to return to Dallas when needed; I was only "on sabbatical" in California.  But after eleven years in the Golden State, it is a grand-scale starting over for me.  And I’m not going to be a hero and say that it’s easy.  It’s stretching me way beyond my tensile strength.

But here’s what’s great about starting over.  It strips away all your faces, who you are to friends, what you’re good at, what you like to do, who you know, what others think of you.  When you leave everything behind, all you have is you... the you so far below the surface as to escape notice most of the time. 

It’s desolating to strip away all the coverings, to be simply and solely myself, not any role I might have played as a friend or employee or member of a group.   But starting over gives me the chance to just “be” for a little while.  I’ll get busy soon enough and feel like an adult again but for now, I’m just my interior self, a child. 

There is something profoundly good about that state, despite the ache.  It’s the state to which we are all destined: going forward into the unknown with nothing to recommend us but who we are inside.

I wouldn’t have asked for this, my insides fought and resisted it, I was scared silly.... but it is good to be a child, a blank slate, in the loving hands of One who has promised to be with me and for me, now in my practice forays, and later when I leap into the unknown for the last time.  Life is giving me the chance to say “yes.”

Back Up on the Horse You Go

When I was a Weight Watchers leader, I remember talking to many people who’d fallen off their personal wagon because of various life stressors, family issues, unexpected upheavals.  And of course, I always counseled getting back on the horse, as soon as possible, before overeating became one more issue in a long list of issues that would need solving.

You can think you’re solid on local whole foods and mega fruits and vegetables and gallons of water, but life can throw things at you that make you yearn for the simple comfort of a hot (white) roll dripping with butter.   Why are useless carbs and fats so comforting?  I have no idea, but there it is. 

It just happens.  I am there now, trying to deal with issues that have no answers aside from endurance and acceptance.  No wonder garlic breadsticks look so good... they take little effort to digest, the salt and garlic wake up my senses and the bread is like a soft pillow upon which to lay my heart. 

Broccoli isn’t doing it for me right now. 

So I’m enlisting the WW Me to counsel the beleaguered Me.  The WW Me says, “I understand.  You’re overwhelmed.  And weight is one of your least concerns right now.”  Phase I... empathy.

“Are you happy with your body weight right now?  Do your clothes fit comfortably?  Do you have sufficient energy with which to face each day?  Are you sleeping restfully?”  Phase II... reality.

“What do you need to do to be at peace with your body so that you can deal most adroitly with your life at the moment?”  Phase III... brainstorm.

“So you’re saying that if you get exercise every day, drink at least 6 glasses of water and have at least 5 fruits and vegetables every day, you will feel better?  If you make your own physical self a treasured and finely cared-for instrument, then all the other challenges in your life might be best answered?  That the genuine love and nurturing you spend on your very own self is perhaps exactly what you’re looking to the hot roll and butter to provide?

And for today, only today, the next 24 hours, you can exercise, get water and fresh produce and give yourself a dollop of self-appreciation?”  Phase IV... commitment.

Alright then.  Get out there and do it!  Because only you, in the whole world, know what you know, can carry what you carry, and can appreciate the entire cost and effort of your life.  So go be truly, extravagantly good to yourself.  Get back up there! That horse is going to take you where you want to go, even if you can't see it yet.