This is one of the most exciting times of the year! Instead of sinking into the winter doldrums, we all can take the opportunity to look at our lives, to see where we’ve been, and where we want to go this year! One of my beliefs is that we have the power to create our own lives. And powerful this can be!
For those of us who have or have had eating disorders, it’s time to reaffirm ourselves with the Pledge to My Body. I will give you some suggestions on the most exciting work of all – Creating Your Life, and bring you an article from educator and coach, Sharon Day about anger in adolescent girls. And last of all, another delicious Mirasol recipe, the best of all!
-Mary Summer Rain’s Guide to Dream Symbols
A Letter from the Executive Director
I hereby agree from this day forward to fully participate in life on earth. I agree to inhabit the appropriate vehicle for participation…a body. As a requisite for the sustaining of that body, I agree to eat consciously. This agreement fully binds me for the duration of my stay on earth.
As an eater, I agree to honor my hunger, eating when I feel hungry and stopping when I feel full. I recognize that as the biological need to eat is fulfilled with greater awareness, the benefits of my well being will increase.
Because the essence of my participation in life is one of learning and exploration, I agree to experience uncertainty in my eating. I recognize that my relationship to food is a learning process and I will inevitable make mistakes. Therefore, I agree to accept my humanness and imperfections and not to blame and judge myself.
As an eater, I recognize that I may suffer pain when my body is disturbed by my choice of food or eating habits. I may also experience pain when emotional and spiritual hungers are confused with physical hunger. During these times I agree to sit with and hold a safe place inside myself in which to explore painful and difficult feelings. I recognize that to be fully alive I must be willing to have the courage to sit with a full range of emotions.
I agree to work on finding the time and energy necessary to feed and care for my body. I pledge to speak lovingly and kindly to myself and to incorporate movement into my life in fun and joyful ways.
I further agree to accept that I have a woman’s body; a body that is imperfect and vulnerable, curved, and rounded. Because I am giving up the need to be perfect, I am willing to accept my body at its natural weight. I realize that my female body has qualities that mark my womanhood and that have a profound role and effect on humankind.
I recognize that eating joins me to all humanity and that at its deepest level is an affirmation of life. Each time I eat, I agree somewhere inside to continue life on earth. That this choice to eat is a fundamental act of love and nourishment, a true celebration of my existence. I choose life again and again and again.
Wellons, L. (1997). Celebrating the Body.
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At the beginning of the year, I always do a personal inventory. I look at what I accomplished in the past year and then I think carefully about what I hope to manifest in this next year. One of my beliefs is that we have the power to create our own lives. We can make many, IF NOT MOST, of our dreams come true! When I got into my own recovery from anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating, I realized that I had not only freedom from the eating disorder but also the freedom to choose exactly how I wanted my life to be!
This is something that everyone can do! I have friends tell me that, “Oh, Jeannie, I could never do all that you’ve done. I’m not cut from the same cloth.” And my response to them is that Anyone and Everyone can do this! Here are some easy steps –
Step One: Make a five year plan. Sit down in a quiet place with paper, crayons, pencil, etc. and make a list and/or draw pictures of everything you’d like your life to be five years from now if you could have anything and everything you wanted. Do you want to marry a prince and live in
This is the place to dream. Nothing is silly or impossible! Make your dream complete. Where do you want to live? What do you want to do for a job? What do you want to do for fun? What kind of art or music do you like or want to enjoy more? What kind of friends do you want? What are your morals, ideals and values? How can you learn to love yourself? Write everything down that you can think of! Draw the picture!
Step Two: Now put aside Step One and make a one year plan incorporating some of the items you find most interesting from Step One. What are your priorities? These will be the basis of your dream plan for the next year. For example: if your dream is to be a stockbroker in five years and you currently have not finished high school, your dream for this next year might be to finish high school, to earn a GED. List what is in your heart. Begin to think about your five year plan divided into chunks.
Step Three Now put aside your five year plan and your one year plan. Make a monthly plan. So for instance, your plan for the month might be to have all of the information you need (the where, the how, and the how much) to begin working towards your degree.
Step Four: Break down your monthly plan into a series of weekly plans. For the first week you might decide to call the schools in town that offer the GED. (You can develop daily goals as well).
The next week you’ll find out the costs, time involved, what supplies you need, etc. required by the school you’ve selected.
The next week you might purchase your supplies and books.
The next week you might start school.
Since this is a year long program, you’ll have your GED at the end of the year.
During the year you’re earning your GED, you’re beginning to explore colleges by gathering information, and doing a step-by-step plan on where and when you’ll start college. In four years, you’ll graduate from university with a combined major in business and economics, and head for Wall Street.
