Soul Humming

Reflection, Evaluation, and Planning

 

 

I am not one to make New Year's Resolutions. I think they are a trap. I said this last year but I'm telling you again. I think we should all be trying to be better versions of our own authentic selves each and every day, not just on January First.

Still, I do think that the end of the year is wonderful time for looking back and taking stock on how the past year played out. I am a very introspective person. I am constantly weighing my decisions and choices and trying to figure out how they could be better, kinder, or more gentle. I have a hard time with gentle. And once you have kids every error of your ways is amplified and echoed back. So I am an enormous work in progress.

Very soon I will have my 47th birthday. I don't know about you but 47 sounds old as hell to me. Yet, I feel great physically. I'm getting outdoors and exercising regularly for the first time in a long, long while. I'm surrounded by good people whom I love who are supportive, smart, and make me laugh. What could be better?

And yet I am starving for so much more. When things get too comfy I am drawn to everything that terrifies me. I try to come up with new ways to shake things up, cut off the excess, and conquer new peaks.

One way I'm planning on making myself mildly miserable on the path to make myself better (I know how hard this is going to be for me, hence the misery) is to go along with Whole Living's 28-day Action Plan. I caught the tail end of it last year and so wished I had jumped on board in the beginning.

This year, my husband and I are going to do it together. So that will make it a little bit easier, I hope. But, feeding two little boys while on a detox from dairy, sugar, wheat and processed foods might make me a bit wacky. In the end, I know it will make me a bit better.

The plan is to change your diet fairly strictly for the first week in an effort to detox your body. This is combined with physical exercises to strengthen and detox your body, as well. And there is a media fast (no t.v. for the week which sounds like heaven to me) from the computer and t.v. There's a plan to de-clutter, simplify, and refuel.

By the second week the diet is less restrictive. It really is an attempt to establish an eating regime based on no processed foods but instead full of flavorful, healthy vegetables and lean, organic proteins. Each week reintroduces foods slowly and adds new challenges in exercise, simplification, and mental positivity.

I'm looking forward to the challenge. I know it will be difficult. I've done this sort of thing before and it is really hard for me. If you tell me not to drink coffee all I can think about is coffee. And I am a hard-core sugar addict. So there's that. But with preparation I am hoping to be successful by replacing coffee with caffeine-free tea and finding something (anything!) to combat the sugar.

Are you up for the challenge? Grab a copy of Whole Living magazine (it's a great mag by Martha Stewart) or follow This Link to get the plan. Here you can see the four weeks broken down onto one page. I'd love to have some friends come along on this journey with me. It would be wonderful to have you join in the challenge!

Crazy Art

I would love to see this documentary about three Santa Barbara artists, all dealing with schizophrenia, and their takes on identity.

You can read an interview with J.T. Turner, the filmmaker and executive director of Phoenix of Santa Barbara at the above link.

Here's a quote from Turner that particularly resonates with me, "Trinaty, in the movie, one of the things she says is, 'If I paint too much I go crazy. If I don’t paint at all I go crazy. I’ve got to find some kind of place in the middle there.'

"None of them says art cures them. None of them says art is the ultimate remedy. It’s not a magic wand. They are all on medication. The medication gets rid of maybe 80 percent of the psychiatric symptoms, and then you’ve got the remaining 20 percent that are still pretty horrific. Each of them complains about hearing voices that are really critical, and they have paranoid thoughts and suicidal thoughts and are really depressed. The art is working to diminish those symptoms.

"I think one of the primary findings of the movie is that art functions like meditation. They get into the zone, they do the art, and as they are doing it there is simply no space for the voices. … There are various things that you can do to kind of get into the zone, where you are no longer worrying about your everyday issues — for the normal person — but for the psychiatric issues, it’s interesting that as they paint and do sculpture, those symptoms are sort of driven out. It’s almost like deep space for the psychiatric symptoms, because what’s there is this intense focus on the art. They are channeling some muse, and there’s no room for depression, no room for paranoia in that place. It’s really impressive."

And so it goes...