Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

Making UP for lost time. How long will it take.

Birds of a feather fly together.

Like attracts like.

Extremes beget extremes.

Arrested development is really lucrative. Comedians, actors, musical artists, artists of every variety, writers, inventors, politicians. 

The downside. It increases the likelihood of risky behaviors and addiction.

Young adults feel invincible and are prone to impulsive behavior. The focus is less on consequences and long term risks and more on fitting in by testing their parents, teachers, and the norms.

They experiment with their life. Substances impair the developing brain's ability for logical thinking and impulse control.

[MeadowLily]

Discernment. As you begin to heal  and recover, your eyes are wide open and you discern the same behaviors in others struggling with addiction.

Arrested development, like your hiney, hangs out there  for all of the world to see.

You can pretend you have it all together by becoming a Master Controller but the truth will find you out.

Master Controllers cannot control anything in their own lives so they want to control your life.

Master Controlling is a coping mechanism of addiction. Especially a love addiction. Love addiction will control and smother someone to smithereens. It's not healthy for anyone.

Master Controllers have the most difficult time admitting the hard, cold truth.  They are the potshot takers.

They will lay back in the weeds, handing out their expert advice, most of it derived from the armchair of their couch...sitting at the speed of zero and take potshots at you.  

They will dissect your personality, slicing and dicing, whacking away and they cannot see the forest for the trees.  It is really stink on stink.

Master Controllers are the biggest impediment to healing and recovery.  Stop the presses, stop the presses, the Master Controller has spoken and you must lay down on the carpet as they walk all over you.  

I can see them and you can too, as you tool along on the road to recovery. You learn where all of the potholes are in the road, along with the potshot takers laying out there in the weeds...just waiting to pounce with every opportunity.  

Master Controllers.  Addicts and addiction attracts them like a moth to the fire.  

[MeadowLily]

If you don't learn to discern and read the signs, you will continue to attract master controllers for the rest of your life. Here they'll come, two by two, with another dumptruck full of multi-crap, just for you.

The outward packaging will be different but it is the same stronghold of control, all over again.

You'll know when you've met someone that's actually good for you because you won't know what to do or how to manage.

Everything will be different.  This happens when you are not in pursuit of it. When you surrender for the first time in your life.  The walls will come tumbling down and once again, your hiney is hanging out there for all of the world to see.  It is mighty uncomfortable but healing.

It's easy to advise others when you're holding all of your cards closely to your chest and Ooooo sooooo guarded. Anyone can do that.  Addiction does that.

Addiction of every kind is guarded and protective. Making excuses and massive rationalization about everything. Those coping mechanisms will no longer serve you if you want to leave it all behind. For real.

You're going to have to pull the dross out of your head and deal with all of the mind warp and head games you've stuffed down with food or alcohol or shopping or gambling or love or smoking....your pain killer of choice.

Addiction is about pain down at the roots.  You are going to have to pull every root out and that will require some help.  Face-to-Face. 

[MeadowLily]

It was so easy then. Staying under the protective wing of parents.

When you go off to school, many of us begin to suffer the slings and arrows of bullies. It's part of growing up but it's still painful. Very painful and you develop coping mechanisms. Secret eating or the addiction of your choice.

A parent can do everything within their means to protect you, they may homeschool or put you in a private school but at some particular time in their life, the birds have to leave the nest.

They will need every coping skill in their arsenal to face the world. These arrows in their quiver will protect them from emotional abuse and abuse of every kind. A parent's job is the most difficult job in the world and the most rewarding.

There is nothing in the Universe more important than a good parent. As Paw used to say, until you're better paid. You may not get a dime for being a good parent or one single attaboy or attagirl but you will be better paid one day.

The returns of being a good parent will last you all of the days of your life and well into infinity. Children are the gift that keep on giving and a parent's reward is knowing that they've created the best environment they could with the means they have.

Until you are better paid, parent.  The last will be first and the first will be last.

Your thanks yous down here may not ever be forthcoming. No one may every say thank you but one day, your thank yous are coming in a really big way.  

 

[MeadowLily]

Don't worry. Be happy. We will survive.

Even if your thank yous are not forthcoming down here and you think no one even knows that you exist, you do, you dooo.

The last will be first and the first will be last. The playing field will be leveled. No one will be pulling the wool over anyone's eyes ever again.

The underdogs, those marginalized and the tiniest tot will rise to the front of the class. They will all be the cream of the crop and the apple of their parent's eye.

Do you think there can only be one star in a family? I've wondered about that.  It would appear so.  One star and the rest are lesser than. That's down here but don't you worry about that.

The playing field will be leveled. What you've done in secret when no one else is looking, those things matter the most. Every little thing.

Don't worry about tomorrow for today has enough trouble of its own. We're gonna make it.

So mill around and shoot the breeze with the Universe. See the forest and the trees. Don't pretend you've got it altogether when you don't. Discernment sees it.