The explanation is a bit simplistic, but I hope you get the idea of how you can make a dream come true! Planning, goal setting, and chunking everything down to manageable pieces are the ways. This strategy will keep you directed and prevent you from becoming overwhelmed. It is something that anyone can do. You don’t need to BE a brain surgeon or a PhD to do this. But you can become one. The only thing required is to have your dream!! You Can Do Anything!
Sharon Day is a professional writer, speaker, Lifestyle coach, and wonderful woman. I was fortunate enough to meet her at a writer’s workshop last year and was immediately drawn to her genuineness and impressed with her knowledge of adolescent girls! The reason I’m including this particular piece from
ؤº°`°º Girl Wars º°`°º¤ø
Yep, that’s the title of my acquaintance, Cheryl Dellasega’s newest book, (co-written with Charisse Nixon,) and what a tremendous resource it is!
We don’t often think of girls at war with one another. In fact, we rarely think about aggression relative to girls at all. Who do you immediately associate with the words violence or anger? Close your eyes for a moment and look. Isn’t it boys and men? The tragic school shootings in recent years, the terror attacks of September 11th, and any front page murder are all committed by males. Yet don’t girls and women get angry too?
What do you see when you envision an angry girl? For many of us it’s difficult to even find an image, or at best we imagine crying, foot stomping, temper tantrum type behavior. We are not accustomed to associating expressions of girls’ rage with any sort of behavior aimed at others. Sure, there are those few girls who adopt a “tough chick” persona, acting overtly mean and nasty, beating up other girls, joining gangs and the like. The girls I’m pointing to are all the average, regular, sweet-faced pre-teens and teens, just like the one you know at home.
Works by Mary Pipher, (Reviving Ophelia,) & Rachel Simmons, (Odd Girl Out,) have flung the doors wide open on a previously hidden culture within girls’ relationships—the insidious, sneaky, obfuscated manner in which girls hurt each other deeply with shunning, rumors, mean remarks, and similar. Girls, (and many women!) use their relationships as their weapons, and thus the term “Relational Aggression” was coined. Girls express anger just as violently as boys do. It’s just invisible to all but those involved.
In Girl Wars, Drs. Dellasega and Nixon carry this important work to a tremendously needed next step, which is repair and prevention. Not only do their wisdom and experience clear the smoke which hides these behaviors, but they aim most of the book towards ways to raise girls to understand and choose alternative ways to express anger which don’t hurt others. They also offer wise advice to girls already involved in gossipy cliques, girls stuck in the middle, or girls walking through life on cautious tippy-toe to skirt the edges of the whole battlefield. This marvelous book describes ideas such as how to:
- Adopt a “help, don’t hurt” strategy
- Give girls the courage to be kind
- Use other outlets to express feelings
- Have older girls share their wisdom
- Reframe hurtful behaviors
And so much more. Whether you sense that your daughter might be squarely positioned in the front lines, or you know for sure she has nothing like this going on in her life, I strongly urge you to check out Girl Wars. You may discover the precise tools or tips your daughter needs, if not now, then sometime in the future.
Peruse the book and order with this link (simply click the link, or if you have this feature turned off in your email, copy and paste the link into the “search” box of your web browser.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743249879/sharonday-20
Also, visit www.clubophelia.com for more info about relational aggression, “
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Mirasol embraces a whole foods nutritional approach that simply means using mostly unadulterated, unprocessed foods that appear as they do in nature when we eat them. Whole grains, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, wholesome lean meats, fish, legumes, nuts, seeds, and vegetable proteins are the majority of food sources that we focus on at Mirasol. These foods comprise the ingredients in these delicious and healthful recipes.
Feeling energetic, strong, healthy and alive is priceless. That is what Mirasol recipes have to offer. Life!
Today's Recipe:
My Own Very Favorite Mirasol Recipe – highly recommended by the Executive Director!!
Three Nut Butter Balls
Makes 75 balls
1 16-ounce soy nut butter Mix butters thoroughly; add other ingredients. Kneed well in mixing bowl until blended (should break like cookie dough). Dampen with soy milk if needed. Shape into firm balls and chill. For chocolate nut butter balls: Use chocolate rice protein powder instead of vanilla and use 2 tablespoons cocoa powder instead of vanilla extract. Omit pumpkin pie spice. Variations: Can use other nut butters, but textures will vary. Add or subtract protein powder to achieve firm consistency.
¼ cup flax meal
1 16-ounce jar almond butter
1 cup maple syrup or raw honey
1-16ounce jar cashew-macadamia butter
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 cup vanilla rice protein powder