All knowledge seeded by doubt

All experience questioned over and over

Moments of knowing we know nothing at all

Such honour given to intellect

As if we can think it all

To a satisfactory conclusion

And that will be that

Feelings frowned upon

Emotions suspect

‘Biological hormonal mechanistic causation’

They say, condescendingly

Yet for me the first Truth

Was the knowledge of Balance

Between heart and mind

And I note…

When I find an answer to a meaningful question

Oh the joyful emotion

At least, till the next question comes

As the journey demands

Yet that answer sits within

Piled upon the few already gained

Creating a foundation.

Seek and ye shall find

Always seek.

I’m greatly appreciative of having mentors. In high school and college I never really had one, though I see now how that would have been soooooo helpful. I simply didn’t seek one out. The opportunity never presented itself to me and I didn’t know there was someone who could play that role.

Cherish every opportunity for mentoring. Value this precious resource.

When I took a course in Christian Science healing, I instantly had a mentor – my teacher. I felt so privileged (and still do!) because I realized it’s what I had been wanting and craving for so many years. Here was a woman who I respect and admire, I love the way she thinks and lives; she has her role as my spiritual teacher, and I have my role as her student. What a perfect working out!

Since then I’ve realized we can have more than one mentor, and there are a lot of different ways mentoring can come about. And we can feel free, willing and happy to seek it out. We NEVER have to feel we are doing things alone.  We NEVER have to feel that we are stuck with a question and it’s our job to come up with an answer. We always have support, someone to lean on or go to. Seek that out. Don’t let fear or uncertainty stop you.

God always sees us as growing, expanding, and developing higher and higher. That never has to stop. No matter what age, we can always be growing and learning and enlarging our sense of life. And we never have to do it alone.

Relationships and how we interact with one another (loving, uplifting, and supporting) are so valued by God. This is why we have two great commandments and not just the one – Have only one God & love your neighbor as yourself.  (The Gospel According to St. Matthew: 22)

I rejoice and my heart sings for having mentors I can turn to. There is an answer. God is speaking, guiding, supporting, and uplifting us. Don’t think we have to go it alone or find an answer by ourselves. It is always God’s abundance, goodness, and provision being expressed and communicated to us around the clock.  This often comes as an “angel message” in our thought, or as an idea someone shared, or even the way the idea is communicated.

Love our mentors and these wonderful opportunities. Cherish and nurture them, and never undervalue them.

Perhaps there is a mentoring opportunity in your area. You may want to volunteer to provide that support, role model, wisdom, perspective, and consistency for someone else.  http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Find the help and the answers you seek today. Or provide that for someone else.

Here to help you do that, if you’d like. Feel free to call or write.

http://www.youarenotalonebook.com is the website where i found her story. That is actually the name of her book, which i haven’t read but it is probably quite interesting. It is filled with success stories from other ED survivors. I like that phrase, ED survivor. I am working on that. I am surviving ED and conquering it. It feels much more hopeful. On her blog, she interviews a mother who helped in the healing process of her daughter’s anorexia. What i liked about reading the interview was the myth that you can never fully recover from an ED but that you can actually be recovered. This is not like alcoholism where you are recovering for the rest of your life. you can actually recover. i love that and totally believe it.

Why? because for one, i was not always struggling with ED (eating disorder) or even disordered eating. my struggle with bulimia started AFTER college. before college, i struggled with depression and lo self esteem. last year tho i actually talked to a health professional that told me he thinks i didnt really struggle from depression as much as anxiety that i simply repressed all the time adn it manifested as depression. so i consider that i probably struggled with both. sure why not.

i dont like labels i tell myself but it has been very easy over the years to label myself as ‘a mess’, ‘seomthing wrong with me’, a victim to depression, bulimia, etc. i think it is somehow easier to be a ‘victim’ because you are not responsible for what is happening. but i AM responsible for this. of course i dont want to BLAME myself or be hard on myself. whatever habits we have as humans i think are just ignorant or naive ways we think we are taking care of ourselves or dealing with life. unfortunately sometimes the habits become ingrained before we become educated about the distruction of certain habits. but hey, nothing is new under the sun. for example, the Romans were bulimics. they would have vomitoriums in between feasts. that was crazy to read about once. dont quote me on that but im pretty sure i read that somewhere-look it up i fyou are curious.

anyway, enough of that. i am writing today because i want to remind myself that i dont have to continue like i have the past few days of being in darkness feeling like i have to agree to everything the ED tells me to do. i woke up today after a very discouraging first day on the sugar support program http://www.sugar-addiction-book.com/classes/ (there is a link also to the site to the right of this page). i ‘failed’ at day 1. i ate sugar and then let myself use that as an excuse to b/p. oh well, today im starting fresh and it feels good.

i do not have all my ducks in a row BUT i am getting them one by one in a row and reminding myself that organizing your ducks takes time. its ok to be patient when it comes to recovery.

GOLD STARS FOR TODAY:

*smiling

*sending in both my application for my massage license and for the NCETMB test

*writing on this blog

*doing part of the grounding hw for the sugar support program

*reading Andrea Roe’s story and being encouraged by it

* realizing that i can fully RECOVER from this ED and depression/anxiety stuff

*being thankful for where i live, my life right now, and my jobs

*teaching yoga this morning even though i was exhausted from a rough nite

*deciding to make some yummy quinoa burgers later so i have good meals in the fridge that are sugar free

* deciding to pick up more in my room before work today

*eating a great lunch and planning a protein snack for later at work so i am not tempted by the treats there

well, that’s it for now. ill write again tomorrow. this will be one of my grounding exercises this week, to write in my blog or write somehwere as a journal. thank you for sharing this with me. its good to know that we are tender humans, all seeking peace, contentment and joy and knowing that it is always at our disposal is cool.