Much Love. Felicias.  Tanto Amore. Peace Out. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I'm reminded of a young woman who died young. She was a star in the workplace. She shot right to the top and passed everyone by.  No one could figure out her secret.

The truth will find you out.

At her funeral, they came from far and near. Peoples from all walks of life came to tell of the things that she did for others. In secret. 

Every week she loaded up her trunk with groceries and clothes for the shelters. She was a giver and not after the goldrush.

The more she gave, the more she had to give. She was rewarded openly but yet she continued to give in secret. She told no one about her exploits. Ima this and Ima that, I did this and I did that.  That was a huge lesson for me. 

Don't ever, ever be jealous of someone who is on the fast track to the top. We don't know how long they'll be with us.  They don't know either.

Life is a mystery, full of twists and turns. For many, many peoples it appears patently unfair. They suffer and struggle to survive, sleeping on a sidewalk or in a cardboard box.  They're important, so important.

We better be careful who we marginalize and ignore, for in doing so you don't know when you've entertained an angel unaware. Until you're better paid, give them a hand UP.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I was traded in for a golf ball.

Here's the lesson I learned from that and this is my own thinking.

A golf ball has dimples.  Not any number will do.

"The dimples are usually the same size as one another, but some golf balls have several different sizes of dimple on the same ball. Any number between 300 and 500 dimples is reasonable, and 336 is a common number. Not just any number will do. Golf balls are usually covered with dimples in a highly symmetrical way, and for many values of N, it is impossible to cover the golf ball uniformly without gaps. Symmetry is important or the ball will wobble or its flight will depend on which part of the ball is forwards or sideways as the ball spins. You can get an idea of how to space dimples uniformly around a sphere by thinking about the "platonic solids" -- the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron, and placing a dimple at the corners of an inscribed platonic solid. Variations on this theme give the corners of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, and also the possible symmetrical locations of dimples on a golf ball."

The dimples in a golf ball help it fly further than it has ever flown before.

Alrighty then.

Why don't we put dimples in the nose of an airplane to help it fly faster?  Heckatoot, we could put dimples across the top of the plane, too.

That is the question.  Why not.

I used to dream all of the time about flying in my car right above the power poles on a grid. We're still driving the same old cars with 4 rubber tires, for crying outloud. I think it's high time we started flying in our cars and putting dimples on the airplanes.  

The life of a golf ball is not overrated.

Tee Time.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Food Addiction Recovery. You have to let the tiger out of the cage three times aday.

These are some of the actual programs for food addiction.

FAA = Food Addiction Anonymouse

FCA = Food Compulsive Anonymous

ABA = Anorexic Binge'rs Anonymous

OA  = Overeaters Anonymous

FARA = Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous

 

Body. Mind. Spirit.

Let your mind be free so your body can create.

Addiction is more than biochemical.  It is physical, emotional and spiritual.

[MeadowLily]

Food Addiction is a lifetime buffet table of food rewards.  A traveling cruise ship of commitment to food above everything else. 

Fat Serenity vs. Food Serenity

Relapse

Rebound - Eating it all back

 

Food Addiction = Chronically rewarding yourself with food rewards. It is chronic and it progresses. The eating gets more destructive.

The food triggers multiply and the heartache from non-stop eating, those consequences can lead to illness and death.

 

[MeadowLily]

Fat Serenity vs. Food Serenity

See there, I brought it back on topic.

From a golf ball and from a jack to a king. 

Looking back, I can see that I have changed. I used to post pix of flowers and scenery. It was a distraction from the pain of food addiction.

Many are looking for another distraction but distractions won't fix a food addiction, Felicias.  Ooooo, nooo.

What you have to create are new habits to replace the destructive ones.  Distractions of every variety won't change a cotton pickin' thing, not when it comes to food addiction.

Your brain is so adept that it will literally drive you to the scene of your last food crime.  Keep trying to shove square pegs into round holes, forcing yourself to be distracted...your brain won't let you do that for very long.

The brain wants what it wants. The appetite control center is located in the brain and not the stomach.

Create new habits to replace the destructive ones.  Distraction doesn't work.

[MeadowLily]

So what is this then.

What we have here is a daily reprieve contingent on the Maintenance of a Spiritual Condition.

There will be days like this. When blathering and foaming at the mouth is more fun than shoving your emotions down with food rewards.

Recovery from any addiction is not perfect. We only know in part. No one has all of the answers. If you think you do that is imaginary thinking.

Mill around, shoot the breeze. Writing about your feelings, your fears, your hopes and general thoughts on just about everything will be an invaluable tool.

I can see the past flaws in my thinking during those inevitable rough patches. Ooo, I can see some Mrs. Peevy Preachy Pants days, too.

I need to preach to myself. Don't shout me down while I'm preachin' good.  While I have one finger pointing at myself, there are four more fingers pointing back at myself.

Setting some much needed boundaries...I had, too.

Who else will do this for me when I'm all by myself. No one. 

There may be days that you come off as a big know it all but I'm only talking myself back down from the brink of food addiction relapse or motivating myself not to give UP. 

