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Articles in Category: Mindfulness

Food Talk: Cyclic Return or Upward Spiral?

because being a chef is expressing a gift, and feeding a self is sacred duty

Food Talk: Cyclic Return or Upward Spiral?

My first blog, which ran for several years from 2010, was very much a food blog, primarily a low-glycemic raw-vegan blog with additional focus on herbs/weeds and locally grown foods. I posted all kinds of recipes and wildcrafting/gardening stories. I overcame my resistance to taking photographs in order to portray the food.

When I started this blog, my intention was to keep food out of it almost completely.
Now, it’s back on the table.

Course Concentration -- Permission to Run in Circles

the creative process and the container

Course Concentration -- Permission to Run in Circles

It's easy for me to be highly creative in a situation that already has its external form. This form could be a clinic with its full paraphernalia, or an article that needs translating, or a person who comes to me for help with nutrition or wanting advice with herbs.  All of these require presence, intuition, improvisation, focus.

But when I'm tasked with creating the external form from scratch--be that my website, or a poem, or a book, or my "business model," or any of what I consider the most worthwhile sorts of creation... Well, the only reason I don't get really upset at myself if it gets to be afternoon and I've scribbled a few notes and done a few essential chores but that's all is because I recognize I'm not the only person who experiences this. That's when I start to try to understand what it is that I'm really trying to do here.

Various Modes of Self-Care

"Physician, Heal Thyself"--sine qua non

Various Modes of Self-Care

Given that I learned to honor and take care of myself in the thick of working all day long helping others with their health, I was aware of the danger of falling back into old habits once that structure and motivation were gone. My intention was and is that the clinic experience was transformational for me in this respect; although I’m not working at that pace right now, I’m holding the space and entrainment to continue to work with people, at that degree of intensity when necessary.

So here are some of the ways I’ve been continuing to take care of the sacred vessel; many of these will merit follow-up posts of their own.

Becoming My Own Patient--Why This Gives Me Confidence to Offer My Services

“Physician, Heal Thyself”--sine qua non

Becoming My Own Patient--Why This Gives Me Confidence to Offer My Services

I’d rather talk about aspects of healing that might benefit others, but I really need to start with the fact that I became my own patient through this recent immersion/thrown-in-deep-end process. This wonderful new state of affairs is what gives me confidence to offer my services as a very personalized chef, healer, and/or health coach going forward.

I'm Back, and I Bring So Much More

finding the flow

I'm Back, and I Bring So Much More

Direct quotation  from the last blog I posted here:

I still need to tell the story on this blog of how being thrown in the deep end as chef and health coach has been transforming my sense of self and with it my self-care.

It's time. I've been baptized, immersed, had my face rubbed in the mirror of old beliefs that kept me small, and I emerge shining with the conviction that I deserve to express my gifts and be valued for doing so, and that there are so many people out there who deserve to benefit from my gifted help.

For My Birthday, I Had a Front Tooth Pulled

(gappy birthday?)

For My Birthday, I Had a Front Tooth Pulled

My second left incisor got snapped off in a nasty bicycle crash my junior year in college and had to be root-canaled. The dentist jury-rigged a "temporary" composite crown. That was almost eighteen years ago now.

Although I had all mercury fillings removed years ago, the root canal was a sleeping-giant issue I wasn't ready to address until recently. But with all the healing work that I've been undergoing lately, and with the increasing clarity that I'm undergoing healing in order to be a channel to provide healing, the little twinges in that tooth here and there caught my attention. Time for it to go. 

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