I have a few questions for this God of theirs, and his or her “plans”.  “Why do I have several selfless friends who are the most generous, loving, and caring people I know with debilitating or terminal diseases?  Why do I know so many people who were killed at young ages, when they had so much good left to do here on this planet?  Don’t tell me it was their time to go.  That’s entirely too convenient and deafeningly hallow; the easy answer that is no answer at all.  I believe it’s called an excuse; a simple explanation, to satisfy one’s self that falls a part with a mere morsel of thought.  I’ll also stop anyone now (if anyone is reading this) if you’re going to assume that I am in the grieving stage of dealing with the loss of a friend or friends… Save your grade school psychoanalysis for another time.  I’m sure I’ll need it.  But, as for this subject, it has bothered me since I was a young child.  By the time I was twenty I knew twenty people who died.  No.  I am not the author of the song “People who Died”.  No, I was not living some drug-crazed life on the edge.  I was living the life of a good kid in a small community, and people died…  good people…  Let me correct that – Great people.  They died while doing nothing more than driving a car or riding a bike and having an unfortunate… since we’re talking about “your God’s” rules… let’s call it… act of God take them from this world.  As I got older, and I’m not even middle-aged, I started seeing great people get diseases.  Diseases that their God (who in his infinite wisdom and planning gave them their beautiful homes and cars, and toys as a reward for exploiting people) not only created but also found the need to infect great people with.  Great plan God!  Take some of your best people and strike them down early in life in horrible car accidents or inflict them with inhuman diseases that you created yourself.  Wow!  Their God is awesome!  I mean cliché blockbuster movie villain awesome.  Let me point out, as I’m pretty sure I am being damned to hell in some minds, that I am not talking about my God as I write this.  (My God tends to look a lot less like an abusive and neglectful father) I am talking about their God – the man with the plan…  the God who apparently chooses style over substance, and who has a penchant for violently killing people…  and planning it ahead of time.  Hmmmm.  killing people and having planned it ahead of time.  Wow… not even in an act of passion… pre-meditation according to their “plan” theory… maybe we should arrest their god… maybe… that’s his “plan”… Thou shalt not what?  Hypocrite.

As I am damned further into hell,  and  the worth of the lives of all of my friends who have passed or are stricken with their God’s diseases is questioned, let me add that I —  Am not an atheist or a agnostic, or anything of this sort.  I most certainly do not hate rich people.  I have several friends who fall into that category who are extraordinary human beings.  And lastly, I am not unhappy with my life in the least bit.  This is not about me.  I, truthfully, consider myself a very blessed person, who,  I believe, has for some reason always had someone or something watching over him… smiling quietly…

I have gotten to the point lately that I just don’t want to go down without a fight. It’s either that or sit around feeling sorry for myself and resigning myself to the inevitable. That’s not to say that I don’t still have bad days where I just can’t function and I feel miserable but my prevailing attitude is that I don’t have to accept my circumstances and just give up. I know that this is a progressive degenerative disease but I think being proactive may postpone the inevitable.

I had originally wanted to take a year off and tour the country in a travel trailer with my wife but our schedules just wouldn’t permit that without quitting our jobs. I don’t really want to quit my job yet because I think it keeps my mind and body active. I may have to quit my job at some pointe but I am not ready yet. So, this is my solution. I bought a sail boat and we are going to become weekend sailors! If we can’t get away for long periods at a time at least we can get away for the weekends. It is going to be a challenge physically because I’m not as strong as I used to be and my balance is not that great. I hope I don’t fall off the boat. Also, I am taking a boating course online. At the end of the course I will be taking a proctored test to get my certification. I’m having a great time studying and it is keeping my mind engaged. I used to sail as a teenager. My dad would have to take a tranquilizer before going out with me because I liked to ride the rail right to the water line so that the water would just lap into the boat. I’ve grown older now and am a little more safety oriented but that doesn’t mean I can push the envelope a little bit! No, this wasn’t an impulse buy. I have been thinking about this for a year and I did my home work.

So here we go. ‘Sailing away to where I’m going.’

I have just learned that I don’t know what to believe, Who is right? What is right?

That is my first “veritatenm quaerens”.

I will share what I do know or belive in at this time;

I think that there is one god, I am starting to think that it is a woman, a giver of life.  A goddess.

Everything happens for a reason, anything and everything, however small or big. It all is a big circle.

All creatures living, all things in the ground, the earth. the treses,  have a soul.

Jesus is a great story of a man who did great things, just that a story.

The Bible is a book of storys, some are true in one way or another, some are missings- on pupose.

There are angels and there are demons, there is a place where souls are taken.

My search…I will share…let us ride…

There are things I absolutely love about teaching, but there are also things that I absolutely hate about it too!

It is time for me to find another way to make a living – preferably with passive income and not a different J.O.B. (Just Over Broke).

I feel like I am just hanging between right now – waiting for the fruits of my labor on the one hand and continuing to give my all as a teacher on the other.

I would very much like to give one of these up – the only thing that stands in my way is how to replace my salary. Once that problem is solved the rest is easy!

Nothing has changed much. It takes a day job, gear, van, talent (artist, producer, engineer), public relations, clipboard (digital + physical), merch (digital + physical) and lots of shows to bring music to the community. Anything more than that,  requires more money, timing and luck. It’s about being self-responsible to build a career – both artist and industry professional. Nobody gets a free lunch. It’s about work. And most work won’t involve music.

A World of Hits