That is all.  For today. We simply haven't got the time for more. It's all fun. Really.

[MeadowLily]

When you have a thought, let it gooooooo. Or not.

Strike while the griddle is hot.

Something has changed over in me. I used to enjoy fiction but now, not so much. After reading a few pages, I'm not paying any attention to the words. They're a blur.

I still like reading and seeking for the answers, answers, answers but not from fiction.

There are two types of pain. One that hurts you and one that changes you.

I value the state a book puts me in more than I value the distraction. Certain books are in your life for a season but those seasons change.

[MeadowLily]

Making UP for lost time. How long will it take.

Got metabolic syndrome?

How long has this been going on?  How long.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Are you a gluten for punishment?

Change your gut and you can change your life.

70% of the immune system is located in the gut.

[MeadowLily]

Food inflexibility is a self-imposed prison.

The Food Prison can seem like it's more comforting that Food Freedom Forever.

YOU are not trapped.  You have the keys to the Food Prison.

[MeadowLily]

“If part of your immune response is always allocated to repairing gut irritation, you are essentially sick all the time.”  - Robb Wolf

[MeadowLily]

The brain and gut microbiome  connection.

Does the brain influence gut development, or does the gut influence brain development?

Mayer believes it’s a two-way street. “Signals from the gut microbes shape the way the sensory system develops,” he says. His theory, which he describes at length in his book, The Mind-Gut Connection, is that our microbial communities assemble early in life, when the brain is still very flexible.

The microbiome of an infant’s gut is created through the nutrition he or she receives from the mother, how that nutrition is delivered and other factors. It is possible, though not yet proved, that if the mother experienced stress during pregnancy, that might also influence the developing infant’s microbial community.

Early-life trauma has also been found to shape the gut microbiome. “A lot of influences start during pregnancy and go on for the first three years of life,” says Mayer. “That’s the programming of the gut microbiome-brain axis.” The established microbiome then influences the brain, and then the brain continues to influence the microbiome, in a lifelong loop.

Related: Antibodies in breast milk prime the baby’s gut to handle Mom’s invading microbes

The UCLA researchers, along with a host of other scientists worldwide, are continuing to study the link between the gut microbiome and brain development.

[MeadowLily]

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/research-suggests-association-between-microbiome-and-emotion

Gut bacteria and emotions. Gut bacteria interacts with brain regions associated with mood and behavior.

 

[MeadowLily]

Gut health is the barometer of wellness.

The microbiome talks to your brain.

Dysbiosis =

IBS

Crohn's

IBD

Obesity

Metabolic Syndrome

Liver diseases

AIP

Depression

The most profound way to alter your gut microbiome is to STOP eating sugar.

Eat more polyphenols. That doesn't mean you have to give up fruit because berries are loaded with them. Eat fermented foods.

Prebiotics, probiotics and fish, fish, fish.

All plant foods contain beneficial fiber and enzymes for your gut health.High fiber fresh fruits and vege can alter the gut microbiota.

Certain people groups need more than others.

[MeadowLily]

The Pathway to Healing.

While we're tooling along, it's human nature to give our slant and bias based on what's working for each of us.

Our mileage will always vary.

Don't let anyone take control of your nutritional decisions. Ever.

[MeadowLily]

Recovery comes first.

If you are still stuck in massive rationalization about your eating habits - you've got to face the hard, cold truth.  No. More. Excuses.

Today could be the day that you stop doing that destructive thing you've been doing to yourself.

Today could be the day that you really reach for gut healing. Food inflexibility is a self-imposed prison that we cannot force onto others. 

Has that changed everything for you then?

Your gut. Your immune system. Your ability to eat more than a handful of foods.

Some order out of that chaos must be imposed.

[MeadowLily]

Is it sustainable for more than 30 days or 3 months or 3 years.

Can you actually live like that without sliding back off the goose.

If the jeans still fit you must acquit.

Find the pathway to your healing and Food Freedom Forever.

It may not work for others. Our bias, our take, our slant = Positive Food Management Plan that we can live with for the rest of our lives.

[MeadowLily]

Recovery and healing comes first.

If you're where you were 1 year ago today or 3 years ago, Houston, we  have a problem.

You're stuck.

Chronic Stress is the biggest gut disruptor of all. Until you fix that - your gut, 70% of your immune system will continue yelling at you, loud and clear....Hellooooooo

What you're doing is not working. Your old approach is no longer serving you.

 

[MeadowLily]

Got chronic stress and anxiety?

Your gut can no longer handle much of anything, for years on end. You've got to face the truth.

“If part of your immune response is always allocated to repairing gut irritation, you are essentially sick all the time.”  - Robb Wolf

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Peoples all over the world have 10X more stress, anxiety and depression than they did 60 years ago.

We self-medicate with food and alcohol, substances, non-stop spending, gambling, goldrush - trading in and trading UP relationships with others...dogs chasing after newer cars and better tires.

The Greeks know the way. They do.

The ancient Greeks have always known the way.