Thursday, June 03, 2010

zombie naps and ice cream


As you know, I've been exploring intuitive eating lately, struggling with knowing the difference between the cravings of my mind and my body. Reconnecting with my body is like friending a childhood buddy on Facebook. I used to know her really well, but now I look through her photo albums and status updates and hardly recognize her. Sometimes it's awkward to reconnect.

Listening to my body is awkward. Getting sick makes it a lot easier. There's nothing like a sore throat and fever to remind me that my body is still here, alive and kicking. A sore-throated, feverish body is pretty clear about what it needs: Hot tea with honey, please. Ice cream! Lots of ice cream. Please increase the quantity of and coldness of the ice cream. More water, dear, we're parched in here. Oh, and sorbet! Sorbet is even colder than ice cream. Be a love and fetch me some of that, too. 

My body has been requesting sleep, too. Oodles of sleep. Leisurely naps on a breezy porch. Unplanned zombie naps, body splayed out on the bed, drool puddling on this month's Elle Decor. 

It's funny because I feel miserable, and yet -- I'm enjoying listening to my body. I appreciate being able to surrender control, allow something else to wrest the power from my mind and take the reigns. 

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Maybe Eckhart Tolle is right. Maybe I should take more vacations from thinking.

"Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy." The Power of Now

5 comments:

  1. I love this connection you paint because with sickness, what your body wants exactly is to be heard and understood and cared for. It's thinking, "I've done so much for you lately, dear, can you do this little thing for me (sleep, schlep sorbet, sleep)?" Hope you are feeling better now and celebrating that this illness was a window into something more.

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  2. It's refreshing to read your writing, not only because of what you're writing about but because of how you write it! It's beautiful, wonderful writing. And as for intuitive eating.. I've written an article on that! But have you read "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" by Geneen Roth? For binge/disordered eaters (as I was once upon a time) it's incredibly helpful... and I've read as many books as I can on intuitive eating, and though they all kind of say the same thing, I like the reminder :)

    Thinking is another tricky problem! I'd also recommend reading "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior". The writing is spotty at times but the takeaway message is great. Books have helped me open my mind quite a bit...

    Also, I love that you wrote that letter to Men's Health. The fact that they wrote that was appalling to begin with.

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  3. S, thank you for such kind comments. You're a wonderful writer yourself! I appreciate the recommendations, too; I'm waiting on several of Geneen Roth's books from the library, but now I'll add The Way of the Peaceful Warrior to the list as well.

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  4. Hehe, it's Sui, but I can only log in with OpenID so it only has that part of my URL ;)

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  5. Ah, okay. I knew it was you, but I wasn't sure if you wanted just to be known here as "S" so I went with that :-)

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