the dietary paradigm shift: pre-game post
This is my first blog post since 2009 and it is the first to chronicle my renewal from a gut or dietary perspective. I don’t know what to officially call what I am embarking on, really but I am not alone. I am journeying with Amy Bousman, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP), who has called this project a “gut-healing journey” and Susie Roman, CranialSacral Therapist, who is also writing about this adventure. However we each call this shared experience, for the next year, we are united in a common cause, support, encouragement, empowerment and, for Amy, practical, researched guidance from her experience practicing as an Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.
A bit about how I know these dynamic women: I met Susie last year at our co-op community nursery school - she served on the Board as Maintenance Director and I was incoming Development Director. Susie provides CranioSacral Therapy and you can learn more of her here: http://www.susieroman.com/. I met Amy in a QiGong training years ago, stayed in some touch due to shared interest in a few matters such as health, autoimmune issues, in particular. We reconnected with her after she went into the wild (off Facebook) to pursue her training in Nutritional Therapy (you can learn more here: https://www.amybntp.com/.
What brings me to this moment and why am I writing? My story is 41 years long. I am glad I will set aside a year to unpack my story as it relates to diet; holistic matters and this call to live a life of service. It will be fun to lean into my natural inclination to holism; pull issues apart; see what happened and how to shift now in order to optimize my life so that I may be more Present. If there is one thing I have learned it is that I agree with the following concept attributed to Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and I am certain I have been over focusing on certain parts that are not beneficial.
It has been dawning on me over years that I have been incongruent with who I Am in certain areas of my life. I capitalize Am because from my faith tradition our deepest joy is the opportunity to say, “Yes!” to the invitation to life, to God. My intention is faithfully render my own experience here as you witness and perhaps join me in some way. I perceive this may be my opportunity to share some of my training as a Drama Therapist, but for now, I want to be as ordinary as I can be. Tabula rasa on one hand and ripe with experiences to share on the other.
I started yesterday on my first bone broth. I didn’t do it all “right”, but I was so glad to be able to text Susie and blurt at various steps of the way. This basic process of making broth drives home how much kitchen theory I do NOT know. I remember wanting to make magic happen in the kitchen when I was in grammar school. I would mix this and that together like I was really cooking, but it was always a terrible outcome. It was the 80’s; the height of ‘convenience’ food. We sacrificed a LOT making things “easy” so we could DO more, but I think we are realizing how far away from the truth of health we got. My mom used to say how terrible it was that in a generation we had essentially “ruined our food supply”. And this was coming from a woman that really did not like the “farm life”. I tended to daydream about living on a farm and play make believe that I was “feeding the animals” in the backyard. I craved lettuce and would eat the iceberg lettuce in the fridge when there was some. We moved when I was going into 6th grade which meant that my best storytelling buddy, my great grandma, would stay behind in Illinois - and so would the regular stories of life before TV. Don’t get me wrong, she LOVED TV and I loved watching with her shows like Benny Hill (I know!) and game shows after school. Who doesn't want to win big in a short amount of time!? And maybe sometimes you do, but she knew the hard work it took to farm. I didn’t. When I saw people winning a lot of money on TV with Bob Barker it was like, “hey all their problems are solved!” This is never the case. Ever. Everything takes some kind of effort, not everyone is willing to do it and, yet, it is a fact of life.
The fact is: I do not feel well but I am hopeful (in an utterly exhausted way) that it may improve day to day as I make changes. I was born well, naturally and was breastfed because my mom was lucky in birthing AND milk production. But along the way, little inauthentic things started happening, like when you are served dinner that upsets your stomach, but that is your only choice. Who then would have or COULD have understood that certain foods made my tummy upset or that sugar before bed kept me awake and I was falling asleep in class the next day?
I still chase sugar, but with knowledge, I have changes to make NOW for me and for my family and sometimes that feels TOTALLY overwhelming. FULL STOP. Sometimes ‘it’ feels totally overwhelming. Life. Existence. The joy of being a sensitive person, conceivably dominant in existential intelligence, (per Howard Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences) is that when you aren’t taking good care of yourself on all fronts, it is just so hard, impossible really, to actualize the positive and, in my case, be the leader I am called to be.
