Sunday, February 23, 2014

Food Toxins

Around this time last year I started a cleanse.  I know this because I wrote about it.  And I know that after three weeks of de-tox I felt more stable.

The good habits from that de-tox didn't quite take.  Ben and I seem to have cultivated some bad habits over the last year. We're liberated from the worst ones.  We don't keep soft drinks or juice in the house.  But we do buy chips and eat out more often than we probably should.

I don't know if this has anything to do with my recent insight into emotional toxins, but in the last couple of days I've come across some information on sugar.  I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't overconsume sugar.  But there's been a habit in the last three months of hot chocolate.  And I let Ben eat sugared Cheerios, and white bread.  And then there's the fish sticks and frozen french fries, which are just starch that act like sugar.  And I've virtually abandoned whole wheat.

Okay, so I need to start getting back to good habits.  It's like meditation. I've had them before, but creating the stable ground for them to root  is going to demand some re-motivating.

It's all about hunger.  In the last few days, I've been asking myself about this hungry person who lives inside me.  Who is she? How did she evolve? What purpose does she serve in my life? What would my life be without her?

Every formal practice, I dedicate to the welfare of all beings, and I pray that we will be free of hunger and discord.   But I need to really want everyone, including myself--above all myself-- to be free of emotional hunger, because I can't help others if I'm not free of it.  Emotional hunger and physical hunger are intimately bound up.  There's healthy hunger and there's craving, low blood sugar, addictive cycles.

I need to sit with this healthy hunger.  But I'm going to skip the whole "jumpstart" this year. I'm just going to focus on the sugar and starches.  And I'm going to keep track of this journey, here in the place where I capture my insights and hope that they hold.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Toxic emotions

Okay, by this I mean shame.

This last week my practice has been derailed by my obsession with The Woody Allen case.  I'm not alone. It feels like everyone is weighing in on one side or the other.  But I can't seem to get it out of my head.  I don't want to get it out of my head.

This is probably because is churns up the darkest most difficult emotion that I've yet to really deal with in my meditation practice.  Shame.

I have many shames. Some deep. Some shallow.  I'm not alone in this, but it is the power of shame that we always feel alone. We always feel like we're the only person to do something wrong or dishonest or to let other people treat us poorly.  Grifters, abusers, molesters, bullies. These people all take advantage of our shame.  They take advantage of our shame because the way they are trying to rid themselves of shame is to offload it onto others.

That is the why we're all so mad at Woody Allen. Because for one day, or week we get to think about someone else's shame. For one week I get to feel righteous and strong. I get to feel compassionate towards the woman I believe was his victim.  And I get to visit my own shames and make them feel small in comparison.

Meanwhile this week I made a stupid mistake that ended up reflexively covering up for. Something that is going to cost me and others time and money. And I don't have the moral courage to own up to this.  So it's probably going to haunt me for a while.

I'm going to use this haunted time to examine the toxic effects of shame in my life.

This is a very, very difficult emotion to deal with. Nobody wants to sit with shame, know it, work with it. I certainly don't.

This might be a good time to practice tonglen.  Breathing in shame and breathing out compassion and courage to everyone dealing with shame in their lives.  Which is a lot of people.  It's the most human emotion.