This morning, I took some deep breaths, closed my eyes, and asked God/The Universe/Divine/Spirit/whatever you want to call it what I should write about. What you needed to hear, and what I needed to hear and remember too. (Psst, I’m human and write these things as much for you as for myself, because I need the reminders!) What arose for me was the idea that every day is a fresh start, and that every moment is a new beginning as well.
That idea is one that I teach in my course, The Chinese Medicine Cleanse, but despite knowing that every moment we are given the grace to have a fresh start and can give ourselves that in an instant, I forget. I beat myself up sometimes when I cave into stress and end up eating a whole bunch of marshmallows (cause let’s face it- they’re pretty much fluff, so you can eat a bunch and it’s no big deal, right??) or indulge in some gluten-free dairy-free ice cream. Or I tell myself how I should be doing more- somehow pushing through and unpacking more boxes from my recent move, or posting more content on social media or what have you. I, like many, tend to hold myself to a ridiculously high standard, and it’s hard for me to find the in-between sometimes.
I remember a couple weeks ago, my acupuncturist was talking to me about my eating patterns and said how she wanted to help me find an in-between when it came to my eating, because I can “sometimes get neurotic about it.” The comment she made struck me because I really don’t feel like I ever get really crazy with my food. I have in the past, and I get how I can get on very healthy kicks (which is what she was talking about), but to me it’s a very different internal experience. Where my real struggle comes in is whether or not I choose to listen to my intuition and eat from a place of deep connection, where I am really cognizant of what I am putting in my body, and feeding myself only things that are nourishing and will fuel me for this journey I am on. When I am not eating in that manner, I feel disconnected from my path, and will suffer physical ramifications for my choices. Those marshmallows and ice cream type choices will seriously wreak some havoc on my digestion, cause congestion in my head, and overall have me feeling sluggish, bloated, and yucky.
And that’s when it hits- the guilt. Why did I just eat that? Why can’t I always eat perfectly? Why can’t I seem to get over my sugar addiction? I know this doesn’t make me feel good, and now I’m all bloated and gross feeling, so why did I do that? My husband knows that it happens to me so why didn’t he stop me? And on and on and on.
So how do I stop the “tapes” that keep running through my head? By remembering that every moment we can start over. I don’t even have to wait until tomorrow, because that can just send me into a binge eating fest. I can change my choices right now. It could even be mid-bite. The reality is that what is in the past is in the past and you can’t change that now. It doesn’t matter how many days you ate cheeseburgers and fries. It doesn’t matter whether you just downed that entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t exercise at all. It doesn’t matter for whatever choices you made in the past (to a degree- you may still suffer consequences for your choices in the past of course). Right now is a new moment. You have permission to choose differently and forgive yourself for past choices.
We can always wish we made better choices in the past, but wishing for something doesn’t make it so, and it only makes you focus on the past. There is only the present moment. So let’s live in it and make choices that sustain us, rather than dim us and numb us to life. The old you was scared of pain, scared of feeling. That’s why you made those choices. But the new you this very moment is feeling a little braver, a little more open, and more willing to search inside and see what you need to thrive, not just survive.
Rock on, you foxy soul you…
xo,
Jen
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