I choose to wake up where I have been planted or planted myself now; to speak up and to take that privilege and to share it with you. I commit to reaching out, no matter how trembling and embarrassed or ashamed because this is too important to make any more excuses and I have had two REALLY good ones today.
Until next time,
pilar
A bit about how I know these dynamic women: I met Susie last year at our co-op community nursery school - she served on the Board as Maintenance Director and I was incoming Development Director. Susie provides CranioSacral Therapy and you can learn more of her here: http://www.susieroman.com/. I met Amy in a QiGong training years ago, stayed in some touch due to shared interest in a few matters such as health, autoimmune issues, in particular. We reconnected with her after she went into the wild (off Facebook) to pursue her training in Nutritional Therapy (you can learn more here: https://www.amybntp.com/.
What brings me to this moment and why am I writing? My story is 41 years long. I am glad I will set aside a year to unpack my story as it relates to diet; holistic matters and this call to live a life of service. It will be fun to lean into my natural inclination to holism; pull issues apart; see what happened and how to shift now in order to optimize my life so that I may be more Present. If there is one thing I have learned it is that I agree with the following concept attributed to Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and I am certain I have been over focusing on certain parts that are not beneficial.
It has been dawning on me over years that I have been incongruent with who I Am in certain areas of my life. I capitalize Am because from my faith tradition our deepest joy is the opportunity to say, “Yes!” to the invitation to life, to God. My intention is faithfully render my own experience here as you witness and perhaps join me in some way. I perceive this may be my opportunity to share some of my training as a Drama Therapist, but for now, I want to be as ordinary as I can be. Tabula rasa on one hand and ripe with experiences to share on the other.
I started yesterday on my first bone broth. I didn’t do it all “right”, but I was so glad to be able to text Susie and blurt at various steps of the way. This basic process of making broth drives home how much kitchen theory I do NOT know. I remember wanting to make magic happen in the kitchen when I was in grammar school. I would mix this and that together like I was really cooking, but it was always a terrible outcome. It was the 80’s; the height of ‘convenience’ food. We sacrificed a LOT making things “easy” so we could DO more, but I think we are realizing how far away from the truth of health we got. My mom used to say how terrible it was that in a generation we had essentially “ruined our food supply”. And this was coming from a woman that really did not like the “farm life”. I tended to daydream about living on a farm and play make believe that I was “feeding the animals” in the backyard. I craved lettuce and would eat the iceberg lettuce in the fridge when there was some. We moved when I was going into 6th grade which meant that my best storytelling buddy, my great grandma, would stay behind in Illinois - and so would the regular stories of life before TV. Don’t get me wrong, she LOVED TV and I loved watching with her shows like Benny Hill (I know!) and game shows after school. Who doesn't want to win big in a short amount of time!? And maybe sometimes you do, but she knew the hard work it took to farm. I didn’t. When I saw people winning a lot of money on TV with Bob Barker it was like, “hey all their problems are solved!” This is never the case. Ever. Everything takes some kind of effort, not everyone is willing to do it and, yet, it is a fact of life.
The fact is: I do not feel well but I am hopeful (in an utterly exhausted way) that it may improve day to day as I make changes. I was born well, naturally and was breastfed because my mom was lucky in birthing AND milk production. But along the way, little inauthentic things started happening, like when you are served dinner that upsets your stomach, but that is your only choice. Who then would have or COULD have understood that certain foods made my tummy upset or that sugar before bed kept me awake and I was falling asleep in class the next day?
I still chase sugar, but with knowledge, I have changes to make NOW for me and for my family and sometimes that feels TOTALLY overwhelming. FULL STOP. Sometimes ‘it’ feels totally overwhelming. Life. Existence. The joy of being a sensitive person, conceivably dominant in existential intelligence, (per Howard Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences) is that when you aren’t taking good care of yourself on all fronts, it is just so hard, impossible really, to actualize the positive and, in my case, be the leader I am called to be.
I choose to wake up where I have been planted or planted myself now; to speak up and to take that privilege and to share it with you. I commit to reaching out, no matter how trembling and embarrassed or ashamed because this is too important to make any more excuses and I have had two REALLY good ones today.
Until next time,
pilar
so glad you are sharing your journey. love to you.
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