Mindfulness as a Way to Heal

I am having a hungry day. Do you have days like that too? Do you find yourself having days when you just can’t seem to get enough food in you to feel full? When days like this happen to me, I often wonder what it is that I am really feeling. There is obviously some sort of emptiness that cannot seem to be filled or some corner of my mind looking for distraction.

I have eat an ample amount  of healthy and nutritious food today. I have kept my promise to myself to maintain my intermittent fasting. I have even felt tempted to drink alcohol or diet soda over this weekend, but stayed true to my healthy initiates. I even manage to get in 10,000 plus steps today and yesterday. I have not been complaint free. As the sun dips below the horizon and the stars start to blink into being, I am sipping a hot tea to stave off my hunger pains. Why is there this persistent need to eat today? Maybe I am hungrier because I walked the 10,000 steps and burned more calories? Perhaps as I sit alone in silence, watching the lights across the marina, I am board. These are both very valid explanations as to why I might be feeling the need to nibble on this and that.

There is also another possible explanation. I am just not good at quiet. I am extremely good at busyness. When I am being productive my mind is distracted. When I am sitting, quietly, it allows my past emotions and experiences to creep into the corners of my mind. I want to eat, drink, do something so that I do not have to acknowledge these uncomfortable things tickling my consciousness; as they slip and slide though the cobwebby recesses of my mind. Just dealing with them would make them go away and not seem so frightening anymore, but still my protective coping mechanisms say not today! Their time is coming though. They cannot creep through the shadows of my mind forever. I will not allow them to derail all the progress I am and have been making. Adventure Sister, Emy and I are planning our own private ‘silent’ retreat.

In the silence of 48 hours, which we are gifted ourselves, there will be no place for them to hide. The ability to run (as a distraction), to have to do this or that, will not be possible. I imagine there will be some very troublesome moments in the midst of this period of silence. I can guess that I will have a couple of very hungry days. I foresee growth coming to me though this; yet I know it will not all be easy. I know that much of it will feel very uncomfortable. I will just chalk it up to growing pains as I can feel my Spirit craving this experience. It just feels so right. When I come out on the other side, will I be markedly different? Probably not but I will be healthier!

These cravings and distractions seem to wave from the depths of me. They want to be noticed yet the protective part of myself is trying to keep them hidden away, like skeletons in the closets of my mind. Through silence and mindfulness, I will allow them to come into the light, because skeletons do not seem so frightening there.

Thank you for reading my blog today. I love you. May you find the time and space to let those past hurts come to the surface and move on, as if by magic.

*Photo taken in Sanford, FL at the marina.

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