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Articles tagged with: healing

My Ela-stic Blog-a-rhythms

blogging about blogging, and when not to follow advice

My Ela-stic Blog-a-rhythms

You may be reading this post shortly after it was written, following the sequence of my postings, or you may be reading it at any given time (probably, but not necessarily, subsequent to my writing it). Blog posts straddle a crossroads of the immediately relevant and the timeless treasure. Emphasizing the “timeless treasure” aspect, advice to blog writers often counsels against meta-discussion of situational or sequential issues--it draws too much overt attention to something that will likely be irrelevant two weeks from now.

It’s good advice, but since when have I followed advice 100% of the time? So yes, this is a post about what this blog is for and what to expect from it. The short version: I remain E-la-stic, but there is a rhythm to my blogging.

Ground Zero for Ketogenic Diet Posts

first of many posts on this

Ground Zero for Ketogenic Diet Posts

A strict ketogenic diet has taken me:
From a near-constant state of brain pain and agitation (ranging from irritability/anxiety to outright psychosis, from suicidal depression to suicidal mania) to ambient calm and peacefulness.
From a near-constant state of severe gut pain to occasional lower levels of pain, and still improving.
From a near-constant obsessive preoccupation with food, calories, diet, body image to conviction that I know what I need to do and can focus on more important things.

How, how, HOW?! (lots to say about this in posts to come)
And--how ironic that food obsession has been cured by what really is a strict diet, given that most eating-disorder treatment focuses on getting patients to give up strict rules. When I explain why/how the ketogenic diet is working, you’ll see the beauty of this: it’s likely that even the anorexia, as destructive as it has undoubtedly been, was a subconscious effort at self-regulation and healing. Nothing has been wasted…

Letter to My Former Self

I talk to myself--would I have listened?

Letter to My Former Self

Dear Former Self,

At this point, you would rather die than have a weight in triple digits, and you say so sincerely. You can’t hear how melodramatic that sounds; in fact, from your standpoint at this time death is close enough to lose its melodrama. But at some level, admit it: you must realize that weight gain is on the cards. You’ve gained a couple pounds already because of this ghastly new thing binging and purging, even despite all the brutal fasting you’re doing the rest of the time, your other tricks aren’t working anymore, you know you’re out of control and need help, and, at bottom, you know that your chances of finding a practitioner who would help you lose weight from below 90lbs are approximately zero.

Nothing Has Been Wasted

a litany from the open heart

Nothing Has Been Wasted

I want to pause a moment on this insight I mentioned last time, that nothing has been wasted. Even when it felt like my life was unadulterated pain and misery, there were elements that got me to where I am now.

On Saturday evening, I went to Dances of Universal Peace, a Sufi event where all comers sing and dance together, songs and dances from traditions all over the world. I had a moment of self-consciousness about this bigger body I now find myself in, and I looked around the room at the 12 or 15 of us ranging in age from 20s to 70s, ranging from tall to tiny, from broad to spindly, dark skin to white skin, myself included in the circle, and my heart opened wide.

Three Cyclic Returns

doing the work, naming the spells/spelling the name

Three Cyclic Returns

So, once again you found me looking at words, using word alchemy to transform “running in circles” into “course concentration,” wondering at the fact that so often, no matter where we start, we end up back there again. What’s in it for you?

Give me a few words about cycles, and then I’ll tell you.

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.

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.

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